| After implementing some of most renowned e-governance projects in the state, the Karnataka government has once again reiterated its focus on e-governance. This time, the state is trying to partner with Andhra Pradesh which has also gained immense reputation for taking IT to the common man.
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| A group of ministers from the state would soon meet their counterparts from Andhra Pradesh to discuss the options for a shared platform for the reputed e-Seva project in Andhra Pradesh.
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| It may be noted that e-Seva is an e-governance project by the government of Andhra Pradesh, and provides a single window utilities payment service at several centres in the state capital. Since Andhra Pradesh has already pioneered the project and has even computerised the entire back-end operations, Karnataka is planning to utilise the benefits of this initiative on a shared platform.
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| According to K K Mishra, the additional chief secretary of Karnataka, “Andhra Pradesh has floated enquiries for utilisation of such a platform. Within the next one week, we will be meeting officials from AP to discuss the possibilities of sharing the e-Seva platform.”
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| He was speaking at the ‘e-Governance Summit’ which was organised as part of the Bangalore IT.Com 2003.
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| Stating that the government of Karnataka had always remained focussed on e-governance initiatives, Mishra said that simplification of rules and regulations was also part of the agenda.
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| Highlighting the e-governance initiatives in the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board, Mishra said that it had already procured over 100 new machines that would not only accept cheque and draft payment but also would collect cash on a 24-hours basis. Each machine comes at a cost of Rs 10 lakh and the government is keen to initiate the first phase of the project with 30 centres from the January 2004.
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| The long-term plan is to deploy these machines in about 100 centres in Bangalore.
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| Mishra said that the state was also keen to host the chief minister's redress to the petitions filed by the citizens, on the web. By using the File Monitoring Systems and the Letter Monitoring Systems, the status of the petition would be hosted on the web and could be accessed through the kiosks.
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| “Initially, we plan to put up some kiosks in the Vidhana Soudha, where any citizen can access the status of his/her petition. A LAN (local area network) would help in providing information on any of these kiosks. When this procedure is repeated in villages, they can all be connected through a WAN (wide area network). This will ensure tracking of information upto the taluka level after being networked,” Mishra explained.
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| It may be recalled that all these e-governance initiatives are clubbed under the ambitious Bangalore One programme, which was recently announced by the state in order to enable IT to reach the common man. |
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