Bridging the Digital Divide in Urban Area Case study of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation

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Bridging the Digital Divide in Urban Area
Case study of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation
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Situation before the initiative

• The Corporation was providing the web based
  Municipal services but the number of hits were 2
  to 3 per day.
• The general impression was that all e-governance
  initiatives are helping rich people.

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Challenges before VMC

• Providing services to the citizens in real time.
• Reaching the maximum number of families in the
  town.

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Bridging the digital divide-(Interactive T.V.
mode )

• The citizen has to dial number to get connected
  to server which is located in local cable office.
• After getting connected to server the Television
  monitor works like a computer monitor and dial
  pad works like a key board.
• Like IVRS system back ground audio helps citizen
  to browse effectively.

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Basic Architecture of the system in process
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Advantages

• There are 1.6 lakhs Telephone/Television
  connections in the city against 5 thousand web
  connections.

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How does it work

• One can dial up to the following numbers and can
  get connected to the VMC server which has all the
  information
• 1. 2496655
• 2. 2496767

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Payment of different type of taxes fees
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Situation before the initiative

• Taxpayer does not know how much he has to pay
• Taxpayer is not sure when bill collector will
  come and collect
• And most importantly, the taxpayer is not sure
  that payment will be posted in his ledger and he
  will not get demand notice for the same

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Your Transaction is AcceptedYour Bill No.
1672WZ
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Other modes of online payment
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21 Andhra Bank branches
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100 tax payment counters
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Situation after the initiative

• Taxpayer not only can know his dues but also can
  see how his tax has been calculated
• Taxpayer can check his ledger and ensure that it
  is updated in real time.
• If he is not satisfied, he can file complaint
• He can pay taxes either through interactive mode
  or by visiting civic centres or Andhra bank

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Result
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Issuing of Birth and Death Certificates
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Situation before the initiative

• People have to visit Corporation for 4 to 5
  times.
• If a birth certificate is issued there are lot of
  spelling mistakes.
• In most of the birth certificates name of the
  child is absent.
• It takes almost a week to find out whether the
  name is registered or not.

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Situation after the initiative

• People have access to records (since 1965)
  through cable network.
• Certificates are being delivered to the applicant
  at the door step as Corporation entered into
  agreement with Department of Posts, for
  delivering the services.

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Results (No. of Birth certificates issued)
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Complaint Redressal System
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Situation Before The Initiative

• The citizen was not sure whether his complaint
  has been acknowledged or not.
• The citizen was not sure that what action has
  been initiated after the receipt of the
  complaint.
• The citizen did not know what to do if he is not
  satisfied with the quality of the redressal or
  the speed with which complaint is being
  redressed.

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Situation After The Initiative

• For each complaint ID number is generated.
• At any point of time the complainant can find out
  the reason why the complaint is still pending by
  browsing the particular record.
• The complainant can file his remarks if he is not
  satisfied with redressal.

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Complaints received from October 2002 to till date

• Received 13, 407
• Disposed 10,553
• Pending 2,692
• Rejected 162

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Approval Of Building Plan
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Situation before the initiative

• The applicant never used to know why his
  application is pending and used to meet the town
  planning officers many times.
• In 90 of cases the pendency used to be for
  trivial issues like applicant has to pay Rs.
  10,200/- as a building fee. But he has paid Rs.
  10,150/-.

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Situation after the initiative

• Now in real time applicant can know why his
  building plan application is pending and with
  whom it is pending.
• The applicant can put his remarks if he differs
  what has been put on file by town planning
  officer.
• This transparency has increased lot of confidence
  of people in the sytem

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Results
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Transparency in Tendering Process
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Situation before the initiative

• For all the works less than Rs. 5 Lakhs
  Corporation is not supposed to publish the
  tenders in the paper as it is a costly affair and
  used to put only on the notice board.
• There used to be lot of allegation that because
  notices are not seen by everybody, contractor
  forms a ring and because of allegation the number
  of approvals used to be less.

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Situation after the initiative

• Information regarding all the tender notice
  irrespective of amount is available to everybody.
• The information regarding who has got the tender
  and what rate is known to everybody.
• This has increased the confidence of Executive
  authority and number of approvals for works have
  gone up.

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Results
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Benefits of the e-governance now is
obtained by the 80 of the people in the town
against 2 to 3.
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Transferability

• Today almost all the towns in India including
  few villages have a local cable net work and
  telephone network. Each city can use the above 2
  networks and implement the Vijayawada model to
  reach out to the maximum people and their area
  and can deliver the benefits of e-governance as
  to all in the City.

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THANK YOU