Pune: Pune residents can now with a click of the mouse pay their municipal taxes and apply for birth and death certificates with the city municipal corporation launching its upgraded user friendly website from Monday.

Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Pune Municipal Corporation Anupam Saraph told IANS: "The earlier website was very cluttered. The new website will be very secure and the element of privacy will be adequately maintained. It will ensure faster transactions."

"We are the first to have a payment gateway through HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. The citizens can pay their property tax, see their arrears or past payment history on the website itself," he said.

The idea of the simpler website with payment gateway is the brainchild of Anupam Saraph, who was appointed six weeks back as part of a Public Private Partnership (PPP) between the PMC and the Software Exporter Association.

Pune happens to be the first corporation in India to have a CIO.

"The website has been a voluntary effort by the software companies in Pune such as Persistent software, Eclipse software who provided manpower purely on a voluntary basis," said Saraph.

The other important feature in the website is the inclusion of Wiki software that allows creation of an employee zone for internal management of the corporation.

Through Wiki, employees would now be able to create, edit, link, and organize the content of the projects they are involved in.

To ensure better navigation, the PMC website will change every month. "In the next version Wiki software will allow the citizens to talk about development plans of the city. Later versions intend to include the software for citizens to help the corporation with their strategic infrastructure expertise, so as to develop a standard in the city," said Saraph.

"Till now we have trained 180-odd employees and expect to train 50 employees a month to ensure more usage of the software," he said.

The website in it present form has been visited by more than half a million people.