KOLKATA: A leeway extended by KMC about 15 years ago, which allowed construction of three-storey buildings in south Kolkata ‘colony areas’ without plan sanction, has come back to haunt the civic body.
Unscrupulous promoters have, over the years, used this freedom to dot the area with flats – many of those with an illegally added floor, and most without building plans.
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Subho Apartment in Baghajatin Vidyasagar Colonywhich keeled over on Tuesday to an adjacent building, is the perfect example of such a “ghost building”.

Built in 2013 and home to six families, it did not have any sanction from the corporation; neither did developer Subhas Roy, now on the run, get permission to correct the tilt it developed since 2020.
The corporation is only just realizing that “thousands” of buildings, across wards numbered between 96 and 100, could be unsanctioned. They realized the gravity of the situation only recently, when the civic body’s assessment department inspectors found out that as many as 4,000 buildings constructed in areas such as Vidyasagar Colony, Ramgarh, Naktala, Baghajatin, Bijoygarh, Netajinagar and Azadgarh, among other areas under these. wards, were unsanctioned.
An official said the assessment department was still in the process of collecting data on unsanctioned flats (“apartment buildings”). “Our inspectors have identified thousands of buildings during surveys in several south Kolkata wards in the Tollygunge-Jadavpur belt that were constructed without sanction. We have intensified our search for such buildings to mop up revenue,” said the official.
An official from the buildings department said the civic brass, in 2009, had offered special waivers in building rules so that residents of colony belts in south Kolkata could build their homes, but there was one condition: under no circumstance could the buildings be more than three storeys tall. “We had no idea that, taking advantage of the amnesty, land sharks would reap rich dividends by indulging in the construction of four-storey and even taller buildings, with us in the dark,” the official told TOI.
‘Constructions on filled-up ponds carry risk of settling’
The KMC buildings department official said the department would need to conduct a survey to find out whether more such buildings in the Tollygunge-Jadavpur belt, especially those constructed on wetlands – like Subho Apartment, which came up after filling up a pond – were vulnerable.
“Constructing a building after filling up a pond carries the risk of settling, which causes buildings to tilt, if the foundation is not laid properly,” the official said. “Accidents are waiting to happen in such cases if residents of such buildings don’t come forward and seek our help in correcting the tilt.” A KMC source said buildings department inspectors would be tasked with touring other parts of Vidyasagar Colony to find out if other buildings, built on filled-up ponds, had developed tilts.
Mayor Firhad Hakim, who has helmed KMC since 2018, on Wednesday came down heavily on the erstwhile Left Front-run KMC for offering the “amnesty”, blaming it for paving the way for a promoter raj. “We are suffering because of the sins of the Left Front, which invited promoters to break all building rules and put citizens in danger,” Hakim said, adding, “We will need to keep constant vigil on the areas where the buildings are coming up. , without any concern for basic safety.”
A former RSP councillor representing areas like Vidyasagar Colony and Baghajatin, however, argued that although Left Front had offered the “amnesty” to residents of south Kolkata colony belts “on genuine grounds”, it was Trinamool councillors, of the present board, who hobnobbed with unscrupulous promoters.