Hans News Service Visakhapatnam

A two-day special town planning open forum, organised as a special initiative to expedite the resolution of pending APDPMS approvals/issues, TDR online pending issues and LRS pending issues within the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) limits, received an overwhelming response from the public on the day-one.

As per the directions of GVMC Commissioner Ketan Garg, Additional Commissioner S S Varma, along with Chief City Planner A Prabhakar Rao conducted the special forum at the GVMC head office on Thursday.

A total of 267 petitioners from various parts of the city attended the forum and submitted their grievances. Of these, 63 grievances related to APDPMS, 191 to LRS and 13 to TDR. Citizens attended the forum with documents relating to their pending applications and issues and brought them to the notice of the concerned officials.

After thoroughly examining the grievances, the officials disposed of 83 applications on the day-one itself, including 40 under APDPMS, 35 under LRS and 8 under TDR. The Commissioner directed the concerned officials to examine the remaining applications and expedite necessary action for their disposal in accordance with the prescribed rules.

A total of 107 officers and staff, along with 61 Licensed Technical Persons (LTPs), participated in the programme. In addition, 83 LRS applications were submitted through LTPs. By bringing citizens, LTPs and concerned officials together, the forum facilitated scrutiny of pending applications, identification of issues and faster processing toward their resolution.

The Commissioner clarified that the two-day special open forum is not intended for all general Town Planning issues, but is conducted exclusively for three specific categories: pending building approvals/issues under APDPMS, TDR online pending issues and LRS pending issues.

In view of the overwhelming public response, the special town planning open forum will continue on Friday (September 11) from 10 am to 5 pm at the GVMC head office, as scheduled, the Commissioner informed, appealing to people to make use of the platform effectively. City planner Dhanunjaya Reddy, deputy city planners, assistant city planners, other officials and staff participated in the programme.