Mangalore: New CDP Adopted in City – Congress Walks out of Council Meet

Pics by Sphoorty Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Dec 1: The Congress Party, protesting against the implementation of the new Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP), claimed that it is against the interests of the poor people willing to build small houses and also the small developers who have brought up unauthorized lay outs. After unsuccessfully arguing for regularization of these structures by collecting a penalty of 15% of the stamp value of the sites as permitted by law, they walked out of the council meeting of the City Corporation, held on Monday November 30 .

Mayor M Shankar Bhat passed a ruling to implement section 112 of Karnataka Municipal Councils Act in the city strictly, without any scope for deviation. At the general body meeting of the City Corporation held on Monday, many members objected to the implementation of the CDP, which they said, would work against the interests of the poor people, and create problems for them to get their homes regularized and get door numbers. The Congress Party said that Mangalore Urban Development Authority has been either rejecting or keeping pending applications for building licences. Even in cases where the buildings can be sanctioned by collecting penalty, some vested interests in the MUDA, under the influence of big builders, have brought an order from the department of urban development Bangalore, that all such cases have to be referred to the department. This will create unnecessary harassment for the poor and middle class people. As such, those meddling in these issues should be punished, demanded corporator, Navin D’Souza.

Opposition leader, Harinath, said that the meeting of the deputy commissioner, mayor and corporation commissioner, convened at Bangalore on December 2 to sort out the CDP may not be able to arrive at firm decisions. “The new rules will take three to four months to fully come into affect. Till then, people will continue to suffer. Therefore, the council should take a firm decision,” he urged. Saying that the Congress Party corporators are not interested in being a part of the meeting that is unable to take people-friendly decisions, he staged a walk out along with the Congress corporators.

Earlier, former mayor, Shashidhar Hegde, demanded for continuing to provide house numbers to poor people who have constructed small houses, as before. James D’Souza of the BJP, Sudhir Shetty, Mariamma Thomas, Jayanti of CPM and others too pressed for a favourable decision.

After MLA Yogish Bhat opined that it would be better to pass a ruling to abide by law, the mayor gave the ruling as above.  Corporation commissioner, Vijayaprakash, said that there is a provision to regularize illegal constructions by charging double the penalty. However, as the state government will soon announce a scheme of regularization of illegal structures, there may be a clash of rules between the two, if regularizations are permitted now, he felt.

Mayor Shankar Bhat said that MUDA will shortly get merged with the City Corporation, as the state government is likely to take a decision about merging of all the urban development authorities with the respective local bodies.