Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad   

The bulldozer moves on...

By J. S. Ifthekhar

HYDERABAD Nov. 19. The image of a slumbering behemoth has gone for a toss. The civic body is alive and kicking. Not a day passes without some unauthorised construction in some part of the city getting pulled down. Yet there is no hype or hoopla. The bulldozer does its job silently and moves on to the next target.

Slowly the message is getting across -- MCH means business. The corporation has taken an uncompromising stand on deviations and illegal constructions. Thankfully it is getting unstinted support from the people. "It is a tough decision, but is working,'' MCH commissioner Chitra Ramchandran told The Hindu.

She wouldn't like to be dubbed a Khairnar, but the job she has cut out for herself is much the same. With courts backing the corporation, cellar constructions, pent houses, extra rooms and deviations are being razed to the ground mercilessly.

Till November the MCH had carried out 504 demolitions as against 416 last year. By close of the financial year, it hopes to more than double this figure. Circle-wise too the number of demolitions has gone up this year: 58 in Circle I (38 last year), 29 in Circle II (25), 51 in Circle III (40), 89 in Circle IV (89), 74 in Circle V (58), 30 in Circle VI (29), 173 in Circle VII (137).

With "citizen first'' as its motive, the civic body is taking decisions aimed at making the life easy for the common man. "Be it be the plan to go for pre-paid parking or removing encroachments everything is intended to benefit the people,'' Ms. Chitra says.

But why pick on mine, why not my neighbour's -- the question persists. The MCH is being very careful in choosing its targets. It is taking up only those cases for demolition which it has won in courts. In the last few years scores of verdicts are stated to have gone in the corporation's favour. "If we do not take action even now what are we supposed to do,'' asks Ms. Chitra.

Right now the corporation is concentrating on irregularities in FSI, set backs and cellar constructions in big commercial complexes. Only yesterday it pulled down six godowns constructed in the cellar of a complex at Chikkadpally. All this has a salutary effect. And, of course, plenty of common space is opened up for the people.

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• The bulldozer moves on...
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