Through a 100-kilometre wide area network (WAN), the data centre is connected to the BMC headquarters, 24 ward offices, 34 fire stations, 6 octroi nakas, 3 dumping grounds, 19 garages, 50 pumping stations and 25 hospitals.

So, starting Thursday, when you pay property tax, water bills or octroi online, get your birth and death certificates and many such civic services online, whether you are working from home, from work or from the Citizen Facilitation Centres of the ward offices, you will be routed through BMC’s new website and through its 4.5-tetrabyte data servers, working round the clock here.

“It took two years of non-stop efforts — of talking to consultants, getting the software in place and looking through at least 20 international websites and systems followed by 6 months of a dry run to get us to this stage — from formulation to actually seeing it happen now,” said Shree Kant Singh, additional municipal commissioner (BMC), the project in-charge while working on last minute arrangements.

“Also it is a project which has seen support across the masses,” he added— which explains why Sena president Uddhav Thackarey, BJP’s Prakash Mehta are going to share the stage with the chief minister on Thursday.