Chief Minister to Make ‘Total e-Governance Kerala’ Declaration

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will make the ‘Total e-Governance Kerala’ declaration here on May 25, as God’s Own Country becomes India’s total e-governed state, marking a major stride in its journey towards a knowledge based society and economy besides achieving cent per cent digital literacy.

The Chief Minister will make the historic declaration at a function at Nishagandhi Auditorium in the state capital at 4.30 in the afternoon on Thursday.Minister for Transport Antony Raju will preside over the function, which will be attended by Chief Secretary V P Joy and Secretary Electronics and Information Technology, Dr Rathan U Kelkar, among others.This unique achievement, which comes decades after Kerala became the first fully literate Indian state and began its quest to become a fully e-literate society, has been realised through a set of visionary policy initiatives of the Government seeking to transform the state into a digitally empowered society.

Besides digitising the delivery of government services to the people by making them transparent and inclusive, total e-governance will also ensure inclusion of all sections of the society, including the less privileged and marginalised.

The achievement enables online delivery of the whole range of government services by leveraging state-of-the-art technology and platforms. The Government has built a single window service delivery mechanism called e-Sevanam which integrates more than 800 plus government services online. Keeping in tune with the vision of the Chief Minister for transparent and speedy delivery of services to all, the state IT Mission has also created a set of digitised platforms and applications including e-Office File Flow, taking it down to the village office level.

The delivery of all vital services has already been digitised, covering all key domains including health, education, land revenue, documentation of properties, public distribution system and social security payouts.Over the period, the state has also successfully carried out a clutch of major projects like eDistrict, K-Swift, EHealth, ePDS, eCourt management, ERSS, Pol App, Cyber DOM, KITE, HSCAP and Digital Survey Mission.Kerala IT Mission, the nodal agency for implementation of digitisation initiative, has made all services easily accessible for people of all strata of society.

The total e-governance will also help bridging the digital divide by making digital infrastructure to all at affordable cost, which is critical in transforming Kerala into a digital society to achieve sustainable economic growth.In its policy initiatives, the state government has, over the last few years, emphasised on the importance of Information Technology as the key instrument of the social development and economic growth.The roll-out of KFON (Kerala Fibre Optic Network) will be a decisive step forward in this direction.

Kerala stands out as the first Indian state to declare access to Internet as a citizen’s right.Making fast-paced progress, the state also emerged top in the National e-Service Delivery Assessment conducted by Government of India.