Government has approved the extension of Online Building Plan Approval System (OBPAS) under eChhawani portal to five more Cantonment Boards, namely Agra, Ranikhet, Babina, Jammu and Cannanore. This will further enhance the speed, accuracy, consistency and transparency in the process of building plan scrutiny in these cantonments. With this extension, the benefits under OBPAS can now be availed by residents living in 22 Cantonment Boards across the country.
In order to make the process simpler and to reduce the compliance burden, OBPAS has standardized the application form and process across cantonment boards. Residents are required to upload only four documents as against the requirement of uploading 10 documents earlier. Moreover, the mandatory provision for prior field inspection in the process of approval of building plan has been done away with, except in case of old grant property outside the civil area. The entire building plan will be processed in a short time varying between 2 days to 11 days depending on location of the site (within or outside civil area).
Through the online portal, an applicant/architect can submit the building plan drawings in eDCR (Electronic Development Control Regulations) format. The plan will be automatically checked and validated as per the building parameters (bye-laws) of the Cantonment Board. The applicable fees/charges can be paid online. The applicant can track the status of application on real-time basis at any stage and it is also intimated via SMS and eMail. Once approved, the sanction letter of the building plan will be generated automatically and it can be downloaded by the applicant.
eChhawani is a Citizen Centric project of Directorate General of Defence Estates, Ministry of Defence to provide online services across 62 Cantonment Boards through a common web portal in paperless, faceless and cashless manner. Online Building Plan Approval System (OBPAS) module under eChhawani was initially rolled out to enable ‘Ease of Living’ and ‘Ease of Doing Business” for residents in 17 Cantonment Boards.