The 2007 audit report stated that TCC had carried out the transfer of land falling under the Thimphu municipal area without the court decisions.

It was also found that there were differences in landholdings with the records maintained by the department of survey and land record (DSLR) and TCC. A total of 21 cases involving 492.608 decimal of excess land were found regularised by the corporation without proper documentation, investigation and reconciliation of the differences.

It was also found that in some cases land was regularised irregularly and there were also cases of conversion of dry land to wetland and vice-versa without proper documentation.

The report also points out that there were many cases where TCC had not updated the thram upon execution of land transfers and regularisation. “Supervision and monitoring mechanisms over the processing and approval of land transfer cases were either absent or not adequate,” the report states.

There was no system of maintaining a movement indicator of officials having direct interface with the public or clients to facilitate speedy delivery of services. “This had led to exercising undue discretion by public officials, inaction and abnormal delays in the processing of applications for land transfers,” stated the report. There were 455 pending land transfer cases going back as far as 1992, with the survey section taking 1,214 days to execute an agreement after the approval of land transfer accorded by the thrompon.

RAA also looked into the processing and approval of building applications and found that there were abnormal delays in clearing building applications, with process time taken varying from 37 to 731 days. TCC had taken 184 days on an average to accord the final approval for construction from the date of receipt of application. The time take in the architectural unit alone ranged from 18 to 677 days.

There were 11 local area plans (LAPs) under Thimphu municipality, out of which only two LAPs in Lungtenphu and Changzamtog were finalised. “Unless the LAPs are finalized, normally no development activities are permitted as no demarcation would have been carried out. However, TCC had granted 43 building permissions in the extended areas without finalizing the LAPs,” said the report.

Construction of habitable attics in any type of building was not permitted as per the DCR 2004. However, it was found that more than 160 buildings had unauthorsed habitable attics constructed.

RAA recommended that TCC review the relevance and the applicability of the Land Act in the municipal areas and obtain clarification from the authorities on the extent of its applicability to avoid ambiguities, inconsistencies and arbitrary decisions. It also stated that TCC should ensure timely updating of thrams to reflect current landholdings.

It also suggested that TCC should review contradictory provisions in the DCR 2004, which stipulates the requirement of prior approval of TCC for construction, as well as allows regulation of constructions without its prior approval.