e-naksha goes offline, submit plans manually for time being

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 19

Flooded with complaints on technical snags delaying online approval of layout plans, Punjab’s Department of Local Bodies has allowed property owners to do so in person, at least for the time being.

Officials admit that owing to delays in uploading layout plans, the much-touted ‘e-naksha’, launched in January this year, had caused harassment to the end-user besides loss of revenue to the department.

The ‘e-naksha’ online building plan approval system (OBPS) covers 165 urban local bodies and 27 improvement trusts.

Local Bodies Minister Brahm Mohindra said steps were being taken in phases to alleviate the problems. Explaining the technical glitches, officials said lack of adequate software, delay in scrutiny and  getting NOC from the civic body concerned were some of the impediments.  

“A one-month breather for manually submitting the plans has been given by some civic bodies,” said sources. Jasmeet Singh, president of the Building Designers Association of Punjab, said colour-coding layout plans instead of autoCAD software was the key concern.

Acting on feedback by MLAs on pendency of approval to online building plans, department officials have  been asked to provide a status report on pending applications and reasons for the same.