India moves up in ease-of-doing business, but BBMP lags

The online system of obtaining building plan approval, which is one of the key reform processes for ensuring ease-of-doing-business, has remained a distant dream in the state capital.

According to the World Bank’s global rankings, India has jumped to the 77th spot. One of the main reasons for this leap from the 100th position during 2017 has been attributed to the ease of obtaining construction permits from government agencies across the country.

However, when it comes to Bengaluru, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) paints a different picture, as it involves a laborious procedure and offline verification systems for granting building plan approval. “The entire system has to be mobilised. The existing system has a lot of procedural and technical glitches. Sometimes, we have to wait for weeks or even months to get an approval from the government agencies,” said Sudhakar Shetty, president, Federation of Karnataka Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

This BBMP's system of granting building plan approval is partially online as it includes on-site inspections before the approval is granted. Not only this, the software itself is riddled with technical glitches.

“During Sakala, the processes were better as there used to be a certain specified time limit for each process. Now, we have to wait for months. The civic body should consider the industrial sector along with residential approvals and make things easy for us,” added Shetty. He said this applies not only industries in BBMP limits, but even in panchayat limits. “The state government should take note of all these problems,” he said.

When contacted, BBMP commissioner N Manjunath Prasad said, “Whenever we introduce a new system, there are bound to be initial glitches. We are trying to rectify them. It is part of the system. We have already given 3,000 sanctions online ever since we introduced this system.”

Prasad also said that the on-site inspection process of verification is essential to curb violations.

The Automatic Building Plan Approval System (ABPAS) in BBMP has a specific number of days for each officer to clear the file. “This is one of the good steps that the BBMP has taken and it will certainly go way forward,” said Prasad.