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| Pahalgam: PDA punishes poor, facilitates rich | | 5 years on, PMAY beneficiaries await PDA clearance | |  Saahil Suhail
Early Times Report
Anantnag, Aug 9: The Pahalgam Development Authority (PDA) in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district is allegedly adopting lackadaisical approach in implementing the of Prime Minister’s housing scheme meant for poor as it has failed to covey a BOCA meeting since last year to clear cases of PMAY beneficiaries.
Since 2015, out of 227 approved and verified PMAY cases, Pahalgam Development Authority has cleared just 5 Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana cases.
The Municipal Committee has tabled sixteen (16) cases in its 11th BOCA meeting last year, however only 5 were cleared. Since then, the officials at PDA told Early Times that the Development Authority has failed to convene a BOCA meeting for clearing the cases.
The 11th BOCA meeting was held at Pahalgam Golf Course on 25th of July 2020 since then PDA hasn’t conveyed any meeting despite notifying dates for 12th BOCA meeting.
On 5-11-2020, Chief Executive Officer Pahalgam Development Authority, who is also Member Secretary of BOCA, issued a notification for the 12th BOCA meeting.
However, the meeting was later cancelled and new dates were notified. On 17 March 2021, the 12th BOCA meeting was again cancelled and since then PDA hasn’t issued any date for the meeting.
The officials said that PDA has conveyed just eleven (11) BOCA meetings since the year 2017 for issuing buildings permission. “In first five meetings, the Deputy Commissioner Anantnag who is chairman of the BOCA didn’t clear any case and in the rest of the meetings around 60 cases were cleared a majority among them were rich people,” they admitted.
They claimed that since last month the agenda of 12th BOCA meeting was being prepared.
In 2017, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court restored BOCA and directed Pahalgam Development Authority to issue permissions strictly according to Pahalgam Master Plan.
“In so far as the permissible areas are concerned, any fresh construction would be permitted only in terms of the Master Plan by the BOCA,” reads the order issued by J&K High Court, a copy of which lies with Early Times.
According to the Development Act, the officials at PDA said, the Development Authority is bound to convey BOCA meetings fortnightly.
“The BOCA meetings were being deliberately delayed and this delay keeps the illegal construction mafia alive,” alleged residents while demanding a special BOCA meeting for PMAY beneficiaries.
On the other hand, sources told Early Times that rich and influential people were being helped to raise constructions illegally in and around Pahalgam.
At Khelan, they said, an influential politician is allegedly being helped out to convert his residential house into a hotel and cowshed into a guest-house.
“Recently, PDA was tipped off and the GI sheets covering the cowshed were removed, however the politician is still slowly attempting to raise the construction as PDA employees misled CEO PDA by certifying that the construction was over 10 years old,” they said. |
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