The site, www.punecantonmentboard.com, was put up in June last year. It was hailed as the coming of age of e-governance in Pune Cantonment.
"We believed that once it is in place local residents will have an easy time as far as downloading official documents and knowing the state of affairs regarding their property and other taxes. But the site has been a big disappointment," advocate Netraprakash Bhog, told TOI.
Except for a few forms like birth certificate and slaughter house tenders and a list of officials, there is hardly any input made to the website during the past one year. Even the photo gallery has only a few old pictures of certain prominent locations in the cantonment.
"The board claims to have taken care of filing of official documents by opening a single-window citizens' facilitation centre. But, if details regarding my property are not on the website, what will I do by merely downloading the form for property tax?" asked Simon D'Souza, a resident of Taboot Street.
Similarly, at a time when the cantonment polls are hardly four-five months away, even the gazettes, election rules, electoral lists or ward maps have not been uploaded on to the website. "They were selling hard copies of maps of each newly delimited ward at Rs 200 per copy. It was only after we approached the PCB president that the price was reduced to Rs 50," said Pravin Gade, Bharatiya Janata Party in-charge of Pune Cantonment.
PCB chief executive officer S.K. Sardana defended the three-member IT cell led by Vijay Nair. Recent official activities relating to elections had kept them busy, he said.
"Everything, including the annual administration reports, details of accounts and land data entry, will be updated by May-end."
The entire electoral rolls and copies of the defence estate notifications regarding the polls would also be made accessible, he added.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Pranjal Bhuyan
Quelle/Source: The Times of India, 12.05.2007
