Cuttack, Dec. 25: The municipal corporation plans to provide several essential citizen-centric services online from next year.

To begin with, people will be able to apply for marriage certificates online.

The move will help newly married couples to get their marriage certificates without having to visit the corporation office.

"We are trying our best to streamline the entire process of applying and getting marriage certificates by starting online services from the second week of January 2017," said commissioner of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) Gyana Das.

At present, a couple has to first submit identity proof, age proof along with other documents of parents and two witnesses for registering themselves in order to get a marriage certificate after payment of Rs 1,500 and a treasury challan of Rs 7 within one month of their marriage.

The couple have to visit the CMC office for verification along with witnesses after a specified date is allotted to them by the officials concerned.

It takes almost a month to physically get a marriage certificate after completing the necessary formalities. The entire process will become a lot easier after the online application process starts.

A couple can get an e-certificate within three days of application and verification of original documents. They can get a certified copy of the same within seven days.

Senior officials of the CMC told The Telegraph that apart from marriage certificate, there were plans to ensure that people could apply for birth and death certificates online through the official website of the corporation from next year.

All the essential data of birth and deaths since 1985 have been already digitised and uploaded and efforts are on to streamline online registration process.

The online services will enable residents check the status of their application. They can also download a printed copy of their certificate from the website within seven days of application.

An applicant will receive an alert through SMS regarding the status of his application for birth or death certificates. A security code will be sent to the applicant through which they can download a printed copy of the certificate.

Though computerised booking and billing facility for two major public utilities - Saheed Bhavan and kalyan mandap - were introduced in September 2015, the corporation is yet to ensure a full online booking system.

"At present, a final audit of security features of the online booking and payment system is being done by the National Informatics Centre. Once the software is approved, we will immediately launch the online booking and payment options for kalyan mandaps," Das said.