Syndicated from a previously public website – Raju Alluri’s public posts at Sun Microsystems
Recently, Government of Andhra Pradesh started issuing multi-purpose (ration, identity, proof of residence etc.) cards to its residents. I haven’t had such cards for more than a decade for several reasons, so thought of getting one. Yesterday my wife and myself went to get one and got a pleasant surprise too.
The application forms are distributed well in advance to my home, so had no difficulty in figuring out what documentation is needed to get the card. The form is simple, boxed and ready for data entry in the sense that you need to fill in codes for occupation, relationship, nativity etc. The codes are well documented on the back of the form.
The facility (a community hall less than a km from my place) is a temp setup to issue these cards, so it is free from the typical government office ambience. They started with a help desk and have setup about 6 counters for various things like scrutiny, fee payment, photo shoot, iris scan, data entry and data validation. We flowed thru these counters very smoothly, always thanking the cooperative counter clerks.
The photo shoot and iris scan are the best part of the whole episode. It is a very simple, no-nonsense setup that made me feel happy and proud to be part of such a system. This is the first time I got my iris scanned. A government office doing that is very impressive.
I was asked to validate our data before they printed out the card. This is a very good provision they made. I was handed out a laminated card with details of all our family members and photos of myself and wife (kids excused to attend the school.)
The entire process took just a little more than 30 minutes. This is less than the time I had to wait at a movie ticket counter over the last weekend.
Definitely, governments are improving!