In a bid to improve the Ease of Doing Business in Tamil Nadu, the State government is taking measures to make it easy for potential investors on matters related to land acquisition and construction permits. For this, two portals are under development — one is on land information and the other is on construction permit, said Neeraj Mittal, CEO, Guidance, which is the State’s nodal investment promotion agency.

Guidance is developing a comprehensive land information portal to provide land details. Currently, investors have to reach out to multiple departments to access information related to land. The portal will be a single, integrated one that will allow investors to access data relating to land. This includes land transaction deeds (at all sub-registrar offices); record of rights (at all revenue department offices) and data on property tax payments.

The portal will also provide data on revenue court cases; civil court cases; securitisation; dues relating to electricity and water and cadastral map (which provides detailed information about real property within a specific area). By giving just the survey number, all the information will be available, he added.

The Tamil Nadu Housing and Urban Development Department is developing a comprehensive construction permit portal to grant planning permission and construction permit with various features, including online application and payment, said Mittal, during a virtual seminar on CII TN Ease of Doing Business 2020.

The present challenges for investors include separate online platforms to apply for planning permission from DTCP (in rural areas) and CMDA (in Chennai); building permits from local bodies and NOCs/approvals from different agencies, including forest department. The new portal will be a one-stop-shop to obtain planning permission and construction permit for development in any part of the State. The portal will also help investors to obtain prior NOC/approvals required from other government agencies, he said.

The system for granting planning permission will have functionalities like online application and payment; auto scrutiny of building plans; final planning permission and building permit and integrated application for all internal and external agencies, including the Airports Authority of India, National Monuments Authority and Forest Department, Mittal said.

Single-window portal

Industry minister MC Sampath said that a single-window portal is being developed to improve the investment climate in Tamil Nadu. Currently, there are 36 government-to-business (G2B) services, another 188 services across 37 departments will be added. Of this, 46 services will go live by the end of this month and the rest by May 2021. This will make the entire G2B experience completely faceless, contactless and paperless, he said.

Mittal said the single-window portal will have technologies like Artificial Intelligence with chatbots and voice support, and also allow virtual meetings with multiple departments so that investors can talk virtually to find out the application procedure and document checklist, he said.