Housing for all: technical glitch impacts online processing of applications in a few villages in Coimbatore

COIMBATORE Santhosh (name changed) submitted an application with the Tamil Nadu Urban Development Bo

Santhosh (name changed) submitted an application with the Tamil Nadu Urban Development Board (TNUDB) nearly six months ago seeking allotment of a tenement at one of its projects here.

After almost three months, he was told that he has to get a residential address verification from the village administrative officer (VAO). When the verification was submitted at the tahsildar office, he was informed that that the application process has gone online in the district and that he should upload a fresh application online.

However, the personnel at TNUDB told him that his application cannot be uploaded online because of a technical glitch and there is no scope for manual processing.

The TNUDB receives nearly 500 applications a month in the district and about 2,000 are under process . It has constructed over 2,500 houses under the Housing for All scheme and almost 3,500 are under construction (including greenfield and reconstruction projects) in different locations in the district.

Officials at the TNUDB and the National Informatics Centre here told  The Hindu uploading of applications online was a trial project in Coimbatore and the local portal was linked to the national level portal. If it was successful, there was scope to replicate it in more places. Of the 295 villages in the district, 290 were mapped on the portal. But, because of technical glitches, five villages were not mapped. So, applications from these five villages were not uploaded online and there was no provision for manual processing. The glitch was a minor issue and efforts were on to sort it out, they said.

“This (the technical glitch) has come to my notice. We will set it right. Till then, applications from the unmapped villages will be processed offline,” said Collector G.S. Sameeran.