GURUGRAM: They were aimed at reducing corruption and promoting e-governance that saved people the trouble of making rounds of govt offices. But over the years, Haryana govt’s initiatives that would have ideally become a part of every campaign speech have been marred by lack of planning and execution.
In its 10 years of running the govt, BJP introduced around 80 digital initiatives. Key among them were online property IDs (PID), Parivar Pehchan Patra (PPP) or family IDs, e-Kharid for procurement of grains, and Mukhya Mantri Antoyadaya Parivar Uthan Yojana (MMAPUY).
Of these, there were some – like property and family IDs — that became pain points for the govt because of their faulty execution.
Marred by data discrepancies, these schemes saw people running from pillar to post to get their job done and failed to remove bureaucratic red tape and corruption – the very issues they had promised to address.
Arvind Saini, the media in-charge of BJP in the state, agreed that the schemes could have been implemented better. “Yes, these initiatives have benefited a large number of people. But like any other policy, they, too, faced some teething problems in their initial phases. The system will improve gradually and the govt will make them robust in its third term,” he said.
The state govt made these IDs mandatory for the sale and purchase of property. Each property was supposed to have an ID assigned to it, carrying details such as the name and contact number of the owner, address and its dimensions.
The scheme was intended to allow payment of property tax online, help officials keep digital records and execute lease deeds with ease. But as of July 4 this year, many of 50 lakh-odd properties were found to have crucial information missing in IDs attached to them.
Data sourced from govt revealed that 42% of these registered properties did not have contact details of owners, while 34.1% lacked their names. Gurgaon had the highest number of inconsistencies among all municipal corporations. On July 4 this year, 39.4% of 9.1 lakh property IDs in the city lacked contact numbers while 2.5 lakh did not have the name of owners.
Faridabad followed close, with missing contacts in 3.4 lakh IDs and absent names in 2.8 lakh documents. In Ambala, 1.3 lakh properties had missing contact numbers of owners, and 1.1 lakh did not have names.
“I have been running here and there for the past year and a half to make my new property ID. I own a floor in Gurgaon’s Sector 9A and was told by my neighbours that we must get a new ID to file taxes. I went to MCG office but was told to apply for it online, which I did. After a few months, when I followed up on it, I was told I didn’t need a new ID. Instead, I just had to update my name and number on the portal. But there is some error or the other every time I try to do that,” said 62-year-old OP Soni.
Some residents alleged that the data was deliberately mismanaged to leave ample room for officials to seek bribes. “Camps are being organised by various municipal corporations to fix errors in the database,” an official said.
On July 25, 2019, Haryana govt launched the family ID portal, followed by the rollout of cards in 2020. The idea was to create a database of families in the state that would help the govt streamline distribution and monitoring of social security schemes.
An estimate of 54 lakh families was drawn up and a unique eight-digit ID was made mandatory for each.
But like property IDs, PPP, too, was marred by data discrepancies. Moreover, the scheme also came under attack from Congress, which accused BJP of violating people’s privacy.
Bhupinder Singh Hooda, leader of opposition in the state assembly, announced Congress would abolish the family ID scheme if it came to power. The opposition labelled the scheme ‘permanent pareshani patra’ (permanent trouble document).
Introduced in Feb 2021, the state govt made e-tendering a must for any project worth over Rs 2 lakh. But in rural polls held through Oct and Nov 2022, BJP lost most of its seats, prompting sarpanches to question the efficacy of the scheme.
While the govt tried to reason that e-tendering would weed out corruption, rural leaders said it took away all power from their hands to reach out to voters. The govt took a step back, increasing the limit to Rs 21 lakh from Rs 2 lakh for online tenders.
Banbir Singh Samain, president of Haryana Sarpanch Association, termed the initiative an “eyewash”. “What is the point of increasing the spending limit when sarpanches cannot execute development work for their villages? BJP govt has divided development projects among panchayats, block samitis, and zila parishads.
The panchayats are now empowered only for the construction of streets and drains. We can’t construct buildings or set up streetlights,” he added. Panchayats, he said, cannot even set up parks, which are under the domain of block samitis now. “Another provision says that works without e-tendering cannot exceed 50% of the total budget,” he added.
