Chennai: Starting July 1, the state govt rolled out a time-bound ‘deemed NOC’ system to streamline the process of obtaining No Objection Certificates (NOCs) for planning permissions. This step is expected to reduce red tape, bring transparency, and speed up project clearances, especially for the housing and infrastructure sector.“This is the first time a state has introduced this system. This GO was released on Oct 24, but norms for deemed NOCs have been released now. This is a welcome step for housing and other industries. This will save three to six months for getting NOCs,” said S Sridharan, executive committee member, CREDAI National.Under the new framework, 11 key departments — including district collectorates, fire services, water resources, forest, CMRL, TNHB — must process NOC requests within 30 days, with the exception of the department of agriculture, which has a 21-day deadline.Once an NOC request is submitted, departments have 10 days to raise queries and conduct site inspections. If no queries are raised within that period, the system locks further objections. Applicants then get 20 days to respond, after which the department has another 10 days to act. If no action is taken, the application is treated as “deemed approved initiated”, though the document cannot yet be downloaded.Once deemed approval is triggered, departments get a final seven-day objection window. If no objection is raised, or if objections are not resolved within the system-defined periods, the NOC is marked as ‘deemed approved’ and can be downloaded by the applicant.Officials said that if an objection is raised within time, there’s no fixed limit for the applicant to respond. Additional instructions clarify that NOCs involving central agencies such as Defence, Airport Authority of India, Archaeological Survey of India, National Highways Authority, Environment Impact Assessment Authority, and Southern Railways must still be obtained before planning permission is granted.In coastal regulation zones, approval from the competent authority must be secured before applying for planning clearance. The department of agriculture engineering has been exempted from issuing NOCs, as HACA validation is already considered sufficient. For power infrastructure, a separate NOC from Tangedco is not required for HT/LT lines passing through a site, as these will be verified by CMDA or DTCP. However, Tangedco approval is still necessary for Extra High Tension (EHT) lines such as transmission towers.
