Patna, Dec. 1: “More than one in a minute”, that is how Bihar residents responded when online application filing facility for three services — caste, income and residential certificates — under the Right to Public Service (RTPS) Act started today.

According to official figures, 2,000 applications were filed in the first eight hours after the launch of the facility at 10am.

“Around 50 per cent of the applications sought residential certificates followed by those for caste and income certificates,” a state government official, engaged in monitoring the online service, told The Telegraph.

He said defying the general perception that the online facility would be availed by urban people only, many rural residents too filed applications. “Though predominantly urban districts like Patna, Muzaffarpur and Bhagalpur generated the largest number of applications, yet some of the districts like Nalanda, East Champaran, Samastipur and Khagaria, dominated by rural populace, too generated good number of applications,” added the official.

Patna with 350 applications topped the list followed by Muzaffarpur and Bhagalpur districts with 100-plus applications. The number of applications crossed the 100-mark in case of Nalanda too, whereas in East Champaran and Samastipur, it hovered in the 90s. A small district like Khagaria too generated more than 50 applications.

Some of the pre-dominantly rural districts like Sheikhpura, Arwal and Kishanganj, however, fared poorly in terms of number of RTPS applications with their figures being in single digit.

“This is just the beginning and we are expecting this flow to increase because it is just the beginning,” said the official and added that the state headquarters was fully equipped to handle the rush of applications.

The expectation of the official appears logical as when the hyperlink, using which one can file online application, was made operational for two hours before the formal launch of the service to test the application, around 50 applicants filed their applications during the test period itself.

“This shows the curiosity of people about the service. We had to delete the applications filed during the test period,” said the official.

The decision to provide the facility of filing online applications for availing the three aforesaid services, which come under the RTPS Act, was taken by the state government on the basis of people’s response to the RTPS Act that guarantees delivery of certain services within stipulated time and which became effective from August 15 this year.

It was found that out of about 50 lakh applications received in the first three-and-a-half months, around 32 lakh applications were related to the three aforesaid services.

The new online system of filing applications would rid people from the hassle of going to the block office several times, as it has an in-built provision to keep the applicants updated about the status of the applications through text messages. The final text message would be sent once the service is ready to be delivered to the applicant, after which the applicant can come and collect the certificate from the block office.

And to ensure that only genuine persons get the certificate, an applicant would need to produce a valid identity proof by at the block office to get the certificate. The applicant would also have to put signature on the declaration form, which carries his/her personal details at the time of receiving certificate, the application for which was filed online.