Govt claim to demolish illegal city malls appears unconvincing / PIONEER

BHUBANESWAR | Monday, April 11, 2011 | Email | Print | | Back


Govt claim to demolish illegal city malls appears unconvincing
May 22, 2011 7:04:19 PM

SAROJ MISHRA | Bhubaneswar

The Minister of Urban Development Badri Naryan Patra answering members' queries in the State Assembly on Friday informed that the State Government has decided to demolish three shopping malls for violating the building plans and not getting approval from the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA).

Here the million dollar question is whether the Urban Development Department or the BDA really has the intention to demolish these malls?

The Minister said the plans that had got approval was for commercial and residential buildings . The three malls which have violated the rules are Big Bazaar at Patia , the World at Shastri Nagar and PAL Heights at Jaydev Vihar. He also informed that cases were pending against three more shopping malls Big Bazaar at Kharvel Nagar, Pantaloons at Saheed Nagar and Vishal Mega Mart at Nayapallifor violating parking norms. They have been issued show cause notice and the hearing is on. When the malls had availed approval it was clearly mentioned that shopping malls and office complexes should have provisions for adequate parking space without which approval or clearance cannot be granted.

Sources said most of the malls in the city do not have 60 per cent parking place according to the BDA norms. When the mall came up the BDA officials were very much aware that they had encroached Government land for constructing the illegal parking lots. Besides the violation of parking norms, the malls have violated fire safety norms and do not have garbage disposal facilities for which during the tenure of Bhubaneswar Municipal Commissioner(BMC) Aparjita Sarangi, the civic body had dumped garbage before the Big Bazaar mall at Ram Mandir Square for littering garbage nearby.

Besides, the Ministry of Environment and Forests has specified conditions such as maintenance of air quality, ambient noise levels - installations of sewerage treatment plants , use of solar energy source of water supply but they were blatantly flouted .All these violations had been reported by The Pioneer on September 26,2009 in an article " Malls flouts norms as agencies remain silent." The city elite said while the malls mushroomed violating all these guidelines the BDA and the Urban Development Department turned a blind eye and slept over the matter. Without a nexus between the unscrupulous officials and the mall promoters things could not have wrong gone so far. So the Minister's statement of the Government demolishing the malls does not should convincing and if one goes through the BDA record, like the earlier orders for demolition of illegal buildings it would gather dust in the files, they said.