Date:11/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/11/stories/2008091153630400.htm

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

New finishing school in Kochi soon

Special Correspondent

C-DIT, IT Mission to join hands for the project, envisaged to train fresh engineering graduates

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government will shortly start a new finishing school under the auspices of the Kerala IT Mission and the Centre for Development of Imaging Technology (C-DIT) in Kochi, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan has said.

He said this here on Wednesday while launching a ‘one-stop portal’ giving all details about the services the people are entitled to from various government departments.

The new finishing school would have a training schedule tailor-made to raise the capabilities of fresh graduates in engineering and IT disciplines to the levels expected by the present-day job market, he said.

New C-DIT centres

Mr. Achuthanandanalso said that the government had decided to entrust C-DIT with the responsibility of providing to the National Portal of India all information concerning the State. The C-DIT would open its centres newly in Kochi and Kannur this year. Starting a new training course in feature film production at the C-DIT too was under consideration, he added.

Total transparency

He directed all department heads to work with the C-DIT in making the ‘one-stop portal’ comprehensive. It should reach out to the people with total transparency and its purpose should be to fully open up the government’s services to the citizens. There should be no gaps or glitches, he said. The portal would also have a window for the citizens to air their feelings, good and bad, about the government’s service delivery system. The officials should remember this, he said.

Info on all services

All basic services the citizens should get from the government by right were on display in the Kerala page of the National Portal of India. It had both English and Malayalam versions. The portal now provided 144 different services. Citizens could access it through the Akshaya Centres also. All the policy statements of the government and applications for government services too were in the portal.