Egg on the face of Muncipality

Puttur: The City Municipality of Puttur in Dakshina Kannada district has been rapped by the court for harassing the citizens for many reasons without having the power to do it. Though the well mannered citizens of the town were tolerating it all along for so many decades, in one particular case, the Karnataka High Court has shown the mirror to the Municipality with a mature caution that the Municipality must allow a petitioner to construct his house within his residential site and the municipality must give its consent within 30 days without any conditions.

The Municipality had denied permission for the petitioner, who had applied for a building licence for which the municipality had demanded a certain portion of the site to be donated for the future road margin. The officials did not even check if the municipality had the power to demand the donation of land. The court observed that there was no Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) in the Puttur Municipality, nor had it formed the Revised Master Plan (RMP); therefore, it had no right to ask for relinquishment of land for single site development anywhere in the city.

Many elderly citizens who have been put into unnecessary troubles by the ill-informed officials of the Municipality and their political masters in the elected body say that the High Court order has left the officials and scheming politicians no place to hide. After this order, many of them are planning to renew their efforts to build their houses. The petitioner has cited the Writ Petition number NC: 2023:KHC:38762 WP No. 18618 of 2023 in this matter.

Civic activists of the town are also digging deeper into the matter and in coming days there will be a volley of queries and the municipality might land up in a series of problems for denial of permission of residential houses and developing single layouts in the city.

The municipality itself has faltered in building laws in Puttur town. The Taluk Administrative building built in front of the Kille Maidan does not even have a setback from the road. The building opens into the main hall right from a brief sidewalk from the road. There are many such instances in the city in which the civic activists are making a list and exposing the municipality in the coming days.