GHMC sitting on building permissions

Hyderabad: The efforts of GHMC Commissioner Somesh Kumar to reduce the pendency of applications in town planning department, seeking building permissions, appear to have failed to yield desired result.

Ironically, the number of pending applications in the highest revenue-earning wing of the corporation has doubled in the last one month.

According to official statistics of the town planning, it has received 761 fresh applications seeking GHMC permission for construction of buildings between August 6 and September 6 this year. Of the total applications, the officials could dispose of only 50 applications and the rest were returned to the applicants, citing various loopholes.

The fresh addition of the pending applications has also led to the jump in the total applications pending with the corporation. The number of total pending applications has now reached 1,358.

Interestingly, some of these applications are pending since January 1, 2010. If we look at the last four and half years of official data, the town planning department had received a total of 45,661 applications from January 1, 2010 to September 5 this year, seeking building permissions. Of them, only 36,515 were granted permissions.

Of the remaining applications, 5,483 were rejected due to various reasons and 2,305 were returned to the applicants. Similarly, a glance at the other services offered by the corporation also throws up a poor picture.

The town planning wing received 225 fresh applications seeking a very important occupancy certificate between August 6, 2014 and September 6 this year. Of the total applications, only 8 have been disposed. The remaining 213 applications have been consigned to pending log of the corporation.

Interestingly, the corporation had received a total of 6,646 applications seeking occupancy certificate since January 1, 2010. Of the total applications only 4,078 applications were processed by the officials as on September 5 this year.

Of the remaining applications, 978 were returned and 874 applications were rejected by the officials on various grounds. A total of 716 applications are lying pending with the officials.The existing rules clearly state that no application related to building permission and occupancy certificate should be kept pending unless there is a strong reason to do so.

Speaking on the issue, a senior town planning official said that carrying out of other duties like demolition of illegal constructions, intensive household survey were the main reasons for the increase in pendency.

'We have launched a special drive against unauthorized constructions aggressively in recent times and demolished scores of buildings in the corporation limits including in the controversial Ayappa cooperative housing society.

Besides, we were given the responsibility of carrying out the recent household survey. This has led to the piling up of pending applications," he said. Moreover, the town planning wing lacks adequate staff to process the applications in time.

Interestingly, GHMC Commissioner Somesh Kumar slapped fines on some of the town planning officials for defaulting on their deadlines vis-a-vis delivery of services.