Nagpur: The Town Planning Department of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) earned a revenue of Rs 808.81 crore during the last three years, indicating a boom in construction activity in the Second Capital of the State. A salient feature about the of the three years’ highest revenue of Rs 299 crore was released in year 2021-22, the period when second wave of the COVID19 pandemic hit Nagpur.
In spite of widespread concerns about the pandemic, there was no let up in the property market and it continued to expand at great pace, as the figures provided under RTI by Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) revealed. During the period, about 6,402 building maps were received by the Town Planning Department for sanctioning. Of these, 4,176 were sanctioned while maps of 2,226 buildings were rejected.
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Tuesday 28 Jan. 2025
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 the 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, refused details as to maps about multi-storey buildings that were sanctioned.
Even a precise question about how many building maps with 10 or 10 plus storey were sanctioned, again the Department ducked the query under reply that they do not keep such records. As to areas around the airport where multi-storey (10 storey) buildings constructions are banned, the Town Planning Department directed Kolarkar to refer to the CCZM map. The map of the zone they said is available on the website of the Airport Authority of India through NOCS, and the Department as such does not have any information about the same.
Similarly, they also clarified that the Town Planning Department provided clearance to building maps in the airport zone only after NoC from AAI. One of the reasons for higher earnings for the Town Planning Department could be due to previous regulation, wherein NMC enforced a 100 percent increase in charges for sanctioning building maps. The same was later rescinded as it put a burden on the people.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 the 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 2021 while 1,556 maps were accorded approval. In the year 2022, just 1,022 applications were received and 1,130 were sanctioned, this included previous year applications also. In the first two months of the current fiscal year, 253 applications were received for processing, and 116 building maps were approved.
