‘Nemmadi’ in Kannada means peace of mind. This is what the e-governance department of the Government of Karnataka (GoK) preferred people in 755 village hoblis to experience when seeking certificates and documents through its tele-centres.

But the opposite was obvious when Deccan Herald paid a visit to few such telecentres at Shanaboganahalli and Ramanagara kasaba where people had queued up to procure RTC land certificates (Record of Rights, Crops and Tenancy Right), caste/income certificates.

Shutters were downed in the first telecentre visited by this reporter recently at around 11:30 am. After much coaxing, the truth emerged.

The attender Satish who is supposed to sit in the kiosk was unwell with viral fever and returned home after opening it for an hour, as opposed to the 10 am to 5 pm time schedule.

“Where is the Nemmadi the Government promised us” asks Beerappa, a farmer at Shanaboganahalli who showed a receipt to collect his caste certificate, visibly annoyed on seeing the closed centre.

In the second centre at Ramanagara kasaba, the CPU of one computer was not functioning resulting in services being affected. “We have called up the technician to fix the computer,” said the operator at the telecentre.                                                           

Vipin Singh, Director, Electronic Delivery of Citizen Services (EDCS), e-Governance Secretariat says teething problems such as these would be resolved. “The initiative under the PPP model is yet to complete a year. We are aware of such hiccoughs and are working towards providing hassle-free services. Technical issues will be monitored and more awareness will be created among the people to use the services offered” he said.                                                                                                                                                                                                                
Tele-centre project

Conceptualised as a vision rural telecentre project of the GoK, Nemmadi project envisaged IT-enabled services to be easily accessible to the common man in his village through efficient, transparent, reliable and affordable means.

“The mission of the project is to deliver sufficient Government services to the citizen’s doorstep. The idea is to go citizen-centric as opposed to the Government centric approach prevalent in offices,” explains Mr Singh.

Equipped with 177 backoffices at the taluk level, these tele-centres deliver a range of G2C (Government to Citizen) and B2C (Business to Citizen) services ranging from Caste and Income related certificates to Registration of Births and Deaths.

Elaborating on the objectives of Nemmadi, Mr Singh adds, “We hope to create efficient virtual offices in all villages to enable Government departments and agencies to focus on their core functions and responsibilities by freeing them from routine operations like issuing of certificates and land records.”

Meanwhile, encouraging responses were also received during a visit to another Nemmadi centre at the Tahsildar’s office in Ramanagara town.

Ravi and Kumar, residents of the town said, “Earlier we had to approach the tahsildars, shirastedars, village accountants or the revenue inspectors to obtain certificates. Since the establishment of Nemmadi, the centre forwards the application and asks us to collect certificates within a maximum period of ten days. It has made  our task hassle-free”

Background

Started in Mandya taluk office in May 2004 initially with only five services under the ‘Rural Digital Service’ model, it was expanded to 37 services later. In the period from May 4 to September 6, the Nemmadi model was piloted in 13 taluks of four districts of the State and services were delivered to citizens through 70 village tele-centres.

“The Government decided to go in for a phased rollout and initially establish 800 of these at village hobli level and later expand the number of tele-centres to 5,000. In  September 2006, the project was awarded to a private partner through a transparent tendering process and by April 2007, about 750 tele-centres were functioning across Karnataka,” Mr Singh points out.

Litigants

The e-Governance department in its expansion plan would also establish a Nemmadi centre in the High Court premises in Bangalore to help litigants from Belguam, Hubli-Dharwad and Gulbarga procure documents without having to travel all the way back to seek them, add officials in the department.


SERVICES OFFERED

*Various types of caste and income related                       
  certificates

*Registration of births and deaths and issue of their 
  certificates

*Application for social security schemes viz, old age 
and widow pension

*Domicile certificate, agriculturist certificate and 
  marginal farmer certificate

SALIENT FEATURES

*Single window system for all government services at 
  the village-level

*No need for any written application to be submitted 
  for any service

*Manual system to be stopped altogether

*Uniform service charge of Rs 15 for every service 
  rendered

*Signature less documents to be issued after being 
  digitally signed by the appropriate authority

*To cover all taluks and hoblis in the State

*No provisioning of services at taluk offices. True                  
  decentralisation to village-level.

WHAT IS NEMMADI?

Nemmadi village tele-centres are kiosks established under a PPP (Public-Private-Partnership) model as a channel for delivery of various e-Governance services to the rural citizens of the State.

The e-Governance service delivery infrastructure for delivery of services under Nemmadi comprises of four components viz, State Data Centre, Wide Area Network, Delivery Channels and Department servers at taluk      offices.

Each Nemmadi kiosk is equipped with two computers, scanner, web-cam and V-Sat connectivity to the State Data Centre.