For some time now, we have been discussing about e-Governance in India. The Union Budget for 2007 has further set an ambitious goal to achieve and has increased the allocation of funds to Rs.719 crore from Rs.395 crore in 2006-07.
So far, the ground reality is that we have achieved a good amount of success from the e-Governance perspective. Projects like Akshaya in Kerala, e-Seva in Andhra Pradesh, Dharani Project in Goa, Nai Disha in Haryana, Lok Mitra in HP, Gyandeep and Gram Sampark in MP, Setu in Maharashtra, Jan Mitra in Rajasthan and some projects in Delhi have been quite successful.
The areas that we are working on as part of the e-Governance include vehicle registration, land records, birth and death registrations, payment of excise duty, sales tax and local tax, electronic bill payment of water and electricity, computerization of health records, computerise work of Police and Police Stations, Criminal Justice, etc. Even if we have been able to create interfaces for the above applications, the citizens are unaware of it or are not able to take advantage. Now, we should emphasize on making the citizens aware of the platform so that they participate in this drive.
There have been many SWAN projects implemented to support state-wide connectivity. So, from the connectivity perspective, I believe there will be no issue going forward. For the rural India, eProcurement and tele-medicine have to be emphasized. A farmer should be able to place an order for seeds and sell his produce online. The rural India also is deprived of good medical facility compared to the city dwellers. The government should now create a framework to work with large medical and health organizations to provide inexpensive medication through tele-medicine. The challenge we face is to make inexpensive solutions available. However, there have been ongoing talks between government bodies and private sector to work towards this end, but the process seems to be a little slow. I would suggest the frequency of the talks should be more frequent so that we can reach the destination quickly. The entire media fraternity should come forward to support the drive forgetting their internal rivalry or criticizing the activities.
Sanjay Mohapatra
Editor
