Over 15 civic services now available online: NDMC Commissioner

From birth and death certificates to registration of licences, more than 15 civic services can be availed by people online as part of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation's efforts to leverage digital technology, officials said on Saturday.

In a statement, the NDMC said, seeking to improve the delivery of civic services, it has taken a lot of initiatives under the guidance of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

These initiatives have been taken following four aspects -- ''rationalisation of rules, simplification of documents, decriminalisation and digitisation,'' it said.

More than 59 compliances have been identified under these parameters to revamp more than 20 municipal services which include trade licence, health licence, factory licence among others, the officials said.

One of the major reforms done recently is increasing the period of validity of trade, health and factory licences, they said Municipal Commissioner Sanjay Goel said citizens used to apply for renewal of licences every year as the validity of the health, trade, factory or industrial licences was one year. Now, the NDMC has given the option to citizens for availing licences up to three years and thereafter renewal of licences up to three years. This will bring a huge relief to the traders and they will not have to approach the civic body every year for renewal, he said.

Goel also said more than 15 services can now be availed online at mcdonline.nic.in Citizens need not visit any office to availing these services. Applications can be submitted online and the licences shall also be available online with a unique code which can be verified through the website itself, he said.

North Delhi Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh said citizens used to complain about delays in approving of licences after applying to the civic body. One major reform taken is deemed approval of health licences. The provision basically means that if within a defined timeframe the application of the citizen is not decided, it will be approved automatically on the online system, he said.

Another major decision taken by the corporation is to do away with the hard copy of the licences. All the licences are embedded with a QR-code and citizens need not keep the hard copy. The soft copy of the licences shall serve the purpose in case of any inspection by field staff, officials said.

The NDMC has also recently launched an app for paying property tax via mobile phone. In this financial year, more than 1.5 lakh users have paid property tax online to the tune of around Rs 100 crore, the statement said.

Goel said all the services are being developed with the support of NIC. Now another major initiative in the pipeline planned by the civic body is to digitise all the existing files and create an e-office. This will bring an end to the culture of physical file movement and will improve workforce efficiency manifold, he said.