The mGovernance project of Rajkot Municipal Corporation leverages the simple, ubiquitous, affordable mobile technology to catalyse organisational efficiency and improve public service delivery.
In 2009, to take an optimum leap in its performance by increasing operational efficiency and transparency, improving government citizen partnership and providing cost-effective services, Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) introduced mGovernance initiative. This was an extension of eGovernance applications as with mGovernance, the municipal services are taken to the door steps of citizens.
Presently RMC is providing 75 different services under four categories of alert services, interactive services, management services and payment reminder services. Under alert services reminders are sent to citizens on dates of vaccination under national Immunisation programme, property and professional tax transactions, statuses of birth and death certificates etc. Interactive services include SMSs on property tax outstanding dues, water charges outstanding dues, and details of the SMS services etc. The call centre operations, and daily income and expenditure SMS to higher officer etc come under management services. Payment reminders are also sent for property tax dues, water charges dues and Awas Yojna instalment dues.
Major success of the project is reflected in the increased revenue collection by the RMC through improved and efficient system of service delivery. Regular reminder SMS and hassle free payment options brought in the desired changes. mGovernance project has a major role in aiding the National Immunisation Programme in Rajkot as the personalised vaccination alerts have decreased the dropout rates to zero.
Given the higher usage of mobile phones compared to the internet, mGovernance has successfully to bridge the digital divide in service delivery. With effective m-governance now services come to the citizen’s door step reducing the cost and time of travelling to the municipal offices for information and services. Now the services are more transparent and hassle free. The single point communication through call centre has made grievance redressal faster.
This project, developed in-house by RMC, has been honoured with Citizen’s Choice Award, eIndia 2010, Manthan (South Asia) 2010 Awards, National eGgovernance Awards 2010-11, Nagar Ratna Award, All-India Institute of Local Self-Government (AIILSG), 2011 and mBillionth (South Asia) 2011 award.
