The new Intelligent Building Plan Management System (IBPMS) for the online application and processing of building permits at the city Corporation was supposed to make the whole process online, but six months after it was first introduced, the No Objection Certificate (NOC) processing is yet to be integrated into the system.
The work on linking the software with the existing online systems of the other departments, including Town Planning Department, Fire and Rescue Services Department, Airport Authority of India, and the coastal regulatory zone authority, from which clearances are required, is yet to be completed.
The process of getting NOCs, crucial for building permit application clearance, still happens manually. One of the reasons for the extra time taken for processing even applications with error-free drawings is the delay in getting NOCs. On an average, processing a building permit application at present takes anywhere between one to one-and-a-half months.
Not much progress
This is not much of an improvement from the time when applications were processed through the Sanketham software, which also was partially manual.
Reduction of manual intervention and streamlining of the whole process was one of the stated aims of the new system. But with part of the processing still being done manually, this aim is yet to be realised.
