HYDERABAD, Nov 3: District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil has said revamping of the Hyderabad Development Authority is needed to ensure better delivery of services to people. He was speeking at the district nazim’s secretariat on Wednesday.

He said that due to apathy of officers, about Rs1 billion was outstanding against public and different other organizations and, consequently, the HDA was not in a position even to pay salaries to its employees.

He said the management of the HDA, instead of generating its own funds by providing efficient services to people and collecting water charges and other taxes, mostly depended on government subsidy and kept all matters of immediate nature, necessary for its survival, pending.

The nazim said though proper recovery was not made from people, the government was continuously pouring funds for the HDA under different packages and programmes but the result was not satisfactory.

He said ghost employees and unwilling officers had rendered great losses to the HDA and created miserable conditions for people.

He said the district government had decided to strengthen the HDA by providing it with financial as well as administrative support.

Mr Jamil said that to reactivate and regulate the authority, a separate police force with magisterial cover would be provided to the management of the HDA to enforce rules and regulations and ensure proper recovery of water charges and revenue taxes as well as to streamline the building control system.

He asked the HDA director general to propose names of stakeholder organizations for a committee which would be headed by him to reconcile the outstanding amount against the Site, Hyderabad. He said he would also take the matter of outstanding dues against government departments with higher authorities and would get it resolved.

He asked the HDA director general to submit a report of each pending case causing loss to the authority.

The nazim said provision of low-cost housing schemes was also the job of the HDA. He expressed concern over a report that 100 acres of HDA land had been illegally occupied by the Police Regional Training Centre at Kohesar Extension which could create 3,500 residential plots for people. He directed HDA director general to submit a report along with his recommendation to resolve the matter.

He said he was trying to get maximum funds for the HDA to reactivate and revamp its system.