kolkata prodded by the urban development ministry kolkata municipal corporation has embarked on a project to expedite sanction of building plansa key index in the world banks assessment on ease of doing business swift sanction of building plans is required in kolkata and bengaluru if india has to improve its global ranking the two cities have recently been added to delhi and mumbai for assessing indias ease of doing business timesviewred tape should be reduced as much as possible in every government department also government agencies like the public vehicles department should make as many functions online as possible this can effectively reduce corruptionwe are revamping the entire system of getting building plans sanctioned to reduce time and hassle at present a developer constructing a project whose height is more than 155m 51ft and builtup area exceeding 500sqm 5400sqft has to get separate clearances from various government departments fire services environment and land urban land ceiling before applying to kmc for plan sanction in case of environment one has to again apply for clearance twice once before and again after the sanction all this takes up to 1820 months we plan to introduce a single window for plan submission and clearance within three to six months a kmc building department official saidaccording to the proposal kmc will act as a nodal agency and coordinate with all government departments to seek their individual clearances instead of a customer having to run from one agency to the other kmc will forward the plan to each agency and seek a preliminary feedback within 10 days if there is an objection the agency has to cite the reason the applicant can then take remedial measure and reapply the official said the union housing secretary had flown down to kolkata shortly after the citys inclusion by world bank and had impressed upon the need to improve the efficiency of building sanction plan to ensure that indias ranking in ease of doing business did not slip kmc has already initiated talks with agencies concerned to streamline the process within the kmc itself the survey and assessment departments have been asked to upgrade their software so that it is in sync with that of the building department the three other government agencies environment land and fire services have also been asked to upgrade their software and establish links with it simultaneously architects and licensed building surveyors lbs are also being trained on the system so that they can accordingly file for plan sanction in future developers welcomed the proposal nandu belani president of the bengal chapter of confederation of real estate developers association of india credai said the move would go a long way in expediting projects