Bhubaneswar, Aug. 25: The housing and urban development department has begun registering technical persons who will be able to sanction plan approvals for low-risk buildings here.

According to the plan, these technical persons, once registered with the government, will be able to provide approvals for structures with a built-up area up to 5,000sqft, while the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) will maintain the status quo for bigger structures.

Last year, the housing and urban development department enacted the Odisha Development Authorities (Common Application Form) Rules, 2016, to ease the building plan approval system in urban areas.

"Buildings with built-up areas of up to 5,000sqft will not need prior approval from the development authority. Instead, recognised architects or technical persons can give the approval for such structures. This will lessen the timeline to a major extent," said BDA vice-chairman Krishan Kumar.

Earlier, applicants had to go through a rigorous process to get plans for both low-risk and high-risk structures approved. They had to get no-objection certificates from different government agencies, including the pollution control board and electricity and water supply offices.

"The registered technical persons will analyse the layout and approve those within a month. The low-risk structures will not have to obtain any no-objection certificates from any other government agencies. We plan to bring at least 500 such technical persons into the ambit," said a housing and urban development department official.

The development authority will receive applications for all buildings through the new online building plan approval system. "Once we receive applications for plan approvals, we will segregate the applications and provide the approval accordingly in a time-bound manner," said the official.

Residents are hopeful that the move would ease the application process.

"The earlier process was tiresome and time consuming. I applied to get my building plan approved a year back and it took about three months. I hope the new system will ease the process and the new applicants will get the benefits," said Rasulgarh resident Jagannath Pradhan.