BMC Launches e-Governance Portal

Heaps of files gathering dust on the desks of BMC officials will now become passé with the flagging off of the citizens’ portal that took place on Thursday at Worli in Mumbai.

Those present at the function included Mayor Shubha Raul, Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray, Bharatiya Janata Party Mumbai President Prakash Mehta, State Chief Secretary Johny Joseph and Municipal Commissioner Jairaj Phatak.

Citizens were usually forced to wait in serpentine queues to obtain important documents such as birth and death certificates, licences and receipts of property and water tax bills, but the e-governance portal is aimed to provide respite. All these documents will now be available online and this might just be the end of Mumbaikars’ endless pillar-to-post trips to ward offices.

The initiative is the outcome of a two-year effort by the civic administration to introduce a system of e-governance in the city. The program includes biometric access control for recording the attendance of over 1 lakh civic employees, garbage vehicle tracking system, revenue collection, health care system, and others.

"Technology and computerisation should benefit the common man. All these services will be available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year," said Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. "With computerization, everything is monitored and officials cannot be inefficient or corrupt," he added .

With the launch of the citizens’ portal, the services will be available at the click of a mouse in every home. "The BMC provides more services than the state of Delhi. This is why e-governance is so important, and these services are available 24x7x365,’’ said Municipal Commissioner Jairaj Phatak.

Citizens can access a host of services by going to the website here