State housing dept to roll out e-licensing for colonies
MOHALI The department of housing and urban development will be launching e-licensing, an online process for issuing licence for setting up a colony, across the state next month. It will be a centralised service for all development authorities under the housing department in the state.
The online process, currently being implemented on a trial basis for Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) and Greater Ludhiana Area Development Authority (GLADA), will be available under all other development authorities.
“The online system will become fully operational starting next month,” said Kamal Kishore Yadav, director, town and country planning.
SIMPLE PROCESS
An applicant will have to apply for the e-licence on the Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA) web portal for the purpose. In cases where an applicant has applied for an e-CLU (electronic-change of land use) and an ID has been generated during the process, he will have to use this ID for applying for the e-licence. The system will fetch the information about the project from this ID. Thereafter, he will have to fill in the requisite form and digitally sign an
undertaking agreeing to fulfil all the terms, conditions and submit all the requisite documents.
For an applicant who applied for CLU manually, he will have to cite his reference number given during the CLU approval process.
First, a letter of intent (LoI) will be issued, which is considered as the provisional licence. Applicants will be able to download the provisional LoI from the website.
After all the undertakings, conditions are fulfilled and submitted by the applicant on the portal, and all objections cleared, he will be asked to deposit the requisite charges and fees. After the applicant makes an e-payment, he will be issued e-licence.
BENEFITS OF IT
The applicant will be able to check the status of his application online. The department will inform about any discrepancies in his application through an email. Yadav, commenting on the benefits of the e-licensing process for applicants, said, “An applicant will no longer need to run from office to office to track his application. At every stage of the file movement he will get an SMS (short message service) on his registered mobile.”
Both applicants and department officials will be able to track real-time status of the application online. The system will also allow search of queries. The details of all projects will be available online.
The process is also expected to improve the efficiency for the department. “We can fix responsibility of our employees at every stage of the process. Earlier, we use to get monthly reports, but now we can get realtime information regarding pendency. We have also identified time-line for every stage. Under the new process, all the objections will have to be informed in one go, and not in piecemeal basis as is currently the case,” added Yadav.
The new process is expected to reduce the time taken for getting a licence to set up a colony. “We expect to cut the time taken for granting of a licence by 30% to 40% after the system becomes fully operational,” said Yadav.