Venkaiah Naidu promises digitisation of permits

CM Devendra Fadnavis speaks to Union minister of urban development Venkaiah Naidu during the workshop in BKC on Friday. (Photo: Shripad Naik)

At a national workshop held in Mumbai on Friday, to launch single window clearances for construction permits within the city, Union minister for urban development Venkaiah Naidu promised to achieve complete digitisation of constructions’ permit applications in Mumbai “immediately”.

This is in tune with the central government’s flagship programme for ease of doing business. Also present at the workshop were chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, mayor of Mumbai Snehal Ambekar, and municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta.

Following this, Mr Mehta assured that all applications for construction permits in Mumbai would be made online from May 15. No physical permissions will be accepted after this period. Mr Naidu also committed to completing this process in 12 other major cities of the country, including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and Chennai, by October 2 this year.

To achieve transparency and reduce response time in the permits system, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) announced that the clearances from all civic departments such as the sewerage department and the water department would now be run parallel. This means once an application is received by the civic body, all concerned departments will look into it together. Instead of the application going from one desk to another, the process will take place on one website, where a single form will be filled and one time payment will take place.

The MCGM also plans to rope in external clearance authorities such as the Indian railways and the environment ministry. It has presently tied up with the airport authority and the Archaeological Survey of India. This will require approaching only the corporation for permissions.

Also, to further cut down on the levels of scrutiny, the MCGM has introduced several new measures. For example, after the NOC for building construction granted by the civic body based on inspection of the first design, no further permissions for redesigning the building will be required, as long as the owner does not make structural changes to the original design. Smaller permits such as the plumbing and electric installations will not need clearances from the civic body. A local architect will self certify these design.

Elaborating on this, Mr Fadnavis said, “It is not enough for the municipal corporation alone to ease the process, if environmental clearances cannot be obtained quickly. The equation is simple. If someone wants to buy a house, the time period required for construction is great and that we are trying to minimise.”

On the lines of the provisions of the New Delhi Municipal Coporation, the MCGM would also soon integrate environmental clearances as part of the Development Control Regulations (DCR) of the city’s Development Plan (DP), Mr Fadnavis said.