CHENNAI: e-Sevai, the e-Governance service of the State government, reported over 1.80 crore transactions in 2021, setting a record. Compared with pre-Covid years, more people are using e-Sevai, through both Common Service Centres (CSC) and on their own via the e-Sevai citizen portal, show data from the Information Technology (IT) department.
The data also showed that the number of those using the citizen portal rose significantly over the past four years. In 2018, only 1.8 lakh of the total 1.05 crore e-Sevai transactions were done on the citizen portal. In 2021, however, that number rose to 24.8 lakh.
The department attributed the rise in e-Sevai transactions to improved services, availability of more government schemes on e-Sevai, and a shift towards digitisation during the pandemic. Currently, 191 government schemes are available on e-Sevai and the department plans to add at least 100 more by next year.
"The pandemic bolstered digitisation efforts and, keeping pace with it, we are bringing more government schemes to e-Sevai. Recently, we also started a rating system to improve our performance. Each user gets a phone call from e-Sevai seeking a rating of their experience after they avail themselves of a service. We use the feedback to better the services," said IT secretary Neeraj Mittal.
He added that the e-Sevai citizen portal can be easily accessed on mobile phones and is available in Tamil. Moreover, e-Sevai 2.0, which will replace the old one, will be developed by incorporating the latest technologies.
Over 24 Lakh People Use Citizen Portal
According to the data, 1.07 crore e-Sevai transactions took place in 2019, of which 97,63,563 were done through Common Service Centre (CSC) and the remaining 9,49,460 were done on the citizen portal. In 2020, total transactions tanked to 89.86 lakh as 13,516 CSCs run by different agencies across the State were shut during the lockdown.
However, the number of transactions done on the citizen portal increased to 14 lakh that year. In 2021, 1.55 crore transactions were done through CSC, and 24.82 lakh on the citizen portal.