ANDHRA PRADESH: Governing The E-Way

Planning on the

infrastruc-ture for enabling e-gover-nance, the Andhra Pradesh government had

begun its e-governance initiative by setting up an infrastructure for enabling

it. Conceived as a backbone for connecting the various departments within the

state, APSWAN has been set up to act as a network for voice, data and video

communication throughout the state. This network became operational in November

last year with 2Mbps fiber optic links connecting the State Secretariat with 25

centers including all district headquarters.

Better still, the network is

scalable to more than 600Mbps. With this, it works as a government intranet

connecting the campus network in the State Secretariat and the headquarters of

various departments with local area networks in the district collectorates and

other offices. Apart from linking government offices, the network is also

offering connectivity to major educational and health institutions across the

state.

In subsequent phases, APSWAN

would be extended to all the ‘mandal’ headquarters, other towns and

eventually to all the villages. At the moment, APSWAN services include data

communication, reliable and dedicated voice communication and video

transmission. These services enable seamless connectivity among departments as

well as among various offices of each department. Apart from providing a

reliable platform for department information systems, the availability of this

network acts as a catalyst for various departments to offer convenient citizen

services across the state.

APSWAN acts as the basic

information highway for improving the government-citizen and government-industry

interface along with efficient intra-government information flow. It is expected

that data sharing and interchange among different wings of the government will

result in effective, efficient and transparent administration. This network will

also provide email and internet facilities to all the departments and offices of

the government. With these, the objective is to offer convenient ‘anytime,

anywhere’ services for the citizens.

Computer-aided administration

of registration department

One of the first

projects to be taken up for effectively implementing e-governance in the state

was that of the Registration Department. Today, the age-old manual system of

registering and preserving documents of immovable property transactions and

providing several related services has been replaced by a simple, transparent

and convenient system. The entire project was designed, developed and

implemented in 214 locations across the state within less than 18 months. The

Registration and Stamps Department has harnessed the strength of IT to

reengineer its services for the citizens and in the process, has become a role

model for successful deployment of IT for citizen services.

As a result, people have been

able to easily register for a plot of land or a flat. A total of over 700,000

documents have been registered so far in 16 months since the project inception,

in addition to 80,000 encumbrance certificates.

The system has become faster and

transparent after computerization of the entire backlog of historical and

current data across the state. Also, the calculation of stamp duty has become

accurate and is available across the counter. Services such as sale of stamp

paper and registration that used to take weeks or days can now effectively be

completed within an hour in a single visit. All other services like market value

assistance and sale of stamp paper are offered in less than 15 minutes.

Multipurpose household survey

project

The project is

one of the largest IT projects undertaken by the Government of Andhra Pradesh.

It is woven around a database with the basic socio-economic data of all

residents of the state and a database of land records. This project has

currently been implemented in 320 ‘mandals’ across the state and is proposed

to be implemented in all the 1,122 ‘mandals’, which are the pivotal

administrative units of the government, for better targeting in all poverty

alleviation programs. A World Bank aided project, it is expected to be

implemented at a total investment of Rs70 crore.

The application packages being

implemented under this project include those for the public distribution system,

land records, land acquisition and grievance redressal systems. The databases

can be used for issuing multipurpose identity cards and ensuring better

targeting in all the poverty alleviation programs.

The entire project covering all

the ‘mandals’ in the state is likely to be covered by July 2000. The

government proposes to use the infrastructure created under this project as the

nucleus of all efforts aimed at bringing the benefits of IT to the common man.

Twin cities network services

Popularly

known as an IT project focused on the common man, the twin cities network

services project (TWINS) provides citizens of the twin cities of Hyderabad and

Secunderabad selected services and information about departments and agencies of

the state and central governments in a convenient, efficient, reliable,

transparent and integrated manner. This is achieved on a sustained basis through

easy access to a chain of computerized integrated citizen service centers

(ICSCs).

The pilot ICSC of the TWINS

project has been operational at Banjara Hills since last year. The first fully

air conditioned ICSC has 12 counters, each of which offers 18 public-utility

services such as payment for electricity, water and sewage bills, property tax,

registration and issuing of birth and death certificates, caste certificate,

encumbrance certificate, permits or trade licenses–including building permits–and

reducing queuing with an electronic queuing system. A reception counter-cum-help

desk provides all the required forms, advice and assistance, while a digital

camera and digital pad are available for photographs and signatures.

The plan is to make these

services available through 17 more ICSCs in the twin cities of Hyderabad and

Secunderabad within the next six months. TWINS will eventually offer one-stop

services to the public through multiple delivery channels like ICSCs, electronic

kiosks and the internet.

Fully automated services of

transport

This

is another e-governance project that aims at providing services like issuance of

learner’s licenses, driving licenses and registration of vehicles through a

comprehensive, networked solution.

A pilot project is ready to be

launched in three cities in the state–Secunderabad, Vijayawada and Tirupati.

It is being implemented on a build-operate-and-own basis. Based on the success

of the pilot project, it will be implemented across the state.

Secretariat knowledge

information management system

This project is

designed to develop a generic product that efficiently manages the information

and knowledge of a large organization like the Secretariat. The Secretariat,

being the seat of the government, is a repository of information and knowledge.

Public interest lies in managing these valuable resources efficiently. The

government intends to implement SKIMS in a phased manner over 18 months to

achieve multiple goals.

The project aims to increase

employee productivity, create a knowledge bank, exploit the power of computer

networks, automate workflow in the Secretariat, prioritize areas of work and

provide effective tools for performance evaluation. A central information system

and departmental information system are being designed and developed within the

Secretariat to enable these processes.

Andhra pradesh development

monitoring system

This project has been

developed by the planning department and combines a sophisticated geographical

information system with data from remote sensing satellites. The system, which

was launched early this year, has created base maps of 1,122 ‘mandals’, the

constituent revenue villages and habitations together with a suite of thematic

data on road network, the community infrastructure, basic demographic data, soil

and geo-morphological data.