Kerala is increasing its focus on e-Governance to make public service delivery more efficient and transparent. The focus has been on the services like supply of water and promotion of cashew and other agriculture-related industries. Kerala is a PERFORMER state with seven SKOCH Orders-of-Merit and one award. The state won one award in Platinum category.

Key Achievements

Most innovative projects from Kerala were in e-Governance category. The state bagged five SKOCH Orders-of-Merit in e-Governance category. Kerala also won one Order-of-Merit and one award in Platinum category in Governance & Development category.

To ensure better returns for cashew grower and traders, Kerala government organised International Diplomatic Conclave on Cashew Industry. This G2G Governance initiative saw participation from 15 leading cashew producing African nations. An agreement has been reached for direct procurement of Raw Cashew Nut from African nations. This would greatly benefit cashew industry in Kerala and ensure at least 300 days continuous employment per year in Kerala cashew industry.

With a view to enhance safety and make functioning of factories and boilers in the state more transparent, the government has introduced Factories and Boilers Online System. Under this initiative, the Directorate of Factories and Boilers has computerised most of its functional areas. The major services that have been automated are Permit Generation, Permit Revision, License Generation, License Renewal, License Amendment, License Transfer, License Suspension and Removal of Factories. The solution is now fully operational at all offices up to the divisional level across the state.

Kerala State Excise is pushing for the use of information and communication technologies with the aim of improving information and service delivery, encouraging citizen participation in the decision-making process and making government more accountable, transparent and effective. Under Kerala Excise e-Service Delivery system, the citizen can apply for a service offered by the department by sitting at his office or home and the payment can be made online. This e-Governance application has been implemented in the department’s daily activities. Out of 26 services as per the Right to Service Act, 22 services were identified for electronic delivery by customising the “Service Plus” software of NIC.

Kerala Water Authority has implemented a customer service and complaint redressal system named ‘Janamithra’. It is an online grievance monitoring software system that can receive complaints related to the initiatives of Kerala Water Authority like water supply, waste water disposal, connections, etc, and ensure monitoring and disposal of petitions.

The Authority has developed an automated system to track all the information related to daily wage staff. The initiative is named MARCH (Monitoring, Accounting and Reporting by Centralised HR System). Here, HR means Hand Receipt.