Nellore: Notwithstanding
the rules and regulations pertaining to the construction of buildings
in vogue, violations and deviations against the sanctioned plan are
rampant in Nellore Municipal Corporation limits.

Although
such violations attract imprisonment for a term which may extend to
three years or fine to the extent of 10 per cent of the value of the
land or building as per the AP Building Rules 2012, builders have been
ignoring the rules because the provision was not invoked yet in Nellore.

Thanks
to the failure of municipal administration department to post
sufficient staff in the town planning department to enforce the rules.
For instance there are only two building inspectors as against the
sanctioned strength of nine. There is only town planning supervisor
while the requirement is four and similarly one assistant city planner
is handling the city while there is need for two.

The city
planner post is lying vacant ever since the official went on leave in
September last year. The staff is outnumbered compared to the volume of
building activity in the city, to which 15 surrounding villages are
merged recently further complicating the job of town planning.

The
volume of infringements are such that the officials have found serious
violations in the construction in about 30 buildings including 15-odd
apartment buildings in the city during a sample survey in the recent
past.

Incidentally the department is yet to initiate action
against 18 buildings where serious deviations against sanctioned plan
were noticed during a random check by the director of town and country
planning Purushottam Reddy last year.

The
town planning wing has issued notices to the 10 of the 18 buildings
apart from 30 buildings where they found violations recently. The sorry
state affairs in the city are such that these builders have been
continuing with construction activity even after the town planning
department issued notices to stop the work.

In this
backdrop the town planning wing of the civic body decided to file charge
sheets against the builders as AP Building Rules 2012 to send a warning
to all those ignoring the building rules in the city.

Assistant
city planner G.V.G.S.V. Prasad has disclosed this while speaking to
this newspaper. He said that they have disconnected water connection to
10 out of 18 buildings identified by their director in the past apart
from issuing demolition notices. In case of balance eight buildings the
violations are minor in nature and the builders have corrected the same,
he added.