Get approval for your layout  within HMDA limits in just seven days! The Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) will re-introduce the Green Channel for builders and land developers. Under this, builders and developers will have the option to obtain expeditious approval of development plans.

Under the Green Channel scheme, a panel of architects and document auditors, who are conversant with town planning rules, regulations and laws, will be empanelled/licensed to scrutinise applications. It will enable applicants to obtain fast-track clearance for their development proposals from HMDA in seven working days. The concept will be introduced in a phased manner, making it applicable initially to layout approvals.

A decision to re-introduce the Green Channel was taken at HMDA’s fifth board meeting held under the chairmanship of chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy at the Secretariat on Tuesday. The chief minister wanted HMDA officials to speed up the arrangements including lake preservation and laying radial roads.

HMDA also decided to initiate steps towards integrated online services for according development permissions. The Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) will  provide technical support for operationalising the ICT-enabled development approval system. The entire organisational work flows including the zones will be integrated with  effective use of ICT for better delivery of services to citizens.

The meeting ratified the HMDA Development Plan-2031 notified by the state government in January. Of the total HMDA area of 7,257 sq km, the plan covers 5,985 sq km spread over 35 mandals in four districts.

The population in HMDA limits is expected to reach 1.84 crore by 2031.

LAND POOLING: The HMDA mooted Land Pooling Scheme which gives an option to farmers to become partners in the development process without being deprived of their land. A committee recommended taking up  Edulanagulapalle-Kollur and Pratapsingaram-Gowrelli schemes on a pilot basis.

EDUCATION HUB: Hyderabad Education Hub is to come up at Jawaharnagar near Shamirpet. The project comprises complete ecology and infrastructure of education, focused on world-class graduate and postgraduate education, associated world-class infrastructure and facilities for participants and residents of the Hub. The Education Hub will invite high-quality higher-education institutions to set up satellite campuses. Individual institutions need only build campuses with infrastructure specific to their requirement. HMDA will develop common infrastructure _ from dormitories and libraries to sports facilities _ mostly in public-private partnership.

ECO PARK: HMDA has taken up development of an 85-acre Eco Park at Kothwalguda at a cost of Rs 60 crore. It will have a garden with rare and endangered and endemic flora, agro park and trails, mountain biking tracks, aquatic bird park, aviary, public park and picnic area, open-air theatre, solar farm, Andhra Rural Huts, a butterfly and sculpture park. A Scion Bank Nursery has already been established at Tellapur and two new nurseries, costing Rs 20 crore each, are proposed on a 50-acre land at Peddmangalaram and another on a 100-acre land at Kanakamamidi, both in Moinabad mandal in Ranga Reddy district.

Fed up with constant road damages due to rains, water leakages and sewerage overflows that causing untold hardships to motorists, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has decided to hand over the maintenance of certain stretches of roads to private agencies on an experimental basis.

Initially, the corporation has proposed to handover the maintenance of small patches and potholes to the agencies on annual contract basis. Such a system is yielding positive results in South Delhi where private agencies take care of road maintenance.

GHMC is in the process of identifying such stretches which need constant patch repair works and pothole fillings. In the next few days, tenders for the same will be floated.  While GHMC will provide BT and other materials required for filling potholes and doing patch-work, the agencies will have to constantly monitor the area and visit it  once a week. If they find frayed patches or potholes, they will be required to fill up the patches.

If the damaged stretch is big, the maintenance and recarpeting will be taken care by the corporation, GHMC officials told Express. GHMC commissioner Somesh Kumar during the weekly Prajavani programme said that the proposed plan will provide more clarity while taking up road repairing works under the GHMC limits.

“GHMC is planning to come with a proposal of annual maintenance contracts on some of the roads as a pilot project for taking up recarpeting works. The contractor will be made responsible to take up the road repairing works for the entire year,” the commissioner said.  

Somesh Kumar asked all the deputy commissioners and zonal commissioners to give details of the most damaged roads in next two or three days. He said that all road repair works would be completed by December end.