Govt to ease curbs on urban construction

Seeking to promote construction activities in urban areas, the government today decided to substantially reduce the number of approvals and 'No Objection Certificates' required for taking up such projects in cities.
Ministers and secretaries of seven related ministries held extensive discussions on the current system of according approvals and the way forward at a meeting convened by the Urban Development and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister, M Venkaiah Naidu.
A suggestion by Naidu that all approvals be issued within 30 days from the date of application formed the basis of the discussion.
Besides Naidu, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Minister of Environment and Forests and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar participated in the deliberations that lasted for more than an hour. Also present were the secretaries in the departments of Urban Development, HUPA, Civil Aviation, Culture, Defence, Environment and Forests and Climate Change and Consumer Affairs.

HUPA secretary Nandita Chatterjee informed the ministers that at present 30-50 approvals were required to be taken from the central and state governments, resulting in an average approval time of 90-600 days for construction projects.
She said that based on the parameters, costs and the time taken for approvals, India is ranked 182nd among 185 countries in ease of doing business in this sector and that adversely impacts the flow of investments.

Javadekar agreed to the suggestion that most of the forest and environment-related regulations can be included in the Building By-laws for ensuring compliance by the urban local bodies concerned.

He also said that his ministry will soon come out with different guidelines for different plot sizes, which could also be similarly incorporated in the Development Control Regulations.
Javadekar also informed that issues related to Coastal Zone Regulations would be resolved soon. He further said that delineation of exact boundaries of 639 ecologically-sensitive zones will be sped up to remove ambiguities, which would in turn enable quick approvals.
He assured that, with most of the land categorised as forest land, the problem in hill areas vis-a-vis finding space for providing housing for the poor would also be looked into.