After a delay of around one-and-a-half decades, the Kochi corporation authorities are planning to introduce at least a part of e-governance services within three to six months.
As part of the plan, the Information Kerala Mission (IKM) will start preparatory measures for online distribution of birth and death certificates soon. “We are planning to arrange facilities for issuance of certificates of birth and death which occur now online.
The IKM will start measures to issue the certificates online through its platform,” Mayor M Anil Kumar said. “It will take some more time for issuing online certificates pertaining to the deaths and births which occurred in the past. Data entry for the purpose is a time consuming exercise.
We are trying to get the support from TCS for the purpose,” Anil Kumar said. “Now, we are giving physical certificates on the very day of submitting the application,” he said. A meeting with TCS, which had been entrusted with the e-governance project earlier, will be convened soon. TCS, which had failed to complete the e-governance project even after nine years, had backed out from the project in 2020.
Now, the corporation requires data available with the TCS for providing online services which are based on the documents prior to 2021. The state government may intervene to get the data from TCS. The provisions for online payment of building tax will also be completed within a few months. “We are also planning to expedite the measures to facilitate online payment of building tax. Instructions have already been given to the officials for expediting the process,” the mayor said.
In the absence of online facilities for the payment of various taxes, the residents are facing hardships in clearing the dues. Given the Covid situation, most of the residents are not ready to turn up at the corporation office and pay the taxes physically. This has caused a dip in the tax revenue of the corporation which had been facing financial crunches for the past several years.
Collection of data is the major constraint before the corporation authorities and the IKM Non-cooperation of officials with the corporation had been cited as one of the reasons for delay in implementing the e-governance project. There are allegations that the employees did not cooperate with the efforts to provide e-governance services as they would lose the chance for getting bribes once the online services are in place.
Another hurdle in is the huge investment required for it. Now, the local body will have to find fresh funds for the projects. The hardware bought for the facility more than a decade ago has become either outdated or defunct.
