Economic and mental exploitation of people in name of NOC for registration of land should be stopped: Pawan Dewan

Chandigarh, February 17, 2023: Senior Congress leader and former chairman of Punjab Large Industrial Board Pawan Dewan has written a letter to Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann mentioning the economic and mental exploitation of common people in the state in the name of no objection certificate (NOC), who are forced to go around government offices and pay hefty bribes in tehsils for the registration of their lands.

Dewan said that people are forced to pay heavy bribes in offices following the state government's decision to make NOC mandatory for registration of land and are getting stuck in complex system to get these documents.

He appealed to the chief minister to pay attention to the inconvenience  caused to the common people at the ground level, where people are having to go round the offices to get NOC even for getting the land registration of 50 to 100 sq yards done.                              

The situation has become so bad that contrary to the claims made by the government to provide relief to the people, corruption has reached its peak and due to non-receipt of NOC, people are forced to pay a huge amount of bribe in the tehsils to get their land registered.

He has said that this situation has not only occurred during registrations, but also in the case of sold lands, especially in the area under GLADA, as without NOC, neither electricity meters are being installed on the houses nor many other works are being done including procuring loans. It has been many months since people have applied for NOC online under the government system, but they are not getting the NOC whereas the Aam Aadmi Party government of the state claims to eradicate corruption and provide facilities to the people.

He appealed to the chief minister to provide relief to the people by making this complex system easy. The government should ensure the issuance of NOC, otherwise the fee of NOC should be fixed at the time of land registration to prevent  loot  of the people in the tehsils and this will also increase the government's revenue. Similarly, the registrations done in different tehsils during the last one year should also be investigated, Dewan said.