The Times of India 13.05.2013
Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority to rectify 'human errors' in master plan
HYDERABAD: Civic officials took several years for preparing the master plan for the Hyderabad Metropolitan Region 2031, but despite their laborious effort several mistakes have cropped up in the document, which was notified earlier this year. The officials appear to have not taken due care in marking village area (GramaKantam), survey numbers and land use.
With several complaints in the master plan being reported, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) is now working out modalities to correct the errors. The HMDA officials, however, shrugged off the mistakes saying that they were either "human errors" or they went ahead with documents available with them. They claim that a rigorous exercise had gone into the preparation of the master plan.
The master plan was approved by the Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) department in January last. After the copies and CDs were made available a couple of weeks ago, citizens started identifying mistakes and errors were noticed by the urban development authorities.
For instance, the authorities have not incorporated the village map of Kalgal in Toopran mandal. Similarly, due to the negligence of the planning wing officials, either the survey numbers are repeated or there is a mismatch with ground reality. Sources said about 30 such complaints were received by the HMDA, which are now being looked into by the officials.
HMDA officials said those who have complaints should approach the junior planning officer of HMDA with relevant documents and proofs. The village maps and other documents have to be certified either by the tehsildar of the respective mandal or the assistant director of Survey and Land Records of the respective district. Since the master plan has already been approved by the state government by giving time for filing objections and suggestions, no official time would be given for general public, yet they could submit their objections to the authority, HMDA planning wing officials said.
"The required changes will be approved by the metropolitan commissioner. The same corrections will be ratified by the executive board of the HMDA later. However, changes in land use will not be entertained by the authority," a senior HMDA official said.
The Hyderabad Metropolitan Region is spread over 7,228 square kms spanning five districts__Hyderabad, Rangareddy, Medak, Mahbubnagar and Nalgonda districts. The authority has jurisdiction over 849 villages and two municipalities Bhongiri and Sangareddy. Over 4,400 objections were received between July 2011 and March 2012 from the citizens and some objections were considered before finalizing the master plan.
