Singh, Part 4
2.2 Role of government programmes for e–governance
Despite significant teledensity there still exists a divide between rural and urban areas that needs to be bridged. While the urban teledensity exceeds 15 percent, the rural penetration is about 1.5 percent [7]. One of the prime concerns of the governments in developed and developing worlds has always been to ensure the accessibility and availability of information and public services without much hassle. State governments in the country have been actively involved with several IT–oriented projects in an effort to bridge the digital divide, some of which are discussed as follows.
i) CARD Project
The Computer Aided Administration of Registration Department (CARD) project initiated by the government of Andhra Pradesh illustrates the effective use of IT to improve citizen–government interface. Under this project, land registration offices through out Andhra Pradesh are now provided with computerized counters. Citizens can now complete registration formalities without much hassle.
ii) Sourkaryan and E–Seva
One project of the government of Andhra Pradesh has been quite popular among the people. Sourkaryan, which is now operational in the port city of Visakhapatnam, provides the facility for a citizen to pay property taxes online and also view details of plans and projects of the government and local bodies. Similarly the E–Seva Kendras in the Hydrabad state city is an innovative experiment towards eliminating personal contact between citizen and the bureaucracy. Here a citizen can pay sales taxes, insurance premiums, property taxes, land taxes, etc. Additionally, the government of Andhra Pradesh has formulated a prolonged strategy to further the prospect of e–governance in the state. In a major attempt to bring remote rural areas into the information technology fold, the first “Cyber Grameen,” a rural broadband venture, was started. This project has been launched by a non–governmental organisation, “Swarn Bharat Trust,” basically to set up IT convergence hubs in rural areas of the country. By harnessing the power of rural internet broadband the “Cyber Grameen” seeks to provide a range of applications and services to stimulate the rural economies. The services provided include telephony, telemedicine, distance learning, e–mail, digital entertainment, and delivery of government services and information [8].
iii) The Bhoomi Project
The Bhoomi Project of Karnataka state covers 6.7 million farmers and holds millions of records of land ownership. The project has earned the goodwill of many people and also international funding agencies. This project has reduced the delays involved in interacting with the bureaucratic hierarchy of the state revenue department. Bhoomi centres are located all over the state. Any land record can be reviewed through a touch screen at these kiosks; the project can also be used as a databank for various projects of public and private sector organizations.
The project has won the 2002 Commonwealth Association of Public Administration and Management award for creating “self content governance and opening up new frontiers.” Both the UNDP and the World Bank have lauded Bhoomi for bold vision and implementation. With the success of the Bhoomi project other states of India, viz. Tamil Naidu, Maharastra and Madya Pradesh have started evolving models based on Bhoomi in their respective states.
iv) The Gyandoot Project
Gyandoot, which literally means “Knowledge Messenger,” is the first ever project in India for a rural information network in the Dhar district of Madya Pradesh which has the highest percentage of tribes and dense forest. Every village has a computer centre or “soochnalayas” at prominent market places or major roads. People can easily log in and complain or request information on crops, forest fields, water resources, etc. of the district. Twenty–one village Panchayats in the District have been connected with computers or information centres; several private sector information centres called “Soochnalays” have also been opened. One such popular centre is in “Manwar Agriculture Mandi,” where the latest crop prices are made available to the farmers. The land records of a few tehsils of district Dhar are also available on these computers. Also, Internet connections have been provided to get global information by linking to the World Wide Web. The government of Madhya Pradesh is attempting to make Gyandoot Project a great success by extending it to other districts. The state is in the process of starting 7,800 IT kiosks with the help of the private sector. To train common people to be computer literate, 7,500 “Jan Shksha” public instruction centres have also been identified, and policy is being formulated to bring IT to the common people’s need and benefit. Efforts are also being made by the government to involve public libraries in this project. In fact, public libraries can play a vital role in making the programme successful by acting as information centres (soochnalayas) for the Gyandoot Project. For this to occur, a Public Libraries and Information Centers Act needs to be passed. Also, strong will and commitment among the professionals and policy–makers are required [9].
It is expected that the Gyandoot Project will play an important role in bridging the digital divide between the urban and the rural people. The village people by virtue of their remoteness will no longer be technologically behind. The Project will be of great help to the farmers to get better crop yield by providing timely information to them. E–voice and e–chat will bring farmers and experts face–to–face to solve problems in agriculture and farming. This project has won international acclaim and the 2000 Stockholm challenge award for its imaginative approach to the problems of development and government at the root level.
v) FRIENDS Project
The Fast, Reliable, Instant Efficient Network for Disbursement of Services (FRIENDS) Project has been launched by the state of Kerela in the southern part of the country with a view toward mitigating the hardship of citizens paying taxes by eliminating middlemen, delays and long queues. Essentially, FRIENDS is a centralised collection counter which accepts almost all types of tax and utility payments. This project has expanded to serve 13 million people in 12 districts of Kerela. The basic philosophy of FRIENDS is to treat citizens as valued customers.
Similarly in Tamil Naidu state a private outfit “N Louge” offering low cost tele–solutions has worked wonders in Madurai districts by using the local loop technology and making available fibre optic lines running across the district, by helping private entrepreneurs run services including that of e–governance [10].
vi) Lokamitra/Smart Project
Himachal Pradesh (HP), the hill state of the country, has initiated the Lokamitra project with grants from NABARD to provide the general public, especially those living in distant rural areas, easy access to government information and facilities of e–governance to their door steps. Lokamitra “Soochnalaya Kendras” (information centres) have been set up in 25 panchayat areas run by unemployed youth.
These Kendras provide current information relating to the district and government information. The government of HP has also developed IT Vision 2010 in collaboration with NASSCOM (National Association of Software Companies) to convert the hill state into an IT destination and also make Simple–Moral–Accessible–Responsive and Transparent (SMART) Government.