IE: For work at ward offices, BMC’s alternative: 250 i-way cyber cafes: April 20, 2008

For work at ward offices, BMC’s alternative: 250 i-way cyber cafes

E-GOVERNANCE ? Civic body’s tie-up with Sify will give Mumbaiites easy access to a range of services: payment of water & property tax, renewal of licences….SHALINI NAIR

L ONG queues and inconvenient timings at the local ward office to get a birth certificate or pay a bill are soon set to become history. The BMC has tied up with Internet company Sify to provide these services through its 250 i-way cyber cafes across Mumbai.The agreement for the tieup was signed by Municipal Commissioner Jairaj Phatak on Saturday and it is expected to be presented to the civic standing committee for approval this week. Once approved, it will pave the way for launching the service next month.

The tie-up will give Mumbaiites easy access to a range of services, from lodging a complaint and tracking its status, payment of water and property tax, to renewal of licences and applying for birth/death certificates, at their time and bidding. Currently, the Citizens Facilitation Centres at the 24 ward offices are open only from 9 am to 2 pm on working days. The cyber cafes located at an average distance of 4 km will be open from nine to nine everyday, including holidays and Sundays.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Manu Kumar Shrivastav said the move would boost e-governance.

“More than half the population of Mumbai cannot make use of our web portal. This facility will help in decongesting the crowd at our ward of fices,” he said.

Also, presently only those with an account at the four banks approved by BMC State Bank of India, Axis Bank, Union bank and the Industrial Development Bank of India can make online payments.

“Now, in case anyone wants to pay his property tax, he has to just drop in at one of Sify’s cyber cafés after office hours and hand over the money to the authorised person who will instantly transfer the same amount from Sify’s accounts into BMC’s account,” explained Shrivastav.

The person will be issued a receipt immediately.

Shrivastav adds that to avoid the possibility of fraud, users should verify from the BMC site whether their accounts reflect the payment be fore leaving the cyber cafes.

All cafes will have to display the BMC logo along with a list of various services and charges, the fee charged per transaction and precautions to be observed by users while making online payments.

Naresh Ajwani, President, Consumer Infrastructure and Operations at Sify, said that the company already had similar partnerships with Central government agencies like the railways that allows passengers to book tickets from their cyber cafes.

“Whenever there is a combination of the virtual and actual, it reduces the load on the infrastructure. For instance, with the online ticket facility the load on railways has reduced substantially,” said Ajwani.