NILGIRIS: Condemning the district administration for delaying in providing approvals to construct buildings, members of the Nilgiris Civil Engineers Association (NCEA) staged a novel protest by eating soil at Suthanthira Thidal near the ATC bus stop on Wednesday.
The members holding placards mentioned that the Nilgiris administration is biased towards issuing building approvals and thus cheating the people.
Speaking to the media, association secretary, Madheswaran said that the district administration has been delaying the plan approvals in the last five years and around 5,000 house plan applications were pending before the district administration.
He added, “We suspect that the delay in issuing plan approvals is due to the separate practice followed by the concerned district collectors who served and are serving in the district. As of now, collector Lakshmi Bhavya Tanneeru is forwarding those applications of buildings that are less than 1,500 square feet to the Architectural and Aesthetics Aspects (AAA) committee and DTCP. However, the building proposed up to 2,500-square-feet need not be forwarded to the AAA and DTCP as per law. This is a strategy of the current collector to drag on the plan approvals.”
“We are not against the environment, and we also have concerns about protecting Nilgiris. However, we urge the authorities to issue plan approval as per the law. Due to the delay, hundreds of workers in construction work are jobless. Delay in issuing building approvals is an injustice to the people of Nilgiris,” Madheswaran further said.