Orissa launches e-seva service for twin city bodies

As part of the e-municipality project, the Orissa government today launched Urban Jana Seba Kendra (e-seva) in twin cities of Bhubaneswar and Cuttack.

The chief minister Naveen Patnaik launched the service at a function in the state secretariat. The citizens in these two cities can avail single window online services to make payments for multiple services like registration and issuance of birth and death certificate, make Kalyan Mandap reservation and cancellation and pay water tax and holding tax. However, the payment facility for electricity bills and telephone bills would be provided in the next phase. The services would be provided in public-private-partnership (PPP) mode.

Though the services are being rolled out in three centres each in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack, this is proposed to be expanded to other cities later on. While 38 urban local bodies (ULBs) are targeted to be covered under e-seva by April this year, all the 138 ULBs would be covered under it by June 2010.

A service delivery portal framework, ‘Orissaonline’ has been developed to facilitate the Urban Jana Seba Kendras for efficient delivery of services to the common citizens.

Besides the government-to-citizen services, the e-seva centres propose to provide business-citizen services such as mobile top up, booking and cancellation of train tickets, payment of LIC premium among others.

Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said, the government is committed to provide all citizen centric services to the people at their doorsteps. The new initiative would enhance transparency and reliability in service delivery process.

After successful implementation of e-procurement and e-registration, this governance initiative would benefit the citizens in a major way. This would also augment employment opportunities for young entrepreneurs, Patnaik added.

IT minister Ramesh Majhi, housing and urban development minister B N Patra, Development Commissioner S P Nanda were present on the occasion.