BMC to digitalise docs of all depts

Civic body will allocate budget of `180 crore for its IT department

Though Shiv Sena has emerged as the ruling party in the civic body, the bureaucrats of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) are seemingly keen on introducing Bhartiya Janata Party’s (BJP) agenda of transparency by digitalising all processes. By April 15, the BMC plans to go digital by giving an online platform to scanning and printing of all its documents.

The country’s richest civic body will allocate a budget of nearly Rs 180 crore for the Information Technology department. The BMC plans to digitalise over 50 crore of its documents related to various civic projects, committee agenda’s, accounts of monetary exchanges and other miscellaneous files.

A senior civic official said, “E-files will soon replace the heap of files at our civic departments. Some of the departments have older records whose paper quality is deteriorating because of which a lot of important information can be lost.” The civic official added that the transferring of files from one department to another will be done through online platforms.

“All departments in the civic body frequently transfer files for various purpose. By introducing an online platform, the physical transferring of files will reduce. Also, we print agendas for all the committees and send it to the committee members,” added the civic official.

While the civic body has already started sanctioning online proposals for buildings, it will soon start an online service for citizens. Various taxes will be paid through an online portal which will enable citizens to avoid long queues and pay their civic taxes conveniently.

Also, the civic body will introduce Aadhar based biometric attendance system for its 1.5 lakh employees in the entire civic department. Out of the total number of employees, Aadhar data of around 40,000 employees have been fed in the portals. Councillors have previously alleged in the committee meetings that workers manipulate their attendance register entries in order to show full attendance.