E-Paper
PCMC and Pune come out top in e-governance survey
PCMC, PMC ranked 1st & 4th respectively in survey conducted by PRO
The official websites of Pimpri-Chinchwad and Pune Municipal Corporations have ranked 1st and 4th respectively in an e-governance survey conducted among the 27 Municipal Corporations in Maharashtra by the Pune-based organisation Policy Research Organisation (PRO). The third edition of the survey was conducted between November 1 and December 31, 2023, while perusing factors such as accessibility of websites, mobile applications and social media handles of these corporations for citizens.
The survey also looked at parameters such as online services offered to citizens and businesses; transparency; and how user-friendly the websites are to the public.
Pimpri-Chinchwad, Mumbai, Kolhapur, and Pune have come out on top as the first four municipal corporations in the survey.
Pimpri-Chinchwad scored 7.18 points with first rank. The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has been ranked high for greater transparency and accessibility, while Pune scored 6.50 with fourth rank.
Noting a consistent annual growth in e-governance standards, Neha Mahajan, director at PRO said that top ranking by the PMC and Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporations can be attributed allocation of funds and demand from citizens in the post-Covid era.
“The percentage of people preferring to use e-services is increasing day by day, especially post-Covid. Citizens are realising that they can opt for more and more services online,” said Mahajan.
The importance of e-governance is seeing a massive boost, which is in turn forcing municipal corporations to improve their facilities, she added.
In the case of many other Municipal corporations in the state, citizens still struggle with technical glitches while accessing their websites, with spelling errors, incorrect contact information, and outdated data making it difficult to navigate and get necessary details. Without specified government-issued domain names such as (.gov.in) or (.nic.in), it becomes difficult to trust authentic websites and therefore brings credibility into question. Social media handles linked to the official web pages are also not updated frequently. While a lot of corporations have shown impressive growth, the rest still leave room for improvement.
The rankings were led by PCMC, followed by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, Kolhapur Municipal Corporation, Pune Municipal Corporation, and Amravati Municipal Corporation.
