GHMC ups the ante against illegal structures

Constitutes special task force at zonal level to crack the whip on unauthorised buildings

Hyderabad: Cracking the whip on illegal constructions in the city, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has constituted a special task force (STF) at the zonal level.

With the civic body jurisdiction divided into six zones, each zone will have a special task force of its own to monitor and act against structures that come up without required permissions and compliance to rules and guidelines.

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These STFs are constituted under the provisions granted in the Telangana State Building Permission Approval and Self-Certification (TS-bPASS) Act. They are empowered to take up the cases under rules in vogue as per which a violator of the norms could attract a penalty of up to 25 per cent of the value of land or face three years of rigorous imprisonment.

Each STF will be headed by a GHMC zonal commissioner along with a law and order DCP, a superintendent engineer and a deputy commissioner/joint commissioner. The STF in every zone shall constitute enforcement teams that will be pressed into service to take action against illegal constructions.

The teams will be randomly handed over with complaints for verification and initiation of action such as demolishing the structure or sealing it by conducting a panchanama. A copy of the panchanama will be handed over to the owner.

Vehicles, manpower and equipment for demolition will be handed over to the demolition squads who are part of the enforcement teams. The teams will also be provided with Tabs and cameras to take photographs and videos of the site, pre and post demolition. The pictures and videos will serve as evidence to the corporation while defending legal cases. The STFs should also estimate the demolition expenditure. “The money spent to demolish the building will be recovered from the owner,” said a GHMC official.

National Academy of Construction (NAC) engineers who are part of the enforcement team are entrusted with the work of regular inspection of ongoing constructions in their allotted GHMC wards. Deviations to the sanctioned plan and unauthorised constructions should be tabled and the list should be submitted to the GHMC deputy commissioner or joint commissioner.

Apart from the irregularities reported by NAC engineers after conducting field level inspections, the STFs will also receive complaints through the TS-bPASS portal, GHMC call centre, MY GHMC app, manually, e-mail and Twitter. The deadline to attend the complaint by STF is three days as per norms. The teams under STFs will also inspect their respective areas at least once in 15 days and submit an action taken report.