Saturday, October 4, 2008
GPAs in house building societies at chandigarh
GPAs in cooperative House Building Societies at Chandigarh
Chandigarh: Housing in any city anywhere in the world is something that is most cherished by people. A roof on your head is must. However, with increasing population and nuclear families, paucity of available land in the metros and small cities, governments are finding alternative ways of providing affordable Houses.
The situation got no different in Chandigarh. Following the trend in other cities, Chandigarh administration also formulated a policy where it would allot land on chunk basis through Chandigarh Housing Board for construction of Dwelling units (DU) to be allotted to its eligible members. The onus of developing the land and construction of the DUs rested on the management of the cooperative house building societies.
However in all this process, the administration failed to take cognizance of the fact that lots of water passed under the bridge. The concept of the scheme was mooted in the late eighties and allotment of land to cooperative house building societies infact was made in the 1992.Though rules governing the whole scheme were mulled over by the Chandigarh administration, yet it applied certain outdated rules to administer the scheme. Chandigarh allotment of sites and Buildings rules 1960 is one such rule.
In Sixties, people were invited to come and settle in the city, and the city had a sizeable influx of people. The city was planned for a population of five lakh people, and it had exceeded this mark by the nineties. The Punjab Capital and development Act 1952 was also incorporated at the time of allotment of land to these societies. The administration failed to understand that by the time it allotted land to such socieities, those who had enrolled as members had grown from young to middle-aged. During the second phase of allotment in the year 2002, many of the members had got the "demised" suffix attached to their names. So such allotment of DUs changed hands and on having acquired alternative residences, the allotted DUs in the societies were a sort of liability to all such alottees. As a result more than 70% alottees had sold their DUs allotted to them in the cooperative house building societies. Thus a new phenomenon of about 15000 families who had purchased the Houses on GPA had emerged. This emergence of the new class of residence suffered on two accounts. These were governed by a minuscule minority of people on the board of management lording over those in majority. The Chandigarh administration failed to take stock of the situation and rather than addressing the problem in its right earnest simply kept on hinging on the minority alottees to run the show. This led to dictatorial attitudes of the managements who would brow beat the GPA holders. The construction was carried on and completed by these minority set of alottees and a way was open for corrupt practices. This resulted in that the flat that was promised to be completed and finally handed over to the allottee/GPA @ Rs. 6.20,000/- was handed over after charging several lakhs of rupees as escalation fees. The construction was sub standard. Any protest provoked threats to the protesters by the managements. For managements, it was make hay while the sun shines. The Chandigarh Administation was a mute spectator to all this.
Fed up with this, the GPAs wanted to form Resident Welfare Associations, but the move was thwarted by the administration, with Registrar Cooperative Societies, Chandigarh banned formation of such welfare association in the societies. Left with no choice, the residents, particularly the GPAs got in touch with NGOs who took this seriously and started representing before the Administration through local MP, Administrator Chandigarh and other officers for redressal of problems of this massive formation of the GPAs. Satish Chandra Sharma,General Secretary, Chandigarh Social Welfare Council, Chandigarh.email:sharma.ambakripa@gmail.com. Cell:9888-255-128. draft 8/16/08 by satish sharma Delete
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Chandigarh: Housing in any city anywhere in the world is something that is most cherished by people. A roof on your head is must. However, with increasing population and nuclear families, paucity of available land in the metros and small cities, governments are finding alternative ways of providing affordable Houses.
The situation got no different in Chandigarh. Following the trend in other cities, Chandigarh administration also formulated a policy where it would allot land on chunk basis through Chandigarh Housing Board for construction of Dwelling units (DU) to be allotted to its eligible members. The onus of developing the land and construction of the DUs rested on the management of the cooperative house building societies.
However in all this process, the administration failed to take cognizance of the fact that lots of water passed under the bridge. The concept of the scheme was mooted in the late eighties and allotment of land to cooperative house building societies infact was made in the 1992.Though rules governing the whole scheme were mulled over by the Chandigarh administration, yet it applied certain outdated rules to administer the scheme. Chandigarh allotment of sites and Buildings rules 1960 is one such rule.
In Sixties, people were invited to come and settle in the city, and the city had a sizeable influx of people. The city was planned for a population of five lakh people, and it had exceeded this mark by the nineties. The Punjab Capital and development Act 1952 was also incorporated at the time of allotment of land to these societies. The administration failed to understand that by the time it allotted land to such socieities, those who had enrolled as members had grown from young to middle-aged. During the second phase of allotment in the year 2002, many of the members had got the "demised" suffix attached to their names. So such allotment of DUs changed hands and on having acquired alternative residences, the allotted DUs in the societies were a sort of liability to all such alottees. As a result more than 70% alottees had sold their DUs allotted to them in the cooperative house building societies. Thus a new phenomenon of about 15000 families who had purchased the Houses on GPA had emerged. This emergence of the new class of residence suffered on two accounts. These were governed by a minuscule minority of people on the board of management lording over those in majority. The Chandigarh administration failed to take stock of the situation and rather than addressing the problem in its right earnest simply kept on hinging on the minority alottees to run the show. This led to dictatorial attitudes of the managements who would brow beat the GPA holders. The construction was carried on and completed by these minority set of alottees and a way was open for corrupt practices. This resulted in that the flat that was promised to be completed and finally handed over to the allottee/GPA @ Rs. 6.20,000/- was handed over after charging several lakhs of rupees as escalation fees. The construction was sub standard. Any protest provoked threats to the protesters by the managements. For managements, it was make hay while the sun shines. The Chandigarh Administation was a mute spectator to all this.
Fed up with this, the GPAs wanted to form Resident Welfare Associations, but the move was thwarted by the administration, with Registrar Cooperative Societies, Chandigarh banned formation of such welfare association in the societies. Left with no choice, the residents, particularly the GPAs got in touch with NGOs who took this seriously and started representing before the Administration through local MP, Administrator Chandigarh and other officers for redressal of problems of this massive formation of the GPAs. Satish Chandra Sharma,General Secretary, Chandigarh Social Welfare Council, Chandigarh.email:sharma.ambakripa@gmail.com. Cell:9888-255-128. draft 8/16/08 by satish sharma Delete
‹Newer 6 – 7 of 7
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