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Kerala: Are we aping the Andhra ish-tyle?

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DQI Bureau
New Update

As part of the e-governance initiatives, the industries department of Kerala

will provide online registration facility for new small-scale industrial units (SSIs)

in the state. The Government has identified the target beneficiaries of IT led

development as —individuals, industry, academic institutions, and different

bodies of government. There is the critical need to ensure that a minimum

grade/quality of service is available from the small-scale units, so that the

target beneficiaries can in turn plan software applications and hardware

deployment based on the availability and quality of these SSI.

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Kerala has the highest rural teledensity of 5.1%, and all of its 988 digital exchanges are connected to the national Net backbone

For the benefits of IT to be reached at a minimal cost, there is the need for

a communication infrastructure backbone that spreads across the state and

reaches out to all targeted beneficiaries. Industries will benefit from direct

optic fiber cable connectivity into the Kochi gateway from most towns within the

state, and that too at a significant cost advantage. This is expected to drive

IT enabled services that are bandwidth intensive and which require reliable,

failsafe operations, including Business Process Outsourcing operations,

Multimedia call centers, and Multimedia Content Development/Processing centres.

Schools and colleges within the State as well as the Panchayats can today look

forward to an era of seamless connectivity for communication within their

communities as well as the world at large. Most importantly, the SSIs would

enable the ushering in of a new era of transparent, efficient,

citizen-responsive governance from the Kerala government.

State industry minister P K Kunhalikutty said that the online system would

expedite the process of registration of small-scale units in the state. The

government’s objective is to promote more SSI’s which have the potential for

growth in Kerala. Meanwhile, Kerala Bureau of Industrial Promotion (K-BIP) has

brought out a CD-ROM with a compilation of over 525 government orders pertaining

to industry, issued over the past 25 years. The content has been arranged under

various titles such as SSI registration, industrial policy clearances, prime

minister’s Rozgar Yojana, Control Orders, Power Incentives, Rural Artisan’s

Program, Store Purchase Orders, Margin Money Loan, State Investment Subsidy,

Sales Tax Exemption, Women’s industries programs, harijan development scheme,

infrastructure, handicrafts and co-operation, sick unit revival program,

delegation of powers, information technology and miscellaneous items. The CD has

the entire text and documents related to the recently announced labor, industry

and IT policies of the state government.

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The CD will prove beneficial for investors, entrepreneurs, chartered

accountants, industrial and management consultants. Even government officials

will benefit from this compilation. "Compiling the government orders

released over quarter of a century was a tedious process", a K-BIP official

said. The CD will be available for sale soon, however, the price is yet to be

fixed, he added. Public sector company Keltron, and leading multimedia company

Invis Multimedia were also involved in the compilation, which is the first of

its kind in the state.

K-BIP , an autonomous wing under the industries department is also

responsible for maintaining the industry website, Keralaindustry.org that is

updated weekly. It has a ‘queries’ section for answering questions raised by

investors and public. "On a weekly basis, we receive about 30 to 40 queries

on the site," officials said. K-BIP is promoting food processing, bamboo

and biotechnology industry in the state.

Electronic Kerala



State public sector Keltron, has also developed a prototype Community

Information Kiosk ‘e-sringhala’, for taking various services of the

government to the masses. "The ‘e-sringhala’ will provide a single

window for different services and enable common people to interact with the

government without actually having to go to the offices", says Ajay Kumar,

managing director of Keltron. The kiosks have been developed in the model of

eSeva in Andhra Pradesh and Gyandoot in Madhya Pradesh, he added.

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The kiosks are designed to provide services like information regarding the

schemes of various departments, down loading of applications for government

support, incentives, subsidies, on-line submission of application forms, schemes

for which separate notification is necessary, and government redressal modules

for specific senior government functionaries. The kiosks will have special

module for counseling farmers on latest agricultural practices. It also provides

latest information on the census and electoral data. Schemes and application

forms of the Industries, Civil Supplies, Motor Vehicles and Drugs Controller

have been incorporated. On-line applications can be submitted for registration

of SSI Units, besides sending representations and grievances to the chief

minister and other ministers, chief secretary and district collectors. The

Kiosks also provide discussion forums for the various interest groups.

Kumar claims that initially Keltron would set up the ‘e-sringhala’ Kiosks

along with the participation of the Panchayats and other local bodies. In the

second phase, private participation is also envisaged. Many panchayats in

various parts of the state have evinced interest in the project. Installation

work in Thoroorangadi in North Kerala is already in the final stage. The ‘e-sringhala’

has been soft launched in the Keltron kiosks set up at Thiruvananthapuram. The

service can be availed free of cost during the initial two months. But once all

the kiosks become fully functional, a nominal fee will be levied. Realizing the

need of IT to provide better services, the Kerala government is going the Andhra

ishtyle to make the best of information technology for electronic governance.

Suresh N/DQWEEK in Thiruvanthapuram

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