PUNE: Baner and Balewadi, which are part of the smart city project and also favourite residential hubs of information technology professionals, have most illegal hotels and rooftop restaurants. The civic body takes action many times but the illegal activities resume when civic officials turn their back. 

These hotels use a huge amount of space without any licence. This leads to a loss of revenue for the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and also raises questions about citizens’ safety. 

DCN has got a list of unauthorised rooftop restaurants and it is clear that in some hotels, the entire rooftop structure is illegal. 

Hotel White House, located in Baner, has an illegal construction of 297 square metres on the rooftop and it has been served a notice on August 2. Hotel Signature Bar’s 74 square metres rooftop is illegal. Hotel Heaven has an illegal rooftop measuring 279 square metres and the hotel authorities have removed an area of 186 square metres. Civic officials took action against an area of 93 square metres on July 6. Hotel Little Delhi has an unauthorised area of 149 square metres. However, no action has been taken despite being served a notice on June 13. 

Some hotels like Hotel Orion (604 square metres), Hotel V-18 located in Balewadi (600 square foot), Hotel Madari  (491 square metres), Hotel Ice and Fire (186 square metres) removed the illegal rooftop structures after receiving notices from the PMC.

According to local residents, after action by the PMC, the sheds are removed temporarily. However, the restaurants start functioning again. Many times, lodging complaints does not yield any results.