In a major push towards true digital governance, the state government has ordered that all online public services notified under the Odisha Right to Public Services Act, 2012 (ORTPSA) must become completely end-to-end digital and faceless.
The directive aims to eliminate the frustrating reality where citizens still have to visit government offices or meet officials even after applying online.
Despite many services being digitised, manual interventions continue at critical stages such as processing, approval, issuance of final certificates, licences or permits. This forces applicants to make physical visits or maintain direct contact with officials, undermining the very goals of transparency, efficiency, accountability and timely service delivery that ORTPSA was meant to achieve. The absence of full digital workflows has also hampered real-time monitoring, automated escalations, data analysis, auditability and the effective implementation of the state’s digital governance initiatives.
Principal Secretary of the General Administration Department, Suresh Kumar Vashishth, has written to all department heads highlighting these gaps. The government has now decided that every notified online service must operate without any manual intervention or physical interaction from application submission to final delivery. The only exceptions will be cases where law, rules or government orders specifically require physical verification, biometric authentication, inspection or personal presence.
Of the 451 services currently notified under ORTPSA, 352 are already available online. Departments have been instructed to redesign, upgrade or reconfigure their services to create seamless digital workflows. These will include online applications, system-generated acknowledgements, online scrutiny and approvals, digital certificate generation, online delivery, automated status updates via SMS, email and WhatsApp, secure data transmission and complete digital record-keeping.
The new system will be integrated with the Central Monitoring System (CMS) dashboard of the Centre for Modernising Government Initiative (CMGI) and the “Aama Sathi” WhatsApp bot. This linkage is expected to enable real-time monitoring, better backlog control and improved service quality.
All departments have been directed to submit action-taken reports within 15 days. The General Administration Department has classified the exercise as extremely urgent and of the highest priority.
This decisive step is expected to significantly reduce citizens’ hardship, cut opportunities for rent-seeking, and bring Odisha closer to a truly faceless, efficient and citizen-centric administration.
