"Around 70 to 80 percent of the intending builders, particularly commercial builders of high-rises, are taking the advantage from the forgers' syndicate to get their building plans passed as quickly as possible," said a highly placed source at Rajuk.

As effectiveness of the new construction rules has been delayed, aspiring builders are resorting to gross irregularities in submitting building plans and getting them approved under the flawed construction rules of 1996 with the help of the syndicate.

Both the forgers, active in every agency, and employees' union leaders at Rajuk are making money out of the 'business of plan pass,' said Rajuk sources.

They said dishonest builders are submitting as many plans as they can, availing the counterfeit certificates to get the plans passed within January 2007. The forgers, brokers and employees' leaders are facilitating the plan approval through underhand dealings.

"The syndicate is also hindering formation of One-Window Service Cell at Rajuk and activities of other committees to execute the new rules," a Rajuk official said. "Once these bodies start functioning, the syndicate of forgers will lose its business."

The plans are now being submitted so hurriedly to get approval under the existing rules since the new rules will be made effective six months later and the builders do not want to 'waste time' in getting genuine certificates from agencies concerned.

"We are aware of the malpractice," said Nurul Islam, authorised officer of one of Rajuk's four building construction (BC) committees.

"We crosscheck genuineness of clearance certificates produced along with a building plan tallying with the memo number over telephone," said Islam.

The builders need to produce certificates from nine agencies for approval of their plans. Sources said forgery of clearance certificates occurs mainly in the Department of Environment (DoE) and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAAB) since it is usually difficult to obtain certificates from these two agencies.

The DoE is the agency that issues a clearance certificate after all other agencies clear a plan. "If the DoE certificate is found genuine, we usually consider that certificates taken from other agencies are genuine. Actually, it is quite often difficult to detect and check such fraudulent practice, as we are time-bound to dispose of thousands of building plans," said Shamsur Rahman, another authorised officer at Rajuk.

"We have to pass a plan within 45 days or reject it within 30 days," said Rahman, also a member of clearance certificate scrutiny committee of Rajuk.

Usually, genuineness of a clearance certificate is crosschecked calling an agency over telephone because written query takes longer time, Rahman said. "We need to be sure of the genuineness urgently because of time constraint," he added.

But, Rahman pointed out, sometimes officials concerned of the other agencies get annoyed and ask Rajuk officials to make queries in writing, which takes time.

Rahman also said that Rajuk officials remain under enormous pressure of workload in disposing of thousands of building plans and the situation makes the lengthy checking of papers impossible.

It is not the commercial builders alone who indulge in such fraudulent practice, he said, private builders too take advantage of certificate forgery, adding that a plan is rejected if found to have been submitted with fake papers.

According to sources, the forgers supply counterfeit certificates either by copying papers of different agencies in colour scan machine or just by making fresh forms and monograms.

The clearance certificate scrutiny committee is now facing a mad-rush of builders seeking approval for building plans, said a member of the committee.

The scrutiny committee is the body that examines authenticity of certificates while the BC committee ensures compliance with building rules and issues final approval.