Special force to raze illegal buildings

Visakhapatnam: Minister for municipal administration and urban development (MAUD) P Narayana announced that a 10-member Special Task Force team would be deployed to demolish illegal constructions in Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation limits.

The minister convened a review meeting with officials concerned and discussed on the projects and development works in the city. Addressing media, the minister said that all pending projects and works except the works under the AMRUT scheme, would be completed by April-end.

Directions have been issued to complete the pending works with the 13th and 14th Finance Commission funds, SC-ST funds, and general funds, he added. The works under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) scheme, and general works would be completed by next year.

Talking about the fast clearances of building plans, the minister said that GVMC has approved 7,800 applications and rejected 250. The total revenue from the online building applications is over Rs 83.5 crore during 2016-17 and the occupancy certificates have been issued to 756 applicants by collecting a compounding fee of Rs 7.15 crore, the minister said.

Talking on housing projects, Narayana said the government identified 9 lakh houses were needed in the 110 municipalities in the state and 6.81 lakh houses had already been sanctioned.

In the review meeting, city MLAs urged for sanction of various projects. Visakhapatnam South MLA V Ganesh Kumar appealed to upgrade Poorna market with a new shopping complex for which the minister agreed and said that the land would be given to the existing merchants to develop the market by themselves.