business

Updated: Oct 29, 2015 10:00 IST

Soon, individuals as well as real estate developers won’t have to run from pillar to post to get approvals required for their construction project.

In a move that could go a long way in ensuring expeditious completion of building projects, the government has kicked off a process to streamline approvals required in urban areas that would ensure that builders get all the construction permits within 60 days.

Currently, a builder requires as many as 34 kind of permits before starting construction which takes anywhere between six months to up to three years.

If all goes as planned, by early next year developers won’t have to run to over two dozen central government ministries and agencies including environment and forest, civil aviation, defence, Archaeological Survey of India, etc to get no objection certificate. Instead, one would be able to get all approvals from under one roof, which in this case would be the municipal corporation’s office.

“Streamlining approval process would prove to be a game-changer for the real estate sector. It would give more confidence to investors, both individual as well as institutional to invest in the sector,” said Anshuman Magazine, CMD of real estate consultancy firm CB Richard Ellis South Asia Pvt Ltd.

At a high-level meeting chaired by Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu, which was also attended by defence minister Manohar Parrikkar, culture minister Mahesh Sharma and cabinet secretary PK Sinha, the Centre decided to empower municipalities across India to grant all construction related approvals.

The environment ministry will be simplifying its existing guidelines based on the built up area of a project. “These would then be made part of the building by-laws of states and municipalities. One won’t have to approach the ministry for clearances,” said a UD ministry spokesperson.

The civil aviation ministry is coming up with colour coded zoning maps for major airports across India, which would specify areas where construction projects would have to adhere to height restrictions. “The maps would be uploaded on websites enabling municipalities to accord approvals without applicants going to the ministry. Already of the 12 major airports which handle 65% applications for height clearances, maps of nine airports have been uploaded,” said the official.

The cabinet secretary has directed all the concerned ministries to come out with notification by end December to get the plan off the drawing board, the official added.

“A streamlined approval process will cut down delay in completion of project that would help both developers and consumers. Currently the delay impacted the developers as it resulted in escalation of project cost. Consumers would get their project on time. Developers have been pushing for single window clearance for long,” said retired brigadier RR Singh, DG, National Real Estate Development Council, the apex body for the real estate industry.