With confusion prevailing over permissions to be granted for the buildings and layouts that are close to lakes and other water bodies, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation have halted issuing permissions near water bodies and lakes.

According to official sources and real estate organisations, around 400 to 500 files have been stalled by the two govt agencies. Though there were no official orders from the govt to stop giving permissions for buildings and layouts, sources in HMDA and GHMC confirmed that they were not processing fresh files owing to confusion over the full tank level and buffer zones of many water bodies.

"Of the about 580 water bodies within Outer Ring Road, final notifications fixing the FTL and buffer zones for 430 of them have not been completed. FTL and buffer zones of only 130 lakes was completed. At this stage, we are not going to rush to give permissions as it may lead to legal problems later," a senior official of HMDA told TOI. But it takes several months to complete final notifications for all the lakes.

"A final notification fixing FTL and buffer zones of a lake is final and cannot be altered. Unless final notification is issued, the permissions cannot be issued at this juncture," an official said.

In Hyderabad Metropolitan Region under the control of HMDA, out of 3,500 lakes, preliminary notifications were issued to 2,560 lakes and final notifications were completed for about 230 lakes.

"It came to our notice that hundreds of permissions have been stalled in HMDA and GHMC limits for the past few months. Some are not located near water bodies also. Generally, people buy properties during the festive season especially between Oct-Dec. If the permissions are delayed, it will have a negative impact on the real estate industry," an office-bearer of Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India, Hyderabad, told TOI.

Officials said until HYDRAA came into existence and became active three months ago, both HMDA and GHMC used to grant permissions for buildings and layouts based on no objection certificate from the irrigation and revenue departments. The district collectors used to issue the NOC after the joint inspections in some cases.

The state govt suspended irrigation, revenue officials and even a municipal commissioner and booked cases for giving building permissions in FTL and buffer zones of water bodies, which were found to be faulty and in some cases where survey numbers were wrong. This was done based on the recommendations of HYDRAA.

Municipal administration department officials said there is no ban on granting permissions in HMDA or GHMC, including water bodies. But they should be extra cautious while giving building and layout permissions, an official said.