IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

When the ambitious project was launched, private firms bid so aggressively that there was negative viability gap funding. Bidders offered revenue support for a four-year period that would set-off against revenue generation through e-governance services. However, that has not happened, as Meena Chaturvedi, CEO of Srei Sahaj e-Village explains: “There is an inherent resistance within the government to give government-to-customer (G2C) services as it will bring transparency into the system. The problem is that services are not coming, besides electricity and connectivity issues. In fact, companies did not understand the rural market at all before getting into the scheme.”

Around 13 states has set up 100 percent CSCs in thirteen states as on November 30, 2011, said the ministry of communications in its year end report. The ministry also said that the government has a proposal to set up additional 1.5 lakh Bharat Nirman Common Service Centres i.e. to have one CSC in each panchayat in whole of rural India.

Envisaged as a Government to Citizen (G2C) interface, the Call Centre enables quick delivery of critical information, which is otherwise either inaccessible or difficult for the citizens to trace. The relevance of a Government / Public Call Centre is more important in the context of increased focus on e-Governance and with the implementation of the Right to Information Act 2005 for providing information to the citizens in a user-friendly manner. This Integrated CCC that was made operational in May 2005 works on all calendar days including holidays, on 24x7 basis.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Monday said that e-governance would boost up the Government’s efforts of bringing common masses closer to the administration and giving power to their voices.

Laying foundation of Jammu and Kashmir State Data Centre (JKSDC) in Civil Secretariat premises here, the CM said that the State Government has initiated a programme of establishing Data Centres to provide core infrastructure for supporting e-governance making service delivery to people fast and to the point.

After a one-and-a-half-year delay, the transport department is finally getting ready to bring an in-bound call centre. The last date to call for bids is August 13. A meeting was held on Tuesday with a few bidders and a five-member committee was formed to select from them.

The call centre consists of an inbound call centre support, a project manager, infrastructure charges and centralised voice recording. The overall costs is estimated to be Rs 4,20,000. The centre will work from 9 am to 6pm from Monday to Saturday. It will also handle complaints received from various social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp.

The calls to the unique number dedicated to provide government services to citizens will be attended by trained professionals proficient in three languages. The initiative is in conformity with the Karnataka Guarantee of Services to Citizens Act (KGSCA), 2011 and the call centre will provide details pertaining to 11 departments and 151 services that fall under the Act. The centre will operate out of Bangalore, but will cater to callers across the State.

Bhopal Mayor Malti Rai, while reviewing the complaints received on the mayor helpline and their redressal weekly, discussed the pending complaints with the officials of the corporation on the phone and directed that the mayor should resolve the pending complaints of the helpline immediately and this arrangement should also be ensured.

The complaints received daily through the mayor helpline should be resolved within 24 hours. During the review, Mayor Rai took feedback from many complainants on the telephone regarding complaints and their redressal.

These centres will be set up under Private-Public Participation (PPP) mode. Applications for delivery of Government services will be accepted at these centres with fees. The receipts of applications issues by these centres would be deemed to be issued by the designated officer. Selection of private participant for PPP mode, place etc. for running the centre will be made by the District e-governance Society. The software for proper running of these centres is being developed by NIC.

Aligned with the objectives of ‘Mo Sarkar’ and 5Ts, the call centre is envisaged to act as a Government to Citizen interface and directly connect beneficiaries of different programmes.

In a bid to strengthen e-governance and bridge communication gap for effective and seamless implementation of Government schemes and delivery of services, the district administration launched a call centre on the collectorate premises at Sundargarh town on Thursday evening. Aligned with the objectives of ‘Mo Sarkar’ and 5Ts, the call centre is envisaged to act as a Government to Citizen interface and directly connect beneficiaries of different programmes.

Doctors deputed at 1929 Call Centre of Bhubaneswar Operations Centre have started helping people fighting COVID-19 in a better way.

While counselling by doctors has always got a distinct touch of confidence-building measure, patients panicking to join a COVID hospital are now getting ample confidence to stay under Home Isolation, if they are either asymptomatic or mild symptomatic.

COVID-19 observer and Principal Secretary Women and Child Development Department Anu Garg today visited the 1929 Call Centre inside Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL) office premises on this afternoon. Labour Commissioner N Thirumala Nayak also accompanied her during the visit.

The COVID-19 observer and her team interacted with senior BSCL officials on the occasion and interacted with the executives in-charge of the shift at the 1929 Call Centre. She also asked them what types of calls are coming and how the executives are helping the people, who are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Citizen services to be made online through sewa kendras

The state is all set to have a unified statewide single number call centre to address all citizen-centric grievances by the end of the month.

Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Tuesday directed that the process to standardise the redress mechanism be expedited, with instructions for bringing all 500 citizen services in the state online through the sewa kendras this year. He approved the recruitment of 503 personnel at various levels to give the necessary push for the process.

The project which is likely to be at a cost of Rs 6 crore, will extend services like grievance redressal, clarifications on government schemes, contact details of government offices and status of applications or petitions seeking services.

The project, initiated by the ministry of communication and information technology, will be implemented on a pilot basis in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir. The Rs 6 crore project will extend services like grievance reddressal, clarifications on government schemes, contact details of government offices and status of applications or petitions seeking services.

"The ePCOs will have a full-fledged information system with a PC, a webcam, a broadband link and a printer to provide a host of online services in English and Indian languages," BSNL Karnataka circle chief general manager T.S. Kuppuswamy told reporters at the e-initiative launch by state IT minister Katta Subarmanya Naidu here Monday.

This centre, which had been recently sanctioned by the state government with an allocation of Rs 58 lakh, will be established in the Hamirpur DC office and more than 50 services will be provided under one roof.

A CSC essentially is a kiosk in a rural district, which allows online bill payments, booking tickets, applying for jobs, searching for market information and selling of local produce. CSCs are going to be managed by a Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE), which serves as the nodal point for services and government schemes. The CSC rollout is a part of the National E-Governance Plan (NeGP).

"Under the 'On-line Governance' 9,232 common service centres will be established in five to six villages. A state-level call centre will be set up by August 15," an official release here said.

If you are in Bihar, you can get electronic goods repaired, phone numbers, buy things through call centres — and also file an RTI application. Zafar Hassan has filed two applications in the past two years through call centres, without having to do the rounds of Public Information Offices (PIO).

A novel idea introduced by the state government in 2007, Jankari is a call centre in Bihar where RTI applications can be filed over the phone. The call centre’s team leader, Pramod Kumar, informs that since its inception, 16,500 applications have been filed through this call centre, and every year the number keeps increasing. Applications have increased from 500 to 1,000 per month on an average.