The facade of Landmark, on Eastern Metropolitan Bypass. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

The scheduled Poila Baisakh opening of Landmark, a three-star hotel on Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, has become uncertain with the pollution control board (PCB) issuing a notice on disconnecting power supply to the property and closing it down.

Armed with photographs, the green board has charged the management of the Astoria Hotel-owned venture, worth Rs 7 crore, with filling up a waterbody. On February 20, the management was asked to submit all papers within seven days to prove that it had not.

The PCB, on the basis of photographs taken on February 13, held that the hotel has come up within the wetland area, and demanded a conversion certificate for the plot.

No document was submitted within the deadline, prompting the green watchdog to slap another notice on the management, on March 6. It read: ?Electricity connection to M/s Landmark Hotel, located at 36 F, Topsia Road, will be disconnected and closure order will be imposed.?

The PCB has requested the executive director, CESC, to snap supply immediately.

Denying the landfill charge, Raju Alimchandani, chairman and managing director of Astoria Hotel, asked: ?Can anyone obtain a land-conversion certificate for a plot marked as ?bastu land? in the record?? He also dismissed as baseless the charge that the hotel has started functioning.

Two other major charges levelled against the hotel are that it has started operations without the PCB?s consent and that it had obtained ?consent to build the structure? by suppressing the fact that a waterbody was being filled up.

Board chairman Sudip Kumar Banerjee asserted: ?We are convinced that the hotel has come up on a waterbody and that the owners had obtained permission by suppressing crucial facts.?

Alimchandani countered: ?We had obtained PCB?s consent after producing the sale deed of the plot, mutation certificate from the civic body, clearance from Calcutta Improvement Trust and a no-objection certificate from the urban land ceiling authority.?

Director-general (building) in the civic body Gorachand Mondol said the construction proposal was approved only after it was cleared by other agencies. Engineers in the building department claimed that the wetlands are on the eastern side of the Bypass, while the hotel is on the western side.

? Deepankar Ganguly