Bhubaneswar: Illegal structures in the city for which demolition orders were issued 30 years ago are still standing tall, with authorities unable to implement the orders due to various administrative reasons.
The debate about the illegal structures of the city intensified recently when the housing and urban development minister, Krushna Chandra Mahapatra, revealed in the state assembly that there are 491 such structures, of which demolition orders have been issued for 191.

Mahapatra added that out of the 491 cases, 237 are currently under trial while 63 cases have been dropped after court proceedings. Bur Mahapatra didn’t say anything about the types of structures and the year when cases are initiated against them.
According to the list of all the 491 cases of the illegal structures accessed by TOI revealed that since 1994, cases were initiated and finalised against such structures under the Odisha Development Authority Act of 1982 in the ODA court.
As per the list, in 1994, four cases were initiated out of which demolition order has been issued for one structure while in following year, one case was initiated and in 1996, nine cases were initiated and demolition orders were issued for three structures. Moreover, from the list that also contains the basic information about the cases, it is found that the high-rises against which cases are initiated are all kinds of buildings including apartments, hospitals, educational institutions and shopping malls, among others.
It is further revealed that the cases have been initiated against the illegal structures between 1994 and 2022. All the cases initiated since 2017 remained under trial, as per the list. I
n 2022, three cases have been registered and all are apartments.
“The ODA court initiates the proceedings and issues orders based on the findings. The demolition orders couldn’t be carried out in most cases since the parties appealed in the higher courts,” a senior Bhubaneswar Development Authority official said.
Real estate experts in the meantime suggest bringing some regularisation scheme for the structures since they believe that demolition is not feasible.
“The plan approval should not be provided to them at first place,” real estate expert Bimalendu Pradhan said.
He said that the authorities need to come up with a scheme like ‘Sarbakhyama’ and regularise the construction on payment of some fees.
“This will be a win-win situation for everyone. The structures which defied major norms can be demolished,” Pradhan said.

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