Thrusting on the need for a marked change in the functioning of village offices, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has announced the State government’s plan to make all village offices smart within five years.
In an interaction through videoconference with village officers from across the State on Friday, he said that all services through village offices would be made available online within October 2.
Out of the 1,666 village offices in the State, 126 had already been transformed into smart offices. The work was progressing in 324 other offices. The remaining ones would also be transformed during this government’s tenure, said the CM.
He said that a change in the mindset of the employees was required along with the upgrading of infrastructural facilities and service delivery.
“The public depends a lot on village offices. Hence efficient and quick service delivery is important. The employees should also be able to adapt to these timely changes. The government aims for a people-friendly and corruption free service,” he said.
Mr. Vijayan said that corruption in civil services had come down drastically. The practice of making people visit offices multiple times for the same purpose, of not taking timely action on applications, and making people to come directly to the offices without sufficient reason in online applications, all could be counted as corruption. Stringent action would be taken in such cases, he said.
With the implementation of the Continuing Operating Referral System in all the village offices next year, the services of the revenue, survey and registration departments would be integrated.
Revenue Minister K. Rajan and Revenue Department officials were present in the meeting.
