Yousefi: Citizens Should Receive the Bulk of Municipal Services Remotely

Yousefi: Citizens Should Receive the Bulk of Municipal Services Remotely

According to a Mehr reporter, Kazem Yousefi, at noon on Sunday at the ceremony honoring and inaugurating the mayor of Amlash, which was held in the hall of the Masoumieh Center of this city, stressing the need to improve the quality of urban services, stated: The main goal of urban management is to provide desirable services to the people and increase citizens' satisfaction, and the achievement of this goal depends on improving the human-resources situation and the manner of treatment of the people by municipal employees.

The director general of urban affairs and councils of the Gilan Governorate, referring to the importance of human resources in the municipal complex, stated: Municipalities operate with a large number of employees in various sections, and attention must be paid to their employment status, working conditions and livelihood issues; because improving the situation of employees and creating motivation among them has a direct effect on the quality of services provided to citizens.

Stating that an important part of people's satisfaction pertains to the manner of treatment by employees of service-providing bodies, he added: Even in cases where it is not possible to carry out a citizen's request, proper responsiveness, respectful treatment and a clear explanation about the limitations can reduce people's dissatisfaction.

Yousefi, referring to the measures taken to improve the situation of municipal employees, stated: In order to strengthen the motivation of the workforce, the labor-market attraction allowance has been increased for about two thousand municipal employees, and its amount has risen from 30 to 50 percent.

He went on to refer to the state of the Amlash municipality's equipment and machinery and said: Over the past roughly 18 to 19 months, nearly six vehicles have been supplied for the Amlash municipality. Also, supplying the vehicles needed for transporting the deceased has been included in the programs related to supplying equipment to municipalities.

The director general of urban affairs and councils of the Gilan Governorate, referring to the Amlash municipality's credits, stated: The budget of the Amlash municipality in the past year was about 160 billion tomans, and nearly 51 billion tomans was also allocated to it from support resources. This year's budget of the municipality is also forecast at about 180 billion tomans, and so far about 41 billion tomans of support credit has been placed at the disposal of this complex.

Yousefi, referring to the performance of the Amlash municipality during the management period of Abazar Karju, stated: The rate of realization of the municipality's budget in the first half of the year has exceeded 50 percent, which shows the importance of following up the programs and the proper use of financial resources.

Stating that financial support for municipalities is also pursued at the provincial level, he added: In the past year, about four thousand billion tomans was distributed from various resources among the municipalities of Gilan; this figure is separate from the resources that are allocated to municipalities from value-added tax.

The director general of urban affairs and councils of the Gilan Governorate, stressing the need for long-term planning for the urban management of Amlash, said: The municipality must have a defined plan for the next five years, and in this plan the subject of investment, creating sustainable revenues and using the city's economic capacities must be given serious attention.

Yousefi considered the development of electronic services to be among the necessities of urban management and stated: Citizens must be able to receive the bulk of municipal services without referring in person. Registering requests relating to the issuance of building permits, following up the cases of the Article 100 and Article 77 commissions, paying charges and carrying out other administrative affairs must gradually be provided on an electronic platform.

He added: Creating integrated systems, using a geographic information system, forming and completing an electronic archive, updating urban maps and connecting information relating to properties and the issuance of permits can help to speed up affairs, increase transparency and reduce people's in-person referrals.

The director general of urban affairs and councils of the Gilan Governorate, referring to the plan for developing smart services in municipalities, said: The necessary infrastructure must be provided so that, along the way, more services are placed at citizens' disposal without in-person attendance and a considerable part of administrative processes is carried out through electronic systems.

Yousefi also, referring to the capacity for using technology in urban transportation, stated: Making use of smart fare-payment systems, electronic wallets and related software can help improve public-transport services, and if the infrastructure is available, the experiences implemented in the city of Rasht also have the capability of being examined and used in other cities of the province.

Stressing the role of municipalities in the economic development of cities, he said: Urban management should not be limited merely to providing everyday services and implementing construction projects, but must also play an effective role in the field of the urban economy, organizing the market, creating markets for offering products and shortening the goods supply chain.

The director general of urban affairs and councils of the Gilan Governorate, referring to the investment capacities in the province, added: More than 400 investment opportunities and zones suited to investment inside and outside the city limits have been identified, and these capacities can be used to implement tourism, economic and income-generating projects, and the Amlash municipality must also plan to create sustainable sources of income by identifying the existing opportunities and providing the ground for investors' participation.