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BPS: Legalising The Illegal
Posted by Pradeep Sadanapalli | July 11, 2008 | 854 views
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Loading ...A whopping Rs 343 crore and counting. That’s what the Building Penalisation Scheme (BPS) of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has netted so far turning out to be a goose laying golden eggs. Predictably, the deadline to pay up has been extended four times even as GHMC is allegedly giving ‘scheme protection’ to even new illegal constructions.
Meanwhile, many property owners haven’t paid up as yet, still inquiring if they are being penalised for an offence committed by the builder and the government, find Koride Mahesh and Roli Srivastava.
The coffers of the GHMC are overflowing, well almost, with the penal amount collected from property owners in the city under the BPS pegged at Rs 343 crore. With this amount collected in the last six months under BPS as well as Layout Regularisation Scheme (LRS), the GHMC now says there will be no more extensions of the schemes after July 15 for BPS and September 30 for LRS. Still, one can be sceptical about it because in the past it has not only extended the deadline for paying the fee four times but has also allegedly turned a blind eye to the new illegal buildings coming up in the city over the past six months.
According to unofficial estimates, nearly 5,000 new illegal constructions have come up since January 1, 2008. While the BPS applies only to those buildings constructed between January 1, 1985 and December 15, 2007, builders of constructions that have come up this year are also allegedly queuing up for the ‘regularisation’ certificate. New penthouses and illegal floors constructed way after the specified date of the scheme have particularly made a beeline for approval, since it promises regularisation at a minimal fee.
The reason for letting non-eligible constructions apply is perhaps rooted in the target revenue of Rs 1,000 crore that the corporation officials hope to achieve under BPS and LRS. While the collection is expected to touch the Rs 500 crore mark by July 15, it may cross Rs 1,000 crore after people have made their full payment. (To coax more people to come forward and pay up, the principal secretary of municipal administration and urban planning has announced that property owners can pay even 10 per cent of the penal amount and the rest in the next six months).
Until that happens, sources say that corporation officials are trying to reach their target revenue of Rs 1,000 crore by July 15 itself and thus accepting applications to regularise new, illegal constructions.
But when the GHMC demolished nearly 438 unauthorised buildings and structures in the last week of June, observers alleged that the demolition drive was taken up to scare people who have raised illegal structures and not applied for regularisation.
Illegal protection
Those familiar with developments around the BPS point out that in many cases builders of new constructions are showing a pre-dated permission to become eligible for the scheme. Some say they have started the work in the period specified by the GHMC and hence come under the scheme.
Critics of the scheme had feared just this. They say that if illegal constructions can get regularised builders would not stick to building norms, assured that deviations in constructions today would bear the tag of legal structures tomorrow, by paying a petty fine. Observers note that this measure will only put more money into the pockets of officials and politicians, even as the builders go scot free. They further note that if officials have failed to check the violations so far and have come out with such a scheme, it would only encourage more builders to violate norms, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn’t be penalised for it.
“The scheme does not apply to construction after December 15, 2007 and the High Court in its interim judgment made this amply clear,” says Kartik Chandra of the Lok Satta party, that had moved the court challenging the scheme.
But builders reason that six months is a long enough time to construct a building. “When the scheme was announced, officials did not announce the cut off date for the regularisation which gave scope for the people to begin construction work,” an office bearer of a builder’s association said.
In the last six months since January 1, 2008, the GHMC has received 1,25,000 applications under the BPS and 35,000 applications for LRS till July 7. It collected total Rs 343 crore under the regularisation scheme. Of this collections from BPS accounted for Rs 250 crore and Rs 93 crore from LRS.
Interestingly, of the Rs 550 crore revenue earned through BPS and LRS schemes in the state, Hyderabad alone accounts for Rs 400 crore (earned by GHMC and HUDA under their respective regularisation schemes).
The Deadline Drag
The Government Orders for building and layout regularisation (GO MS No 901 and 902) were issued on January 1, 2008 and two months’ time was given to implement the schemes. But the municipal administration and urban development authorities have extended the scheme’s deadline four times. The extensions were given on March 31, April 30, May 31 and June 30. The latest deadline for the BPS is July 15 and September 30 is the last date for the LRS.
Interestingly, in the first month, the submissions of applications did not cross 100 due to the exorbitant penal amounts. Till February 25, the GHMC had made just about Rs 1.2 crore by way of penal amount. No single applicant had submitted papers for BPS and LRS in Huda till January 22.
Later, with criticism mounting from people and non-governmental organisations the municipal administration amended the BPS and LRS on January 31 and reduced the penal amounts. Instead of uniform rates of penal amount, it offered applicants an amount based on the government land value of the areas where their property was located. The other facility given was that applicants could pay 50 per cent of the penal amount at the time of submission of the application and the remaining amount at a later date.
Since there was a lukewarm response even after reducing the penal amount, the GHMC issued notices to all illegal constructions to regularise them. Nearly 1.34 lakh notices were given to the people in the city. Following this, people started applying for regularisation.
However, since notices were not served to all buildings, many owners assumed that they were not liable to pay any fine or that there are no deviations in the property since they did not get the GHMC intimation. “People are still inquiring whether they need to pay up or not,” says VBJ Chelikani Rao, president of the United Federation of Residents’ Welfare Association.
Besides, dragging the deadline date is not helping matters. “Frequent postponement takes away the value of the deadline,” Chelikani Rao says that this deadline postponement gives people the impression that there is never a final date for paying up the amount assuming the last date would be deferred again.
Kartik Chandra of Lok Satta questions the deadline game being played out, pointing out that it is being done by the GHMC “to pressurise the middle class flat owners to pay up the money”. He says that any deadline is currently meaningless since the case against the scheme is pending in the High Court. He says that in its interim order, the High Court had stated that until the court gives its judgment, no structures could be certified as regularised.
The Lok Satta party had filed a writ petition in the High Court on February 19, 2008, seeking a stay on the AP regulation and penalisation of unauthorised buildings and buildings constructed in deviation of the sanctioned plan rules-2007 and collection of any penal amounts from the purchasers of flats/houses. Condemning the state government’s move to penalise middle class house/apartment owners, party chief Jayaprakash Narayan had said that penalties should be collected from the builders who had obtained occupancy fitness certificates despite violating building norms and resorting to irregularities. “If builders do not pay, the government can invoke the provisions of the Revenue Recovery Act,” he had said.
Despite the case still pending in the High Court, GHMC is accepting applications, stating that the court has only stayed disposing of the BPS applications and regularising the buildings. “There is no stay on accepting and processing the applications,” an official said.
Conning the Conned Consumer
That ‘consumer is king’ certainly doesn’t apply to the conned buyers of properties in the state who have been forced to cough up the penal fee amount even as the builder and the government officials who had once sanctioned these buildings go scot free.
Be it banks that extended loans to properties deviating from the sanctioned plan or the government officials who cleared water and electricity supply to these structures and gave the buildings a fitness certificate have not been penalised, point out consumers.
That most buyers do not check the proposed layout plan as against the sanctioned plan is a reality and now there are still many who think that the BPS doesn’t apply to them. “I don’t think I need to pay up anything. I took a bank loan and they would have checked the papers before sanctioning the loan,” says P Srinivas who purchased a flat five years ago in Begumpet.
While Chelikani Rao says that the buyer, the builder and the government (that has abetted the offence) are collectively responsible for this, he maintains that the consumer should pay up. But despite the hullabaloo around the scheme, many owners are still assuming that they are not among those who have to pay any penalty.
But builders have by now rubbed their hands off the whole affair and have predictably put the blame on consumers. “Deviations in the layout take place all the time and people buying know there are deviations. They get a sanction plan from the builder. Why don’t they question him then?’’ says a builder, adding the layout plan clearly shows the discrepancy. Besides, the sanctioned layout is also displayed at the construction site and it is for the buyer to see and check if it is in compliance with the actual construction.
SOURCES:
Times Of India
Topics: Public Concerns, Govt Failures, Construction |
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