IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

IT ministers from various states, department heads and company CEOs will take part in the two-day convention, he said. The minister said this while releasing the logo of the convention by handing it over to Public Works Minister V K Ibrahim Kunju.

Senior Government officials and industry experts discussed the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for redressal of public grievances and promotion of universalised face authentication processes for simplification of service delivery during a brainstorming session, said an official statement issued on Friday.

The session — ‘Emerging and Future e-Governance Initiatives, e-Commerce Initiatives, and Emerging Technologies’ — was organised by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) here on Thursday.

India’s largest depository and database management company National Depository Services (NSDL) is getting bigger and bigger and has now split itself to form an associate company to take up more e-governance projects that government intends to roll out to get rid of corruption and cumbersome paperwork.

NSDL has been split with the formation of an associate company called NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure. NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure is promoted by same set of promoters that promote NSDL.

Buying a cellphone can be as complicated as buying a secondhand car. Like the secondhand car salesmen, the cellphone retailers offer a limited selection of models, which makes it difficult to believe their recommendations, especially when new devices are being introduced every week. Recently I needed to buy a new cellphone and I took the route that has elements of both, online and offline.

The practice is normal nowadays—select few models with e-tailers, test them in a regular store, go back online to make the final purchase.

The e-governance project of the Transport Department of Punjab has once again drawn the attention of other governments. This time, the State Government of Odisha and Uttarakhand, have shown keenness towards implementing this project in their respective states as well.

Last year, in December, a delegation of officials from Kenya visited the Punjab transport department office to study about the automation of its road transport sector.

An expert committee on HR Policy for e-Governance has recommended the establishment of appropriate organisational structures both at Centre and states for the e-Governance programme and project management.

PHD Chamber along with Department of Information Technology (Government of India) organized a National Conclave on e-Governance and m-Governance: Challenges & Opportunities at PHD House in New Delhi.

The objective of the conclave was to explore strategies for social, financial and digital inclusion and transformation in governance through innovation and technology.

Following the successful implementation of the e-governance initiative in Punjab's Transport Department, the Punjab Government has launched e-governance projects in all the 22 districts of Punjab.

"The project initiated first time in India by the transport department was fully successful and have already been effectively implemented in all the districts," said Punjab's Transport Minister, Ajit Singh Kohar.

Disclosing this here today, an official spokesperson of the Directorate of Governance Reforms, Punjab said that this workshop was organized for Directors, Joint Directors, Project Managers and Nodal Officers of state government to equip them with skills and knowledge on project management for e-governance projects. Those are being implemented under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) and also other state level e-governance initiatives. The workshop was attended by officers from various state departments.

For giving a push to digitalisation, an e-governance assessment workshop was held under the World Bank and AIIB co-funded by Punjab Municipal Services Improvement Project (PMSIP) at Zone D office of Municipal Corporation (MC) on Wednesday.

The workshop was held under the chairmanship of MC Commissioner Sandeep Rishi.

Urban development and technology experts from World Bank, including Shashank Jayakumar, Navika Chaudhary, Graham Colclough from Scotland (through VC), Johnston Yoon from South Korea (through VC), conducted the workshop.

The government has launched a national e-governance programme, which aims to provide services in an electronic format from paying taxes to online banking under 31 mission mode projects, to improve financial inclusion.

A study by financial rating company CRISIL shows poor penetration of formal banking facilities in most parts of the country. “Just one in two Indians has a savings account, and only one in seven Indians have access to banking credit,” the study said.

In an interaction with ET Telecom, Tata Teleservices Chief Information Officer Ashish Pachory talks about IT-related challenges attached with 4G environment and services that will drive the data uptake in the country.

He also talks about trends in the Indian ICT and telecom market. Excerpts

Q: What are the growth drivers for data? How data would be consumed? What would be the top few services driving data demand on networks?

The broad areas where the e-governance project was likely to cover were issuance of birth and death certificates, payment of property tax, utility bills, grievance management system, issuance of building plan approvals, accounting system, and personnel management. The corporation had proposed to extend the e-governance initiative to school management system, hospital management system, council management system, file tracking system, fleet management, online booking system, and document management system.

Collector R. Nanthagopal inaugurated a government e-service centre at the Collectorate here on Wednesday. The centre has been started under the national and State e-governance programme.

K. Balaraman, District Revenue Officer, K. Madhivanan, Personal Assistant (General) to the Collector, Ravishankarnath, P.A. (Development), C. Balaganesan, National Informatics Officer, V.S. Arun, General Manager, Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) and D. Thirumal, District Coordinator of the e-governance programme, participated in the function.

Addressing the gathering, he said that the Nilgiris is among the few districts chosen to implement the scheme.

If you look at it a little differently, the government is always expected to provide basic amenities and services at an affordable cost to its citizens. When it comes to providing these at an affordable prices it becomes a big challenge due to the limited resources and vast outreach. In this context, information and communication technology (ICT) has proved to be of great help.

It can be said that the role of ICT in the public sector has evolved from informatisation to providing smart government.

But that's rather a staid way of looking at it. The old model (1980 - 2000) led to high costs with limited results, and was merely an attempt to computerise brick and mortar. Major shortcomings were experienced - there was lack of change management techniques and process re-engineering which often led to duplication, creation of silos and sub-par outcomes. In the period thereafter, till about 2014, things were much more wholesome. This model (second-generation) had an ICT-enabled transformation which was more citizen-centric in outlook and integrated in approach. What was essentially lacking in the earlier model - sharing of infrastructure, services, multichannel delivery, change management and process reengineering, etc. - was addressed to some extent.

According to Nasscom's suggestion, technology should be integrated with governing processes like cash transfer and subsidies.

Jha said IT reduces the gatekeeper role of public officials and hence opportunities for corruption. The Central Vigilance Commission had been persuading organizations to adopt measures like e-procurement, e-bidding e-billing, e-payment and IT and enabling of various public services.