Pudong begins promoting one-stop government services
Pudong began promoting its “one-stop service stations” on Wednesday among communities and villages.
The aim is to involve all kinds of government services offered by the Pudong New Area into a single site.
These include services on education, health, culture, community management and civil affairs — currently under the auspices of 19 government departments.
“Residents often have to go to various departments that are far away from each other to handle a single business, especially in the rural areas,” said Weng Zuliang, Pudong’s Party secretary. “The station aims to solve common problems for the residents within a 15-minute walk,” Weng added.
Common services include public utility payments, legal consultation, vegetable buying, medical services, seniors’ care, cultural activities, voluntary services, and subsidy applications.
More than 40 services from the 19 government departments will be incorporated into the one-stop stations, said Feng Wei, the deputy Party secretary.
They will cover all the neighborhoods and villages in Pudong by the end of 2018. Half of the communities and villages will have the stations by December.
Other tailored services will be offered based on the requirements of residents, Feng said. In rural areas, for instance, service station staff can write applications to build village houses or to apply for employment insurance for villagers.
While in the urban communities, the stations will involve more cultural services such as training sessions on how to paint a cultural wall or cultivate plants, Feng said.
The district government said it has begun soliciting public opinion on the services they most want via questionnaires in villages, and through WeChat in urban communities.
“We also encourage residents to serve each other in various voluntary services in the station such as haircutting, umbrella repairing, calligraphy and flower arrangement,” Feng said.
A dozen mobile phone applications and WeChat accounts have also been launched to assist the operation of the stations. For instance, residents will be able to reserve services at the stations through an app named Pudong Easy Life. They can also follow how their issues are progressing through the app.
The district government launched a trial operation early this year to open several stations in the Lujiazui and Puxing subdistricts, as well as Chuansha and Shuyuan towns.
Puxing Road Subdistrict, for instance, has removed over 30 nameplates of various government bodies hanging on their former service stations and replaced them with a one-stop initiative notice.
Local governments increasingly are seeking to combine miscellaneous government services to make them more convenient and accessible to residents.
Quyang Road Subdistrict in Hongkou, one of the most populated residential areas in downtown, has issued an app called Quality Quyang for residents to order vegetables, learn community news, check on nearby transport as well as consulting general practitioners.