During the unveiling of the new system, head of Federal Migration Service Kostantin Romodanovsky explained to Vladimir Putin that the service will become effective on April 1, making the process of obtaining both Russian and foreign passports significantly easier.
Beginning April 1, 2010 Russians will be able to take care of much of the day-to-day bureaucracy on-line. This will be, however, only the first step on Russia’s road to e-government as president Medvedev has decided that by 2015, all Russian government forms will be completed online.
Recently, news agencies reported Communications Minister Igor Shchegolev as saying that e-mail addresses can serve as an official identification like a passport, a drivers license, or a permanent residential address.
Read more: Russia takes first steps on its way to e-government
As Russian bloggers joke, a more fitting name for the new website designed to solve the problem of bureaucratic red tape would be "Bureaucracy.Net" (in Russian, "net" means "no"). According to communications minister Igor Shchegolev, the idea is to save time and effort for those who apply for services.
“I ask the heads of the constituent entities to take these issues under personal control,” he said at a meeting of the government commission on regional development on Monday.
“Let me emphasise that we will closely watch the situation in each region, and the transition to a new format will be considered one of the vital efficiency indicators for regional and municipal authorities,” Putin said.