BANGALORE ONE or BANGALORE NONE

BANGALORE ONE or BANGALORE NONE
Bangalore One centres on expansion mode
Nandini Chandrashekar
Bangalore One revolutionised the way we paid our bills, applied for services galore. It made our lives easier by bringing multiple services under one umbrella. Three years after its launch, BANGALORE 360 Degrees checks out whether the B1 centres still retain their value, and if the empty counters on its Airport Road branch is only an exception.

It has been about three years since the Government started Bangalore One centres to offer citizen-oriented services at a single place. The success of this venture is reflected in its expansion plans as the Department of e-governance now plans to open a B One centre in every ward of BBMP by the end of this financial year.
At present, there are 40 centres around the city, out of which about 20 are mini centres housing three to four counters. In fact, the success of these centres based on public-private participation model has spurred similar centres in Hubli-Dharwad and more are expected to come up in Belgaum, Mysore and Mangalore.

Eighty more B-One Centres
Principal Secretary of E-Governance, BL Sridhar said that they had already identified about 80 places around Bangalore where the centres could be set up and these would be done as quickly as possible. “The objective is to make Bangalore One a nerve centre of services to the community and anybody can walk in and access services with the least bit of hassles” He also said that they were even exploring options on introducing services like payment of school fees and getting more insurance companies to offer schemes through the centres.

The idea originally was to have a centre within two km radius of each other, so that a person would not have to traverse longer than that distance to pay bills. While the concept of paying bills itself sat well with the people, opening centres was not that easy. Office space has not been easy to find and rules do not allow them to rent land from private agencies. Now that issue has been resolved as the department has been given permission to lease space from private agencies.

Corporates show interest
Apart from these, large companies like Wipro and Infosys who have their own campus and house more than 30,000 employees have shown keen interest in having these centres set up on their campus. B One has also tied up with Spar hypermarkets to set up their centres at the markets to facilitate services.

The number of services offered will also increase, the latest being payment of manually generated traffic challans. According to Director, Electronic Delivery of Citizen Services (EDCS), Vipin Singh, KSRTC booking will also be offered shortly at B One centres and this is not restricted to these centres alone.

Once this service is offered, KSRTC tickets will also be available at the 800 Nemmadi centres around the state. Even sim card recharge on prepaid cards from all operators will be launched shortly.