The Bombay High Court at Goa late last week took suo motu cognizance of the mushrooming illegal structures, especially alongside the roads and highways of the state. Notices have been issued to various government agencies especially the Director of Panchayats, the Director of Municipal Administration and several other government bodies seeking responses on whether the municipalities and village panchayats have shown willingness to tackle the issue and taking adequate measures to ensure that the panchayats and municipalities are doing their jobs when it comes to tackling illegal structures.
The answer to the above questions is, however, quite obvious. In fact, it was in full public display last week in Mapusa when the Municipal Council undertook a razing drive only to realise that a substantial portion of the illegal structures that were being demolished belonged to the vice-chairperson of the Mapusa Municipal Council -- something that he, being present at the site during the demolition, didn’t even contest.
Several other structures too that were demolished belonged to people who wield considerable influence in the functioning of the council -- very few of whom even tried to contest the municipality’s action, admitting, even on camera, that the structures were illegal, and instead sought to justify their existence.
This being the state of affairs in Mapusa, one can imagine the state of affairs in several other municipalities and village panchayats, especially urbanised village panchayats of the state. To be sure, the problem is more than just one of illegalities and individuals who are willing to take advantage of their position and influence to gain undue financial gain.
A lot of the problem lies in how the laws are designed and how land ownership is controlled in the state leaving several loopholes gladly exploited by those in charge of laying down the law. To that extent, illegal structures, especially those that are used for residence and are in no way an obstruction to the flow of traffic and are not on land that has been encroached may be condoned. However, as we have seen time and again, these illegal structures, often styled as temporary structures are not only used for commercial ventures across a wide range of uses ranging from selling of vegetables and chicken and right up to the hardware, metal sheets and cement blocks. These structures also pose an obstruction to the smooth flow of traffic and more than that they take away the business from legitimate sellers operating from registered premises. All this is, no doubt, with the blessings of the local municipality and the panchayat as the case may be.
The question then is, what exactly will the High Court achieve? No doubt the High Court’s proactive nature has resulted in stringent action being brought up on structures right from Arambol to Anjuna. But as we’ve seen, on the ground, very often the orders of the High Court are subverted or bypassed by officers who comply only reluctantly and who fail to seal the structures allowing the violators to continue to take advantage of their illegalities.
Similarly, across the years, we have seen how the High Court has taken suo motu cognizance of illegal structures in CRZ areas, a petition that lasted more than a decade, but the problem persists.
While the High Court’s action is welcome, the real problem lies elsewhere.
