Is occupancy certificate important? Ask the Worli’s Campa Cola residents
Mumbai’s civic body has decided to demolish the 35 illegal floors in the seven high rises of the Campa Cola Compound. The Supreme Court has refused to regularize them and the residents have given a time of five months to vacate the premise.
Only six floors were permitted but the builders had illegally constructed excessively many floors, Midtown has 20 floors and orchid has 17 floors. According to one of the three builders of Campa Cola Compound, Mr. B. K. Gupta, it was obvious that the civic body would regularize the extra floor and other deviations from the sanctioned plans by charging some penalty. He is putting the complete blame on the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation ( BMC) by telling that the illegal construction done by them is legally approvable and is a general practice.
If we look at the history, BMC has twice commenced action to demolish illegal floors, demolishing the eight floors of the 36-storey high Pathiba building and demolishing eight floors of Arihant building at Mahalaxmi.
According to a resident at Campa Cola Compound, they occupied the building in late nineties and they were told that the building has all the approved documents. However, the local civic authority has never given them water connection and hence has been using tanker water. It is only in 2005 they learned that the civic authority has not giving the occupancy certificate to the apartment complex and they are living in an illegally constructed compound.
Recently, the state government has also supported the demolition drive against the unauthorized constructions. Principal Secretary of urban development department, Mr. Manukumar Shrivastava has said that there is no provision for the regularization of illegal construction done after March 31, 2012. According to Paras Gundecha, president, CREDAI, there are more than 6,000 building in Mumbai without occupancy certificate. He further says that the BMC should cooperate with the residents and should provide the occupancy certificates to the buildings, where the issues are resolvable.
The major gap is that the buyers do not understand the importance of the occupancy certificate and they do not bother if the building they area living in or are buying has the occupancy certificate or not.
What is the occupancy certificate?
Once the construction is completed and the compound is ready for in-habitation, the Occupancy Certificate is issued by the local civic body to the builder, stating that the building is a legal construction and has all the approvals from the various government authorities. It is illegal to occupy a building without an Occupancy Certificate.
What should be done?
The need is of a system to facilitate the tracing of building plans and approvals for the buyers. This will help the buyers to take a wiser decision. The second need is to have a strong on ground government body to keep a check on the construction quality and legalities related to approvals. These measures will make the whole system transparent and efficient.
A word of advice to the buyers.
No civic amenity will be provided to the building without the OC. Moreover, if you are owner of an apartment, which does not have an occupancy certificate, you will face challenges in resealing the property. Therefore, buyers should demand the builder to provide them a copy of the occupancy certificate before taking the possession of the apartment.
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aprovals from various government athorities, BMC, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, civic amenities, illegal buildings, Local civic body, Occupancy Certificate, supreme court demolition order, Worli’s Campa Cola residents
occupancy certificate shows that the construction building by builders is legal.