One-stop online bill payments coming soon

PHUKET CITY: The Phuket office of the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) has announced that in July it will launch a “one-stop” Internet website that will allow people to conduct business with a number of local government agencies without leaving home. Initially, the system will allow payment of electricity and some phone bills, and dealings with the Immigration and Transportation Offices. SIPA/Thailand President Manoo Ordeedolchest said the website is intended to allow easy bill payment and other transactions with participating government agencies, in line with the government policy to develop Phuket, Chiang Mai and Khon Kaen provinces as Information and Communication Technology pilot provinces, or “ICT Cities”. K. Manoo explained, “Suppose you have seven bills to pay at the end of each month. This service will allow you to conduct all of these transactions without having to go to seven different government Websites.” Sipa’s acting Manager in Phuket, Rattana Wetprasit, said users would also be able to carry out transactions such as renewing driving licenses or registering vehicles. K. Manoo said he expected the service to be operational by the end of July. After a trial period of unspecified duration, the Website will be reevaluated, taking public feedback into account, and any necessary improvements made to it. The Website will use industry-standard architecture that will allow user-friendly yet secure information exchange, K. Manoo said. Sipa has an initial budget of 4 million baht to develop the project, but will require an additional 2 million baht to set up the system in the three provinces. The project is still in the software development phase and it has not yet been determined which banks will participate or what domain name the Website will carry, said K. Manoo. However, K. Rattana told the Gazette that the Phuket branches of five government agencies and state enterprises will be included in the system from the outset. These, she said, are the Phuket Immigration Office; Phuket Transportation Office; CAT Telecom; Telephone Organization of Thailand; and the Provincial Electricity Authority. Other government agencies will be added as time goes on and the range of services would expand in the future depending on the ability of other government agencies to acquire adequate funding and support technology. K. Rattana said that she would welcome suggestions for features to be included in the system. These can be emailed to sipa_phuket@lycos.com .