Town planning services to be people-friendly

VIJAYAWADA: With an objective to bring in more transparency and make services ‘more people friendly’, the municipal administration and urban development (MAUD) has made changes to the procedures of town planning wing of urban development authorities (UDAs) and urban local bodies (ULBs). These include dispensing post verification online building permit system, integration of online portals for seamless mortgage release, using mobile app for identification of unauthorised structures. 

The department has also made amendments to the AP Building Rules, 2017, to ‘streamline’ the procedures. According to multiple orders issued by MAUD secretary J Syamala Rao on Thursday, the department has issued guidelines for dispensing post-verification of online building permission system and asked all the UDAs and ULBs to upload the details of ongoing constructions/layouts including deviations, if any, within 15 days in the mobile application developed for the purpose.

Integration of online portals is another decision taken by the department to bring in transparency. At present, the officials concerned are attending registration offices personally with the authorisation of Sanctioning Authority for release of mortgaged area, which is resulting in delay and lack of transparency, according to the government order. The department noted that there was scope for miscalculation in the cases of approval and regularisation as it was being done manually. To address all these issues, portals will be integrated and sub-registrar offices can directly verify the information from it, the order said.

Supervisory checks will be in place and the officials concerned were ordered to develop a centralised online module to select applications at random for inspection. The department has also decided to seek public feedback to improve the system. The department has made amendments to AP Building Rules, 2017.