CMDA-approved plans digitalised, available for all on dept website
The initiative, according to a senior official in CMDA, will ensure transparency and provide access to the documents to everyone.
CHENNAI: Accessing building planning permissions issued by Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) that are more than 30 years old is now a click away as the planning authority has completed the digitalisation of building planning approval documents and started uploading them to its official website.
The initiative, according to a senior official in CMDA, will ensure transparency and provide access to the documents to everyone.
Earlier, residents, who want to verify whether the buildings are constructed as per the plan or not or for any other purpose, have to seek the documents only through RTI applications.
“Presently, we have uploaded planning approvals issued from the years 1989 to 1995. All the old documents were scanned and uploaded. Also, planning permission documents issued from 1996 to 2001 have been scanned and digitised. Those documents will be uploaded in a month,” the official said.
The planning authority already has digitized copies of all planning approvals issued after 2002. The documents will also be uploaded. As many as 11,423 planning approvals, given from 1989 to 1995, are available online now. Apart from the approvals, related documents such as approval letters, payment receipts, plan permits, and others are uploaded along with the details of the applicants.
The official explained that physical documents, which are very old, are breaking away and could have been completely lost over time. “Now, all the documents are in the cloud and they will stay there forever. Also, the public can access them, “ he said.
It may be noted that the planning authority has given more than 26,000 building plan approvals since 1989. However, the approvals given to layouts are yet to be digitized and the planning authority will digitize them after uploading all the building plan approvals.
Meanwhile, CMDA has introduced a single window system to issue building plan approvals and layout permissions completely online and has integrated NOC (No-Objection Certificate) issuing departments to the online portal so that applicants do not have to make separate applications.
