The Kerala government is committed to improving the quality of service delivery to its people as well as facilitating resurgence in the economy through multiple measures, including digital governance and ease of doing business, Governor Arif Mohammed Khan said in his policy address at the fourth session of the 15th Kerala Legislative Assembly on Friday.
The COVID-19 restrictions have highlighted the relevance of digital technologies to ensure outreach and access. Efforts are under way to make Kerala an e-governed State in 2022. They include universalisation of the e-office digital platform in all departments and public institutions, providing over 500 services online and incorporating single sign on facility, including payment gateways, bringing about Aadhaar vaults and unified registry to dispense with the need for multiple certifications for multiple purposes, creating digi lockers for people to store important documents and records, setting up dashboards for tracking progress of applications and service delivery, and online personnel management systems. The digital services will extend to business applications as well.
Ease of business
To ensure ease of business, the government has streamlined application processes, allowing for self certification in the case of small businesses, centralised inspection systems to eliminate ad hocism, and simplified procedures and forms, he claimed.
The IT parks in the State (Technopark, lnfopark and Cyberpark) are generating over 1.1 lakh direct employment, through 950 plus companies. Additional space of 7.68 lakhs sq ft will be readied in the coming year. Predictive Governance in Kerala will be introduced, by creating a State family database and a block chain backbone, that will enable citizens to receive their statutory documents in their digital vault, without them having to apply for these documents or ever having to visit a government office, he said.
Aid for start-ups
Digital University of Kerala will host facilities for sensor manufacturing, intelligent sensor system hardware, artificial intelligence software development and comprehensive compliance testing to provide business and mentorship support to start-up companies.
A project to digitalise library resources and the development of Kerala Academic Library Network (KALNET) have been planned. Similarly, an Intelligent Building Plan Management Software has been implemented for (processing) building plan applications of low-risk buildings in all the urban local bodies. The Integrated Local Government Management System (ILGMS) will be scaled up to all grama panchayats this year, the Governor said.
