Pune Municipal Corporation Goes Hi-Tech

Pune residents now have the liberty to pay their municipal taxes and apply for birth and death certificates with the city municipal corporation online. The PMC (Pune Municipal Corporation) has recently launched its upgraded website as a part of the e-Governance initiative.

Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Pune Municipal Corporation Anupam Saraph told IANS: "The earlier website was very cluttered. The new website will be very secure and the element of privacy will be adequately maintained. It will ensure faster transactions."

The PMC is the first to have a payment gateway through HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. The citizens can pay their property tax, see their arrears or past payment history on the website itself.

The other important feature in the website is the inclusion of Wiki software that allows creation of an employee zone for internal management of the corporation. Wiki will enable employees to create, edit, link, and organise the content of the projects to work in collaboration. To ensure better navigation, the PMC website will change every month.

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In the next version Wiki software will allow the citizens to talk about development plans of the city. Later versions intend to include the software for citizens to help the corporation with their strategic infrastructure expertise, so as to develop a standard in the city.

The idea of the simpler website with payment gateway is the brainchild of Anupam Saraph, who was appointed six weeks back as part of a Public Private Partnership (PPP) between the PMC and the Software Exporter Association.

Pune happens to be the first corporation in India to have a CIO.

The website is a voluntary effort by the software companies in Pune such as Persistent software and Eclipse software who provided manpower purely on a voluntary basis.

"Till now we have trained 180-odd employees and expect to train 50 employees a month to ensure more usage of the software," said Saraph.

The website in its present form has been visited by more than half a million people.

IANS