The e-Service Level Agreement (e-SLA) launched with much fanfare by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi on Wednesday for bringing six civic services under the ambit of the civic body's e-governance model seems to have run into teething trouble with much confusion emerging between the civic agency's legislative and executive wing over certain aspects of its implementation.
The six major citizen-centric services to be brought under the e-SLA to empower the citizens are issuance of birth and death certificates, health trade license, park booking, community hall booking, general trade license and factory license.
While launching the agreement Delhi Mayor Dr. Rajni Abbi had stated that provisioning of ad hoc licenses for general trade, health trade and factories would be done in one day as per the e-SLA, however civic body officials are saying that implementing this in practice would not be possible owing to safety hazards involved.
An MCD official said: “While birth and death certificates can be issued on the spot, for ad hoc factory and health licenses, it is difficult to do the same as inspections for health and fire safety have to be carried out before such a certificate is issued.”
However when contacted on Thursday, the Mayor said: “We have only rolled back the earlier announcement of providing ad hoc health trade license in a day as it requires time for inspection but rest all ad hoc licenses including ad hoc factory and ad hoc general trade license would be provided in a day. Meanwhile stipulated time for permanent licenses would be 60 days only as provided for under the e-SLA.”
Meanwhile, according to the MCD, Citizen Service Bureaus (CSB) situated in its 12 zones received 2,003 applications for issuance of birth certificates by Thursday of which 1,997 applicants were issued birth certificates on the spot. CSB's function as a local coordinating desk for e-governance to benefit those without access to the internet. They are linked to a central data bank and accept applications and deliver computer-generated certificates.
Six applicants of birth certificates were requested to give the correct information so that certificates could be issued to them. 377 applications were also received for issuance of death certificates, of which 375 applicants were issued death certificates. Two death certificate applicants were requested to get the information updated at their end so they could also be issued certificates.
The MCD official said: “CSB also received 48 applications for booking of community hall on Thursday and all applicants were granted booking certificate there and then. Similarly, 16 citizens applied for booking of parks and all of them were issued booking certificate on the spot. As many as 77 applications were received for health trade license and 42 applications were received for trade, storage license. These are being processed and would be issued permanent license within stipulated period of 60 days after completing the required formalities.”
With the implementation of the e-SLA, if the service is not provided within the specified time-frame, a citizen is entitled to seek a compensatory cost for delay at the rate of Rs. 10 per day subject to a maximum of Rs.200.
