After Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan directed it to clear all files pertaining to building permissions within 60 days,the BMC now wants to develop an online application tracker system for builders and developers to keep a tab on their applications. At present,builders have to approach fire brigade,storm water drainage,water and other civic departments to learn the status of no objection certificates. The CM had earlier this year directed that department officials carry out this entire procedure to cut red tape and corruption and reduce the time taken in accepting and clearing a new building permission. Chief engineer (development plan and building proposals) Sudhir Ghate said that in order to take it forward,their department had approached the BMCs IT Department with a proposal to create a link on the BMCs website. The idea is to help builders and architects know the status of their application once they have submitted all their plans and papers to BMC. This will help them know if their proposal is stuck with some department, he said. An official within the IT Cell of the BMC said,Just the way in which you can track things online these days such as college admissions or status of your courier parcel,a developer will be able to track the status of his building proposal application. This will reduce direct interface between him and BMC officials and minimize chances of corruption. There are about 30 sub-engineers in the BMCs building proposals department who accept proposals,send them for scrutiny and then either approve them or send out the intention of disapproval (IOD). Each of them will be given a username login to update the information regularly. Earlier it took three months to a year for building permissions to get cleared by the building permission department,but the CMs directive and the revised DCRs that reduce discretionary powers of the municipal commissioner have expedited the process. While earlier,about 600 proposals would be cleared in a year,as many as 100 building proposals were cleared last month alone.
