The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) was ranked 27 by the 'World Bank' this year in the 'ease of 'doing business' in respect to building construction permits on Thursday. The civic body which is the nodal agency for the three municipal corporations(North, South and East), stated that earlier it was ranked 52nd.
A senior SDMC official said the ranking has brought a sense of satisfaction as it strived hard to carry forward the process of reforms throughout the year.
"The civic bodies have earned a better ranking compared to last year and shown "remarkable improvement from 52 to 27 in the ranking this year," he said.
It further said that such improvement has been possible due to concerted efforts during last three year which helped in reduction in the number of processes, simplification in the application form and preparation of an online common application form, minimisation of required number of documents, minimisation of the cost, drastic reduction in sanction time, online submission of limited documents and fee, self online status monitoring by the applicants, downloading facility of the sanction copy etc.
SDMC Commissioner Gyanesh Bharti said that in continuation of its efforts to improve transparency and administrative efficiency, corporations further reduced procedures in getting construction permits from 16 to 11. The cost of construction permit has also been reduced from 4.2 per cent to 2.8 per cent, he said, adding that the civic bodies also scored full marks in quality control index.
Bharti congratulated the building department over this wonderful and pleasing achievement and has also lauded their committed concerted efforts.
"The SDMC has once again demonstrated its competence, capabilities and devotion in turning impossible in to possible,” he said. He further said that the civic body will strive hard to find place in the first ten ranking in the next year.
The World Bank has been finalising the rankings on the basis of around 200 parameters, regular visits in the building department and taking minute feed- back from the applicants and the stakeholders involved.