NMC’s Town Planning Deptt earned Rs 299 cr during COVID-19 period
| Date :29-Apr-2023 |
Staff Reporter
The Town Planning Department of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) netted a revenue of Rs 808.81 crore during the last four years, indicating a boom in construction activity in the second capital of the State. A salient point about the of the four years’ highest revenue of Rs 299 crore was realised in year 2021-22, the period when second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic hit the city. Inspite of widespread concerns about the pandemic, there was no let up in property market and it continued to expand at terrific pace, as the figures provided under RTI by Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) revealed. During the period, about 6,402 building maps were received by Town Planning Department for sanctioning of their maps. Of these, 4,176 were sanctioned while maps of 2,226 buildings were rejected. As an average, the Department processed about 65.23 per cent of building maps.
Abhay Kolarkar sought information about the number of building maps sanctioned by Town Planning Department of NMC from April 1, 2020, till February 25 ,2023. While the department was forthright in sharing information about the maps sanctioned and revenue earned, the Department, however, denied details as to maps about multi-storey buildings that were sanctioned. Even precise question about how many building maps with 10 or 10 plus storey were sanctioned, again the Department ducked it under reply that they do not keep such record.
As to area around airport where multi-storey (10 storey) buildings construction are banned, the Town Planning Department directed Kolarkar to refer to CCZM map. The map of the zone they said is available on website of Airport Authority of India through NOCS, and Department as such does not have any information about the same. Similarly, they also clarified that Town Planning Department provided clearance to building maps in airport zone only after NoC from AAI. One of the reason for higher earnings for Town Planning Department could be due to previous regulation, wherein NMC enforced 100 per cent increase in charges for sanctioning building maps. The same was later rescinded as it put burden on the people.
Another reason was that during the period when Town Planning netted handsome revenue, the status of Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT) was in limbo and entire city was under its jurisdiction. Meanwhile, during the year 2020 the Town Planning Department sanctioned 1,374 maps while it received 2,550 applications. The figure increased to 2,557 in year 2021 while 1,556 maps were accorded approval. In year 2022, just 1,022 applications were received and 1,130 were sanctioned, this included previous year applications also. In first two months of the current fiscal year, 253 applications were received for processing, and 116 building maps were approved.