Auto DCR was first used in India by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), which earned kudos from the Union government for its efforts. The system’s novelty lies in its ability to reduce manual scrutiny of building plans and maps by almost 50 per cent.
Auto DCR helps an architect/ developer supply all documents and drawings of a construction plan online in CD format. Earlier, the architect/ developer would be required to submit his plan to the civic administration manually and would need around 52 approvals before final sanction.
The new system will simplify and accelerate the process by ensuring verification of drawings and documents in a fixed time period, as well as totally remove the manual discretion and inaccuracy now associated with building plan approvals.
The BMC’s Customized Development Control (CDC) rules have already been fed into the new system, along with auto-scanning, detection of type of use and building structure, generation of Floor Space Index and building use area statement.
Under the new procedure, all that the Building Permissions department officers will have to do to check for the documents is to click on the checklist. It is only after verification of the entire mandatory documents that the plan would be approved.
The Auto DCR software will also help developers, as well as senior officials, track the progress of files — in stark contrast to the present process in which approval of files is kept pending by building permission officials. “The new system will tell us the stage a project file is in and the officer with whom it is pending (each particular project will be given a unique number) as it has to be moved for further approvals in a determined time span,’’ said Municipal Commissioner Jairaj Phatak, who will oversee the software’s July 1 trial.
‘‘We will carry the inspection of Auto DCR at the Eastern suburbs for a month and compare its results with the manual approval process,’’ he added. ‘‘Once the system is found to be hassle-free, we will introduce it in the western suburbs too.’’
The BMC also intends to display all approved plans on its website, so that they can be viewed by the common man.