Steni Simon By Express News Service THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: During its drive to curb unauthorised constructions, the Town Planning wing of the city corporation detected 34 such violations in the city. Assistant executive engineers and assistant engineers of the technical wing have been entrusted with the task. They are being aided by the special staff deployed for the mission. The squad will work on all holidays till the end of this month. “We have been conducting regular inspections since August 25. Many highrises were identified wherein the parking slots were altered and used for other purposes,” said Palayam Rajan, chairperson of the Town Planning Committee. Officials will also look into the complaints registered in the squad register and those received via phone, and immediately issue stop memo to bring the construction to a halt. They have already given stop memo to the owners of the 34 buildings that were found violating rules. “None of these constructions had valid permits. Based on these reports, we initiated steps to regularise these buildings,” said a corporation official. Earlier, the corporation had initiated housing schemes where the people have to furnish stage-wise details of house construction to avail financial assistance to prevent malpractice. Monitoring of works, right from construction of the basement, is being mooted as the corporation has not been able to do much when it comes to unauthorised constructions. In many cases, the violators were found filing cases and the legal tussle would drag on indefinitely and the corporation would end up losing money which would otherwise be paid as property tax. “Since it is Onam, we have only given notices to the 34 unauthorised constructions. After September 16, we plan to conduct a meeting after which strict action will be taken against the violators. ,” said Rajan.

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