HYDERABAD: Perturbed over the mushrooming of unauthorised layouts in its jurisdiction over the last few months, the Town Planning wing of Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) had taken up a special drive from April 29 to May 10 to tackle the issue. The results were rather startling, with a whopping 713 such layouts being identified during the drive.
The drive was taken up in all the four zones of HMDA limits with special teams deployed for the purpose, following directions by HMDA Metropolitan Commissioner, Arvind Kumar. Kumar had instructed Assistant Planning Officers, Junior Planning Officers and Planning Officers to identify all the unauthorised layouts in their respective jurisdictions and issue notices to the developers and owners concerned. The Ghatkesar zone tops the list with 245 unauthorised layouts, followed by Shankarpally zone with 189. Medchal zone comes next with 150 unauthorised layouts and Shamshabad zone with 129.
“It had come to the notice of the HMDA that many promoters and developers were developing unauthorised layouts and selling them to gullible people,” said an HMDA official. “Now that the layouts have been identified, we would be taking stringent action against the perpetrators,” he added. It is yet to be seen what disciplinary action would be taken up against the officers responsible for not preventing the setting up of these layouts.
The HMDA announced that citizens should verify the list of approved layouts from HMDA website -- www.hmda.gov.in -- and purchase only those plots, in order to avoid any hardships or losses at a later stage. The Sub Registrars were also requested not to approve or register plots in unauthorised areas.
Last year, the HMDA had taken up a similar special drive and demolished many illegal layouts.