Govt of Kerala : Akshaya e-pay

The website of Kerala's computerized bill payment facility (e-kendra.org) proudly displays the fact that the initiative has earned a total of Rs. 62 Crores, with an average of Rs. 3.1 Crore a month from 88,000 transactions.



In other words, citizens of Kerala have paid 88,000 bills at 'Akshaya Centers', one-stop bill payment shops spread across all the 14 districts of the state.

Aimed at giving citizens ? rural and urban, the option of making payments at their convenience, and not having to go individually to the offices of various civic services, and to bring the bill counters closer to the people, Akshaya e-pay, in each center is headed by an Akshaya entrepreneur and every month, a list of top transacting centers along with the name of the entrepreneur who heads it, is displayed on the website.

There are 801 Akshaya e-pay centres situated across Kerala. With the roll out of e-pay in Wayanad, Palakkad, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Idukki, Thiruvananthapuram in March 2009, the project has made its presence felt in all the districts of Kerala.

e-pay is an online system for collecting various utility bills from the citizens. This platform provides facility to remit electricity charges, BSNL telephone bills (landline & mobile), Kerala Water Authority bills and fees and charges of Calicut University through e-pay counters.

With an investment of Rs. 57.4 lakhs, which includes two IBM X Series servers, powered by Windows Server 2.3, Visual Studio .NET, and SQL Server, the project has been carried out by Center for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT), based in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

Currently, water charges, electricity bills, BSNL fixed line and mobile bills and University fees can be paid at Akshaya e-pay centers and in the weeks to come, RTO fees, Civil Supplies, and Revenue-based payments would be made available for payments by citizens.