Letter to Chief Minister regarding granting OC to over 50,000 buildings in MMR region

April 2, 2016

The Hon. Chief Minister,

Government of Maharashtra,

Mantralaya,

Mumbai.

Respected Sir,

Sub : The Government’s decision to legalize all illegal buildings in the State – request to grant Occupation Certificate (OC) suo moto to all buildings which are Structurally stable.

At the outset, we would like to compliment you on your govt’s bold decision to legalize all illegal buildings in Maharashtra up to December 31, 2015’

The govt decision will benefit thousands of houses starting from Campa-Cola compound in Mumbai’s Worli to Digha in Navi Mumbai and in Pimpri-Chinchawad near Pune.

Sir, while making the announcement, you had very rightly said that the new policy would help only the common man, since builders have exited long ago, and that the decision was important since there was a third party — the buyer — involved in it and is suffering.

As per the new policy, if the building is constructed according to the development plan, but violates some norms like area, extra floor space index (FSI) or some other DCR, it will be regularised as per the guidelines laid down by the government from time to time. These violations will be regularised using TDR, fungible FSI and after charging premium according to the guidelines.

Further, buildings apart from residential zones and those constructed in no development zone, industrial zone, commercial zone, will be regularized after the change in reservation to residential zone. Cut-off date for the regularization is December 31, 2015. Google images of a particular construction will be considered a proof of existence.

While welcoming this decision, we would like to point out to you that there are over 50,000 buildings in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region that do not possess Occupation Certificate (OC). There may be many more in other urban cities in the state.

Most of these buildings started construction after getting the Commencement Certificate from the respective Corporations but on completion of the buildings, the builder gave possession to “the third party” – gullible buyers – and the builder exited without fulfilling his mandatory duty of getting the OC from the Corporation.

Most of such buildings are more than 15-20 years old, since awareness levels were pretty low regarding the importance of OC in the 1990s and early 2000.

All such residents in such buildings are now suffering, because though a legally constructed building, due to lack of OC, financial institutions do not give them loans – thus affecting sale and purchase and in the eyes of the Corporation – they remain deemed illegal.

Some Corporations like the Thane Municipal Corporation had announced an Amnesty scheme for such buildings but the response was very poor because over the years, such buildings had made alterations to their respective flats and the Corporation officials would refuse OC due to such alterations.

In view of (a) the govt decision to legalize illegal buildings in the State and (b) considering the plight  lakhs of people suffering due to lack of OC in the state, we request to you come out with a policy decision to grant suo moto OC to all buildings which are over 10 years old and are Structurally stable.

This will provide relief to lakhs of people in the State.

Regards,

For Alert Citizens Forum of India,

Dayanand Nene

President

Governing Council : Jitendra Satpute, Prasad Bedekar, Kiran Joshi, Adv Shreerang Mulye, CS Sandhya Malhotra, Pramod Date.

CC          :  1. Municipal Commissioners of Mumbai and Thane

                   2, Shri Kirit Somaiya MP

                   3. Shri Gopal Shetty, MP

                   4. Shri Rajan Vichare, MP

                   5. Shri Eknath Shinde, Hon. Minister

                   6. Shri Atul Bhatkhalkar, MLA

                   7. Shri Sanjay Kelkar, MLA

                   - with a humble request to help and support in the matter.

V