By Alang Bendahara
DURING the tabling of the 2021 Selangor Budget in October last year, the Selangor government had dedicated RM369 million, or one-third of its development expenditure, towards the digitalisation agenda.
As the state aims to become a liveable Smart State in the region by 2025, it has made a tremendous leap towards empowering its people, businesses and the public sector through the optimisation of digital technologies such as formulating mobile applications (apps) in offering its services to the people.
The advent of mobile apps has been made more important, now that Covid-19 has restricted the movements of people, forcing them to stay at home as they work, study and go about their daily business like getting meals and groceries.
It takes a person with enough tenacity and youthful vigour to envision a smart city, and Selangor has that person in Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari. In May 2016, two years before he took office as the second-youngest ever Menteri Besar of the state, Amirudin had already set out to establish the Smart Selangor Delivery Unit (SSDU).
The SSDU helped in many ways to set the direction for Selangor’s smart agenda by initiating many projects and programmes with key stakeholders to future-proof Malaysia’s most advanced state.
A wholly-owned subsidiary of Menteri Besar Selangor Incorporated (MBI Selangor), it has identified four domains to drive the state’s smart initiatives: Smart Government, Smart Economy, Smart Community and Smart Digital Infrastructure.
In this first instalment of a two-parter, we highlight some of the apps developed by the Selangor government via SSDU and other agencies.
Smart Selangor Parking (SSP)
Rolled out on July 1, 2018, the app is used by all the local councils in the nine districts covering Shah Alam, Subang Jaya, Selayang, Petaling Jaya, Kuala Selangor, Ampang Jaya, Kajang, Sepang, Klang and Kuala Langat.
The number of registered users has now exceeded 1.5 million and it has even recorded the largest number of users compared to other similar apps in Malaysia.
The couponless eco-friendly app had so far saved 634,994 kilograms of paper, which would have been used as parking tickets or coupons. The receipts are also available online for those needing to do their claims.
It also features the option to pay for parking compounds via scan-and-pay, for off-street parking at private parking lots as well as to transfer credit.
With the advent of the Smart Selangor Parking app, the use of parking coupons at all venues managed by local authorities in Selangor will come to an end on Dec 31, as the SSP digital payment method will be enforced on January 1, 2022.
SELangkah or ‘Step in, safely’
The app was established to ensure that business entities would be ready to accept customers in the wake of Covid-19.
It utilises QR Code and GPS technology to register a person’s attendance at a particular location. Should there be a Covid-19 cluster at that location, contact tracing can be more easily carried out.
The SELangkah app has evolved from a contact tracing tool into an all-in-one platform, covering community testing, state welfare distribution and vaccine pre-registration.
CEPat (Citizen E-Payment)
CEPat is a centralised e-payment platform for payment services with the Selangor government. Users can pay their tax assessment, quit rent and compounds and also pay for their utilities (TM, Air Selangor, Indah Water Konsortium, Astro and Njoi bills) and mobile prepaid top-ups.
The CEPat app is also used by all Smart Selangor bus passengers as they need its ‘Scan to Ride’ function in order to get a ride.
CEpat was introduced on Aug 21, 2019, and uses cloud-based technology to ensure it is easily accessible to users.
As of December last year, 11,000 users have downloaded the CEPat application. The SSDU is targeting for more than 200,000 users in the near future.
Seldec (Selangor Digital E-Supply Chain)
The Seldec app enables users to buy fresh produce such as meat, fish and vegetables, and delicacies like marinated lamb meat, as well as grocery items, health and beauty products, and home and lifestyle needs. Seldec is set up under Selangor Industrial Corporation Sdn Bhd and is an end-to-end online business platform that enables local entrepreneurs to market their wares to the public.
This app connects sellers directly to the buyers and is part of the Selangor government’s plan to digitalise the food supply chain and help to improve the livelihood of small and medium entrepreneurs in rural Selangor.
This article first appeared in the Selangor Journal monthly April edition, published on March 29, 2021.
