As the government is aggressively pushing Smart Governance and Digital India, most of the urban local bodies (ULBs) have adopted the online building plan approval system, says Vijay Gupta, Chairman & CEO SoftTech Engineers Limited

It has been a real challenge for architects and building professionals to create and submit ‘ready-to-approve’ building plans. The challenge is to avoid multiple drawing iterations for compliance of complicated development control rules. This leads to mental stress besides increasing cost of the project due to delay.

No doubt, architects and developers have been facing this challenge for a long time; however, with COVID-19 situation, it has once again come to the forefront. Moving ahead, the construction industry players need to chart out a plan to make things smoother and stable. There are pain areas where they will have to focus and think of bringing technology to address them.

As the government is aggressively pushing Smart Governance and Digital India, most of the urban local bodies (ULBs) have adopted online building plan approval system. Hence, architects and developers have to be more careful while creating their 2D/3D drawings.
Vijay Gupta, Chairman & CEO SoftTech Engineers Limited
For creating ‘ready-to-approve’ building plans, technology is going to be the key player. The availability of technology to check drawing plans first-hand before submitting it to the authorities will drive improved revenue opportunities for architects and developers

Vijay Gupta

Now, the question arises “how can architects and developers quickly and easily check their drawings beforehand and ensure the building plans comply to development control regulations (DCR)?” Will it be possible for them? Yes, it is now possible with the help of technology driven by Artificial Intelligence. Such functionality will enable architects and building professionals not only to save time and money on unnecessary drawing iterations, but also to obtain the peace of mind during these stressful times.

Ways in which technology will help architects and developers:
  • Create accurate, ready to pre-check, pre-formatted building plan drawings in a familiar CAD environment.
  • Identify and visualize the errors or non-conformities in the drawings and highlight them in different colors.
  • Automatically calculate the areas for building plans even in complex and big projects with accuracy and speed.
  • Make multiple revisions in drawings on-the-go to arrive at optimum design of the building plan. Dramatically increase the probability of getting it ‘Right The First Time’.
With COVID-19, we have to change the way we do business and adopt new ways and mechanisms to simplify the processes. Moving ahead, architects and developers should focus more on:
  • Implement stable and technology-driven methodology in businesses.
  • Allocate more energy towards creative designs with economic consideration.
  • Save time and money on routine processes with the help of technology.
Time management is going to be a critical aspect. Hence, we have to think ‘out-of-the-box’ and invest wisely in technology upgradation. For the architects and the real estate developers, it will be a must to adopt innovative ways to handle their routine business processes.