VIJAYAWADA: With ‘Invisible government, Visible governance’ as a motto, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday launched e-Pragati Core initiative, a one-stop access point to all 750 government services.
From offering document-less government services to making procurement of over 120 different licences easy by leveraging predictive analytics for better governance, the e-Pragati Core, which is said to be one of the State government’s ambitious projects, billed as world’s largest and most complex government digital transformation project.
Speaking after inaugurating the initiative at Public Grievances Cell at his residence, Naidu said, “Data is wealth. The objective is to use data to create solutions so that we can move towards data-driven policy formulation. Ultimately, people need not visit government offices as the e-Pragati platform integrates all the services and eliminates hierarchy.
Efficient governance will eventually result in public happiness.” As of now, the e-Pragati Core offers around 20 services and more will be added by the year-end. “Over 100 services will be added shortly. But, I asked the officials to offer over 300 services. You will see a complete transformation in the governance in the coming two years,” Naidu asserted.
The chief minister also observed that Aadhaar identification, on which the e-Pragati was heavily reliant, had been a boon to the country as it helped to gauge the socio-economic trends at a micro-level.
Explaining the benefits of the initiative, Naidu said, “Earlier, people used to feel harassed as they were asked for unnecessary certificates/documents for availing most of the government services. So, they used to run from pillar to post for three months. Now, the people don’t need to go anywhere, the government will go to them.”
“I want to go beyond the apps and use voice commands to do the business. I am certain that day is not far when we use voice to avail services,” he observed.
Earlier, IT minister Nara Lokesh and CEO of e-Pragati N Balasubramanyam gave a presentation on the five frameworks - a single portal for all citizen services, APP store which would have apps of all departments, certificate-less governance system, license management system and e-Highway - of the initiative.
“The certificate-less governance system will help the government in doing away with physical certificates and curbing fake certificates menace,” Lokesh said, terming the e-Pragati Core as “mother of all digital platforms”.
the occasion, IT Advisor to CM J Satyanarayana and Principal Secretary (IT) K Vijayanand explained how the project was conceived.
Youth dole from August
IT Minister Nara Lokesh said that the State government would launch the unemployment allowance scheme from August. “All that the eligible citizens have to do is to enrol themselves online with no touch point with the government,” he said, referring to the ease of availing government schemes due to technological interventions like e-Pragati Core.