The Indian Government is to spend the equivalent of £500m on e-government over the next five years in response to an embarrassing results in a UN benchmarking report. According to local reports on 2 December 2003, the Indian Government is concerned that if it does not increase spending to modernise its administration it will fall further behind other countries.
Addressing a Confederation of Indian Industry conference, ministers quoted a UN development programme index of e-government across 133 countries.
Secretary at the Ministry of Information Technology Shri S. Lakshminarayanan said:
"This index places India below countries like Poland, Armenia and 60 other countries. We are aware of this and hence the allocation of funds."
He said unless the country starts to make progress in reengineering government systems "the hype about India becoming a superpower will soon disappear".
The allocation is for Rs.5,000 crore which corresponds to £500m (one crore represents Rs.10m or £127,000).
The Indian Government is particularly keen to make progress with digital certificates.
It is running a tender process for public and private organisations to issue the certificates. The aim is to reduce the cost of digital certificates for users from Rs. 3,000 (£38) to Rs. 30 (38p), India's Financial Express reported.
Quelle: Kablenet, 04.12.2003
