GHMC staff at crossroads to push back encroachers

Hyderabad: Neither the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation nor any other city department has an answer to the bottlenecks created by commercial establishments that spill out on to the roads in several areas in the city.

Pubs, restaurants, wine shops, grocery stores, tea vending shops, and others obstruct the free flow of traffic not only on prime arterial roads but also in by-lanes of the city. Despite obtaining the necessary permits from the civic body, these establishments don’t have sufficient parking spaces.

Though the civic body has sealed some pubs and bars in Jubilee Hills and Banjara Hills, vehicles are parked on the road often covering 50 per cent of it.

According to highly-placed sources in the corporation the bottlenecks which were created by the lack of parking spaces outside most of the commercial establishments exposes the negligence of the civic body.

The civic body can curtail these bottlenecks by not giving trade licences or not issuing occupancy certificates and by enforcing the GHMC Act if parking is not provided for.

However, there is lack of co-ordination between the town planning officials (who approve the building plan and issue occupancy certificates after verifying the structure) and the revenue wing, which issues the trade licence. There is also a rampant corruption in both departments.

Sources said that the corporation which recently raided the pubs and eateries in Khairatabad zone found that 90 per cent have no trade licence and 70 per cent of the structures were not constructed in compliance with building norms.

They said no business in any part of the GHMC can run without the knowledge of the civic body officials.

The owners of commercial establishment are hand-in-glove with the corporation and so can violate building norms and escape punishment.

In Khairatabad alone, out of 45 pubs and eateries inspected, four were closed down permanently, about 11 approached the courts and got orders to run their businesses, while 20 were sealed temporarily till the structure was altered to comply with building norms, which may include demolishing unauthorised portions, providing parking spaces and setting up fire safety measures.

Due to lack of street ending zones, the vehicles parked at tea shops and other such outlets are also adding to the traffic congestion.

Khairatabad zonal commissioner Musharraf Faruqui said that instructions have been given to field-level staff to check whether structures in the city are compliant with the GHMC norms or not. He claimed that the GHMC would act sternly against violators but was prevented due to back-to-back elections.