PANAJI: The people should feel the administration at their doorstep now, and this has been the dream, envisaged by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through Digital India concept, said the Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar.
“With the introduction of the SMS-based system, applicants will heave a sigh of relief, especially, those in need of mutation, conversion and partition of land as the procedure has been simplified, with transparency and speed brought in the delivery of the service,” Parsekar added.
The Chief Minister was speaking after launching the SMS-based mutation facilitation service of the North Goa District Collector.
“The SMS-based mutation facilitation service will benefit the common man, who had to run from pillar to post and make several visits for want of mutation, partition and conversion of lands,”he said, adding it has been made easy for the villagers to get residence, income and caste certificates and as such 51,000 certificates were issued to the Bicholkars and an amount of Rs 51 lakh, which would have been spent on to- and-fro visits by the applicants, was saved.
Speaking further, he said that he once struggled “to get a document from an office for a decade. Despite bribing, every time I would visit the office, peons would give me several excuses – ‘Your file is beneath a huge pile of the files. Dust has gathered over it and would need a lot of time to search for it,’ and in the end, I was told that the official concerned has passed away. I felt hurt by this, and so I thought of improving the system, and we launched this SMS-based service.”
The citizens’ handbook is full of information about what is to be done and where to go if one in need of a certificate and what documents are required for the same, he said.
“The Chief Minister dreams lot of things, but at the same time, the officers should also co-operate, only then things will improve,” he added.
“The state government has extended the time for the submission of magisterial inquiry report into the May 12 incident of lathi charge on the fishermen, by 30 days,” he said.
Chief Secretary S K Srivastava lauded the efforts of NIC team and said that this step will help improve the state administration.
Speaking on the occasion, Panaji MLA Sidharth Kunkalienkar said that common man visits Revenue Department for every small thing, adding this will prove to be a smart step. While the North Goa Collector Nila Mohanan said that application processing will be expedited and streamlined, adding an applicant will be informed about the status of his of her application through SMS, which will reduce hardships faced by the applicants.
Mohanan said that applicants can check the status of applications on www.northgoa.gov.in as there will be total transparency in processing, and each and every step can be tracked online.
