HMDA stripped of its land conversion power

Responding to a report published in DC on Monday regarding irregularities in HMDA approvals, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao directed principal secretary of municipal administration and urban development (MAUD), Mr M.G. Gopal, to hold back all the land use conversion approvals given by HMDA. These powers will be vested in Mr Gopal for the time being.

The HMDA has granted approvals for over 300 land conversions, from conservation zone (meant for agriculture and related activities) to residential, commercial and recreational zones, during the last three months and the government has received many complaints that HMDA officials have taken huge bribes for the same.

The CM said that the HMDA would henceforth be reduced to an implementing body rather than a regulatory body. Mr Rao also asked officials to examine the possibility of abolishing HMDA and transferring all its functions to the GHMC and submit a report to the government in this regard at the earliest.

The CM, who held a meeting with Mr Gopal on Monday at the Secretariat, is learnt to have expressed serious concern over the grave irregularities in HMDA, which was showing the government in a bad light.

He said that though he had sacked then HMDA commissioner Mr Neerabh Kumar Prasad in September 2014 over similar complaints, the officials had failed to mend their ways, forcing the government to give serious thought on abolishing the HMDA altogether and look for a better alternative.

"It has come to our notice that getting a file cleared in HMDA is an herculean task. Parties or individuals concerned are forced to pay bribes in lakhs and crores of rupees for this. Take up a study on the problems at various levels being faced by people when they approach HMDA and suggest remedial measures. If need be, the government is ready to amend the HMDA Act for this," Mr Rao is learnt to have told officials.