Bhubaneswar, May 19: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) today started to train its staff for the e-despatch system that the civic body is scheduled to introduce shortly.

The system is expected to ensure better communication with the people and between BMC officials,

The e-despatch system will also help in better dissemination of information, improved inter-departmental communication within the civic body and greater organisational accountability.

“The system will have details regarding messages an official receives. Thus a track of the mails received at his office, the number of messages read and unread by the official could also be kept. The system can also generate a usability report at the end of the month showing the efficiency of the employee concerned,’’ said a consultant of the information technology project management unit (IT-PMU) of the BMC.

“In civic administration, letters, orders and certificates mean a lot to the public and if they are delayed then the democratic decision-making process also gets delayed. But with e-despatch system the documents will be delivered on time and people will benefit immensely,’’ the consultant added.

There will be a master database with contact details of all the BMC office staff — those with whom the civic authorities have to deal with for their day-to-day activities.

“For example if a letter from the city engineer has to go to another engineer in the public works department (PWD), then from the master database the computer will search the phone number of the PWD officer, his e-mail and if possible, his personal assistant’s details and will send an alert e-mail or SMS to both, so that communication is ensured,’’ he explained.

Apart from issuing documents on time, the system would also work with an archiving facility so that the letters get stored in a database and they could be searched whenever required.

There will be an in-built dynamic search facility in the e-despatch system to search letters issued in the past and it can find the document any day, any time and on any subject.

Deputy municipal commissioner Priyadarshi Mohapatra, who is the nodal officer of the e-despatch system implementation mission, said: “The BMC will be using it for the first time to ensure better communication and digital office management process. It will also add to the transparency process in the inter-office work and minimise the time loss in the usual file movement process.’’

“The services in the e-despatch system will also include online marriage registration system, employee information system (EIS), networking and local area network facilitation, research in mobile governance system through which activities are to be managed through mobile phones and the integrated grievance redressal system. Ultimately, it will be of immense help in implementing the ambitious e-municipality project, which is going to integrate all IT-based applications in the urban local bodies,’’ said a BMC official.

Many of the staff in the BMC office are on daily labour roll and contract labour roll and even the section officials are not aware of the correct number of staff on their premises, but once the e-despatch system gets integrated to the EIS, the human resource development factors will be known.

On the other hand, issues such as vehicle maintenance system, calculation of depreciation of vehicles, repair and maintenance, single window clearance with 13 services starting from holding tax to booking of community centres would be included in the e-despatch system.