YEAR AFTER SDMC NOD, SEVERAL OF CITY’S 1.4K CITIZEN SERVICE CENTRES ONLY ON PAPER

NEW DELHI: Nearly a year after the South Delhi Municipal Corporation cleared a proposal to set up a large number of Citizen Service Centres (CSCS) in municipal wards to provide access to digital services such as issuance of certificates and licenses, a large number of such facilities continue to exist only in papers.

Local councillors have alleged that many CSCS in their area remain non-operational, and several RWAS added that no such units were there in their areas. The lack of such facilities has hit the citizens who do not have access to digital devices.

The south body’s website lists 1,441 citizen service centres where services like birth certificate and death certificate, updating birth certificate and filing of property tax returns have been operationalised. Of these, 477 centres are listed in the Central zone, 307 in Najafgarh zone, 338 in the South zone and 319 in the West zone. Last year, the agency signed an agreement with a firm to set up these services.

The centres are expected to provide 13 more services such as veterinary licence, community hall booking, e-mutation of properties among others. CSCS can charge citizens ₹10-₹100 to help access these services.

Atul Goel, president of URJA (United Residents Joint Action), a collective body of RWAS, said the process of digitisation of services needs to be reviewed. “I have only seen one such centre...the quality of digital services can be gauged from the fact that corporation doesn’t provide any acknowledgement, and it will not inform applicants about faults in the rejected applications,” he added.

Standing committee chairman Col (retd) BK Oberoi acknowledged the problem.

“Many of these CSCS are not working. We will review their operations. If people are not doing their job after signing agreements with SDMC, they are either professionally not capable or not taking their work seriously. We can choose a new vendor if required,” Oberoi said.