Maharashtra, which is one of the most urbanised states in the country, has developed an integrated web-based portal as a single window service delivery platform for all notified major and micro municipal services of urban local bodies (ULBs) under the Right to Services (RTS0 Act). The portal, which is going live on August 15, includes 27 modules which will automate the administrative work of municipalities and will ensure an online facility for service delivery.
Chief Minister Eknath Shinde in his speech at the NITI Aayog meeting in New Delhi on Sunday, said the portal will deliver all important municipal services, including property, water supply, sewerage, building plan approval, public grievance, accounting and finance, licenses and no objection certificates and many other municipal microservices.
At present, 404 ULBs will be onboarded on this portal in a staggered manner and new ULBs which will be formed in future will also be onboarded on this portal.
Shinde said the state government will undertake a project to carry out GIS-based mapping for all properties in the cities which will facilitate GIS-based property tax assessment.
The state government proposes to increase revenue from property tax to 1% of gross domestic product. Further, the state is promoting the ULBs to raise funds through municipal bonds and market borrowings.
The government has issued directives to all ULBs that all their purchases should be mandatorily made through the state government portal.
Shinde, during his tenure as the urban development minister when the unified development control and promotion regulations (UDCPR) were released, had said that all the building permissions are regulated and promoted under the single rule of the entire state except Mumbai. "This has removed arbitrariness and infused transparency and flexibility. The single set of rules for building by-laws has facilities to bring building permissions activity to the online platform. Thus UDCPR is now supported with an online building plan management system, making the entire process citizen friendly," he noted.
Shinde said the government is setting up greenfield cities by implementing several tools, including town planning schemes and land pooling methods. This is because the government is facing a situation where planning succeeds in urban densification. "We are creating urban centres of more than 400 sq km near Navi Mumbai and developing various urban centres and townships all along the Mumbai Nagpur Samruddhi Highway," he added.
Final guidelines of New Education Policy 2020:
The Maharashtra CM said that the state government has taken many definitive steps for the implementation of the New Education Policy for higher education 2020. The government has set up Maharashtra State Faculty Development Academy to provide need-based training to teachers and academic leaders. The government hopes to achieve the target of a 50% gross enrolment ratio well before 2035. The government is encouraging institutions to get accredited by NAAC.
However, Shinde urged that the Centre needs to issue final guidelines covering key areas such as converting degree programmes to 4 years, multiple entry-multiple exits and multiple-disciplinary curriculum.
As far as school education is concerned, Shinde said the government proposes to do away with single-teacher schools in the state adding that the government is promoting the complexes which will provide access to every child to fully functional schools in terms of availability of teachers, quality infrastructure, greater resource efficiency and more effective functioning, coordination, leadership, governance and management of schools. This will improve the quality of education and ensure the retention of children in schools.
Further, the government is implementing the ‘’Aamche Guruji’’ campaign to express gratitude for their commendable work in nation-building. In order to increase access to elementary education, the government has selected 488 model schools in the first phase with an allocation of Rs 494 crore for its up-gradation.
