KOLKATA: KMC commissioner Dhaval Jain has issued a circular, asking civic assessment department to withhold the names of flat owners on mutation records if they find the building is being constructed without legal sanction.
In short, the owner of a flat in an illegal building would be denied ownership status, said a civic official, adding the assessment department would merely make the owner the “person liable to pay tax”.
In case the ownership was already granted, a legal heir, who might want to add his/her name, would also be treated as a person liable to pay tax.
The KMC IT department has been directed to collect data from the assessment department on structures, where developers have flouted rules, and share the information with the buildings department for action. A KMC assessment department official pointed out the objective was to stop unscrupulous builders from constructing unauthorized structures.
According to the circular issued on March 27, following an application for the mutation of a property, KMC assessment collection department officials will examine the hard copy of the sanctioned plan or verify the database of sanctioned building plan or a completion certificate to confirm that the floors/structure or flat in question had been sanctioned by the civic buildings department. If any doubt arises, the matter will be forwarded to the director-general (buildings) and a copy will be sent to the executive engineer (buildings) through the assessor-collector for a conclusive view. The DG (buildings) or the executive engineer of the borough will submit his view within 10 days to the assessor-collector.“If any deviation from building rules are found in a structure, the assessor-collector will reserve the applicant’s absolute right of mutation pending. If the KMC buildings department later regularises the deviations against a payment, the assessment department in the borough may rectify its earlier decision and give the flat owner an absolute mutation right,” said a KMC buildings official. He added the civic body’s IT department would be responsible to store data on unauthorized constructions in its central server so that they could be shared with buildings and assessment-collection departments for a ready reckoner.
