"I cannot go to the water supply office and go from table to table," he said. "Here I can come and pay my water bill along with the electricity and telephone bills."
BangaloreOne, a public-private initiative, is popularly described as a way of providing government-to-citizen (G2C) and business-to-consumer (B2C) services through technology.
Launched in 2005, it provides citizens an array of services including payment of bills, issuance of birth and death certificates, sale of passport applications and renewals, payments of taxes and fines, and travel bookings.
The majority of these services offered levy no extra charge except for the mandatory payments for departmental services such as the issuance of passports or revenue services.
"With the roll out of BangaloreOne service centres, citizens are enjoying the benefits of availing many G2C and B2C services under one roof on any-time basis," says M.N. Vidyashankar, principal secretary of Karnataka's e-governance department.
This e-governance service started with 14 centres across Bangalore; today there are 65 centres, with a total of 400 counters per shift, offering the services of 16 government departments and 12 private firms. As many as 30 million transactions have been registered till the end of March.
Designed to be user-friendly, BangaloreOne centres house TVs, drinking water and multiple service counters open around the clock,
CMS Computers Ltd handles BangaloreOne's operations, while RAM Informatics Ltd manages the software. Axis Bank Ltd is the initiative's main banking partner.
Perhaps like every government initiative, the initial step was the hardest, involving extensive coordination between different government agencies.
Currently in its fifth year, the project has now been able to successfully partner with many large private and public firms.
The government investment into each BangaloreOne centre is around '20 lakh.
Monthly transaction data reveals that utility payments to Bangalore Electricity Supply Co. Ltd, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board, and BSNL are the most-used services.
"We have been associated with the BangaloreOne project since the beginning," says B. Chandrasekhar, general manager of business development in BSNL's Karnataka circle.
"The partnership has improved the overall collection system."
Similar projects have been started in other cities in Karnataka, such as Hubli-Dharwad, Shimoga, Belgaum, Tumkur, Davanagere, Mysore, Mangalore, Gulbarga and Bellary, under the banner of KarnatakaOne.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Pooja Chaturvedi
Quelle/Source: istockAnalyst, 06.12.2010
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