Hyderabad: Illegal builders cheat banks too with fake approval letters

Hyderabad: By submitting fake approval letters of multistoried buildings, almost all builders at Manikonda and Puppalaguda have assisted flat buyers in getting bank loans. As per the rules, bankers should verify the approvals with the concerned permission-issuing authority before releasing the loan amount.

Nearly 75 per cent of flat owners in these localities have taken loans from various banks. Although gram panchayats do not have any powers to issue building approvals for multistoried buildings, few builders, with the help of gram panchayat staff and elected representatives, have created fabricated and forged documents for bank loans.

Manikonda upa-sarpanch Mr L. Nagesh said that two cases had been registered against a few culprits with the Raidurgam police station in the matter. “Almost 75 per cent of flat owners in Puppalaguda and Mani-konda have obtained bank loans for purchasing flats. Except for two banks, others have been issuing loans for flats at apartments which were constructed against rules and had encroached on nalas and water bodies,” he said.

The then director general for vigilance and enforcement Mr T.P. Das had also stated in his report to the government that most of the builders of these illegal structures under gram panchayats had submitted fake and fabricated receipts for Building Penalization Scheme (BPS).

The vigilance team had identified 416 illegal constructions in Manikonda that had been constructed with fake and fabricated approval letters — fake permissions by HMDA (seven), BPS by HMDA (31), BPS pending with HMDA (58), building permissions granted by gram panchayat (108), stay orders by High Court (8) and others (212).

Vigilance report ignored
A vigilance report submitted on April 18, 2015 on encroachments and illegal constructions at Manikonda and Puppala-guda in the IT corridor by the then director general for vigilance and enforcement, Mr T.P. Das, was ignored by the government, which led to 500 more illegal apartments.

The vigilance team had identified 244 apartments and individual houses that were constructed without any approvals. Of these about 10 per cent encroached on the Bulkapur Nala and Pandenavaagu. The Bulkapur Nala is a key nala from Musi to Hussainsagar via Manikonda, Raidurgam, Shaikpet, Tolichowki and Lakdi-ka-pul.

Due to the encroachments along the banks of the nala, Hakimpet and Nadeem Colony used to face inundations during heavy rains and the government constructed the Tolichowki flyover to overcome traffic problems during rains. The nala had shrunk at Manikonda, Raidurgam and Shaikpet localities.

Being under the jurisdiction of the gram panchayat, builders at Manikonda and Puppala-guda violated building permissions and constructed high-rises. As per the directions of the Chief Minister and based on a complaint (No. 2,071) received by the Upa Lokayukta on August 16, 2013 against violations in BPS in Manikonda, Narsingi, Shankarpally, Shamshabad and other gram panchayats, a Vigilance team, under the supervision of then DG Mr T.P. Das and Ranga Reddy district vigilance SP Mr K. Ramachandran, had found 1,390 buildings in Manikonda Jagir of which 244 were illegal and 454 apartments had been constructed in violation of  permissions by extending additional floors against G+1.

As the government did not take any stringent action based on the report, about 500 more constructions were established or are being built in the last 17 months. The T.P. Das report had also recommended the government for taking stringent action against officials who were behind the illegal constructions and those who had remained silent while high-rises buildings were being constructed since 2006. Apart from HMDA field-level officials, the report had also recommended action against the then district panchayat officials (DPOs), APOs, zonal panchayat officers, village secretaries, sarpanchs and four ex-DPOs under Section 139 of Panchayat Raj Act (1994).