VIJAYAWADA: In a major administrative reform aimed at eliminating procedural bottlenecks and speeding up property approvals, the State government has introduced a uniform three-level officer mechanism for supervisory checks of buildings and the processing of Occupancy Certificates (OC) across the State.
The reform applies uniformly across all local bodies and planning authorities.
The Municipal Administration & Urban Development (MA&UD) Department introduced the measure after identifying that building applications were previously routed through multiple, redundant tiers of town planning officers based on plot dimensions.
This multiplicity of approval levels frequently led to unnecessary delays in field-level supervisory checks and final OC issuance.
Under the revised arrangement, the internal workflow for any building application is capped strictly at Level-1, Level-2, and Level-3, with Level-3 functioning as the final confirming authority. Under the framework covering six site-area categories, Ward Planning & Regulatory Secretaries act as the Level-1 authority for all non-high-rise residential and commercial developments.
MA&UD Minister P Narayana stated that the rationalisation aims to deliver citizen-centric services transparently and without procedural delay, ensuring building clearances and OCs are granted strictly within stipulated timeframes.