Government Information Center

Current Situation and Key Problems

On par with the development of the Information and Communication Technologies in the world, new ways and means of dissemination of information and delivery of public services have emerged. However, it is widely accepted that if information is to be used for facilitating and empowering the citizen, it must be disseminated in a manner that the recipients could easily understand and should reach them without any distortion.

In Sri Lanka, very often, the general public complains about the difficulties of receiving or accessing basic information on the public services. For example, many people would want to find out about how to obtain a copy of the birth certificate, marriage certificate, death certificate etc. or how to obtain a passport, the national ID etc. Although this has been the case for many decades, no major initiative yet has been undertaken by any government agency to provide understandable information to the general public continuously and consistently. Even in this era of information, it is ironic that people are impoverished due to lack of basic information.

Therefore, a solution that utilized modern technology should be devised to provide relevant and accurate information to the public. If ICT is used, novel means to solve this long standing issue could be designed. There are several such ways and among them; the internet (world wild web) and “Help Desk” concept would be more useful and practical in the present context.

Purpose of the Project

Government Information Center (GIC) is Government Call Center and a Web Portal to provide information about government services to citizens of Sri Lanka and others.

GIC Call Center will be operational from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. initially and later will be operational on 24 hrs X 7 day basis

The GIC not only provides individual interaction but also promotes the development of long-term customer relationships between GIC and people using GIC services. The basic concept of a government help desk or a call centre is to offer advice and information to public who would use the telephone as the primary means of obtaining information. The government shall establish a centralized facility with a few personnel well trained to handle inquiries of the general public. The following outlines the implement approach of the government call centre.

General public could either phone in on highly publicized numbers or contact the call center through email to obtain detailed information on any one or more of public services offered by the public sector.
General public who have access to internet via some means, can obtain government service information via the GIC Web Portal.
When a call comes through, depending on the language, it will be channeled through to a call center operator conversant in the particular language.
The operator will very carefully listen to the caller and attempt to understand the nature of the inquiry. Once the nature of the inquiry is clear to the operator, he/she will examine the data sheets stored in the computer and once the relevant data sheet is projected onto the screen, information on that data sheet will be explained to the caller making every attempt to ensure that the caller will be provided with all the information he/she needs.
Data sheets would be prepared in respect of each of the public services that the call center would respond on information stored in a central server. Other relevant information could also be stored in the server.
If a caller’s inquiry is on a matter for which there is no readily available information at the call centre, the operator will obtain the postal address/contact number/email of the caller. A system should be devised to obtain such information from the public sector and feed back the caller with the relevant information as soon as possible.

Project Development Objective
The main objectives of the project following are to.

Provide information on services of the government and to extend the supporting services to citizen in obtaining the government services through

Setting up of government “Government Information Centre” and
Construction of Web Portal on citizen services.

Methodology
Re-engineering Government Programme will initially outsource the collection and preparation of Operations Manuals for the government organizations.

Later these manuals will be used to generate information for the GIC Web Portal and the GIC Call Center.

GIC Call Center will be selected on a tender procedure.