CIVIC BODY FORMS 18 DEMOLITION SQUADS
Multi-disciplinary action teams plan operations from today
GHMC commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy on Sunday issued orders to all circles in the corporation limits to immediately form multi-disciplinary demolition and enforcement squads with officials of town planning, police, revenue and irrigation departments.
The squads will go into “mission mode demolition drive” from Monday, though the commissioner was not sure of actual demolition starting on the day.
The squads will remove unauthorised constructions, encroachment of public spaces including on roads, nalas, parks, tanks, open lands, and demolish structurally unsafe buildings. The 18 enforcement squads, each to a circle, will be convened by the assistant city planner of GHMC and will comprise the GHMC deputy commissioner, ACP, deputy collector or MRO, executive engineers of GHMC and Irrigation, HMWS&SB manager and representatives of TS Southern Power Distribution Company Ltd as members.
Each squad will be provided with a mini-truck for movement of men and material, six hired labour, hammers, drillers and power saws.
Water will continue to enter houses whenever there is heavy rain as the demolition of 28,872 illegal constructions and the subsequent widening of major nalas are easier said than done.
A former GHMC commissioner said: “It is a big challenge in a democracy. It will definitely take more time. It will require the cooperation of political parties, expertise of legal luminaries and a sustained campaign. Usually such demolition drives lose steam after the flood recedes. That was what happened after the floods in the year 2000.”
Urban development experts said there were other challenges. Technical expertise to widen the nalas was needed. And there was the social angle of the livelihood of the poor families.
GHMC commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy said they would work out plans to rehabilitate the poor in the nearly 25,000 vacant flats of JNNURM, Vambay and Indiramma Housing; the others would have to make their own arrangements.
“While GHMC should be supported, it should plan its drive carefully. The 25,000 flats of JNNURM and government projects are vacant because the beneficiaries did not want to go 20 km to 30 km away from the city. The demolition drive should not stop because people will stage dharnas. The drive to demolish buildings should be taken up with a proper plan and not in haste,” said secretary of Forum For Good Governance M. Padmanabha Reddy.
The government had given permission for the layouts, buildings, and was supplying electricity and water to these houses. “Will demolition of illegal constructions on nalas solve the problem? What about those constructed on lake beds and downstream of water bodies which will continue to get inundated? The GHMC should explore the possibility of laying underground bypass drains. In a democratically elected set-up, it will not be easy to pull down 28,000 structures in which 40,000 families are living,” said urban development expert Prof. G. Vasanth Kumar of Regional Centre for Urban and Environmental Studies, Osmania University.
Advocate S. Raghavender Goud told this newspaper that the GHMC had the powers to pull down all illegal buildings. “Even if the building falls in the lake buffer zone, leave alone full tank level area, the civic body has the power under GHMC Act to pull it down. It is only that a serious attempt is not made on the part of GHMC to vacate stay cases awarded against demolition of buildings by courts,” he said.