KTR Speech at National e Governance Meet in Hyderabad

Telangana IT Minister K Taraka Rama Rao thanked department of Administrative Reforms and MeiTY of Government of India for selecting Hyderabad as the venue for 24th National conference on e-Governance.

He said that, a lot of process and technology interventions have been made by many State Governments and Central Governments to increase convenient and transparent service delivery using e-Governance. Still, there are issues in the quality of services rendered by the Governments and the processes followed are still are archaic and can be improved.
  
He further stated, "Since the formation of the state of Telangana, our Government is working continuously on the above to achieve the utopian objective of Governance i.e. transparent and accountable service delivery with convenience to the citizens as the central theme."
 
MeeSeva, in the first few years, was focused on improving the citizen service delivery through the Government departments. MeeSeva was completely re-engineered with technology and process changes and is rolled as MeeSeva 2.0 in early 2017. 

MeeSeva is a highly scalable platform serving on an average of 1,00,000 Citizens every day through 4,500 centers across the state. As per e Taal of Government of India, MeeSeva ranks first in terms of the number of e-transactions per thousand population.

About 21 crore citizens were served and Rs 27000 crores transaction was seen since its inception.

 To promote digital payments, the Government has launched T- Wallet, a digital wallet in June 2017 which is now serving 2.8 crore citizens and about Rs 14000 Crores amount transacted. 

It is an Anytime Anywhere digital payment option for everyone. It serves through Online (Desktop, laptop), Smart Phone, Feature Phone, and even No Phone.

 
There are 60 Cr smartphones in the country and the number is increasing every day. Hence in 2017, it was decided that service delivery through mobile phones should be the focus area.

As part of this, T App Folio, the m-Governance initiative of Telangana was launched in 2018 which enables delivery of G2C, B2C, VAS, and info services through the mobile platform. T App Folio is also the only App in India that currently enables application and certificate services to be delivered to citizens.T App can be accessed on Smartphones (App, Mobile Web) as well as Feature phones (USSD, IVRS, and SMS).

It is currently recording close to 10,000 transactions a day. T App Folio currently hosts over 270+ services from over 32 participating departments.

Thus the state has made a transition from digitization to m-governance through e-governance in the last 6 years.

Smart Governance initiatives based on Emerging Technologies, Government of Telangana signed a MOU with the Government of Estonia, a European country, in 2019 which is regarded as standard in terms of seamless service delivery through Smartphone/PC through their famous X road platform.
 
• In Estonia, citizens visit a Government Office only for 3 services relating to marriage and the purchase of immovable property, citizens.
 
• All other services including voting in General elections are in a presence less and contactless manner.

Striving towards this vision, the Telangana government has started exploring the use of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence(AI), Machine Learning(ML), Deep Learning(DL), Big Data, in Government to achieve "Anytime Anywhere Citizen Services delivery leveraging Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big data, and Deep Learning”

 The service flow in some departments like Transport department for renewal of Driving license, Annual life certificates submission by retired employees, application for Degree online admission, Application for passport renewal, Identification of Voters during voting etc are analyzed to understand issues in existing processes.

 A new platform called Real-Time Digital Authentication of Identity (RTDAI) was designed and implemented by the Government of Telangana from 2019 onwards.

 This is a total process reengineering in which Citizen Services are provided through a smartphone anytime anywhere in a Presenceless and contactless manner without Citizen visiting the department office. This is achieved by leveraging the power of emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence. Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Big data, etc.

PLCS Pensioner Life Certificate through Selfie was launched in 2019. Government Pensioners are required to file an annual life certificates every year. For this purpose, they were to go out of the house and visit some office or a MeeSeva center. Using PLCs, Government pensioners of Telangana can submit annual life certificates through T App folio by entering their pension ID, Name and uploading a selfie, from the comfort of their home. About 30,000 pensioners will be used in 2019, about 45,000 pensioners in 2020, and about 1,00,000 pensioners have used in 2021. The Government of India has launched a similar application in Nov 2021.
 
FEST Friendly Electronic Services in Transport Department About 17 services of Transport department in Driving license, Learner license, Permit and Registration services are launched in July 2020. These 17 services can be availed from T APP folio through a smartphone.
 
“Telangana Citizens can renew a Driving License through a smartphone from home on a Sunday on office holiday - a service delivery first of its kind in India and perhaps available in very few counties in the world.”

RTDAI solutions are relevant for all states in India and some central ministries like the Ministry of External Affairs, Defense pensioners, the Election Commission of India, UIDAI, etc. They are relevant for many other countries too.

 By harnessing the power of AI, ML, and Deep learning together with the phenomenal reach of Smartphones, a paradigm shift is being brought in the way Citizens interact with Government in the state.
 

T Fiber Establish state-of-the-art digital network infrastructure that is long lasting, resilient, secure, scalable, and carrier-grade to provide affordable, high speed broadband connectivity from State Headquarters to all homes, government offices and enterprises in the State of Telangana. The goal is to connect
 
• 30,000 Government Institutions connectivity in Phase – 1
• To connect 51 Lakhs Rural and 32 Lakhs Urban household.  
• To connect cellular towers on demand
 

Latest other initiatives under Emerging Technologies:
 
a. Telangana became the 1st State to launch an actionable policy framework for Artificial Intelligence. The Telangana AI Mission (T-AIM) has been formed in partnership with NASSCOM to execute the strategy
b. Cloud adoption has been mandated within the government and an easy to adopt framework has been released to support the same
c. Agritech has been given a push through the initiatives of AI-based Pest Management, AI4AI – in partnership with WEF, and the National e-Governance Plan for Agriculture
d. Through Medicine From The Sky (MFTS), Telangana became the 1st state to pilot Beyond Visual Range of Sight (BVLOS) drone delivery of vaccines and essentials.
 
Best wishes for the 24th National Conference on e-Governance. I wish the conference will deliberate on various issues and come out with some concrete suggestions.

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