New Year gift: Citizen services come closer home
Rohith B R | Dec 24, 2014, 04.00AM IST
Bengaluru: Come 2015 and you don't have to travel a long distance to pay your bills or book tickets. Be it property tax payment or filing applications, you can do it all in your own neighbourhood.
The e-governance wing of the government is expanding its network of BangaloreOne centres (computerized integrated citizen service centers) to every ward. The number of B1 centres, offering more than 100 G2C (government to citizen), B2C (business to customer) and G2B (government to business) services, will be increased from 95 to 198 (same as the number of wards).
The move aims to tackle the rush at the existing B1 centres and citizens' demand for decentralized ones, said Krishna Bajpai, director, directorate of electronic delivery of citizen services, e-governance department. "We've tied up with the BBMP, who will provide us vacant sites/properties in different wards to establish the centres. In the first phase, 50 buildings will be allotted to us," he added.
A senior official of the department said the expansion process will begin from January.
"We'll do the interiors in keeping with BangaloreOne requirements; only then will the centres be operationalized. As the project is based on the Public-Private Partnership model, the private partner will take care of the hardware and connectivity required to run the centres," he added.
IN THE OFFING
A slew of other citizen-centric services, including collection of application for PAN card, issuing of copies of documents like registered properties, marriage certificates, will be added to the list. Even services under the Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation and the Muzrai department can be availed by citizens, said Shashidhar Sarangamath, consultant (project manager), e-governance department.
B1 Aadhaar
Many centres, both existing and upcoming, will double as Aadhaar enrolment centres. "Since Aadhaar enrolment is expected to gain pace in the coming months, we have held talks with Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to convert select B1 centres into permanent centres for enrolment soon," said an official.
ONE CENTRE, MANY SERVICES
- BangaloreOne started in 2005 with 13 centres, offering services linked to 10 govt departments.
- Currently, there are 95 centres where citizens can avail 103 services related to 43 govt departments and private companies. These include Bescom, BWSSB, BBMP, police, BMTC, KSRTC, education and revenue department, Airtel, Vodafone and M-Gaadi.
- A total of 10.12 crore transactions made till November 2014
- 60,000 transactions done daily; around 18 lakh in a month
- Rs 9,112-cr turnover achieved since inception till Nov 2014
- Payment of electricity, water and telephone bills; passport services and property tax are popular services