In another step towards digital Punjab, Chief MinisterCaptain Amarinder Singh on Thursday virtually launched ‘Unified State HelplineNumber '1100' to provide citizen centric services and redressing grievancesbesides extending the ‘State Admission Portal’(https://admission.punjab.gov.in) till August 31, 2021 to enable the students desirousof getting admissions in various government colleges across the State in hasslefree manner.
In his address,the Chief Minister said that nearly 42,000 students have already enrolled onthe portal. With this common admission portal, 100% admissions would becontactless as applicants need not to be present themselves physically, whichwould keep them at bay from the risk of Corona.
Terming another people friendly initiative of 1100Helpline, the Chief Minister said it would help the people in making their lifemuch easier in several ways by just clicking a button to avail numerousbenefits of these services. He said this newly launched ‘Unified State HelplineNumber '1100 would be soon supported by features like chat, email, WhatsApp andSMS.
The Chief Minister also directed the AdministrativeSecretaries of various departments to regularly conduct a weekly review of thefunctioning of their departments and also asked the Chief Secretary to monitorthe functioning of these departments at her level from time to time forensuring prompt delivery of the citizen services. Captain Amarinder alsoemphasized the need to analyze the resolution of grievances both qualitativelyas well as quantitatively.
Speaking on the occasion Higher Education Minister TriptRajinder Singh Bajwa said that a long pending demand of students has been metwith the launch of State Admission Portal to enable them to apply throughsingle application from multiple colleges.
Making a presentation, Special Secretary GovernanceReforms and Public Grievances Ravi Bhagat said that '1100' Helpline has alsobeen linked with PGRS portal and would facilitate Non-Emergency Services only,as a major step forward in the Digital Punjab Initiative. He also mentionedthat earlier multiple existing helplines often confused the citizens and nowthe new helpline would allow them to register and track the status of theirgrievances through dialing 1100, Web Portal: connect.punjab.gov.in, Sewa Kendras,m-sewa and e-Sewa mobile application. All the departments are connected onlineReal time tracking of the complaints 24X7 service.
Earlier, the Principal Secretary Higher Education RKGanta apprised the Chief Minister that centralized online admission process forthe session 2021-22 was initiated in all the Government colleges in Punjab onAugust 2, 2021. The process is currently serving 59 government colleges of thestate for admission in Undergraduate and Post Graduate courses. He also briefedChief Minister about some salient features of the admission portal viz.contactless verification of the education certificates though DigiLocker withno manual verification, auto verification of Caste certificate (SC/BC) andDomicile certificate of the applicant by the portal, structured and defined feestructure as per State University norms, online generation of Student enrolmentnumber by the portal, online and offline mode of payments and provision forpayment in parts for needy students.
On the occasion, Garvita Sharma from Bathinda, MuskanPuri from Amritsar besides the father of student Manmeet Kaur from Hoshiarpurshared their inputs about the new admission portal and thanked the ChiefMinister for this unique initiative to make admission process much easier andsimple.
Prominent among others who attended the meeting includedForest Minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Industries and Commerce Minister SunderSham Arora and Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan.