Kerala apathy sounds the death knell for FRIENDS

The FRIENDS counters across the State, they say, have been facing neglect from the government which has plans to close them down and promote Akshaya centres instead.

September 23, 2014 09:06 am | Updated 09:06 am IST - Thiruvananthapuram:

Citizens at the FRIENDS counter at the Saphalyam Complex in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday. Photo: S. Mahinsha

Citizens at the FRIENDS counter at the Saphalyam Complex in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday. Photo: S. Mahinsha

It might be a bill payment centre, but one thing which marked the ‘FRIENDS’ counter inside the Saphalyam complex at Palayam was the lack of any queues. At this single-window citizen service system, started in 2001, an efficient token system meant that people could sit in the waiting area until their number came up. But for the past few months winding queues are visible in front of every counter, with the token machine falling into disrepair.

Employees here, on condition of anonymity, say that the dysfunctional counter is just one of the problems that the centre has been facing. More than half of the total 20 counters have not been functioning for the past few months, due to faults in the computer systems.

The FRIENDS counters across the State, they say, have been facing neglect from the government which has plans to close them down and promote Akshaya centres instead.

Now, the employees are concerned that a new shift system introduced recently is aimed at pushing them out and paving the way for the closing down. The counters had two 5-hour shifts, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. This has now been changed to 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. “In all the government departments, where there is cash counter duty, the duty time is fixed as 5 hours due to the concentration required when handling large sums. Also, the Kerala State IT Mission which manages FRIENDS is clueless about what to do with the second shift employees from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. when the shifts overlap. Without enough systems to work on, they sit idle until 4 p.m. When we asked them about this, they said we can go back to our respective departments if we cannot cooperate. With no new appointments in recent times, this looks like a move to push us out too,” says an employee. The strength of employees has fallen from around 60 a decade back to 25 now. “Since all kinds of bills can be paid here with no extra charge, the rush is huge and we cannot even take breaks, especially after the token system stopped. When they tried to change the shifts in August, the system did not allow them to implement it. Now, they have tinkered with the software, reducing its IP mapped security features, to implement it,” says the employee.

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