Online building plan approval system evokes poor response

Parveen Arora
Tribune News Service
Karnal, January 18

The Online Building Plan Approval System (OBPAS), an ambitious project of the Haryana civic body, has failed to attract residents. It was launched on August 16 so that they could get their building plans approved online and hence, save time.

Only one person has applied, that too today, for the approval of a building plan ever since the project was launched.

The lack of technical awareness among residents and architects along with several formalities and non-availability of the old city plan on the software are supposed to be the main reasons behind the poor response.

The residents alleged that the initiative has increased the formalities to get the plan approved. Earlier, they got approval very easily, they claimed.

“The manual system of getting approval of the building plan was very easy and we used to get plan approval in a week. But after the start of this system, I tried hard to apply for getting my building plan approved, but failed. The system was not uploading the details,” said Raj Kumar, a city resident.

The residents alleged that the employees and officials associated with the projects are also not tech-savvy due to which they are not able to upload the applications of the people. “I went to Karnal Municipal Corporation office thrice in the past fortnight, but the employees sitting there were also not aware of the system,” said Narinder Singh, another resident.

He alleged that the old city plan was also not uploaded in the system due to which they cannot upload their files.

An architect said on the condition of the anonymity that the government should have made the people aware about the software prior to the launch of the project. He said that the department was imparting training four months after its launch.

Mohan Singh, District Town Planner, Karnal Municipal Corporation, admitted that earlier, the system was not uploading the applications, but now it is working. “We have received the first application today and after the proper procedure, it will be cleared,” he added.