IMPHAL, May 3: The Government will offer online 42 government-to-citizen (G2C) services through the state portal, announced state Chief Secretary DS Poonia while delivering his speech during the inaugural of an e-governance consultative workshop, “Citizen Centric e-Government”, at Classic Hotel, here today.
He also said that the department of Information Technology will soon be providing specific email IDs to all the state officials, after the complete mapping of the domain names, which is in final stage of implementation.
Highlighting the progress made by the state in the area of e-governance since 2009, he said that while three years ago the core projects under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) — the Common Services Centre (CSC), State Wide Area Network (SWAN), State Data Centre (SDC) and State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) — were mostly under approval stages, Manipur has now become the first state in the country to successfully implement all the four projects.
Before 2009, the Information Technology (IT) Department was part of the Science and Technology Department.
Speaking on State Data Centre, he said that the data centre hosts a few applications, including the file tracking system (FTS) application, which has resulted in bringing efficiency in the secretariat. It also hosts the website of the State Government.
The Chief Secretary also elaborated on the district e-governance societies formed under the plan for speeding up the implementation of e-governance at the district level, saying, “The societies have been formed and they are very active in the state. Recently, we issued Rs 9 lakh to each district team for promotion, publicity and awareness on NeGP.”
Elaborating on the state government’s plans to capitalise on the State’s IT capability and convert Manipur into an IT hub, he said that the government has planned to create an IT special economic zone (SEZ) and has chosen Accenture as consultant to achieve its goal. Accenture is currently making the detailed project report (DPR) on the same.
Noting some issues in NeGP implementation, he pointed at the “lack of clarity” in funding received from the department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY), Government of India, and said that it is being done in bits and pieces in a few cases.
He pointed out that the IT professionals recruited as part of the State e-Mission Team (SeMT), by the central government are perceived as outsiders in the state government and that they do not gel in the government set-up.
“This issue could be resolved, if selection is done here locally, with DEITY participating as one of the stakeholders in the recruitment process,” he recommended.
In her adress, Additional Secretary, e-governance DEITY Rita Teaotia, said that NeGP has been evolving all these years.
With states becoming more advanced in IT, now much of the implementation has to go back to the states, she said.
She said that while the core infrastructure under the plan would be largely in place by the end of 2012, the department would now focus on the availability of services, which would be measured through the number of transactions, quality and customer satisfaction.
Providing data on the current status of implementation of four key NeGP components, the CSC, SDC, SWAN and SSDG which are at various levels of implementation, she said that currently there are 30 states which have operationalised SWANs, 16 states have operationalised SDCs, 19 states have operationalised CSCs and 4 states have SSDGs.
Among these states, she said, 15 have operationalised SDCs and SWANs both, nine states have operationalised three, SDCs, SWANs and CSCs while just one – Manipur – has operationalised all four components.
She, however, said that though Manipur ranks high in operationalising these four components, it ranks low in their usage and urged the state to work in this direction.
Elaborating on the future roadmap, she said that the focus in future would be on resolving the critical issues and gaps in implementation of the four major infrastructure components, promoting and monitoring effective utilization of the created infrastructure, focusing on services across the counter, and mobile delivery through 166 number.
She said that e-district will be scaled to cover additional 100 districts, across the country.
A human resource plan for e-governance, being prepared by a committee headed by UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani, and capacity-building, would be other major focus areas in the near future, she said.
Highlighting the challenges faced by the state CSCs, Special Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Manipur S Birendra Singh, said that lack of power and connectivity are a few major issues which may scuttle the realisation of the project’s objective.
He also appreciated the change in focus of the DEITY towards utilization of the infrastructure created under NeGP and its assessment which would be based on number of transactions.
He said that the young team of state IT department, mostly under 30, is working hard towards successful implementation of all e-governance projects.
During the day-long workshop, the Manipur Government showcased IT solutions implemented in various departments.
The workshop was co-organised by DEITY, Government of India, DIT, Government of Manipur, Manipur State IT Society, in association with NASSCOM. This consultative meet is the 13th in series of 50 workshops being organised in all state capitals and UTs across India. This is being done to amplify the mission and message of the National e-Governance Plan: “Public Services Closer Home”.
With many states in various stages of rolling out many public services on the e-governance platform, the NeGP Apex Committee has decided to create awareness about NeGP initiatives among stakeholders, discuss challenges in delivery of e-services, identify state specific issues and understand emerging technologies from the industry. The string of workshops will cover all state capitals, UTs and some important cities between now and July 2012.