The Times of India       02.03.2013

Building plan approval to go online in 3 months

NASHIK: The Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) is planning to introduce an online approval system for building plans. The system is expected to become operational within the next three months.

Building plans are approved by the town planning department. As per NMC norms, it should take 60 days to approve a plan, but the process usually takes much longer. Also, several clarifications are to be carried out before a proposal is cleared.

A senior NMC official said, "The objective of making the procedure online is to bring in more transparency. We have already designed a software for this. After the software is tested, the system will become operational." The civic body will explain the software to architects, he added.

The official said the software is programmed in such a way that it will accept a proposal only if all the necessary documents are submitted.

The builder or architect will have to submit hard copies of documents required for approval of a building plan after a proposal is submitted online.

The system will help officials see all the building plan proposals at a time along with their status. The plan will be approved on first-come-first-served basis.

Welcoming the step, president of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India, Kiran Chavan, said, "The online system will benefit builders as it will reduce the time taken to sanction building plans. Queries can be cleared online by the builder and the architect in the office, which will reduce trips to the NMC."

Executive engineer of the NMC's town planning department S V Ghuge said, that the process for online approval was underway and that it would be in place soon. "On an average, we get around 1,200-1,500 building plans for approval every year. The online process will simplify and speed up work."