MC’s record-keeping crisis: Missing files question digital system

Ludhiana: As incidents of property-related files going missing from the town planning branch of the municipal corporation (MC) continue to occur, concerns have been raised about why officials are not maintaining digital records.
The civic body officials claimed that they receive online complaints about illegal construction, after which the process of addressing these complaints begins manually, with files being created. It is concerning that the entire file disappears when an inquiry takes place.
Recently, six files related to records of the controversial building of a Congress leader in Gandhi Nagar went missing. Thereafter, the MC officials got an FIR registered against unidentified persons for the missing files. Besides this, another file related to a hotel in the West constituency also went missing when an inquiry was initiated in the case. The case is now pending in the court. A few days ago, the MC officials were seen tracing the file of records related to Upkar Nagar Dussehra ground. The MC has been made a party in the case. The branch officials also acknowledge that it has become a routine occurrence, as any time they inquire about a controversial file, it goes missing from the office.
One of the officials, requesting anonymity, claimed that they have an online system for granting approval to the building plans. Besides this, a change of land use (CLU) certificate can also be availed online. However, he said, in case of complaints against illegal construction work, the manual process is followed to probe the matter, along with creation of files.
He stated that, on average, 50 complaints about illegal construction are registered in the city. When these complaints are received by the relevant officials, they are forwarded to lower staff and then passed from one desk to another. He said if a digital record needs to be created, they would have to scan all the complaints, upload them to the digital log-in of the concerned officials, and ensure they are marked there, which makes the procedure time-consuming.
Meanhwhile, MC commissioner Aaditya Dachalwal did not respond to the query.
Though the MC had plans to digitise its entire record by scanning the available files, it had not been fully implemented so far.
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