Why some Dubai Municipality service counters are closed today

Dubai - Municipality has also stopped offering 23 services across its centres.

With the Dubai Municipality increasingly adopting digital solutions, it has closed 25 service counters at its centres in Al Twar, Al Manara and Al Kifaf. It has also stopped offering 23 services across its centres, with customers having to apply for them only online.
The number of visitors to the civic body's service centres has dropped by 80 per cent as it reached its target of adopting paperless transactions. A top official vowed to continue using "innovative applications and artificial intelligence" to facilitate transactions for residents without having to visit the service centres.
Dawoud Al Hajri, Director-General of the Dubai Municipality, said: "All Dubai Municipality centres will turn into smart ones and all transactions will be paperless. Our goal is to achieve full digital transformation by 2021.
"The decrease in the number of Dubai Municipality visitors came from our commitment to the Dubai Paperless Transaction Strategy under the Smart Dubai initiative launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to make Dubai the happiest and smartest city in the world."
Smart moves
An integrated smart system for food classification and registration called 'Zad' has been adopted at the federal level to shift food shipments in Dubai to and from other emirates.
Manal bin Yaarouf, director of customers and partners relations department, said:
"The system has been electronically linked with the Dubai Customs to electronically deliver documents for the export of food shipments, in addition to providing the feature of self-printing of food health export certificates and food product evaluation and registration reports."
Another smart service the municipality provides in cooperation with the Department of Economic Development is the instant renewal of commercial licences by phone. The civic body also accepts e-mail requests from the public for amending the fees for hotel establishments and commercial licence for private properties. "In addition to that, a smart application for housing fees will be launched soon," said bin Yaarouf.
The municipality has also completed the "smart transformation" of the supply of sand, and has been able to develop a smart monitoring system for buildings and construction sites.
reporters@khaleejtimes.com

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