KMC to come up with storage centre for e-transaction data

Kolkata: Kolkata Municipal Corporation will shortly set up a state-of-art data centre for seamless and secured storage of data pertaining to various online transactions of the civic body.

The IT advisor for the municipal corporation, Sandipan Saha, said on Monday that work had started on the proposed centre.

"We have started work to come up with a modern data centre, which will be set up in our main building on S.N. Banerjee Road. Since, online transactions have seen a steady rise for the past few years we felt such a centre was the need of the hour. Work will be taken up following all standard procedures to ensure transparency," said Saha who is also the Trinamool Congress councillor of ward No. 52.

Saha said the municipal corporation had introduced a mobile app for payment of property tax, license fees, market fees and drainage fees. He said the app received good response.

According to Saha, in 2016-17, there were more than 2.15 lakh transactions online with a cumulative turnout of more than 106 crore.

"During 2017-18, it increased to 2.64 lakh transactions involving a turnout amount of more than Rs 147 crore. Till February 25, this year, the number of online transactions has been more than 2.87 lakhs and the turnout amount has been more than Rs 164 crore," Saha said.

In the past few years, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, has introduced online mode for payment of various fees and taxes putting an end to serpentine queues in the corporation building.

"The online transaction system of the civic body has reached such a height that even people staying in foreign countries, who have their property in the city, are paying fees through online mode. Our e-governance has emerged as a model for the urban local bodies across the state," Saha said.