Roof of eight-storeyed house razed on Day 1 - Demolition for benefit of Darjeeling, chairman tells owner’s kin

Darjeeling, Nov. 3: The drive to demolish illegal buildings started this afternoon with civic workers dismantling a portion of an eight-storeyed structure in the heart of the town.

The Darjeeling Municipality had requested police to be present at N.B. Singh Road, before the demolition drive started. The building is owned by Kwok Ying Chung and is his residence too. The third and fourth floors form Hotel Seven Seas while the others have been let out to offices and shops.

The demolition brigade, which had in it the civic chairman Pemba Tshering Ola, vice-chairman Dinesh Gurung, and municipality engineers, reached Chung’s house around 2.30pm.

“Please do not take it personally. This is for the benefit of the public and the town", Ola told Chung’s family members before the demolition drive started. Chung was away in Calcutta. “I passed an order today under Section 218 of the Bengal Municipality Act, which authorises the civic body to dismantle illegal structures. The building is eight storied and anything beyond four is illegal in the hill town,” said Ola.

The workers uprooted the tin roof of the duplex structure, whose top three storeys had not yet been completed. Later, the family members requested the municipality to allow them to use their own carpenters to demolish the structure. By evening, a major portion of the roof had been removed.

“The owners will have to bear the expense of the demolition,” said Ola. The chairman said notices would be sent to four to five more buildings along Ladenla Road and H.D. Lama Road.

According to the West Bengal Municipality Act, buildings in the hills should not be more than 11.5m, which is roughly around four storeys. The earlier GNLF board had adopted a by-law and raised the height to 13.5m.

The municipality had been almost non-functional for a number of months earlier this year following a tug of war between the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and the GNLF councillors.

The new board, which came to power in April, did not go by heights in metres but announced that buildings higher than four storeys were illegal. In August, it demolished a part of a hotel in Chowrastha when its owner tried to erect a structure on the rooftop. The proprietor was known to be close to the Morcha.

Earlier, the municipality had said it would legalise all “illegal structures” (buildings which have more than four storeys) and evaluate the taxes.

Today, too, Ola repeated that the policy was still in place. “We are legalising buildings that are more than four storeys high, but they should have come up during the tenure of the previous board. Structures that were developed in recent times, between December 2007 and March 2008 (taking advantage of the political turmoil in the hills) are being demolished.”

Chung said over the phone that he had received a notice from the municipality “some time ago”.

“I have heard that my house is being dismantled. I have nothing to say. I hope the treatment is fair for there are buildings in town that are even nine storied,” said Chung.