Governance2.Org

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]

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.

The Haryana State Electronics Development Corporation (Hartron) is planning to diversify its operations into newer areas and is scouting for business opportunities outside the state.
The corporation which, so far, has been taking up projects like voter ID cards or smart cards, now wants to expand its portfolio in the power and other sectors by supplying equipments, providing managed services/facilities and extend the e-governance initiatives to other states.
“Outside Haryana, we had only done the voter ID card projects in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chandigarh. But now we are thinking of going ahead with new initiatives like smart cards in other states as well.
The smart cards project in Haryana is likely to cost around Rs 150 crore and will be complete within 15 months of approval. We have sent the detailed project report to Government of India and approval
is expected soon,” V.S Kundu, special secretary & director IT, Haryana told Financial Express.

Bangalore-based e-governance services firm Comat Technologies has raised $15 million (Rs. 60 Crore) in its third round of funding from Omidyar Network and the Unitus Equity Fund (UEF) says VCCircle.
This is the first non-microfinance investment for UEF and the first direct investment of Omidyar Network in India.
Comat, which operates a network of rural business centres, had divested 10.5% stake to raise $5.5 million from Hughes and Intel Capital in the first round in March 2007, and late last year had raised Rs 25 crore ($6.2 million) from Avigo Capital Partners.
The company plans to use the investment to expand to new states, accelerate service delivery for training and financial services, strengthen management bandwidth and enhance its brand.
In March 2007, Comat had divested 10.5% stake to raise $5.5 million from Hughes and Intel Capital in its first round, and late last year had raised Rs 25 crore ($6.2 million) from Avigo Capital Partners.
Comat delivers information-based services to rural citizens through its wholly-owned network of ICT-enabled Rural Business Centres. By March 2009, Comat is aiming to increase its network six fold to own and operate 6,800 rural business centres from its present 1,100 centres, across 10 Indian states.
The Centres act as the last mile solution for delivering employability training, education, insurance, finance and essential government services in a predictable and efficient manner to rural customers. [Via]

According to a new study by TCS, India, the world’s IT services backyard, figures quite low in a global e-governance ranking with a per capita IT spend of just $1.29. Compare this with $199 in New Zealand and $153 in Singapore.
According to the WEF Global Information Technology Report, India ranks 44 out of the 122 countries analysed even behind countries like Barbados, Latvia, Tunisia, Thailand and the Slovak Republic.
The White Paper is an attempt by TCS to use its experience in e-Governance projects to define a road-map for India and highlight current impediments like a silo-based approach that is limiting the benefits of technology use. [Via]

Introduced two years ago, India’s largest e-governance project, and the second biggest of its kind in the world, the MCA-21, which enables e-filing of corporate information with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, is set to be revamped shortly.
The ministry is now looking to launch the second generation of e-filing process, and has tied up with TCS for the same.
Once the revamped system is in place, companies would find it still simpler and convenient to file corporate information with the ministry while public and professionals would get easy access to relevant records and effective grievances redressal.
The move will also help in effective compliance of relevant laws and improve corporate governance, according to the Institute of Company Secretaries. [Via]

Adding the 10.16 million wireless (GSM, CDMA, WLL) subscribers in March, India overtook USA to ranks at second place after China. The total wireless subscribers now stands at 261.09 million.
A total of 10.40 million telephone connections (Wireline and Wireless) have been added during March 2008 as compared to 8.49 million connections added in February 2008. This implies a reach of 300.51 million at the end of March 2008 against a reach of 290.11 million in February 2008 taking the overall tele-density from 25.31% in February 2008 to 26.22% in March 2008.
Broadband, defined as speeds above 256 Kbps, had a subscriber base of 3.90 million at the end of March 2008 against that of 3.47 million at the end of Fenruary 2008. Clearly we have a long way to go to achieve its target of 20 million broadband subscribers by 2010 – more so if TRAI actually goes ahead with its proposed definition of broadband.
Download the complete report here.

Related reads:
Mobile Internet On The Rise
Internet Reach On Mobiles Is 19 Times More Than Broadband