INDORE: The Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) has issued notices to 47 property owners and licensed consultants for tampering with building permissions in order to evade appropriate fees and minimize future property tax obligations.
This action follows a thorough examination of 300 online building permissions approved over the past two months. The discrepancies were identified within the civic body’s automated ‘deemed approval’ system, which was designed to approve building plans for smaller structures promptly, without manual intervention from municipal officials. Allegedly, applicants manipulated data to underpay building permission fees by Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000.
Prakhar Singh, the additional commissioner of the corporation, stated, “The investigation revealed three types of structural irregularities: obtaining new building permissions for plots with existing construction by misrepresenting them as vacant, merging two distinct plots for unauthorized joint construction, and under-reporting actual construction areas to reduce fee calculations.”
Officials noted this is not the first case of system manipulation; applicants previously exploited a similar technical loophole to obtain online approvals in area-based development smart city zones, where higher fee rates are applicable and the automated approval system is legally ineligible.
In light of these fraudulent activities, the civic body has commenced a thorough review of all past building permits issued through the online platform to recover financial dues and penalize non-compliant consultants.
