DUBAI, 7 May, 05 (WAM) - Dubai Municipality's e-Governmentportal has crossed the most important milestone since its inceptionwhen the site recorded its millionth online transaction lastweek.
'We achieved this great feat in just three years of launchingour first batch of online services,' said Qassim Sultan, thecivic body's Director General, according to reports in the UAE'sdailies.
'This is an indication of the ever-increasing degree of e-serviceadoption by DM customers, both individuals and businesses,? hesaid, adding that the municipality had taken just 18 months toachieve its first 100,000 e-transactions when e-services werefirst introduced in October, 2001.
'The latest statistics strongly indicate that the level of e-serviceadoption is increasing at a very fast pace. It is obvious thatour customers have become used to dealing with DM through theInternet and that online interaction has become the norm ratherthan the exception for many services. In fact, several serviceshave completely moved to the Internet, with almost no customersubmitting requests over the counter anymore,' Sultan pointedout.
According to Hussain Lootah, Assistant Director General of DubaiMunicipality for Planning and Buildings Affairs and Chairmanof E-Government Committee at the municipality, the weekly averagenumber of e-transactions recently increased from 6,000 to 12,000.
'Last week alone we completed 12,098 online transactions and803 among them were done through online payments,? he said.?Our aim is to convince more and more customers that the onlineservices provide several key benefits over traditional servicedelivery channels. This, in turn, will increase e-service adoptionto even higher levels,' said Lootah, adding that the most popularamong the online e-services was DM Clinic service for medicalcertificates, which recorded 194,730 online transactions.
The other widely used e-services include Food Import Service(128,817 online transactions), DM Clinic Services for OccupationalHealth Certificates (110,408), Health Certificates-Food Control(88,857), DCL-Engineering Materials (83,887), Inspection andfines (78,472), DCL-Block certificates (66,752), No-objectioncertificates (56,221), Demarcation service (26,840) and HotelRevenue (23,973).
'The IT Department at the municipality has been working closelywith other departments and customers to promote DM?s online servicesand convince more customers to use them, as they provide visiblebenefits compared to over-the-counter services such as reducingthe number of customer visits, tracking transaction progressover the Internet, online payment etc.,' said Lootah.
