The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation – GHMC plans to impose monetary penalty on those who own illegal buildings in the city.
The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation– GHMC; with the aim to control the construction of illegal buildings, has decided to impose additional tax in the form of penalty from the owners of the illegal buildings.
The owners of the illegal buildings will be hit hard as the GHMC plans to impose an additional penalty on them. Though the Authority said that this is made with the view of preventing all sorts of illegal constructions in the city, the authority aims to increase the revenue as well.
An official with GHMC disclosed that the Authority plans to amend the existing 25% property taxes to 100%. If the amendment takes place, those who pay Rs.1000 will have to pay Rs.2000 instead. Moreover GHMC will be able to raise around Rs.30 Cr through this fine.
Though the new penalty rule is likely to be implemented by April 1, the success of the new rule will depend on the harmony between the building norms and the GHMC act. Now there are differences between the existing building norms and GHMC norms.
However, the city now has more than three lakh unauthorized properties. This civic body reached this figure after assessing a mere 12 lakh properties in the city. Once the entire buildings are counted, the number of such illegal properties will be more.
A GHMC official said that the new penalty will be imposed on all forms of residential and commercial structures. Residential structures include independent villas and houses, flats and residential apartments and the likes.
Apart from imposing the penalty on the illegal buildings, the civic body also plans to recapture all the encroached land parcels of the government. GHMC commissioner MT Krishna Babu opined that these severe acts will prevent illegal constructions in the city.
