Kochi: As the online delivery of basic services of the city corporation has come to a complete halt for last several weeks causing difficulties to the public, the state government has intervened to resolve the crisis. As per the request of Mayor Soumini Jain who recently took up the issue with the Local Self Government department additional chief secretary, the government has sent a team to assess the status of e governance in the corporation.
As per the instruction of the LSGD additional chief secretary, a meeting with all stakeholders of the project will be convened on May 15.
“As per our request, a team from Information Kerala Mission (IMK) visited the corporation office to assess the status of e governance. They have found that the status of various modules as claimed by the Tata Consultancy Services was not matching with the actual status. Hence, the government has asked to convene a meeting of all stakeholders. If the TCS representatives fail to turn up, the government has agreed to intervene,” said Ms. Jain.
The online delivery of services has been hit as the TCS unilaterally downed the server located at Thiruvananthapuram. According to civic officials, the TCS exploited the technical incompetence of the corporation, since the civic body didn’t have an IT officer. Recently, an IT officer has been recruited on contract.
Meanwhile, the city residents are at the receiving end with even the basic services like birth, death, marriage registration and building permit not available online.
TCS, the executing age-ncy of the project has bac-ked out citing that the corporation hasn’t signed an annual maintenance agr-eement after expiry of the agreement.
It was in 2011 that the project was initiated which was expected to be commissioned in 54 weeks. The corporation has already handed over nearly `4.94 crore to TCS so far.
“As the system has failed, the online entry of birth and death details from hospitals is not functional. The employees of hospitals in the city have to come to the corporation office to enter the details to the civic body’s system,” said V.P. Chandran, CPM councillor.
