Bhubaneswar: The government has made building plan approvals easier by adding the service under the Odisha Right to Public Service Act, 2012.
The housing and urban development department notification comes as a relief for people applying to get their building plans approved.
The inclusion of the service in the public service act will ensure that respective development authorities and urban local bodies dealing with such applications get a fixed timeline to approve or reject it, with violations penalised under the act.
According to the Odisha Development Authority Common Application Form Rules, 2016, approval or rejection of plan for low-risk buildings will have to be provided within a fortnight, while the timeline for high-risk buildings is a month.
"We have a fixed timeline for marriage, birth or death certificates. The building plan application will be similar since it has been brought under the public service act," said a civic official.
"We have issued the rules for the common application form in the gazette notification and it has been under the right to public service act purview since October 27. With the inclusion of the service, applicants can challenge delays under the RTI Act. We hope that this will make the service more transparent," said a housing and urban development department official.
Earlier, the government introduced online plan approval, which is now mandatory for capital residents. It will be rolled out across Odisha by mid-December.
Before the online system and the inclusion of the service under the public service act, people had to wait almost four to six months to get their plans approved.
"We had to apply to the development authority, then wait for it to be forwarded to other agencies such as electricity and water. Then we had to wait for their no-objection certificates. Getting a building plan approved was tough," said real estate developer Sangram Nayak.
At present, the civic body deals with applications for low-risk buildings (below 5,000sqft built up area) and the development authority deals with applications for high-risk buildings. "We are happy to extend the service if and hope that people will benefit out from it," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.
