On January 9, 2020, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev held a meeting on the issues of improving the efficiency of providing public services.

From the first days of his activity as President, the Head of the state forwarded the idea “It is not the people who must serve the government bodies, but rather the government bodies that must serve the people”, the purpose of which is to ease the concerns of people and create wide amenities for them.

To save time and money of the population, turning to departments on various issues, as well as to prevent corruption, the introduction of an integrated, modern and reliable system of public services has been launched.

In this regard, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed on December 12, 2017 the Decree “On measures for fundamentally reforming the national system of rendering public services to the population”. In accordance with the document, the Public Services Agency under the Ministry of Justice was organized.

Today, public service centers of the Agency operate throughout the country. Services for individuals and legal entities are provided in more than 80 comprehensively convenient, innovative buildings, and 94 more are under construction.

In addition, services in a convenient and transparent form are provided with travel to remote areas (mobile public services).

Currently, over 130 types of services are provided through public service centers on a one-stop basis. If in 2017 public services were rendered to the population 12 thousand times, then in 2019 this figure exceeded 13 million.

Over the past two years, 86 public service centers have been opened at places. The list of documents required to obtain 36 types of the most popular services was reduced from 112 to 52, the term for the provision of services – from 280 to 126 days.

For example, before replacing a driver’s license, it was necessary to provide a passport, a medical certificate, an examination sheet, an old certificate, a photograph, and also pay a fee of 70 percent of the minimum wage. Now it’s enough to provide an old driver’s license and a coupon for it, as well as pay a fee of 70 percent of the base estimate.

Starting from June 1 of the last year, the provision of public services on an extraterritorial basis was established regardless of the permanent residence and location of organizations, through any center of public services. This innovation provided great convenience to citizens and put an end to red tape.

An applicant from Nukus had to spend at least 2 million soums to submit documents for admission to a university in Tashkent. Today it’s enough to contact any center without leaving the region.

Work in this direction will continue in the current year. It is planned to open 94 new centers, most in partnership with the private sector.

The Head of the state noted that this is only the first stage, and the convenience for the population should be expanded.

It was noted that in order for the one-stop principle to be fully established, it is necessary first of all to transfer all public services to electronic form and digitalize the data.

Currently, out of 80 agencies providing public services, only 27 have integrated their databases with the Public Services Agency, and in 53 organizations the data is still not digitized. For example, there is no electronic database for the provision of public services in healthcare, ecology, construction, and archives. Due to the lack of such data exchange in 2019, services related to the construction, supply of gas, hot and drinking water were rendered out of time.

In this regard, the Ministry for Development of Information Technologies and Communications, the Ministry of Justice was instructed to develop an address program for the creation in all agencies of information systems and databases regarding public services.

The goal is to increase the number of users of electronic public services by at least 5 times before the end of this year, and by 2025 completely switch to electronic services.

Taking into account that 75 percent of the population uses the Internet on mobile devices, the importance of launching a mobile version of the Unified Portal of Interactive Government Services was noted. It was entrusted to expedite the organization of more than 50 branches of public service centers for the convenience of residents of remote settlements.

Using the foreign experience, it was noted that it is possible to provide a whole range of services to citizens on the basis of a single application or to offer a citizen the necessary services without waiting for an appeal.

For example, when a child is born, it will be much more convenient for parents to receive several services at the same time – birth registration, assignment of benefits, residence registration, registration at a medical institution, queuing up for kindergarten and others.

At the meeting, it was entrusted to test this system in the city of Tashkent and gradually introduce it in other regions.

The President noted that the requirement of an electronic digital signature, the presence of which is mandatory for access to many services, creates inconvenience for citizens, especially complicates the activities of entrepreneurs.

Electronic digital signature can only be used from a computer. To register a business, an entrepreneur must obtain an EDS key at the tax office, a separate key at the customs department, and another bank key for working with the account. You have to visit each department separately, and after a certain time, the keys must be updated. All this requires additional costs.

The President instructed the Ministry for Development of Information Technologies and Communications to implement, together with responsible organizations, alternative, safe and simple ways of verifying identity when using services that require electronic digital signature. The task was set before July 1 of this year to develop a single digital signature for all services.

Concrete measures were identified on the issues discussed at the meeting.