Kochi corporation council meet fails to resolve e-governance issue

KOCHI: With the Kochi corporation council meet held on Friday failing to take decisions on issues related to e-governance, safety-related concerns would continue to bother Kochiites while accessing the portal.
As the council couldn't give approval for renewal of the secure socket layer (SSL), a security technology for the online data of the local body which expired in March, the corporation's valuable is still prone to hacking.
Though the opposition councillors raised the issue at the meeting, corporation authorities adopted a stand that approval for the renewal of SSL could be given along with other issues pertaining to e-governance. "As there is no security coverage for e-governance system of the corporation, valuable data may be hacked. Still, the corporation authorities are not ready to heed to our call for renewal of SSL. The corporation authorities didn't even include the issue of renewal of the SSL in the agenda of the council meeting. When we took up the issue, corporation authorities adopted a stand that all issues pertaining to e-governance should be approved at one go," said V P Chandran, secretary, LDF parliamentary party, Kochi Corporation.
"TCS, the private firm which has to implement e-governance project on behalf of the local body, is not cooperating with the corporation. Even after giving extension of tenure, TCS couldn't complete the modules and hand them over to the corporation. At a meeting convened by local self-governance minister A C Moideen in July 2019, the agency was asked to complete all the work within six months. But, TCS demanded that their staff should be paid by Kochi corporation during the period. We as the opposition can't agree to their demand," Chandran said.
At the council meeting, some of the councillors raised the issue of the bund constructed for facilitating the work on Padmasarovaram was causing waterlogging in Kadavanthra, Elamkulam, Chilavannoor and Gandhinagar. "But, mayor Soumini Jain didn't even answer my queries in this regard," education standing committee chairperson Poornima Narayan said.
The council decided to take measures to provide support to e-learning at government and aided schools under the limits of the corporation.