Permission delay hits redevelopment projects in city

“Norms like two staircases for a building more 15 metres high are only increasing chances of creating congested structures and making buildings vulnerable to thefts due to possible usage of the second staircase from outside the building. Likewise,since the High Court is in Mumbai,it takes longer time for clearance. The court had asked the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to complete its tree census at the earliest so that the corporation could itself grant permission to cut trees. But after nearly two-years-and-a-half,the corporation has not conducted the census. We still have to get permission from the court,” says a real-estate developer.

Officials,however,say norms like permission from the High Court for cutting trees have been fixed for sustainable development. Assistant Garden Superintendent of PMC,Santosh Kamble,said,“There is a case pending in High Court due to which permissions have to be cleared by the court itself. It is only as and when the court decides that we can issue permission for cutting trees that we will be able to take the decision.”

Developers and CREDAI members argue that bottlenecks are created in development of real-estate to create affordable housing avenues because those in the real-estate business are rarely involved in the decision-making process. Lack of single-window clearance enabling a single department to issue all clearances is leading to frequent delay in permissions.

“From the time one buys land to completion of the project,there are no less than 100 No Objection Certificates (NOCs) a developer has to furnish before possession is given to the consumer,which escalates the cost much. The delays escalate cost by at least 20 percent and if taxes are included,the cost increases by nearly 40 percent,” said Hemant Naiknavare,Vice President of CREDAI,Pune Metro. Rajesh Choudhary,partner,real estate company Profile Developments,said cost escalation is ultimately passed on to the consumer and it takes a very long for constructions to start than “what it used to take 20 years ago”.