Tirupur: The state government has set a wrong precedence by regularising an open space reservation (OSR) land earmarked for a public park at a private layout at Udumalpet here.
The government order was passed in December 2016 that too after a series of judgments passed by the Supreme Court and the Madras high court against regularising or changing the land use pattern of OSR lands.
The issue was exposed by social activist S P Thiagarajan, who obtained information regarding the same under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
In 1986, the directorate of town and country planning (DTCP) approved a private layout, UKP Nagar, spread over 9.86 acres with 68 plots at Udumalpet municipality in the then Coimbatore district. As mandated in the development control regulations, DTCP directed land promoters to hand over 1.02 acres (one tenth of total area) to the civic body to set up a park in 50cents and leave 52cents as open area.
“But the land promoters didn’t hand over the 50cents land earmarked for the park and they gave 30cents of it to the Udumalpet Indian Medical Association trust to set up a multi-storey building,” Thiagarajan told TOI.
The municipality and DTCP were, however, against the encroachment and in fact the former had issued several show cause notices to the parties involved to remove the encroachment. “When one notice was challenged by the building owner, the Madras high court dismissed the petition and gave the civic body go-ahead to remove the encroachment,” he said.
In the court order dated February 18, 2011, Justice K Chandru stated that “the conditions for the approval of layouts must be strictly followed and there cannot be any deviation. In any case of deviation, the appropriate competent authority ought to have granted exemption. In fact, regarding OSR land the SC had gone to the extent of stating that there cannot be any exemption for reducing the total space meant for the purpose, which will not only make the planning development unworkable but also will jeopardise the interest of the residents.”
According to Thiagarajan, in an order related to another OSR land dispute, the high court had stated that “in the case of regularising OSR land, only the government has powers in respect of legality or correctness of layout plan, but not in respect of power to change usage of the land.”
Udumalpet municipal council, he said, had passed resolutions in favour of UKP Nagar land promoters and recommended to transfer the title of OSR land to Indian Medical Association trust in return for alternate land in some other area. However, in January 2015, municipal administration regional director wrote to principal secretary of municipal administration and water supply department not to approve the council’s recommendations.
“However, 31st empowered committee of town and country planning took a liberal stand by allowing the land promoters to handover alternate land in the same layout or pay the land value as per the government guidelines. But the municipality, after change of official capacities, took a U-turn and told the government that the civic body was ready to receive alternate land 1.68km away from the layout,” Thiagarajan added.
In 2016, the government approved the municipality’s recommendations.
“The land promoters and IMA trust could persuade the government machinery by claiming that the building was utilised for purposes like blood bank. But the building is mainly utilised as a convention centre, which could fetch a rent of 12,000 a day. Moreover, the alternate land, located along a high-voltage transmission line, cannot serve any purpose of providing recreation platform to UKP Nagar residents,”he said.