GUWAHATI, Dec 7 ? The one-man enquiry commission, headed by Sri TL Baruah, IAS (Retd), which probed the cases of allotments in the city?s green belts, has observed that under the prevailing circumstances, it would be futile to keep certain areas reserved as Green Belt Zone. The prevailing situation is such that even the Standing Appeal Committee of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) had failed to protect the green belt areas and both the GMC and the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) had failed to maintain an effective mechanism for regular physical verification of the condition in the green belt areas, the commission observed.
It has also called for setting up of a inspection/monitoring cell by the GMDA/GMC to regularly inspect the protected areas and report if any encroachment or any deviation from the permission granted by the authorities takes place in these areas. The commission, which holds the GMC responsible in most of the cases of violation of the city?s master plan provisions in relation to the green belt areas, has not spared the State Government agencies either for their roles in connection with the green belt areas. The statement of the Settlement Officer, Kamrup, showed reduction of area under cultivation and increase in the area under commercial or residential purposes, within the green belt zone of the city, the commission observed.
The case of the State Government?s allotting 30 bighas of land to the Assam State Warehousing Corporation to construct warehouses in Pub-Boragaon, Maz-Jalukbari, has been cited by the commission as one of the examples of the State Government?s lack of concern for the preservation of the green belt areas in the city. The GMDA sub-committee on zoning appeal rejected the proposal of the Warehousing Corporation in its meeting on March 26, 1993. For, the committee felt that commercial construction in the green belt areas should be discouraged.It may be mentioned that this area is close to Deepar Beel.
A case in point in this connection may be the Santa-Monica Housing Complex built by the Assam State Housing Board at Modgharia. The commission noticed that several unauthorised constructions were going on at the marshy land adjacent to the complex and thereby posed a threat to the Sil Sako Beel, a channel having connection with the Brahmaputra through a sluicegate, at Bonda. The blocking or narrowing of the water channel would have disastrous consequences in future, the commission observed.
Moreover, the commission observed, the green belt zone from the State Guest House to the Institute of Entrepreneurship had developed into a highly commercialised zone with weighbridges, warehouses, hotels, petrol pumps, etc. It appears that a gradual transformation is taking place in the green belt areas. More and more land is being converted to use other than agriculture in these villages (numbering 17 in all, as per the Settlement Officer?s statement).
If it is decided to enforce the green belt regulation strictly, then it would be proper to scrutinise the application for land sale/transfer permission more vigorously keeping in view the green belt zoning regulation, the commission said. But the commission observed that it appeared from the statement of the Settlement Officer, in respect of the 17 green belt zone villages, that the Revenue department was indiscriminately allotting/ settling sarkari land within the green belt zone to different parties including individual allottees.
Such allotment/ settlement should be done within the green belt zone only in exceptional cases after prior consultation with the Guwahati Development department, the commission said. It also maintained that due to the existence of two authorities in matters of granting building permission in the green belt zone, various anomalies had taken place in granting such permissions. Therefore, it suggested that for preservation of green belt zone, only one authority, the GMDA, should be authorised exclusively to issue building permission in green belt zone.