Bengaluru's municipal body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has cancelled occupancy certificates (OCs) for 160 apartments in the Casagrand Lorenza project for non-compliance with fire safety provisions and deviation from the approved building plan.
"The building has not met the provisions for fire safety and the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board. Additionally, the project violated the BBMP bylaws by deviating from the approved plan. Thus, under Section 307 of BBMP Act, the OC has been cancelled," the order dated July 1 said.
Shashidhar Bagewadi, one of the homebuyers and the chief complainant in the case, had bought an apartment in the project in North Bengaluru for Rs 1 crore in 2019.
"Parts of the common areas on the ground floor have been sold to homebuyers (on that floor) that the cancellation order from BBMP noted," Bagewadi said.
Today, the project still does not have access to solar water heaters and solar panels for the common areas, Bagewadi added.
BBMP bylaws say that residential buildings with a floor area of 200 sq m or site area of more than 400 sq m should have solar heaters that can provide 100 litres of heated water daily to every unit. Additionally, multi-unit residential buildings of five or more floors need to have solar panels installed to power common amenities like lights, etc.
According to a Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM) order dated April 25, 2023, the power supply to the project was disconnected temporarily due to non-compliance with solar water heater provisions. BESCOM officials have confirmed the developments to Moneycontrol.
"We only allow a construction deviation of 5 percent from the approved building plans. However, we found several violations in this project. The department takes illegal deviations seriously and will start taking actions on all such projects that violate the building bylaws," a BBMP official said.
According to a BBMP survey last year, about 200,000 buildings in the tech capital have deviated from sanctioned plans. In 2021, another study survey revealed that more than 85 percent of new buildings constructed in 2020 and 2021 had violated building bylaws.
Right to Information (RTI) activist and Bangalore City Flat Owners’ Welfare Association President Anil Kalgi said about 80 percent of the apartment buildings in Bengaluru violate these bylaws even as they hold a valid OC.
Earlier in January, BBMP cancelled about 2,000 OCs issued to a Sobha City project for the alleged fabrication of documents.
"Good to see BBMP is taking some actions based on the complaints raised by the homebuyers. By cancelling the OC, the job is not done, the BBMP commissioner should investigate the complaint and ensure whoever has given OC earlier must be booked for dereliction of duty and (probe) possibilities of corruption in the municipal administration," said Dhananjaya Padmanabhachar, director, Karnataka Home Buyers Forum.
A list of questions has been sent to the developer and Moneycontrol will update the story after receiving a response.
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