The Andhra Pradesh government is contemplating offering services of eSeva, an e-governance initiative that aims to take the benefit of information technology (IT) to the common man, through mobile phones shortly.
“We are trying to take one step forward towards creating a new eSeva model and enable citizens in non-service centres and remote areas to pay their utility bills like telephone, water, power and sewage bills via a mobile phone,” state information technology and communications (IT&C) and endowments minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah, told mediapersons here on Friday.
Inaugurating the state data centre (SDC), set up with an investment of Rs 19.77 crore under the National eGovernance Plan, chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy said having accurate and fool-proof data was the key to implementing schemes.
“Almost 50 per cent of the Aadhaar cards generated so far in the country are from Andhra Pradesh,” he said, adding his government had set a target to cover the entire state by March 2012. “The state would save Rs 350-400 crore a year if the Aadhaar cards project is done in a transparent and fool-proof way.”
In what can be touted as the first attempt in collecting correct data in the country, Reddy said, the state government was embarking on a social status survey, which would collect data of citizens including their caste and community. “The exercise will begin from September and will conclude in two to three months from then,” the chief minister said.
STATE DATA CENTRE IN HYDERABAD
Built by Wipro Enterprise Data Centre (WEDC), the Tier-II+ SDC is spread over 8,900 sft. The centre will provide government-to-government, government-to-citizen and government-to-business services supported by core connectivity infrastructure like State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and Common Service Centre (CSC) extending up to the village level.
Lakshmaiah said the centre, with minimum uptime of 99.779 per cent, currently had 29 racks scalable to 59 racks. “The centre currently has a 50-terrabyte storage capacity, which will be expanded to 200 terrabyte by this December,” he said, adding the SDC was expected to get an ISO 9001 certification in a couple in months.
