HYDERABAD: The Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad has decided to take over the property inside Chacha Nehru Park at Masab Tank where a private firm was running a sports centre since the lease period was over and no tax was being paid for several months.

Mayor Teegala Krishna Reddy directed Commissioner Sanjay Jaju to initiate action `immediately' at the recent Council meeting after it was pointed out that there was an "unnecessary delay" in taking over the property despite court orders.

The decision was taken after officials admitted that rules do not permit extending a lease period beyond three years under any circumstances.

There was also furore over lack of proper information about the corporation assets, including leased properties.

Mr. Jaju said of the 1,066 open sites about 673 were developed and fencing will be taken up to protect them. There were encroachments in 82 properties and digital photographs were being taken as part of a survey taken up to list them.

He also said 86 community halls of the 391 were being `misused' and within a week steps would be taken to put them to productive use by either starting a library, reading room, gymnasium, literacy centre, etc.

Missing files

However, the Commissioner admitted that about 170 odd files pertaining to period of 1982-86 on the leased lands were `lost' when they were being transferred from one department to another!

A panel of all floor leaders are to probe into this case and submit a report within 20 days.

A resolution was also passed to request the Government to see that a no objection certificate from the MCH was necessary for setting up wine shops (212 in Hyderabad) as it was being done for bars and restaurants.

This was necessary to keep a check on parking and misuse of premises as was pointed out by the police.

Mr. Jaju said four NoCs were issued to bars and 13 to restaurants in the last one year and all trades were divided into 21 categories.

Automatic annual renewal of licences through eSeva has been halted and licences will be issued only after an inspection of three parameters - adequate parking space, location (residential/commercial) and booking under the bulk garbage system to prevent dumping of hotel waste into dumper bins were essential.

Anti-larval drive

The MCH's urban malaria scheme personnel had covered 51,083 houses so far for taking up anti-larval operations and also sprayed 13.7 km of open drains with larvicides for controlling mosquito breeding.

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