Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has decided to start Digital Seva Setu Program in rural areas of the state to ensure optimum utilisation of technology for public welfare.
Under this, citizens will be able to reap benefits of various public welfare services of rural areas at the Panchayat level itself. Citizens can get various documents like duplicate ration card, income certificate, senior citizen certificate, caste certificate etc. at their doorstep.
The Phase-1 of Digital Seva Setu will start from 8th October, 2020 in 2000 Village Panchayats and provide 20 types of pro-people services. Another 8 thousand Village Panchayats will be covered by December 2020. Citizens will be able to reap benefits of this program by paying a nominal fee of Rs.20.
The Seva Setu program was started by the Chief Minister in 2016. A cluster of 8-10 villages was made and a team of officers administered the Seva Setu camp of a particular cluster. People were provided on-spot solutions under this. More than 12,800 programs were successfully completed and more than 2 crore people reaped benefits of the Chief Minister’s initiative to provide Governance at the Doorstep of common people.
The Digital Seva Setu is also a step towards fulfilling the vision and mission of Digital India of Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi.
The Digital Seva Setu has been initiated under the BharatNet Project- an initiative to connect the Village Panchayats through fibre network.
Gujarat has been a leader in Phase-2 of the BharatNet project.
Villages of Gujarat will be connected with a 100 MBPS optical fibre network under the Digital Seva Setu. The aim is to make every village a Mini Sachivalay.
Under the provision of Article-3 of Oaths Act-1969, the government will provide powers of affidavit to the Talati cum Minister at the Village Panchayat level so that people in rural areas do not have to visit the notary offices in towns and cities.
The Chief Minister has also decided to use E-sign rather than physical signatures. Under this, the concerned person can avail the necessary documents at the click of a button in his/her mobile phone and the documents will be made available in DigiLocker.
An integrated and dedicated platform will be made in the future to encompass all the villages of Gujarat under Digital Seva Setu.
This digital initiative will reduce human interface and propel a paperless working system under Chief Minister’s mantra of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance.’ It will also pave way for transforming more than 18,000 villages of Gujarat into Modern and Global villages.
Gujarat will once again lead India in Good Governance under the Chief Minister and pave way for other states in the digital stride.
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