BMC to adopt e-governance for all services in the city

Mumbai, Aug 24 (UNI) The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will undertake computerisation programmes for all its activities in a phased manner and will initiate e-governance in all its services in addition to the existing ones.

Addressing a press conference today, Municipal Commissioner Jairaj Phatak said, ''The e-governance initiative adopted by the Corporation will enhance responsiveness to citizens' needs and will increase efficiency and effectiveness and will create transparency in its affairs.'' e-governance will cover various aspects of the Corporation's administration and will include finance, materials, human resources and citizens portal and ward management.

The Corporation is also working on issuing certificates and licences via the Internet that will be delivered through courier.

The solid waste management vehicles will be tracked using the GIS/GPRS based system and will help the Corporation in extracting better services from the contractors, as a check will be kept on the truck drivers' movements and speed will be monitored by the Corporation. The vehicle tracking system will be implemented from March 2008.

e-governance is being utilised in octroi, water billing and also the property tax systems and are web-enabled thereby increasing revenues, reducing waiting time at octroi nakas and making the process transparent.

The Corporation has started 'Citizen Facilitation Centres' in all the 24 wards in the city and is in the process of upgrading the system in these wards.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Shrikant Singh said, ''The Corporation's initiatives are very ambitious and have been seeking the help of professionals from computer field in all its activities.'' Mr Singh ruled out the commissioning of an in-house expert team for e-governance and said that it is not possible to have people of such expertise at high salaries in the organisation, and like all government departments will outsource the activities.

UNI