Real estate developers and property dealers of city are fuming over the flaws in the online portal of Punjab government for applying no objection certificates (NOCs) for plots, lands and other properties.
Businessmen rue that there are multiple problems in the application process, causing inordinate delay in land deals and affecting their businesses.
A delegation of Punjab Colonisers and Property Dealers Association (PCPDA) on Monday met the chief administrator of Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA), which is the nodal agency for the portal, to discuss these issues.
PCDPA president Gurwinder Singh Lamba said, “State government has recently launched an online portal to provide NOCs but due to lack of clarity and technical issues on this website, people are not getting the NOCs from the concerned departments. This is not only affecting the property buyers and sellers, but also leading to loss of government’s revenue. Some of the major flaws in the portal include reduction of the image size leading the application file getting blurred, and as a result the officer is not able to read it. Besides, there is no provision of rectification or correction in online application, and the portal asks for a different mobile number for each application.”
Lamba further added, “Another major issue related to portal is that if any column of the application is left empty before submission, the data is refreshed causing the user to enter the data all over again. This online portal has made matters very complicated, instead of making the process of applying and getting an NOC easier. Therefore, today we took up this matter with the chief administrator of PUDA who assured us that all our concerns will be addressed soon.”
The association said these issues are confusing and causing huge losses to those in the real estate business.
Deepak Badyal, association general secretary said, “The number of flaws on the portal is endless which is causing huge confusions. For example, date of 15% increment of regularisation charges is April 1 every year, but the portal is enhancing charges from January 1 every year. Moreover, there is no provision of regularisation of unsold stock of the applied colonies as a single application provided in para 17.4 of Regularisation Policy 2018. If an application is sent to the unconcerned official, it is rejected as there is no provision in the portal to mark it to the concerned officer. In another serious issue, there is no provision of online tracking of the application by the applicant. We are suffering immensely because of the errors on the portal which are costing us dearly and government must do something to make this portal function smoothly.”