Friday, March 23, 2018

Realtors jeopardize city’s dream to have int’l airport

Times of India: Surat: Friday, March 23, 2018.
Failure on the part of Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) authorities to act against illegal construction by realtors has not only jeopardized the prospects of enhanced domestic air connectivity in the city but almost robbed it of an international airport.
Information sought from the Airport Authority of India (AAI) under the Right to Information (RTI) Act regarding the height of buildings obstructing the flight path at Surat airport points to a needle of suspicion towards the civic authorities.
In the case of a residential apartment, as per the RTI data, the NOC data record with AAI suggests the building’s longitude and latitude as 21.83745N and 72.460237E with elevation of 51.70 metres. However, in the survey it was revealed that the building was located at 21.82718N and 72.455014877E with top elevation of 54.40 metres. This means that the building plan was approved in the ‘X’ plot and construction done in ‘Y’ plot with increased height of 8.53 metres.
The AAI had issued notices to 18 residential apartments asking them to remove obstacles that obstructed the flight path of aircraft on January 31, 2018 (the copies of which are with TOI) but majority of them managed to get NOC from the former on the site location plan approved by the SMC.
A resurvey at the Surat airport was carried out on July 27 and July 28, 2017 in respect to the obstacles on runway 22 end-Vesu side. In the survey, jointly undertaken by Surat airport officials, the AAI’s central and regional headquarters and the SMC, it was found that the 18 buildings’ height obstructions ranged from 0.56 metres to 12.38 metres. This was because the realtors had altered the location coordinates and constructed buildings on the plots, not mentioned in the original plan and also increased the height of the structures.
The AAI wrote to the concerned secretaries of the building societies and made them aware about the violation of the terms and condition of the NOCs issued and sought initiation of action for the removal of the obstacles.
C R Paatil, BJP MP from Navsari, told TOI, “The civic authorities are directly responsible for overlooking illegal construction. The realtors managed to get NOCs for particular plots but carried out constructions at other sites. I have demanded that the buildings constructed in plots other than the approved plans should be demolished, licences of architects cancelled and criminal cases filed against realtors and the civic officials.” SMC additional city engineer Ketan Patel said, “The NOCs were issued by the AAI many years ago when the land coordinates were measured in distance and not in latitude and longitude. Then AAI did not even have enough staff to carry out the field survey. The civic body has no direct say in the issue.”