HYDERABAD: Governor Jishnu Dev Varma has given approval to an ordinance that confers statutory powers on the Hyderabad Disaster Response and Assets Monitoring and Protection Agency (HYDRAA).
With this ordinance, the government intends to provide legal status to HYDRAA and give it additional powers, which were till now vested with various departments like Municipal, Irrigation and Revenue departments.
The government is likely to present a Bill on HYDRAA in the upcoming Assembly session. Till then the ordinance would provide legal backing to HYDRAA.
According to sources, after Principal Secretary of Municipal Administration Department M Dana Kishore gave clarifications for queries raised by the Raj Bhavan, the governor has given his consent to the ordinance. The ordinance has given HYDRAA some crucial powers like inspecting the encroachments, issuing of notices, removal of encroachments and illegal constructions. The same powers vested with GHMC are also given to HYDRAA in this regard. For this, the government has added Section 374B in the GHMC Act 1955.
Now the HYDRAA also has the same powers vested with Commissioners of Corporations and Municipalities as per the Municipal Act 2019 as well as those given to task forces headed by Zonal Commissioners under the Telangana State Building Permission Approval and Self Certification System Act 2020 to protect the government properties and removal of encroachments.
Presently, there are certain powers to deal with encroachments given to Commissioners under HMDA Act 2008, and RDOs and collectors under Telangana Land Revenue Act and Land Encroachment Act 1905. Now, the same powers are also given to HYDRAA.
As the HYDRAA has received legal backing, it is now empowered to issue notices to encroachers in buffer zones and FTL of lakes and water bodies within the Outer Ring Road (ORR) limits.