Software glitch shuts down 666 e-Seva centres across Tamil Nadu

These centres in district collectorates, Corporations, municipalities, town panchayats and taluk offices provide documents like community and income certificates, proof of residence, first graduate in the family and destitute woman certificates, besides paying property and house tax, and birth and death certificates. All e-Seva centres are networked through TN Arasu Cable Television Corporation (TACTV)

The centre in Vellore collectorate has not functioned for the past few days. Sources said this was because the software was being changed in Chennai. “Instead of shutting the State level service throughout the week, they could have done this during weekends when crowd would be limited,” sources averred.

Using one ID by all centres resulted in the systems frequently hanging. The software is being changed to address such issues, they said. Because of this, the public now have to go to Revenue and urban local body offices to get various certificates, which in turn has increased the workload on officials at these offices.

When asked why the staff were made to answer queries from the public instead of putting up a notice announcing that the service was not available, sources said officials directed them not to do so to keep it from reaching the media.

According to sources, the systems suddenly came to life for a brief period, due to which they were asked not to close the centres even though no work could be transacted for most of the time. But the systems also failed suddenly, putting the public to hardship.

However, when contacted, Information Technology department secretary Santhosh Babu did not respond to queries about the alleged lack of preparation while changing software.