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Bhubaneswar, Dec 12: A private firm roped in by the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) Friday opened a Citizen Service Centre (CSC) at Chandrashekharpur to issue building plan approvals.
Residents will now have to visit CSC to get building plan approvals and occupancy certificates, after which the firm would carry out various inspections before recommending the applications to BDA for its final approval. Housing and urban development department minister Pushpendra Singh Deo Friday unveiled the centre in the presence of department’s secretary G Mathivathanan. Another service centre of the firm would be opened December 22 at K-7 in Kalinga Nagar. An agreement was inked between the BDA and the firm November last, with the latter paying `2.70 per sq ft to the firm as processing fee.
BDA Employees’ Joint Forum is strongly opposed to the idea of outsourcing a private firm to facilitate smooth building plan approvals within 60 days. The union is against the government’s move of shifting over 100 BDA employees to BMC which according to them violates the Orissa Development Authority (ODA) Act, 1982.
“The firm has been roped in by BDA as per the provisions of ODA Act 1982 to issue building plan approvals and occupancy certificates for speedy disposal. It would act as process manager for rendering services to BDA,” BDA spokesperson Madhumita Rath said. Every year, more than 3,500 building plan approvals were issued by the building regulator but recently BDA was finding it difficult to handle the town planning cell efficiently because of staff crunch. BDA’s jurisdiction is spread across 556 villages, covering 1,110 sq km area. “Since the plan approvals would be issued by the firm, existing manpower of BDA’s planning cell can focus on town planning scheme and implementation of other satellite city schemes,” BDA planning member Pitabash Sahu said.
“Outsourcing the firm would expedite process of getting plan approvals and occupancy certificates,” BDA vice-chairman Krishan Kumar told OrissaPOST.