Municipal chief’s discretionary powers in building permits curbed

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Friday approved a proposal to scrap 23 out of the 35 discretionary powers exercised by the municipal commissioner regarding granting concessions to builders while approving their construction plans. Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta said, “Scrapping my discretionary powers will make rules stronger. This move will give importance to stipulated rules and leaves no room for any middle path. This will also rid the system of corruption and speed up the approval process.”

Among the discretionary powers scrapped are: the power to allow internal staircase free of floor space index (FSI) for shops, restaurants, nursing homes, duplex flats by charging a premium; allowing rooms that are smaller then mandated; allowing construction of podium on a plot less than 1,500 square metres, allowing construction of shopping/ departmental store and nursing home in residential buildings, among others.

However, some key discretionary powers such as allowing a building to come up on smaller plots by cutting down on mandatory open space requirements, excluding staircase construction from FSI calculation, allowing the utilisation of Transferable Development Rights (TDR), granting fungible FSI premium are still in the list of the Commissioner’s discretionary powers.