29 Assam towns switched to online mode for construction permits from the New Year

In 29 major cities of the state, building permission will be given through online only from January. As of now, no other city in Assam provides this facility except the capital Guwahati.

The state housing and urban affairs department is taking the initiative to bring transparency in building permission at a time when several buildings were allegedly built without proper scientific approval.

Officials from the Directorate of Town and Country Planning said that while municipal boards earlier struggled for lack of technical experts to grant construction permissions, many such manual approvals were riddled with loopholes. They have appointed technical experts to monitor the building proposals through field visits.

“All construction permission in 29 cities will be given online. The entire construction process will be approved as per the master plan prepared for the development of these towns. Building permission will be given after examining the building master plan proposal through a computer software,” Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Ashok Singhal told TOI on Thursday.

The first phase of implementation will cover Sivasagar, Tezpur, Bongaigaon, Nazira, Simaluguri, Dergaon, Naharkatiya, Namrup, Rangiya, Palashbari, Golaghat, Mangoldoi, Dhemaji, Dhubri, Gauripur, Barpeta, Goalpara, Biswanath Chariyali, North Lakhimpur, Nagaon, Sonari, Kokrajhar, Nalbari, Karimganj, Dibrugarh, Silchar, Tinsukia, Jorhat and Diphu cities.

The software for online evaluation of proposals has been developed jointly by the National Informatics Centre, Assam and Meghalaya, and will also serve Arunachal Pradesh through another version.

The decision to shift to the online mode in these towns, some of which are growing rapidly, was taken on Wednesday at a high-level meeting chaired by Singhal, attended by Kavitha Padmanabhan, commissioner and secretary of the department and senior officials of the municipal administration. Were. Department were present.

29 Assam towns switched to online mode for construction permits from the New Year

Online Building Permission System (OBPS) of Assam provides online facilities to apply for new building permission, renewal, change or change in permission and obtain NOC in various urban local bodies under the OBPS Act.

However, official sources said the building plan proposals would undergo auto-screening in the software, which would suggest corrective measures, if needed.

“The 29 cities that we are going to cover in the upcoming phase have master plans. In the second phase, the remaining cities are likely to be brought in online mode from March next year,” said Joint Director, Town and Country Planning, Deepak Bezbaruah.