MARGAO
As the carnival festivities draw to a close, the Margao Municipal Council officials and staff, who were all soaked in Carnival revelry over the last three days, may face a question or two from the citizens “ why is the civic body dragging its feet to issue construction licenses online and ensure transparency and accountability in the administration? Or, is it unable to implement the new software due to sabotage by unscrupulous employees?
In fact, municipal officials have a clear task at hand “ to either implement the Municipal Administration Software (MAS) and give relief to citizens by issuing construction licenses and other services online or face the charge of dereliction of duties.
So far, the civic body has issued a lone construction license online based on the old system since the Director of Municipal Administration, Gurudas Pilarnekar, issued a fiat to the municipal councils across the state to implement without any delay the MAS system.
The MAS system is an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solution developed by the DMA with a view to ensuring timely and easy access of data and services to the citizens and to speed up the processes in the municipal councils/corporation.
Inquiries by The Goan have revealed that the Margao civic body has not put the new system in place for want of networking items, including cables.
The MMC is in receipt of around eight PCs to take the MAS system forward, but the absence of networking of the section has rendered the project defunct.
Why the civic body has not given effect to the DMA’s circular to issue construction licenses online is a question only the city fathers and the municipal babus may be able to shed light on.
Sources in the MMC technical section, which processes and disposes of the application for construction license, said all the officials in the technical section, right from the junior engineer to the assistant engineer and the municipal engineer, need to be connected to the MAS system when citizens apply for construction licenses. “The technical section is in receipt of the hardware and software to process the construction files in the MAS system, but networking is an issue”, sources said.
When The Goan contacted Chief Officer AgneloFernandes to shed light on the delay in implementing the MAS system in the civic body, he assured to find out the reason for the delay with the municipal engineer and resolve the issues, if any.
He, however, did not rule out sabotage by some unscrupulous employees by not facilitating the networking of the system.
“I will find out the reasons behind the delay in processing applications for construction licenses and issuing the same online,” he promised.
An engineer pointed out that the Chief Officer should identify the issue and work out a solution.
He said the civic body is already late in implementing the MAS system and added that the municipality has a task cut out to not only implement the Construction Licensing System (CLS), but to implement the digital signing of birth/death certificates, besides digital signing of trade license, construction license and occupancy certificates.
MMC Chairperson Lyndon Pereira said his office would seek details from the Chief Officer why the MAS system has not been implemented to date.
“I have been told that the civic body has issued one construction license online. But, we have to go for online dispensation of services, including construction licenses to ensure transparency and accountability,” he said.
Lyndon added: “Since the civic body has earned the notoriety of official files going missing, the MAS system may help bring about transparency and ensure accountability in the civic body.”
COs may have to face music from DMA
MARGAO: The Director of Municipal Administration had issued directions to all the municipal councils and the Commissioner, City Corporation of Panaji to process all applications through the respective Municipal Administration System (MAS) software module regardless of whether the applications are received online or not.
The DMA’s fiat to the Municipal Chief Officers and the CCP Commissioner implies that processing of the applications must be carried out only through the available software applications and manual processing of applications should be stopped with digitally signed applications.
In fact, the DMA’s fiat had cautioned the Chief Officers that non-compliance of his instructions will be considered as dereliction of duty on the party of the Chief Officer/Commissioner and the officials concerned.
As the instructions dated February 17 have come into force with immediate effect, the Director of Municipal Administration has mulled action against the Chief Officers for non-compliance.
