Cuttack, July 3: The municipal corporation has decided to introduce online booking system for the existing public utilities including kalyan mandaps and other ceremony halls, to check irregularities in funds distribution.

This has been decided following alleged misappropriation of Rs 2 crore, the revenue generated from the public utilities in the past five years.

A special audit team had detected major irregularities in the management of a kalyan mandap at Choudhury Bazaar. Pradip Samal, the officer in charge of the mandap, had issued fake money receipts and took shares of the fund. A civic body official said Samal had been suspended and a criminal case would be lodged against him shortly.

The mandap is near the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) headquarters and is very busy. Another mandap, which underwent the scrutiny, is at Panchamukhi Hanuman near Khannagar.

"The process for introducing the online booking system for the Choudhury Bazaar kalyan mandap and the nearby Saheed Bhavan has already started. We hope to launch the facility by July end," said CMC commissioner Gyana Das, adding that efforts were also on to design a payment portal along with the online booking system, through which a person could book any of the public utilities including kalyan mandaps and Saheed Bhavan.

Another civic official said this initiative would ensure transparency, as the chances of manually altering of the records would be eliminated.

The new system will also ensure systematic booking of mandaps ahead of any occasion. It will also help the civic body, which has planned seven more such mandaps, to meet the rising public need.

The cost for building the additional mandaps has been estimated to Rs 5.05 crore while a provision of Rs 2.25 crore has been made in the civic budget for the current fiscal.