BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Wednesday decided to urge developers and owners of plots and residential houses to hand over to the civic body roads that were earmarked when the properties were purchased.
Corporators, while raising the issue in a BMC meeting on Wednesday, said that there are several instances of roads not being handed over to the civic body, leading to unplanned development and hampering construction of new roads and drains. Officials said that as per the earlier practice, large plots used to be divided into patches to be sold to several buyers. In that case, roads were carved out of the designated plot, but they were not handed over to the BMC at the time of registration, which is being done now.
“The city is expanding, and there is a need to construct new roads and drains. New areas are being added to BMC’s jurisdiction. Earlier people bought plots without handing over the road, as it was not a prerequisite before plan approvals began. But the provision is being adhered to now. So, in some cases, we will urge buyers to hand over the roads to us,” city mayor Sulochana Das said. She further said that unless the roads are handed over to BMC, development work can’t be taken up.
After the BMC took over the building plan and approval power from the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) in 2020, it found that many developers had evaded handing over roads in several projects.
BMC officials also emphasised that wearing of identity cards should be made compulsory for all employees, including those engaged on contractual or outsourced basis, in view of the recent incident of miscreants entering the civic body’s office and assaulting an additional commissioner after dragging him out from his chamber.
“Suggestions have been taken from corporators on how to mop up revenue in tax and non-tax sectors and complete pending work. Officers were asked to have better coordination with other departments so that all stakeholders are in the loop in case of works undertaken within BMC jurisdiction by other departments,” the mayor said.
