violators of law.

Master Plan violations
3000 violations of Srinagar Master Plan are tantamount almost to scuttling the grandiose plan of making Srinagar a planned and beatified city. Who allowed these wholesale violations and raising of illegal and unauthorized structures needs to be probed into. Reacting to a PIL, the Srinagar Bench of the State High Court has cast aspersions on the Srinagar Municipal Corporation of conniving at the raising of illegal structures. Land grabbers and politically connected builders have left no stone unturned to grab every inch of available land in the city of Srinagar. Even roads have been encroached to the extent of not leaving space even for car parking. People are left with no option but to park their vehicles on the roadside and thus create traffic hassles to great discomfiture of the pedestrians.
The court has found that authorities of Srinagar Municipal Corporation have not made any mention of the large scale violation of building permission and the violators have been enjoying a field day. It means that the field staff of the SMC has been in cahoots with the violators obviously for pecuniary interests caring least what havoc they were bringing on the ecology and topography of the city. In view of these grave violations, the Court has ordered demolishing of all illegal and unauthorized structures as permitted by the existing law. However, the Court has allowed violators to seek remedy of their grievances, if any, from the Tribunal, yet the time allowed to the Tribunal for their intervention has to be adhered to meticulously. And then Tribunals verdict is not the final word. In any case sealing of structures in exercise of powers conferred under Section 8 of the Control of Building Operations Act, 1988 is not the culmination of the action required to be taken by the Municipal Authorities. They are required to proceed ahead in the matter in accordance with the mandate of Sections 7 and 8 of the aforesaid Act, the Bench observed.
Actually during the height of turmoil and disorder in the State in 1990s that had paralyzed the functioning of the Government temporarily, many opportunists and self-seekers took the time by forelock and grabbed available land and raised unauthorized and illegal structures. The SMC was caught in inertia of sorts and did not move to check these irregularities. The result is that no control could be exercised on house building enterprises anywhere and in any form. In doing so Srinagar city has lost much of its natural setting and many of its historic landmarks. Lack of a sense of nationalism and social responsibility on the part of violators of law is a big misfortune of any community. It speaks of its selfishness and self-aggrandizement that ultimately prove harmful for the entire society. The Court had little option and categorically directed the SMC to proceed against the
We know that demolishing or sealing so many structures is an unpleasant job even for the Municipal Corporation, but then we have to think of our future generations who will be called upon to run the affairs of this country. In this context, we would like to take a state-level view of this situation. We mean to say that even in the winter capital of Jammu, land grabbing, road encroachment and raising of illegal and unauthorized buildings and structures has been the practice freely indulged in for so many years in the past. If such aberrations have marred the beauty of Srinagar, the same is the case with Jammu and even worse. All illegal and unauthorized structures raised in the city of Jammu and in its peripheries during past two decades should be identified and action according to the law should be taken against these. It is a politically well-connected class of people that have been in the forefront of raising illegal structures in both the cities. Therefore the policy adopted in the case of demolition of illegal structures in Srinagar should hold good for Jammu also. The City of Temples has a specific place in the map of urban India. It has to be saved and streamlined.

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