Kerala makes strides in e-governance

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, INDIA: Kerala's e-governance initiatives has gained momentum with more stakeholders from participating organisations as well as the general public using it effectively.

Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM), the nodal agency for implementation of various IT initiatives of the government has ensured free flow of information and 24X7 access through internet.

"The state government is committed to ensure more efficiency in administration and better transparency in its procedures," said Minister for IT and Industries P.K. Kunhalikkutty.

Recent e-governance initiatives, that were popular among the masses include a direction to all procuring government departments/ PSUs/ boards under the state government to strictly follow the e-procurement for all purchases worth Rs.25 lakhs or above, with effect from March 31, 2013.

"This will replace the conventional methods of procurement. With this, tendering have been upgraded to e-tendering and e-procurement, yet another step towards e-governance," said the minister.

"The main purpose of e-governance is to make the governance structure more accountable, transparent and extra efficient."

KSITM is the implementing agency for e-procurement, with the National Informatics Center (NIC) as its service provider.

Another IT enabled programme that has been successfully implemented is the Information and Data Exchange Advanced System (IDEAS), a web based online file, petition and government order tracking system that facilitates monitoring of government documents for the general public.

KSITM has successfully implemented IDEAS offices of the ministers, all the departments in the Secretariat, forest headquarters and nine subordinate offices in districts.

IDEAS was developed by using open source technology. It helps citizens track their petitions/letters from anywhere in the world, using internet.

The facility has so far registered 75, 21,762 file movements, and some 10,88,148 petitions were filed to various government departments.

"This is a humble beginning towards a giant leap towards ensuring total e-governance in the state, in every possible segment," added Kunhalikutty.