The Hindu                15.06.2013

Security to be tightened at HMDA zonal offices

The Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA)
has decided to step up security and access to records at all its zonal
offices following the episode of several files being destroyed after a
fire broke out at its Shankarpally zonal office on Monday,

Two
officials have already been suspended for their suspected role in the
fire mishap which destroyed more than 490 files pertaining to Land
Regularisation Scheme (LRS) and Building Penalisation Scheme (BPS) apart
from few related to new building permissions.

The
incident happened a day before an enquiry into allegations of certain
frauds at the zonal office was to be conducted. Two staff members
Prasanna, a junior planning officer, and Suryaprakash, in-charge
administrative officer, were placed under suspension after it was found
that they had spent around four hours at the office on Sunday despite it
being a holiday. The possible connivance of watchman and two others was
being also being looked into, officials said.

HMDA
Commissioner Neerabh Kumar Prasad has directed the Planning wing to
rebuild the records that were lost in fire. Since demand drafts issued
by different banks and submitted by applicants were also gutted, the
Planning officials were told to contact those banks and get necessary
details. A deputy director level officer would be supervising the
effort.

“Not all is lost. We have some related data
available and there are ways to collate more details from bank, inward
and outward registers,” HMDA Secretary, Rama Rao, said. Given the
episode at Shankarpally, senior officials have already visited the other
three zonal offices at Medchal, Ghatkesar and Shamshabad and took stock
of the situation there.

“We are working at
tightening the security at all these offices and also introduce security
registers to record movement of staff and visitors,” he said.