Birth & death cert: MC has highest pendency of applications in Punjab

Ludhiana: Throwing light on its poor functioning, the Ludhiana municipal corporation has emerged as a leader in sending back applications for birth and death certificates for silly reasons. While the average pendency in the state is just 0.9%, Ludhiana MC has a pendency rate of 6.3% as its officials send back applications by raising unnecessary objections.
The matter came to light after Punjab governance reforms minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer and local bodies minister Dr Inderbir Singh Nijjar carried out a surprise check at the birth and death certificate office at Ludhiana bus stand on Thursday.
Surprisingly, top five officials, responsible for scrutinising these files, who sent back maximum files were from Ludhiana. After quizzing these employees at the birth and death certificate office, the local bodies minister marked an inquiry with a committee under the supervision of MC commissioner Shena Aggarwal to check the “malafide intentions” behind the pendency.
The local bodies minister did not reveal any details about the employees, saying that they did not want to bring employees in bad light, rather they wanted to make these employees understand that they should help the public instead of harassing them.
The ministers said Ludhiana district had 0.42% pendency, but MC’s pendency rate of sending back files, which is the highest in the state, was a matter of concern. A total of 5,39,000 applications were received in Ludhiana district and 2,276 applications were pending before stipulated time frame as mentioned under the Right to Service Act, he said.
While the average pendency rate is the state is 0.9 percent, it is more than 6% in case of Ludhiana MC, the ministers said. Many unnecessary and unclear objections like ‘call the applicant’, ‘attach mother school certificate copy’, ‘last cremation slip mismatched’, ‘clear the objection’ (without mentioning objection) were raised by officials which cause a lot of harassment to citizens and thus increase the pendency of applications, they added.
They claimed that to ensure transparent services to the people in the sewa kendras, the specially designed boards displaying the facilitation charges will be installed outside all sewa kendras.
They said any kind of harassment to the people will not be tolerated at any cost as each file is being studied at the highest level.
The cabinet ministers said they are preparing a roadmap to deliver citizen services at the doorsteps so that people don’t have to queue up or make rounds of public offices for availing the facility. They said for ease of public, the government is preparing a mechanism under which documents for various services would be collected from the applicants’ doorsteps and later delivered back.
Meanwhile, the employees at zone D office were aware of the local bodies minister conducting a check at any of the MC offices, but were not sure where he was going to conduct the checking. Therefore, the officials did not leave their seats since morning. As soon as news about the local bodies minister visiting the zone D office came to light, the employees started cleaning the MC office and sweepers were also seen sweeping the roads around Sarabha Nagar near MC office.