Bengaluru: One-stop civic hubs by GBA aim to fix delays, rejections, bribery

For decades, Bengalureans have faced a familiar ordeal: To get a birth certificate, khata, trade license or building plan approval, they have either spent weeks navigating the maze of corporation offices or quietly paid a broker to get the work done. Harassment, unwelcoming government staff and unexplained rejections were common. 

Now, the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) is trying to break that cycle with an unusual proposition: Pay a modest, clearly stated fee to a professionally managed centre where citizens can avail as many as 27 services — all under one roof — without waiting in long queues. The new initiative is modelled on the lines of a Passport Seva Kendra. The GBA plans to establish 10 such facilities across Bengaluru, with the five municipal corporations getting two each. 

What makes the new facility different from the existing ‘Bangalore One’ centres is that the latter doesn’t offer these many services under one roof. Moreover, the GBA will deploy its officials at these centres so that the files are cleared there itself, without being sent to corporation offices. 

The fee will be above what the civic body officially charges for the same service but would be well below the informal “market rate” that the middlemen have long extracted from desperate citizens.

The GBA — which has floated a tender — wants private agencies to quote the schedule of fees for services rendered. The lowest bidder wins the contract. 

Under the proposed structure, a citizen seeking an e-khata may get it for an additional fee of Rs 1,000. Similarly, conversion of B khata to A khata or a new khata for a flat or plot with a building could cost Rs 2,500. For bulk transactions such as a developer seeking khatas for an entire multi-storey housing project, the charge could be Rs 1,500 per flat.

Officially, the civic body charges only Rs 125 for an e-khata, but not all have been "lucky" to get the service at that price. Some gullible citizens have paid anywhere from Rs 3,000 to a whopping Rs 60,000 for e-khata. 

The GBA’s Special Commissioner (Revenue), Munish Moudgil, told DH that the 'seva kendra' is one among the several reforms being introduced to streamline the services being provided to citizens. "We have already floated the tenders and the option to quote the fee per service has been left to the bidder," he said. "The entire processing of an application will be done under one roof. We will deploy our officers in each of these centres. No file will come out of it and so there is no delay," he said. 

The initiative comes against the backdrop of the GBA’s landmark e-khata programme, which involves digitising all 22 lakh property records in Bengaluru. However, the programme came with challenges as revenue officers rejected several applications or sat on them without a valid reason. Even though senior officials in the GBA came up with several reforms, rejections continue to burden the applicants. 

Moudgil said citizens can avail the service directly from the corporations too. "We hope to onboard the private agency in a month’s time. By June or July, the seva kendras should be up and running."