GHMC likely to introduce BPS, LRS schemes

Hyderabad: GHMC is likely to announce Building Penalisation Scheme (BPS) and Layout Regularisation Scheme (LRS) to regularise unauthorised and illegal constructions as well as layouts.

The Telangana cabinet sub-committee, chaired by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, had recently held a review meeting in this regard.

He told the officials to ensure that the unauthorised constructions were stopped in the initial stages so that such problems do not arise.

He asked the officials to prepare a detailed action plan to stop the illegal constructions.

KCR also asked them to simplify the BPS and LRS process.

Following KCR's directions, the civic body has decided to use satellite images to find out the age of an unauthorised structure during the process of scrutinising the regularisation applications.

The applications will be processed online using software exclusively designed for the purpose by Centre for Good Governance (CGG). The GHMC official further stated that major simplification in the schemes would be the option to change the road size.

According to the guidelines, the minimum size of the road in GHMC limits would be 30 feet. The Town Planning Department has now decided that the size of road would depend on the area and would be increased or decreased accordingly, he added.

The Town planning official said that GHMC has been working on several key issues pertaining to BPS and LRS and was trying to simplify the procedure and the detailed action plan would be submitted for the approval of the Chief Minister in about two weeks time.

The Town Planning Department identified about one lakh unauthorised constructions till date. If the BPS scheme is reintroduced then the GHMC will be able to mop up about Rs 1,000 crore.

However, political parties see this as a political gimmick in view of the GHMC elections that are likely to take place soon.

By:Maddy Deekshith