With an aim to cut “red tape” and improve the “ease of doing business” to boost investment in the cash-starved real estate sector, the Centre has suggested civic bodies to ensure that all clearances for the construction projects are given in a month through a single window online system. The Union Urban Development Ministry has asked the States to direct the civic bodies to reduce the existing hurdles in procuring ‘No-objection’ procedures.
Concerned that according to World Bank’s report on ‘Doing Business 2014’, India is ranked 183 in 189 countries when it comes to dealing with construction permits, the Ministry last month issued a series of advisories suggesting measures to ensure fast-track approval and transparency for construction projects across the States. “It has been observed that to secure a building permit, a large number of clearances have to be taken for construction projects that result in unnecessary delay in the project’s completion, which has implications on the cost.
This is a matter of deep concern especially when we are encouraging large scale investments in real estate sector,’’ said the advisory issued by Neeraj Mandloi, Joint Sectretary in the Urban Development Ministry. The department of Urban local bodies should be directed to ensure that all clearances for the construction projects are given within a month, said Mandloi to the Secretaries of all the State Governments.
At an inter-ministerial meeting in February to discuss “ease of doing business’’, the Government decided that procedures should be streamlined to issue clearances from various Ministries like Environment and Forest, Defence, and Civil Aviation within one month after receiving the application from the real estate developer. The advisory said that the municipal corporations should facilitate clearances from the concerned Ministries or other agencies of the State Government.
“Urban local bodies and State urban development departments should make provision for single window clearance, preferably online, for developers or a construction project,’’ the Ministry has said and observed that the work has to be done in tune with Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Make in India’, to ease the doing business, wherein fast track approval and transparency for construction projects should be ensured to push India’s ranking in ‘ease of doing business’ to the top 50.
Mandloi noted that the task was not difficult given that many city administration such as in Pimpri-Chinchawad, Faridabad, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Surat and Nagpur have already made impressive initiatives in this direction to issue online building permits. The online citizen service for issuance of construction permits can be done on priority basis through computerisation and automation, the official added.
Since last two to three years, the real estate sector has been witnessing a slowdown, leading to liquidity crunch and huge delays in completion of housing as well as commercial projects, said a senior official from the UD Ministry. The speedy and transparent permission for construction of projects will ensure infrastructure creation and employment generation. The move will help create demand for products of related industries like cement and steel.