No Town Planning Officer in Mancherial for 5 months

The municipality's town planning officer Satyanarayana was transferred to Nizamabad in September. Since then, it is relying on two town planning supervisors (TPS) who are also in-charges of Bellampalli, Naspur and Ramagundam civic bodies.

Mancherial: Mancherial municipality, a Grade-I and one of the major civic bodies in erstwhile Adilabad district, has had no town planning officer (TPO) for the last five months, hitting services and causing inconvenience to building plan applications.

The municipality’s town planning officer Satyanarayana was transferred to Nizamabad in September. Since then, it is relying on two town planning supervisors (TPS) who are also in-charges of Bellampalli, Naspur and Ramagundam civic bodies. While one TPS is able to discharge duties for four days, the other is working here for two days in a week.

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The supervisors are sometimes busy with court cases and take leaves, resulting in piling up of applications. Due to the crunch of officials in the planning wing, applicants are struggling to build new houses. They are running from pillar to post to secure the permissions from the authorities even after furnishing relevant documents.

Some of the applicants are managing to obtain it with the help of their councilors and top officials. A major portion of them are forced to wait for a long time to get approval for construction of new houses. The delay in giving a nod to new houses is irking the applicants, who are unable to get loans from banks and to realise their dreams of building a home.

As per norms of the amended Telangana Municipalities Act, 2019 an applicant should get permission to construct within 21 days if he or she submits relevant documents such as document of ownership, link documents, market value certificate and Encumbrance Certificate and building plan (not mandatory up to 500 sq meters and height up to 10 meters).

When asked, Municipal commissioner A Maruti Prasad admitted that the civic body had no TPO for five months. The municipality was depending on the two supervisors. He, however, said steps were being taken to clear the applications with regard to house permissions at the earliest and to avoid inconvenience to applicants.

The municipality earns Rs 17 crore through property tax per annum. It sees somewhere between 40 and 50 applications for new houses per month. The annual outlay of general budget is Rs 60 crore for 2022-23 fiscal, while Rs 50 crore for 2021-22 financial year. Population of the town is 1.10 lakh as per 2011 census.