Mangalore: New Year Begins for T P Officer with Dressing Down from Minister !
Pics: Spoorty Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (RS/SP)
Mangalore, Jan 1: District in-charge minister, Krishna J Palemar, made sure that the New Year began for the officials of the town planning office (TPO) in the Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) in a different way. He took them to task for keeping 880 applications for the issuance of house building licences pending since the last nine months.
Krishna Palemar went to the town planning section, armed with a complaint which said that the office has been deliberately overlooking the problems of the applicants and keeping their applications pending citing the new Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) of the city for the delay. After he posed some pertinent questions to the officials, the minister found that the complaint was genuine, and warned that strict action will be taken against the erring officials.
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Town planning officer, Balakrishna Gowda, during the minister’s visit, tried to explain the problems encountered by the department in issuing the licences. He tried to explain that as per the new CDP, every one has to get a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from Mangalore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) and there are lots of other requirements to be fulfilled as per the application pertaining to the new plan, which is not as easy as the earlier plan.
The minister however, was not satisfied with his clarification, and insisted that at any cost, the files should be cleared and that the applicants should get necessary permissions to build houses without further delay.
However, Palemar was found to be speaking only about initiating strict action against the officials and confirmed that there will not any recommendation to the government to suspend the officials of the TPO, as there is a severe shortage of staff.
One of the officials in the TPO, who was not willing to be identified, said that a file at the TPO section, which pertains to a building owned by the minister, is still pending, because of the problem of clearance certificate. It is said that the minister is irked by the inordinate delay involved with the clearance his file.
Meanwhile, several citizens present during the minister’s sudden visit to the TPO section, commented after he left, that he is only concerned with the town planning section and has not been showing any interest in health or engineering departments in the MCC. These departments handle drainage, waste management and road problems etc., which are the major concerns that hit the common man hard, they noted.