Rourkela Municipal Corporation launches automated land conversion system

ROURKELA: Suresh Chandra Mahapatra, Chief Secretary of the Government of Odisha, on Wednesday, August 4, launched an automated system for land conversion from lease-hold to free-hold. He said that the system would be customized and updated in the near future on the basis of feedback from the users and stakeholders.

The automated system was launched digitally in the presence of Bishnupada Sethi, Principal Secretary, Revenue and Disaster Management Department; Nikhil Pavan Kalyan, District Magistrate, Sundargarh; and other dignitaries from the Government of Odisha. Mahapatra congratulated Rourkela Municipal Corporation and the district administration for applying a progressive technological intervention, and asked them to work on making the system more citizen-centric by reducing the burden of document compliances at the time of submission of the application. Additionally, he directed municipal officials to examine if affidavits, indemnity, etc can be replaced with self-declaration in the city’s administration process.

During the launch ceremony, Mahapatra suggested linking the system with Jana Seva Kendras and common service centres so that citizens could submit applications from those points. For greater ease of city residents, he also advised officials to make the provision for online submission of applications and fees from individual computers so that people could do it from their home itself.

Talking about the new intervention replacing the old one, Kalyan said that in the offline system, applicants had to run to the government office multiple times for submitting physical copies of the documents, meeting various queries, etc. Earlier, applications also required to be sent to different sections and offices for verification. Moreover, the applicants had no way of knowing the status of their applications without running to the offices time and again. The entire process was time-consuming, he said, and caused discomfort and dissatisfaction for the people. With the new digitized system, the whole work will be done through automated software, thereby increasing efficiency of the administration along with ease for people, he pointed out.