Penza, 26 September 2012. PenzaNews. “Active work of region-centers in the Penza region led to transparent and efficient dialogue between the government and the society. The head of the Department of Information policy and media of the Penza region Nelly Davydova expressed this view commenting on the results of work of region-centers operating at the regional newspaper Penzenskaya Pravda and at each of 27 regional newspapers.

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“This project is vital to the society. Two years ago, people in the Penza region came to the conclusion to make the dialogue between the authorities and society beneficial for both parties. Therefore, at the initiative of Governor Vasily Bochkarev, a unique project appeared: it involves the authorities and newspapers, subordinate to the department. As a result, today we see that more than seven thousand people contacted region-centers in January–September 2012. For comparison, for the entire last year we received about seven thousand requests,” Nelly Davydova stated.

According to her, each region-center in the Penza region is a mobile service to solve citizens’ problems, which is equipped with modern technical equipment for the most efficient operation.

“Region-centers have computer equipment, electronic, telephone and mobile communication working around the clock. Skype is used for communication between villagers and regional authorities in real time,” Nelly Davydova emphasized.

She also explained why the work of the region-centers was so highly effective.

“Today, 78% of requests were resolved positively. People need just to come to or call the region-center, where the qualified staff will prepare a competent inquiry on behalf of the citizen and send it to the right place. After this the region-center employees will surely receive the answer and inform the citizen about the result. Moreover, then the staff will check whether the promises made by the authorities were fulfilled. In addition, the region-centers organize online conferences with the heads of state power bodies, personal reception of citizens by the heads of areas, visiting reception, conduct investigative reporting and public opinion research. We adhere to the principle that the mission of the press is to be the voice of people, expressing their opinions,” she said.

Region-centers of executive authorities, which are a network of public reception began their work in March 2011.

Employees of the region-centers consider any requests of the Penza region residents including anonymous ones and control the whole process of request consideration by the authorities. The main coordinator of the region-centers’ work is the Department of Information policy and media of the Penza region.