The Estate Office, Chandigarh, has done away with the requirement of a separate no-dues certificate (NDC) for two key property services — NOC for transfer of lease rights and conversion from leasehold to freehold tenure — under a new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) approved by the Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Gulab Chand Kataria.

Speaking to The Tribune, Deputy Commissioner-cum-Estate Officer Nishant Kumar Yadav said applicants earlier had to first apply separately for an NDC and, only after obtaining it, file a fresh application for the main service. This led to two applications for the same property, repeated scrutiny of records and delay in service delivery, he said.

Under the revised system, applicants would apply directly for the main service through the online portal. Dues, which were earlier checked at the NDC stage, would now be verified and calculated during processing of the main application itself, Yadav said.

The Estate Officer said the checklists and workflows for both services stood revised on the online portal, with the NDC requirement deleted and replaced with a provision that dues would be assessed during processing and intimated through a single notice.

The integrated procedure would initially apply to the two identified services and might later be extended to other Estate Office services where a separate NDC was presently insisted upon, he added.

Single-window process

Under the SOP, all documentary deficiency, dues and service charges will be consolidated and communicated to the applicant through a single “Discrepancy Memo-cum-Demand Notice”, rather than in a piecemeal manner.

Yadav said the notice would list all deficiencies in documents, the government dues, applicable conversion, transfer or service charges, the total amount payable, the mode of payment and the time allowed to the applicant for compliance. The application would be disposed of within 15 working days of its receipt, he said, adding that the period during which compliance by the applicant was awaited would not be counted, and the clock would resume from the date of complete compliance, including payment of dues.

“The principle is one application, one scrutiny, one discrepancy or demand notice and one final disposal,” Yadav said.