- Mercedes González presented this service today in Ambite, which already reaches 96.6% of the towns between 500 and 8,000 inhabitants
- The staff of the Delegation has traveled more than 6,000 kilometers for the implementation of this plan, attended by a thousand people
- The other 27 Madrid municipalities with less than 500 inhabitants have already been contacted to extend the service to all rural areas
The delegate of the Government in the Community of Madrid, Mercedes González, presented today at the House of Culture of Ambite ‘The Administration near you’, a project of the Ministry of Territorial Policy to bring the General Administration of the State (AGE) closer to the citizenship of rural areas. In the City Council of this municipality, the delegate has been received by the mayors of Ambite, Francisco Javier Carmona; Orusco de Tajuña, Esteban Heras; and Nuevo Baztán, Gema Pacheco.
First phase of the project
In the Community of Madrid there are 88 municipalities that have between 500 and 8,000 inhabitants and that add up to a population of 268,299 madrileños, more inhabitants than the second city of the Community of Madrid, Móstoles. The Government Delegation has contacted the 88 mayors of these municipalities to bring the AGE closer to their neighbors. Only three of them refused to host a visit.
These 85 villages in Madrid (96.6% of the total) have already been visited at least once by the Government Delegation. Almost a dozen of them have already received a second visit, since acceptance is rising over time. Between November 2022 and March 15, 2023, the Government Delegation has traveled 6,250 kilometers along the roads of the region to bring the Administration closer to the neighbors of 85 municipalities.
A thousand people have already attended these days. The visits are usually organized at a rate of two daily from Monday to Friday.
The target population of the program is, in the first phase, the inhabitants of the municipalities that have between 500 and 8,000 inhabitants. In Spain there are 3,226 municipalities of this size and 7,475,291 people live in them. Of these, 29% are over 60 years old, which further distances these citizens from the AGE by the digital divide of people of a certain age.
The Government Delegation has contacted the other 27 Madrid municipalities with fewer than 500 inhabitants to extend the service and, in less than a week, nine have already responded positively.
Administration at the service of citizenship
This project of the Ministry of Territorial Policy was launched in November 2022 and has as a fundamental principle to bring the General Administration of the State closer to the citizen of the rural areas where there are normally no more offices and services of the AGE than the post of the Civil Guard or a post office, when they exist.
The Government Delegation in Madrid intends, in this way, to make the AGE available to all these citizens and to make effective the right of access of all Madrileños to public services, wherever they live, avoiding the displacement of stakeholders and overcoming the digital divide with the assistance of the employees of the Delegation.
Visit to Ambite
Today was the second visit made by the Government Delegation to Ambite, a municipality of 680 inhabitants, at the eastern end of Madrid and located 56 kilometers from the capital. The first visit, on January 17, was attended by 10 neighbors who obtained 10 digital certificates.