Acting on the motto of “service delivery at people’s doorstep”, the Punjab Government has started the delivery of ‘approved certificates’ via SMS links — saving the common man from the harassment of making rounds of the government offices.
 
“The citizens would no longer be required to visit any office or Sewa Kendra for collecting hard copies of certificates,” said the state Governance Reforms and Grievances Minister Aman Arora on Monday.
 
He said that the consumer will receive a link via SMS on their mobile phone and they can download the certificate and all the offices will accept it. Even the authenticity of these certificates can be checked online on the e-Sewa Portal, he added.
 
The move will not only save the time and energy of the people but will also save money as earlier people had to shell out over Rs 50 for a copy of a certificate, the Minister said.
 
Nearly 15 lakh certificates have been delivered to people on their mobile phones, said the cabinet minister. He added that as many as 16 certificates – like birth certificate, death certificate, rural area certificate, income certificate, marriage certificate, income and asset certificate (EWS), residence certificate, SC/BC/OBC/General certificate, old age pension, disabled person pension, widow/destitute women pension, dependent children pension, and senior citizen ID card – are being delivered on mobile phones.
 
Arora said that the time has gone when bulky files were prepared for getting certificates ready and then one had to move from one table to another in government offices. The e-Sewa portal, esewa.punjab.gov.in, has resolved all such issues and the processing of applications has been sped up without any need to move any file. This has resulted in taking the e-Sewa State Pendency to as less as 0.25 per cent, he added.
 
More Than 430 Services on e-Sewa Portal
Director of Governance Reforms and Grievances, Girish Dayalan, said that the e-Sewa portal has been developed and maintained by an in-house team of 40 software engineers and other technical experts. “Over 430 services are being delivered from the portal. Till now, over three crore applications have been processed using this portal and more than 6,000 users are using this system. These users include officer/officials of DC Offices, SDM Offices, tehsil offices, agriculture department offices, and private hospitals, among others,” he said.
 
At the district level, Department of Governance Reforms has deployed district technical coordinators, district IT managers, and assistant district IT managers to train, monitor and support other departments in using e-Sewa portal, he informed.