Sangareddy dist shows the way

​Sangareddy: Taking administration to people’s doorstep was one of the principal objectives of the reorganisation of districts in the State.

The whole idea is to make the administrative machinery readily accessible to the common people. A positive step taken in that direction by Sangareddy may well turn out to be a giant leap for Telangana.

The ‘e-Sangareddy’ web as well as android application, launched by Sangareddy with promising results, could be replicated across the State in the near future.

Simply put, the beauty of the online system is such that now people from even remote villages in Sangareddy district can lodge their grievances online at the click of a mouse by just entering their personal details like aadhaar card number, name, contact address and a brief description of their grievances, along with related attaché files, at www.eservices.sangareddy.telangana.gov.i.

The complainant would get an SMS alert about the grievance filed and the status of the grievance. Concerned district officials, including the district collector, would keep monitoring the grievances and action would be taken by the concerned district officer of that particular department within three days and an action taken status is updated in the system.

The complainant can track and check the status of his/her/other grievance online at any point of time. Well, this is just one of the three things that e-Sangareddy can do for you.

There is also an ‘eservices’ functionality which can be of great help to land buyers with respect to verifying various details pertaining to purchase of a particular land.

This functionality gives direct access to the common people about official revenue records. With this kind of information, the chance of purchasing disputed land can be avoided easily. Documents requested by the user would be submitted by the revenue officials within three days.

Besides, there is also a functionality called ‘e-staff’, meant for government employees to request for a leave, which would be sanctioned by their superiors without much wait time (a leave will be sanctioned within an hour).

It also gives the officers more accurate information with regard to the number of employees available at the work spot on any given day, thereby allowing them to schedule tasks accordingly.

All these three functionalities could be accessed using a cell phone, powered by android technology. People can download the e-Sangareddy app and start using the services.

A brain-child of Manick Raj Kannan, District Collector of Sangareddy, e-Sangareddy web as well as android application, was built within a month by the ITES Department at the Secretariat.

Developers of Frux Solutions developed the application using PHP, which was tested and released. It was formally launched by Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao a week ago.

As on Monday, a total of 187 grievances were filed using the application. Out of them, 47 were pending and 89 yet to be assigned. In all, 98 grievances were categorized and 50 of them addressed. One application was rejected.

“This is an absolutely citizen-friendly application, which emerged out of a thought of achieving ease of doing business from government to citizens.

This application is very user friendly and is monitored on a day-to-day basis by collector and officials,” said MS Shanthi Kumar, District Informatics Officer.

“Just imagine a farmer from Kangti in Narayankhed having some issue. The farmer no longer needs to come all the way to Sangareddy spending valuable time, incurring travel costs and wasting energies on making rounds to the offices in Sangareddy.

The farmer can just use his/her cell phone or take assistance from some educated person in the village to file the grievance online,” said Rajashekhar, Programmer in National Informatics Centre, Sangareddy.

In view of the success of the new initiative, neighbouring districts like Nizamabad and Medak are also showing interest in replicating the application, according to NIC officials.

This is not the first time that Collector Manick Raj Kannan has made things easier for the system to function. Previously, when he was the Commissioner of Industries, he received an award for his ease of doing business achievements.

It is pertinent to mention that Ronald Rose, previous District Collector of united Medak district, had started ‘e-office’ -- an initiative in the Sangareddy revenue department to go paperless using online technologies.

According to sources, the district administration is planning to implement the same in another four departments in the near future.

Although applications like e-Sangareddy seem to be bringing about a revolutionary change in the way officials are made accountable to their tasks and in addressing people’s grievances, sceptics do have their say.

“The intent behind the initiative has to be appreciated. However, people in rural areas are neither educated, nor does everyone own an android cell phone.

The district administration may use this as a more efficient way of addressing grievances and providing services to people, but they should also ensure that the earlier grievance redressal system continues to be implemented, in fact better than before.

That shouldn’t be neglected,” commented Rajaiah, a leader of CPI-M in Sangareddy district.