Mumbai’s coastal zone map will soon be superimposed on the city’s main development plan with the Union Environment Ministry accepting Mumbai municipality’s proposal of integrating the approval process for environment clearance for construction projects with its online building approvals’ portal. Once rolled out, the reform will ensure that developers or land owners, whose plots are affected by coastal zone regulations, won’t need to file a separate application for environment clearance. Senior civic official said this was being done as a part of a project to improve the Ease of Doing Business. Confirming the ministry’s acceptance, Anil Diggikar, Principal Secretary, Environment, Government of Maharashtra, said, “The reform will be implemented within the next two months. Mumbai’s coastal zone map is currently under revision. Once this is done, we’ll integrate it with the BMC’s online platform.” The Mumbai municipality has also approached other Central Ministries — Railways, Defence, Petroleum and Aviation — to develop software applications that can similarly be integrated on the same platform. “We have already plotted the high tide line and buffer zones for railways, defence and petroleum installations on the GIS platform. The ministries concerned have been asked to ratify these, and also the software applications on their side that would allow permissions and NOCs required from them to be issued online,” a senior civic official. If the remaining central agencies also agree to the plan, it’ll also be the first such exercise in the country when maps and plans belonging to lands owned by the Centre would be superimposed on a city’s development plan. “The plan is to reduce the hassle in obtaining a construction permit by making travel to multiple offices redundant. A common application form filled on the BMC’s online platform would be valid for all approvals,” a senior official said. With all three stages - building approval, plinth approval and completion-cum-occupancy certificate - now processed online, the single-window clearance facility is also aimed at reducing discretion in the approval process, he added. With the World Bank’s Ease of Doing business rankings for India assessed based on the data collected from Mumbai and Delhi, the performance of the two cities is key to improving the country’s overall ranking. Last year, the country had jumped 23 places to the 77th spot, riding mainly on the re-engineering of the building approvals system in Mumbai. Last February, Maharashtra’s Revenue Department integrated its own software application with the portal, allowing property card extracts to be mined on a real time basis. In 2017, the World Bank report had found that it took 37 steps and 128.5 days to obtain a construction permit in the financial capital. It also indicated the cost of a construction permit in Mumbai was on the higher side. The BMC has now claimed that the total number of steps has come down to 20. Earlier this month, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had slashed premiums collected for additional buildable space that are bound to bring down the cost of a construction project. The plan in the long-term plan is to reduce the total number of processes for obtaining all construction permits to just eight, and reduce the average time for completing the entire approval cycle to just 60 days. The Centre’s NITI Aayog has been personally monitoring the progress in this regard, officials said. On Wednesday, senior government officials will meet representatives from the building industry to discuss some other measures that can be undertaken to improve the ease of obtaining a construction permit.
