Bhubaneswar, Dec 8: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has made BMC kalyan mandap booking process online, from today.

The BMC kalyan mandaps are popular event venues across Bhubaneswar and the completely automated and online booking system is developed by the Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL). It will now enable citizens to book the venues through the comfort of their homes via any smart devices by visiting Bhubaneswar.Me portal and selecting citizen services options.

BMC sources said that the kalyan mandaps are at Sahid Nagar (ground and first floor), VSS Nagar, Chandrasekharpur, Badagada, Unit-VIII, Sashtri Nagar, Buddheswari and Unit-VI within the city limits.

A citizen applying for BMC kalyan mandap will have to check real time availability of kalyan mandaps for the selected date range from the particular section under Bhubaneswar.Me portal , book the venue by paying booking fees through the multiple online payment options such as UPI, credit card and debit card. The confirmation of booking is communicated through a system generated booking certificate and booking confirmation over the registered mail and mobile number.

BMC Commissioner and Managing Director and CEO of BSCL Sanjay Kumar Singh said “this new initiative will help the citizens more and especially the senior citizens who are searching for venues for the marriages of their wards and also who want prime facilities in the city in affordable prices for other functions. The online option would also help in maintaining transparency in the service delivery.’’

It can be mentioned here that Bhubaneswar.Me portal under the Smart City is part of city’s governance and Bhubaneswar city administration wants to bring transparency through this initiative. This initiative also helps citizens to achieve common service requirements. Bhubaneswar.Me is a unified service portal which currently delivers 100 plus citizen services from 16 government organisations that is divided into broad categories of public amenities such as search for safe public transport, access of hi-speed WIFI system, citizen services, City events, city maps and more.

At present Bhubaneswar.Me has a user base of more than 4 lakh citizens and more than 2 lakhs grievances has been resolved with this portal.  The portal has customised dashboard for officers and citizens to track their requested services. This portal is also equipped with citizen document locker and an interactive chat bot for easy access of the application user.

On June 25 this year Bhubaneswar Smart City received third best prize under Governance Category for Bhubaneswar.Me portal in the India Smart City Awards Contest (IASC-2020) by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs during the Sixth Anniversary Celebration of Smart City Mission, AMRUT and PMAY (Urban).