Who is guilty ? -- the Airport Authority of India (AAI); the municipal authority; the builder; or the occupants of the flats housed in buildings that have indulged in violation of height restrictions on construction around Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport at Sonegaon ? This question has assumed a sudden importance when the Airport Authority of India issued notices to 64 buildings covering around 1,000 flat owners around the Sonegaon Airport for violating height restrictions. Each side offers its own justification for whatever it has done or is doing. The AAI says, its norms are inviolable. The municipal authority says, it has sanctioned plans as per rules. The builder says, he has followed the regulation correctly. The flat-owner says, he has invested his life’s savings in innocent belief that everything is right. But in every justification, there is a little problem -- of varying degrees of slyness, of varying degrees of taking things for granted, of varying degrees of adamance.

 

So, who is guilty ? Probably, nobody is fully innocent. Everybody has indulged in some liberties, some looseness of thought and action. And now when things are coming to head, everybody may be scrambling to refit his/her argument in a new frame, new justification. But above all these is the political reality -- that once construction is complete, nobody is actually going to touch those 1,000 flats in high-rise buildings around the Sonegaon Airport. For, that presents a fait accompli -- beyond any authority’s reach. Of course, in some rare cases across the country, buildings have been torn down -- because of gross violations that could not be justified in whatever manner. Will such a thing at Nagpur, as well ? To this question, nobody has any authentic answer. So fluid is the situation. For, as the general political experience goes, once construction is complete, the buildings are not likely to be torn down. In this case around Sonegaon Airport, most builders insist that they have followed the height norms prescribed by the AAI via previous communications.

 

They allege that the AAI has altered the norms (possibly based on a new software that calculates the heights of buildings with mean-sea-level as base to measure the height of the structures). Under previous regulation, there was a standard, prescribed height of a building around airports. But the AAI now views the problem from another perspective. It now looks at the issue from the pilot’s point of view from an aircraft. The pilot’s core concern is the final height to which a construction rises, unmindful of the undulating land on which the structure may be standing. So, the top-line of buildings is what matters finally. As per this perspective, the AAI appears to have altered its guidelines on heigh-restrictions.

 

The builders approach this as something beyond their jurisdiction since they have made the buildings at huge costs based on earlier norms -- especially of height (of structures around airports). To certain extent, the plan-sanctioning local authority does not appear to be guilty. It has reason to assert that it has sanctioned buildings plans as per the documents presented by the builder and the architect.

 

The sly side of the issue is that once the plan is sanctioned by the local authority, there is probably no monitoring of the construction detail. So, in countess cases, the builders indulge in sky violations of sanctioned plans, construct more, and sell that additional space -- naturally for additional gains -- to the flat-buyer (who also does not mind the violation if he is getting a little bigger space to occupy). But there comes a problem: The local authority should issue an Occupancy Certificate that authorises the flat-buyer to occupy the place. But if there is a sly violation, then the builder or the flat-buyer decides not to be bothered about Occupancy Certificate. So, as the impression goes, countless numbers of people do not worry about the Occupancy Certificate and start using the space. So, to an extent, nobody is guilty as such. But nobody is innocent, too -- a little violation here, a little slyness there. Teri Bhi Chup, Meri Bhi Chup. This is, of course, not a loose generalisation; this is a probable picture of how things are made to happen. The notices of AAI to 1,000-plus flat-owners around Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport at Sonegaon have to considered with all these angles in view. This is how things are allowed to happen.