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J&K to use Google Earth to check illegal constructions

KT NEWS SERVICE. Dated: 8/14/2012 11:43:20 PM

JAMMU, Aug 14: The Jammu and Kashmir government will use Google Earth to keep a tab on illegal constructions in twin capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar.
“There is a menace of encroachments and illegal constructions. To monitor illegal constructions in the state, help of the Google (Earth) application will be sought,” Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand said in Jammu on Tuesday after launching launched first of its kind e-governance facility in the Municipalities of the State under Housing and Urban Development Department (H&UDD). The Department is pioneer in launching online services within the preview of municipalities for the benefit of the people.
“We can track these violations in Srinagar while sitting in Jammu just at a click on the mouse,” he said, launching e-governance facility in the municipalities of the state.
He said the government was committed to promoting transparency at all levels in government departments and e-governance is a vital tool for the purpose.
The Deputy Chief Minister said the aim of the initiative is to ensure availability of municipal services like building permission, birth certificate, birth and death registration, e-tendering and public grievance on the web portal of the department so as to encourage transparency and efficiency in working of the municipalities.
“Our aim is to provide a transparent and people friendly administration and initiatives like Public Service Guarantee Act (PSGA) and e-governance will go a long way is providing prompt and efficient administration to the people,” Tara Chand said.
He said that tools of IT would also be used to check the master plan violations and ensure that no illegal constructions take place in the cities and all development is in tune with the provisions of the master plan.
He said the government also started the process of master plan revision for Jammu and Srinagar cities and new master plans are being formulated for several other towns.
“Once the draft gets ready the same would be discussed with all the stakeholders and would be adopted after necessary deliberations,” he added.
MLA, Jammu (West) Prof. Chaman Lal Gupta, Principal Secretary, H&UDD Suresh Kumar, IGP, Jammu Dilbagh Singh, VC, JDA Sarita Chouhan, DC, Jammu Sanjeev Verma, Commissioner, Jammu Municipal Corporation K.L Khajuria, Director, Urban Local Bodies, Jammu F.C. Bhagat, senior civil and police officers, engineers of NIC, President, CCI Jammu Y V Sharma, ex-Mayors, Deputy-Mayor, ex-corporators and prominent citizens, participated in the event.
The Deputy Chief Minister distributed building permissions and birth certificates to those citizens who had applied by following the online procedure.
Describing tourism as main industry of the state, Tara Chand said efforts had been launched to promote Jammu as one of the major tourism hub of the state and to make sure that tourists visiting Mata Vaishno Deviji Shrine and other tehsil locations extend their stay in the city, adding that for the purpose different projects have been taken in hand which include, artificial lake in Tawi, Mubarak Mandi heritage complex and Mahamaya rope way project.
Tara Chand said installation of traffic light signals in Jammu and Srinagar by their respective Municipal Corporations considerably eased and regulated the traffic flow in these cities and now it was duty of all to follow these traffic lights.
Earlier, Suresh Kumar gave a power point presentation on working of the portal and how citizens can make use of the facilities made available on the website of the department. He said people can log on to the website – www. Jkhudd.gov.in and take advantage of different online services, adding that online facility will effectively reduce the delivery time of different services offered by eighty four municipalities across the state.