Now, civic chiefs can okay layouts

Major decisions emerge from Cabinet meeting

The Cabinet resolved at its meeting on Monday to transfer the power to sanction layouts and clear the subdivision of lands in municipalities from the councils to commissioners as part of the government’s efforts to further improve the ease of doing business.

For this purpose, it authorised the Municipal Administration and Urban Development Department to make necessary amendments to the A.P. Municipalities Act, 1965. This path-breaking decision will be first implemented in the major municipal towns. It was decided to start sanctioning online permissions to municipal layouts soon.

Regularisation

In another significant resolution, the Cabinet cleared the decks for regularisation of illegal plots in government lands measuring less than 100 square yards in municipal corporations and plots of equal size on which BPL families have built houses at such places where the government’s group housing schemes were not grounded.

The Cabinet decided to refer the matter on mapping layouts in the purview of A.P Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) for the sake of regulation, and the proposed scrapping of zones to a sub-committee of Ministers for taking a decision later. The Cabinet gave its nod for drafting A.P. Money Lenders Bill-2017, under which those lending money for interest have to obtain licences for a period of three years and the rate of interest will be decided by the government.

Posts sanctioned

The Cabinet sanctioned 330 (270 teaching and 60 non-teaching) posts in the Social Welfare Department. Regarding the IT sector, the Cabinet has cleared Designated Technology Park Policy 2017-2020 for attracting information technology companies into the State. This is aimed at roping in companies that create five million square feet space required by IT firms.

GST impact

The Cabinet was of the view that the people were satisfied with the decrease in prices of essential commodities on account of the GST .