The Visakhapatnam Metropolitan Region Development Authority (VMRDA) has preliminarily decided to create an online inventory of approved layouts within its purview. The urban development body is planning to procure a mapping licence from Google in order to superimpose and web-map its layouts with all geographical coordinates and related details.
This is being done in order to provide all layout related information to the public on VMRDA’s website. For example, if a prospective buyer wants to purchase a plot in a particular layout, the said buyer can open the map of the layout on VMRDA’s website and get all the details.
Even though the VMRDA is now collecting multi-layered data as part of the online layout approval system, it has to procure geographical coordinates and other details of several layouts as some of them date back to the 1970s and 80s. The VMRDA has approved around 4,000 layouts within its limits since its inception.
VMRDA metropolitan commissioner P Koteswara Rao said that the online layout approval system has made it a fool proof process. “However, the public is still confused about whether a layout has been approved by the VMRDA or not. This has been corroborated in my own experience at a recent property show in Visakhapatnam. There I saw people making enquiries about VMRDA approvals for layouts,” Rao said.
“Therefore that we are planning to map all the layouts in VMRDA’s purview to provide authentic information to the public and prevent the risk of them falling prey to fraudsters,” the metropolitan commissioner added.
Koteswara Rao further said that once the mapping process is complete, people will be able to click on a layout of their choice and get all necessary details.
“The layout map will contain all details such as the extent of the layout, distance from the city, land owners, number of plots, mortgaged extent and roads in the vicinity. People will be able to visit VMRDA’s website and make their own choices based on the layout mapping,” Koteswara Rao said.
He added that the urban development body will consider mapping apartment complexes in the next phase.
The Visakhapatnam Urban Development Authority (VUDA) was upgraded as the VMRDA around one year ago.
The VMRDA serves as a high-power body for urban planning, development, coordination and enforcement in three north coastal Andhra Pradesh districts by virtue of the powers vested on it as per the VMRDA Act.
