No respite despite complaints to GHMC, Lok Ayukta, Human Rights
The seized factory in Shastripuram.
Hyderabad: After RTIs, grievances, petitions, approaching State Human Rights Commission, Lokayukta and several other initiatives by the residents of Shastripuram Colony, when the GHMC finally started taking baby steps towards acting on the illegal factories in Shastripuram Colony, the owners of these factories are trying underhand tactics to not get ousted.
There are around 100 illegal factories, as per the residents, in the sanctioned layout (by HUDA in 1988) of Shastripuram Colony. GHMC had recently seized one and issued notices to a few others based on reports published in DC.
Backed by local politicians and a few influential people of the locality who are on their side, a group of people running the illegal factories approached the department of co-operation and submitted a petition for dissolution of the Shastripuram Co-operative Housing Society, which has been instrumental in the fight against the illegal factories.
“The owners of the illegal factories and people behind them are working in disguise. Those who have complained are not even primary members of the Society,” said president of the society Sanjay Udgirkar.
If the society is dissolved, matters like land usage, ownership of land, usage of open areas, registration, water and sewerage connection etc. will all be decided by the local politicians and their aides, complained the residents. “In case of the department giving into the pressure from the government or political allies and disbands the society, all the grabbed plots will be regularized as there will be no one to challenge the same. Also, regularisation of many small illegal colonies, which have formed in the original sanctioned layout of Shastripuram, will be a cakewalk,” he added.
The divisional officer and the field officer from the department recently inspected the records of the society following the complaint. However, the residents demand an inquiry and field visit by the commissioner.
“Only if a team comprising all the concerned departments inspects this colony they will come to know what is happening on the ground. The society is ready for in depth scrutiny of this whole affair,” he added.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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