Govt to provide seamless e-services 

All 272 government agencies and state enterprises are expected to provide e-government services seamlessly within the next three to five years.
In the meantime, the Electronic Government Agency (EGA) plans to deploy 200,000 smart-card readers to support e-services provided by 80 of the organisations by the end of next year. 
The EGA has also announced the results of an e-government readiness survey and reported that around 16.6 per cent of the 272 agencies were now ready to provide e-services to support Thai citizens. 
EGA president Sak Segkhoonthod said the agency was now developing the digital government development plan phase II, which aimed to enable all citizens to access all e-government services seamlessly over the Internet in the next three to five years. 
As a result, individuals will be able to utilise their 13-digit ID cards as paperless documents to access official e-services, he said.
As a crucial part of its plans, the EGA will work with 80 government agencies in the deployment of around 200,000 smart-card readers nationwide by the end of next year to support e-government services, enabling citizens to access services via these machines for matters such as registering to set up their own business, or paying tax – all without the need to use paper copies of personal information documents, thus greatly reducing the current level of complexity in accessing official services, Sak explained.
Moreover, the government will also provide intelligent e-searches to support Thai users and the digital economy scheme, he added.
Next year, Thai citizens will also be able to ask state enterprises to install utility services at their homes and register to set up their own businesses via the online channel, the EGA chief said. 
“The agency is in the process of developing the provision of seamless services from all government agencies, such as e-payment and import and export services as one-stop services. I expect that within the next three years all 272 government agencies will be connected, and will have integrated their back offices. As a result, the government will be able to reduce its overall cost for information-technology maintenance to less than Bt3 billion,” the president said.
Around one million people already access e-government services via www.ega.or.th, following the EGA’s launch of the website a year ago, he said.
Sak said the agency’s e-government readiness survey, which was carried out from May 1 to June 30 among 234 of the 272 government agencies and state enterprises, found that around 16.6 per cent of the organisations showed digital-government or e-government readiness in six areas or categories: policies and practices; secure and efficient infrastructure; smart back-office practices; e-officers with capability; accessible and convenient public services; and smart technologies and practices. 
Some 79.9 per cent of the agencies and enterprises provide at least some services online, he added. 
Moreover, the top three government organisations in terms of entering the digital era were found to be the Foreign Affairs Ministry, followed by the Energy Ministry and the Interior Ministry, respectively. 
The most popular means of providing e-government services to Thai users are websites, followed by mobile applications and kiosks, the survey found. 
Around 99 per cent of state organisations provide Wi-Fi hotspots to the public, while 95.73 per cent provide open data.
Some 64 per cent of the organisations now use cloud computing, while infrastructure as a service is used at 63 per cent of them, followed by software as a service at 43 per cent, and platform as a service at 29 per cent.
The survey also found that 97 per cent of the organisations had an IT disaster-recovery plan, 36 per cent used big data to manage their database, and 11 per cent utilised Internet of Things technology to support their services and organisations. 
Sak added that the EGA had now laid down 10 smart kiosks to provide e-government services, including one at CentralWorld in Bangkok.
The agency will set up another 190 kiosks around the country in the next three years.