Gujarat government has transferred the powers of panchayat bodies to issue Non Agriculture (NA) permissions to district collectors. The state's Revenue Department issued a Government Resolution (GR) to this effect on Friday.
"The decision has been taken to speed up the NA permission issuance process," said Revenue minister Kaushik Patel, adding, "The government has also decided to implement the online NA permission and therefore, it was required to bring the entire process under a single authority. As the collector working under the Revenue department has an infrastructure for this, the decision has been taken, following the Chief Minister's instructions." Patel said the decision was taken following "many representations from common people" asking the government to speed up the NA process.