Patna, Aug. 1: Patna Municipal Corporation’s venture into cyberspace has ended in disappointment. It’s website — www.patnanagarnigam.org — which was launched three years ago, has become defunct because of non-payment of service fees.

As a result, the online facility to register birth and death has also stopped. Sources said the website went offline a few weeks ago, as the civic body failed to pay the service provider.

Now, residents of the city will have to queue up at the civic body office to get birth and death certificates, like they used to earlier.

Homemaker Malvika Sharma, who visited the citizen civic centre at the GPO office of PMC today, said: “I have been trying to access the PMC website for the past few days, as I had to apply for my daughter’s birth certificate. The website did not open. At first, I thought there was some temporary technical snag that prevented me from visiting the website. However, when I called up the civic body to enquire, I was told that I should apply for the birth certificate at a citizen civic centre.”

She added: “It is disappointing that the government announces these facilities with pomp and show but is unable to carry on the services.”

Registration of birth and death is mandatory. Therefore the residents make a beeline for the offices of the civic body. For PMC, too, it is important to have a record of the population of the city to provide people-friendly services.

Another citizen, who had come to apply for a death certificate, said: “It is obvious that PMC is not serious about any service it provides. Facilities are offered and then withdrawn without any warning. This shows that the government has taken us for granted.”

PMC officials admitted that there had been some laxity on the part of the civic body and added that efforts were on to restore the services as soon as possible. “We have not been able to pay the bills to the private firm which was operating the website for us. They withdrew the services few weeks ago. The process in on to clear the payments, as we know that many citizens are facing trouble because the service has been stopped. As the service is very convenient, many citizens prefer to apply for birth and death certificates over the Internet,” said a senior officer of the civic body.

This is not the first time that a civic service has been suspended because of non-payment of bills due. On July 21, A2Z Infrastructure Private Limited — the private firm appointed to cart away garbage — suspended its services because of non-payment of its bills. PMC, however, claims that the bills provided by the sanitation agency are full of irregularities.