Residential units continue to thrive in illegal colonies

GURUGRAM: Despite a strict stance taken by the public administration in preventing the growth of illegal colonies, it seems that the land mafia is finally having the last laugh.

According to the official report, in the last seven months around 1,400 houses have come up in the 24 colonies that are still operating illegally in Gurugram.

In what can be described as the weakness of the public administration to deal with the problem, some of the houses are also getting the power connections causing losses to the state electricity board due to the illegal drawing of the power.

Around 500 illegal colonies are estimated to be functional in the city. While there are some colonies that are functioning by encroaching on the land, there are some colonies that have not been given licence due to the legal matters.

The nexus between pub- lic authorities, land mafia and the property dealers resulting in one of the most knowledgeable citizens getting fooled into buying a residential property in the illegal conies has come to the fore.

A judge in Punjab and Haryana high court was found to be having a residential plot in one of the illegal colonies where the district administration was planning to take action. The revelation had prompted the authorities to again inform the citizens to not be fooled by the ads selling illegal plots in the city.

While there are enough illegal colonies in the city centre, there is a great increase in these townships on the outskirts of the city where the levels of scrutiny are lower. The growth of the illegal colonies in the in the city has resulted in the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) still not being able to meet its target of collecting adequate property taxes. Highlighting a

loss in public exchequer, officials of the Gurugram civic body are mulling to regularise these colonies provided they pay the taxes.

The corrupt practices of the public officials were recently highlighted after a raid by the Chief Minister flying squad in the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) office. It was found that certain officials were providing occupation certificate to the builders who were building the illegal colonies.

According to the official report, in the last seven months around 1,400 houses have come up in the 24 colonies that are still operating illegally in Gurugram