One more incident of conflict between the residents and builder regarding basic issues has come to light - this time from Lal Kuan’s Ebony Greens, in which the latter disconnected the power supply of over 80 households on Saturday for not paying the outstanding dues of maintenance fee for back-up power in the society. As a result, residents had to suffer for 12 hours without electricity.
“When we approached maintenance office to know the reason, the bouncers deployed there heckled and did not allow us to talk to the staff,” said Abhishek Gupta, Joint Secretary of the society’s Apartments Owners Association (AOA).
"Residents called the Ghaziabad Police to intervene in the matter and only then, the power supply resumed. We also filed a police complaint next day," added Gupta.
RP Mishra, AGM of facilities, told City Spidey the power supply were interrupted of those households only whose arrears had crossed fifty thousand rupees. “We conveyed this to the residents as well,” he added.
The maintenance of the society is looked after by the builder and the majority of residents have stopped paying maintenance since the month of April, said Gupta.
“However, residents claimed they never stopped paying electricity charge to the builder,” added Gupta.
When we asked Gupta to know the reason behind it, he said the residents had to resort to this action because the builder had done several works haphazardly which is evident from the look of the society. “One can see the plasters on the walls withering, cracks in the staircases. Apart from this, seepage in buildings is a persistent problem and lifts too stop working regularly,” Gupta said.
Besides, the one and a half kilometer-long connecting road from the society to main road of Lal Kuan is yet to be constructed. “The road is muddy and turns into a swamp during monsoon. Residents face harrowing time while commuting through it,” he added.
“The residents had sent several reminders, held talks with the builder to resolve these issues but to no avail. Finally, we went to the Ghaziabad Development Authority where the builder was ordered to finish the things, otherwise further construction in the campus would be freezed,” Gupta told City Spidey.
However, Mishra denied the claim made by Gupta. “We were told to construct the road and to submit the necessary documents for completion certificate. Nothing else,” he said.
Besides, the residents also blamed the builder for increasing power back-up charge by 50 per cent without seeking consent of the residents.
“In January 2018, the price was revised from 16 to 19 pc which further hiked to 24 pc in September 2018,” Mishra said.
“We pushed the hike in tandem with the constant rise in diesel price. However, since the price has fallen down, we will reduce the charge of back-up power as well,” he added.
