AGARTALA, July 1 (TIWN): The shopping malls being erected here at Tripura capital Agartala proved to have constructed illegally with no basic facilities for the customers and other common masses of the state. The Tripura High Court Chief Justice Deepak Gupta on Wednesday hearing the Suo Moto Public Interest Litigation (PIL) had directed the Agartala Municipal Corporation (AMC) engineer and the Fire Service Director to submit an affidavit mentioning the role played against the shopping malls for building multi-storied buildings without proper facilities. The HC on Wednesday found that the shopping malls built here in city Agartala has no car parking facility, lack of ramp, fire protection facilities, lack of emergency exit doors inside the malls and other basic facilities which needs to be provided to the customers.

The AMC authority, owners of the shopping malls and DM (West) on Wednesday submitted the status report of the malls before the HC where the AMC authority had mentioned in their statement that the owners of the malls failed to built their multi-storied malls as per the plan and they have cheated the AMC by this. 

However, following this the HC Chief Justice Deepak Gupta had asked the ML Plaza owner, Aitorma building owner and the Bazar Kolkata owner to submit the affidavit with the court. Besides the court had also asked the AMC Engineer to submit affidavit mentioning how come the AMC permit the building authorities to function here in Agartala city despite they failed to build all the necessary requirements in the buildings. 

The HC on Wednesday also asked the Fire Service Director to submit affidavit mentioning based on what documents the fire service authority allowed the shopping malls to function here despite they do not have fire protection facilities.

It is to be mentioned here that acting on the direction of the HC, District Magistrate west Millind Ramteke on June 20 had visited all the shopping malls of Agartala city to take a stock of the facilities available in the shopping malls of the city.

During the visit he inspected whether the malls have the proper place for parking or not, does it have the proper emergency exit, ramp for the disabled people, appropriate electricity and water supply, facility of lift and fire lift, proper installment of CCTV camera, the entry and exit doors, and whether resting place for the consumers available or not.

The visit was mainly aimed at looking for the availability of parking zone in the shopping malls along with the facility of lift and ramp for the consumers in the malls. The facility of parking zone is mostly important as improper parking of vehicles including motor-bikes, car, in the no parking zone on the roadside causes inconvenience to smooth traffic movement, and more seriously to pedestrians.

Widened portions of the roads get fully occupied mostly in the evening for parking and create clogging on either side the road due to irregular parking of vehicles.