Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has decided to make life easy for developers. They must from now on, submit the initial plan of a project online at the civic body's building proposal department (single window) for getting different no-objection certificates (NoCs).

Developers have welcomed the move, but feel it's important BMC devises a similar plan to enable them to get the 'occupation certificate' after a project is completed. "We welcome the BMC initiative; the civic body should plan something similar for helping us procure the occupation certificate too. It usually takes a long time," said Sunil Mantri, president, National Real Estate Development Council.

"If a file is delayed, BMC should also put a provision for paying compensation and allow us to start at least 50% of the work, with a clause that unauthorised work would be demolished," he added. According to him, developers contribute Rs10,000 crore annually to the BMC exchequer.

The single window move came about following repeated complaints from developers over delays in getting the various no-objection certificates required for their projects. NoCs include Fire NoC; NoCs from Tree Authority and Airport Authority, among others.

Earlier, developers would submit the initial project plan online to the building proposal department and had to individually submit specific documents to the other departments to procure NoCs from them.

The building proposal department was just kept in the loop. This caused significant delays in obtaining NoCs, and subsequently increased the chances of corruption, as the file could remain pending with a department over a longer time and developers, on certain occasions, had to bribe officials to obtain NoCs faster.

From now on, based on NoCs received from the different departments, the building proposal department would give developers permission to start construction. The move is on the lines of PM Narendra Modi's style of functioning in Delhi, where he has emphasised on fast disposal of files, as the more amount of time a file remains with a person or a committee, the chances of corruption increase.

Documents to be submitted1. Documents for Fire NOC: plan showing fire equipment, plan showing (compulsory) open spaces along the building.2. NOC from Tree Authority: number of trees to be cut for a project, width of the trees, number of trees to be replanted for every tree hacked.3. NOC from Airport Authority: documents on specified heights of buildings within a fixed radius from the airport.