About Belgaum Cantonment

This resulted in a multitude of rules, regulations and laws concerned with Cantonment administration. Superficially these rules etc appear very complicated and obscure. But it is this very set of rules and laws that have helped the Cantonment to retain that urban culture that evolved more than 200 years ago. It is this very set of rules and laws that have made the Cantonments islands of sanity in the maddening trend of concretization of every available open space of urban India . They have helped in making the Belgaum Cantonment “lungs of urban agglomeration of Belgaum ”.

However it is a sad story that even highly educated people in the Cantonment are not aware of many rules and procedures of Cantonment administration leading to a very difficult situation where the Board has to initiate action against the residents for having violated the rules and procedures. It has been felt that with a little education to the residents on Administration of the Board, a lot of such violations of rules can be prevented. At many venues across the Cantonment, the citizens have expressed their earnest desire to know and understand the rules and procedures of the Cantonment Administration so that the citizens and the administration can together work towards a better civic life.

Initially the Board caused a Citizen’s Charter to be prepared to enable citizens to know their rights and duties. Through Citizen’s Charter it was possible for the Board to simplify the existing rules and procedures for an ordinary citizen to easily understand. This was appreciated by the residents. One problem still remained, that is every time the residents had to approach the Office for even trivial information or works. It caused considerable delay and nuisance to the residents. It also hampered the work of the staff as they had to spend a lot of time attending to the people.

It was then that the need for a website was felt. Over a period of time the Board had computerised most of its operations and this facilitated the process of website development. It was also felt that to be successful, the website had to be developed in house. For this purpose the concerned staff was trained to do so. Involvement of the staff was treated as cornerstone for the success of the website.

As the Office proceeded with the development of the website, more ideas kept pouring in and the best of them were incorporated in the site. The site now boasts of online complaint registration and monitoring mechanism. Complaints can now be lodged sitting at home. The taxation and water charges have also been made online. The tax status of any property can be checked instantaneously. Updating is regular.

To make the residents fully aware of the working of the Board, responsibilities of each functionary of the Board have been explained in detail and their contact numbers given. The hierarchy of the Board is also explained. Various application forms are also available for downloading. Citizens Charter has been incorporated giving the details of the duties and rights of the citizens. Details of ongoing projects are also given for the benefit of the residents.

I hope that the website will be of good use to the residents of the Cantonment. Any suggestions for improvement in the site content are welcome. It may not be out of place to commend the efforts of Sri. Basavaraj S. Gudodagi, computer programmer of the Board, in the development of this website. Without his efforts, the in house development of the website would not have seen the light of the day.

G.N. MATHUR

Chief Executive Officer

Cantonment Board ,Belgaum