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

A REPORT ON THE VISIT OF CSCs AND E-DISTRICT AT GOALPARA, ASSAM 19th January 2012

1) A visit was made to the CSCs of Goalpara District, the E-District Facilitation Centre at Goalpara district office and the Circle office at Goalpara accompanied by representatives from the Assam SeMT team and the Srei Sahaj team.

2) The CSCs visited were located in Dudhnoi, Goalpara and Matia, Goalpara

a) The Dudhnoi CSC was located in the Dudhnoi town, located on the Guwahati – Goalpara National Highway which , the CSC was equipped with about 3 laptops. The Srei Sahaj team have made considerable efforts to seed a large number of Financial Services, however the VLE operating the CSC said that his main revenue sources were a) Browsing by customers, b) Photography and c) Railway ticketing. The VLE said that there was delay in processing of applications for e-District services, one of the reasons may be breakdown in the Assam State Wide Area Network link between the District office and the Circle office.

Electronic Delivery of Services Bill Introduced in the Lok Sabha on 27th December 2011

electronic_delivery_of_services_Bill_as_introduced_in_Lok_Sabha.pdf Download this file

Corrigenda_Electronic_Delivery_(26.12.11).doc Download this file

As extracted from the Lok Sabha debates

27.12.2011 Uncorrected / Not for Publication

 

ELECTRONIC DELIVERY OF SERVICES BILL

 

1109 hours

THE MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AND MINISTER

OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI

KAPIL SIBAL):  I beg to move for leave to introduce a Bill to provide for

electronic delivery of public services by the Government to all persons to ensure

transparency, efficiency, accountability, accessibility and reliability in delivery of

such services and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. 

 

MADAM SPEAKER: The question is: 

 “That leave be granted to introduce a Bill to provide for electronic

delivery of public services by the Government to all persons to

ensure transparency, efficiency, accountability, accessibility and

reliability in delivery of such services and for matters connected

therewith or incidental thereto.” 

 

The motion was adopted. 

SHRI KAPIL SIBAL: I introduce the Bill.

- - - - 

7224 

Karnataka to soon offer guaranteed land titles through the Urban Property Ownership Records Project

The project, while giving buyers all the information about a property through the Urban Property ownership records database, will also help protect government land

Bangalore: Karnataka will become the first state in the country to provide a state guarantee to urban property titles, albeit only implicitly, when Mysore district issues the first urban property cards later this month.

They will be issued under the Urban Property Ownership Records (UPOR) project— which surveyed 275,000 properties in the Mysore urban area—that creates a record of the current owner of the property.

Titling is the formalizing of ownership of property, which allows the owner to commercial leverage it; at present, it does not exist in India. Further, unclear titles often lead to violent conflicts and endless litigation.

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

Delivering services the Kalyan-Dombivli way – Isher Judge Ahluwalia

Below is an article published by Mrs. Isher Judge Ahluwalia on the e-Governance Project in the Kalyan  Dombivali Municipal Corporation.  Some of the factors which impressed her were

a)  Aesthetically designed Citizen Facilitation Centres

b) Ease of service delivery / reduction in time in delivery of services like issue of Birth Certificate, Payment of property taxes, reduction in time for property assesment

c) Integration of different service delivery modules / back end integration

d) Strong bureaucratic leadership

e) Financial sustainability of the Project

Delivering services the Kalyan-Dombivli way – Isher Judge Ahluwalia
For over a decade now, we have taken pride in the great performance of India’s IT sector in the global market for software development and also in the Indian corporate space. But the benefit IT can bring in delivering a variety of public services, what is often called e-governance, has been less in focus in India. The potential from this activity is enormous and it is only just beginning to be realised.
An outstanding example of what IT can do to deliver public services in Indian cities is provided by the e-governance project of the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) in Thane district in Maharashtra. The project was conceived in 1999, started implementation in 2002, and is now being replicated across the 231 urban local bodies of Maharashtra. Its lessons are also being incorporated in the mission mode projects of the National e-Governance Action Plan which was launched in 2003.

Principal Secretary e-Governance Shri MN Vidyashankar's interview by egovreach.com

The original link is here egovreach.in

Karnataka has been leading the way in terms of IT software and hardware exports. It has taken a huge leap in e-governance initiatives also and  M. N. Vidyashankar, Principal Secretary, Department of IT, BT and S&T, Government of Karnataka elaborates on the efforts that the state has put in.

Q: Karnataka is one among the few states which has shown proper reciprocation to e-governance call. How would you rate the state’s response to e-governance?

Answer

Karnataka ranked as the “Leader in e-Readiness in the country” by the Department of Information Technology, Government of India. We have several successful e-governance projects which have potential to be replicated in other states. Namely:

Bhoomi : Bhoomi (meaning land) is the project of on-line delivery and management of land records in Karnataka. It provides transparency in land records management with better citizen services and takes discretion away from civil servants at operational levels.

BHOOMI has been operationalised throughout the state. Under BHOOMI 20 million records of land ownership of 6.7 million farmers are computerized in the state.

BHOOMI has reduced the discretion of public officials by introducing provisions for recording a mutation request online. Farmers can now access the database and are empowered to follow up. Now, mutation requests are being handled strictly on a first-come-first-served basis eliminating preferential treatment and discretionary powers of the civil servants.