IIM-A to Evaluate Antyodaya Saral - the E-Governance Portal
A team of three members from IIM-A is assigned to evaluate the Antyodaya Saral, the e-governance platform. They will manage all the services managed by the state and central government.
IIM Ahmedabad has assigned a team of experts which will work on the comprehensive evaluation of the e-governance platform, Antyodaya Saral. The platform was introduced in 2017, providing easy access to 526 schemes and facilities under 38 departments.
The state government has asked Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad IIM-A to evaluate the portal through which people register for all the government services such as birth and death certificates, new electricity or LPG connections, birth and death certificates, education certificates and driving licences. They will also manage other services run by the state and central government.
They have already assigned a team of three members which will study the online platform at three levels including ground-level services, the functioning of the portal and citizens’ response. The project is due to end by December. The team will pick random districts based on their study, "said Rakesh Gupta, additional chief secretary of the chief minister, who led the flagship program of the state to provide all services under the single digital platform.
He also said that five years ago, the state was unable to provide easy access and paperless facilities. Through the Saral portal, they are trying to improve the efficiency of government machinery, curb corruption and ensure the smooth delivery of services.
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The portal has a status-and request-tracking system through which an applicant is allocated a unique service request number or order number, so he/ she can monitor his / her application status. According to the data shared by the state government, every month more than 15 lakh SMS are sent to people to remind them of their application status.
The data points out that departments such as sales, social justice, empowerment and food and supplies, receive maximum applications. In 2018, the state received as many as 7,25,421 applications. In 2019, it rose to 67.85.321. More than 6,73,864 applications were registered online by 2020, until February. More than 17 lakh applications have been filed in Gurugram alone, of which more than 16 lakhs have been completed. The district is currently ranked 14 across the state for its performance on the Saral portal.
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Gupta said there is room for advancement in services. The application is processed in an automated way, but must be simplified. Second, it is a vast system in which they get more than 90 lakh applications for various schemes and services from across the state, so all the system, as well as servers, need to be stabilised. Thirdly, more than 100-150 services offered by different departments need to be included to the portal.
On Sunday, Haryana was ranked third after Kerala and Goa for its Saral platform in a first-of-its-kind report ' National e-Governance Service Delivery Assessment,' released recently by the Central Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances Department (DAR & PG). The state was presented at the department's 23rd national awards ceremony.