The objective of the total e-governance through city civic centers is to treat all citizens like customer of a large corporate. The duties enumerated in “citizen charter” are brought in under the electronic process and user friendly inter action.  

Two types of applications are developed:

8 Web Application for online governance

8 Client-Server Application - counter applications

ONLINE PAYMENT SYSTEM
The simplified tax calculation system has been put on the web for public to access the calculation method of property tax of any property in the city, and other related details about the property etc.Easy access to information and online payment facility thorough credit card or infinity payment gateway of ICICI Bank could reduce the tax evasion and increased the collection. Local banks are also connected with AMC’s intranet to collect taxes.
The manual interest calculation has been replaced by automatic calculation to assess real time demand and collection. This system has increased the efficiency by manifold. Thus the highest ever tax collection was during the year 2002-2003 i.e. Rupees 130 crores. First time in the history of the corporation, the system enabled AMC to close the tax account at the end of the year.

OCTROI
Octroi collection is the major source of income in the Corporation.  AMC could collect highest ever octroi collection of  Rs.363 crores in 2002-2003.  This is because of streamlining of internal systems.  Now the total automation of octroi check posts is in progress and likely to be completed in August 2003.  On completion octroi income is expected to increase by 25%.

MOTOR VEHICLE TAX
The road tax collection of motor vehicles had been almost ‘nil’ against the annual revenue estimate of Rs.8 crores.  Now AMC has connected its system with RTO Office and octroi check posts that enable effective check on evasion of vehicle tax.  This has increased the collection by Rs.2 crores within last six months.  The system enables on-line payment through Bank accounts or by credit card.  Anyone can search through internet to know the status of their tax payment and make payment through credit card.

ONLINE COMPLAINTS ON CIVIC AMENITIES
All 43 wards are connected through intranet and internet to receive and redress complaints on civic amenities or matters related to tax etc. The complaints filed online by citizens are directly received by the Commissioner and automatically directed to the concerned office for to attend immediately. The monitoring mechanism enables every officer to identify problems and coordinate laterally or vertically through intranet in such a fashion that complaints are redressed within 24 hours.

COMPLAINTS MONITORING
First time in the history of AMC, the total account of complaints received, redressed and pending for disposal could be arrived at. Complaint monitoring system now enables the Engineering department to identify the area or location where problems are repeatedly occurring.  And to remove these problems permanently and economically the system is designed to help the project planning department.  This is a great value addition function of the system in restricting the deployment of resources in wasteful maintenance expenditure.

No. of general complaints received from September 2002 to April 2003 – 68,696
No. of general complaints disposed from September 2002 to April 2003 – 63,439
No. of tax complaints received from September 2002 to April 2003 – 27,461
No. of tax complaints disposed from September 2002 to April 2003 -  19,230

INSTANT ISSUANCE OF BUILDING PLAN PERMISSION
All city civic centers are equipped with instant scrutiny and to issue approval of building plan permissions through predetermined parameters as stipulated by General Development Control Regulations. The regulations, details of approved structural engineers and applications can be down loaded through internet and send the applications online. Online facilities to track the status of the applications are also provided in case of a need of further compliance by the applicants. This allows online tracking and monitoring of the movement of any such paper within the town planning section.  This has also helped the section in meeting the statutory deadline set for the release of the plans and also allows the citizens to gain access to the status of disposal of their applications. This is the first of its kind in the country to get building plan approval by click of a mouse whereas it used to take normally six months. Earlier the activity of issuance of Building Plan permission had been a centre of bad practices. Now the website enables citizen to obtain all relevant information and seek building plan permissions instantly. The project also envisages creation of the building plan data base and its subsequent hosting on the site so that citizens are able to know the exact nature of the approval given and are not lured into buying unapproved buildings creating future complications for themselves.

ISSUANCE OF BUILDING USE PERMISSION
Developing an automatic or online monitoring of construction of buildings as per the approved plan and processing site visit reports as per regulated parameters by the inspectors for to enable and  issuance of building use permission has been a Herculean task.  Enforcement of regulations during the  construction period bound to have discretion and provide opportunities  for bad practices at the lower level.  To eliminate such discretionary factors,  parameters were designed in such a way that  system selects compulsory site visit and random site visit.  Once these visit reports fulfill the parameters,  BU Permissions are issued automatically by the system.  This is again  first of its kind in the country and has set a bench mark for best practices in the area of issuance of Building Plan Permission and Building Use Permission in India comparable with any best practice in the world.

INSTANT REGISTRATION AND ISSUANCE OF BIRTH AND DEATH CERTIFICATES
Registration of Birth and Death is mandatory.  Every citizen is valuable human resource of the country therefore it becomes everybody’s responsibility towards the country to register any Birth or Death in the family.The web site of the Municipal Corporation provides access to all hospitals to register the birth & death registration online.  The entire operation of collecting the information from the hospitals and maintaining it in the muster records used to take enormous time.  The citizens were to ensure that the concerned ward offices send the correct data to the Corporation’s central office to make entry in the registration book.  The manual record keeping makes impossible to search and deliver the certificates in a limited time.  Now the e-Governance project registers and delivers the certificate instantly through City Civic Centers. The applications for registration of the birth & deaths also can be downloaded from the web.The Corporation Website will provide access to all the hospitals, registered with them the facility to send the Birth and Death information online, after charging minimal incremental costs. Prior to introduction of e-governance system the entire operation of collecting the information from the hospitals and maintaining it in the master records used to take very long time. Now the citizens are able to get their certificates delivered to them in real time in the City Civic Centers.  By maintaining the database of Birth & Deaths on the computer, the process of sorting, searching and accessing the database are simplified.

ONLINE INFORMATION ON INFRASTRUCTURAL WORKS AND TENDERS
The process of issuing tenders, sanctioning infrastructural works and processing within the organization has been computerized.  This helped to monitor and track the execution of works and also established effective control over the expenditures within the budget limit.  The entire module has also been linked to the web site so that the citizens can access information on infrastructure works undertaken in their area.  This has brought transparency in implementation of infrastructure works and its status.
The online information regarding infrastructure projects and related tenders in process could attract well qualified contractors from all over the country. The payment procedures through bank to bank accounts, has now reduced the procedural delay and increased the confidence of the contractors.  Infinity payment gateway from ICICI bank, (Second largest bank in India and the best bank in Asia according to the survey report of Business Barons TN Sofres Mode opinion poll for 2002) to collect all the pay-ins and pay-outs of the Municipal Corporation has transformed ICICI bank as AMC’s backend. This has fine tuned the financial management of the corporation to upgrade itself to one of the best professionally managed Corporation. The daily validations of cheques and payments have now reduced the huge loss incurred by the Corporation on account of lack of validation.

ENGINEERING MODULE
An unique module has been developed for planning and approval of all project, operation and maintenance works automatically by providing linkage with budget and fund availability.  The annual budget for various categories allows ward officers to obtain necessary approval instantly through intranet. This is expected to greatly reduce the time from number of months to minutes in seeking work approval to implementation stage.  Further, this system is planned to eliminate rampant  financial indiscipline in the project planning and implementing departments.  The accountability and transparency are the key value in-puts in this system and is expected to be an eye-opener for urban governance which is prone to unlimited level of bad practices indulged by elected as well as by administrative wing.

ONLINE ISSUANCE OF SHOPS AND ESTABLISHMENT LICENSES
The issuance of Shops and Establishment licenses had been known for its bad practices and it was impossible to obtain the licenses without having a middle man involved.  Now the City Civic Centers issue licenses instantly.  Renewals are also carried out across the counter.  The system also enables to collect the fees for sign boards/hoardings which could not be collected manually earlier.