Shimla that has grown haphazardly in the absence of a masterplan is set to face another blow: regularisation of unauthorised constructions — whi

RUDYARD KIPLING was in love with it, spending a month here every year between 1885 and 1888. Shimla featured in many of the stories he wrote for the Civil and Military Gazette, which were later compiled as Plain Tales from The Hills. Another famous writer Edward J Buck, the author of “Simla Past and Present”, lived here. And even if not many in the Congress today remember A O Hume, the founder of the party is still well-known here. His ‘Rothney Castle’, known as Sheeshey Wali Kothi, is located right next to Holly Lodge, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh’s private bungalow, and is one of the architectural legacies of the Raj in these hills. With its fascinating history, peopled with a complex cast of characters including viceroys and their wives, civil servants, British architects and European gardeners, Shimla, which was the summer capital of the Raj for nearly a 100 years until India’s independence, is truly a hill station without parallel.

Haphazard constructions in Shimla have turned the hill town into a concrete jungle.
Haphazard constructions in Shimla have turned the hill town into a concrete jungle.

But the Shimla of today is no longer a place of retreat. It is now a haphazardly grown urban nightmare struggling to find its lost identity amid multi-storied houses, built over hills with leftover patches of deodar forest in between the concrete.

In the words of Raaja Bhasin, a noted Shimla historian and INTACH activist: “The post-1947 era have been particularly cruel to Shimla; a gracious lady who has aged, and wrinkled long before her time….”

Now Shimla is bracing for one more blow. In one big swoop, the government will regularise all unauthorised buildings and structural violations by house owners. More than 2,565 applications for regularisations had poured in after the government promulgated an Ordinance earlier this year. In the weeklong monsoon session of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly that begins today, this Ordinance will be replaced by a Bill that the state cabinet approved last week. The Bill includes several concessions not in the Ordinance.

The government describes it as a ‘’one-time” relief, but it is certainly not the first time that this has been done. Such relief under ‘Retention policy’ has been granted ahead of Shimla Municipal Corporation polls by successive governments, both Congress and the BJP.

Municipal Corporation officials say the applications for regularisation could cross 5,000 after the Bill is passed. There are a total of 26,000 buildings in the town and more than 540 cases of violations were already pending for action, including demolitions and major penalties in the court of Commissioner, Municipal Corporation. Once the Bill is passed to amend the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Act, the cases of violations will become infructuous.

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Even the provisions of the TCP Act 1977 were never enforced. For example section 16, which officials claim to be the life-line of the Act — it bars changing land use or carrying out any development of land without permission in writing of the Director (TCP) — has remained only on papers. Nobody stopped or monitored ongoing constructions or tried to maintain open spaces in the town. Shimla’s Bharari area on the North of the Ridge and towards south areas like Panthaghati, Bypass and Boulia are the latest examples of unplanned constructions.

The Municipal Corporation has made its own contribution by giving construction permissions in a pick-and-choose manner. Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh’s son Vikramaditya Singh was allowed to raise a multi-storey commercial Guest House in a banned area. A retaining wall at the site where massive digging was done, next to the heritage Holly Lodge, the CM’s private bungalow, caved in after the rains. One tree also fell down and a second looks like it may fall any time.

“Twenty other citizens were also granted similar sanctions as a private builder had also raised the flats in the same eco-fragile zone,” a senior BJP leader, alleges adding that Municipal Corporation acts only to favour politically high-ups and influential people. A city businessman close to a leading political family was given sanction to build a posh hotel in the non-construction zone, few meters away from the Secretariat.

Judicial interventions through PILs, or suo moto actions of the High Court, too, have not regulated construction or succeed in bringing about long-term reform for planned growth.

Even as the High Court has made it mandatory for Shimla residents to have a private parking space before getting a new vehicle registered, the number is still growing. Many get vehicles registered elsewhere in the district and ply it in the town. Lack of parking facilities has choked roads and lanes. Some areas are inaccessible even for fire tenders and ambulances.

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