BMP relaunches updated website

BMP relaunches updated website

The Hindu

www.bmponline.orghas details about schemes

# The website was relaunched on Monday, a day ahead of schedule
# It has list of telephone numbers and addresses of officials
# It has provision for feedback

Bangalore: Want to know whether the road near your house is given out for maintenance? Want to figure out whom to contact to complain about the park in your locality? Want to download khata forms instead of going to the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike office in your neighbourhood?

The answer is simple. Just log on to www.bmponline.org — the updated website of the BMP, which was relaunched on August 14, a day ahead of schedule.

"What we were looking at while designing the website was to make it user-friendly and give people what they want," said Srikanth Nadhmuni, managing trustee of the egovernments foundation, the organisation which has worked on the design and development of the website.

Work range

The website has been neatly divided based on the work range of the civic body — health, engineering, advertisement and education. A section on citizen friendly schemes gives details about schemes such as Sarala Khata, Citizen Service centres, Self Assessment Scheme and Sulabh Nakshe.

There is a section providing information on the Right to Information Act.

One aspect that is common to other government related websites — broken links, i.e. links that take you nowhere — is conspicuous by its absence.

"We have tried to put on the main page every link that is available on the site as we know that we lose people when there are buried links," said Mr. Nadhmuni.

Easy access

In keeping with its aim of providing easy access to what people most look for, the website designers have put transactions on the left navigation bar.

So you have details of tenders (which interest contractors), of paying property tax, getting birth certificates (which Non-resident Indians look for), etc.

Access to officials

People have often complained about the lack of access to officials and inadequate information on which department and official to contact for a particular problem.

The relaunched website has addressed this problem by putting out an exhaustive list of telephone numbers and addresses of officials and naming officials one can contact for a problem.

Most websites become redundant after a while as they are not updated constantly.

Aware of the problem, Mr. Nadhmuni said that the egovernments foundation would work with the BMP in this regard for a year. "We have also been asking the BMP to revamp its information technology department so that it can take on the task of updating information effectively," he added.

The website has provision for feedback and to contact the BMP. So just log on to have information at your fingertips.