Bhubaneswar, Aug. 3: The e-Municipality project of the state government bagged the prestigious e-World Award, 2011, in the category of the best urban governance initiative of the year.

The award, instituted by Union communications and information technology ministry, is considered as a major award in the information technology sector for innovation.

The e-Municipality project is an initiative of the state housing and urban development department.

It plans to cover 44 urban local bodies in the first phase and remaining 59 civic authorities later.

Different modules of the project include online birth and death registration, accounts keeping, audit, trade license management, grievance redressal, solid waste management, property tax/holding tax management, building plan scrutiny and fees collection, and water connection management system.

When Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation launched its renovated portal last April to facilitate public participation through the e-municipality applications, the civic body became one of the leading urban local bodies of the country in taking e-based application to the public. The national award has come as a moral boost to the project.

At present, modules such as birth and death registration, tax applications, and grievance redressal are mostly used.

However, building plan scrutiny and fee collection and water connection management system are yet to be included in the system.

Pradeep Kumar Rout, director of Orissa e-governance Services Limited, a special purpose vehicle of the state government functioning from the building of Orissa Computer Applications Centre, received the award along with state revenue minister Surjya Narayan Patro.