Hyderabad: Town Planning wings sans any staff turns into defunct bodies

Rangareddy: Due to the shortage of staff, equipment, and fleet of vehicles, the town planning sections in the southern parts of Hyderabad city as well as in municipalities on the city outskirts, remained non-functional. With the rise in the number of unauthorised structures without any adherence to building regulations, the people residing in these localities remain vulnerable to natural calamities such as earthquakes.

The town planning sections, especially in the southern part of the city like Rajendranagar, Charminar, Chandrayangutta, Santosh Nagar, and Falaknuma, wear a deserted look due to the lack of subordinate staff. The assistant city planners or section officers available at these places are holding additional charges and are largely preoccupied handling court cases.

For instance, Deputy City Planner Khairtabad Krishna Mohan is holding additional charge of ACP town planning in Rajendranagar. Similarly, the section officer Santosh Nagar Sukanya is holding additional charge of the Falaknuma section in the absence of proper staff. While she seldom visits her office complaining of health issues, the subordinate staff found reluctant to talk about authorised structures in their own jurisdiction. Apart from this, ACP Rani was the officer looking over the entire Charminar circle at Mughalpura. She was recently transferred to Charminar from Rajendranagar.

The situation of municipalities has not changed on the city outskirts. In Jalpally municipality, the concerned TPO was conferred with an additional charge for Badangpet, while the Jalpally is a synonym for hazardous town planning system. Here even the engineering section has officials from the health department on deputation.

Even though the southern part of the city is considered a densely populated enclave, the tight-grain housing system sans any adherence to building regulations making this region completely vulnerable to frequent catastrophes like floods and earthquakes.

It is said that the present volatile situation is a result of ever-increasing population, brazen violations of building rules, political interference, and growing cases of corruption in town planning affairs in the city and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and has already crippled the town planning mechanism while modernisation of offices fails to yield the desired result.

Lashing out at the government for turning a blind eye towards the threat like floods and quakes to the city, K. Lakshman, a city based activist, said, "Regardless of the consequences of calamities like earthquakes, the town planning wing in GHMC limits as well as in municipalities on the city outskirts went into dormant mode and primarily playing into the hands of politicians who often used town planning officials to settle scores with the rivals."

He further said that district level task force units formed last year to address unauthorised constructions and layouts, mainly in municipalities, too gone off sight while the land grabbing over government lands, water bodies, and nalas besides construction of unauthorised structures and layouts continue to form a threat like situation vulnerable to calamities.