Andhra Pradesh’s e-governance initiatives

Participation in the e-Seva project gives Cisco the opportunity to extend the reach of the Internet B Ashok Vice-president Cisco Systems India

Cisco Systems has successfully connected citizen utility centres for the AP government's e-Seva project. This project seeks to redefine citizen services by allowing them to make payments for using government services. It also facilitates the flow of information to the public, and B2C (business-to-consumer) services. All this is delivered from a single location.

Citizens can avail of these services by walking into one of the 18 centres across the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, or leveraging the Internet at home. Online payments are facilitated by means of payment gateways for which the state government has tied up with several banks. Utility services covered under the scheme are water, electricity, telephones, municipal taxes, certificates for birth and death registration, passport applications, permits and licences, transport department services, reservations, and Internet and B2C facilities.

Says Phani Kumar, project director, “e-Seva is reflective of our commitment to citizen care. It was important to ensure that the project delivered on its promises, for which a robust and reliable back-end was imperative. Cisco with its focus on customer care and end-to-end solutions was an obvious partner."

Adds B Ashok, vice-president, Cisco Systems India, "Participation in this project gives us an opportunity to extend the reach of the Internet as it changes the way people work, live, play and learn."

e-Seva is based on a three-tier network architecture. Transactions are conducted in real-time. Servers located in different departments are connected to the data centre, which in turn is linked to the e-Seva centres. Leased lines, with ISDN back-up, hook up the departmental servers to the e-Seva data centre. Transactions processed at the centres are recorded directly on the server of the concerned department.

At the core of the network lies Cisco 3600 series routers, connecting the 18 centres to various government departments. Within these centres sit LANs powered by Cisco Catalyst 1900 series switches. The departments are linked to the centres via Cisco 1720 routers.

e-Seva's operations will initially cover the twin cities. The state government plans to extend e-Seva centres in the surrounding municipalities in Ranga Reddy district, and 56 corporations, selection grade, special grade and grade I municipalities spread across the state. A separate version of e-Seva will serve rural areas.