Bangalore One: A One Stop Shop for Government Services

Headnote

By setting up Bangalore One (B One), Government Of Karnataka (GOK) responded to the long standing demand of its citizens for a 'one stop shop' for dealing with various government departments and public utility services. However, seventeen months after the first B One centre was opened, B One found itself heavily dependent on a single service and being encircled by superior technology mediated service delivery options. With abysmally low number of transactions, break even seemed a distant dream. This case presents an all-inclusive account of the introduction, growth, implementation and challenges faced by B One. This case study is prepared as a basis for class discussion. It is not meant to illustrate, either the correct or the incorrect handling of a situation.

"One of the last things that I look forward to is dealing with a government agency"

- A citizen

"Thanks to B One, I pay all my utility bills in one go"

- B One customer

INTRODUCTION

There was a long felt need in India for providing various government and public utility services in an integrated manner. For a long time, citizens experienced lot of inconvenience as the number of touch points (manually operated counters) were limited, inefficient, geographically spread out, and operated for fixed hours. In fact, the bill payment services of public utilities functioned between 10.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. on working days. At times, consumers were put to great inconvenience as all payments were done only through cash. Apart from these, the perceived image of the employees of various government agencies and public utilities was, 'unfriendly and non-cooperative'. The concept of 'anywhere, anytime, service' did not exist as various departments and public utilities strictly adhered to their jurisdiction. For instance, public utilities grouped households into various sub divisions and the bills were required to be paid only in the designated sub division (area of jurisdiction) cash counter.

Given the above situation, there was a strong need for an easy to access, reliable, efficient, and a single window facility for completing various transactions involving government agencies and public utility service providers. Many policy makers believed that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) could possibly help them build an alternative mode of service delivery.

Among other things were, the introduction of e-seva1...