From January 1, pay for 18 Sampark Centre services in Chandigarh

Chandigarh, December 17

Residents will now have to pay Rs 25 for paying their water or electricity bill as the UT Administration has decided to levy nominal facilitation charges for 18 services offered through the Sampark Centres in the city from January 1 next year.

“This has been decided in order to strengthen the Sampark project and to make it more viable,” said Rupesh Kumar, Director, Information Technology-cum-CEO, Society for Promotion of IT in Chandigarh (SPIC).

The society, set up under the aegis of the Department of Information Technology, has decided to levy facilitation charges for 18 services, which were earlier being provided to the residents free of cost.

The official said it was decided to levy facilitation charges of Rs 20 for the issuance of a Schedule Caste certificate on a bona fide or migration basis, an Other Backward Caste certificate on a bona fide or migration basis and a Unique Disability Identity card. An amount of Rs 2 will be charged for an application form for the sale of e-stamp paper. He said Rs 25 would be charged for a birth or death certificate, payment of water and sewerage bills, tenant and domestic servant verification forms, deposit of rent and electricity bill, tubewell booking and other services of the Electricity Department, payment of tax and deposit of monthly or quarterly VAT/CST returns.

The residents can also pay their water and electricity bills online by registering on the portal of the department.

Rupesh said the Sampark project, under SPIC, had completed 18 successful years. It has been able to provide one stop-shop services for more than 58 G2C (government to citizens) or B2C (business to citizens) services. These centres have helped in the transformation of the Administration’s mission of “IT for society” into a reality, he said.

There are a total of 45 Sampark Centres in Chandigarh which were earlier classified as e-Sampark Centres, Gram-Sampark Centres and Jan-Sampark Kiosks.

“The Sampark centres have now been reclassified as Sampark, Mini-Sampark and Extension Sampark Centres on the basis of the facilities available there such as size of the centre, number of facilitation counters, infrastructure available, etc,” said Rupesh.

He said all services would be available at the Sampark Centres, while the facility of e-stamp papers would not be available at Mini-Samapark and Extension Sampark Centres.