Sri Lanka’s e-motoring project to clear the hurdle of funding
Sri Lanka is still struggling to implement an ambitious e-motoring project in which services to citizens related to motor vehicles are to be automated.
It aims at developing, implementing and deploying of a comprehensive ICT solution to provide effective and efficient delivery of selected citizen services of Department of Motor Traffic (DMT )and the Provincial Department of Motor Traffic (PDMT). The activities which are related to providing citizen services with re- gard to motor vehicles by DMT, PDMT, District Secretariats and Divisional Secretariats will be re-engineered, whereever necessary, and automated, Motor Traffic Commissioner General, B. D. L. Dharmapriya told the BT Motoring. The estimated cost of the project will be in the region of Rs. 200 million.
However he noted that the implementation of the project has been delayed due to lack of funds. He added that the department will go ahead with the project after receiving necessary funds from a donor agency. He said that the department will be greatly benefited by this initiative and therefore they will not give up the project.
Mr. Dharmapriya said that all preliminary arrangements of the project have been finalized. The staff of DMT, PDMT, District Secretariats and Divisional Secretariats will be using networked workstations to carry out their activities which will be covered by the e-motoring project. The manual files will be replaced by digital records and computer printouts will be produced in every occasion where a proof of transaction is necessary. The ICT capacity of the staff of all client organizations will be upgraded to meet the Human Recourses requirements of the project, he revealed.
The staff of the DMT will use approximately 100 networked computers to carry out their duties. The management of DMT will also benefit as the overall management aspects too will be covered by the project, he added.
A web based solution will be evolved for handling official activi- ties of DMT such as registration of motor vehicles, transfer of ownership of motor vehicles and file Monitoring System / Document Management System.
The project will create and populate the database which could be referred to as the Vehicle Registry and it will be owned by the DMT. This would be the major output of the project and the Vehicle Registry would be accessible by other relevant agencies such as the Police Department. The office of the PDMT will also be equipped with an ICT based system to perform its functions related to motor vehicles, he disclosed.
The DMT computerized its major activities in 1980s by using a legacy system, later it was converted to a client-server system. However, the computerized system, which has not been upgraded and expanded to capture other areas relevant to DMT, is presently insufficient for optimal efficiency of the day-to-day activities of DMT and most of the activities of DMT are still carried out manually using paper-based records.