The Central government’s announcement of all village offices ready to provide online service in Kasargod, has not been implemented yet. Under the e-governance project, the government is trying to implement e-district project in 640 districts in India of which 14 districts are in Kerala.
The e-district project was implemented in Kannur and Palakkad districts on pilot basis and following its success, the project was decided to extend it to the entire state including Kasargod district in this March. The project was implemented in Kasragod without much preparation and in the absence of required facilities. With the implementation of the project, 23 types of certificates given by the government through village officer will be available online to the public. Though the villagers are given the e-governance training and provided with laptops months ago, lack of electricity connection in these village offices, has stopped the officers from delivering their duty. In fact, several village offices also are not in a position to keep the laptops safe.The students who are waiting for their results from schools and colleges and are waiting to get their certificates to submit while taking up admissions to other institutions for higher education, are forced to wait in Akshaya Kendra. Nirmithi Kendra had built village offices in the State with good ventilation in order save electricity. Hence, no electricity connection was given to any of these offices. However, the e-governance requires electricity for the functioning of computer.
In addition, majority of the people of Kasargod are not aware of the e-district facility as the boards are put up informing about the project, in Malayalam. With majority of Kannadigas residing in this district, they failed to read and understand what is written in Malayalam. Several loopholes are also found in the computerisation process, wherever it is available.
At present, the applications submitted by the people to Akshaya Kendra are transfered to village officers through online which after the approval will be printed and distributed in Akshaya Kendra. Once the certificates are ready, SMS will be sent to the applicant .