The BMC has issued the standard operating procedure for its OC Amnesty Scheme, opening a path for roughly 20,000 older Mumbai buildings to finally secure occupancy certificates.
The BMC issued a circular on September 9 laying out the standard operating procedure for its long-awaited OC Amnesty Scheme. This isn't a new proposal. It's the final operational step for a policy that's been through several rounds of committee approval since April 2026. Around 20,000 buildings across Mumbai, residential, school, and hospital, are expected to qualify. Owners can now apply online through the AutoDCR system, once the dedicated link goes live on the BMC's website.
The eligibility bar is specific, not broad. A building must have been occupied before November 17, 2016. Individual units are capped at 80 square metres, or about 861 square feet, of carpet area. Applicants need two foundational documents in hand: an Intimation of Disapproval and a valid Commencement Certificate. Buildings under MHADA or SRA jurisdiction are excluded from this particular scheme and will need their own separate SOPs from those authorities.
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Eligible buildings get a 50% concession on revalidation fees and penalties tied to specific regularisation cases. The scheme also runs on a deadline structure designed to reward speed. Applications filed in the first six months after the SOP's rollout avoid certain penalties entirely. Applications filed between six months and a year get a 50% reduction. After the one-year mark, those concessions disappear.
This scheme has moved slowly and hasn't been without friction. The State Urban Development Department first approved a revised version in December 2025, extending the cut-off date by four years and waiving penalties for buildings that had converted Free FSI area to habitable use. The BMC Standing Committee cleared it on July 8, 2026, after the proposal had already been deferred once in June following corporator pushback.
Opposition members flagged concerns about developer accountability, since many of the buildings affected have absconding or long-defunct original builders. The BMC General Body gave final approval on August 18, and the SOP followed roughly three weeks later.
The scheme isn't a blanket waiver. Unauthorised construction doesn't become legal simply by applying, and any property tied up in court litigation or Anti-Corruption Bureau proceedings has to resolve those matters first. The bigger practical obstacle, though, is the requirement for a No-Objection Certificate from the original developer. In a city where a meaningful share of older housing societies has lost contact with, or fallen into dispute with, their original builder, this single document could stall otherwise-eligible applications for months.
For owners in this position, the absence of an OC has historically been more than a paperwork gap. It has limited a unit's resale value, made bank financing harder to secure, and blocked redevelopment plans outright. Each application filed under this scheme goes public on AutoDCR, with a 15-day window for objections before the building proposal department reviews it for final approval, so owners should expect the process to take a few months even once filed, not a few weeks.
