Government

A new window for citizens

The Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation created citizen facilitation centres and set up local urban bodies to ramp up revenue generation and raise customer satisfaction levels

Subhash Patil Systems Manager KDMC

Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) has set-up Citizen Facilitation Centres (CFCs) as a part of an e-Governance project to create citizen-centric administration bringing accountability and transparency in operations.

The project has resulted in benefits such as better tax revenue and empowered citizens. The uniqueness of the project secured it the Intelligent Enterprise Award in the government vertical category.

The total investment in the project is about Rs 6.79 crore with a revenue increase of approximately Rs 25 crore for over three years. KDMC expects more than Rs 2 crore from the government of Maharashtra towards replication of urban local bodies (ULB).

Uniqueness

At KDMC, a unique Citizen ID is created for every citizen, which helps both organisations and citizens conduct transactions. Every service application or complaint received is handled through the system in a time-bound manner.

The system provides for automatic escalation of complaints if the concerned officer does not address it within the stipulated time. This scrutiny allows KDMC to deliver all its decisions in an impartial manner.

Another feature that is exclusive is with respect to longer service timeframes. With six service centres (CFCs) across Kalyan and Dombivli, citizens now can walk-in at any of these CFCs and avail of the corporation’s services.

A payment gateway is being set up to facilitate payment over the Internet. In the manual system, all citizen services-related interactions used to take place from 11 am to 3 pm, giving hardly four hours per day for citizens. The ICT and the comprehensive e-Governance services have extended this from 9.30 am to 8 pm.

So, how much have things improved with the setting up of CFCs? Explains Subhash Patil, System Manager, KDMC, “The time taken for processes and the manpower used has reduced significantly. Assessment of property now takes just 21 days, with just 24 people working on it as compared to 62 previously.”

He lists further benefits that include objections on bills that have reduced considerably from 25 to 2 percent of new assessments. After the CFC launch, collections happen at CFCs spread over 12 months. Therefore, revenue collection has also increased from Rs 38.63 crore in 2003 to Rs 54 crore in 2005.

The revenue collection of birth and death registrations and certificate issuance by just four employees, have increased by Rs 3,40,000 annually as the process now takes just 30 minutes.

“The number of certificates issued in a year has increased to more than 37,000 at Rs 10 per certificate as compared to about 15,000 at Rs 2 per certificate, which was the case earlier,” avers Patil.

Time To Spare

Water connection services now take two weeks rather than six, employing just 14 people as compared to 24 previously. The revenue collection in this area has increased from Rs 14.22 crore in 2003 to Rs 32 crore in 2005. This initiative not only results in objective decision making, leading to impartial governance but also increases tax revenues and improves liquidity.

“It provides enhanced productivity and thus better utilisation of the existing manpower and helps in creating an effective Management Information System,” comments Patil.

The Technology Angle

The technologies deployed at KDMC include a Sun Solaris Platform with Oracle 9i as RDBMS & Oracle 9i AS, as the application server. KDMC has also deployed a disaster recovery database server at its Dombivli office, located about 7-8 Kms from the primary server, thus ensuring security and availability of data.

KDMC is the first government office in India to upgrade to Oracle 9i version 2 from version 1 with HCL Global line server, 3 Com firewall, Cisco routers and AutoCAD 2002.

Moreover, the fibre connectivity between the ward offices provides 100 Mbps bandwidth in comparison with the planned 2 Mbps bandwidth. The initial investment for fibre connectivity was Rs 8 lakh, while a 2 Mbps leased line from BSNL would have cost KDMC about Rs 15.5 lakh. The annual cost of ownership for fibre is about Rs 19 lakh, while that for a 2 Mbps leased line through BSNL (4 wards) would have been about Rs 39 lakh.

The clincher comes in the form of recognition from the government of India. In addition to the original intended benefits, the project is generating revenue for KDMC from the replication of this model at other ULBs.

In the next two years, KDMC plans to use information kiosks with cash and cheque acceptance machines to make CFCs a sustainable model. KDMC has also initiated discussions with BSNL and MSEB to use these CFCs as bill payment centres.