The hectic rounds of municipal offices for getting building plans sanctioned in North and Central Delhi areas will now be a thing of the past for small plot holders. The BJP-ruled North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC) on Tuesday doled out a major sop ahead of the lok Sabha polls by exempting people living in areas under it from getting building plans sanctioned for small residential plots of upto 100 square yards.
Instead, the applicants will only be required to submit a building plan prepared by an architect along with an affidavit for the purpose. The building plan will be automatically approved within 15 days of submitting the application. East and South Delhi municipalities, both ruled by the BJP may also follow suit. In another development, the NMC also passed a resolution for increasing the floor area ratio (FAR) to 400 for plots measuring up to 175 square yards. This will allow the property owners to have additional coverage area on the plot.
Finalising the Budget for the year 2014-15, leader of House Meera Aggarwal said since rules permit 100 per cent built-up on residential plots up to 100 square yards, the corporation has decided to do away with the practice of sanctioning building plans. For this, the Municipal Commissioner has been asked to come up with a detailed report within 15 days.
The move will benefit lakhs of people in the city who intend to build their houses but are forced to make rounds of Government offices for getting the building plan sanctioned. “Sanctioning of building plans for smaller properties will not be a compulsion anymore. The applicants will have to attach a building plan of their choice prepared by any independent architect or structural engineer along with the application and the amount of fee. If no objection is raised, the building plan will be suo motu approved within 15 days of application,” Aggarwal said.
A high-level committee headed by Chairman of the Works Committee has been formed to devise the modalities for implementing the decision. The committee will also have the Chief Town Planner, Engineer-in-Chief, Chief law Officer and Executive Engineer (Building) as members. “It will not be a compulsion to get the building plan made by any empanelled engineer. It can be made by any architect or engineer. However, the engineer and the property owner will have to submit an undertaking that the construction of the property is being done as per the building by-laws and that there is no violation of norms,” officials said adding an estimated 10 lakh properties exist in the NMC area.
Earlier, the civic body had introduced the online system of sanctioning building plans. However, this required at least a month for getting the approval as the building plan submitted by the property owner underwent a scrutiny by the Building Department of the corporation. Similarly, scrutiny took a long time manually.