Civic body warns against violating plan approvals

Chennai: To prevent illegal constructions in the city, the Greater Chennai Corporation has instructed its field engineers to ensure under-construction buildings follow building plan approvals.

In his instruction, Gagandeep Singh Bedi, Chennai Corporation Commissioner, directed the ward-level engineers to verify whether building-plan permission and approvals were availed before construction began.

“Notices will be issue, doors and windows will be removed as per court order,” he said in a statement.

The Commissioner has given powers to assistant engineers, junior engineers, assistant executive engineers and zonal executive engineers to take action against unauthorised buildings based on TN Town and Country Planning Act, 1971.

Meanwhile, the GCC has identified around 7,000 unauthorised buildings in Royapuram alone. As per civic body data, ‘stop work’ notices have been issued to more than 1,400 under-construction buildings in the zone for planning permission violations. Apart from serving stop work notices to 1,400 buildings,

Additionally, ‘lock and seal’ notices have been given to owners of 1,200 buildings, and de-occupation notices to 3,500 buildings.