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.