EMPOWERING RURAL CITIZENS THROUGH IT with reference to E-SEVA – A CASE STUDY
...eaching the ‘information have-nots’. Looking at ‘service’ from the citizens’ point of view, the Government of Andhra Pradesh seeks to redefine citizen services through ‘E-Seva’ using state-of-art technologies. E_Seva is an attempt to replace the traditional form of governance and its accompanying deficiencies with a modern, more open, transparent and more open service delivery system. E-Seva was started in the year 1999 in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. Salient features of E-Seva: • All service counters are facilitated with an e-queuing system. • One-stop-shop for B2C and G2C (Government to Citizen) services. • Payments by cash/cheque/credit card/internet/DD • On-line services like e-payment, e-forms, and e-filling. E-Seva offers a wide spectrum of citizen friendly services that will save citizens the bother of running around various departments. Let us briefly look at the services it provides: 1. Payment of Utility Bills: Current, Water, Telephone bills, Property tax and Sales tax. 2. Certificate Service: Registration of birth/death, Issue of birth/death certificate, Issue of caste/nativity certificates, Issue of encumbrance certificate. 3. Licensing: License renewal, new registrations, issue/renewal of trade license 4. Medical and Health Services 5. Transport Services: change of address of vehicle owners, transfer of ownership of a vehicle, registration for new vehicle, issue of learner’s license, issue/renewal of driver’s license. 6. Information Services: procedures of various departments. 7. Reservation Services: APSRTC tickets reservation, reservation of water tanker from HMWSSB, reservation of tickets and accommodation for tourism. 8. Other Services: Sales of passport application forms, receipt of passport application forms, receipt of application for new phone connections, sale of non-judicial stamps, document writing service, collection of small savings. 9. Internet Services: Internet enabled e-payments, downloading of forms and Government Orders, filling of applications of web, receipt of complaints or requests in connection with citizen services. 10. B2C Servcies: ATM cash withdrawals and deposits, Issue of statements of savings/current account from ATM, collection of applications for Mutual funds, cell phone bill payments. 11. Police Services and many more…… The objective of E-Seva is to provide citizen services, information about citizen services, and to educate the citizens of Andhra Pradesh. E-Seva of West Godavari District (WGD) of Andhra Pradesh state, India purports to bridge the digital divide in the rural areas and uses IT for providing access to various C2C (citizen to citizen) and C2G (citizen to government) services to citizens. This project was brought to this largely agrarian district as a business model in the public domain in all the 46 mandals. The services range from issuance of various certificates to getting information about various programmes and also go the extent of networking citizens to each other and allow them the flexibility and convenience of mutually beneficial transactions. These centers are uniquely run and managed by women SHGs (Self Help Groups) and position them as information leaders and change agents to improve the transparency and accountability in government operations. The SHG strategy not just helps in empowering the impoverished but also enables rechannelizing individual strengths into collective good. This district has a huge presence of women SHGs and therefore, this project thought it fit to use them as information intermediaries as well as information leaders to bridge the gender divide. E-Seva project here has given the responsibility of running kiosks to SHG by women. Its quite an eye opener that these women groups, which were hitherto considered unfit for technological advancements, have accepted the opportunity and responsibility running the show with acumen, confidence and honesty. Under this project, web enabled kiosks have been established in rural areas. The horizontal portal has been eventually put on the global world wide web and thus allowing vertical integration with the expanding frontiers of universal knowledge and information bank. In order to save on networking cost, this project has developed a unique synchronization tool that allows the kiosks to work offline and allows the database to be periodically synchronized in the minimal time. Buoyed by its success, the existing 46 centres are now being ramped up to 96. that apart, 52 STD booths are being turned into kiosks called Rural Service Delivery Points (RSDP). All these will be integrated with wireless LAN 802.11 architecture. The project E-Seva has had a tremendous impact in furthering the gender and digital unite in the district. On the one hand, it has been able to buttress women SHG while on the other had it has been able to provide the civic services to the citizens in a user friendly and hassle free manner. With almost over 160 kiosks operating in the district, the project has been able to carryout more than 8 lakh transactions relating to various C2G and G2C services so far. They have also so far received over 7000 different grievances from citizens through this project out of which over 6000 of them pertaining to various problems have been redressed. The citizens can verify and track the status of its disposal online. The project has been able to support development of citizen centric land records system resulting in evolution of transparent and effective land record delivery system which fully addresses the insecurities and concerns of farmers. The Project has helped in the creation of a knowledge and information economy thereby bringing in more opportunities and prosperity to the impoverished areas of this district. This Project also induced transparency in the implementation of the government programmes and has facilitated weeding out ineligible cases so that corresponding benefits can be passed down to the needy. The Project provides benefit to over 5 million people mostly coming from marginalized sections of the community spanning over 7000 sq. km. of geographical area. In terms of direct cost savings to citizens, this could easily be in the range of US $ 5 million over the last 2 years. This is very important for poor people who without access to these services suffer at the hands of insensitive and corrupt bureaucracy. The project has also helped in providing self-emp...