PUNE: The tehsildar, Haveli, Pune has sealed the Maha e-Seva Kendra located in front of its office at Shukrawar Peth. Tehsildar Trupti Patil oversaw the action.
During an inspection of the centre, it was found that several malpractices were happening including overcharging for the services offered or running the centre by a third party (people who do not have a licence to run it). A notice board was not displayed outside the Maha e-Seva Kendra stating the charges for the services being recovered from citizens.
There are 68 Maha e-Seva Kendras in Pune, which provide government services such as issuing of income certificate, ration card, PAN card, domicile certificate and affidavits among others at affordable costs.
Tehsildar Trupti Patil said, “I held a meeting of the 68 Maha e-Seva Kendra owners on November 29. I instructed them not to overcharge the citizens. Even after this, the tehsil office received several complaints of overcharging from citizens. Therefore, we visited the Maha e-Seva Kendra, which is in front of our office and sealed it.”
She further said, “During an inquiry with citizens, we found that people were being charged three times more than the actual costs. Also, there was no notice board outside the kendra stating the amount to be charged from the citizens for a particular document.”
According to the guidelines, Rs 33.60 should be charged for an affidavit but Rs 150 was being charged for the same, said Patil.
The State government had launched the Common Service Centre (CSC) scheme called the Maha e-Seva Kendra to bring transparency in the system and establish citizen-centric governance. Accordingly, Maha e-Seva Kendras have to follow the guidelines. They have to charge according to the fees stated on the notice board. Also, they have to instal the notice board outside the kendra so that citizens are aware of what needs to be done.
