Application forms to go digital

Arjun Raghunath
The New Indian Express
1 Aug 2010

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: All application forms of various Departments of the State Government will go digital with the implementation of e-forms as part of the State Portal Scheme of the National e-Governance plan.


Steps to publish the Request-For-Proposal (RFP) for implementation of the project in one year and maintenance for three years is being finalised by the Kerala State IT Mission.

Quotations would be accepted from a panel of major IT companies prepared by the Centre which includes Wipro, Infosys, Accenture and HP.

In the initial phase, 13 Departments would be covered under the project.

The Departments identified for the initial phase are General Education, Registration, Ports and Harbours, LSGD-Urban, LSGD-Rural, Employment and Training, Kerala Lok Ayukta, Motor Vehicles, Kerala Water Authority, Kerala State Electricity Board, Vocational Higher Secondary Education, Rural Development and Fisheries.

The main objective of the project is to provide Government services to the citizen through the State Government portal as well as to promote e-governance among the citizens, IT Department sources said.

With the implementation of e-forms, various Government-related application forms could be filled in and submitted online so that there would not be any need for hard copies.

An electronic receipt would also be issued through the portal. There would be provision to track the status of applications and requests.

Though the Government application forms are now available online, it needs to be downloaded and submitted in hard-copy format. The main feature of e-forms is that it could be filled even off-line.

Besides easing the submission of applications, the e-form system would also help speed up the process.

The major advantages of the State Portal Scheme are that Government information could be accessed anywhere, anytime that too at the customers desktop as well reducing administrative burden and cost effectiveness. The services would be accessible to individual users via internet through personal computers or common service centres such as Akshaya Centres or even through mobile phones.

The portal would be bilingual - Malayalam and English.

Sources said that the draft of the request for quotations is being vetted by a committee headed by the IT Secretary and it would be published as soon as the committee approval is received. Ernst and Young has been appointed as the consultant.