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The Government of Uttar Pradesh in an endeavor to bridge the gap amidst public, business and government services introduced the e-Suvidha project. In an interaction with Dataquest, Mr. G.S. Naveen Kumar, I.A.S, Special Secretary, Department of IT and Electronics represented the Government of Uttar Pradesh for the Dataquest Vertical Warrior Award at the Dataquest Economy Conclave 2017. In an interaction, Mr. Kumar talked about the initiative, challenges and the industry. Excerpts:
Please highlight the e-Suvidha initiative that the Government of Uttar Pradesh has come up with?
The e-Suvidha is a CAC initiative for all the cities in Uttar Pradesh where we have opened common service centers to facilitate the government services, G2C and G2B services together with B2C services. Here, we can help people, as a single window system where people can access services of the government, businesses and also, facilitate them in an easier way. We also came up with a new 24*7 center in Lucknow which means you can go and access the system any time of the day. In fact, during the demonetization phase, we were the only one who was collecting the largest number of electricity bills. We continued for a longer time. So, it helps people to access the government services easily.
As you said about demonetization phase, what were the changes and benefits that occurred in the e-Suvidha initiative?
If you see, the entire business of e-Suvidha is dependent on the money and transactions. So, going digital has helped us in reducing our time span in which the bills are paid, how the money transfers to the government. It has also simplified the process in a better way. I think there’s a better future to begin with and it is a good start actually.
Kindly put some light on the overall achievement of the initiative?
It has started a revolution which has a long way to go; it is a good beginning where people can have their own e-wallet and can pay all the bills without manually going on the system. It is eventually dipping the normal procedure where one has to stand in queue to pay the bills. We are also looking forward to the e-Suvidha app in which people can enroll themselves and access the system, that’s the future we are looking at after demonetization to enter into the digital economy.
What is your perspective towards the constantly changing digitization phase in India?
If you have seen India, it has been to a stage where we started scanning the documents to begin with as a digital India, at one point of time. Now, we are also digitizing the data and what will happen in future is this data would be used for good purposes, using cloud computing, big data and the flow of all the legacy systems which were present before will be broken now. This will actually give us better benefits as well as the public at large. So, the access to the public services will be easier in the times to come.
How has been your experience at the DQ Conclave 2017?
It’s a good place where the Government meets the industry and it’s also an opportunity for the people to interact and in a better way.
Coming back to the initiative, what were the challenges and what makes for the strength of e-Suvidha initiative?
It is actually, as you know there are legacy systems which the government constitutes and business way in trading is one of the biggest challenges we had. We have been successfully running it for the last five years and we are also looking forward to the future. So, we are good at enabling technology for the public, thus we are looking at changes constantly, and this is our strength.
How do you feel as the Government of Uttar Pradesh is being awarded for their endeavor of e-Suvidha Initiative at DQ Conclave 2017?
It is a good opportunity where the good work of the government and businesses are appreciated in a better way. It will also create awareness for others to do a change in the government as well as in the industry.