Hyderabad: People wishing to construct buildings with stilt-plus-three floors may now apply to their respective zonal commissioners for approval.

Previously, they had to apply to the head office, which was a time-consuming process. Field inspections may be carried out by either the head office or the zonal office.

GHMC commissioner Dr B. Janardhan Reddy said this covers residential buildings and apartments for sites less than 750 sq m in size.

Zonal offices will place the proposals before the zonal building committee which meets on Tuesdays. Earlier, GHMC zonal offices were entitled to approve permissions for the construction of residential buildings less than 1000 sq m in size with stilt-plus-four floors.

The decision to delegate powers to zonal offices has been made because the GHMC has taken up the Strategic Road Development Plan. The town planning wing is involved in the preparation of road development plans, identification and acquisition of properties, planning and design.

The GHMC took the Development Permission Management System online in June 2016. Since then all approvals related to building permissions are issued through auto-DCR applications. This facilitates quick scrutiny of the building process.