Hyderabad: While
thousands apply for building construction permissions, very few come
back to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation to obtain occupancy
certificates (OCs).

Of the total 39,404 building plans
submitted in the last four years, GHMC has approved 33,881 and rejected
4,310 for various reasons. The civic body earned Rs 1,558 crore through
building, development and other fees towards approval of these
applications.

However, only 4,219 applications were submitted
seeking occupancy certificates (OCs). After inspection of the buildings,
the Town Planning wing of GHMC issued OCs to only 3,054 applicants and
rejected the remaining which had more than 10 per cent deviations.

OCs
are issued only to those buildings which have been constructed as per
the plans approved by the Corporation. GHMC officials do not have
information on the remaining 29,000 buildings for which applications
were approved and do not know whether these buildings have been
constructed.

GHMC chief city planner G.V. Raghu said approved
building plans are valid for five and three years for group development
housing schemes and independent houses respectively.

“Some people
construct the houses in the same year of the plan being approved, some
go for construction in the final year; 33,000 building applications
approved does not mean that construction of an equivalent number of
buildings has commenced,” he said.

Stating that Town Planning
officials have been identifying unauthorised constructions, he said as
many as 3,867 buildings were identified to have deviated from the
sanctioned plan in the last four years. “We have demolished 989 of them,
there is a court stay on 1961 of, and criminal cases have been filed in
217 cases. The remaining are pending for action to be taken,” he said.