Kiosks to be part of Electronic Moscow initiative

MOSCOW -- The Electronic Moscow initiative aimed at boosting the use of information technologies in the capital city with a five-year budget of more than $2 billion is poised for its official launch this spring, according to a report in the Moscow Times.

The city's ambitious program gained preliminary approval earlier this month and is expected to come up for another vote in April.

E-Moscow falls under the federal government's e-Russia program, which began in 2002 and includes projects such as putting tax forms online, installing computers in schools and developing better legislation for the IT sector.

The city founded a company to implement the e-Moscow campaign on its behalf. The e-Moscow company is jointly owned by the Moscow city government, the Bank of Moscow and Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting System, also a state entity.

Reflecting efforts to incorporate the business community in the push to electronically streamline the city's activities, the e-Moscow company formed to oversee the project is headed by private-sector IT executive Yury Pripachkin. He also chairs Comcor, a private telecoms company in which the city government holds a minority stake.

The company hopes to raise $500 million, or a quarter of the initiative's budget, when it sells off a blocking stake of 25 percent plus one share to an investor in 2004, according to the Times report.

In its first year, e-Moscow expects to spend only a little over 5 percent of its total budget, but investment is expected to increase as time goes on.

This year, the Bank of Moscow will invest 870 million rubles ($27 million) in its social card program, which will electronically distribute benefits for the city's 2 million welfare recipients.

Pension payments, for example, would be deposited into an individual's account. That person could use the social card -- which will be akin to a debit card -- to pay his telephone and utility bills. So far, 35,000 cards have been issued.

Eventually, it will be possible to pay bills online. For those who cannot afford home Internet access, public access kiosks will be installed in post offices around the city.

Comcor will spend 300 million rubles ($9.4 million) this year expanding that web of wiring to bring "last mile" broadband services to households, including cable television and high-speed Internet access. These services will pipe the 16 free-to-air channels broadcast from Ostankino directly into residents' living rooms, independent of antenna reception.

E-Moscow is also meant to increase security for Muscovites.

Under the program, the city has equipped hundreds of apartment building entryways in the central district with security cameras that feed video data to the nearest police station.

Taxes, too, should become less onerous. The city's tax inspectorates are due to be equipped with the Nalog-2 information system by the end of this year, allowing people to file tax documents via the Internet.

Pripachkin admitted to being struck by the sweeping scale of the project.

"It's hard to believe that in five years we will be able to do everything online, from making a doctor's appointment to ordering a plane ticket," Pripachkin said. "But five years ago we couldn't imagine that practically every second Muscovite would have a cellular phone, and now they are everywhere."