Jeddah municipality has announced plans to activate electronic system to issue excavation permits. The move will gradually replace all paper work at the coordination office for projects. The new procedure will also reduce the time taken to issue such permits from 10 to 3 days. The director general of the municipality's Geographical Information Systems Center, Dr. Abdul Lateef Al-Harthi, said the electronic system would link public services and their contractors directly with the bodies in charge of approving applications for excavation work, Al-Watan reported on Sunday. The system is the first initiative in terms of activating the e-government usages at the municipality as it connects more than one governmental body, Dr. Al-Harthi said. He said geographical information systems technology is being used to upload the municipality's services on Internet for an easy access. He added that the possibility of reviewing the accurate path of the excavation through geographical information enables concerned bodies to make a quick decision of approving or refusing the excavation projects. The system also provides an easy monitoring over contractors carrying out projects and reduces the need of re
