The Hindu Business Line : Kerala IT Mission working on services thru cell-phones

In Thiruvananthapuram, the IT Mission is working on a project to enable members of the public to use their mobile phone to obtain information on Government offices in the district.

Sankar Radhakrishnan

Thiruvananthapuram, June 12

The Kerala State Information Technology Mission is working on several projects to deliver various services to the public using mobile phones.

The IT Mission’s objective is to make it possible for people of Kerala to access different kinds of information, and eventually even make payments, using their mobile phones, explained Dr Ajay Kumar, Secretary-IT, Government of Kerala. Using mobile phones to offer “mobile governance or m-governance” services to citizens makes sense given the wide penetration of mobile phones in the State.

Several m-governance projects are on the drawing board, but two initiatives are currently at the development stage in different parts of the State. In Thiruvananthapuram, the IT Mission is working on a project to enable members of the public to use their mobile phone to obtain information on Government offices in the district, Dr Ajay Kumar said.

By sending an SMS to a special number, people will be able to obtain information such as the location of various government offices, address of a specific office and so on.

Meanwhile, in Kozhikode district, the IT Mission has just wrapped up a pilot project to enable people to use their mobile phones to get information on health resources, he revealed.

By sending an SMS to a special number, members of the public can obtain information on hospitals, pharmaceutical stores, clinical laboratories and so on in the district.

This information will initially be available only by SMS, but the IT Mission is exploring alternative delivery systems, Dr Ajay Kumar said. The information will also be available on the Internet, he added.

The IT Mission already has a database with information on government healthcare institutions in the district.

It is now collecting information on private institutions in Kozhikode to include this in the database.

More Stories on : E-Governance | Telecommunications | Kerala

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Kerala IT Mission working on services thru cell-phones