The government has issued guidelines for grama panchayats to hold adalats to settle complaints about issuing building permit and other mandatory clearances from local bodies.
As per the guidelines issued on Wednesday, grama panchayat secretaries have been directed to expedite the issue of building permit, occupancy certificate, building number and regularisation, and inform the applicants within three days.
According to a circular, the engineering wing should extend due support to speed up the process. The secretaries should prepare details of pending applications received till May 31 and submit it to the Deputy Directors of Panchayats by July 11. They should furnish details of the applications forwarded to other departments and have been pending decision. Secretaries should coordinate with such departments and expedite action.
Deputy Directors should scrutinise the details of applications forwarded by secretaries and fix the date for holding adalats before July 31. Secretaries should inform the complainants the date and time of the adalats and give due publicity.
Those directly submitting applications to the adalat should provide full address, mobile number, name of grama panchayat and should hand it over to the Deputy Director. A representative of the District Collector, District Town Planner, Principal Agriculture Officer, Local Self-Government Department executive engineer panchayat secretary and LSGD assistant engineer would attend the adalat.
In those districts where CRZ norms are in force, a district committee member of the Kerala Coastal Zone Management Authority too should attend the adalats.
A site inspection by the performance audit supervisor has been made mandatory for the applications submitted directly to the Deputy Director. The supervisor should submit a factual report and recommendations on the applications. Services of the District Collector’s representative should be sought for settling applications on ownership.
