The Times of India          11.11.2010 

Don't know your pincode or street? Log on to MCG website

GURGAON: Do you know the pin code of the area you live in? Chances are you might not. This will change starting Thursday morning with the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) deciding to go for a major overhaul of its official website. The homepage will don a new look with all the minute details in the form of a digitized map of the city.

By selecting your colony from the dropdown box, one can figure out his/her ward, zone, police station, post office, pin code and names of relevant functionaries apart from precise geographical location. It also tells you if your colony is approved or not. And once the voter list for the coming municipal election is made public, it will also have a ward wise voter list.

"No other corporation in India, however, big or small has the feature which we are offering. The main objective is to bring more transparency and accountability in the entire system and also make information available to the citizens at the click of a mouse. Everything is online. We already have 11 transactional features on our website while seven more will be added," said municipal commissioner Rajesh Khullar.

MCG has roped in an IT firm, which has been creating websites for various municipalities in the United States. "This is the first time we are creating a website for any municipality in India and it has been very challenging. We had to learn how the government works and creating a database was tough since Haryana does not have a data center. We have tried to add lots of information to each query and very soon we will also provide a new URL for verification agencies like passport office so that they can verify the credentials of a person on our website itself," said Wagid Sheikh, director, Simplex Software Solutions.

The website also has a list of all State Public Information Officers (SPIO) along with their contact details. It also enables the citizens to access details of the official they need to contact for specific information. Besides submitting RTI applications, residents can also view the replies online.

The residents have given a thumbs-up to the initiative. This comes as good news for residents who are unsure of the authorities to approach to get their work done.