With an aim to simplify the process of acquiring building permits, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) and Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City (LSMC) are all set to automatize the process from mid-April.

The first of its kind digital recording system to be practiced by a metropolitan office in the country would also help in maintaining up-to-date records of all physical infrastructures and in effective enforcement of the national building code for disaster preparedness, officials say.

Under the automation system, KMC and LSMC will use an application software to issue building permits and record the blueprints and other related documets in digital form in their web based network.

“Currently, all such records are stored in paper form. But after the launch of the automation system, building maps will be recorded in digital format and stored at Government Integrated Data Centre,” said Uttar Regmi, chief of Automation of Building Permit and Monitoring System at KMC.

The automation project entitled ´Automation of Building Permits and Monitoring Service´ has been financed by Comprehensive Disaster Risk Management Program (CDRMP) under the United Nation Development Program.

For the automation project, the CDRMP has provided Rs 50 million to KMC and Rs 35 million to LMSC. Likewise, the CDRMP will also provide technical support to KMC and LSMC for a year and provide training to the officers of the two metropolises to run the project, said Remi.

According to him, in the preliminary stage, the automation building permit systems will be launched in the three phases with each phase lasting for three months.
In the first phase, the KMC will digitize maps of as many as 10,000 buildings from the existing records and simultaneously record new maps in digital form.
LSMC plans to digitize 5,000 maps in the first phase.

The new system will ensure transparency and accelerate the process of acquiring building permits, said Ram Kumar Dhakal, alternative focal person of the automation project at LSMC. The system will minimize large volume of paper work considerably, he added.

After keeping the digital record of house maps, KMC and LSMC will also provide a copy of house map and approval certificate in digital form to concerned person, said Dhakal.

In the second phase, the metropolises hope to make a location-wise digital maps of each and every building in all of their wards and store them in a network server of Government Integrated Data Centre under National Information Technology Centre.

Then, the authorities will place all such records on a separate website that would be freely accessible to general public, informed Regmi. The database would also be linked with other relevant authorities and concerned stakeholders.

As the Kathmandu Valley is considered as earthquake-vulnerable city, one of the aims of the automation is to bring all the newly constructed buildings under the frame of national building code to minimize disaster risks, said Naresh Giri, program officer of CDRMP.

“Though the metropolis adopted a national building code almost a decade ago, they were never made the basis to monitor physical infrastructures. In absence of a strong mechanism to monitor implementation of the building code, people have built five-story houses though they have permit only for three,” said Giri.

But from now onward, building maps would not be approved unless they meet the criteria outlined in the national building code.

The approved digital map of a building will have all the details that would be tallied after the building is constructed, added Giri.

“Along with the new buildings, we will also update the status of the houses that are already constructed. We can use such records to categorize houses on the basis of their earthquake vulnerabilities,” said Regmi. "This will help the authority to develop policies to minimize losses in disaster prone areas."

He also said apart from disaster management, the automation will also be a boon for implementing various urban development programs and planned land use.

“As our urban data management is poor, we face several problems in launching any kind of urban development projects. But now, we will collect and keep up-to-date data of all physical infrastructures in the KMC and LSMC. We will consult our line agencies like ministry of urban development, ministry of physical planning and construction companies, among others, and record them under Geographic Information system,” said Regmi.

He said having data in paper form entails the risk of losing them during a disaster. "But if we preserve them digitally and save them in an internet server, we can retrieve them later,” said Regmi.

KMC said that the new technology will also aide collection of house, land and rent taxes.

source: republica, 10 April 2013