Obtaining building plans is no more a Herculean Task. The applicants need not run from pillar to post in corridors of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC). They need not either grease palms of officials in Town Planning wing.
The Corporation is contemplating receiving and sanctioning plans through eSeva centres. The necessary software is being developed, and the proposed services would be launched shortly.
The Corporation is toying with the idea of receiving the building applications through eSeva following increase in complaints and criticism on corruption in the Town Planning wing. “Once we remove the interface between officials and applications, the scope for corruption come down automatically,” says Municipal Commissioner G. Ravi Babu.
Of late, it has been observed that the people were making rounds in the corridors of the Corporation to get their applications sanctioned. In some cases, they wanted to construct the houses without following norms like set backs. This gives scope for corruption. If the new proposal were to be implemented, the applicants would have to fill the forms and submit all necessary documents mentioned in the appendices.
The queries, if any, would also be routed through the eSeva. At the end of day, either application is rejected or approved. The proposal would also help in brining down the piling applications at the Town Planning wing, he explains.
The town planning wing receives, on an average, 1,200 applications per annum. Of this, about 50 per cent applications are related to plans proposed in plots of less than 300 sq. metres size. The VMC received 106 building plans for plots of more than 300 sq. metres in 2008, while it was 101 in 2009 and more than 155 in 2010.
Likewise, the number of plans received for plots of a size between 200 sq. metres and 300 sq. metres was 136 in 2008; 249 in 2009 and more than 245 in 2010.
The Corporation, in all, received 1,430 applications in the 2010, while it was 1,594 and 1,147 in 2009 and 2008, respectively.
Till last year, there was a drastic fall in the number of applications ever since the Government issued the GO 450 that mandates the applicants to mortgage 10 per cent of built-up area for the building proposed on a plot area of 100 sq metres. The number of applications is on rise in the recent past, officials say.
