Covid-19 hits town planning revenues

HYDERABAD: The Covid-19 pandemic reduced the revenues of GHMC’s Town Planning wing this year by around `165-170 crore due to a drop in the number of building permissions given by the civic body. The number of permissions sought for buildings of the commercial category, such as shopping complexes, malls and multiplexes, saw a drop. As a result, as against the expected revenues of `850 crore, the Town Planning wing could collect `685 crore from January to December 28, 2020.

In 2019, a total of 16,801 building permissions were issued while this year, only 10,541 permissions were issued in Greater Hyderabad.GHMC officials told Express that in light of the pandemic, developers, builders and others who wanted to develop high-rise  commercial ventures became cautious and did not apply for permissions as it involves huge expenditures to take up the ventures. As against 236 commercial building permissions sanctioned last year, only 103 were approved this year.

In terms of residential building permissions, there was not much impact of Covid-19.The building permissions approved this year include those for individual residential buildings (8,938), commercial buildings (103), group housing (1,359), multiplexes (two) and high-rise buildings (residential—115, commercial—24).