Government to Get Tough with Illegal Gram Panchayat Layouts

Hyderabad: With the state government planning to expand the city limits up to Outer Ring Road (ORR), special focus is being laid on unauthorised gram panchayat (GP) layouts.

Registration of unauthorised layouts is not being done in the sub-registrar offices (SROs) located within HMDA jurisdiction. This order was issued in 2020 and not recently, as is being claimed by a section of the media and people.

The list of unauthorised layouts in Rangareddy, Medak and Mahbubnagar districts has been duly uploaded on the HMDA website.

Though registrations of unauthorized layouts continued under the earlier orders issued by the previous BRS government, the Congress government has decided to implement them in view of the plans for the growth of the city, said an official from the municipal administration and urban development (MA&UD) department.

A senior MA&UD official said that Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy’s vision of a uniform growth of Hyderabad was possible only if registrations of unauthorised GP layouts are put an end to.

Earlier, GP layout permissions were granted even if the road right in front of the property was just 20 feet wide. In addition to narrow roads, permission was granted even if there were no setbacks or a sewerage network.

However, many places which were once hamlets in Hyderabad outskirts, including Kokapet, Narsingi, Mokila, Nizampet and Badangpet, now boast of several apartments and housing societies. Hence, the state government has decided to strictly ban registration of unauthorised GP layouts as they could mar the planned growth vision.

In the meanwhile, the state government is giving property owners an opportunity to regularise their properties under the layout regularisation scheme (LRS). The state government received 25.67 lakh LRS applications when the scheme was launched four years ago, although, the progress to dispose them is moving at a snail's pace.