Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Nov 4: The Deputy Mayor of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) today locked the office of the Town Planning including that of Joint Commissioner Planning (JCP) for what he said “delaying the building permissions.”
This is the second time that Deputy Mayor, Parvaiz Qadri, has locked the Town Planning office in two months. Qadri said that as per mandate the SMC has to issue building permissions in two months but large numbers of building permissions are pending. “I have written to the Government to remove the officer”, he said.
Joint Commissioner Planning, Ghulam Hassan Mir, said that Mayor has no authority to lock the Town Planning office. “I was in the office and I was called by him and he immediately got it locked for which he has no authority”, he said.
Mir said that he has locked the office twice in last two months. “He is pressurizing me to issue building permissions blindly which I resisted. We are issuing building permissions under codal formalities and won’t do anything illegal”, he said.
The JCP said that the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) is already investigating the building permissions issued in 2018 and 2019. “They took 30 building permission files of 2018 and 2019 recently. These permissions were not issued properly”, he said.
“Why should I do anything illegal? Let him lock the office, I will not fall in line”, he added.
Mir said that there is deficiency of technical staff and infrastructure in town planning of SMC which is delaying the issuance of building permissions. “I have already written to the Government about this”, he said.
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