CHANDIGARH: Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday claimed that the Online Building Plan Approval System (OBPS) is successfully running and nearly 4000 building plans have been sanctioned on e-naksha portal till date and more than 8800 files have been entered successfully in the system as on date.
Local Government Minister, Punjab, Navjot Singh Sidhu said that about 1600 architects and engineers have registered on the portal and are actively participating in the process. Though OBPS is facing some teething problems but professionals, applicants and even the ULBs staff are happy with the system as
it has many advantages over manual system. The income of many ULBs has increased after the launch of OBPS due to the good response shown by the public. Time and energy of applicant, as well as architects, is saved due to the ease of doing business on this portal. Hundreds of satisfied users have availed services on
their doorstep sitting in the comfort of their homes and offices as the total process takes place online starting from submission of file up to sanction.
Divulging more on the finer points of the system, Sidhu said that as per the default design of the system, it takes maximum 2 days by the scrutiny engine to scan the drawings and generate a report. If the report is all clear, the file moves to the sanctioning authority through various levels and e-naksha gets cleared. The minister further detailed that on an average, 60 files are being daily passed by the online system. It takes hardly 2-3 weeks time to get a majority of the cases cleared due to strict timelines given to the staff for clearing the cases. At present only 3 percent files are there in the system which are pending for more than one month, 3 percent are pending for less than 15 days and more than 7 days old are 7 percent.
He said that the system has brought in transparency and has considerably reduced corruption in the system. Once all the functionalities of the OBPS are made live, the applicant will be able to see the status of his file on his mobile phone dynamically through SMS facility.
Sidhu also added that the staff of Town Planning wing of the ULBs is also heaving a sigh of relief as they have very little left in their hands to give undue leverage to anyone in case of ‘Sifarrish’ from any quarters.