The Noida Authority CEO Ritu Maheshwari on Friday said that the ‘Supertech Twin Tower’ incident has led the authority to revise norms and make them more stringent in disbursal of floor area ratio (FAR) to developers, a move to prevent such episodes in the future.
“If there is a violation then definitely its responsibility will be fixed, if not today then tomorrow. Everybody should abide by all the norms fixed by the Government and by the court,” said Maheshwari.
“There were directions from the Supreme Court and it was an old matter which was taken seriously by the Uttar Pradesh Government. The State Government formed an SIT (special investigation team) that found involvement of 26 officials in different periods of time. FIRs were lodged against all these officials,” said Maheshwari.
“The Government has taken strict action against them. There has been a strong message from the court and the Government that violation (of rules) will not go unpunished,” she said. “This Government and the Noida Authority are continuously making efforts to ensure work is done with transparency and accountability. Also, whatever new works and initiatives take place, they should be done with the larger public interest in mind so that everyone benefits from them,” she added. Maheshwari said in the case of twin towers, it was not that the maps were not approved by the Noida Authority. “Even the court noted that there was connivance between Noida Authority officials and the builder. Approvals for construction were given by the Noida Authority itself. The FAR purchase was also approved in keeping with the then norms and bylaws,” she said. “The violations were related more to technical aspects like the distance between the towers and so on. Besides, residents’ consent was not taken,” she added.
On measures to prevent such episodes in the future, the Noida Authority CEO said they have revised the norms for consent and made them more stringent in disbursal of FAR to builders besides streamlining payment methods.
“The Noida Authority has come out with a new format in which developers have to get the consent of buyers for such constructions, a practice that was not in place earlier. What happened earlier was that the builders took the home buyers’ consent only at the time of selling inventory,” Maheshwari said.