A screenshot of Patna Municipal Corporation website. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, Feb. 19: Four IAS officials have served as Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) commissioner since K. Senthil Kumar was transferred from the post in February last year. But visitors to the PMC website ww.patnanagarnigam.org will still find Kumar’s name listed as the commissioner.

The website — launched three years ago — by the state urban development department was supposed to “revolutionise” civic governance. But like the plan to make the city spic and span, it is still to take off properly.

“The basic format is there but most of the links and tabs do not open. Messages of the Mayor or the commissioner cannot be found,” said Prithvi Raj, a resident of Boring Road.

He added: “It is ridiculous for PMC officials to talk big about how they are going to improve the city. When they cannot even update and maintain their website, how will they offer their facilities online?”

The home page of the website promises all — the contact details of the corporation officials, the building plans of various years, the list of apartments in the state capital, even the weather.

But like much of the promises of the civic body, these too remain unfulfilled.

No building plans have been put online since 2007. Lists of apartments are yet to come up. The list up tax defaulters is yet to see the light of day.

While launching the website PMC officials had claimed that it was a giant leap in the direction of e-governance and was aimed at providing improved and efficient services to the Patna residents.

Birth and death certificates were to be provided without delay. The system was also supposed to keep tab on holding tax defaulters.

A double entry system of income and expenditure was supposed to keep track of assets of the residents.

But none of these facilities are available.

Visitors to the site were also supposed to be told about the status of their demands at the click of a mouse. But in reality it is only a futile cat and mouse game for visitors.

Sources said the PMC website had been developed and designed by ITI Limited, a wing of Union communication ministry. But it has not been regularly updated.

“The primary and most important function of the PMC website was to issue birth and death certificates. However, even this function is not performed smoothly because of server error. There are talks of going online for tax collection but given the condition of the website now, it seems to be a far-fetched idea,” said a senior corporation official.

When contacted, mayor Afzal Imam said he would look into the matter.

“The issue has never been discussed before. But if there are complaints we will look into it,” he said.