Now, seek online approval for construction around protected monuments in six states

The process to seek approval for construction in prohibited and regulated areas around Archaeological Survey of India protected monuments will now be easier in six states, where 517 local bodies have made it online.

The Minister of State for Culture and Tourism Prahlad Patel launched the integrated NOC online application processing system on Tuesday for the National Monuments Authority (NMA) in six states, a statement said.

In order to automate the process of granting no objection certificate(NOC) for construction-related work in the prohibited and regulated areas, NMA designed, developed and implemented a web-enabled software application named 'NOC Online Application Processing System' (NOAPS) and launched it in September 2015.

So far, it was limited to only five urban local bodies in Delhi and one civic body in Mumbai. Now, the facility has been expanded to six more states.

"With increase of urbanization, development, growth and increasing population pressure, there is growing pressure on land including the land around centrally protected monuments.

"As this often affects the monument/site adversely it is important that such growth around the centrally protected monuments is properly regulated, balancing the needs of individuals and growth and development on the one hand and the requirements of preservation and protection of these monuments on the other," Patel said.

The six states are Madhya Pradesh (378), Andhra Pradesh (110), Haryana (15), (10), Jharkhand (3) and Telangana (1).

The portal has integration with the 'Smarac' mobile app of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), through which the applicant can traverse his plot and submit geo coordinates of the land, along with uploading images into the NIC portal.