Now onwards Mumbai developers can take the help of private consultants to receive the NOCs
Private-Consultant
As a part of new initiative “Ease of Doing Business”, BMC is planning to reduce the building permissions from over more than 150 buildings to 70 buildings. However; according to the reports of construction industry, it is“Eyewash” stating that there is need of proper building approvals system in all civic bodies which are dominated by the rampant corruption and delayed process to knock out money from real estate builders. But engineers and officials are calling it hot shot. Now architects are summoning to the real estate building proposals office at late night to process the relevant files.
On last Friday, Ajoy Mehta, Civic Body Chief informed that there are many civic group leaders who are not approving building permissions within the 90 days. However; in other cities of the world such as; Dubai and New York it takes only 90 days to get all kinds construction approvals for residential and commercial buildings. To sort all these kinds of issues now BMC has decided to bring down the number on building approvals and permission which is expected to drop by 150 buildings to 70 buildings. However; real estate builders are skeptical if move will work to get the solution which known as rampant corruption in BMC and it is the main reason of delay and getting approval for proposals.
Private consultants will help the real estate builders to get NOCs:
Now Civic Body is allowing real estate builders to take the help of private consultants to get the no-objection certificates (NOCs), however; earlier real estate builders were sued to take the help of civic officials in exchange of money. In present, real estate developers have to procure no-objection certificates from different departments such as; traffic, fire brigade, hospitals and more. Cooperators said to Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena Chief Uddhav Thackeray will be requested to release the new building proposals booklets which were including commercial and residential buildings. These leaders were representing different political parties and to stop the corporation in civic body they try to sabotage the new rules because there are few corrupt officials which are used to create hurdles to get NOCs. The development plan (DP) and building proposals (BP) departments are directing reporting to the municipal commissioner.
Effect on Civic Body:
According to the Rais Shaikh, Group Leader of Samajwadi Party, “It is very nice initiative to bring in transparency in all civic departments. The building proposals department is one of the most corrupted units in civic corporation”. In present, it can take more than years to complete the all the procures for building permissions. Now administration wants to fix the time duration to complete all the procedure. Earlier, real estate builders were used to get the different NOCs at different stages, now they are deciding to not to hold back one NOC for others. And civic body is planning to make the procedure faster by issuing all permissions in 90 days, as per the statement of Yashodhar Phanse, Shiv Sena Corporator and Standing Committee Chairman. It is expected that this new rule will bring more transparency and provide an opportunity to do more friendly business. As per the statement of Manoj Kotak, BJP Group Leader, “Less time duration and fewer windows for clearances will mean reduce the chance of corruption”.
Construction industry have many other issues which needs to be sorted out and now BMC is planning to reduce the number of permissions as the best possible solution, but while claiming other issues it still needs to be addressed. However; the good thing that civic body has not reduced the tiers of approvals as well as of officers a real estate builder has to go to get the permissions. But for instance, the number of files and documents required just submitting a building proposal is 34.
“Ease of Doing Business” new initiative of BMC:
According to architects, the other major hurdle is the software of BMC which is not more than junk and every time civic officials are used to force it to get the desired result. According to real estate builders, we are welcoming the new initiative of BMC which is “Ease of Doing Business” because it is expected that it will not reduce corruption. Architects are called at midnight to the building proposal department by some engineers. But at some corner the industry is upset because to get freedom from corruption now civic body is decreasing the number of approvals. According to recent study, suburban developer had to pay security as well as premium fees more than 86 times at 14 different places within the BMC for a single project.
