The Hindu       25.03.2011

GHMC to act tough on illegal constructions

GHMC would act firmly on building deviations and illegal constructions in the city, said Mayor B. Kartika Reddy on Thursday and also warned of taking up demolitions of such structures.

Reviewing the performance of the Town Planning wing with Additional Commissioner (Regulatory Planning) Rajendra Prasad, Chief City Planner G.V. Raghu and other officials, she did not mince words in stating that there were several illegal constructions taking place in several areas and this could not have happened without the “involvement” of town planning officials.

She observed that it was the duty of the field staff to report illegal constructions to the notice of higher officials but this was not happening. She wanted notices to be issued on all unauthorised constructions and action be taken as per rules.

If necessary, salaries of the town planning staff would be linked with the performance if illegal constructions are not controlled and no one would be spared in this regard.

The Mayor also enquired whether the head office officials have been cross-checking about constructions being done as per the sanctioned plans.

Earlier, Mr. Prasad had explained that through the Off Site Real Time (OSRT), 604 have been found out to be unauthorised constructions of the 1,862 constructions in progress.

Excellent results

He also claimed that the Green Channel introduced for issuing speedy building plan clearances was giving excellent results and till date 1,008 applications have been approved out of 1,209 applications through this route.

The Municipal Corporation had collected Rs.246.63 crore from regular applications, Rs.191.37 crore from BPS and Rs. 74.13 from LRS applications, a press release said.