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providing several related services has been replaced by a simple, transparent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