Shri J Satyanarayana IAS appointed as Secretary Department of Information Technology

           In a welcome extremely progressive move, Shri J Satyanarayana has been appointed as the Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of India. He succeeds , Shri R. Chandrasekhar another e-Governance heavyweight.

          Shri J Satyanarayana has been a pioneer in the field of implementation of e-Governance projects and as early as the late 1990s, he implemented Computerisation of the Registration Department of Andhra Pradesh, better known as the CARD Project. Later between 2000-2003, he was part of the SWAT e-Governance team of Shri Chandrababu Naidu, the then CM of Andhra Pradesh and he and his team implemented numerous pioneering and landmark e-Governance programs which among others included the e-Seva Project and the e-Procurement platform.

          In 2003 he founded the National Institute of Smart Governance and his magic and golden hand continued in this nascent institution. Between 2003-08, NISG was involved with virtually every important e-Governance initiative of the Government of India, including the computerisation of the Ministry of Company Affairs, one of the largest computerisation initiatives, Passport Seva, computerisation of the Passport Department.

           Mr. J Sathyanarayana is a great believer in the concept of Public Private Partnership for execution of e-Governance projects.

           Mr. J Satyanarayana is an IAS officer of the 1977 batch of Andhra Pradesh Cadre, in addition to conceptualising and implementing e-Governance projects, he has contributed extensively to the thought leadership in the e-Governance domain by writing many books, delivering training programs and contributing extensively in seminars and discussion forums on e-Governance

Electronic Delivery of Services (EDS) Bill, 2011

http://mit.gov.in/content/draft-electronic-delivery-services-bill-2011

1)     Introduction

To speed up the process of delivery of public services to the citizens through electronic mode it is proposed to enact the Electronic Delivery of Services (EDS) Act.

2)     Salient Features of the EDS Bill

a)   The Electronic Delivery of Services Act will mandate provisioning of all public services of all Central and State Government departments compulsorily through electronic means within 5 years from enactment.  

b)   Within 180 days of enactment of the EDS Act, all Departments of Central and State Government will need to identify the list of all public services to be delivered by it through electronic mode.

c)     The Departments will also need to provide details regarding the manner of delivery (how) of these electronic services and their service levels.

d)     It will be ensured that in addition to electronic mode of delivery of services, assisted access to electronic services will also be provided to the citizens.

e)     Departments will create a Grievance Redressal Mechanism for handling complaints regarding non availability of Electronic services or deficiency in delivery of electronic services.

f)    Electronic Service Delivery Commissions will be established at both the Central and State level to oversee the implementation and monitoring of the Act.

g)     The Act provides for penal provisions in case of contravention of the provisions of the EDS Act

3)     Current Status

a)     There has been extensive consultation process over the past 8 months on the EDS Bill, with all Stakeholders including all Central Government Departments, State Governments, Industry, Industry Association, Academia and Civil society.

b)     The EDS Bill was uploaded in the DIT website on 9th February 2011. All subsequent revisions have also been uploaded on the DIT website.

c)     The various suggestions and feedback of the stakeholders have been considered and accordingly the EDS bill has been revised to incorporate these suggestions.

d)     Ministry of Law and Justice, Government of India has approved the draft Bill.

e)     It is proposed to introduce the EDS Bill during the winter session of the Parliament

4)     Benefits

The EDS Act Bill will bring about improvement in service delivery and Governance by ensuring legal mandate for delivery of services in electronic mode.

The EDS Bill is hosted at http://mit.gov.in/content/draft-electronic-delivery-services-bill-2011

Interview of Shri Shankar Aggarwal , Additional Secretary DIT

Project National Population Register

Information provided by Deepinder of NeGD

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Here's the latest on Project NPR: 

Apropos NPR Work in Chandigarh, the pre-bid meeting was held on 23-May-2011 at DOEACC Centre, Chandigarh. This was attended by nine agencies. Post meeting, DOEACC issued a notification that can be accessed from

(a) facebook -- http://www.facebook.com/DIT.NPR/posts/195292020517378 as well as http://www.facebook.com/DIT.NPR

(b) DIT Web site -- www.mit.gov.in/whatsnew -- from the "Bid Process for Engaging MSPs..." link, as well as from the "National Population Register (NPR) Bid Process for the UT of Chandigarh" banner (image attached)

Do visit the facebook page and become a fan by clicking the Like button.

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Mr. Shankar Aggarwal, Additional Secretary DIT being interviewed

Interview of Mr. Shankar Aggarwal, Additional Secretary DIT

Scheme for National Rollout of e-District Mission Mode Project

The Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure today approved the following proposals :  Scheme of National Rollout of e-District Mission Mode Project at a cost of Rs 1663.08 crore to be implemented in all 640 districts (including the 41 districts where e-District Pilot Projects have already been initiated) of the country for a period of 4 years.  Approval for an outlay of Rs 1663.08 crore spread over years 2011-2012 to 2014-2015 with an expenditure of Rs 541.22 crore in the Eleventh Five Year Plan and of Rs 1121.86 crore in the 12th Five Year Plan.  Approval of constitution of an Empowered Committee for coordinating the implementation of the Project. Background National e Governance Plan (NeGP) was approved by the Government in May 2006, with the following vision: "Make all Government Services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man". To realize this vision, 27 Central, State and Integrated Mission Mode projects (MMPs) along with 8 support components were identified and approved under NeGP. States have the flexibility to identify upto 5 additional state-specific projects, which are particularly relevant for the economic development of the State. NeGP also envisages creation of the core IT infrastructure in the form of State Wide Area Networks (SWANs), State Data Centres (SDCs) State Service Delivery Gateways (SSDGs) and one lakh Front Ends namely Common Services Centres (CSCs), in rural areas across the country to deliver public services electronically. e-District is one of the 27 MMPs under NeGP, with the Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India as the nodal Department, to be implemented by State Government or their designated agencies. The MMP aims at electronic delivery of identified high volume citizen centric services, at such district and sub-district level, which are not part of any other MMP. The estimated total project cost for the nation-wide rollout of e-District MMP is Rs 1663.08 crore, out of which Government of India's share is estimated to be Rs 1233.08 crore and States' share Rs 430 crore. Citizens will be able to access Government to Citizen (G2C) services close to their houses through Common Service Centers (CSCs) in an integrated manner. Service delivery of G2C services will be responsive, transparent and accountable at Districts and Sub-District offices. Citizens will have to travel less distance, make less trips to Government offices and also will have to wait for much less time to get these services delivered to them. Citizen will also be able to track on line the progress of the application/request. Offices and Sub-Offices of district administration will get modernized and Government processes automated which will ultimately empower the citizens. ***** SB/SKS (Release ID :71720)

Brief Career Profile of Shri S.R. Rao IAS Additional Secretary DIT Government of India

Mr. S.R. Rao is a member of the prestigious Indian Administrative Service having joined the service in 1978. In a distinguished career of over 32 years, he has served in several assignments like District Administration, Rural Development, Urban Development, Ports, Primary Health Service Delivery, and Nuclear Energy. He has taken charge of the current assignment as Additional Secretary Department of Information technology in November 2008. Prior to this assignment he served as Principal Secretary Municipal Administration in the State Government of Gujarat.

Mr. S.R. Rao is best known for the transformation of the City of Surat after the infamous attack of plague in the city in 1994. He took several bold and innovative steps for improvement of the infrastructure of the city and Surat for a long time was known as a model city. For this effort Mr. S.R. Rao was awarded “Padma Shri” a civilian honour of the Government of India and Eisenhower fellow and several other similar honours by National and International organisations.

Mr. S.R. Rao did his post graduation in Applied Sociology from Andhra University and followed it during his Government service with an M.A in Rural Development from the University of East Anglia(UK).

Mr. S.R. Rao is about 56 years of age

Below is a link featuring an interview of Shri Rao published in the outlook magazine in November 97 post his clean up of Surat

Interview with Shri S.R. Rao in outlook magazine

Given the popularity of the Post,  a few updates are provided 

• SR Rao, a 1978 batch Gujarat cadre IAS, presently additional secretary in the department of information technology has been appointed as additional secretary in department of telecommunications as of 1st February 2011
• Shri SR Rao was part of the hand picked team of the Cabinet Secretary to take over part responsibility for management of Common Wealth games. He was made responsible for the modernization of Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium and ensuring that the events in the Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium happen without a glitch
• SR Rao conducts probe on Tata-VSNL deal (News of 25th March 2011)
  Telecom department’s additional secretary and 1978 batch Gujarat cadre IAS, SR Rao will be conducting an inquiry into Tata-VSNL land deal after telecom minister Kapil Sibal raised concerns over the disinvestment of VSNL in 2002 and the way de-merger of 773.13 acres of surplus land of VSNL was handled.
  A double MA in social work and rural development (UK), SR Rao is still known for his stint as Municipal Commissioner to a traumatized, plague-hit Surat city. He is credited with cleaning up the city and placing it back into normalcy.