Andhra Pradesh IT and Education Minister Nara Lokesh has directed officials to establish a transparent and robust digital verification system driven by the Aadhaar number. Under this proposed ‘Digi-Verify’ setup, entering a candidate’s Aadhaar number will immediately verify all educational and sports certificates in real time, showing details of when, where, and by whom the document was issued. The Minister emphasized that this system will simplify bureaucratic procedures by 99 percent and prevent major hurdles for lakhs of job aspirants ahead of upcoming large-scale government recruitment drives.
The directives were issued during a high-level review meeting chaired by Minister Lokesh at the RTGS Command Control Center in the Secretariat. Reviewing the progress of various public services alongside RTGS Secretary Katamneni Bhaskar, the Minister ordered the completion of the comprehensive ‘Data Lake’ project by July. He suggested utilizing this unified data network to identify and analyze school dropout patterns to bring students back to classrooms, while also directing that the ‘Sanjivani’ healthcare program be integrated with the system.
Furthermore, the Minister instructed officials to run a month-long public awareness campaign regarding the ‘Mana Mitra’ WhatsApp governance platform to make citizen services more accessible. He emphasized streamlining the issuance of caste and income certificates, as well as simplifying the process for bifurcation, addition, and deletion of names on ration cards. Additionally, in light of the El Niño phenomenon, Lokesh urged the water resources and agriculture departments to coordinate closely via the RTGS ‘Aware’ division to mitigate water scarcity, particularly in the Rayalaseema region, and to prepare strategic power supply plans to handle shifting electricity demands.
