The Times of India 10.08.2010
NMC's 500 agents useless, citizens still face hardships
NAGPUR: Babanrao Satpute, a senior citizen from Dharampeth, went to a NMC-appointed agent recently to pay the property tax for his open plots located behind Hotel Pride in Hanuman Nagar zone. He was surprised when the agent appointed by Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) refused to accept his tax.
Satpute was asked to contact another agent from Hanuman Nagar zone. Here too, Satpute was disappointed and asked to contact the Hanuman Nagar zone office. Enraged by this attitude of NMC agents, Satpute has now decided to contact municipal commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal and register a complaint against the agents.
Talking to TOI, Satpute said, "The aim of the then municipal commissioner Aseem Gupta to appoint 'agents' across the city was to collect bills and provide other civic services. He wanted to ensure citizens did not have to run from pillar to post to get their job done. However, now the agents are sending us from here to there. The 'agent' project has failed to solve any purpose."
Satpute's is not an isolated complaint. Several other citizens have similar views about the many agents appointed by the civic body. They believe the agents took the work just to get 'NMC authorised' certificates to carry out other businesses.
Madhav Dahikar, another senior citizen, alleged that most agents in Laxmi Nagar and Dharampeth zone are affiliated to some or the other corporator or MLA of the ruling party in NMC.
NMC had assured that with the agents working on behalf of the civic body, citizens will not be required to run from pillar to post to get their job done. However, the fact is that of the 500 agents appointed hardly 10 to 15 agents are seriously working and bringing business to NMC.
The NMC officer in-charge of the agent project, RS Kamble, said that NMC is trying to make things hassle-free for citizens. So it selected 500 agents from the 650 applications received. In the beginning, almost a 1,000 transactions were handled by these agents every day. Now, only 10 to 12 agents are doing their jobs seriously, with only 90 to 100 transactions done by them every day.
"NMC agents earn Rs 20 for each transaction from the consumers, however most of them don't seem to be serious about the project," he added.
Explaining how the system should work, Kamble said suppose a person approaches an agent to pay the property tax. The agent, who has been given an unique ID, is supposed to key in the customer's details, including his/her mobile number, into the system.
The NMC staff deducts the amount of property tax payable from the agent's account, which NMC has access to. Then NMC sends an SMS to the customer, asking him/her to pay the amount in cash to the agent. Only after getting the SMS are citizens required to pay the property tax and Rs 20 as fees to the agent, he said.
"The agents should ideally appoint men to go to the customers' doorstep and give them services," he said.
