Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court today issued orders staying the process of the recently announced Regularization of Buildings and Layouts (BRS & LRS) in Hyderabad sending shockwaves among the building owners in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.
Hearing a petition filed by Forum for Good Governance opposing the ongoing regularization of buildings and layouts, the High Court issued the interim order halting the procedure till further directions. However, the government can receive applications from builders for the regularization of their buildings and layouts pending a final decision, it added.
Even as the Building Regularization Scheme (BRS) and Layout Regularization Scheme (LRS) are being criticized by the citizens concerned about the beauty of the city, the High Court’s order came as yet another blow to the Telangana government’s efforts to give concessions to builders, who violated rules with unapproved constructions all over the city. The scheme was not only aimed at filling the government coffers with crores of rupees in the form of penalty levied on the builders, but also serves the ruling party’s political purposes in the coming GHMC elections. Thousands of owners are trying to get their buildings and layouts regularized to avoid any legal issues in future.
After the announcement of the scheme, thousands of building owners and builders filed applications to the GHMC for regularization of their unapproved constructions. While the certified municipal engineers started the process of measuring built-up area of the buildings and layouts, the civil engineering institutions and architects collected handsome amounts from the building owners and builders. With the High Court’s interim stay on the BRS and LRS schemes, thousands of applicants remained in a quandary.
The Forum for Good Governance argued that the government’s liberal stand on the illegal buildings will damage the city’s overall layout in the long run and pointed out that while the government claims to make Hyderabad a global city, how can it regularize the buildings constructed in a haphazard way. The case has been adjourned for further hearing. (NSS)