Hyderabad’s fight against illegal construction

We save money all our lives to own a home. It is one of the most crucial decisions of our lives, thus selecting the right property which suits all our needs becomes a daunting task. The decision becomes even more difficult especially when we keep hearing news of property related frauds, under construction buildings collapsing, builders going bankrupt etc. Some of these property buying issues are in our control and some are not. State government in Hyderabad recently made it mandatory for all construction projects to get its building plans and layouts sanctioned before they apply for property registration. According to the new law a builder is not permitted to sell apartments or plots in Hyderabad to people without taking all the mandatory approvals from the civic authorities. If the developer sells a property without building approvals it would be illegal and the revenue department is not permitted to register the property. The revenue department in Hyderabad which takes care of the registrations and stamp duty initially resisted the idea as they could foresee a dip in their revenue from property registrations in Hyderabad real estate . The state government had sent the proposal to the revenue department last year to make civic approvals mandatory for all projects before registering. But the recent incident of building collapse at Nanakramguda which killed eleven people in December 2016 triggered the dangers of illegal building structures. Post the incident the municipal administration department decided to amend its laws and make property registrations in Hyderabad tougher. It is necessary to have strong laws which govern the quality of buildings constructed in our cities. This was not a standalone building collapse incident in our country. Few years back in 2014 an under construction building collapsed at Moulivakkam in the suburb of Chennai killing 61 people. For the state government the decision was not immediate, they were considering linking property registrations with building sanction plans and layout approvals since quite some time now. This was much needed to curb illegal constructions in the city. Many developers were selling illegally constructed properties to buyers without taking mandatory approvals from the authorities. This had become a major issue as once these properties were sold the authorities could do little and attempts to demolish such buildings led to protests from the residents. Buying in such properties is not only illegal but is also not safe as the construction might be of poor quality and government authorities have a right to demolish the building at any time. Hyderabad is not the only city which faces the issue of builders selling illegally constructed homes to buyers, but all the major cities n India face this problem. Other state governments should also make strict laws to restrict such projects. On one hand it is governments’ duty to protect buyers from such fraudant home buying, but on the other hand it is also our responsibility to not buy in such projects.