Digital Telangana Programme in Bangaru Telangana

​Digital Telangana Program:

Digital Telangana program was launched on 1st July 2015 during Digital India week. The Programme has supply and demand side targets:

(i) on the supply side, the main aim is to ensure that digital facilities become available to each and every person in the State, and

(ii) demand side objective is the digital empowerment of every individual so that they can use digital facilities created.

Availability of digital facilities is made possible through:

(i) laying optical fiber cable (OFC) to each household using the water grid trenches,

(ii) providing 4G services in entire State,

(iii) providing Wi-Fi in major cities and towns,

(iv) The e-panchayat scheme under which a One Stop Shop kiosk is made available in each Panchayat.

Digital empowerment of all citizens is targeted to be achieved through: (i) digital literacy program under which one member of each household will be taught to become digitally literate, (ii) teaching every child from Class 6 onwards the basics of computers, (iii) expansion of Mee-Seva services, (iv) converting as many Mee-Seva services as possible on mobile platform thus making mobile governance a reality in Digital Telangana, and (v) identifying technology solutions for all Government agencies to provide better services to the citizens.

Government of Telangana in the last 6 months has been working on making the vision of Digital Telangana a reality by providing 4G services in Hyderabad and Warangal; enabling Wi-Fi facilities at Tank Bund, Necklace Road, Charminar, Public Gardens, Railway Stations, and similar 17 locations, expanding Mee-Seva services and working towards the goal of One- Stop-Shop (OSS) kiosks at each Gram Panchayat.

Palle Samagra Seva Kendram or Digital Telangana Centres:

Palle Samagra Seva Kendram or Digital Telangana Centres launched on the Gandhi Jayanthi day, 2nd October 2015, is a first of its kind program in the country. The Programme aims to provide a bouquet of services at village level like citizen services, pension payment services, MNREGA payments, banking services, white labeled ATMs, e-Mart, B2C services, insurance services etc., through a village level entrepreneur (a woman from SHG group) in villages through a single Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) platform separately built without middlemen and direct pre-paid wallet by ESD. The scheme was launched in 100 villages with the objective to cover all the Gram Panchayats (about 8695) in next three years.

E-Governance Initiatives of Telangana Government

Apart from leading in software exports, Telangana is also one of the states using the ITC to strengthen its governance for the benefit of its people. Electronic-Governance (e-Governance) implies carrying out the functions and achieving the results of governance through the utilization of ICT.E-Governance is recognized as a tool for making the life of common man more easy, convenient and hassle free and more effective and efficient than the manual systems. E-Governance increases transparency and accountability, minimizes communication gap through instantaneous transmission of information, speeding up of government processes allowing faster decision making in government bureaucracy. It also creates equal opportunity to every citizen by operationalising the rules and process of the Government System. At present various e-Governance projects are being implemented by the State government, such as Mee-seva, Simple File tracking System, SRDH, Mobile based Monitoring System, Online GO, Websites www.telangana.gov.in are used for enabling the citizen services. Telangana SRDH: Telangana State Resident Data Hub (TG-SRDH) is an integrated framework which provides unique centralized citizen database. It acts as a single source of truth for resident’s information. TG-SRDH integrates all the departmental databases and links them with AADHAAR Number. Telangana Portal: Telangana State Portal, www.telangana.gov.in, is a one-stop destination for comprehensive, accurate and current information related to Telangana Government and its offices. With proper landing pages, it also displays various services being provided by the Telangana Government for citizens and other stakeholders. The State Portal contains links to State and Central Government Departmental websites/ portals. Society for Telangana State Network (SOFTNET): The Society for AP Network (SAPNET) has been renamed as Society for Telangana Network (SOFTNET). The Society caters to the needs of various Departments through a satellite based communication network, with the help of ISRO and Government of India. SOFTNET was established and utilized in the areas of Distance Education, Agriculture Extension, e-Governance, and Human Resource Development. It is an ongoing scheme to provide tele-education for schools in remote areas and thereby deliver benefits to disadvantaged sections/groups across the State.

G.Rajendera Kumar