STATE TO START ONLINE PAYMENT FOR ELECTRICITY BILLS
Kolkata/Bhubaneswar
Business Standard
The Orissa government will introduce online payment system for the payment of electricity bills in the state from 1 January 2010. It will be the first state in the country to introduce such a system across the state, sources said.
Though states like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have introduced such a system for electricity consumers in the urban areas, the neighbouring
The power distribution companies in Orissa namely Wesco, Nesco, Southco and CESU are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Orissa Computer Application Centre (OCAC) in this regard soon.
Sources said, the citizen centric gateway ‘Orissa online’ developed by OCAC would be utilised for rendering this service. It would act as the technical platform for online payment of electricity bills.
Under the plan, both the power distribution companies and the Common Service Centres (CSCs) will be connected with ‘OCAC’ gateway after signing of the MoU.
It will be launched in more than 4000 Common Service Centres (CSCs) which have been made operational in various locations of the state.
While the power distribution companies were not able to collect electricity bills from every nook and corner of the state earlier, the proposed system will facilitate payment of electricity bills at the nearest CSCs. “Though the system will facilitate online payment of electricity bills, this will have far reaching impact on the total energy management”, an official associated with the process said.
CENTRE USHERS IN NEW ELECTRONIC SERVICE DELIVERY
Subrahmanyan Viswanath,
Taking a further step towards e-governance and a paperless mode of service delivery, the Centre, has called upon states to usher in Electronics Service Delivery (ESD) system in the country and set in motion the process through necessary gazette notification.
Official sources said that the Centre has issued necessary guidelines for ESD regime after amending the Information Technology Act 2008, under Section 6A of the said IT Act. The draft rules called Information Technology (Electronic Service Delivery) Rules 2009, the Centre, notes shall extend to the entire country and State governments adopt them or notify the same immediately in their Official Gazette.
The ESD will cover delivery of public services of receipt of forms and applications, issue or grant of any license, permit, certificate, sanction or approval. It also entails receipt or payment of money by electronics means or any such public service. The states can appoint an authorised agent or service provider with an electronically enabled kiosk or front office, to deliver public services to the users. They can use cell phone, personal digital assistant or a combination of both to communicate, send or transmit text, video, audio or image and authenticated through electronic signature/electronic signature certificate.
The state governments, says the Centre, may prescribe the form and the manner in which license, permit, certificate, approval or receipt of payment or any other such public service can be delivered under the ESD system. The license, permit, certificate, sanction, payment receipt or approval, will have a unique identification number given by the appropriate authority which can be used to verify its authenticity and content. These will also have a bar code for the same purpose, sources said.
APPLICATIONS SOUGHT FOR KERALA E-GOVERNANCE AWARDS
Thiruvananthapuram
The Hindu Business Line
The Kerala Government has invited applications for the second batch of e-Governance Awards 2009, after honouring the previous year's winners at a function held here recently.
Nominations have been invited for two sections: e-governance models in departments/government organisations and e-governance leaders.
Various sub-categories under best models in departments/government are best Web site; maximum utilisation of Akshaya e-centres; m-governance; best Web-enabled payment service; best citizen's services; and e-learning and local lingual content development.
The jury for 2009 nominations comprises V. Ramachandran, Member, Second Administrative Reform Commission and former vice-chairman, State Planning Board; Anand Parthasarathy, IT Consultant and Managing Director, Online India Tech; Dr Debashis Chatterjee, Director, IIM-Kozhikode; T. P. Srinivasan, former diplomat and Director-General, Kerala International Centre, Thiruvananthapuram; and Dr Ajay Kumar, Principal Secretary (IT), Kerala, and Director, Institute of Management in Governent .
NILEKANI, BANKERS MEET TO DISCUSS FINANCIAL INCLUSION
Mumbai
The Financial Express
Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) has organised a meeting between banks and telecom companies to discuss issues to leverage the unique identity (UID) project for the banks’ financial inclusion programme. Nandan Nilekani, chairman, Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI), would also participate in the meeting.
In a bid to expedite the financial inclusion programme in the country, banks are relying on business correspondent (BC) model. First, they want to arrive at broad standards for micro ATM enabled BC model network and achieve the standardisation of the ATM specification. Banks want to leverage the mobile phone technology to fit into the BC model as mobile phones are fast becoming the ubiquitous phenomenon in the country.
The government has already formed an empowered group of ministers, headed by Prime Minister to move the project on a fast track. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the IBA are closely involved in achieving financial inclusion through UIDAI. Towards this IBA is working on combining the UID project with that of the financial inclusion project of the banks and through this process, both banks and UID will be mutually benefited.
For the UID project, the unique identification numbers can be allotted to the individuals with the help of the banks and in the process banks can open as many accounts as possible for the persons allotted the number. This process will eventually help banks achieve financial inclusion.
E-GOVERNANCE TO MERGE RTO, TRAFFIC
The Times of
Technology has solutions for everything. As a testimony to this, the
Making a presentation on the e-governance project on Tuesday, M N Vidyashankar IAS, principal secretary, department of e-governance, brought to light a number of effective technical steps that can be employed for the betterment of the existing system.
About the introduction of BlackBerries into traffic policing and its advantages, Vidyashankar said: “The revenue generation has gone up to Rs 30 crore, all thanks to technology. Efforts are being made to integrate the databases of RTO and traffic police for better and convenient access.” He said the project will be completed in the next 8-10 months.
Counting on the effective work being done in the state towards technical advancements, Vidyashankar cited the example of over 5.8 lakh employees of the state government who are using the system currently. He also elaborated on other projects like UID, rural BPOs, e-services on wheels as well as BPOs for physically challenged and widows.
RAIL E-TICKET FOR ARMED FORCES
The Hindu
Armed forces personnel in the country will now have the convenience of booking and printing e-tickets through the IRCTC website, with the launch of a pilot project at 20 unit locations across the country.
Vice-Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. P.C. Bhardwaj launched the pilot project. Being implemented by the Controller General of Defence Accounts (CGDA), the project will enable automatic generation of all accounting, payment and financial reports.
General Bhardwaj said that the new system would cut tedious paperwork and introduce seamless processing in one stroke. He hoped that the ‘PCDA [Principal Controller of Defence Accounts] Travel System’ will slowly make the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) irrelevant and become a precursor to automation and better management.
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