Andhra Pradesh

Flat owners penalised alone!

So the government with its Building Penalisation Scheme made it clear that the onus is on the buyer to make sure the builder had not deviated from the approved building plan.

But the government’s decision to penalise flat owners alone and making them accountable for the lapses while letting the builders go scot-free has certainly not gone down well with the flat owners.

If flat owners were ignorant not to have checked whether the construction was as per the building plan, it was not the fault of the government one may say. “But why the builder who violated the building norms knowingly should not be penalised?” ask many apartment dwellers.

Though the Compulsory Disclosure Scheme may hurt the buyers now, it helps to evolve a system of checks and balances.

Once buyers refuse to buy any unauthorised construction or plot in an illegal layout, sellers are forced to adhere to norms. “Once there are no takers for illegal constructions, violation of building and layout norms would no longer be rampant,” reasons an official. But the question that still bothers the general public is will they get factual information from agencies concerned, GHMC or HUDA before they buy a flat or plot. And will the employees of those agencies be held accountable if they provided misleading information?

Busy roads, heavy traffic, teeming offices…the city was back to its ‘original’ shape after the extended holiday season. Just when things were getting back to normalcy or so it seemed the stock market crash made it some kind of a black Monday.

By afternoon the television screens and the net started flashing the downward curve of the markets sending many interested investors and curious followers of the sensex into a tizzy.

The city might have bid goodbye to an active stock exchange but the trading on the net is thriving and how.

Instead of exchanging information on how they had enjoyed the holidays or about the Perth test and forthcoming Adelaide challenge, most ‘market’ conscious people had to trade information of the highs and lows of shares from their respective demat accounts!

It is a known truth that the malls across the city are making huge bucks in the backdrop of enormous amounts of liquid money inundating the markets. What many people are not aware of is the fact that even petty sellers of goodies outside the malls are benefiting in the game.

A brief chat with a popcorn seller outside a city mall elicited an astonishing bit of information. The vendor was from Bahadurpura and had been retrenched from a factory previously.

His fortunes took an about turn after he set up the popcorn machine in front of the mall.

On a normal day, he sells popcorn worth Rs.3, 000, of which Rs.1000 goes towards next day’s investment. The rest is for keeps!

The softy machine beside him makes even brisker business.

Poor things… what will happen if the Ambanis come to know about it?

M.L. MELLY MAITHREYI,

V. GEETANATH, SWATHI. V

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