Assign work to deputy, then leave

Routine business like clearing of plans to build or renovate your house, getting birth and death certificates, issuing trade licences, etc., from the civic agency should normally take less than a week.

Routine business like clearing of plans to build or renovate your house, getting birth and death certificates, issuing trade licences, etc., from the civic agency should normally take less than a week.

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But more often than not these works get delayed for three to six months.

And the standard excuse is that the authorised official is on leave. But under the new e-governance regime, the excuse won't work any more.

Any official of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) who goes on leave on has to authorise another official to fill in — to clear pending files and take up administrative responsibilities on his or her behalf.

After checking absenteeism of its employees by introducing biometric system of attendance, this is the MCD's next big move to cut red tape.

To fix the accountability of its official whose absence results in public work getting delayed, the civic agency is going to make it mandatory for its employees to assign a substitute to take care of their work.

Their leave application will be sanctioned only after they assign someone to take care of their work in their absence. “At present, the MCD's functioning is person driven and not process driven. Files are stuck in one department or the other if an officer goes on leave, as their approval is required on the files to move from one level to another,” said MCD Commissioner K.S. Mehra.

"Through the implementation of our e-governance project, no one will be able to go on leave without assigning a substitute. This will increase the overall efficiency of the MCD."

The civic agency has already appointed Wipro Project Limited as the consultant for their e-governance project, which it plans to implement with six months.

The civic body said the move would reduce pressure from the MCD employees too.

In addition, once the system is in place, approving files will also be done digitally.

“Signing so many files at a time is a time consuming affair. With digital signatures files will be signed much faster. Every officer will have a unique pin code to ensure no one is able to misuse it,” Mehra said.

The civic body will also be able to approve files online through the new system that will reduce the number of bulky files and improve overall productivity.

Rajiv Kakaria, member of Greater Kailash I resident welfare association, said, “If something like this is adopted by the MCD, work will finally start taking place. This kind of system is already in place in the private sector.”

“The MCD officers will become more responsible as there will be accountability.”