Corporation yet to gather details of unapproved layouts

The number of unapproved sites in the old city could be around 8,000

Retrieval and effective use of encroached reserve sites is being given impetus by the Coimbatore Corporation.

Even as the State Government is preparing to regularise unapproved layouts across the State, the City Corporation here has little clue of the number of such layouts in its limits. Or so it appears as the civic body does not have official figures.

Sources in the Corporation said that the last time the State Government introduced the regularisation scheme for houses in approved layouts in 2008, the civic body regularised 32,387 such sites and netted ₹ 42.33 crore as regularisation charges.

It could not regularise 3,602 sites as they were farther than the 16 feet cut-off the Government had mentioned in the scheme and also could not regularise 2,570 as there was another technical glitch. Citing the two cases, the Corporation had written to the Government but was yet to get a go-ahead.

But the aforementioned figures point only to the old city area - 60 wards - as the Corporation had not yet annexed the 11 local bodies, which it did in 2010-11, the sources said and added that the number of unapproved sites in the old city could be around 8,000.

As for the number of unapproved sites in added areas (the 11 local bodies that merged with the Corporation and formed the remaining 40 wards), it did have records. The State Government did ask for the figures but the Corporation could not identify those as they were too many.

The sources explained that the number of unapproved sites was more in added areas because construction activity was concentrated there and a good percentage of it happened after taking the local body approval (panchayat approval), which was illegal.

If the State Government were to launch a regularisation scheme and if the owners of the unapproved sites were to avail of it, it would only add to the civic body’s financial burden, Corporation officials said.

The Corporation would have to lay roads and provide drinking water, sewerage and street lights. The money the civic body would spend on this would be much much more than what it would get as regularisation charge.

And, the Corporation would see a dip in property tax as after regularisation, the houses on regularised sites would stop attracting penalty on property tax, the officials added.

But this was unlikely to happen as the Government’s move was illegal, said Coimbatore Consumer Cause Secretary K. Kathirmathiyon. After the last regularisation scheme, the courts had clearly ruled that regularisation scheme could be only an one-off affair as otherwise it would amount to regular approval of violation of rules.

Even in its 2008 GO on the issue, the Government had said that it would initiate action against unapproved sites that were developed after December 2008.