Punjab is all set to launch one of the biggest municipality projects in the country with Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal giving in-principal approval for providing online delivery of services at a cost of Rs 398.62 crores by establishing 229 citizen facilitation centres (CFCs) across the State.Disclosing this here on Friday, Badal said the Punjab Government would implement this e-Governance project across all 191 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to deliver 149 citizen centric services to the citizens and businesses and bring in accountability and transparency in delivery mechanisms as well as effectiveness in administrative operations. Badal informed that the system integrator would be shortlisted at the earliest and would implement and manage the envisaged project on DBOOT (design built operate own or transfer) model for seven years. The tendering procedure is likely to be completed by October this and the first phase of the project would go live in the first quarter of next year.
Elaborating objectives of this prestigious project, Mr Badal asserted that it would bring high levels of citizen satisfaction in a transparent, effective and efficient manner and deliver time bound services online anytime anywhere thereby enabling the administration to resolve issues quickly. The Deputy CM asserted that the CFCs would be ICT enabled front end service delivery points for online round the clock delivery of government, financial, social and private sector services in 10 Municipal Corporations, 153 Municipal Councils/Nagar Panchayats and 28 Improvement Trusts in the areas of agriculture, health, education, entertainment, FMCG products, banking, insurance, pension and utility payments. He maintained that to achieve rapid socio-economic change in the state the G2C scheme would play a vital role in revitalizing lives of urban and rural Punjab.
Mr Badal informed that under the citizen services project the state government would empower citizens to get one stop information, dissemination and access to consumer market. "People do not have to come to government offices for getting these 149 citizen centric services. They can avail the government services sitting in their offices or in the comforts of their homes or at conveniently located authorized kiosks," he said.He added that rural citizens never dreamt of that government services could be available at their doorstep. "Provisioning of common delivery of services under one roof would cut travelling costs, saving time and delays, evading illegal gratifications, enabling people digitally literate, raising per capita income and getting paperless services without documentation in a time bound manner," he affirmed.