| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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Automating the three hundred fifty thousand property accounts was the most challenging job as there was no benchmark existing within the country or
anywhere which gives online and updated information to the property holders at the click of the mouse.
User ID and passwords have been allotted to the each property owner for viewing the status of property, make payments for outstanding due from the
comfort of their home.
Extracting the data on specially designed formats from three hundred fifty thousand property files of which many were very old and had dilapidated
form was a gigantic task. Moreover, The offices where these files were present were spread over eighteen different locations in the state.
Innovative feature:
• SMS alerts to the property owners on the start and completion of various events, due dates for payments etc.
• Host to Host connectivity with the banks for making direct payments in the beneficiary account.
• Toll number based helpline.
• Online approval of building plans on HUDA portal. Plans are compared with the zoning parameters and in case of deviation it gets rejected
with list of errors else plan is approved.
Dynamic portal enables the property owners to make online payments.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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HUDA is having three hundred fifty thousand plot holders (property owners) and millions of citizens using HUDA infrastructure network throughout
the state including National Capital region, Delhi, India.
Handling such a large infrastructure manually was becoming a herculean task and becoming un-manageable in day to day functioning. To address the
challenge the Chief Administrator decided to go for comprehensive automation drive of the organization with the following objectives:
1 Bring improved transparency and accountability in the functioning of HUDA
2 Improve the service delivery mechanism of HUDA
3 To redress the grievances of the allottees and the General Public by making the system online
For the start, an independent IT wing was created with General Manager (Information Technology) as head of the Implementation team. Persons with
proven track record in managing the project life cycles were selected. Full authority was given to the persons in taking important decisions. Staff
having domain knowledge and an aptitude to work with positive bent of mind were identified and made part of the implementation process.
The process was undertaken in a very planned and phased manner. The digitization and reconciliation of property accounts were handled by the private
sector leading banks (ICICI,HDFC, Axis Bank) in the state having experience of doing similar work successfully.
where the automation was to take place and domain knowledge experts held weekly review meeting to monitor the progress. Political leadership of the
state was apprised about the progress from time to time.
Three hundred fifty thousand property owners and about 15 million citizens of the state are directly benefitted from the initiative. This initiative
has come as a boon for the NRIs who belong to Haryana state and have properties in the region.
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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Initially the staff and their unions were reluctant to take on the automation as vested interest were involved in handling the files manually.
Staff IT literacy was very poor and strong resistance from the staff unions having apprehensions of retrenchment of staff post automation made the
task formidable to achieve. Earlier there were three different attempts made to start the system but could not succeed for one reason or the other.
To implement the system of such a magnitude special strategies were devised for making it successful.
For the project supervision a high powered steering committee under the Chairmanship of the Chief Administrator and head of the branches where the
automation was to take place and domain knowledge experts was constituted to monitor the progress of the project.
An Independent IT wing was created where persons with strong IT background and domain knowledge were taken. The entire control and command was
given to Sh. Sanjay Sharma, General Manager (Information Technology). System Integrator with proven track record was selected through open tender
process and the whole of the process was implemented as per the chronology given below:
* Principle approval from the Government for the execution of the project detailing the benefits and impact to the organization as well to the
citizens of the state was taken.
* Since the project was having mass user base touching all categories of citizens therefore, the Political leadership was taken into the loop.
* Identification of the staff within the organization having domain knowledge and aptitude towards computerization.
* Selection of System Integrator having strong credentials in implementing systems successfully.
* Identification of agency for digitization of property records.
* Identification of banks for reconciliation of financial data from the property files.
* Design &development of the application was made in such a way that gives ease of operations to the new user.
* Identification of Master Trainers for implementing train the trainer concept. These officials were selected from within the existing staff having
domain knowledge and aptitude to work. These officials played a vital role in motivating fellow colleagues about the benefits of the system which
ultimately helped in smooth implementation of the system.
* Setting of Infrastructure viz., Servers, MPLS network, Local Area Network etc. across the state in 18 estate offices and 37 division offices of
engineering wing.
* Establishment of Data centre and Disaster Recovery site with 24 X 7 uptime
* User acceptance testing of the application and the IT infrastructure installation trials were made stringently so that the system do not face
any technical glitches during the implementation phase.
* Rollout on pilot site was made and lessons learnt from the pilot implementation were incorporated in the system which benefitted the
implementation in the State wide rollout of the system.
* Frequent training and interaction sessions with all stake holders were held so as to build a confidence in them during the actual implementation.
* General public were involved through the awareness programmes that were conducted in different parts of the state to start using the system for
availing their day to day requirements from HUDA. As the public started using the system the demand from them for further improvement in the system
made the system more and more perfect. This puts extra pressure on the staff to perform the operations through the system instead of going through
the manual mode.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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For a start, an independent IT wing was created with General Manager (Information Technology) as head of the Implementation team. He was involved
from end to end commissioning of the solution. Resources with proven record of accomplishment in managing the project life cycles were selected.
Full authority was given to the implementing team in taking important decisions. Staff having domain knowledge and an aptitude to work with positive
bent of mind were identified and made part of the implementation process.
The process was undertaken in a very planned and phased manner. The Chief Administrator Sh S.S Dhillon, IAS conceived the idea of automation of
property records.
* A high powered committee under the Chairmanship of the Chief Administrator and head of the branches where the automation was to take place and
domain knowledge experts held weekly review meeting to monitor the progress. Political leadership of the state was apprised about the progress
from time to time.
* Since the project was having mass user base across all categories of citizens therefore, the Political leadership was apprised about the system
and implementation from time to time .
* The design and Implementation phase was looked after by Sh. Sanjay Sharma, General Manager(IT)
* Tata Consultancy Services worked as Systems Integrator.
* Digitization and Financial Data reconciliation was made by leading private sector banks viz., ICICI, AXIS, HDFC banks which have large experience
in doing similar work.
* Special Helpline counters were established by the banks for data and record verification.
* Domain knowledge experts from within the organization helped in designing the application
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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The most successful output was the generation of complete account statement of the property on real time basis. This statement can also be
treated as ‘No Dues’ certificate if all payments due to the authority is shown as NIL. The property owner can access this statement online by
entering their User ID and password. Until now the property owner has to jostle hard in getting this statement . Due to large volume of files it
took the staff an average of 8 to 10 days for the preparation of this statement. Automation of the accounts have completely standardized the
calculation process independent of human intervention which otherwise was marred by favoritism and corrupt practices.
• SMS alerts to the property owner on the start and completion of various events, due dates, Payment reminders, court case reminders etc. is an
extremely useful feature for the staff as well as the general public having timely reminders on trigger of the events.
• E-Auction of properties: The auction of high valued residential, commercial , industrial and institutional properties were taking place in
manual mode. This becomes very restrictive for the genuine buyer to physically come and participate. Moreover, a cartel is formed by the local
property dealers who hardly allows any genuine buyer to purchase the property. This not only gives rise to the black marketing of the properties
but the buyers were deprived of their housing needs. e-Auction portal was launched to promote online bidding.
• Helpline Services: There was no mechanism to lodge a grievance without visiting the concerned office within the given time frame and to know the
status of the grievance one has to visit the concerned estate office. No priority and timelines were fixed for the resolution of the complaints.
Rather the public was not aware as to which office is required to be visited for the registration of grievance relating to the services provided by
the authority. To address this Toll free Number 1800-180-3030 was established for the enquiry & registration of various grievances through single
point of contact.
• Getting the HUDA utility( Auditorium, parks, open spaces, community centers) booked for marriages, functions, convocations etc., was marred by
controversies and corrupt practices. Entire process was handled manually and based on discretions. To address this online portal was launched for
online booking of such utilities.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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1) HUDA is having 18 estate offices providing various type of services to more than three hundred and fifty thousand property owners and 37
engineering wing divisional offices looking after the infrastructure development works.
2) The biggest challenge in the implementation of the system was the resistance from the staff and Unions, property dealers. Since these are high
valued properties and due to limited staff strength the timely processing of the files and papers remains a challenge. Since there was no concept of
first come first serve therefore, the property owners depend on middlemen who were roaming around the corner.
3) The fear of eliminating the dependencies on the staff and retrenchment of staff post automation was the biggest hurdle posed by the staff in
getting the system implemented.
4) Poor IT literacy of the staff in the adoption of the system was another road block in the system implementation.
5) Extraction of the data from three hundred and fifty thousand property files, most of them were very old and dilapidated form spanning in 18
different locations of the state posed a big challenge.
6) Data in the property files were not complete as the all the payment vouchers were not posted hence reconciliation of data was a major concern.
7) Maintaining the secrecy of the data from property files from the outside agency posed a big challenge.
8) There was no benchmark on this type of setup therefore, incurring cost on the establishment IT infrastructure was always a point of concern from
audit side.
All the challenges were overcome by involving the top management and the political leadership of the state. Staff was motivated by organizing
frequent training programmes and introducing IT incentive scheme for the extraordinary workers having contributed to the development and
implementation of the online system.
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