Online service compulsory from January 1st

Team Udayavani, Sep 22, 2018, 3:42 PM IST

• New app to be released to avail online civic services

Mangaluru: Come January 1^st, all civic services from the city’s local bodies will be available online. Henceforth, property tax, procurement of Khata (revenue document) can be managed from one’s mobile phone! The government has passed a strict order to compulsorily provide all civic services only through online means. Services including property tax, Katha, building blueprint approval, water and electricity connection, permission to dig a road and many other civic services will be made available exclusively through online service. Accordingly, this service will be made available at Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC), Ullal Municipality, Mulki, Moodbidri Municipality, Bantwal Municipality, Belthangady and Sullia town panchayats.

Along with this, all the local bodies in the state have been upgraded with building license and lease out approval system software through the Karnataka Municipal Data Society. The government has also given permission for customization of the software wherever necessary. During the 2018-19state budget, it was announced that in order to simply the provision of civic services to the public, automated online software would be developed and its use would be made mandatory.

Online Application

Organisations planning to dig road for the installation of cables, pipes and OFC’s must apply online for the permission from MCC to do the work. They need to specify the reason for digging the road, information on the location, depth and also pin the location on Google Maps. All applications coming in connection to digging of road will be first looked into by the assistant engineers of the respective wards. He will inspect the location, decide on the approval or disapproval, and send forward the file to the higher officials at the central office. Based on this, they will take the decision. If the local engineer and higher officials give their approval, automatically a demand notice will be created. After the work is done, the local officials give the certificate. If the dug up road is not restored properly, action will be initiated against those responsible.

Tumakuru Corporation a Model

For now, preparations have been made at the corporation for water bill payment through online means. Along with this the government has given direction to bring all civic services online. Accordingly, MCC is thinking of installing in a similar way the systems already taken up by Tumakuru Corporation. In this way, the people will avail all civic services from their homes itself. Hence, action has already been taken to collect all the documents in the district, said Naveen D’Souza, President of the Standing Committee on Taxes and Finance of MCC.

Online payment; App released

“Preparations are being done to provide all civic services of MCC through online mode to the people. Work on upgrading the software in this connection is in progress. After the preparations are done, in order to make it easy for the public, a new app will be released thorough which tax payment and other civic services will be available on the mobile,” explained Mohammed Nazeer, MCC Commissioner.