The Indian Express 05.09.2013
Regularisation of illegal properties: MC steals a march over GLADA
Despite MC being a local body and GLADA being a state authority under PUDA (Punjab Urban Development Authority), the former has marched ahead of GLADA and issued more than 300 NOCs to the city residents while GLADA in 14 days has issued mere nine NOCs. That too after causing much inconvenience to the residents.
While the MC, identifying more than 200 such colonies in all its four zones, has issued the schedule of camps to be held in each colony till October 4, the GLADA has failed to attend to even the residents approaching their main PUDA office.
Thanks to online form filling, the officer sitting on fourth floor and callous attitude of GLADA officials, people are returning with complaints and not NOCs. However, the MC after taking the prescribed fee is issuing NOCs on the spot after filling a manual form.
"I went to get my plot registered in GLADA office and first I was told to fill form online. Since I never used computer, I did not know how to do it. When I asked GLADA official sitting there to help me out, he told me to go back and fill form at home and then come," said an applicant.
Harbans Singh, 67, had some queries related to the process and when he reached PUDA office, he was told to go to the fourth floor where the officer was sitting. "Forget organising the camps, they did not even have an official to attend to the queries. I can't climb four floors and thus I returned without getting an NOC," he said.
Not only this, even the people who fill online form and submit money are asked to visit next day to collect NOCs. "These officials think that we are free to come here daily. First, they made me run for three days in this online form filling process, and now they need a day more to issue NOC," said another resident.
When contacted, Baldev Singh, additional chief administrator, GLADA, said, "There are no such issues. Our staff is helping people in filling out online forms."
Ranjit Singh, GLADA XEN, said, "Till today we have issed nine NOCs but till tomorrow, the number will reach 40 as many applications were processed today. There was some issue with computer that NOCs were not issued on the spot."
