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Local Government

India state offers rebate on online applications

By Alice Kok | 11 May 2009

A state in Northern India, Haryana, has decided to extend rebate to those using the online medium to fill requests for various kinds of processing to be done at estate offices. This rebate will encourage applicants to use the web, saving time for both applicants and the government agency.

To begin with, Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda) has decided to fix US$2 as application fee for allotment of residential plots offered by estate offices across the state. Otherwise, the price of an application form made available at estate offices and banks varies between US$4 and US$6.

Other rebated services offered by Huda for online filing include submission of building plans, payment of dues and applications for obtaining No Objection Certificates (NOCs) and permission to transfer within family.

Say Chief Administrator TC Gupta: “Our motive it to provide clean and transparent functioning in urban estate. So far as online applications are concerned, it would help prepare refund orders more easily. Generally, one to two hundred thousand people apply for plots and it gets tough during refund of application money. Since refunds are posted manually, a lot of such cheques return undelivered because of mistakes in addresses.”

Notably, the Huda move comes a couple of months after it received national award for excelling in e-governance for computerisation of records in all the 24 estate offices across the state.

Besides this, Huda is the first such government-run housing agency across the country to introduce the system of complaint by SMS and e-communication.

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