From Editor's desk -- About grievances of people affected by greed and malpractices of rogue property purchasers in colonies & societies

Hi folks!
This is Shelly, editor-in-chief of this blog- BRICKS-n-MORTAR.com, which is a people oriented blog that encompasses a common man's Civil Engineering and Architecture based doubts and queries besides providing guidance and value tips on these subjects. Not to mention, we take much pride being in constant touch, directly or indirectly, with our readers and their contacts especially when they seek our opinion or assistance towards seeking some solution or help.

Today, this blog brings about a grave concern to forefront that many of you or your known ones might have faced at some point of time.

The issue highlighted here today is about the harassment faced by the law-abiding residents of the societies/ colonies/ group housing flats and the likes where certain other big-bad-fat-fish (people intending to break rules and get works done by all illegal and immoral ways) intend to grab and cover every possible inch of the space around by altering existing structural frames of the building and/or by grabbing & covering the common areas of the building too.

Consider these two recent cases, where our readers have already sought help from the concerned government authorities. It of course needs to be seen how does the government authorities act in response- satisfactory/ dis-satisfactory/ or absolutely not at all !

Read on...

CASE-I

A senior bureaucrat buys a first floor flat (1347, C-1, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi) in the G+3 storeyed upscale Vasant Kunj residential complex. He engages a small time Civil contractor and goes about covering up open spaces and restructuring the interior layout, walls, beams, and what not in so haphazard and callous way that the very stability of the building as a whole goes for a toss.

Most of the in-frames have been dismantled and modified; beams & lintels have been removed by putting in make-over supporting built-up iron sections; precarious and dangerous out-of-the-boundary concrete cantilever projection has been cast over which even an extra toilet has been constructed which is so very ridiculous in itself, which reportedly was somehow rescued by the contractor when it was about to collapse during construction time itself.

Water logging has resulted due to shear negligence and oversight of the owner/contractor during all these renovation works are taking place. This has resulted in many a number of residents falling prey to dengue, which otherwise could have been avoided had the new owner and his engaged men acted sensibly.

The residents above this flat in question are a worried lot for obvious reasons as Structural cracks have started appearing in the flats above. All their requests to this new owner have fallen on deaf ears.  They have knocked the doors of the concerned authorities providing them the photographic evidences too. It needs to be seen when does the authorities act in a decisive way and make the new owner to act sensibly and stop unending dangerous alterations of the flat.

CASE-II

In the second case we are highlighting here, one Mr. Jitender Meena reportedly employed with Delhi operations of Air India buys a 3rd floor flat (top floor as per original construction, bearing postal address as L-13/H, Sheikh Sarai-II, New Delhi) in the G+3 storeyed Delhi Development Authority's (DDA) Sheikh Sarai colony built in 1980s. The people from whom he buys the flat already had covered part of the roof and built additional floor on the otherwise load-bearing ageing structure.

As per DDA's design concept, the roof is counted as common area for residents of entire building and is also used for housing the water storage tanks of the ground, first and second floor flats that are placed on the well-designed structural beams thereby ensuring no load is imparted directly on the roof.

The new owner turns out to be much more greedy than the previous owners, and chalks out devious plans to grab the roof area housing the water tanks also. He deceitfully removes some of the water tanks and then hacksaws the concrete beams thereby dismantling and removing part of the water tanks supporting structure. The date-by-date photographic evidences show how the new owner violated all the rules while adopting willfully illegal means to grab the remaining roof space also to cover up entire roof area.

When now confronted by the residents insisting not to remove water tanks, the new owner of the top floor has adopted more ill-means to create nuisance by piling up debris and termite affected wood at the ground floor blocking the way to the building and its maintenance shaft housing the water motors also.

The affected residents had lodged an e-complaint at Delhi Chief Minister's official website a couple of weeks back, the status of which is showing as being 'IN PROGRESS' in the office of Zonal Engineer, South Zone, MCD ever-since.  The affected residents fear the authorities may react too late until when the roof area would already have been grabbed by the new purchaser. Or worse still, the authorities may even not react at all, who knows!

---

NOTE:

No matter if the authorities react or don't react on these issues that haunt the law-abiding ordinary citizens, or may be able to resolve the problems for the good of affected residents, Team Bricks-n-Mortar would be following these issues very closely to see that justice and better sense prevails, and that rogue people who break rules for their own selfish reasons, are brought to books.

We seek all of your support too in following up the issues with authorities concerned and helping resolve this matter as well as similar other issues too.

If you have any similar grievance, do write in to us.

About Unknown

This is a short description in the author block about the author. You edit it by entering text in the "Biographical Info" field in the user admin panel.