Mangaluru: The fire incident that occurred at the City Centre Mall, in heart of the city has raised questions on the way rules are broken and authorities have allowed this to happen.
This is one classic example to show how an incompleted building can run without obtaining a completion certificate from the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) that too for nine years of its inauguration.
As per the guidelines, a building should obtain a completion certificate before to its inauguration, but surprisingly, the City Centre mall was inaugurated without securing completion certificate in the year 2010. It did not obtain clearance from the fire department also during it was inaugurated. However, City Centre is not the only building, which runs without securing the completion certificate.
According to the sources, a total of 687 buildings in the MCC limits have been constructed by violating the guidelines until 2013. When Hareesh Kumar was the commissioner of the MCC he had ordered to demolish over 350 such illegal buildings, but, as the owners of such buildings approached the civil court, they went scathe free.
MCC Commissioner Mohammed Nazeer when contacted told newskarnataka.com that there is an option that the commercial buildings can operate based on certain conditions. “If a building is constructed by violating the permit guidelines, the owner of the building would be asked to set it right. As the owner of the ‘City Centre’ mall has consented to make necessary changes in the design, he was allowed to operate. After Mangaluru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) approved the documents pertaining to the required changes in the design, the MCC would give completion certificate”, he said.
MCC should set a deadline for obtaining the completion certificate
Activist and Nagarika Hitharakshana Vedike president Hanumantha Kamath, who also filed a case against City Centre Mall for violating the permit guidelines told newskarnataka.com that it is the mistake of the MCC. “The MCC should fix a deadline for correcting mistakes in the building plan and the building owner should be asked to obtain a completion certificate within a prescribed period. If not, no building owner would show interest in following the guidelines.
