Municipality unveils more e-services

Taking the e-government initiative one step further, Dubai Municipality yesterday announced the introduction of at least six more e-services, following the three introduced last week.

The new e-services, following the launch of the civic body's portal (www.dm.gov.ae ) last Octo-ber, include a one-stop inspection and enquiry service for fines; the publication of news clips; local fee collection services; and on-line user registration and management service.

Qassim Sultan, the municipality's Director General, who announced this at a press conference, emphasised the civic body's commitment to providing more online services as part of its e-government initiative.

Everybody will now benefit from these services, he said, because more transactions could be completed electronically, without approaching the department.

The press conference was also attended by Eng. Hussein Nasser Lootah, Assistant Director General for Environment and Public Health Affairs and Head of the e-Government Committee, and Eng. Abdul Hakim Malik, Director of Information Tech-nology Department.

On the new One Stop Inspection and Fine Enquiry Service, Lootah said: "This is a database of inspection results and details of fines issued by the municipality's departments."

The system enables a customer registered with Dubai Munici-pality to view the results of inspections performed. In addition, the system will display details of any fine issued and indicate the status, whether 'paid' or 'not paid'.

This system will not stop the current procedure of issuing manual inspection results and fines, but it automates the recording of them. It will also enable the organisation to view the inspection results if the paper-based inspection report is unavailable.

Another service, the publishing of news clips, he said, is an informational service aimed at enriching and updating the information displayed on the civic body's website.

In future, Dubai Municipality envisages the possibility of posting all local orders and by-laws on the portal using this automated tool. Registered customers who request a user profile to access online services can also opt to receive all, or specific, related news.

Whenever additional information is posted on the portal, a newsletter containing the relevant information will be sent to customers who have registered to receive that particular category of news.

A third service allows the municipality to offer quality service with regard to road accidents that damage public and municipal property. It will serve the parties concerned in any road accident – Dubai Police, the driver; and the insurance company.

The system will allow Dubai Police to issue accident damage reports electronically via the website. Once the information is submitted online by the police, it is received by Dubai Municipality.

Therefore, the person who had the accident is relieved of the burden of delivering the accident report from the police to the municipality. The system routes the information to the relevant department, to collect damage estimates. Once the municipality has a complete accident estimate, the system notifies the person via e-mail.

Next, there is a dedicated web page for insurance companies to handle the payment for accidents – or at least verify the accident's complete estimate for issuing the damage reimbursement.

Describing another service – the local fee collecting system – Lootah said the focus will be on receiving discount authorisation applications submitted by trade licence owners, whether it be a special occasion (a shopping festival), or a regular discount offering.

Each has its own business rules that govern how and when shop owners are entitled to offer discounts. The system automates these laws and defines them to provide a user-friendly environment.

The system also provides users with an application status page, in order to track their application within Dubai Municipality.

Another service provided is the ability to register online as long as the store has a valid trade licence issued by the Economics Development Department – which data is linked to the municipality systems.

On the On-line User Registration and Management Service, he said these may be open to the public or may be available only to specific customers of Dubai Municipality, depending on the nature of the service.

The process of registering for on-line services varies according to the type of customer and the type of service that one wishes to access.

For example, for businesses and companies dealing with Dubai Municipality on a regular basis, the user registration system will allow them to register for access to the web systems. The procedure for registering administrative users is outlined along with the on-line application form.

Each company that registers for access will need to nominate an administrator who is then responsible for providing access to various municipality e-services to other users within his or her company.

With regard to public registration, some of the municipality's transactional e-services will be open to citizens, residents and the general public. Members of the public can apply for the creation of a user profile and for access to specific services that are provided for the public.

In addition, a number of other information services are available to all users of the Dubai Municipality portal – no specific user profile is required to access such information services.

There is also a user management module which provides all municipality portal users with flexibility to manage their user accounts.