Mumbai's developer community is worried. For nearly five months now, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has stopped issuing a crucial document to city builders which is mandatory for securing the no-objection certificate from the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for all buildings reaching beyond certain AAI-specified heights anywhere within the 20-km radius from the airport. As a result, several new constructions and redevelopment projects in the city have been stalled. Developers say an internal dispute between the AAI and the BMC is to blame for the mess.
Mumbai's developer community is worried. For nearly five months now, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has stopped issuing a crucial document to city builders which is mandatory for securing the no-objection certificate from the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for all buildings reaching beyond certain AAI-specified heights anywhere within the 20-km radius from the airport. As a result, several new constructions and redevelopment projects in the city have been stalled. Developers say an internal dispute between the AAI and the BMC is to blame for the mess.
It goes like this: Till March, the BMC was responsible for providing the World Geodetic System-84 coordinate certificate (the certificate specified the latitude and longitude of a particular plot and the site elevation) to the developers, who in turn had to submit it to the AAI, along with their application, for building height clearances.
At present, AAI approval is required for buildings of any height within a 3km radius of the airport. Buildings with a height of 45 metres within a 5.5km radius, 65m in a 6.5km radius, 80m buildings in a 7.5km radius and buildings of 85m beyond a 22km radius of the airport is permissible. Beyond these specified heights, AAI approval is required.
The BMC, however, was issuing the certificates merely on the basis of an existing GIS database with them. Problems started when the AAI authorities started finding flaws with the site coordinates provided by the BMC after they started re-verification of the numbers with the help of an advanced system available to them. Sources said that the aerodrome operator had raised objections of the site coordinates of certain plots provided by the BMC and requested resurvey of the site and reissue the certificate.
Following this, the chief engineer of the civic development plan department of the BMC in a letter to the AAI in March refused to grant further WSG certificates, mentioning that the BMC is not authorised to carry out the survey and confirm the site elevation and that the crucial WGS-84 certificates were provided through their GIS database so far. Since then, several meetings have been held between the BMC and the AAI authorities. Municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta had also written to the AAI for a plausible solution to the problem. However, both the authorities are yet to arrive at a solution.
A senior civic official said, "Ideally, the AAI should give away the certificates, since they already have an advanced system to find out the site coordinates. We hope to arrive at solution soon in the next few meetings." Developers claimed to have been left in a lurch. "Ever since the BMC has stopped issuing the certificates, many projects have gone on hold, thus delaying their completion. This is also causing massive monetary losses to the developers. The authorities should find an immediate solution to the problem," said Pujit Aggarwal, general secretary of the Property Redevelopers' Association.
The association has also written to the AAI authorities highlighting the plight of the developers and sought an alternate agency should be authorised at the earliest for giving the certificates as per AAI's requirement.
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