Governance2.Org

The work of obtaining or renewing trade licences or getting a building permission would not be as time consuming and tiring as it is now. The slow-paced manual work of the corporation would soon make way for complete e-governance.
Under the National Mission Mode Programme (NMMP)’s e-Bharat programme, the corporation would be empowered with most modern technologies to perform its work and 100 new e-kiosks would be opened up all over the city for the convenience of the people.
After getting clearance from the Central government, where the project was submitted on September 17, new kiosks would be developed in the city with computers and other technical facilities. A new software would also be installed to integrate data with all other kiosks and branches of the corporation. The total cost of this project is Rs 24 crore, out of which the Government of India would pay Rs 15 crore and the corporation would contribute Rs nine crore out of its general fund.
Once into operation, all the office work including building permission, accounting, tendering, trade license, registration of birth and death among others, would be done through this system. [Via]

About 18,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs) have been set up in the country to provide IT enabled services to the people in the rural areas. These are part of the overall plan of the Government to establish One Lakh CSCs in 600,000 villages. All the CSCs are scheduled to be operational by July next year.
In the states of Jharkhand and Haryana, the roll out of the Centres is complete while in Gujarat it will be completed soon. The other states where a number of CSCs have already become operational are West Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Orissa, Meghalaya and Tripura.
A Common Services Centre is an ICT-enabled Service Delivery outlet providing a range of services to the people in the village / town in which it is located. The Government has approved the Common Service Centre Scheme that envisions CSCs as the front-end delivery points for Government, private and social sector services to rural citizens in an integrated manner. The objective is to develop a platform that can enable Government, private and social sector organizations to align their social and commercial goals for the benefit of the rural population in the remotest corners. The Centres are being designed as ICT-enabled Kiosks having a PC along with basic support equipment like Printer, Scanner, UPS, with Wireless Connectivity as the backbone and additional equipment for edutainment, telemedicine, projection systems, etc.
The Scheme is to be implemented through a Public Private Partnership. It has been approved at a total cost of Rs 5742 Cr. over 4 years, of which the Government of India is estimated to contribute Rs 856 Cr. and the State Governments Rs 793 Cr. The balance resources would be mobilized from the private sector. [Via Release]

An ambitious project costing Rs 4.35 crore, seeks a major revamp of the examination system of the University of Kashmir with the introduction of “e-governed examination system.”
The project to be implemented in two years, envisages on-line procedures for filing forms, retrieval of results, issuance of marks sheets, gathering of information about academic background of candidates and intimation to paper setters and evaluators. The e-governed system aims transforming the entire examination wing of the University vis-à-vis all its operations. It will also provide for an effective support system for all the elements associated with the wing like students, evaluators and other conducting bodies. [Via]

Harjit Singh Grewal has taken over as Chairman of the Punjab Information and Communication Technology
Corporation Limited (Punjab Infotech).
Punjab Infotech is the nodal agency of the Punjab Government for promotion of IT & ITES in the State. Mohali has already developed as an important destination for IT Industry.
Speaking on the occasion, Grewal said that it will be his endeavor to spearhead all the initiatives taken by the Corporation, lending his full support and ensuring support of the Government for the promotion of Information Technology in the State. [Via]

Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) on Monday announced that it has signed a deal with Ministry of External Affairs for the “Passport Seva Project” valued at over Rs 1,000 crore.
After implementation of the project, the process of issuing a new passport will be completed in 3 days subject to police verification.
“The Passport Seva Project, based on a public-private partnership model, aims to provide passport-related services to Indian citizens in a speedy, convenient and transparent manner. The sovereign and fiduciary function of granting and issuing passport remains with the Ministry and TCS will be our technology and operations partner in this project,” said Foreign Secretary, Mr Shivshankar Menon. [Via]

To avoid communication gap and delay in despatch of letters from the state head quarter to different destinations in the state, the Orissa state Panchayatiraj department has introduced the e-despatch system.
The new system generates auto letter number and assigns address and mode of despatch for each letter. Then each letter and its attachments are scanned and saved in PDF format in a network data base.
A domain specialist attaches each and every letter to the corresponding scheme after which the letters are sent to the recipients by fax, e-mail, web posting (e-space) and AMS automatically in real processes without human intervention.
The copy of all the letters issued by the department will be available in the website for 3 years and be available for anyone to see.
The department has tied up with the state owned telecom operator BSNL to provide broadband connectivity in all the block headquarters.
Steps have also been taken to intimate the concerned officers about the despatched letter in real time through SMS. [Via]

Tamil Nadu’s new information and communication technology (ICT) policy aims at broad basing the IT industry as part of the efforts to bring development as an inclusive phenomenon.
According to K S Tripathy, chief secretary, Tamil Nadu has a well-established e-governance network in place. The state data centre is being upgraded and it will be accessible to users soon. Already, all the blocks and talukas are e-connected. In the first phase, seven districts have been identified for the purpose.
The government’s objective is to make technology reach the rural areas, and it is making an effort to set up Internet-enabled kiosks in 5400 villages in the state. [Via]

Encouraged by its pilot project Khairat near Mumbai, the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project in India has resolved to distribute three million XO laptops among the children entering schools by the end of 2009.
Chaired by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC is funded by a number of sponsor organisations, including AMD, Brightstar Corporation, eBay, Google, Marvell, News Corporation, Microsoft, SES, Nortel Networks, and Red Hat. While each company has donated $2 million, Microsoft is contributing through its features that are fitted into the XOs.
Each of these laptops costs approximately Rs 12,000 per set, and consumes just 1 watt of power. It has a screen that is visible in sunlight, resistant to water spilled on keyboards, has a dual boot system with Windows XP preloaded and MS Office access and several programmes that are open source-based that have been localised for various regions of India.
OLPC officials hope that if production increases, the price may even come down to Rs 1,000 per set. [Via]

The Bharatiya Janata Party wants to become the most automated political party in the country.
The BJP National Information Technology Cell was set up in July 2007 under Prodyut Bora, an IIM graduate, and now its convenor.
Since then, the party has set up similar cells in 15 State including Tamil Nadu.
While the Delhi party office became the first in the country to achieve complete automation, efforts are on to replicate it in the State by January 2009, R Kothandaraman, president, BJP IT Cell, Tamil Nadu, told Express Buzz.

Every time citizens pay for a driving licence or a marriage certificate in Punjab, they are — unknown to them — funding a variety of goodies for bureaucrats, a right-to-information query has revealed.
The cash is supposed to be used to create infrastructure and run more public services, but instead Government records reveal that Deputy Commissioners have been buying laptops, mobile phones, air-conditioners, plasma TVs, laptops, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, water purifiers and digital cameras says the Hindustan Times.
This money is collected by what are called Sukhmani societies, government organisations that collect “facilitation charges” from the public to perform a variety of government services, including registration of deaths and marriages, driving licences, ration cards and arms licences, under one roof.
After the Hindustan Times expose on the Red Cross, the Punjab government had returned Rs 1.95 crore to the Red Cross, while several IAS officers were forced to pay back lakhs of rupees that they spent for personal purposes.