Kerala makes history, becomes India's first fully e-governed state

Kerala made history after the Pinarayi Vijayan government on Thursday declared it as India’s first ‘total e-governed state’, where the delivery of government services would be digitised, transparent, and fast.

The achievement comes decades after Kerala became the first fully-literate state and began its quest to become a fully e-literate society.

The declaration would be a major step in the southern state’s journey towards a knowledge-based society and economy, besides achieving cent per cent digital literacy.

Making a ‘Total eGovernance Kerala’ declaration at a function in Thiruvananthapuram, Chief Minister (CM) Vijayan said ushering in complete eGovernance does not merely mean creating a network of government offices and citizens but leveraging technology for the state’s development and empowering people by bridging the digital divide.

“By the term ‘governance’, what the present government means is a total commitment to fulfil the promises it made to the people. The government and governance are reaching out to the people more and more. Service delivery has been made people-oriented and corruption-free, and public utilities have become people-friendly. These transformative changes have been felt by people in seven years,” he said.

“The government does not stop at what it has already achieved. Services should reach people instead of people going in and out of government offices to obtain them. This can be ensured by leveraging new technology, and that is exactly what the government is focusing on,” he added.

The state will also roll out the Kerala Fibre Optic Network shortly, which will make access to the internet affordable/free.

Listing out a number of pioneering initiatives made by the government to usher in eGovernance, the CM said a single-window portal called eSevanam has been created to deliver as many as 900 services.

The e-office system has already been implemented in the government secretariat, district collectorates, commissionerates, and directorates. The e-district project is another pro-people initiative. This will soon be extended to taluk-level offices. In panchayats, delivery of as many as 250 services has been made online.

Kerala also took a bold step by setting up the country’s first digital university, and India’s first digital science park is getting ready at an estimated cost of Rs 1,500 crore. Local-level interventions to promote digital literacy are also underway. All these measures are aimed at taking eGovernance to its totality, observed Vijayan.