Guwahati: A significant digital transformation is taking place in Assam. 29 major towns in Assam choose to approve new building construction through online mode only.

Assam's government has planned to start issuing online permits for development in 29 of its major cities in January.

The state housing and urban affairs department is spearheading the initiative to restore openness to construction permits at a time when many structures are purportedly being constructed without the appropriate scientific approval.

Other than the state's capital Guwahati, no town in Assam has so far made this service available.

The National Informatics Center, Assam, and Meghalaya collaboratively developed the software for online proposal evaluation, and another version will be made available to Arunachal Pradesh. In these towns, some of which are rapidly expanding, the decision to switch to online mode was made during a high-level meeting on Wednesday that Singhal presided over where Kavitha Padmanabhan, the department's commissioner and secretary, as well as top municipal administration department officials, were present.

"The 29 towns' building permits will all be distributed online. According to the master plan created for building these settlements, the complete development process will be authorised. Building clearance will be granted following computer software review of the proposed building master plan "Ashok Singhal, minister of housing and urban affairs.

The Online Building Permission System (OBPS) of Assam offers online facilities to apply for new building permissions, renewals, additions, or modifications. Phase-I of implementation will cover Sivasagar, Tezpur, Bongaigaon, Nazira, Simaluguri, Dergaon, Naharkatia, Namrup, Rangia, Palashbari, Golaghat, Mangoldoi, Dhemaji, Dhubri, Gauripur, Barpeta.

Municipal boards previously struggled to grant building permissions due to a lack of technical experts, and many of these manual approvals, according to officials in the directorate of town and country planning, were full of errors. Technical consultants have been employed to oversee the building proposals via site visits.

However, according to official sources, construction design ideas will need to go through auto screening in the software, which would recommend correction steps if necessary.

"There are master plans in place for the 29 towns we will cover in the future phase. Beginning in March of next year, the remaining towns are anticipated to be brought online as part of the second phase", joint director of town and country planning, Deepak Bezbaruah said.

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