Guwahati, Sept 21: From senior citizen certificates to certified copies of electoral rolls. Getting important documents in Assam will now be a hassle-free exercise.

Dispur today launched Sugam, an e-district service to enable people across the state to avail of public services without visiting government offices.

Inaugurating the service on the state secretariat premises here this afternoon, chief minister Tarun Gogoi said the service would end citizens' woes of visiting government offices and seeking out officers time and again to get various kinds of work done. He said citizens would now just have to click the mouse of a computer to apply for various public services.

"Citizens will no longer have to depend on a section of officers to solve their grievances. Besides being a giant leap towards introduction of e-governance in the state, the service will fulfil my vision of raijor podulit raijor sarkar (people's government at people's doorstep)," Gogoi said.

The e-district service is an initiative by the Assam information technology department to deliver district level government-to-citizen services electronically to the people. The services will be delivered online through Arunoday Kendra and public facilitation centres covering all circles, sub-divisional offices and district commissioner offices in 27 districts in the state. Citizens can directly apply for such services on www.assam.gov.in through the Internet.

Gogoi admitted that there are cases where some employees at DC offices across the state take bribes from citizens to get their work done. He hoped that such allegations would not be heard after the launch of the e-district services today.

He expressed happiness that many people have already started filing applications to receive the service.

Speaking on the occasion, chief secretary V.K. Pipersenia emphasised the need to sensitise people about such services so that the very purpose of the project to benefit citizens is fulfilled.

Dilip S. Pegu, managing director of Assam Electronics Development Corporation Limited (Amtron), who is closely associated with the project, said the focus of Sugam is to simplify the services delivery process, minimising delivery time and costs and making the process transparent and traceable.

"Citizens will be directly benefited because of easy and online application procedure, nominal user charges, easy tracking of application status through SMS gateway and email, time bound online service delivery and a toll free number at 18003451100," Pegu said.

A few senior citizens who were present at today's launch welcomed the initiative. "Sometimes it is humiliating for us (senior citizens) to visit DC offices several times to get a simple document," a senior citizen said.