The residents of ARK Serene county and the association members would like to thank our builder ‘ARK infra private limited’ and the ‘BBMP officials’ on receiving the OC copy. We would also like to take this opportunity to mention that our previous complaints regarding the delay in OC were not to blame any individual nor to hurt anybody’s sentiments. Our complaint was based on the suspicion raised in our minds due to delay in the process of issuing OC for our apartment. Considering the present scenario we would like to thank all the people involved in the process for speedy delivery of the occupancy certificate to “ARK Serene county” residents.

We got OC after a wait of two years. But that’s not real reason to write this post. Wanted to highlight the fight we fought to standup against the corrupt practices involved in dealing with government offices and how we got our OC without using any shortcut methods.

Builder had applied for OC in April 2015 and all he showed us was a acknowledgement letter that application is in progress. With that letter we happily waited for almost two years that things are in process. I filed a RTI application using the acknowledgement letter to get the information from BBMP but to my surprise they didn’t respond till date even after first appeal. Our next step was to take builder to consumer forum, send a legal notice and also put a complaint at BBMP regarding delay in issuing OC.

Finally during a Million Voter Rising camp when we had to produce property tax receipts we highlighted this problem.Then we along with Whitefield rising team submitted a written complaint to BBMP Joint commissioner and then on JC’s advice reported the alleged demands to Jt. Director Town Planning at BBMP HO  and things changed like fire there after. Our application which was pending for for so long started moving quickly from one department to another. Even the builder who was not responding to us started giving us regular updates about the OC. We made multiple visits to BBMP head quarters to keep the momentum going. And finally in 2 months we have the OC.

The OC finally issued showed that the builder owed Rs. 1.29 crores in back dues of ground rent and compounding fees – he paid that on April 4 th and we got the OC finally on April 22.  We have to ensure that builders don’t try to pass these fees on to us by round about demands. We stuck to our stand and were successful and now have a proper Plan Sanction and bribe-free OC Issued with all dues cleared.

The reason behind writing this post is to highlight the need to standup and fight instead of looking for shortcuts, Once you stand up the opposition tends to crumble – Sometimes people in your own group will want to give up and It will be tough and time consuming but really worth it. There are people, organizations to help if we show the courage. Thanks to Whitefield rising team for the support.

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ARK Residents and the association members