Curation Team
VIJAYAWADA: The AP govt is planning to reintroduce building penalisation scheme (BPS) and layout regularisation scheme (LRS) to streamline the illegal structures and layouts across the state. The scheme was implemented during the TDP regime between 2014 and 2019. After finding huge number of structures and layouts coming up without requisite permissions, the govt has decided to relaunch the scheme which will also help the state to mop up additional revenue.
The cabinet is likely to discuss the issue at its next meeting before taking the final call. The municipal administration and urban development department has readied the proposal with a view to containing illegal structures and also preventing the unauthorised layouts. The department, during a recent study, found a massive number of structures coming up in the last five years without requisite permissions.
The absence of field level staff in the town planning wing and political pressures helped the mushrooming of illegal structures. While raising illegal buildings itself a threat to public safety, the state govt is also losing heavily in the form of property taxes and building plan approvals. Many builders are believed to have raised additional floors and sold flats and commercial spaces without any permission. The door-to-door survey taken up by the municipal administration department found about 35,000 buildings out of the tax bracket.
The authorities were unable to levy property taxes on such structures without proper approvals as such buildings were designated as illegal structures. “In order to levy the tax, the building must have all requisite permissions including building plan approval. We can’t levy the tax on the spot even after finding the structure is out of the tax bracket as the owners could not produce the documents,” said a municipal commissioner.
Similarly, the govt is suspecting that more than 25,000 unauthorised layouts have come up during the last five years causing huge revenue loss to the local bodies and state exchequer.
After getting a report from the municipal commissioners, the municipal administration department has decided to move forward a proposal to bring LRS and BPS back.
The draft proposal is being worked out, which will be routed to the state cabinet. However, the govt has to take high court clearance before issuing a formal GO as it had restrained the continuous implementation of LRS and BPS. HC observedin the past that such schemes were only helping the brazen violation of law in anticipation of regularisation through such schemes.
