WHEN THE FENCE EATS THE LAWN - THEN WHO WILL PROTECT IT FROM
DESTRUCTION
(REIN IN THE BUILDER MAFIA)
It was recently that, the Garhwal Post had done a
story on the Litany of Complaints which the owners of Arborea Luxury Homes have
against the builder, Conscient Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, Gurgaon. In exercise of
their individual rights, some owners as also the Resident Welfare Society of
Arborea have approached the Consumer Commission of Dehra Dun to redress their
long outstanding grievances related with construction, structural, maintenance,
financial and related issues on which the builder has not delivered, short
changed the unsuspecting buyer and continues to prevaricate. This has become
the practice with most builders in Dehra Dun who are coming up with concrete
monstrosities on every swathe of empty space, which has become available either
through land use change, outright purchase of residential land or else
demolition of existing property to make land available for residential
complexes. To make matters more difficult for the people, adversely impact the
living environment and create a situation, which will in the future surely
spell disaster for those who exercise their choice to live in these multi
storied residential complexes; the Mussoorie Dehra Dun Development Authority
(MDDA) has approved the construction of six floor level condominiums. This in a
seismic zone which is prone to earthquakes caused by a shift in the tectonic
plates in the sub Himalayan regions. It seems the government of Uttarakhand has
not got wise from the recent disaster that visited the hills in June this year
and from which, life and living in the upper reaches of Garhwal and Kumaon
regions is slowly limping back to normalcy, at a great cost to the life of
people and animals who live here. It is most unfortunate that we live in a
State which refuses to learn from its past follies and continues to err to the
extent of being perceived as downright stupid and ‘dense as a post’. Then, when
natural phenomenon, which bring destruction to life and property occur, the
government hides behind the hopeless alibi of attributing the human catastrophe
to the forces of nature and the wrath of the Gods. There could not be a more fatuous explanation
that can be given for the incompetency, intransigence to learn from the past
and complete lack of accountability of the State government. It is the cliched neta – babu – mafia nexus, which continues to pull wool over the eyes of the
Chief Minister and his minions, who are blinded by the lure of accumulating
lucre for their political survival and by extension the power which flows from
it. Uttarakhand will pay a very heavy price now and in the future for the
avarice, which its politicians are consumed with and continue to profit from,
without a worry for those who have put them to govern.
It is a thought which has been engaging my mind for
quite some time and is that, those who live in residential housing complexes
must educate themselves about their rights, individually as well as collectively.
The RTI is a very potent instrument for eliciting all such information, which
can uncover the manipulations that exist between the builders and the approving
authorities and therefore must be used generously. While, it is a given that big
sums of money are paid for approving unauthorized constructions within a
residential complex, overlook blatant violations or else non implementation of
the MDDA regulations, not adhere to the requirement of obtaining valid No
Objection Certificates from several departments and organizations and
completely disregard the mandatory need of a Completion Certificate to be given
to the builder only after he has fully met his obligations with regard to the
satisfactory completion of the entire project, which is to the satisfaction of
the owners of apartments and their RWA / RWS. The compendium of the MDDA
regulations is a well conceived document which has been thoughtfully compiled,
but it is the violation of these very regulations and its non implementation,
with the tacit approval of the same authority that must ensure its
implementation. Is this not the story in our country on almost all matters,
where the government and its many appendages function by becoming the hedge
which instead of protecting the garden eats into it?
It is for the explicit information of all those who
intend to buy apartments in the many housing complexes which are emerging in
the city at an amazing speed, to ensure that they do not get entrapped by the
tall and pompous claims of the marketing executives and the half truths as
mentioned in the publicity brochures churned out by these builders. The reality
which emerges later and once the payment for the piece of property has been
made, changes the equation, making it completely lop sided, hugely imbalanced
and in favour of the builder. It is then that the buyer feels duped and cheated
and start his travail of running from pillar to post to get his grievances
redressed. He knocks on the doors of the MDDA, Consumer Commission, Civil
Courts and the management of the company, which sold him/her the apartment, and
expects relief from here; which he may or may not get.
The Consumer Commission and the Consumer Forum are
the two authorities, which ultimately instil hope in the hearts and minds of
most people who petition these. The builders use a ploy to take Interest Free
Maintenance Charges, calculated on square feet basis on the covered / super
area, from buyers initially and subsequently wash their hands off to create a
corpus from this big sum of money, by wrongly and falsely accounting for it and
showing it as having been spent on exigencies beyond the control of the
builder. This is one of the things, which Conscient Infrastructure Pvt Ltd,
Gurgaon has done and the owners of property in Arborea Luxury Homes, Tarla
Nagal, Shastradhara – Mussoorie Bye Pass road along with their RWA have
petitioned the Consumer Commission, Dehra Dun to get their money back and into
the corpus of the Society. Two more important issues which must be examined and
looked into by the respective RWAs, must be the No Objection Certificate (NOC)
obtained from the Central Ground Water Board for the use of ground water in the
absence of municipal water supply and the commitment of the builder for
construction of 15% dwelling units of the total number of apartments in the
housing complex, for the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) as stipulated in the
regulations of the MDDA.
It has come to the comfort of owners of apartments
through a Supreme Court judgement and verdict that, builders cannot charge
apartment owners for stilt parking and the common spaces that exist in the
housing complex are to be transferred to the RWA/RWS. Once the RWA/RWS is
formed and the owners have taken possession of their apartments, the builder
ceases to have any right over the common spaces. This was published in the Times
of India New Delhi / Gurgaon edition, dated 11 Sept 2013. It is rather strange
that despite a very unequivocal and precise verdict on a similar case, which
was taken up with the Consumer Commission, Mumbai and complete relief given to
the petitioner, the builders in Dehra Dun and Uttarakhand continue to do the
contrary. The Sales Deeds made and registered with the sub registrar’s office
continue to be imbalanced and loaded in favour of the builder/ developer and
charges are recovered for stilt parking from owners of apartments.
There continue to be a number of related issues on
which the apartment owners feel aggrieved with the builder/developer and fight
a long drawn battle in the commissions, courts and quasi government bodies,
that draws upon their time, money and energy to little and partial avail.
Therefore, it is in the larger and purposeful interest of the people of Dehra
Dun and Uttarakhand to come together in a forum which represents the RWAs/RWSs
in the city and join hands to break the nexus which exists between the law
makers, implementer and breakers, who roam free and with impunity, owing to
the power and position they wield in the complex matrix of greed and corruption
that prospers in Uttarakhand.
Brigadier S D Dangwal
9410900051
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