UID project may be shifted to Guruvayur
By Asha P Nair
28th July 2010 03:38 AM
THIRIVANATHAPURAM: The project to distribute Unique Identification (UID) Numbers to students which had failed to make any progress beyond Thiruvananthapuram is looking for a reincarnation in Guruvayur.
Realising that the capital city was a wrong choice to initiate the pilot project, the Local-Self Governance (LSG) Department is now toying with the idea of shifting the project to Guruvayur Municipality which has become a role model in the state for its e-governance initiatives.
It was a major embarrassment to the LSG and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) which had monitored the project when the Thiruvananthapuram project had crashed mercilessly.
The project started off in January and was to be completed before May. For the general public, it was agony for weeks when parents flocked to Thiruvananthapuram Corporation to get hold of birth certificates which was made mandatory for UIDs. And no services could be offered to the non-parent groups as the manpower was being over-utilised.
Around 40 computers and equal resource were pooled in for the project but the Corporation was not equipped to meet the giant turnout for availing of the birth certificates.
There was no online backup too.
Guruvayur Municipality, on the other hand, has completely gone online last month in providing marriage certificates and birth certificates to public there. The e-governance project in the municipality is so spic-and-span that half-an-hour after the wedding, the couple can collect the certificate. That too at a place where weddings took place in the range of 100 to 200 per day.
“There should be a trying out of the project and Guruvayur appears the perfect choice now. We are planning to conduct the pilot phase there,’’ said an LSG Dept top official.
The only good that happened in the whole mess is that the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation was forced to equip itself to meet the times and now they are getting ready to make distribution of certificates online.
According to LSG Dept sources, a group of teachers and even a section of LSG Dept officials had plotted against the project being conducted in Thiruvananthapuram. Even when students possessed birth certificates, many schools had sent their parents on a second tour to collect them which had toppled the assumptions of the Department.
SSA had expected a turnout of a maximum of 2.5 lakh students’ parents for birth certificates in the 15-day period but those figures crossed in the first three days itself.
Realising that the capital city was a wrong choice to initiate the pilot project, the Local-Self Governance (LSG) Department is now toying with the idea of shifting the project to Guruvayur Municipality which has become a role model in the state for its e-governance initiatives.
It was a major embarrassment to the LSG and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) which had monitored the project when the Thiruvananthapuram project had crashed mercilessly.
The project started off in January and was to be completed before May. For the general public, it was agony for weeks when parents flocked to Thiruvananthapuram Corporation to get hold of birth certificates which was made mandatory for UIDs. And no services could be offered to the non-parent groups as the manpower was being over-utilised.
Around 40 computers and equal resource were pooled in for the project but the Corporation was not equipped to meet the giant turnout for availing of the birth certificates.
There was no online backup too.
Guruvayur Municipality, on the other hand, has completely gone online last month in providing marriage certificates and birth certificates to public there. The e-governance project in the municipality is so spic-and-span that half-an-hour after the wedding, the couple can collect the certificate. That too at a place where weddings took place in the range of 100 to 200 per day.
“There should be a trying out of the project and Guruvayur appears the perfect choice now. We are planning to conduct the pilot phase there,’’ said an LSG Dept top official.
The only good that happened in the whole mess is that the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation was forced to equip itself to meet the times and now they are getting ready to make distribution of certificates online.
According to LSG Dept sources, a group of teachers and even a section of LSG Dept officials had plotted against the project being conducted in Thiruvananthapuram. Even when students possessed birth certificates, many schools had sent their parents on a second tour to collect them which had toppled the assumptions of the Department.
SSA had expected a turnout of a maximum of 2.5 lakh students’ parents for birth certificates in the 15-day period but those figures crossed in the first three days itself.
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