The scheme costing Rs 40 lakh, which was approved by the State Cabinet recently, envisages setting up of 30 computer terminals in a location in the heart of the city where electricity and water bills, property tax, building tax, vehicle tax, telephone bills can be paid and application forms for certain purposes can be remited.

All wards in the city will be covered under the programme and the services will be open for 12 hours from 8 AM. Apart from accepting payments, the Friends project would also provide help desk facilities to the public who are interested in knowing about the functioning of various government departments, their services and projects apart from accepting application forms to be send to various offices and departments.

Public sector CMC Ltd is likely to bag the contract for the Friends system as they have the expertise in networking for citizen-friendly services, State IT department sources said.

Other facilities planned for the project include ATM facility, railway reservation, KTDC hotels and KSRTC services. The counters will be functional on all days, IT department officials added.

Initially, the service will be provided in the Capital. If it clicks, it will be launched in Kochi and Kozhikode districts. The Friends programme is a little more ambitious than that of Twins project of Andhra Pradesh as it involves 12 wards, 30 counters and as many as 20 services. The Twins project is operational only in one ward in each city with 12 counters each.

"Friends project is a major step forward in utilising IT for the benefit of common man," Kerala chief minister EK Nayanar, who also holds the portfolio of IT, said.

This is not the first time that Kerala is adapting the AP model for citizen friendly services although it has been critical of the IT hype generated by Chandrababu Naidu. Earlier, the CARD system was adapted for computerising the registration department of the state.