KDMC Interface Serves Over 1 Million

The officials of Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) in Maharashtra
said that now its e-governance facility is serving nearly 1.2 million citizens.
Conceptualized in 1999, the project offers more than 100 public utility services
including, property tax payment, new water connections among several other bills
payments, issuing of various licenses, birth and death certificates and so on.
Most of these services are available through Internet as well. Integrated by
Infotech and the e-Governance solution provided by ABM Knowledgeware Ltd, it
runs on the Oracle Database.

"The hallmark of the service is that on one side it has ushered in a
totally transparent environment and on the other, citizens are getting all the
services at a single centralized place that adds to their convenience,"
informed KDMC Commissioner Dhanraj Khamatkar. He added that the automated system
has not only helped in improving the process efficiency, but the government has
started collecting more revenues.

It’s estimated that the total annual revenue collection from different
levies has gone up by at least 20%. This is because more people have started
interacting with the Corporation. Since the system provides an upto date status
of the defaulters, more penalties are being imposed. All this has made the
Corporation profitable.

"The success of this computerized system has actually allayed most of
the initial doubts about using it. We are getting full government support to
further popularize the application," said KDMC Mayor Harishchandra Patil.
So far, over 65,000 services have been rendered. The Corporation has collected
more than 110,000 water and tax bills and redressed over 34,000 complaints.

The Corporation now has major plans to bring more citizens under its fold,
offering them anytime-anywhere kind of access. KDMC is governed by Bombay
Provincial Municipal Corporation Act 1949.The range of services provided by KDMC
vary from birth and death related services, new water connections, to building
permission certificates, online services like birth and death certificates,
searching of property dues and water dues, among others.

SHWETA KHANNA/CyberMedia News in New
Delhi