Andhra Pradesh Giving Renewed Thrust on Technology

Andhra Pradesh is the 5th most populous state in the country, with a population of 8.46 crore (Census 2011), accounting for 7 per cent of India’s population. It consists of 13 districts–the four districts of Rayalaseema and nine of coastal Andhra. The state received six Skoch Order-of-Merit, three in e-Governance and one each in Municipality, Education and Health. The state received its only Award in the Education category.

Key Achievements

The southern state of Andhra Pradesh has bagged the maximum number of Order-of-Merit in the e-Governance segment. These citations have been received by the District Administration, Krishna, for Aadhaar-enabled Public Distribution System (AePDS); the Information Technology, Electronics & Communications Department, for MeeSeva—A citizen-friendly G2C delivery system and National Informatics Centre; and, Andhra Pradesh State Centre for WaterSoft Integrated MIS project. The MeeSeva project was kick started in Chittoor district (November 2011) and had (and still has) the primary objective that citizens should be able to obtain a certificate (education, employment, caste, etc) within 15 minutes at a kiosk. Today, 342 MeeSeva services are operational, 4,574 kiosks are deployed in the state with the total number of transactions at 5.41 crore as of
August 2015.

Thrust on industries and infrastructure development to boost growth of Andhra Pradesh

In the Education category, the State received an Award for its ‘e-School Monitor’ project under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan & District Collector, Chitoor. The website for this is the www.eschoolmonitor.in and the project is enabled via a real-time geo-tagged application along with data collection fields with pictures, which works on all smart phones. It also features real time reports by a web-based tool for viewing instantly to create necessary decision and plans by the administration. Today, a total of 5,009 schools have been covered by this project, including 15,999 teachers and 3,87,509 students.

Coming to the Health category, National Informatics Centre, Andhra Pradesh State Centre was honoured with the Order-of-Merit for its Jeevandan project. This is a Web Portal to facilitate the management of Cadaver Organ Harvesting and Transplantation on an end-to-end basis and also to provide information and alerts to all the appropriate users on a real-time basis.

Greater thrust on promoting ICT, Electronics and Tourism sectors augurs well for enhancing prospects of Andhra Pradesh

In the Municipality segment, Kurnool Municipal Corporation got the Skoch Order-of-Merit for Centralised IP Based CCTV Surveillance using Wireless Radio Technology. A centralised IP based CCTV surveillance using wireless radio technology was initially installed at 30 important junctions comprising of 100 infrared cameras and 20 PTZ (Pan Tilt Zoom) cameras. All the 120 cameras can be wirelessly viewed from a central location.

[tie_index]Look Ahead[/tie_index]

Look Ahead

The state has a target to achieve 10 per cent growth in GSDP. For the 12th Plan Period, the State has identified textiles, drugs & pharmaceuticals, engineering goods, food processing, minerals & metals, chemicals & fertilisers, paper and biotechnology as the key drivers of growth. Thus, in order to exploit the full potential of the state, it is imperative to develop industrial infrastructure in an integrated manner across major locations.

The vision of the policy makers clearly seems to be to develop the new AP state as a knowledge society of global repute, with a focus on enhancing the quality of life of its citizens. This can be achieved through high-quality education and healthcare, increased productivity in agriculture and allied activities, creation of requisite employment potential by promoting electronics and IT industries and by providing good governance. Andhra Pradesh is regarded as one of the most progressive states of the country today. It has seen a great development on the industrial front, with the IT sector acting as a growth engine.