Background

FRIENDS or “Fast, Reliable, Instant and Efficient Network for Disbursement of Services” was started in 2000 in Thiruvananthpuram by the Kerala State Department of Information Technology with the help of local bodies. The FRIENDS centre, or Janasevana Kendram, (Janasevana means serving people, Kendram means centre) is a one-stop integrated citizen service centre of the Government of Kerala. The centre functions as a single counter to remit utility bill payments, submit applications, seek information on government programmes and schemes, and provide access to other specialty services. After the success of the pilot, FRIENDS was launched in the remaining 13 District Headquarters in 2001.

Objectives and Goals

The project was launched with following objectives and goals:

• To improve government-customer interface at all levels.
• To improve service quality and innovation.
• To improve operational efficiency.
• To provide cost-effective services.

Planning

The project was launched at Thiruvavnanthpuram in 2000, in a rather hasty manner, just before the Assembly Elections. FRIENDS centres were opened in all districts, even though networking and database integration were not taken up in the pilot. It was envisaged to expand the services in 2002 and expand the centres to talukas and blocks in 2003. By the time of the study, these targets had not been attained.

Services Provided

The centre works from 9 am to 7 pm in two shifts on all days including Sundays. The centre is closed on every second Saturday and on public holidays. There are no lunch breaks. The operators or Counter Service Officers (CSOs) work in two shifts from 9 am to 2 pm and from 2 pm to 7 pm. The services offered at FRIENDS centres are: electricity bill payments (low tension and spot billing), fee for new ration cards, Kerala University examination fees, general fees for Kerala University, Motor Vehicle Tax, fee for licenses  and permits from the Motor Vehicles Department, one-time vehicle tax, registration fee for motor vehicles, fee for trade licenses, building tax (one-time), basic land tax, revenue recovery, property tax, professional tax, fee for food license and trade license, water bill payments, telephone bills of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). The participating departments are Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), Kerala Water Authority, Corporation of Thiruvananthpuram, Motor Vehicle Department, Revenue Department, Civil Supplies Department and BSNL. Each FRIENDS centre has 10 counters (Thiruvananthpuram has 20). Each centre has basic amenities for citizens like toilets, a queue management system, air conditioners, help desk, general enquiry counter and waiting hall. No user charges are charged from citizens. FRIENDS does not even charge service charges from government departments for the services provided (only BSNL pays Rs 6 per transaction service charge to the Government). All the payments are received in cash. There are no payments by cheques or bank drafts but credit cards are accepted.

Target Group and Intended Beneficiaries

The citizens of the Municipal Council of Malappuram and nearby five villages are the target population for most of the services. All citizens of the district can avail of the services pertaining to the Transport Department and also telephone bills. KSEB electricity bills could only be paid by citizens residing in the Malappuram section of KSEB. At Thiruvananthpuram FRIENDS, electricity bills are paid for residents residing in 19 electric sections, water bills for those residing in five sections, Revenue Department services to residents of 15 nearby villages. Civil supplies services are available to only those residing in the jurisdiction of two rationing offices. Many citizens are confused whether their work falls in the jurisdiction of FRIENDS or not.

Institutional Arrangements

Each FRIENDS centre is managed by one Project Manager (PM) appointed by the Government from any of the departments (at Thiruvananthpuram there are two PMs). There are two System Administrators for each FRIENDS centre for two shifts. These are trained personnel brought on deputation from Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (CDIT), a Government of Kerala undertaking. There are 20 operators posted for 10 counters (53 in Thiruvananthpuram). They are designated as CSOs and are posted to FRIENDS on deputation from the participating departments. There are no accountants, clerks or peons in FRIENDS centres. The Project Manager reports directly to the Director, Kerala IT Mission, at Thiruvananthpuram.

Technologies

Every counter at FRIENDS has one Celeron 650 computer (10 GB hard disk, 64 MB RAM), one 80-column dot-matrix printer, one fake currency detector and one Queue Management System. The client terminal at the counter uses only Internet Explorer to browse software from the server and to send data to the server. Computers at the counter act as dumb terminals. They are linked into a LAN with the server. The server is a Pentium III (956 MHz, 26 MB RAM, 30 GB HD with RAD configuration). There is a backup server of almost the same configuration. There are three hard disks in the server, each of 9 GB, in RAD configuration for rebuilding the data if one of the hard disks crashes. The server uses Visual Basic at front end and SQL Server 7.0 for data bases. There are no firewalls in the server.

Primary Access Points

Primary access points for the citizens are provided at FRIEND centres at District Headquarters. There is one access centre in each of the 14 districts. There were no online services for the citizens at the time of the study.

Capacity Building

Not much effort has gone into building capacity of PMs and CSOs. All the PMs and CSOs are given four-day training at the time of induction. A few have undergone a refresher course. Similarly, departmental heads have also not undergone any training regarding the system.

Constraints and Implementation Challenges

There was initial resistance from government employees from the participating departments. PMs and CSOs have been posted on deputation to FRIENDS from respective departments without their consent. Employees with Rs 4,000 and Rs 7,500 salarries per month were doing the same task of the CSO, which any operator could have done. All the employees posted at FRIENDS feel that there should a fixed tenure for one year only. Due to the freeze on the new intake of employees, the departments are showing reluctance to depute employees to FRIENDS. Departments have also been insisting on departmental help desks for each of them at FRIENDS centres. The amount collected each day is transferred to the State Bank of Trivancore branch, from where, based on a Bank Transfer Statement provided by FRIENDS, the bank remits the money to the treasury, after which FRIENDS issues cheques to the respective departments. This normally takes five to seven days’ processing time, and no reduction has been possible. All the departments and FRIENDS reconcile monthly accounts with the banks each month.

The software for the project was created by a private organization, which was sub-let the work by CDIT. There were problems with Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) which resulted in court action within six months of launching the programmes. This has severely hindered the growth of the project. There has been resistance from departments to go for full scale back-ending and consolidation of databases.

Project Outcomes

In last one year (April 2002 to March 2003), 232,230 transactions were carried out at Malappuram centre. Of these, 47 percent were to deposit electricity dues, 43  percent to deposit motor vehicle dues, 5 percent to deposit water taxes and 5 percent for all other services put together. Rs 51.37 million have been collected from different taxes from this centre. On any average day, 400-450 citizens visit the centre. After introducting the collection of telephone bills, the number of users increased. There is growing demand from the citizens to expand the number of services and to increase the number of centres in the district.

Key Lessons Learnt

The project justifies the idiom that “Simple is Workable”. It has become a popular project among the citizens, even with a basic LAN system and in-house software and with the same government staff managing the project. The project has also established that inter-departmental coordination could be established if there is sufficient government will. It is a first step in providing a one-stop shop for citizens for all government related services, especially when departmental databases are uncoordinated and difficult to integrate. The project proves that even government funded and managed projects can bring about a remarkable change in the government-citizen interface.

Sustainability

The project is sustainable, but there is no in-built revenue stream in the system. There is neither the concept of user charges nor that of service charges (except for BSNL). The expansion, scaling-up, and upgrading will suffer because of the absence of funds to be ploughed back into the centres.

Replication and Scaling Up

The project has the potential to be replicated in all the urban areas of the country. By introducing PPP in the establishment and management of the centres, the replication process could be expedited. The scaling up was envisaged by integrating FRIENDS with Akshaya centres, but no specific modalities had been worked out at the time of the study.

Recommendations

Presently, citizens have access to these services only from the FRIENDS centre situated at every District Headquarter. It is possible to set up new centres at every taluk or at block level. Some services are available to the citizens residing only in municipal areas and some are available to all the citizens of the district. This creates confusion amongst the citizens, so it is recommended that all the services be provided to all the citizens of the district (or all the citizens residing in a defined geographical and administrative unit). Some centres are located in very conspicuous locations whilst others are out of the way (at Thiruvananthpuram the centre is located on the second floor of a shopping mall and at Calicut the centre is on the fourth floor). It is recommended that such centres should be shifted to public places, which are easily accessible by the citizens. It is also recommended that acceptance of payments through cheques, demand drafts and credit/debit cards be initiated. This will reduce cash handling, which in turn will reduce security hazards. New generation banks should be made the sole bankers of the centre for which they should allow the use of debit cards. The treasury should beseparated from money transfer from FRIENDS to the relevant government departments. This would reduce the cash handling time to 24 hours.

Some mechanism of PPP is urgently needed. Presently, all FRIENDS centres are fully funded and managed by the Government. The investment of Rs 2 million per centre constrains the Government from expanding the project further due to resource restrictions. Similarly, government employees should be withdrawn from CSO jobs and should be more effectively used in departmental back-ending of the databases. CSO jobs should be handed over to private entrepreneurs. The system software should also be converted into LINUX and security firewalls should be installed. Client-end screens are presently viewed through Internet Explorer, which raises security concerns. A new and more secure browser should be put in place. There seems to be a lack of motivation in networking the operation, which makes it a less effective system. There is a need to integrate departmental database servers with the server at the FRIENDS centre. Finally, all services should be made available online from the website.

Human Interest Stories

“Why were These Machines not Invented Earlier?”

 Umar is in his late 60s. He lives in Chengottor village, 10 km from Malappuram. He is a farm labourer and earns Rs 80 a day, but usually finds work only for 15 days in a month. He has a wife and nine children. Two daughters are married and he stays with his seven sons, two daughters-in-law and four grandchildren. One son works as a driver, one as a tailor and another works in a bakery. The other four sons are studying in school. He came to a FRIENDS centre to pay Rs 200 for his electricity bill. He brought his daughter’s electricity bills as well. He took a bus from his village at 10.35 am and reached the centre at 11.00 am. He finished his work in five minutes and was planning to take the 11.10 am bus to return to his village. He detested going to the KSEB office earlier to clear his electricity dues. He used to find long queues and arrogant staff. He recounted an incident when after waiting for many hours when his number came up to pay his bill, the clerk left the counter at 3.00 pm saying that he should come next week. When he went one week later, a penalty for late submission was imposed on him. He said, “Allah be praised. These machines have brought so much comfort to us. I wish these had machines come into existence a long time ago.”

One Man, Two Families

Kunhar Vaidyar is a local medicine man. He lives in Mylappuram village, 1 km from Malappuram. He is 78, and got married 56 years ago but due to differences with his wife, he married a second time 22 years ago with a woman around 30 years younger than him, without divorcing the first wife   He now has two families and takes care of his children in both houses. He earns around Rs 3,000 every month from a rented house and his medical practice. He came to the FRIENDS centre to pay water bills for both his houses. He finds FRIENDS extremely beneficial to senior citizens. He says, “I am totally satisfied with the services the government is providing through the centre.” He has no idea about the machines used on the counter of the centre. He smilingly asks, “Can this machine settle the 56 year-long differences that I have with my first wife?”

Websites

http://www.friendscentre.net

http://www.keralaitmission.org