West Bengal’s record in e-governance has been patchy, especially when it comes to its interface with citizens. And till a few years ago, practically no information about the government was available online. While chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has an efficient team at the IT department headed by minister Manabendra Mukherjee and secretary GD Gautama, a technocrat who had earlier turned around the power sector, most departments are stuck in reams of paperwork.
However, funding worth Rs 220 crore is still awaited from the Centre for the project. As per the Centre’s national e-governance action plan, a bandwidth of 2 Mbps has been envisaged. The state also has its own plans for a bandwidth of 4 Mbps to connect district collectorates, which would be expanded to 32 Mbps to link all divisions with Mumbai in three years from the commencement of the project.
Read more: India: Mumbai has expansive plans, awaits central funds
Once these centres are functional, residents of the villages will no longer have to go to the departments situated in the city for various works.
Read more: India: A step ahead: Extending e-governance to rural areas
"The State Wide Area Network (digital link on which e-governance services will ride), the CSC and data centre are expected to be fully operational by the end of 2007. Together they will provide a platform for the National e-Governance Plan. While the SWAN has already been sanctioned, the Empowered Finance Committee has given its views pertaining to CSC and it will now be placed before the Cabinet. We hope that the process will be completed by April-end," a Government official said, on the sidelines of a summit on Infrastructure and e-Governance organised by Cisco and the National Institute for Smart Governance here.
However, Vipin Singh, Director, Bangalore One told CXOtoday that the project has since been through several rounds of review and restructuring and a new set of plans and tie-ups will help to serve its citizens better.