Chandigarh: Soon, pay for Estate Office services online

Dushyant Singh Pundir

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 28

In a much-needed relief, the residents will be able to make payments online for various Estate Office services from the New Year.

From the next year, people will also get the facility to submit their building plans online. Facing criticism over the delay in services, the Estate Office recently launched all its 16 property-related services online.

“We have reviewed the pendency of applications in each branch of the Estate Office and emphasised on timely delivery of services,” said Deputy Commissioner-cum-Estate Officer Vinay Pratap Singh, who recently joined the UT Administration. To provide hassle-free services to the residents, Singh said policy-related issues needed to be decided on priority.

“We emphasised that digitisation should be completed on priority so that all services can be moved to an IT platform. Building plan related services will be pushed on the Online Building Plan Approval System from next year,” he said

Singh also said the Estate Office would shift from demand draft based payment mode to the digital payment mode in January next year.

Appreciating the steps initiated by the Estate Office regarding online approval of building plans and payments, Kamaljit Singh Panchhi, president, Property Federation Chandigarh, said it would save people from harassment.

Kamal Gupta, president, Property Consultants Association, Chandigarh, said: “At present, the demand draft submitted by the applicants kept on lying in the files for months and after a few months, the official would ask the applicant to revise the demand draft. In such cases, the applicant gets the receipt several months after submitting the demand draft.”

“Providing online modes of payment will bring a huge reprieve to the residents,” he said and added that the online submission of building plans would bring an end to corrupt practices.

The Estate Office has been offering multiple services to the citizens under one roof like change of ownership, issuance of no-objection certificate, sanction of fresh and revised building plan, issuance of allotment letter, transfer of ownership, permission for bank mortgage, permission for change of trade, collection of lease, GST, etc.

To provide timely information to the residents by adhering to the deadline, all property-related services being provided by the Estate Office were digitalised in a phased manner to ensure transparency in the governance system.

The project of digitising the record was incepted in August 2020 and the staff of Estate office made nearly 80 lakh entries to make the entire process smooth and functional. The office also started SMS service to keep the applicant in loop about the status of the work done.

In an attempt to simplify the processes at the basic level, the department has done away with the cumbersome process of attaching numerous documents with their files.

Earlier the citizens had to submit separate affidavit for different points, but now with this new system, the affidavits have been clubbed with all relevant points. Once a document has been uploaded by the applicant, there will be no issue in resubmitting the same document time and again.