Architects and licensed building surveyors (LBS) are set to sanction bigger buildings, expediting plans that would otherwise have to be submitted to the KMC buildings department and take longer to clear.
KMC officials said architects and LBS will now be able to sanction plans of four-storied buildings (G+3) not exceeding 41ft and with floor area not exceeding 5,382sqft. Earlier, they could sanction a G+2 storied building not exceeding 32ft with floor area not exceeding 2,260sqft.
This new proposal is part of KMC’s “ease of doing business” scheme which aims to give citizens relief from unnecessary red tape that leads to delays in civic services.
According to the proposal, the owner of a land or a real estate promoter can get hold of an architect or an LBS and submit a plan for construction of a building within the specified limit. Besides giving the details of the nature of land and the plans for construction, the architect or the LBS has to submit an undertaking that under no circumstances the KMC building rules will be flouted during or after the construction of the building. According to a KMC buildings department official, after submission of the buildings plan online, the same will be sanctioned by a borough executive engineer of the civic body’s buildings wing.
“We have proposed a modification of the building sanctioning process to give relief to the applicants and bring transparency to the entire system. Hope the citizens will take advantage of our endeavour and start the construction process according to their needs,” said a KMC buildings department senior official. According to a civic official, empowering the architects will cut down on the number of days an applicant waits to get an approval to start construction of a housing project.
“Before introduction of an online system, the applicants would need to visit the civic borough offices with hard copies of the documents needed for granting the building permits. Even after the introduction of the online system, the system of granting building permits would go through lots of checks and balances leading to unnecessary delay,” said the civic official.
But, KMC has also proposed a penal option associated with the new system, said a KMC official. “We will sanction building plans based on the information and an undertaking to be submitted by the architect or the LBS. But our executive engineers will conduct an on-the-spot visit to the site of the construction before the completion certificate is issued. If we find any deviation from the sanctioned plan or any anomaly in the information provided by the architect or LBS, we may need to initiate steps against the signatories. This apart, we may need to demolish parts of the construction which will have no mention or sanction in the original plans” said another KMC buildings department official.