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Rise in number of online transactions

Qassim Sultan, Director General of Dubai Municipality, said the increase in number of customers using e-Services demands more focus on developing e-Governance and offering more facilities to the customers.

Mr Sultan said the municipality would launch e-Payment system for its customers very soon.

Mr Sultan said work is in progress to further develop the e-Government system, which has now become a working system for government departments in Dubai. As municipality is considered to be the biggest local department in Dubai that offers a host of e-Services, the increase in the number of users for these services indicate the growth of the municipality, he added.

Referring to the online services in the offing, Mr Sultan said: "I think government departments should develop these services and procedures further because the public is now well aware of the electronic government system".

"We will soon complete the basic implementation of electronic payment of fees. There is now what we can call easy payment through bank sanctions or by similar methods; however, we are now launching electronic payment. This is not in the hands of the municipality, but with the banking system and the banking facilities provided in this sector," he said.

According to the statistics since the beginning of the year to the end of July, an average of 16,000 e-Transactions per month, were carried through the e-Government portal of the municipality. The total number of transactions during this period comes to 116,498, which means 16,643 transactions a month.

Mohammed Abdul Kareem Julfar, Assistant Director General for Technical Services, said the personnel at the IT Department are continuously trying to launch new services and transforming the traditional procedures into electronic form in co-ordination and co-operation with the concerned organisational units in the municipality.

To go along with this, the customers are also given training on how to use these services.

An e-Government committee has also been formed at the civic body to oversee the implementation of these services.

Mr Julfar said the accomplished services are distributed among different departments, which include online issuance of different kinds of certificates by the Dubai Central Laboratory Department (DCLD), certificates of Clinic and Medical Services Section and Veterinary Services Section, health and food certificates, No Objection Certificates and demarcation certificates. There are 25 major services and all of which have a number of sub-services. All these services can be accessed through the municipality's web site www.dm.gov.ae

He said that the Health Certificates issued by the Clinic and Medical Services Section topped the number of certificates issued online, reaching 24,801, followed by Engineering Materials Validity Certificates issued by the Central Laboratory Department, at 21,287.

Commenting on the advantages of the online services, Mr Julfar said, many car rental companies have been experiencing losses due to the parking fines incurred by the people who take the cars for rent. Now when the online services were introduced, they are able to find out if there were fines on the rented cars before the customers hand them over.

The online services for public libraries help the members and researchers search for the required books online saving a lot of time and effort, while another service introduced for the building consultancy offices and contractors helps them renew their licences online.

They can also access other services related to different departments such as the Buildings and Housing, Irrigation and Drainage, General Projects and Roads. The municipality has also launched online services on public tenders, which were earlier advertised through newspapers.

For different food items, safety certificates are issued online after the tests conducted by the laboratories in the Central Laboratory Department. The municipality also issues online medical fitness certificates.

• UAE