Visit to e-Gram Kendra in Mehsana District

Visited  an e-Grama Kendra of Government of Guajarat in Mehsana District. e-Gram kendras are the Common Service Centres established in Gujarat though the model is different. 

See the full gallery on Posterous

The e-grama kendra was located in a village about 44 kms north of Gandhinagar in Mehsana District. There is a computer, a laser printer , a dot matrix printer and a web cam installed in the e-Gram kendra. The connectivity is provided through a Airtel VSAT connection.  The entire equipment at the e-gram centre is provided by the State Government. The e-gram centre  is run by a village entrepreneur who earns his income through providing services through the e-Gram centre. The Village entrepreneur is selected by the Village Panchayat to run the e-gram kendra.

Currently only land record copies and electricity bill payment services are available through the e-Gram kendra. The e-Gram kendra earns about 700 Rs. through electricity bill collections - about Rs. 5/- per bill which is generated bi monthly and about Rs. 700 through providing copies of land records. 

The entrepreneur earns additional income of Rs. 2000/- or so through providing other services like submitting job applications through the Gujarat Government site ojas.guj.nic.in.

Seetaram Yechuri quotes Electronic Delivery of Services Bill during lokpal debate in Parliament

Seetaram Yechuri - Now, I come to the question of Citizens’ Charter.   Again, we are, actually, talking of it as though this is something new that we have brought about.   There are Right to Services  Act that have been passed by five States in our country already.  They are Bihar, J & K, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.   They  are proposed in  Jharkhand, Kerala and Rajasthan.   I was surprised to see, Sir, -- the hon. Chairman of the relevant  Committee is not here at this moment –the other day, on the Internet,  the  draft Electronics Services Delivery Bill.  It was also written that citizens may send their responses to Abhishek80.gov.in by 4 th  of May, 2011.  It is in the public domain.  In public domain, there is a Bill of 2011 called  Electronic Services Delivery Bill.  The scope of the Bill, actually, says, that  every competent authority of the appropriate Government shall publish (i)all the public services of the Department/Agencies or Body  which have to be delivered through electronic mode – that is the mode that all of us, surely, should move to; this applies to all; then, (ii) the date by which these services shall be made available;  (iii) the manner of delivery of such services and their service levels and this is most important (iv) the grievance redressal mechanism available to  any person  aggrieved about the outcome  of any request made by him for such service...   This is there.   Your Bill is in public domain.  You are discussing it.  I do not know why the Government is not even referring to the fact that this mechanism has already been proposed by this very Government.   You already have a mechanism that you have proposed.  It is there in the public domain.  Either the left hand of the Government does not know what the right hand is doing, or, the Government  itself is not realizing that  what it is, actually, doing.  So, such a mechanism  has already been suggested  by it.   So, if it can be brought into the framework of the Lokpal saying that such a mechanism is there,  very good.  You can bring it. But the point is  that such a mechanism is, absolutely, necessary. 

Bloomberg article on use of free email accounts by Government of India

Personally , using gmail is more convenient than NIC email, 

The original article is here

===============================================================

Don’t Hit Delete! That Hotmail From India’s Prime Minister May Be For Real

By Mehul Srivastava - Jul 18, 2011

After a triple bombing in Mumbai killed 21 people last week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s office issued a statement condemning the terrorist attacks -- from a Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) Hotmail address.

Singh’s staff’s use of a free e-mail account is typical of most government workers, who log into Hotmail, Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Gmail and Yahoo! Inc.’s e-mail to conduct official business. They also list those addresses on agency websites and business cards.

Link to Google Profile

 

Case Study of e-Procurement

Electronic Government Procurement development india case study final

View more documents from Anirban Mukerji

Land transactions to go online in Karnataka

Five of the 42 sub-registrars in greater Bangalore to start online registration

Documents pertaining to land records of about 1.21 lakh have been ‘corrected'

---

Tumkur: Karnataka, which pioneered the digitisation of land records in the country through the Bhoomi platform, initiated the first step towards enabling citizens to conduct the registration process online on Friday.

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Bhoomi, the digital repository of agricultural land records, Revenue Minister G. Karunakara Reddy unveiled the synchronisation of the platform with Kaveri, the software platform that enables registration of sale of land in Tumkur.

The automation of the mutation process — the process of tracking the history of the sale of a particular piece of land that is identified by a unique Survey Number — will result in greater transparency and reduce the scope for “discretion by government officials,” Mr. Reddy said. “This is a turning point because it will also eliminate touts and middlemen who currently fleece property buyers,” he added.

Mr. Reddy, who travelled by bus with mediapersons from Bangalore to Tumkur, said starting in mid-August five of the 42 sub-registrars in greater Bangalore area would start the process of online registration.

Mr. Reddy said documents pertaining to land records of about 1.21 lakh have been “corrected” for minor errors in the last two years. “This has been a huge relief for farmers,” he said.

A meeting of department officials and other senior officials of other departments held about two weeks ago discussed the suggestion that a “land audit” be conducted to make an accurate estimate of land required for industrial projects, Mr. Reddy said. “A six-million-tonne steel plant in China requires only about 600 acres, so why should investors need much more here?” he asked. Rajeev Chawla, Secretary, Revenue Department, said about two crore records pertaining to land ownership have been built on the Bhoomi platform.

Karnataka farmers will receive SMS alert on progress of land transaction

When 35-year-old Gowramma gave her thumb impression for the online registration of her land in the sub-registrar office of Tumkur on Friday, Karnataka stepped into another chapter in e-governance. Afterwards, Gowramma received an SMS alert on her mobile phone from the revenue department stating that her land transaction deal has gone through.

This happened after the revenue department launched its online integration of Bhoomi (online delivery of rural land records) and Kaveri (Karnataka valuation and e-registration) software on Friday. The project was initiated by revenue minister G Karunakara Reddy in Tumkur. The integration is now done in 25 taluks in phase I and will gradually be extended to all 176 taluks across the state. The integration is aimed at reducing the hardships for farmers.

“The sale transactions will now take place only if the land is identified with a specific survey number. The name of the seller and the extent of transaction will be made available on a database, which the farmers will have access to. This will ensure that there will no fraudulent or bogus transactions in the future,” said the revenue minister.

Once the sale is done, Bhoomi will start mutation process almost on the same day without any data entry of sale transactions, officials said.

“The manual data entry and procedures with the present system takes a lot of time, and the integration system would reduce time consumption by 50%,” said secretary of revenue department (Bhoomi and UPOR) Rajeev Chawla. Now farmers will get an SMS alert in both English and Kannada on all stages of the mutation process.

“All these days, farmers were running from pillar to post to know the status. Now, an SMS alert will be sent to farmers whenever a land transaction is initiated,” he said.

The farmers have to register their mobile numbers with the revenue department or taluk office. Congress leader and MLA from Shira in Tumkur, TB Jayachandra, said that the department should also concentrate on resolving existing problems with the Bhoomi system.

“There are many errors in land records, which the farmers are fed up with. This needs to be addressed,” he said. Reddy said that there was a shortage of surveyors in the state, which is hampering the land transactions. “We will soon recruit 2,000 surveyors to resolve the issue,” he said.