The Narendra Modi Government may have pitched in for ensuring ‘ease of doing business’ only recently by asking the municipal bodies to cut red tape and expedite building sanction process, but at least 27 urban bodies have already been doing it since the past year through an online mechanism to grant the necessary plan approvals.
Maharashtra leads the list with seven of its urban bodies going online followed by Kerala with five, said Minister of State for Urban Development Babul Supriyo in a written reply in the lok Sabha on Wednesday.
Municipal corporations of Greater Mumbai, New Delhi Municipal Council and Municipal Corporation of South Delhi, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Coimbattore, Indore, Nagpur, Solapur, Amravati, Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kochi, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Ujjain, Gwalior, Ulhasnagar, Hubil-Dharwad and lavasa are among those who have already taken initiative to issue building permits online.
Among the Development Authorities who have taken a lead in having single window online system for approval are New Town Kolkata Development Authority, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, Haryana Urban Development Authority, Bhubaneswar Development Authority, Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority and Jaipur Development Authority, said the Minister.
He also said that the Urban Development Ministry has also advised the State Governments to streamline the building sanction procedures so as to accord clearances in a month's time.
last month, the Ministry had 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,” the Ministry’s advisory had said.
The Government has also 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.