Under the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s e-governance programme, now paying bills and booking tickets will be possible at the many kiosks to be set up by the agency across the Capital.

The MCD has awarded contract for its G2C (Government to Citizen) Kiosk project to three companies — Bartronics, a Hyderabad-based solution provider; IBM, a software company; and Selvel, an outdoor advertisement agency.

The companies will set up and run 2,000 kiosks across Delhi.

Though the project was announced by MCD standing Committee Chairman Vijender Gupta in his budget speech in January 2008, the deal was signed only last week.

Gupta admitted the project was delayed, but added that such projects take time to finalise. “These kiosks are being set up for the convenience of the common people. After these kiosks are in place, people will not have to go to various offices. Anything from paying a bill to booking a movie ticket will be possible on these windows. Besides they will be a source of revenue for the MCD,” Gupta said.

These kiosks will be like data banks, where consumers will be able to pay water, power and telephone bills. To be called ‘Apka Dwar’, these kiosks will also have the facility to book train, flight and cinema tickets.

A host of information services like telephone directory and yellow pages will be available on them. The kiosks will also be a window for government services like certification, licensing, and payment of taxes. Besides, the Delhi Traffic Police is likely to use them to collect challans.

These kiosks with run on BoT (Built Operate and Transfer) basis. After looking after them for nine years, the companies will hand them over to the MCD.

The advertisement rights of these kiosks will rest with the companies for these nine years; they will give Rs 101 crores each year to the MCD for the period.

“Bartronics will provide solution support, IBM technical support and Selvel will look after the advertisements on these kiosks,” said Amiya Chandra, Additional Deputy Commissioner of the MCD’s Remunerative Projects Cell. “The cost of setting up a kiosk is about Rs 8 lakhs which will be borne by these companies.”

Bartronics, which deals in smart cards, biometric machines, bar coding, scanning and maintaining records, has done projects for companies like Wipro, Suzuki, Whirlpool and GE. It is also running the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yogna with the Government of India to provide insurance to the people living below poverty line. It is also running a project with the Rajasthan Government for the empowerment of women.