Serving The Ecitizen

The success of a

government is measured by the delivery of services. Electronic delivery of

government services has been experimented and found successful in many nations.

Singapore has been one of the countries in Asia that took up the challenge and

achieved it.

The island nation has taken a

lead role in the implementation of various electronic governance projects. It

has demonstrated how services to its citizens whom they call ‘customers’

have led to a better lifestyle and social change. The whole idea behind

customization has been satisfaction and ease of use of services needed for the

common citizen. Instead of taking the bureaucratic route, the Government through

its eCitizen website helps the citizen complete all tasks from a single access

point.

The reason for establishing an

eCitizen Center was to have a one-stop virtual public services center over the

internet. It is also available through Singapore One, a broadband network, and

all the services will be operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The

eCitizen service website will have a combination of all the services of the

different government agencies. Drawing from the metaphor of a life journey of

every citizen, which he or she can relate to, it is depicted in the form of a

‘Life Event.’

eCitizen Center has nine

different towns with each town being a cluster of services made of different

service packages. Service packages are those which are needed by a citizen to

perform a specific task along his or her life journey. These tasks are named in

a way that the common man can relate to–Move House, Look for a Job, Attend

Primary School, Employ People among others. The towns have been named as

Defense, Education, Family, Health, Housing, Transportation, Law and Order,

Employment and Business. For instance, if a citizen wants to buy or move his

house, the entire process and services related to moving a house, buying,

renting or selling is available as a package within the housing town. The

advantage is that by logging on to the site, the citizen can at one single point

complete all dealings without going through the different government agencies. A

clear instance of saving time, energy and money. But this does not mean that the

government agency sites which are already up and running will become obsolete.

Rather, eCitizen and the government sites are going to co-exist with the common

denominator being the offer of easier, simpler and efficient services to the

citizens.

eCitizen service is available with both high and

low bandwidth options in its website, which automatically adjusts according to

the available user bandwidth.

(www.ecitizen.gov.sg)

The main focus of this center is to simplify the process and give the user ‘one

look and feel’. Tan Swee Hua, Director, Infocom Development Authority’s

(IDA), says, "eCitizen provides hassle-free government services across the

island. Making these services friendly right from the start is important,

therefore we named the concept as ‘Life Journey’, making it easy to relate

to. Every individual from the time he is born to the time he retires, in various

stages of his life, needs the services of various government departments. And

this is exactly what eCitizen helps the citizen to do."