CHANDIGARH: Providing a major relief to more than 50,000 allottees of Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) flats, an eight member committee on Friday approved a number of needbased changes.Additional construction in courtyard/terrace, construction of additional door, fixing of grilles in balconies and shifting of gate from side boundary wall to front boundary wall of the front courtyard were among the need-based changes that were allowed. However, the construction should not be more than 50% of the area of courtyard in MIG and HIG category flats, and should not be more than 75% of the area in LIG and EWS flats.
The approved need-based changes have been forwarded to UT administrator V P Singh Badnore for final approval.
CHB chairman Ajoy Kumar Sinha said the pending notices issued to allottees will now be reviewed. He said he could not comment on the status of cancelled flats. In the past, the CHB had cancelled a number of flats of allottees for violations.
Recently, Badnore had appointed eight officials and three non-officials as members in the CHB. Over the years, residents of 50,000 CHB flats have made need-based changes in their flats.
The administration has issued notices to most of the allottees. The allottees, in their memorandum to CHB, submitted that officials should not complicate the issue by asking occupants to get certificates from architects for approval.Withdraw notices, say allottees
They demanded onetime settlement for need-based changes by paying reasonable compounding fees and without any cumbersome process of taking permissions and approvals from governmentauthorised bodies.
They also demanded that the government or administration should withdraw notices of penal charges immediately, till a satisfactory decision for onetime settlement is made.
Besides, they said, hearing on show-cause notices issued by CHB for cancellation should be stopped immediately. They demanded that no new notices of any kind be issued by the board till the issue is resolved.