With the launch of the e-district portal in Thiruvananthpuram, Kerala is on its path to become fully digital. The state government hopes to achieve this target by 2016.

The portal will enable all government services and transactions to occur in the electronic mode, mentioned a report in The Deccan Chronicle. As of now, only 50 percent of the services offered are digitized. The report quoted, PH Kurian, IT principle secretary as saying that the state government plans to increase this to 100 percent in the coming three years.

IT secretary K.S. Srinivas, added that so far only nine departments offer their services through the e-district portal. Within the next few years, all government departments will be urged to offer their services through the portal.

The portal will offer a host of services including filing of RTI and public grievances online; e-challans and issuance of various certificates including income, caste and identification.

In order to use the e-district portal, a citizen will have to create an account using a one time registration process. The following are a must for registration; Aadhaar number, mobile phone number and email address. They will also have to pay a fee of Rs 10 as service charge and an additional Rs 2 as payment gateway charge.

The report quoted PK Kunhalikutty, IT minister as saying that the e-district portal will ensure an additional layer of transparency while eliminating red-tapism within the department. Although Kerala is already quite advanced in terms of eGovernance, the full fledged digitisation of the state will bring about a lot of changes, he added.