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HYDERABAD, April 2

RESPONDING to the issues raised by the Comptroller and Auditor General with regard to eSeva citizen centric services centres, the State Government has clarified some of the points.

To start with, there could not be a budgetary allocation when the project was conceived after the Budget. No electronic service delivery project will ever get started if it waits for all departments to be ready with databases to begin with, the State Government observed.

The Director of eSeva, Mr Phani Kumar, said that a detailed reply addressing point by point was submitted to the CAG. As the replies from the Government reached the CAG late, they were not incorporated in the report.

Major departments delivering citizen centric services such as electricity, water works, the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad, and the Transport Department were ready with databases and the project started with the services of these departments in 1999.

Other departments joined in later and continue to join as and when they are ready. As far as logical controls are concerned, access is restricted by clearly defined user account and password policy. There is a router level security as well. With regard to physical security, adequate access control mechanisms are put in place, which is constantly monitored.

Mr Kumar added that there was no access to information of any department or funds to the private technology partners selected in the public-private partnership model of eSeva. In fact, in the eSeva model, leased lines are laid to the department servers accessing only the billing table of the customer. No data is stored in eSeva.

All funds collected are paid the very next day to the departments such as electricity, and water works. The private technology partners receive only transaction charges paid by the Government. They have no access whatsoever either to data or to funds.

With regard to CAG observation on budgetary allocation for the project, it is for the department to make suitable allocation and not for projects that are not envisaged at the time of the Budget formulation, Mr Kumar said.

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