VIJAYAWADA: Minister for HRD, IT, Electronics and RTGS, Nara Lokesh, has directed officials to intensify public awareness on the Mana Mitra WhatsApp Governance platform and simplify key citizen services, including the issuance of caste and income certificates and ration card modifications.
Chairing a review meeting at the RTGS Command and Control Centre in the Secretariat on Friday, Lokesh assessed the progress of the Real-Time Governance Society (RTGS) and its ongoing digital governance initiatives.
RTGS Secretary Katamaneni Bhaskar made a PowerPoint presentation outlining the department’s objectives and the status of various projects.
The Minister instructed officials to complete all Data Lake integration works by July to ensure seamless sharing of information among government departments. He said hurdles in issuing caste and income certificates should be removed immediately, while the process of ration card bifurcation and the addition or deletion of family members should be made more citizen-friendly.
Emphasising the need to increase public outreach, the Minister instructed officials to conduct a month-long awareness campaign on the Mana Mitra WhatsApp Governance platform. The campaign should educate citizens on the services available through the platform and the ease of accessing government services digitally.
To improve transparency in recruitment and admissions, Lokesh called for Aadhaar-based verification of educational and sports certificates through the DG Verify platform. He said entering an applicant’s Aadhaar number should enable authorities to instantly verify certificates, including details of the issuing institution, date of issue and issuing authority. He felt that the system would significantly reduce verification time and benefit recruitment processes involving lakhs of applicants in the future.
The Minister also reviewed the State’s preparedness for the possible impact of El Nino and directed the Water Resources, Agriculture and other departments to work in close coordination to effectively tackle drought conditions.
Lokesh instructed officials to take proactive measures to prevent water scarcity in Rayalaseema and also reviewed the availability of urea across the state.
He directed electricity power officials to prepare contingency plans to meet rising electricity demand in view of the expected decline in hydel power generation. He asked the AWARE platform to continuously analyse reservoir levels.
