Building plan nods surge offline in Ahmedabad
The move of the state government to go online for building plan approvals from May 1, 2018, led to the clearing of only 138 plans in 168 days till October 15, while the next 30 days — barring Diwali holidays — saw another 239 plans approved by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. Thanks to offline approvals. However, 67 plans were approved by the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority in the online mode between May 1 and October 15; and from October 15, some 20 plans were approved in the offline mode. The Gujarat government introduced Online Development Permission Systems (ODPS) from May 1 and discontinued it and reverted to the old process of manually approving building plans from October 15. Software glitches, however, plagued the online system and subsequently 4,000 real estate projects across Gujarat were stuck due to the lack of approvals. Faced with delays in project execution in the absence of development permission, real estate developers made several representations to the state government and sought the re-introduction of manual or offline system for approving building plans. To speed up clearances, the state government in October allowed offline approvals till further orders, while continuing the online approval system. A senior AMC officer said that the government has instructed the urban department to give offline approvals till further orders from the government. He said that between May 1 and October 15, around 350 applications were moved and only 138 were cleared. “In the 168 days of ODPS, fewer than one plan was approved in the AMC.” However, since the ODPS was kept in abeyance from October 15, despite the break between October 15 and November 25, more than 239 plans were passed by the AMC — at an average of nearly eight plans per day. The officer said that from May 1 to October 15, the income for approval of 138 plans was only Rs 19 crore, while from October 15 the offline mode fetched the AMC an income of Rs 126 crore. Similarly in AUDA, the income from clearing 67 online proposals was Rs 14.67 crore while from the 20 offline proposals cleared, the income was Rs 2.68 crore.
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