VIJAYAWADA: The Real Time Governance Society (RTGS) of the Andhra Pradesh government won appreciation from Bill Gates, Chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The global technology leader visited the RTGS centre at the State Secretariat on Monday.

During his hour-long stay at the RTGS centre, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu gave a detailed presentation on the functioning of RTGS in rendering civic services using Data Lake, AWARE 2.0, WhatsApp Governance, the Sanjeevani health project and Amaravati capital development.

Bill Gates evinced keen interest and sought details on several subjects.

When the Chief Minister explained the collection of public satisfaction levels on government services through RTGS, Bill Gates appreciated the system and asked about the steps being taken to protect people’s land records.

Chief Minister Naidu said the government is using blockchain technology and QR codes to prevent tampering of land records in the State.

Bill Gates also enquired about the implementation of the Sanjeevani health project in Kuppam constituency with the support of the Gates Foundation.

When Naidu said that the State government maintains the health records of all citizens using AI, Bill Gates appreciated the effort and opined that diagnostic services should be made available to the poor at a low cost.

He also enquired about Amaravati capital development, to which the Chief Minister replied that Amaravati would be developed as a green and blue city.

In a separate meeting with ministers and officials, the Chief Minister said the visit of Bill Gates to Andhra Pradesh would pave the way for a further digital revolution.

Recalling his first meeting with Bill Gates in 1997 as Chief Minister of united Andhra Pradesh and convincing him to set up Microsoft in Hyderabad, Chandrababu Naidu said that since then the Information Technology sector had witnessed rapid growth in Hyderabad.

The story is reported by S Viswanath of The New Indian Express