Responsibility for online uploading of a major portion of the applications accepted through ‘Praja Palana’ counters from across the city has been handed over to a private agency, as GHMC, the nodal agency for implementation of the programme in the city, has only 300 data entry operators.
Commissioner Ronald Rose shared this piece of information during his visit to the Secunderabad zonal office where the applications from Begumpet and Secunderabad circles are being uploaded. Data entry has been taken up circle wise in order to meet the deadlines. A total of 635 data centres have been organised where 5,000 data entry operators belonging to various agencies are working in eight-hour shifts every day to complete the task.
The private agency provides computers and the data entry operators, but the job will be monitored by the GHMC officials, each of whom will act as team leader at each data centre, Mr. Ronald Rose said.
The Commissioner interacted with the data entry operators and enquired about the time taken for entering the data pertaining to each application. He was told that the application forms where the number of family members is higher, take 10-15 minutes each. On a working day, 70-80 forms are completed on an average, he was explained. Mr. Rose asked them to ensure error free data entry.
A total of 24,74,325 applications have been received during the ‘Praja Palana’ programme, of which over 19 lakh pertained to the five guarantees under ‘Abhaya Hastham’, and 5.73 lakh pertained to food security and other issues. So far, data entry has been completed with regard to 6.5 lakh applications.
The Commissioner issued orders to ensure that the applications are transported as per the standard operating procedure, and warned that negligent officials will have to face the action. Already, disciplinary action has been taken against officials who violated the SOP while transporting the application forms. Also issued show cause notice was another team leader upon allegations that the forms were being carried home from the Quthbullahpur circle office. However, all the forms were found intact at the data centre, he informed.
Zonal Commissioner Ravikiran and others accompanied the Commissioner on his visit.
