Corp’s bid to demolish resort fails

Thiruvananthapuram: Collective resistance from resort staff and other residents in the area forced the city corporation team to withdraw from the move to demolish Pappukutty beach resort at Kovalam for alleged violation of coastal regulation zone norms and building rules on Tuesday.
The civic body had earlier issued demolition notice to the resort owner and according to officials they did not turn up for hearing and failed to produce any documents proving that the building was authorized.
A team of corporation officials with Vizhinjam zonal office accompanied by police from Kovalam station turned up at the resort on Tuesday morning and communicated to the resort staff that the building was unauthorized and that it would be demolished. The civic body team however was outnumbered and ill-equipped given the task at hand.
The resort owner P Natarajan objected to the move and said that he had been paying tax for all the buildings at the resort.
The corporation officials refuted this and said that they had scrutinized all documents and none of the claims of the resort owner held ground.
The staff then produced tax payment receipts, which showed that tax had been paid for unauthorized constructions, as per Section 242 of Kerala Municipality Act. Although the corporation officials tried to explain that receiving tax did not mean authorizing the building the staff kept saying that the structure cannot be demolished after corporation had received tax.
Natarajan said that he had completed construction of around nine buildings in the resort by 1995 when the area was within panchayat limits. Another staff said that CRZ norms could not be applied to the area since the building was constructed before CRZ notification came into effect.
“I had paid around Rs 21 lakh as tax in the past six years to corporation. LSG tribunal had also ordered corporation to regularize the construction, but civic body never regularized our construction,” said Natarajan.
The engineering officials with the corporation said that the resort owner had never filed an application for regularization.
“We never received any application for regularization. Even if we had received the application it could not be processed since the government order clearly says that buildings violating CRZ norms cannot be regularized,” said an official.
The officials also said that even the tax receipts they had produced belonged to a different building. The resort owner admitted that he had not filed any application with Kerala coastal zone management authority for CRZ clearance.
The resort staff said that they had filed a petition in the court to obtain a stay and corporation was acting in haste. When tension soared over the demolition bid, Kovalam police intervened and said that there was lack of clarity regarding the demolition order. Police also said that they got informed about the demolition bid only in the morning. “There seems to be some doubts regarding payment of tax and all. Besides corporation informed us only today and we need more force,” said a police official attached to Kovalam station.
The civic body officials told the police that they had clearly communicated to the police on record about the demolition notice and that on Tuesday they went in person to remind the police about the need for security.