In an exclusive interview with TNIE, Santhosh Babu, the MD of Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure (KSITI) and the chief mission director of Information Kerala Mission (IKM), shares his views on K-SMART and how it will transform the way people access government services.
How is K-SMART going to improve the service delivery system and citizens’ convenience?
From what I have understood, India has a file-centric governing system. Kerala is one of the states that successfully implemented e-governance. But the problem is for every service, we have different websites and applications. This is creating a lot of issues for employees and citizens.
Technology has advanced so much, and now it’s easier to develop and integrate applications. It is high time we went from file-centric governance to human-centric governance and an individual needs only a single dashboard. Multiple files are now being generated because of a lack of integration and this should change. We can fix 99.9% of the existing issues with technology.
How helpful will K-SMART be to combat corruption in local bodies?
Government offices should operate as back offices and our motto is ‘joyful citizens, joyful employees’. Why waste so much energy, time, and money to avail of various services when it can be done using a phone? I believe time is the most precious thing, and the government should be giving citizens free time. Employees too are struggling with workload. Once K-SMART is implemented, both parties will have more free time. To receive services is citizens’ right and they don’t have to go and beg in front of employees. There will be no scope for corruption. K-SMART will be able to give building permits in 30 seconds.
What strategies are being streamlined to build awareness among citizens to make K-SMART more accessible?
We have made videos for social media platforms and theatre screenings. There is a large section of people who cannot perform digital transactions and access websites. For them, we will set up IKM Facilitation Centres at local bodies with five employees each. Also, there will be errors during the initial phase and these employees will be reporting the issues real-time so we can fix them immediately and finetune the system.