The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has decided to use Google maps to verify the building status before giving the final clearance to the 27,860 pending applications under the Building Penalisation Scheme (BPS).
These applications were found to be in order except that in some cases clearances have to come from the urban land ceiling authorities and in quite a few no-objection certificates have to be taken from the fire safety wing.
But, considering that the Government’s cut off date to process the pending BPS applications has long gone, senior municipal officials have sought the former’s permission to clear them as they were eligible for clearance in all aspects pending submission of the necessary documents.
The Government advised caution on processing them since there were instances in some municipal circles like Kukatpally where the scheme was fraudulently misused to clear quite a few unauthorised buildings. This was done by revalidating old demand drafts submitted and using the applications form numbers of the rejected ones to submit fresh applications. A vigilance probe is also currently on.
The municipal corporation then went on a fact finding mission by randomly inspecting the buildings to check for the veracity of details given in the applications. Till date buildings in seven circles were checked and the Commissioner M.T. Krishna Babu has directed that Google maps of 2007 depicting the status of the building then in the randomly checked structures to lend authenticity to the exercise, senior officials say.
These would be sent to the Government seeking permission for clearing the applications. BPS was closed in Dec.31, 2010 and time was given last year to clear the pending applications.
Vast majority of them pertain to buildings located in the areas of East Zone: Kapra, Uppal, L.B.Nagar (6,693), followed by North Zone: Qutbullapur, Alwal, Malkajgiri, Secunderabad (5,544) and Central Zone: Mehdipatnam, Tolichowki, Himayatnagar, Musheerabad, Domalguda, Khairatabad, Ameerpet, Jubilee Hills, etc.
There are also 3,886 applications in West Zone pertaining to Serlingampally, Gachibowli, Kukatpally and 3,679 applications in the South Zone pertaining to mostly the old city.
LRS
About 12,878 applications submitted under the Layout Regularisation Scheme (LRS) too are awaiting disposal and the scheme is in force till June end.
