The toll-free National Call Centre will allow callers to do everything from pay their utility bills to call an ambulance, said Bahrain eGovernment Agency (EGA) chief executive officer Mohammed Al Qaed.
He said it would be the first such centre in the Middle East and tenders had already been floated for the contract to set up the service.
"It will offer services from payment of utility bills to calling an ambulance and from answering callers' questions on commercial registrations to new currency being introduced in the market," Mr Al Qaed told a Press conference at the Bahrain International Convention and Exhibition Centre yesterday.
"The centre will bring together all the ministries and government department hotlines together under one service.
"Right now, some ministries and departments have their own hotlines that people have to call to get the information they need.
"This will be a thing of the past."
He said the contract for the project would be awarded before the end of the year and work on it would start immediately afterwards.
The centre will initially have operators answering calls in English and Arabic, but speakers of other languages will be recruited gradually.
Some services may require, say, people speaking Urdu, Malayalam or Hindi," said Mr Al Qaed.
"These languages will be added."
He hosted the Press conference on the sidelines of the Bahrain International eGovernment Forum, which is underway at the same venue.
Mr Al Qaed told journalists that the eGovernment website (www.e.gov.bh) had recorded more than one million hits in April alone.
"These were from around 156 countries all over the world," he said.
Fifty-three services are available on the site as of now, with 40 more to be added by the end of the year.
"In the next two years, we plan to reach a figure of 167 services which would be available to users," he said.
Members of the public will be able to register births and deaths online within a month, he added.
He also said he expected Bahrain to improve on its current ranking of 42nd in the world in terms of its eGovernment services.
"We are working towards that," he said.
Mr Al Qaed said figures indicated 26 per cent of the people in Bahrain were aware of services offered online and use them. "Around 93pc of them are very satisfied," he added. However, efforts are now being made to generate more awareness among the public, he said.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Mandeep Singh
Quelle/Source: Gulf Daily News, 21.05.2008
