Ensure services requiring public interface are available online by July 31: Delhi LG to MCD

Lt Governor V K Saxena has asked the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to make all its services that require public interface IT-enabled and online by July end, according to an official statement issued here on Saturday.

The LG gave the directions at a meeting on Friday during which he reviewed IT initiatives being undertaken by the civic body, the statement issued by Raj Niwas said.

With the process of registration of births and deaths being fully computerized by the MCD, Saxena ordered the linking of this database to government departments that provide services related to food security, pensions, maternity benefits, and other welfare schemes to enable automatic updating or deletion of names upon birth or death, it said.

He said all citizen-centric services like registration of births and deaths, filing of property tax, e-mutation, building plan sanction, layout approval, issuing of licenses, conversion and parking charges, advertisement and hoarding fees collection, cremation and burials, and tracking of garbage-carrying vehicles, etc., were hitherto being planned to be computerized in a ''piece-meal manner''.

These services should be brought online on a common, accessible platform and made fully IT-enabled by July 31, the LG said.

Saxena said the aim should be to ensure ''minimum human interface in the delivery of its (MCD) services''. This will ensure effective and timely delivery, and also cut red-tapism, minimize inconvenience and harassment of common people and curtail inefficiency and corruption at all levels, he said.

This will also ensure ''plugging (of) leakages and put a stop to instances of 'ghost beneficiaries''', he added.

Saxena also instructed the officials to explore all possible ways of revenue enhancement and reiterated his resolve to turn the ''red financial status of the MCD to a robust green,'' the statement said.

He directed the officials to achieve full automation in property tax filing, collection, assessment, and recovery.

He said all properties within the city limits, commercial as well as residential, should be brought under the tax net to increase the MCD's income and so that it can provide better services.

On being informed that 26 percent of the registered births took place at home instead of a hospital or nursing home, Saxena instructed the officials to ''randomly check a ward with the highest number of births recorded at home and find out the reasons behind it.'' 

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)