BENGALURU: Ruling party leader N R Ramesh on Friday alleged that BBMP officials from the town planning department have issued duplicate Commencement and Occupancy certificates, thereby cheating the public as well as the civic agency.
Ramesh alleged that of the 17 departments in the BBMP, the Town Planning department is the most corrupt. There are 79 officials working in the department of whom 33 are deputed from various other departments including the PWD. Officials who come on deputation are the most corrupt and the civic agency does not have any control over them, he alleged.
Town Planning department officials have the power to sanction of plan of ground plus three-storeyed buildings and also have the powers to issue commencement certificate (CC) along with occupancy certificate (OC).
Further Ramesh said when he sought information regarding the number of building plans, OCs and CCs issued between 2010 and 2014, officials told him that they had approved 1,298 building plans, issued CC to 350 buildings while only 95 of them got the OC.
For this, the BBMP has collected `111.98 crore as fees. “But in reality, more than 30,000 buildings which come under this category have been constructed. Are these buildings illegal or have BBMP officials issued illegal certificates and misappropriated the fee collected?” he questioned.
Replying to the query, Commissioner Lakshminarayana said a senior officer will be directed to probe this and submit a report.