CMDA losing crores as educational institutions yet to seek approval for their building plans

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

More than 100 educational institutions in the city have yet to come forward to register under the regularization scheme despite Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority serving bulk notices for failing to get approval for their building plans.

CMDA sources said that the state exchequer is losing several crores of rupee worth revenue as these educational institutions have failed to apply under the regularization scheme.

As per records, there are 176 colleges within Chennai Metropolitan Area. Of these 65 are engineering colleges, 41 are polytechnic colleges, 46 arts and science colleges and 24 teachers education colleges.

Sources said only few of the colleges are functioning by following the rules and with statutory plans, with majority not having any statutory approvals.

Sources said many of the institutions applied under the 1999 regularisation scheme but their applications were rejected as they did not furnish any evidence about the plans. It was on 2012, CMDA issued bulk notice to the educational institutions calling for approved plan within 15 days.

Interestingly, barring a few, none of the institutions came forward to apply for approval or tried to regularize their building under Section 113c, which was passed in February 2013.

Sources confided that many educational institutions may even not fulfil the criteria of section 113C as they were built in farm lands.

Interestingly, CMDA is blamed for not following up on the issue. “Only a notice giving 15 days deadline for submitting approved plans was given. It was not followed by lock and seal notice as is being done to commercial buildings,” sources said.

M G Deivasahayam, Managing Trustee of the Chennai-based Citizens Alliance for Sustainable Living (SUSTAIN) and a former member of the monitoring Committee says that despite the notices to these institutions, they are still constructing buildings.

“All educational institutions should be treated on par with commercial establishments as most of them are commercial in nature. They should not be given special privileges,” he says, adding that building laws are meant to be implemented and CMDA should take punitive action against the violators.

He said that now due to lack of implementation of laws, people are emboldened to buy even the unapproved buildings. This is not a good sign, he adds.