Online construction permits issuance now via eLocal Government initiative
View(s):Achieving a milestone in the eLocal Government programme, the Online Construction Permit Issuance Platform was launched for the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) recently.
Citizens will be benefited by this service with the ease of obtaining a construction permit within two weeks without going through the conventional cumbersome process. Also the system provides the sophistication of getting SMS notification and live status checking of the application status including site visits scheduled prior, according to a media release from the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA).
In 2010, the Ministry of Local Government requested ICTA, to support to understand the local authorities’ functions and streamline to better serve the citizens. ICTA then embarked on an initiative called eLocal Government (eLG) programme with the re-engineering of the processes as the first exercise.
The project is aimed at making the service by local government authorities people-friendly, effective and efficient through the use of ICT. Currently with the mandate given by the Ministry of Local Government and Provincial Councils and Sports, ICTA has initiated this implementation in 80 local authorities across the island.
The project is helping to automate local authorities’ day to day activities in a streamlined manner. This solution will reduce customer hanging time, long queues, increased security of data, easy retrieval of data, reduction in employee work loads and online payments and online application processing with status updates. As a result of the project a total number of 341 local authorities will be benefitted.
Looking at the bigger picture, ease of getting a construction permit is a prominent indicator of Doing Business Index which will immensely help to attract foreign investors to the country.
The Doing Business Project provides objective measures of business regulations and their enforcement across 189 economies and selected cities at the subnational and regional level.
Thusha Mukunthan, Programme Manager ICTA stated, “This is the major milestone in the eLG programme and moreover this would place Sri Lanka in a better position in the investor’s world map.”