BMC’s one-point solution to all queries: Unique ID

Info on services, complaints to be linked to ID of each building, project to be completed in a year

You may not have to run around the next time you want to find out why the water supply to your house has been cut or for information on property tax bills or shop and establishment licence payments.

The information on all services provided by the civic body will be linked to 15-digit unique number. (File photo)

After the smart city project, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) plans to give a 15-digit number to each building in the city. If all goes according to the plan, the information on all services provided by the civic body will be linked to this unique number. This, in effect, means civic officials at ward offices and citizen facilitation centres (CFCs) will get the status of services, tax payment, history or information related to your query once they feed the number into their system, thus saving you the numerous trips to various civic offices.

“Each building has several reference numbers such as property tax registration number, connect code number and licence number, among others. We are unifying it into one 15-digit number that will help us get all details at one place,” said Sanjay Mukherjee, additional municipal commissioner (projects).

The BMC has received several complaints over the years about the absence of services such as community toilets or water pipelines and negligence of some wards. The assessment number will help the BMC identify the areas where the services haven’t reached. On the anvil is merging the number with Geographical Information System (GIS) mapping of these buildings.

The civic body is confident it will be able to complete the project in a year. Their other digital advancement projects taken up in the recent past include m-governance (mobile governance), an application to pay water bills, monsoon app to give minute-by-minute updates on traffic and high tide alerts.