Much ballyhooed policy to get handle on the incessantly growing problem of unauthorized constructions in the twin capital cities and holy town of Katra has plunged into staleness,interestingly, much before its implementation. It is in itself revealing the levels of performance of the present dispensation in areas of critical importance. In other words, the four years long exercise has ended up in a fiasco due to recklessness on the part of Housing and Urban Development Department and Empowered Committees headed by Divisional Commissioners.
That instances of numerous violations having been made in respect of Master Plan and Building byelaws in Jammu, Srinagar and Katra, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) came up for hearing in the State High Court . The High Court directed the StateGovernment tocome up with a proper policy which motivated the StateGovernment to constitute a High Level Committee. It gave its recommendations leading to enactment of J&K Civic Laws (Special provisions) Act 2014 so that a comprehensive policy could be formulated to tackle the issue of these violations. An expert committee, thereafter, was constituted to scrutinize all violations under Master Plan and Building byelaws and to come up with a policy to deal with the menace of unauthorized constructions in both the capital cities as well as in Katra town. After much delay, the Cabinet accorded approval to the policy in April 2017. The fact that the notification of the policy was delayed by several months has remained shrouded in mystery.
The applicability of policy was limited to one year only ,i.e April 2017 to March 2018 for the local areas of Srinagar, Jammu and Katra. There was inbuilt flaw in the notification as the policy was given effect from April 2017 while it was notified in Sept 2017. This resulted in confusion in the public as well as in the officers team who were otherwise tasked to implement the much publicized decision of the Government. Such unspecified prolonging and dilly dallying approach in the implementation of the policy continued till December last year when a writ petition was filed in the State High Court challenging some provisions of the policy. The case is under consideration of the court as the Government asked for some time to comply with the court directives and the case, as such, is pending there.
It can be observed that in its long voyage running almost four years, the policy and the provisions contained therein, the laws, formation of expert committees, court interventions and directions, the matter stands mired up in absolute inertia. The much pushed policy unfortunately expired on March 31 even before its implementation as per SRO 391. There is utter confusion in the Housing and Urban Development and on the other hand, there is no further development in receiving directions from the court.
Due to this, precious four years have been washed away. There will be no action against over 4000 violations in Jammu, over 5500 in Srinagar and 58 in Katra and the “ChaltaHai” system and approach will prevail with impunity. Who is to be blamed for this ?
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