After introducing birth and death certificates issuance through MeeSeva citizen’s services centres, the state government’s decision to offer six more services falling under Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) purview, through these centres has caused serious heartburn among the corporators of all political parties of GHMC.
The six services are: new assessment applications for property tax, title transfer or mutation of property tax, new applications for trade licenses, renewal trade licenses, no dues certificate for property tax and exemption of property tax copies, etc.
The integration of these services with MeeSeva is nearing completion and once the data is uploaded on their server, these services would be offered to the citizens at a price fixed by government.
GHMC officials told Express that the corporation is just following the instructions of the state government. Though there is stiff opposition from the political parties in GHMC, the corporation is helpless in this regard, officials added.
The corporators worry was that if the services of GHMC are provided by MeeSeva, the Citizen Service Centres (CSCs) established to provide all the GHMC services in all the 18 Circles would become useless and in the long run they could become sick and be closed down.
The other issue raised by the corporators was that Mee Seva centres were charging exorbitant amounts for issuing certificates unlike GHMC which charged nominal fee.
TDP floor leader Singireddy Srinivas Reddy said to get a birth or death certificate from a CSC, citizen paid `20 per copy whereas, Mee Seva centres charge `45 for the same. Meeseva functioned only for commercial gains.
Singireddy also said that the day-to-day transactions in CSCs would drastically fall and generation of income to GHMC would come down. As a result, the civic body would face difficulties in generating funds for the future developmental works.
The General Body has already passed a unanimous resolution that certificates relating to GHMC should be issued only at CSCs, Singireddy said.