EFFICIENTLY, RESPONSIBLY, TRANSPARENTLY

The Sabirabad ASAN Service, which opened in the middle of December, will start operating in early January. The opening ceremony was attended by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. There are now seven of these centres, four in Baku and the other three in Ganca, Sumqayit and now Sabirabad.

As well as the people of Sabirabad, the centre will also provide services for people in Imisli, Kurdamir, Saatli, Haciqabul, Sirvan, Salyan and Beylaqan. The ASAN Service caters in all for over 900,000 people. The first forum of ASAN volunteers was also held in Sabirabad and was attended by the head of state, Ilham Aliyev.

The purpose of the forum was to provide the state with a role in voluntary work in the ASAN Service, to discuss innovations in this sphere and also to shape the future strategy of the ASAN Volunteers youth public association. During the forum the head of state particularly noted the state's role in the patronage of volunteers, mentioned the experience and knowledge obtained by young people in the process of voluntary work and praised their work highly. The volunteers have been working for the ASAN Service for two months on the basis of a signed contract, and when this term expires they will be issued with an official certificate and letter of reference. During their work the volunteers will learn how to handle applications from the public, how to work in a team and handle the flow of people applying for ASAN's services, and so on.  

Flocking to ASAN

The chairman of the State Agency for Public Services and Social Innovations under Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Inam Karimov, spoke to R+ about the work of the ASAN Service.

He said that the work of the ASAN Service centre is based on the principles of transparency, responsibility, convenience and an ethical attitude. And, indeed, the work of this organization fully complies with its promises; thousands of citizens have been convinced of this more than once, turning to this service time and again on all kinds of subjects. Compare this to the old official structures where bureaucratic and other delays abounded, which were clearly to no-one's advantage. It is no coincidence that, according to polls carried out at the centres themselves, the proportion of citizens satisfied with the services was 99 per cent. This clearly is a result of the slogan "The customer is always right" which is paramount in the centre's work.

The ASAN Service has received a number of prizes and awards, and the asan.gov.az website topped the list in the National Internet Award NETTY 2013," Karimov said. And the constant flow of visitors at all the ASAN centres confirms the justice of these awards. Incidentally, despite the large number of visitors, it is comparatively rarely that one is kept waiting long at the centres and pushing and shoving is virtually unheard of.  According to the head of the state agency, in the two years the ASAN centres have been open they have received over 3.5 million requests.

There are 10 state structures, as well as a number of private organizations and companies offering 230 different kinds of services at the ASAN Service centres. The services are offered directly by the employees of the state structures themselves, which rules out any risk of misleading information being transmitted. The concentration of virtually the whole apparatus of the state structures in one building saves a lot of time and trouble for visitors. People's requests are so varied and it is quite difficult to provide statistics to indicate which type of service is the most popular. Suffice to say that at ASAN you can obtain an identity card, foreign passport, driving licence or residence permit, and you can register as a pensioner or a taxpayer… And there's no need even to mention the associated services of a notary office or translation. In other words, ASAN Service centres help us to officially complete the vast majority of processes that we face all through our lives. 

The ubiquitous ASAN

But ASAN centres are always on the go. In its aim to provide services to people in the regions where these services have not yet reached, ASAN also offers mobile services. They are provided by large buses specially fitted with the latest equipment. In the last 18 months up to 120,000 citizens have been provided with these services. "In connection with a project for the extension of the South Caucasian pipeline as part of the 'Southern Gas Corridor', President Ilham Aliyev issued an instruction to the ASAN Service for the registration of rights in land and other real estate. For this purpose over 5,000 applications were received by ASAN's itinerant service in seven regions," Karimov said. Two ASAN itinerant buses are currently providing services in the regions and their numbers will soon be increased and eventually brought up to 10.  All necessary measures have been taken to ensure they work efficiently and provide the technological infrastructure, and employees working in state structures have been given the opportunity to switch to the required information base.

At the same time, an inter-city mobile ASAN Service is being introduced at the start of the New Year. It is aimed at people who do not have enough time and opportunity to visit the structure's centres and at disabled and handicapped people so they can take advantage of the services at a place and time convenient to them without any extra cost. So, ASAN's services are equally available to all other and vulnerable sections of the population.

You do not have to visit the centre itself to obtain information about ASAN's services. For this purpose there is a special ASAN call-centre where you can obtain all the necessary information via the number 108. Built-in software that records all calls helps to provide transparency of services. Besides this, the record provides an opportunity to trace all flaws and problems in the system. Inam Karimov is confident that all the flaws that have been revealed in the work of the ASAN structure up till now are insignificant and mainly of a technical nature. Let us hope that in the future ASAN Service will continue to please us with the quality and range of its services.