THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The COVID-19 pandemic and rainy weather have resulted in a rise in people accessing online services offered by government departments in the state. The demand was so much that the e-district project which provides around 50 services through a web portal under Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) was affected for three days in the first week of August.
"We are getting around 2 crore daily hits on the portal these days. It is the biggest surge in the history of the project," said Chithra S, director of the Kerala State IT Mission.
As the surge in demand created a delay in issuing certificates, KSITM resolved the issue by adding three more web servers with the help of the National Informatics Centre and State Data Centre. After the issue was resolved, village officers issued 1.5 lakh certificates from around 2.5 lakh applications received in three days. The portal used to get 20,000 to 40,000 requests per day before the pandemic. The web portal will also offer online application under the Right to Information.
Apart from various certificates issued by the revenue and forest departments, the portal offers utility bill payment, district collector's online grievance redressal, payment for various welfare
boards etc. The applications are submitted directly or through Akshaya or other utility service centres.
According to an officer, the demand has increased after KSITM started a regular publicity campaign of its services through social media. "The campaign was done in simple language to help people understand," he said.
According to him, there was more demand for people looking for certificates for applying for the Life Mission (a housing scheme started by the government for the homeless) and for school and college admissions. The e-district project started in 2013 has issued around six crore certificates so far.