In a bid to speed up approvals for construction projects in urban areas, the Government has decided to include forest and environment related regulations in the building bye-laws. Government hopes that the move will cut down an average approval time from current 90 - 600 days to 30 days, boosting construction activities in the cities across the States.
“The move is to enable a mechanism where in only a minimum number of clearances would be required to be taken and the same accorded online in a maximum of 30 days,” said Minister of Urban Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Venkaiah Naidu at a high-level meeting held on Tuesday.
Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, representatives from Culture, Defence and Consumer Affairs Ministries were among others who attended the meeting held to discuss ways to substantially reduce the number of approvals and 'No Objections' required for taking up construction projects in urban areas through rationalisation.
During the meeting Nandita Chatterjee, Secretary HUPA pointed out that presently 30-50 approvals were required to be taken from Central and State Governments resulting in an average approval time of 90 — 600 days for construction projects which was adversely impacting investments. The official said that Javadekar has agreed to the suggestion that most of the forest and environment related regulations can be included in the Building Bye-laws for ensuring compliance by the concerned urban local bodies.
“He (Javadekar) further assured that delineation of exact boundaries of 639 ecologically sensitive zones will be speeded up to remove ambiguities that would enable quick approvals,” the official added.
While Civil Aviation Minister Raju said that necessary maps and information regarding height restrictions for construction in the funnel zone of all airports to the concerned urban local bodies for necessary action will be provided, Culture Secretary informed that prevailing restrictions for construction near monuments were being revisited. On its part, the Consumer Affairs Ministry said that the National Building Code-2015 will be finalised by September this year to enable single window clearance for construction projects.