The Hindu : People-friendly gateway to 70 websites

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 23, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

People-friendly gateway to 70 websites

By Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI, JAN.22 . In an effort to reach out to the people and provide them a convenient and consumer-oriented interaction, the web portal of the Delhi Government has been re-designed making it more citizen-centric for easy navigation. The upgraded website provides a gateway to more than 70 websites of various departments and agencies. The portal is already making waves and has bagged the Bronze Icon Award at the national level and ranks among the country's top five websites.

The effort is to do away with visits by people to Government offices for seeking licences and certificates. The Government is already toying with the idea of sending these certificates through couriers by putting in place a system where payments could be received online.

Under the new re-furbished portal, a long list of online services has been provided, including suggestions to the Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, with regard to any issue. The website also provides for online registration of new private vehicles, information about old vehicles for buying or selling purposes, tender notice information system, online filing of applications for 11 types of certificates in Delhi, online birth, death, marriage certificates and online booking of community halls and parks.

An outstanding new feature of the website is that submission of applications online is now available at the level of the Deputy Commissioner's office in respect of 11 types of certificates. Those requiring these certificates would have to click on the site and fill the form provided online. The feedback would give the time and date when the individual could collect the certificates from the office of the Deputy Commissioner after completing all formalities.

Ms. Dikshit said more features are likely to be added to the website whose upgradation would be a regular feature. Those requiring certificates have to fill the online form. The electronic information received is used for processing the request till the department receives the filled up copy with signature, photograph and documents. The outstanding feature of this innovative link is that the acknowledgement number generated by the system could be used to track the status of application using Internet, IVRS or SMS. This way, visits required to be made for submission of application as well as finding the status are completely eliminated. The Government was looking at a system where payments could be received while making the application so that the required license or certificate could be sent by courier, thus eliminating any need of applicant coming to the government offices.

According to Prakash Kumar, Special Secretary (Information Technology), the man behind this new initiative, for the first time a link to Delhi Development Authority, housing and land had been provided in the web portal. The Environment, Health and Education Departments' links have been grouped together to provide all relevant information at one place. Education and health provide relevant links to the concerned website for hospitals, pollution awareness camps and nursing homes registration while the education link leads to list of schools, colleges and technical institutions in Delhi.

The portal also provides links to respective websites providing online payment facility for electricity and telephone bills. For domestic and international tourists visiting Delhi, a separate link has been provided and even daily rates of fruits and vegetables are on display.

Mr. Kumar said in nutshell, an attempt has been made to keep the information on services provided by Government in a user-friendly manner catering to the information needs of the people.

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