The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has planned to use Google maps to verify the status of the buildings which are pending for clearance under Building Penalisation Scheme (BPS).
According to sources, there are more than 27,860 applications pending for final clearance under the scheme. Among those cases some require final clearance from the urban land ceiling authorities and a very few cases need no-objection certificates from the fire and safety wing.
Though the Government’s last date to process the BPS applications has ended long ago, GHMC officials got permission from the Government to clear the applications which are eligible for clearance in all aspects. But the Government issued a caution notice on processing the applications considering the fact that the scheme was being misused in some localities to clear some unauthorized buildings.
With this notice GHMC started verification by randomly inspecting the buildings. Till now buildings in seven circles were checked and the corporation commissioner has directed to use Google maps of 2007 to depict the status of the buildings which are randomly checked, to make the exercise more credible.
Thus, cross checked applications would be sent to the Government seeking permission for clearing the applications. There are around 6,693 pending applications from the East zone; 5,544 from the North zone; 3,886 from the West zone; 3,679 from the South zone and others from the central zone.
Source: The Hindu