The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Praja Vani yet to take off in rural areas

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Saturday, Aug 30, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Praja Vani yet to take off in rural areas

P. Samuel Jonathan

GUNTUR: Praja Vani, an innovative concept to virtually connect the public and the officials, is proving to be a distant mirage. The public response to the concept has been disappointing till now. Dogged by infrastructural deficiencies and poor public response, the concept has proved to be a slow-starter.

A brain child of District Collector B. Venkatesham, the concept was launched on June 1 across 16 e-seva centres in 11 municipalities, the municipal corporation here and 54 Rural Service Delivery Points in the district. The concept was aimed at not only providing relief to the people making innumerable trips to Government offices, but was also designed to improve responsiveness and accountability among the officials manning various departments.

Purpose not served

But three months later, Praja Vani has attracted only 758 complaints so far. The very concept of providing relief to people living in far-flung areas seems to have failed to serve the purpose, with 526 complaints out of 758 being filed in the city’s three e-seva centres.

The response in municipalities like Narsaraopet is disappointing with just 12 applications, followed by Bapatla (22), Ponnur (13).

Applications submitted in the last two days were 108, but have been left unmarked, while 95 officers defaulted in responding on time.

Shortcomings

The concept is dogged by several shortcomings on the infrastructural front as the most of the RSDPs were ill-equipped to deal with multiple transactions.

``The RSDPs conduct transactions off-line during the day to save internet bills and use on-line facility only during sending the details to the server,” observed a staff member of the e-seva centre.

The RSDP at Dachepalli recorded just one response, followed by Durgi (7), Gurazala (5) and Piduguralla (1).

The people who frequent the e-seva centres have no idea about the concept as there is no publicity about the programme. With just four of the 57 RSDPs being able to provide facilities for submission of on-line applications, the district administration has a lot of work to do in the coming months.

Responding to the slackening progress of the programme, Assistant Director of Disabled Welfare Department and coordinator of Praja Vani A. Suryanarayana said that efforts would be made to set up infrastructural facilities and added that promotional campaigns would be carried out.

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