Almost fifty per cent of the structures scheduled to be demolished in Manikonda do not have any sort of documentation, and have no scope of being regularised under the Building Penalisation Scheme.
Their construction itself is illegal, as the builders failed to follow the basic minimum norm of permission from the panchayat. According to official data, 205 of the identified 416 structures have been constructed with permission neither from panchayat nor from HMDA.
“There are two kinds of structures — illegal and irregular. The question of regularisation arises when there is building permission, but the structures have been raised in violation of the building norms. Here, the buildings are illegal, as there was no permission for them. The builders had land, and raised structures in them without going through the official procedures,” said a highly placed official.
In case of the rest of the structures, the builders produced “some sort of documentation” though not always legally valid. In some cases, panchayat permission for ground-plus-three structures was produced reflecting gross violation of rules, as panchayats are authorised to permit only up to ground-plus-two.
While it is being claimed that the structures from Panchavati Colony, which were razed by demolition squads on Thursday, had been built more than five years ago, they and many others were still under construction at the time of demolition. They were supported by permissions with a back date, so as to be safely covered under BPS. However, they would not have been considered for BPS anyway, as the penalisation norms take into consideration only completed structures, and not future construction.
Notices ignored
None of the buildings demolished on Thursday had occupants in them, as the authorities have decided to avoid those with inmates as of now. There are 27 identified unauthorised buildings with ongoing construction activity, and all these will be demolished in the coming days. Notices given thrice have been ignored by the builders.
