Illegal PG accommodation in Chandigarh

Fear of crackdown prompts landlords to act Ask paying guests to fill in verification forms to avoid action

Chandigarh, July 30
The fear of crackdown by the UT administration as part of their intensive campaign against landlords illegally renting out their premises to paying guests (PGs) in the city has forced them to get verification forms filled by the occupants.

Sahil Chauhan, a postgraduate student at Panjab University, who resides as a PG in Sector 15, says he has been asked to fill the verification form by his landlord.
“In fact all students residing in my PG accommodation have been asked to furnish their details at the earliest or else we will have to vacate the accommodation,” Chauhan adds.

Manipal Singh, another PG resident in Sector 22, says he has been residing in the same accommodation for the past two years. All these years, he claims, he has never been asked to fill a verification form. However, all of a sudden, his landlord has now asked him to fill out the verification form.

A landlord running a PG in Sector 34, praying anonymity, says he has distributed verification forms among his PG residents and asked them to deposit them by the first week of August.
“In the wake of the UT administration’s campaign to verify PGs in the city, most landlords offering PG accommodations in our sectors have also started asking the occupants to give their details,” says a PG owner.
“It is becoming difficult to rent a PG accommodation in the city as landlords have now begun making detailed enquiries before offering a PG. It has been almost 10 days now since I started hunting for a decent PG accommodation. But I have failed to find one,” says Rohit Singh, who works with a multi-national company.
In some sectors, landlords have decided to offer the accommodation only to families and not students.

During a recent meeting, the UT administration and the police had also decided to start a verification drive in various sectors and penalise landlords who failed to get a prior verification of their paying guests done.

Hub of students staying as PGs

Much of the city’s student community living as PGs is concentrated in Sectors 8, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 32, 33, 34 and 35. Apprehending crackdown, landlords in some sectors have decided to offer their accommodations only to families and not students.