Town planning department reeling under severe staff shortage
VIJAYAWADA: While Vijayawada is on the cusp of change, thanks to the works being undertaken for the future capital city Amaravati, the Town Planning department of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation is reeling under a severe staff crunch, the repercussions of which are being manifested in the form of delay in inspection of ongoing buildings and complexes. The functioning of the department has reached rock-bottom due to which several unauthorised constructions are mushrooming across the city.
In the last three months, officials conducted several drives with meagre staff and demolished as many as 30 illegal structures in the city. Notices have been served to 40 buildings which violate norms. However, the department has drawn fire from civic associations as the officials are still lagging behind in identifying several illegal structures across the city.
As per government order No. 218 issued in 2011, the town planning department must have a chief city planner, two city planners, four deputy city planners and eight assistant city planners. At present in place of 15 Building Inspectors (BIs),only seven BIs are working of which four have been promoted. However, the promoted officials have not been relieved of their duties due to staff shortage.
In addition, for a population 60,00, there must be a Town Planning Surveyor (TPS) and a building inspector for every 40,000 population to inspect ongoing construction activity being undertaken at various divisions of the city. In such a case, the corporation requires 25 building inspectors and 16 TPS. Unfortunately, the civic body is far away from reaching the parameters prescribed by the Directorate of Town and Country Planning (DTCP) and has only three BIs and three TPS. On several occasions, the issue of staff cruch has been taken to the notice of DTCP but measures have not been evolved to recruit enough staff.
VMC City Planner A Lakshmana Rao said that out of the 2,000 applications which the department receives for approval every month, the inspectors are able to carry out periodic inspections of about 1,000 applications. The rest are not checked. The staff crunch issue has already been brought to the notice of Municipal Commissioner J Nivas and a letter has been written to DTCP. DTCP has recruited 4 officials as building inspectors on an apprenticeship basis. Once again, the matter will be discussed with DTCP and the recruitment will be conducted shortly.