Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has ushered in a digital revolution in the rural areas of the state. In consonance with his government’s slogan, Jahan Manav, Vahan Suvidha, a digital seva-setu has been set up to facilitate the use of modern technology in departments dealing with public welfare.
Now people from rural areas will not need to travel to their nearest district office for essential service and documents. From 8 October, around 2,000 gram panchayats will have a fully functioning digital seva-setu centre. A target has been set to cover 8,000 gram panchayats under the digital service bridge by December 2020.
The Chief Minister started the programme in the year 2016 through which the government provided basic documents at doorsteps. As per this programme, the CM has given a guideline to form a cluster of 8-10 villages that a team of officers would visit and give solutions to the problems of the people there. Till date, two crore citizens have been provided services at home through more than 12,800 such seva-setu programmes across the state. A new approach to digital seva-setu under the Bharat Net Policy was taken by connecting gram panchayats through a fibre network. Gujarat has been the leader in India Net Phase-2 by creating such a system across the country.
The most important thing in the digital seva-setu is that 100 MBPS high speed Internet can be easily available in the villages of the state.
Under the programme, services like filing nominations, correcting ration cards from the offices of gram panchayats or obtaining duplicate ration card, income certificate, senior citizen’s certificate and caste certificate through digital services will be available at a fee of Rs 20. As per the provisions of Section 3 of Oaths Act 1969, Gram Panchayat Talati will be empowered to make affidavit in rural areas so that citizens of rural areas can get affidavit from gram panchayat in the village itself.
In order to enable the citizens of the village get the certificate of essential services at any time in their mobile phones or to present their documents anywhere as proof, CM Rupani replaced the physical sign with an e-sign.