Permission to make attic floor habitable benefited 40,000 families: Sukhu
The Ruling Congress party wooing electoral in Shimla Municipality Election as it announced today that it permitted to make attic floors habitable which has benefited more than 40,000 households in the state.
This was stated by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu who was addressing a street meeting of party workers during conversing with Congress candidates in the Shimla MC poll here today.
Addressing a press conference at Congress party headquarters at Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan here today Industry Minister Harshvardhan Chauhan stated that the party have helped a number of household by allowing attic floors habitable now it would also consider reopening the basement floor habitable for the purpose of the parking lot.
It is worthwhile to mention that the National Green Tribunal in 2017 ordered to construct two and a half(attic floor) building instead of the multistorey building but it allowed skyscrapers to construct in the public interest and with the approval of the supervisory committee and now state civic bodies allowed 11 to 15 story building for parking lot and Hospital.
Currently, a number of private houses owner has closed their basement floor to keep their construction as per the new bylaws of Shimla MC.
Mr. Sukhu’s government is knocking on the door of the Supreme Court as SLP is listed on May 3 after a day of the Election in the apex court on this issue. Seeking quashing of the NGT order State government had challenged it on various grounds stating that the green tribunal could not intervene in the construction law or by law as it did not fall under its ambit.
It is worthwhile to mention that 15 to 16 wards belonging to Shimla MC are part of the newly merged area where inhabitants are seeking regularisation of their construction on the old line at one time as it is where it is basis.
Residents say that various retention policies are brought by successive governments to regularise their old construction but many of them could not be approved so far.
In the merged area, electoral are pressing the candidates to assure them that their construction should be regularised on the old line but until the NGT order did not strike down by the Supreme Court their construction would not be approved despite many years of including them in the Shimla MC from 21 Gram Panchayat.
Mr. Sukhu lashed out BJP government for showing no interest in this issue for years and in the Election years of the Assembly it came out with a new Shimla Development Plan in a hurry which was later declared unconstitutional by the NGT and Himachal Pradesh High Court as it was challenged by a petitioner.
Congress is trying to expose the opposition BJP stating that it didn’t bother about pro-people issues related to their concern ad it was responsible for the Jaundice outbreak in 2018 and couldn’t provide clean and sufficient water to residents and the town faced the worst crisis in the last hundred years in the town under its rule.
