ServicePlus – A Versatile and Secure Solution for Service Delivery

ServicePlus makes all Government services accessible to the common man in his locality through delivery outlets. It ensures efficiency, transparency, and reliability of such services at an affordable price to the common man.”

e-Governance is the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at all levels of the Government to provide services to the citizens. It also helps in the interaction with business enterprises and communication and exchange of information between different agencies of the Government in a speedy, convenient efficient and transparent manner. In 2010, National Informatics Centre (NIC) conceptualized a configurable framework that can be adopted across various panchayats in India under the guidance of the Ministry of Panchayati Raaj (MoPR). Post conducting various regional workshops to discuss the challenges faced by the users (Panchayats as well as Citizens), NIC finally started the development of a Configurable Unified Framework for service delivery. As a result, in 2011, ServicePlus – a Metadata Base eService Delivery Framework was developed.

In any conventional application development process, none of the steps such as Requirements, Design, Planning and Architecture, Development or Software Testing can be bypassed. Moreover, it requires skilled developers having in-depth knowledge of the language as well as the framework chosen for development. However, in using low code or no-code platforms like ServicePlus, even the basic knowledge of an IT framework and minimal intervention of multiple resources, a service can be configured and launched in no time by non-IT professionals. It can be done by anyone who knows their business and understands the processes that drive it, irrespective of any coding knowledge. ServicePlus empowers officials with a simple drag-and-drop interface that makes even the most complicated processes easy to access. One can take control of all details without any support.

Since 2012, the framework is being increasingly used to evolve various powerful tools/ modules such as Service Coverage Selector, Target Beneficiary Definer, Form Designer, Document Designer, Service Charge Calculator, Task/Process flow Designer, SMS/Email Notification Definer, DSC/eSign Signer, Report Designer and many more. In less than a decade, ServicePlus has emerged as a widely used framework catering to 31 states, 9 central ministries, 250-line departments and about 1800+ services across the country.

The framework has helped over 54 million citizens to process service applications and raised a revenue of Rs 954 crore since its inception for Government of India. It has provided the ease of access to the citizens as well as the authorities. It is proclaimed that the eService Delivery Framework – ServicePlus has facilitated with plethora of online applications resulting in smooth governance during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ServicePlus analytics provides business with real-time dashboards and drill-down reports that are easily configured. Since decision making is largely driven by data, it is a data collaboration tool capable to visualize, and select. The user can select how they want to display data from a variety of gauges and chart types; including bars, columns, pie, doughnut, pyramid etc. using about 34 KPI’s.

Many States such as Maharashtra, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh are using ServicePlus as e-Panchayat MMP; Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, Tripura, Assam Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim are using it as e-District MMP/RTPS; Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Kerala are using this framework for services beyond those identified under e-District. ServicePlus is implemented in Haryana under the brand name SARAL whereas in Karnataka it is called SevaSindhu 2.0 and in Jharkhand it is known as JharSewa. Gujarat has recently started using it with many other States to follow. The system can easily be adopted for all kinds of services such as e-District services, EoDB services, DBT Schemes, Ticketing services, and others. It aims at enhancing transparency in all activities relating to eServices.

This unified platform based on multi-tenant architecture for delivering electronic services to citizens. It allows each tenant to configure their services as per their requirements. ServicePlus also enables its services to be accessed in local languages and it renders a single unified portal to the citizen for accessing any service, track submitted applications and subscribe to alerts on 24/7 basis.

ServicePlus also provides seamless integration with popular customer centric services like Aadhaar, Digi-locker and multiple payment gateways (Banking or Government Receipt Accounting System). It is a one-stop solution which gives citizens access in availing various pan India e-governance services and supports multiple Aadhaar-based authentication mechanisms.
The Centre’s Aarogya Setu app, which gained a lot of traction in the times of COVID-19 to help people assess the possibility of the infection as well as identify the proximity of any such case in their locality, has also been integrated with ServicePlus.
The Metadata-Based Integrated eService Delivery Framework, ServicePlus has won Gold at Digital India Awards 2020 in the ‘Exemplary Product Award’ category. This proves the scalability, reliability, extensibility and flexibility of ServicePlus. It is an inexpensive model which can be easily replicated in other line departments as well abroad.