Patna Municipal Corporation took a step towards becoming smarter on Saturday. It launched a mobile application, e-Municipality Bihar, to facilitate online facilities for its various services.

The application will help residents search their birth certificates, getting its duplicate copy and procuring death certificates among others.

Residents can also submit Right to Information (RTI) petitions and file application for building permit and regulations using the online services. Moreover, they can lodge complaints on civic work on the application. To avail the facility, the citizens will have to visit Google Playstore on their cellphone and install the e-Municipality Bihar application. The user will have to complete a registration process to activate it. The application is now only available on Android phones.

PMC commissioner Abhishek Singh launched the facility along with mayor Afzal Imam and deputy mayor Amravati Devi on Saturday.

Commissioner Singh said: "Earlier, residents could pay their taxes only through desktop by logging into the PMC website. But now they can pay their taxes and check the status of their various applications on their mobile through the application."

"The application will have dashboards informing residents about PMC taxes and schemes. We will add the option of depositing mutation fee in the app later," said Singh.

Only Patna residents can avail of the facilities through the application now.

"But very soon, residents belonging to other urban local bodies will be able to avail of the benefits. The local bodies have not submitted necessary details. When they do, the online facilities will be extended to their respective residents," he added.