In a landmark reform for ease of doing business, the Bengal government on Monday introduced an online facility for three services required to start a venture. Majority of the urban local bodies (ULBs) of the state will offer the online service.

A common cloud-based integrated portal, which will sanction building plans online and issue trade licences and mutation certificates, was launched by finance minister Amit Mitra.

If implemented efficiently and successfully, these initiatives will allow entrepreneurs to start a business significantly faster than before by reducing the long winding approval processes often fraught with rent seeking officialdom and also help the common man to get municipal services without much hassles.

“We want to bring transparency and honesty in the system, apart from cutting down on time taken to get these approvals. Human interventions have been reduced to the minimum extent,” Mitra said after launching the system this afternoon, claiming it to be the first in the country to extend these services to such a grassroots level.

Mitra said the single-window building plan approval will benefit 1.5 crore people. Around 2 crore will benefit from the trade licence issuance service. While the majority of the 123 ULBs present in Bengal have already plugged in, the rest will be integrated in the next three months.

Chandrima Bhattacharya, minister for urban development and municipal affairs, who was present at the formal launch along with chief secretary Hari Krishna Dwivedi and other departmental secretaries, said an applicant should get the approval within 15 days of submitting the application, failing which the officer concerned can be hauled up under the right to service act.

Bhattacharya said the Calcutta and Howrah municipal corporations will not be part of it as they have already introduced these services.

Dwivedi hailed the launch as a landmark step in urban governance and a major intervention in ease of doing business. “Now with the centralised system, centrally monitoring will be possible to see if cases are being disposed of within the time frame,” he said.

Representatives from the industry welcomed the steps. “We hope the system will work according to the plan,” they said.

Only human interaction in the system will be a site visit by engineers as per statutory requirement. However, the officers will be selected on a randomised basis and they would not know priorly. The inspection will be done jointly with the applicant and the comments have to be uploaded from the site of inspection. Fees will also be calculated by the system.

While issuing building permits, fire department, national monument authority, airport authority of India, power department has been integrated into the portal. Previously, applicants had to go to all these places.