With a view to taking e-governance initiatives to the grassroot level, the Telangana Government will launch e-Panchayat initiative soon in Domakonda mandal of Nizamabad district. The State government would use VSAT and optic fibre connectivity to connect the villages with central databases of various service providers and departments.
All these centres will be run by women, who will be specially trained by the Panchayat Raj department. The Government is planning to expand the e-Panchayats to 150 mandals in the first phase under the Telangana Palle Pragathi programme funded by the World Bank.
“To start with 18 gram panchayats will be connected through Internet, allowing them to provide a range of government-to-citizen services to the people in villages,” Telangana Information Technology and Panchayat Raj Minister K T Rama Rao has said.
These e-Panchayat centres would act as one-stop-shop centres will allow people to access a number of government schemes. The services include payment of taxes, pensions and National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREGA) wages.
“We have initiated the process of setting up these centres. We are holding discussions with various service providers and software developers to ensure hassle-free operations at the centres,” the Minister said here in a statement on Tuesday.