Local government public services goes digital from next year

Sri Lanka’s local government institutions’ key functions are to undergo digitisation soon enabling the people to make their payment of various taxes including house and property assessment tax and for various licenses online from next year, State Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Janaka Wakkumbura said.

The local government digitalisation programme is aimed at providing its services to the people and make their tax payments easily via online without visiting and wasting their time at relevant local government offices, he disclosed.  

Several local government institutions have already introduced the new e-payment system and further digitising of administrative functions are now underway.

Mr. Wakkumbura said that this e- local governance programme will be implemented in all 341 local government institutions with effect from January 2024.

Local government institutions in Sri Lanka support regional development via improving basic needs such as roads, sanitation, drains, housing, libraries, public parks and recreational facilities along with the central government policy.

The maintenance of all these needs comes under the regional preview of local government. The quality of delivery of such services is highly dependent on the ability to bill and collect revenues by the local authority, the state minister said. 

One of the prime duties of the local government is to manage the assessments which are located under their boundaries and handle the taxes.

Most of the local government authorities in Sri Lanka maintain those details in handwritten ledgers and need to be rewritten every year.

The tax has to be computed by looking at the previous year’s analog mode data and spending more time to complete a single task at the Sri Lankan local government authorities.

He noted that the success of the digital local government system is the creation and maintenance of ICT tools and running those tools to provide the services and impart knowledge to the staff and public. (Bandula)