Maharashtra to launch virtual Mantralaya mobile app on 2 October
State to also raise the number of govt services available online under its Right to Service plan to 326 from 156 now
Mumbai: Maharashtra will make 326 government services available online by 2 October under its Right to Service initiative, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Monday.
The Aaple Sarkar (our government) portal, launched on 26 January 2015, currently offers 156 government services online, Fadnavis said in his Independence Day speech.
Some of the online services include issue of caste certificates, certificates for eligibility for reservation in education and jobs for the economically backward, driving licences, applications for conversion of agricultural land into non-agricultural, and property tax computation.
“We will put online all the legally mandated 326 government services online by 2 October and a special mobile app will be launched that would virtually convert your mobile phone into Mantralaya," Fadnavis said, referring to the government’s administrative headquarters in south Mumbai.
The chief minister said the portal had received around 3 million applications so far.
Fadnavis said Mumbai will be made a Wi-Fi city by 1 May 2017, with 1,200 wireless hot spots. Of these, 500 will be ready by 1 November. “Apart from providing free Wi-Fi services, these hot spots will also be used for smart transport and smart parking facilities as part of the smart city initiative," he said.
The chief minister said his government was also engaged in connecting 29,000 villages with optical fibre network. Maharashtra has around 44,000 villages. While former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had connected villages by roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana, the current Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, would put these villages on the digital highway, Fadnavis said.
Nagpur, Fadnavis’s home district, has been selected for a pilot project to kick-start this initiative.
Fadnavis reiterated his government’s focus on drought alleviation and agriculture. Under the Jalyukta Shivar, a state-backed water conservation programme, 27,000 conservation works were launched last year, of which 15,000 have been completed. Fadnavis said under the farm pond scheme, 85,000 farmers were found eligible from among those who applied for a farm pond to be dug on their land at government cost.
The government has approved a drought-mitigation scheme in 5,000 villages of Marathwada and Vidarbha regions, in collaboration with the World Bank, at an estimated cost of ₹ 4,000 crore, Fadnavis said.
Pointing out the success of the Prime Minister’s Krishi Bima Yojana, Fadnavis said his government had approved ₹ 4,205 crore for 6.3 million farmers in 2015-16 as against the ₹ 4,734 crore the previous Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government had sanctioned in 15 years.
Of the ₹ 4,205 crore, an amount of ₹ 3,700 crore had already been disbursed to farmers as crop insurance, he said. In 2016-17, over 11.3 million farmers have enrolled under the crop insurance scheme, he said.
Fadnavis, who also holds the home portfolio, said the state had seen a jump in conviction rates from 9% in 2013-14 to 52% now.
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