BangaloreOne kicks off today

27 civic services from single kiosk — BangaloreOne kicks off today

The Hindu Business Line

FROM April 2, Bangaloreans need to make just one stop to pay their utility bills at one go. BangaloreOne, the Karnataka Government's e-governance initiative, will enable payments for power, water, phone bills, property tax, RTO, and a host of 27 civic services from a single kiosk.

The kiosks will not take more than 15 minutes to service each citizen. Land sale deed registration and collection would take just 30 minutes compared to the month's delay under the manual system.

Fifty kiosks will be set up initially in a public-private partnership with CMS Computers and Ram Informatics of Hyderabad.

The first batch of 15 centres are being launched on Saturday to enable services of Bangalore Electricity Supply Company, Bangalore Water Supply & Sewerage Board, BSNL, Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, Bangalore Development Authority, RTO, Stamps & Registration, passport office, and the police department.

Mr Vijay K. Gore, Additional Chief Secretary, and Mr Rajeev Chawla, Secretary, e-Governance, told newspersons that there was a plan to replicate the BOOT-based G2C (Government-to-citizen) project in Mysore, Hubli-Dharwad, Mangalore, Belgaum, and other cities and major towns in a couple of years depending on the success in Bangalore and the e-readiness of the agencies there.

The Government has provided locations for the air-conditioned, manned e-kiosks.

Meanwhile, customer centres set up by the various utilities and agencies within two km of the BangaloreOne kiosks would be wound up and most of the regular staff redeployed. Some 400 kiosk operators are to be hired to run the kiosks on 24x7 basis.

Under a UNDP project, the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Smart Government has part-funded the project up to Rs 1.5 crore.

BangaloreOne is expected to outperform Hyderabad's eSeva, which has recorded three crore transactions in over two years. Microsoft has offered for the project its .NET software at 45 per cent of the cost.

The CMS combine was picked from among seven bidders, which included CMC, BEL, Wipro, ECIL and TCS, and will be the technology provider for five years on BOOT basis.

The CMS Regional Manager, Mr K. Jagannath, said that the project would cost the consortium an investment of Rs 10 crore over five years and the running expense of Rs 18-20 lakh per centre a year.

In return, it would get between Rs 3.75 and Rs 4.75 per transaction from the Government.

At each centre, 30 lakh transactions by cheque, credit card or cash are expected every month, worth Rs 10-15 lakh.

UTI Bank is another player in BangaloreOne and has offered to pay the salaries of 200 kiosk employees - amounting to Rs 3 crore annually - out of the one-day float it gets to hold.

BangaloreOne's new features are the 15-minute service, a disaster recovery service, and a third party audit, besides the air-conditioned ambience with a TV set, coffee vends, an ATM and a library.

Next on the cards for the State Government are a BangaloreOne directorate and new services such as railway reservations, exam results, filing income-tax, cinema tickets, matrimonials, and bus passes.