The implementation contract for the “Unique Digital Portal of Romania – PDURo” project, an investment of 96 million lei without VAT, was signed on Tuesday at the Victoria Palace. PDURo will provide access to over 21 digital public services, including car registration.
The electronic signing ceremony of the PDURo project implementation contract
The “Unique Digital Portal of Romania – PDURo” is a project worth 96 million lei without VAT, part of the investment I1, “Implementation of the governmental cloud infrastructure” from Component 7 Digital Transformation of PNRR, with an implementation period of 18 months , announced the General Secretariat of the Government.
According to the cited source, through the “Once-Only Technical System – OOTS”, PDURo will provide access to at least 21 digital public services in all European Union countries, procedures such as registering a car or applying for a pension being fully digitized and eliminating the need for physical documents.
What is PDURo?
PDURo will replace an already existing platform, under the administration of the Authority for the Digitization of Romania, namely the Single Electronic Contact Point, with a new one, aligned with the European standards for single digital gateway.
It is about a system that will allow access to more than 21 online procedures in Romania, but also in all EU countries.
The PDURo portal will implement the technical system for the automated cross-border exchange of supporting elements at the European level. By means of this technical system, the member state that issues an administrative act to its own citizens in electronic format has the obligation to make the same administrative act available to the requesting competent authorities from other member states, in order to fulfill the procedures in the field.
The secretary general of the Government, Abrudean Mircea, the head of the Prime Minister's Chancellery, Mihai Alexandru Ghigiu, the Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitization, Bogdan Ivan and the president of the Authority for Digitization of Romania, Dragos- Cristian Vlad.
Bogdan Ivan, emphasized the usefulness of connecting to this unique portal, including for the millions of Romanians abroad who want to pay taxes or renew some documents.
“We will have all our documents in the wallet segment, we will be able to receive notifications 30 days before these documents expire. We will be able, based on a simple click, to determine the date and time when we will go to take a photo for the permit, bulletin or passport, and in this formula we will have, and this is the most important thing, directly deliverable, for each of Romanians who want to integrate into this platform: 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We will not depend on a counter's schedule or the mood of an employee at a certain counter, but we will have the simplest possible interaction with the Romanian state, from home, on vacation, from abroad“, explained the minister, according to Agerpres.
According to Bogdan Ivan, the public procurement procedure was completed “in a somewhat record time“.
“That counter where applications are submitted online, on the seventh floor, has disappeared. The moment this project is implemented, it is extremely important, that counter will be history, just for one simple reason: we have that technical architecture that can support the interaction of the state with each of its citizens, in an online, stable and very clear. (…) This time, on the basis of a partnership, created following a public procurement procedure, I hope that in relation to our partners we will have as much openness as possible, to create, for the first time when we talk about software -s in the Romanian public administration, the customer experience segment. Putting the user experience of these digital tools first, to make them as easy to use as a social media or mobile banking app“, said the minister.
The minister pointed out that Romania holds the first place at the European level in terms of the capacity of IT&C companies and the sixth place at the world level, and this experience should be capitalized at the governmental level as well.
“I am one of the Romanians who does not carry his wallet with him all the time. I keep pictures of my driving license, my report card, my passport. I admit that I have also received fines because of this. And I think it's time that, in 2024, in a country where we have over 200,000 brilliant people from the IT&C segment, we can also modernize the Romanian administration“, said Bogdan Ivan.
Digitization of administration
The head of the Prime Minister's Chancellery, Alexandru Mihai Ghigiu, stated, for his part, that the signing of the contract represents an “essential” moment for the digitalization of the public administration in Romania and the improvement of the quality of the services offered.
“The fact that in one place the citizen will be able to interact with the administration and will be able to shorten and streamline administrative processes, I think it represents a big step in what we want to be a modern administration and an administration where the citizen is really treated as a partner. (…) It is important to see that this project, like the others related to the digitization of public administration, will be implemented on time and for the benefit of the citizens, because we have enough digital solutions that, unfortunately, are far from being what what do we expect I would not like to give any examples, but you know at least one platform that is not intuitive, even for someone with fairly advanced digital skills“, he mentioned.
