States approach Centre to expedite projects around heritages sites

05 Sep 2019 CW Team

The governments of three states, namely Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Bihar have asked the Centre to speed up the approval of new and old projects that have been dormant in terms of construction due to their proximity to heritage sites and structures.

Reportedly, the states approached the Cultural Ministry for the same and it is expected that around 180 private projects that have been affected will be assessed in the next few days.

Recently, the ministry had launched an online application processing system called NOC to aid in granting of approval by the National Monument Authority, for building projects in prohibited areas around monuments in six states – Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Jharkhand and Telangana.

NMA, under the Cultural Ministry, is now seeking to work on digitisation of local bodies in the three states. As per the new system initiated by NMA, the time for online approval for projects around Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) protected monuments now falls to under 30 days as compared to the previous duration of four months. It is now taking steps to integrate this portal with the respective states to expedite all requests.

As per ASI regulations, an area up to 100 metres from protected monuments is treated as prohibited for construction.

Real Estate

05 Dec 2025

RBI Rate Cut Boosts Confidence Across Housing Market

Industry Context and Market DynamicsThe real estate industry has welcomed the RBI’s rate cut as a timely boost to affordability and demand. With home prices having risen steadily across major markets, even a marginal reduction in interest rates meaningfully strengthens purchasing power, especially for first-time and mid-income buyers.Ashish Jerath, President – Sales & Marketing, Smartworld Developers, observes:“The RBI’s 25-basis-point cut, bringing the repo rate down to 5.25%, is a timely boost for the real estate sector. Lower interest rates reduce borrowing costs, enabling homeb..

BMC Resumes Rs 170 Billion Road Works, Targets 80 per cent By Jan 2026

Following the withdrawal of the southwest monsoon in October, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has restarted work on 645 roads—covering 297.49 kilometres—under its large-scale concretisation programme. Data shows that more than 60 per cent of the resumed works are located in the western suburbs. Officials said the civic body aims to complete concretisation on 80 per cent of the roads where fresh work has begun by January 2026. Launched in 2022, the Rs 170 billion project seeks to concretise 700 kilometres of roads across Mumbai. All civil works were halted during the monsoon ..

India Pushes Digital Shift In Urban Land Mapping

The Department of Land Resources (DoLR) under the Ministry of Rural Development has convened a National Symposium on NAKSHA – the National Geospatial Knowledge-based Land Survey of Urban Habitations – to advance India’s transition to modern, technology-driven land mapping. Speaking at the inaugural session, Secretary Manoj Joshi underscored the urgent need to move revenue departments away from outdated, tape-based methods and rough hand-drawn sketches. He stressed that adopting latitude–longitude-based digital mapping and GIS-linked registration systems is essential for economic stabi..