Bahrain’s eGovernment Authority (eGA) has unveiled a package of public services to the list of e-services presently provided through the National Contact Centre (NCC) on 8000 8001, one of the delivery channels of eGovernment services.

The number of services has now reached 47 - available to be carried out fully via the telephone, on a 24x7 basis, eGA chief executive Mohammed Al Qaed was quoted as saying by the Gulf Daily News, our sister publication.

Al Qaed added that the centre is looking at expanding the base of its services and increasing the number of governmental entities which provide services through the centre.

The seven newly added e-services are Schools Directory (provided by the Education Ministry); Accredited Missions in Bahrain (Foreign Affairs Ministry); Shipping Costs (Transportation Ministry - represented by Bahrain Post); Government Agencies (by the eGA; Hotel Directory (Culture Ministry); Tender Awards and Tender Notices (by the Tender Board) with other services to be launched in conjunction with the Works Ministry, Education Ministry and Health Ministry.

"The NCC has successfully managed to provide the support for more than 300 public services through outsourcing," Al Qaed said.

"Some e-payment services have been added through the centre such as online payment of electricity and water bills, along with e-payment of traffic contraventions.

"On a yearly basis, we are planning to add 20 more services to our list and this will give an opportunity for nationals to carry out transactions as a whole by a phone call through the NCC," he added.

Statistics indicate that there has been an increase in the volume of incoming calls to the centre, at 68 per cent, during the period from January to October this year.

The NCC has received more than 418,705 calls in total from January to October, compared with 249,217 calls during the same period in 2012.

Calls are divided as follows: enquiries (11pc), services (19.3pc), complaints (2.56pc) and feedback (0.03pc).

Al Qaed said that the government entities should benefit from outsourcing services provided by Silah Gulf which is aiming to provide first class services for customers at a lower cost.

It’s a focus is on maximising quality and customer satisfaction and staffed totally with Bahraini employees, he added.

The NCC has recently launched video calling service for the disabled at the centre supervised by competent employees and professionals in the area of sign language, and run by Silah Gulf.

The 24x7 basis centre operates with higher levels of quality and running the customer experience in an efficient approach to ensure that customer activities are smoothly carried out since its inception in 2010.

As part of the strategic objectives of the eGovernment programmes in the delivery of e-services through a unified national centre, the NCC provides a full range of services for all segments of the society along with the authorities concerned with a view to maximising the utmost degree of transparency and inclusiveness.

NCC came as an additional channel to all other channels that are designed for the delivery of eGovernment services such as the eGovernment portal (Bahrain.bh), Mobile Gateway (bahrain.bh/mobile), in addition to e-service centres, e-kiosks and the smartphone apps. – TradeArabia News Service