BMC urges residents to part with land

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has issued a public notice requesting residents having plots or houses along 10 natural drainage channels in the city to cooperate with it in the development of the water channels.

In case the land is private, the owners should come forward and submit it to BMC for development of the drainage channel required for efficient management of the storm water. For this, citizens can apply in a prescribed form on the BMC website. Compensation, if any, would be paid as decided by the BMC ommissioner, said he notice.

It said existing construction on the drainage channels or development along the drain within the CDP area would never be regularised and might invite demolition in near future, said the BMC notice. The civic body said plans have already made to renovate 10 major drainage channels to ensure no water-logging in the city. The 10 drainage channels are the carriers of the storm water load, which ultimately goes to Gangua Rs nullah’, which joins the Daya river, nearly 20 km from the city. Storm water drains would be constructed over the land of the natural drainage channels and compensation would be paid as decided by the BMC Commissioner.  “All should come forward and apply to the Municipal Commissioner to get twin benefits, compensation and a solution for their lifetime,” said BMC Deputy Commissioner Srimanta Mishra.

If any land owner will miss the occasion, he/she will never get the opportunity to have a building plan approval nor regularisation of any structure, he said. As the BMC and the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) have adopted the “zero tolerance policy”’ over the encroachment near the banks of the channel or over it, deviations with respect to the master plan drainage channels and other water channels would be viewed seriously in near future, the notification said.