TS Govt plans to merge nearby villages into municipalities

Hyderabad:  Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister K. Tarakarama Rao said that in view of the fact that the urbanization has been growing at unprecedented levels, the government has the plan to merge nearby villages into the Municipalities with the aim to provide better civic amenties to the people. 
 
Replying to a question raised by TDP MLAs R. Krishnaiah and Sandra Venkata Veeraiah in Legislative Assembly during Question Hour on Saturday, the Minister said that the urban population in the State was on the rise. It has the highest population of 42% living in Urban areas against the national average of 30%.  Merging villages and expanding Municipalities is the process which is going on throughout the country, similarly in Telangana also it is taking place.  However, he said, that with the consent of the Members only, the initiative will be taken.
 
The Minister said that there is increase of new proportion of non-agriculture to agriculture income with increase in services sector, it has thus become imperative to include them as party of nearby municipalities wherever applicable, the process is going on.  However he has not revealed the number of Municipalities which is going to be expanded. He said on burden of taxes which is going to be imposed on the people who has been effected, the Minister said collection of property taxes and other taxes will be imposed stating that money is needed to provide civic amenities and to maintain it.
 
GHMC takes up works worth Rs. 26,459 Cr under SRDP
 
Answering to different question raised by BJP members G. Kishen Reddy, Dr. K.Laxman and others, KTR informed that a total of 52 works in 5 phases has been taken up under Strategic Road Development Programme (SRDP) in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation with the estimated cost of Rs, 26,456.81 crores. 
 
He said that 16 works are going on in full swing and the rest are being taken up shortly.  He said that GHMC has conducted a survey through Ayyappa Society, basing on it underpass taken up under SRDP which has opened to traffic from January 3.  the Survey covered the commuters of 2 wheeler, 3 wheeler and 4 wheelers.  The commuters have saved their travelling time which has been reduced by at least 30 minutes to 45 minutes due to this underpass.  Further there is demand to take up more such projects in the future.
 
No Shortage of Funds for GHMC
 
The Minister said that there was no shortage of funds for taking up development and maintenance of civic infrastructure in GHMC area and also denied that the funds are not being released for the last 4 years by the State government.  He said the GHMC is taking up re-verification of residential properties with less than Rs. 1200 property tax, Re-verification of Non Residential properties, levy of property tax on unauthorized constructions, reconciliation of Building Regularisation Scheme to property tax and demand enhanced under New Assessments to improve the tax collections.
 
49,963 benefitted from online building permissions
 
Replying to another question of TRS members D. Vinay Bhasker, Ajay Kumar Puvvada and Madhavaram Krishna Rao, the Municipal Administration Minister said that under the Development Permission Management System (DPMS) for issuing Online Building Permission which has been introduced in the State including in GHMC area has been successful. So far, as many as 49,963 permissions were given, (GHMC has given to 20,246, HMDA 947 and other Urban Local Bodies 28,770. 
 
He said before the introduction of online system, orientation programme to License Technical personnel and Training programme to all town planning staff have been conducted.  apart from this orders have been issued to levy Rs. 1000 penalty for every day of delay on the staff responsible for delay, the time lines for processing are reduced  from 30 days to 21 days to ensure speedy disposal of building applications and in the public interest.