Pune Municipal Corporation fails in transparency, best in technical aspect
Pune: A survey was conducted in all 29 civic bodies in the State to rate them on the City E-Governance Index. The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) was found to be lagging behind in transparency. The Policy Research Organisation (PRO), an NGO, conducted the survey.
Details about the survey were revealed in a press meet by PRO President Tanmay Kanitkar, Director Neha Mahajan and Project Head Shweta Shah. A report on the index is available on the website: policyresearch.in.
Kanitkar said, “It is estimated that India will have over 90 crore Internet users by December 2025. As a response to this, the Maharashtra E-Governance and other policies have been formed at the Central and State governments’ level. The main objective behind the E-Governance is to make government services easily available to citizens, to bring transparency and to easily provide necessary information. A majority of population in Maharashtra lives in cities. Therefore, PRO studied the current E-Governance situation in these cities and published the report.”
Report findings
*The top-ranking civic bodies include Pune, Kolhapur, Pimpri-Chinchwad
*The bottom rank holders are Jalgaon, Parbhani and Jalna
*The top scorers for transparency, in that order, are Kolhapur, Mira Bhayandar and Pimpri-Chinchwad
*Pune does not appear in the first three ranks
How the index is decided
The criteria for the index included online services offered by a civic body to citizens and businessmen, ease-of-use of the website and app developed by a civic body and detailed information posted by a civic body on its own (transparency). One needed to rate the civic body on a scale from 0 to 10. The PMC was ahead in the technical criterion but was far behind in transparency.
