Governance2.Org

With the chairman of board of revenue of Uttar Pradesh, Vinod Kumar Malhotra, Friday inaugurating the e-governance centre (Jan Suvidha Kendra) on a public-private partnership basis, Ghaziabad has become Uttar Pradesh’s first electronically governed e-district.
This district-level centre run by SGS InfoTech Private Limited has a direct link with the various government offices like tehsil (sub-district) and block development offices.
The required verification for issuing certificates would be made through the internet from the concerned offices, thus also saving the effort and time of the applicant.
A fee of Rs.15 would be charged for a certificate. At present caste certificates, domicile certificates and income certificates will be issued from this centre.
Later, 32 facilities including services for RTI, bank information and even railway booking would be included. [Via]

After facing the tough and tricky problem of providing high bandwidth access to government offices across large and rough terrains where wired network is not an option, and after successful implementation of WiMax in the northeastern states of Assam,
Meghalaya and Tripura, Nortel has partnered the Chhattisgarh state government to modernize its communications infrastructure through a new, high-bandwidth State Wide Area Network (SWAN). This will
connect all the departments of the state. The Chhattisgarh SWAN (CG SWAN) is a hybrid network with a mix of wireless and wire line access supporting voice, data and video traffic. This huge deployment of WiMax will provide access to 3,000 locations in the state. Read on …

The Union Cabinet on Friday had on its agenda the launching of the Rs 5,000-crore `National Mission in Education in ICT’project, which envisages the creation of a National Knowledge Network across institutes through a 15 Gigabit broadband connectivity.
A key recommendation of the Sam Pitroda-led National Knowledge Commission (NKC), this project first mooted in 2007 envisages networking across some 15,000 colleges and universities, putting learning material online and sharing the expertise of centres of excellence with institutes spread across the country. With the Cabinet nod for the project, this will be one of the few NKC proposals which has found favour with the Arjun Singh led-HRD Ministry.
The Ministry will be tying up with the Department of Telecom for creation of a countrywide broadband access network by utilising its existing optical fibre network. The Mission is expected to cover some 18,000 colleges eventually and make available facilities like e-books and e-journals in digital libraries. [Via]

The Estonian Parliament approved a measure allowing citizens to vote by mobile phone in the next parliamentary elections in 2011. This is a step up from from Internet ballots that Estonians were allowed to cast in last year’s parliamentary vote.
The mobile-voting system, which has already been tested, requires that voters obtain free, authorized chips for their phones, which in turn, would  verify the voter’s identity and authorize participation in the electronic voting system.
Kaidro, spokesman of the SK Certification Center, which issues personal ID cards in Estonia, said he expects the 2011 vote to be the first of its kind, though he said neighboring Finland and Sweden possess the software and technical capabilities to conduct a similar “cellular election.”
Estonian officials said the Internet voting system in 2007 proved secure despite worries about hacker attacks, identity fraud and vote count manipulation. [Via]

So says the fifth study by IDC India to assess the performance of e-governance projects across 21 Indian states. The results are based on a two level survey that assesses every state’s IT vision, implementation plan and ease of use of the various services. It also factors in IT allocation for new projects in 2007-08, their implementation and user satisfaction.
Apart from its high IT spend, Tamil Nadu has also scored high on parameters such as citizen and business satisfaction.
The other states in the top five include Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh. Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have climbed three spots over last year’s ranking to the number one and the number three position respectively. Delhi, which occupied the top slot last year, has slipped to the third place this year. Continue Reading »

Computerization in various government departments have proved beneficial to the citizens. The direct cost savings averaged Rs.60-110 and it has also helped reduce corruption to some extent.
These are the findings of a study on`Impact Assessment of e-Government projects’ by Prof. Subhash Bhatnagar of IIM Ahmedabad.
The report was released on Wednesday at a two day workshop jointly organized by the IIMA and Department of Information Technology, Government of India. [Via]

Majority of passport applicants in India still prefer to seek agents’ help in processing application forms, despite an online access to passport offices, according to a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A).
The impact study, a part of the National eGovernance Program (NeGP), DIT, found that around 23% of the online users and 28% of the offline users mentioned agents as the best source of information, with only 17% of the respondents having used the online services for registration of applications, fixing appointments with regional passport offices (RPOs), submission of application forms or checking the status of their applications.
There has been a 75% rise in total number of passport applications in five years, from 2.6 million in 2000 to 4.5 million in 2006 according to the report. [Via]
No doubt as people get used to the online process, they are going to take to adopting it in a big way. I know I would.

The Department of Elections at Puducherry has launched the website (www.ceopondicherry.nic.in) to enable people to file their applications online.
The election authorities are currently updating the voters list relating to all the thirty Assembly constituencies (as per delimitation) spread over Puducherry region ( 23), Karaikal (five), Mahe (one) and Yanam (one). Final publication of electoral rolls has been scheduled for January 10 next. [Via]
Last when I checked, the site was down.

CA, the IT management and security solutions vendor, is betting on strong demand in India and Japan to drive growth even as it seeks to increase revenues from the Asia-Pacific region, which comprises about 12% of its earnings.
Recently, CA charted a strategy for the India market wherein it aims to double its revenues every two years.
As part of the new strategy, CA was relying more on partners such as Wipro, TCS, Satyam, HCL and Infosys to drive its business in the country while targeting newer verticals such as e-governance, defence, pharmaceuticals and healthcare and retail sectors.
CA and its partners are providing solutions to nine of the 15 States in the country that are setting up state-wide area networks (SWAN) as part of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). [Via]

The Ministry of External Affairs in association with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has chosen Bangalore as one of the two cities across the country for implementing the Passport Seva project, which is meant to simplify the process of issuing passport through automation. The pilot project will kick off by mid-2009, said Regional Passport Officer (Bangalore) R Ravindra.
The project, one of the largest mission-critical e-governance initiative, envisages the setting up of Passport Facilitation Centres (PFCs) where the filled passport forms are received and processed. These PFCs will be the hub for all activities including biometric capture, photograph, payment of fees, verification of documents. Passports will be issued within three days in case police verification is not required and on the same day under the tatkaal scheme.
Chandigarh is the other city that has been selected for the Passport Seva project. The nation-wide roll-out of the project will be completed within six years and the government intends to open 77 Passport Facilitation Centres across the country. [Via]