Guwahati, Dec. 2: Permission for apartment sales in Assam will now be given to realtors within a month.

The Assam government has streamlined and simplified the process for according apartment sale permissions to builders with Dispur asking all deputy commissioners to clear applications for such permission within 30 days.

With the objective of expediting the process of apartment ownership transfer, the Assam revenue and disaster management department through an office memorandum (dated November 3, 2015) has asked the deputy commissioners to create separate cells for land and apartment sale permissions.

According to the government order, for a project, a single application for sale permission with details of the intending purchasers will be filed by the builders/promoters and a master file will be created by the deputy commissioner's office for the entire project.

The earlier practice was to make separate files for each individual purchaser. Upon application, receipt will be acknowledged along with the identification number of the master file, which will be valid for all individual sale deeds, the memorandum said.

The report on the ownership/status of the land will be sought from the circle office and will be recorded in the master file. This will be valid for all flats on the same plot.

The checklist of documents to be submitted along with the application has been defined in the said order so that there is complete clarity on the matter.

According to the order, the builder will have to correctly mention the proportionate share of land and ensure that the sum total of such shares does not exceed the total land area. If for some valid reason the application for all the purchasers cannot be made at a time, separate applications may be submitted later for the remaining purchasers.

The deputy commissioner's office will utilise the available information in the master file, without referring to the circle office unless some additional information/clarification is required, the order said. Dispur's move comes after a representation by the Assam Real Estate and Infrastructure Developers Association (Areida) followed by a high-level meeting recently.

Realtors are terming the development as a break through achieved after years of persuasion. "The Kamrup metro deputy commissioner's office had on November 23 conveyed to us about the government orders on procedure of according permission for apartment sale, which we welcome. The process has been made transparent for both builders and the purchasers," Areida president P.K. Sharma told The Telegraph today.

Sharma said, now, once the land sale report is given by the circle office, the individual applications for sale of apartments located on the same plot thereafter need not be sent to the circle office. "They can be directly sent to the deputy commissioner's office for payment of stamp duty and registration," Sharma said.

Assam has witnessed a real estate boom in the past decade or so. There are about 150 builders in Guwahati itself, with a majority of them being members of Areida. Under the Indian Registration Act (Assam Amendment Act), 2009, permissions for sale of apartments are accorded to the builders by deputy commissioners. "Earlier, the process would be dragged for two or three years and there was no clarity," he added.

Citizens, too, have welcomed the move, with some saying the government has timed it well with the Assembly elections round the corner.

"It's a relief as we were planning to buy an apartment here. The elections early next year might have also prompted the move," said Mala Das, a resident of Geetanagar.