Six more B1 centres to ease citizens’ woes

Six more B1 centres to ease citizens’ woes
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: The Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) would soon start six more citizen service centres in the city and they would also double as Bangalore One centres, said Commissioner K Jairaj on Friday.

Bangalore One is an e-governance initiative of the State government to provide all government-to-citizen services free of cost to the user. There are already 15 B1 centres in the city.

The B1 centres are managed by a consortium of Ram Info and CMS computers on the premises provided by the civic agencies while the staff salaries are borne by UTI Bank. The government is providing all the hardware and pays the consortium per transaction basis apart from all the revenue from business-to-citizen services.

The contract on B1 project has already been signed by the consortium and the government and modifying it would be difficult as BMP is one of the seven stake holders. Further, B1 project was criticised for not delivering many services that were promised.

Jairaj said that the convenience of the people would be the primary factor that would guide the decisions.

The services promised in B1 centres include applications for Khata, payment of property tax, BSNL bills and new connection applications, passport applications, BESCOM bill payment, BWSSB bills and payment of fines for traffic violations.