Cuttack, April 23: The municipal corporation's plan to start online system for booking of public utilities - kalyan mandaps and Saheed Bhavan - has taken a backseat due to delay in finalisation of a payment gateway.

A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service that authorises debit or credit cards for online payment. It facilitates the transfer of information between the payment portal and the acquiring bank.

On August 31 last year, the Cuttack Municipal Corporation had announced to start online booking system within two months while introducing computerised booking and billing facility. But, not a single booking has been made online for the past six months.

In fact, to a question "How can I book kalyan mandap online?" the corporation on its website replies: "Sorry it can't be done at this moment, although it is our future planning to do so."

"Online booking system will be of great help as we have to now go to the civic body counter for booking and again go to the particular kalyan mandap to deposit security money," said.

However, municipal commissioner Gyana Das today told The Telegraph: "Online booking facility will be made available by the end of May as the process of finalisation of payment gateway with UCO Bank, along with security certificate, is expected to be completed by then."

Das said: "The National Informatics Centre has already provided the software and technical assistance for introduction of the online booking system."

The corporation officials said introduction of the online booking system had become imperative to prevent pilferage of revenue generated from public utilities through manual booking. Last year, a special audit team had detected misappropriation of nearly Rs 2 crore in collection of tariff for using public utilities in the preceding five years.

The civic body's revenue earnings from kalyan mandaps and Saheed Bhavan was Rs 41.16 lakh in 2013-14, Rs 50.65 lakh in 2014-15 and Rs 77 lakh in 2015-16. The 2016-17 corporation budget has targeted collection of Rs 120 lakh.

"The online booking system has become all the more necessary as the civic body plans to come up with more kalyan mandaps," said a member of standing committee for licence and appeal.

Kalyan mandaps and Saheed Bhavan are reserved for social, cultural and official ceremonies. At present, the civic body runs Choudhury Bazar kalyan mandap and Panchamukhi Hanuman kalyan mandap.

The corporation has, in its 2016-17 budget, earmarked Rs 10 crore to build kalyan mandaps at Jagatpur, Jobra, Markat Nagar, Nuapada, Potapokhari, Bidyadharpur and Nimpur.

After introduction of the online system, a civic body official said people while booking public utilities should have to provide scanned documents of any of their identity proof (voter ID or PAN card). They can also know the vacancies of kalyan mandap and Saheed Bhavan. The system will restrict one person from booking public utilities to four times in a year.