Mumbai: Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) chief and Thane collector have locked horns over issuance of occupation certificate (OC) to one building in a Mira Road housing complex, which is under Urban Land Ceiling (ULC).
According to Thane dictrict collector Ashok Shingare, the land owner should apply for an NOC and submit it to MBMC to acquire all permissions related to construction, while MBMC chief Sanjay Katkar said this rule doesn’t apply to this project. However, contradicting itself, MBMC has directed one of the buildings to approach the collector to get the NOC, so that they can issue the OC.
The complex houses 60 buildings on 82,000 sq m of land in Mira gaon. Of these, 59 buildings have got OC, barring building number 9 in sector 5. After learning that the building’s OC was rejected on Jan 6, 2023, Rajesh Singh “exposed the ULC scam”. He wrote to MBMC chief and the collector. This is when he found out that the land owner had not taken the collector’s NOC and that MBMC had not got collector’s nod to issue OCs. On Jan 8, 2023, the collector sent a letter to Katkar. On Feb 22, 2024, Katkar replied that MBMC does not have to rely on the collector’s NOC to issue OC. “On Nov 4, 2024, the collector issued directions to all civic authorities to stop issuing construction approvals and OCs without its NOC and ordered a stay on the OCs issued,” said Singh. Katkar did not respond to TOI’s calls. — Vishal Rajemahadik
