In another step towards digital Punjab, Chief Minister
Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday virtually launched ‘Unified State Helpline
Number '1100' to provide citizen centric services and redressing grievances
besides extending the ‘State Admission Portal’
(https://admission.punjab.gov.in) till August 31, 2021 to enable the students desirous
of getting admissions in various government colleges across the State in hassle
free manner.
In his address,
the Chief Minister said that nearly 42,000 students have already enrolled on
the portal. With this common admission portal, 100% admissions would be
contactless as applicants need not to be present themselves physically, which
would keep them at bay from the risk of Corona.
Terming another people friendly initiative of 1100
Helpline, the Chief Minister said it would help the people in making their life
much easier in several ways by just clicking a button to avail numerous
benefits of these services. He said this newly launched ‘Unified State Helpline
Number '1100 would be soon supported by features like chat, email, WhatsApp and
SMS.
The Chief Minister also directed the Administrative
Secretaries of various departments to regularly conduct a weekly review of the
functioning of their departments and also asked the Chief Secretary to monitor
the functioning of these departments at her level from time to time for
ensuring prompt delivery of the citizen services. Captain Amarinder also
emphasized the need to analyze the resolution of grievances both qualitatively
as well as quantitatively.
Speaking on the occasion Higher Education Minister Tript
Rajinder Singh Bajwa said that a long pending demand of students has been met
with the launch of State Admission Portal to enable them to apply through
single application from multiple colleges.
Making a presentation, Special Secretary Governance
Reforms and Public Grievances Ravi Bhagat said that '1100' Helpline has also
been linked with PGRS portal and would facilitate Non-Emergency Services only,
as a major step forward in the Digital Punjab Initiative. He also mentioned
that earlier multiple existing helplines often confused the citizens and now
the new helpline would allow them to register and track the status of their
grievances through dialing 1100, Web Portal: connect.punjab.gov.in, Sewa Kendras,
m-sewa and e-Sewa mobile application. All the departments are connected online
Real time tracking of the complaints 24X7 service.
Earlier, the Principal Secretary Higher Education RK
Ganta apprised the Chief Minister that centralized online admission process for
the session 2021-22 was initiated in all the Government colleges in Punjab on
August 2, 2021. The process is currently serving 59 government colleges of the
state for admission in Undergraduate and Post Graduate courses. He also briefed
Chief Minister about some salient features of the admission portal viz.
contactless verification of the education certificates though DigiLocker with
no manual verification, auto verification of Caste certificate (SC/BC) and
Domicile certificate of the applicant by the portal, structured and defined fee
structure as per State University norms, online generation of Student enrolment
number by the portal, online and offline mode of payments and provision for
payment in parts for needy students.
On the occasion, Garvita Sharma from Bathinda, Muskan
Puri from Amritsar besides the father of student Manmeet Kaur from Hoshiarpur
shared their inputs about the new admission portal and thanked the Chief
Minister for this unique initiative to make admission process much easier and
simple.
Prominent among others who attended the meeting included
Forest Minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Industries and Commerce Minister Sunder
Sham Arora and Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan.