Bhubaneswar, July 24: If the term “online civic services” makes the computer in your head crash, there’s help at hand.

Within three to four months you can go to a jan seva kendra nearby to help you avail of civic and other services online. The housing and urban development department plans to set up 20 such centres across the city.

The site selection survey for the units was conducted yesterday.

Many people are still unable to use the online option to avail civic services. Staff manning these centres will help people to use these online services. At present, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has one such centre near the entrance to its office. The one-stop window helps citizens who have no online facility at their homes or offices or are unused to the Internet.

Under the e-municipality service of the state government, people can avail death and birth certificates, marriage certificates, trade licences, pay holding tax and water tax online as it is an integrated system developed under the Odisha e-governance network.

But, a particular segment of the people, such as senior citizens, still favour the counters as they find it more convenient.

The kendras will help people avail other services listed on the corporation website — lodging grievances, monitor solid waste removal, reserve water tankers and cesspool emptier and arrange for mahayatra vehicles (or hearse).

Staff manning these centres will also help people deposit their electricity and water bills online.

Jasaswini Mohapatra, a homemaker who stays in Soubhagya Nagar Phase II, said: “We heard that the corporation services had gone online. However, more people will use these services once the jan seva kendras open.”

The Bhubaneswar Development Authority will provide land in co-ordination with the corporation and the general administration department for the 20 kendras.

The state government has asked the development authority to co-ordinate with various agencies to facilitate the functioning of the jan seva kendras.

Officials of the development authority, the municipal corporation and the general administration department surveyed the possible locations for the kendras yesterday.

The state government decided to set up multiple jan seva kendras in the city after a review meeting the chief secretary held with officials of the housing and urban development department last week.

At that meeting held at the secretariat, the chief secretary asked the department officials to go to the grassroots to solve people’s problems.

The development authority’s vice-chairman Vishal Kumar Dev said the jan seva kendras would be built using moulded house-building techniques so that they appear attractive.

In the first phase, five such jan seva kendras will be developed and later, all 20 locations will be covered.

The locations for the centres had to be examined as traffic, parking and other issues had to be considered by the agencies concerned.

Yesterday, the team examined locations such as Gopabandhu Square, Saheed Nagar, Nayapalli and CRP Square.

The services under the e-municipality programme will be integrated under the Odisha e-governance initiative. It will manage the functioning of the jan seva kendras.