Russian citizens can look forward to less bureaucracy in their dealings with government, thanks to the e-Russia programme which has now passed its "implementation" phase. In line with governments across the West, the Russian Government wants is to use IT to make official information more accessible and to reduce the heavy bureaucratic burden on citizens and businesses. It also wants to improve efficiency in federal and local government by transferring as much of the state's work on line as possible. The 79.09bn RUR (£1.6bn) programme launched in September 2002, was fully running, as of the beginning of August 2003.
The Government's target is that by 2010, electronic interaction should account for 65% of internal communications and up to 40% of communications between federal, regional and local government agencies.
The Russians believe that the project will increase their national market for information services and computer software five-fold by 2010. This in turn is expected to boost the country's national IT industries to 2% of the overall domestic market by 2010, according to US research organisation Centre for Digital Government.
The programme is scheduled for implementation in three phases. Phase one saw the creation of what is known as a "supportive regulatory environment". Under the second phase scheduled for 2003-2004, pilot projects and feasibility studies will be undertaken. The third phase, which will end in 2010, is expected to see the implementation of the programme throughout all federal and regional public organisations.
Quelle: Kablenet
