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.
