BMC To Now Issue New Construction Permits Till October 23

After a ruling passed by the Supreme Court (SC) on September 25, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will issue new construction permits till October 23. Earlier on September 16, the BMC had stopped issuing any construction permits as it awaited Supreme Court's orders. 

The 2016 ban

In 2016, the Bombay High Court had put a ban on any new construction across Mumbai after it was reported that debris was being dumped illegally in the city’s landfills. However, in March this year, the SC lifted this ban. It gave the developers six months to streamline the dumping of debris. The developers were allowed construction on the grounds that they would not dump any debris in the Deonar or Mulund dumping grounds.

The other condition was that the construction permits would have an addition stating that debris would be disposed in a specified manner. During the time when temporary relief was granted, the BMC had identified 10 sites where the developers could dump debris. These sites were inspected by the HC-appointed monitoring committee, and the owners of those sites had granted no objection certificates for dumping debris there. And, these were the sites that the SC asked the BMC to add to the conditions in the Intimation of Disapproval (IOD), the first construction permit.

During these six months, the BMC was also asked to keep a check on the state of construction and landfill sites and also submit a compliance report.

Six months later…

In these six months, according to the BMC data, over 319 proposals for IOD have been submitted, of which 222 have been approved. Over 224 of the 300 sites have been inspected for Occupation Certificate (OC) or the last construction permit and 229 OCs have been issued. However, there were dumping irregularities in a few construction sites, too. The BMC inspected 160 such construction sites and issued a show cause notice to 30 sites.