South Delhi Municipal Corporation Goes Digital

The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) recently launched a system to give approvals to buildings plans online, through a single window system. This is the first time a municipal corporation in India is approving building plans online. It was in April the SDMC launched the new system.

Real estate developers find SDMC's attempt to introduce a paperless, online, single window approval system convenient and less time consuming. So, it became popular since its inception. In the first three months, the SDMC got nearly 600 applications, of which 553 were approved online. SDMC also displayed 284 of these approved maps on its website.

Through the online system, SDMC takes 14 days to approve building plans. In some cases, SDMC approves building plans in a period as short as 48 hours. Applicants and officials alike find this quicker and more convenient. Applicants no longer need to visit department offices to track the status of their applications. They can do it online. Applicants can also download the digitised map plan, and submit the fee to the department online. SDMC does not accept hard copies of applications anymore. Earlier, the whole process used to take many months.

This comes as a huge relief to real estate developers, because they can receive approvals and start construction in a much shorter period. This will allow real estate developers to start projects more easily, without spending more time thinking too much about regulatory barriers. As the central government plans to build smart cities throughout India, this should be seen as one of the first steps toward e-governance.

In Indian cities, getting construction-related approvals take very long. According to World Bank, among 18 major Indian cities, Delhi's rank in dealing with construction permits is 4. It takes 19 procedures and 144 days to get construction permits in Delhi. India's performance in these parameters is at the bottom of the world, and this is partly why housing is unusually expensive in large Indian cities. To improve India's performance in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index, the NDA government had asked Indian states to compete with each other in being business friendly, and to adopt the best practices of other states. In 2015, India's position in World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index was 130, and this is better than its earlier position of 142. In the ease of dealing with construction permits, India's rank was 184 among 189 countries in 2014. In 2015, this improved moderately, to 183. However, many experts claim that this is because the World Bank looks at written regulatory norms, without looking more deeply at how things work in reality.