As the online facility for submitting building plans for approval has failed to take off, the Kochi Corporation has decided to approach the State government for reintroducing the manual clearing mechanism of applications.
Mayor Soumini Jain announced the decision at the corporation council meeting here on Monday after several members, including Benedict Fernandez, raised the issue at the meeting.
The facility was introduced for the online processing of applications for marriage, birth and death registrations also.
ADVERTISEMENT
Several applications for the approval of building plans, both commercial and residential, were pending with the civic body as the authorities could not roll out the facility, which was part of the e-governance scheme. The delay in clearing the applications had also hit the government-supported housing schemes for the economically backward sections of society, said Mr. Fernandez, a CPI (M) councillor.
The delay in completing the project, which was assigned to TCS, had invited the wrath of the general pubic as well as the councillors. The Opposition councillors had raised the issue in a few council meetings.
Though there were suggestions that government-supported housing schemes be considered for manual clearance mechanism, senior officials of the civic body pointed out that the prior approval of the State government was necessary for such a decision. The Mayor assured the council that the civic body would write to the State government pointing out the technical hassles in rolling out the e-governance scheme.
ADVERTISEMENT
Meeting on May 15
The civic body has decided to convene a meeting of the representatives of the TCS and the officials of the Information Kerala Mission, the arm of the State government which led the e-governance drive in the civic body earlier, along with the officials of the Kochi Corporation on May 15 to break the deadlock regarding the programme.
The council had earlier sought the intervention of the State authorities to sort out the imbroglio. The State authorities have offered to convene a meeting if the one to be held in Kochi fails to break the deadlock, Ms. Jain informed the council.
Deputy Mayor T.J. Vinod said the civic body could not quantify the work completed by the agency in the Kochi Corporation due to the shortage of technical experts. The civic body has already paid ₹40 crore to the agency, he said.
Unsatisfied by the reply of the Mayor, LDF members led by V.P. Chandran and K.J. Antony boycotted the council proceedings and walked out of the meeting. They shouted slogans demanding the resignation of the civic authorities who ‘failed’ to implement the project.