Over 32 lakh opting for online services

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 16

The state government’s plan of “Digital Haryana” now appears to be on track despite teething troubles and opposition from middlemen. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s dream project, Antyodaya Saral (simple, all-inclusive, realtime, action-oriented, long-lasting) portal, a unified platform to deliver and track government-to-citizen services/schemes has over 32 lakh residents registering for nearly 491 services in 37 departments of the state government.

The Revenue and Disaster Management Department tops the list with about 17.79 lakh registrations followed by the Food and Supplies Department with 8.66 lakh registrations. While the Social Justice and Empowerment Department came third with 1.35 lakh registrations, the Health Department was next with 1.24 lakh registrations.

Initiated in December 2017, the Antyodaya Saral was primarily aligned with digital India’s vision of faceless, paperless and cashless service/scheme delivery model. Besides it aimed at transforming citizen service delivery in Haryana through complete digitisation of essential services with a view to checking middlemen and resultant corruption.

The project faced initial teething troubles especially from vested interests in the lower bureaucracy and middlemen. The complaints about the “ineffective working” of the portal still continue to pour in the Chief Minister’s Office. Even today despite a spike in the registrations, a substantial population is yet to opt for online services despite the state government spending crores of rupees on its promotion.

Data showed that online registrations were catching up in the state with nearly 47% recorded in January-May 2019 followed by 32% through the common service centres (CSCs) and 21% through the Saral centres.

‘Will check corruption’

"The state government has prepared a roadmap for digital tracking and delivery of various government schemes and services as part of its good governance initiatives. It has gone a long way to increase efficiency of government departments, checking wastage of time and money with the ultimate of aim of eradicating corruption." ——Manohar Lal Khattar, CM