KOCHI: With Kochi Corporation planning to follow e-Governance soon, the councillors of entire 74 divisions will be provided with laptops or tablet PCs. The councillors were asked to submit their options and it is learnt that more than 75 per cent of the councillors have opted for laptops.“Nowadays, many councillors rely on IT facilities to carry out their duties. Hence, the laptops are being given to them by utilising the capacity building funds of the Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project (KSUDP). The estimated cost for the purchase of laptops is estimated at `25 lakh,” said a top Corporation official.As a Government-owned unit, Keltron will be entrusted with the purchase of laptops and iPhones for the councillors and ‘capacity building’ funds will be used to buy the laptops from Keltron. Once the tenure is over, the councillors will have to return the equipment to the Corporation. The official said that with the Corporation planning to implement the e-Governance project this fiscal year, it will be of great help for the councillors if they were provided with laptops and tabs. However, the official also did not hide his apprehensions whether all the councillors are tech-savvy enough to handle the advanced equipment.“However, special training sessions will be given to them. The civic body will also make sure that the devices are used by the councillors solely for the administrative purposes,” he added. Along with that, training sessions will be given to those councillors who are not net-savvy too.Meanwhile, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) have almost completed the works to launch the e-Governance project in Kochi Corporation. Once the `8-crore project is completely implemented, major services such as utility management, property tax payment, registration of births and deaths, and building approvals will be offered online by the civic body.
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