The Hindu : New Delhi News : DDA's `reluctance' delaying tele-counselling service

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 22, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

DDA's `reluctance' delaying tele-counselling service

By Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

NEW DELHI, JUNE 21. The tele-counselling service of Delhi Development Authority, which was originally scheduled to have been launched around April this year, has run into delays as the officials are still "preparing themselves'' and "gearing-up DDA internally'' for this project which seeks to provide counselling through a private firm and thereby intends to minimise the role of middlemen and eliminate corruption.

Though the officials insist that the delay has got nothing to do with internal resistance to the scheme and they are just taking more time to ensure that it is "well begun'' and receives bouquets instead of brickbats from Day 1 of its operation, there appears to be some opposition to the scheme as well.

A senior official said it is for this reason alone that the name of the company which got the contract has been held back for some time now and even the amount of the contract was not revealed.

A test case for privatisation of small procedures in DDA, the scheme envisages creation of an equivalent to a top-level call centre, with easy-to-remember numbers, which are likely to be made toll free later. This centre would provide basic information to callers over the phone itself. However, as it would have also eliminated the "in-between people'', ensured transparency and checked corruption, it has run into rough weather.

The tele-counsellors would have provided information to callers about a variety of subjects ranging from conversion of properties from leasehold to freehold, documentation, stamping of properties, mutation of properties, allotment of flats, eligibility for schemes and procedure of getting building plans sanctioned.

The new service would have been an extension of the existing in-house counselling service being run through 13 experts drawn from different departments and the tele-counsellors would not have got access to the details of the individual files, providing only basic information during office hours and offering to get back to the callers in a day or two in case of specific queries. Since even accessing this much of information in DDA is a tough task, vested interests appear to be working to ensure that it does not take off at all. The Commissioner-cum-Secretary, V.M. Bansal, said preparations for the scheme are underway and efforts are on to launch it in a couple of months. Asked why the scheme could not take off when in March he had himself declared that it would be launched the same month, Mr. Bansal explained that DDA wanted to gear itself for the scheme before starting it. "We are doing our homework so that the scheme is a success from the moment it is launched and people appreciate our work from the word go.''

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