Ludhiana: Senior members of the municipal house have confronted building officials over a surge in illegal constructions, accusing the department of allowing unauthorised structures to rise unchecked across the city.During a marathon Finance and Contracts Committee (F and CC) meeting on Wednesday, deputy mayor Prince Johar produced photographic evidence of ongoing illegal works, demanding to know why enforcement teams failed to intervene at the foundation stage.The confrontation comes despite written assurances from the building branch that all active sites in Ludhiana had either been regularised or slapped with official fines. The persistent flow of public complaints, however, suggests a significant gap between official reports and the reality on the ground.One-week ultimatumThe meeting, chaired by mayor Inderjit Kaur, focused on 120 resolutions — mostly routine work orders — but quickly pivoted to the city’s thorny urban planning crisis. Municipal commissioner Neeru Katyal, who took charge late last month, wasted no time in escalating the matter.She issued a strict one-week deadline for the building branch to inspect the flagged sites and submit a comprehensive status report. “The Commissioner has made it clear that accountability starts now,” a civic official noted. “If buildings are rising without approved plans, the department needs to explain how they missed them.”Institutional ‘Gaslighting’The primary frustration for the mayor and her deputy lies in the “sanitised” reports previously submitted by the building branch. Officials claimed every site is either regularized or under a legal challan, while photographed evidence shows massive structures rising without visible permits.The branch maintains that field staff are conducting daily checks, while councillors argue that action is only taken after a building is nearly complete, making demolition difficult. he crackdown marks the first major enforcement hurdle for Commissioner Neeru Katyal, who inherited a cash-strapped MC struggling with revenue recovery and a culture of official collusion.While the building branch had previously been ordered to conduct “saturation checks” to eliminate illegal growth, the sheer volume of new complaints suggests that developers are still finding ways to bypass the system. The upcoming report, due next Wednesday, is expected to determine whether disciplinary action will be taken against zonal inspectors for negligence. MSID:: 128210682 413 |
