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e-Seva, the citizen-friendly face of e-governance

Posted: Friday, Mar 31, 2006 at 0000 hrs IST
Updated: Friday, Mar 31, 2006 at 0000 hrs IST

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: A key component of e-governance is to provide governments with a citizen-friendly face. Naturally, G2C (government-to-citizens) is an important element of all e-governance projects. FirstGov in the US, e-Envoy of the UK, e-Taiwan, e-Citizen in Singapore, e-Korea, e-Malaysia, Victoria Online in Australia and Government Online in Canada are award-winning G2C services in the world.

Closer home, e-Seva in Andhra Pradesh, Friends in Kerala, Sukhmani centres in Punjab, the Lok-Mitra project in Rajasthan, Coimbatore-Online in Tamil Nadu and BangaloreOne in Karnataka are some of the pioneering G2C initiatives in India.

e-Seva is, perhaps, the best example and one of the earliest attempts to take the benefits of e-governance to citizens. Pione-ered by the then IT secretary in Andhra Pradesh, J Satyanarayana, currently CEO of the National Institute of Smart Governance, and driven by the then chief minister, Chandrababu Naidu, e-Seva started as the TWINS project to provide multiple citizen-facing services of the government under one umbrella. Instead of citizens having to go from one department to another, multiple government services are provided under a ‘single window.’ It is particularly of value to less-affluent and less-influential people, who do not enjoy the luxury of servants or peons who can spend time standing in queues.

e-Seva has several innovations to its credit. The people interface issue has been well addressed and the effects of ‘re-engineering’ are there for all to see. The ambience is good, the place is clean, less noisy and there is an air-conditioned environment, uncluttered by dilapidated furniture. There is access to drinking water, facilities like ATM, internet kiosks and phones—things one does not normally associate with government departments in India. The services are offered at dozens of centres, each with several counters, in a public-private-partnership model. The computers, printers and internet access are provided by the private operator, who is paid a fixed service charge for transactions completed at e-Seva counters, with the government providing the data.

Currently, the services include:

• Utility payments to government departments (electricity, water supply and sewerage charges)

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