Nellore: NUDA develops app to protect interest of plot buyers

Nellore: Nellore Urban Development Authority (NUDA) is developing an app for the benefit of plot buyers in order to protect and safeguard the interest of them and ensure that they not fall prey to the promoters of unauthorised layouts in the district. Planning to restrain the sale of plots in the unapproved layouts, NUDA took a significant step to aware the people on the approved and unapproved layouts of their choice while buying lands.

NUDA Chairman Mukkala Dwarakanath, who took the charge recently, informed that the specific application will have details of all the 86 approved layouts under NUDA limits apart from the information related to land conversion and permission details. He said they were developing 97 acres at Kavali, 35 acres at Gudur and 300 ankanams at Gandhi Nagar in Nellore city as plots.

In fact, controlling unapproved layouts in urban areas has become a major task for Urban Development Authorities and it turned out to a practice to the realtors to ignore either conversion of land from agriculture to residential or approval of the plan from the UDAs as they can sell 450 ankanams of each acre (600 ankanams) as against 330 ankanams permitted by the NUDA.

Nellore Urban Development Authority (NUDA) was constituted in 2017 with the areas for a total area of 1644.17 Sq Km stretching from Nellore Municipal Corporation, Kavali, Gudur, Sullurpeta Municipalities and Naidupeta Nagara Panchayats with the jurisdiction covering 156 villages in 21 mandals in which 145 villages in 19 mandals belong to SPS Nellore district and 11 villages in 2 mandals belong to Chittoor district.

The violations are minting money ranging between Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.5 crore for each acre of land to the realtors, making them disinterested on getting the approvals. A senior official from the civic body rued that the town planning wing naturally turns a blind eye on the unauthorised layouts because the promoters usually are backed by the ruling party leaders who force them to ignore norms voluntarily.

At this juncture, Nellore Urban Development Authority is devising an app for the benefit of buyers of plots aiming to relieve a burden of loss to the people who fall prey to the unapproved layouts. It contains the data of all approved layouts in its jurisdiction. NUDA is also gearing up to promote layouts in government vacant lands and develop them offering hassle-free plots to the public.

Dwarakanath said buyers of plots in unapproved layouts realise that they were cheated only when they apply for permission to build houses as they have to pay land conversion charges as well as development charges to the local bodies. Now, all the promoters of layouts are being told to display boards with details of land conversion and layout permission number while putting plots for sale.

Officials are also advising the realtors to follow rules and pay betterment charges to avoid trouble from NUDA. The Chairman said they had sent letters to all Tahsildars and Village Secretaries to submit the list of unapproved layouts in their jurisdiction to initiate stern action.