Selangor Journal
Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari visits the C5i Smart Selangor Operations Centre at Dewan Jubli Perak, Shah Alam, on March 3, 2021. — Picture by ASRI SAPFIE/SELANGORKINI

Digitising public service delivery

By Alang Bendahara

IN his 2021 New Year address, Selangor Menteri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari mentioned that the golden state is set on encouraging more people to embrace the digital shift, and that his administration will ease the process by offering a few innovations.

As Malaysia’s most progressive state, Selangor enjoys a highly developed infrastructure and is a well-established investment haven backed by state government support and an advanced commercial ecosystem.

Known for its skilled workforce and high living standards, Selangor is a beacon of abundance and prosperity.

The state has embarked on a journey to become Southeast Asia’s premier smart state by 2025.

This aim is in line with the World Bank’s report titled ‘Malaysia Economic Monitor June 2019: Re-energizing the Public Service’ that suggested that the country needs to be embracing new technologies and skills to digitalise and automate for improved public service delivery.

To achieve this status, four domains — Smart Government, Smart Economy, Smart Community and Smart Digital Infrastructure — need to be up and running and in sync with one another.

In this second instalment of a two-parter, we highlight some of the applications developed by the Selangor government via its Smart Selangor Delivery Unit (SSDU) and other agencies to bring about change for the people.

The Communities Online (COOL)

An application for Selangor residents that offers the option to report on burst water pipes, traffic light malfunction, potholes and cases of vandalism. Users can upload photographs of the said problems.

It also conducts polls for state assemblymen who use it to disseminate information to their constituencies. i-RS (Intelligent Response Selangor) Another application for reporting floods, potholes and broken traffic lights in order to directly solve public complaints.

It was introduced in July 2017 and mainly developed for Selangor’s local councils, the Public Works Department (PWD) and Land and Districts Offices. Data on reported problems is extracted from Waze onto the i-RS application. Council engineers assigned to the reports will investigate and update on the progress of the fixtures using the application.

Between August 2017 and September 2020, i-RS received 113,588 reports on potholes throughout the state via Waze. Out of the 108,022 public complaints received, 85.5 per cent of them were solved.

Selangor Advance

An invoice financing solution for small- and medium enterprises (SME) in their dealings with the state government.

Users get to access all their invoices through the application’s dashboard and can upload and manage them easily for disbursement.

Selangor Advance was introduced on June 22, 2020, as a financing scheme to SMEs, especially contractors and service providers, in facing the post-Covid-19 economic challenges.

The initiative aims to help business owners have sufficient funds to ensure their business continuity.

It was formulated on a Syariah-compliant financing concept to help the SMEs increase their cash flow.

iDRS (Intelligent Disaster Response Selangor)

The iDRS system uses end-to-end processes from the Waze Connected Citizens Programme data to help state authorities plan, manage and carry out operations in cases of natural disaster.

On a day to day basis, it helps the State Disaster Management Unit, the Rapid Squad and the District & Land Offices to better respond to floods, road accidents and landslips.

TaLMAP (Traffic Light Monitoring Application) Selangor

This application enables members of the public to submit a report on a traffic light malfunction directly to the local and state governments. Through this application, both the public and government authorities can monitor the condition of traffic lights at any time and anywhere in Selangor.

Selangor Intelligent Transport System (SITS)

A tool for users of the Smart Selangor Bus, offering passengers the list of buses and routes, the expected time of arrival of busses, as well as the location of the bus stops.

 

This article first appeared in the Selangor Journal monthly May edition, published on May 3, 2021.

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