After being able to apply for occupation certificates online, the Gurugram homeowners will soon be able to get their building plans sanctioned from the comfort of their homes. Besides this, the department of town and country planning (DTCP) is also working towards helping users pay external development charges for registry of their fourth floor, online, as was recently announced by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

“Getting building plans approved online, within 3-4 days, would be of great help to homeowners as they will not have to make repeated visits to the DTCP office,” Gurugram district town planner RS Bhath said, adding that this system would work just like the issuance of occupation and completion certificates.

Officials said that on an average, the department receives around 30 such applications on a daily basis.

Once the online system of approvals for individual residential units become operational, the department will extend this scheme to large group housing and commercial projects. “What we want to do is to reduce the time taken in processing documents and to reduce manual interface. The objective would be to act like a single window for individual and commercial projects,” Bhath said.

The year 2019 will see more focus on increasing affordable housing in Gurugram. “We will try to make affordable housing and projects under the Deen Dayal Upadhyay scheme to bring housing within the reach of the common man,” he said.

At present, there are around 50 affordable projects in Gurugram, Manesar and Sohna. The department targets to triple this number in 2019.

Another important target the Gurugram town planning office has set for itself is to become simpler and more public-friendly. The department plans to train the staff so they can handle technical queries with ease and provide solutions in the first visit itself. “The focus would be on tech-enabled service delivery and to implement the Right to Services Act, as outlined by the government, in letter and in spirit,” he said.

With majority issues related to delay in delivery of projects and non-performance of developers being transferred to the Haryana real estate regulatory authority (H-RERA), the department is now focusing on improving relations between builders and buyers, who have differences over maintenance, among other issues.

“Issues between RWAs and buyers are quite widespread and complicated. We have worked hard to broker agreements between the two sides, but 2019 will see renewed focus on these matters. More inspections, more meetings and stricter compliance will be the norm,” Bhath said.

Bhath said the town planning department has taken serious view of non-performance by developers and in 10 cases, licences of such builders were cancelled. “This has sent a strong message to the industry that it needs to deliver the goods, build the apartments as promised, otherwise action would be stern. But this does not meant that we are against developers. We will help developers; a very liberal policy for payment of external development charges has been announced by the government, but there can be no compromise on delivery,” the district town planner said.

Bhath reiterated that his department will work in close coordination with the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA), which is now the premier planning and development agency in the city. “The priorities and character of the city are changing and the town planners have to think likewise,” he said.

Major turning point of 2018

“The successful functioning of the Allottees Grievance Redressal Forum (AGRF) was a key step forward in 2018 as it highlighted various complex issues between builders and buyers. The creation of HRERA took root,” Bhath said, adding that the self-certification policy introduced last year for approval of building plans and occupation certificates was a major relief.

The department was also able to clear building plans and issue approvals to applicants within five days, which earlier took more than a month and multiple visits, he said.

First Published: Jan 07, 2019 16:07 IST