Even though many illegal structures in Greater Hyderabad have mushroomed, in the last few days the neighbouring Nizampet Municipal Corporation has cracked the whip on unauthorized construction and sealed 113 structures. One thousand one unauthorized buildings have been listed by the civic body spread over 88 square km in the Nizampet, Bachupally and Pragatinagar locations.

Civic Body Enclosed Unauthorized Buildings

The town planning officials have pasted 'X' ribbon on the buildings and a Flexi with a warning to give a clear message to the builders and developers that this building is sealed for carrying out the construction illegally under section 181 of the Telangana Municipalities Act' so that gullible individual will not buy flats and space in such buildings.

B Gopi, the municipal commissioner of Nizampet, said the company had written to the department of registration and stamps not to register illegal properties and asked Telangana Southern Power Distribution Company Limited and the Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board of Hyderabad not to provide such properties with power and water connections. These steps have primarily been taken to send a clear message to errant builders and developers. 

He stated that any building or structure should not be registered by the registration authorities without producing a licenced plan approved by the municipality pursuant to the Telangana Municipalities Act 2019.

Authorities agree that owing to their proximity to the IT corridor and Hitech city, Nizampet, Bachupally and Pragatinagar have become the hub of illegal buildings in the past ten years. These areas were all separate gram panchayats until they were merged in April 2019 to form Nizampet Municipal Corporation.

When all these were gram panchayats, builders and developers took permission for two floors of ground and raised two to three illegal floors. Through field inspections, RTI applications, complaints and even court cases, they have identified 1,001 such structures, Nizampet assistant city planner Vijaya Sri said. A drive to eliminate encroachments on the roads simultaneously has also been taken up by the civic body.

Officials who previously worked in the municipal administration department said that vigilance reports were released on the illegal structures in Nizampet and Bachupally, but no action on the reports was taken. In the meantime, some public representatives requested the commissioner of Nizampet to lift the seals on the houses, as some of them applied in 2015 for the regularisation of illegal floors under the building regularisation system, which is still pending before the court.

By: Shailaja K