Run-up to 2014: PMO’s final push to e-governance

With UPA’s e-governance plan on a bumpy road, the Prime Minister’s Office has decided to give it a final push before the 2014 general elections. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jul 1, 2013, 02:02:34 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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With UPA’s e-governance plan on a bumpy road, the Prime Minister’s Office has decided to give it a final push before the 2014 general elections.

The government has launched a national e-governance programme, which aims to provide services in an electronic format from paying taxes to online banking under 31 mission mode projects, to improve financial inclusion.

A study by financial rating company CRISIL shows poor penetration of formal banking facilities in most parts of the country. “Just one in two Indians has a savings account, and only one in seven Indians have access to banking credit,” the study said.

Assessment of the e-governance programme by Indian Institute of Management, (IIM) Ahmedabad shows that the government may fail to achieve its target of providing most the services online by 2013.

Subhash C Bhatnagar of IIM said there was huge impact variability among different e-governance programmes, indicating at shortfalls in the delivery mechanism.

IIM suggested that the government charge a nominal fee for providing electronic services to make the programme viable.

A senior government official said that the prime reason for poor implementation of the e-governance plan was the slow pace of computerisation of government records, especially related to land and property.

“While passport application and income tax payment is now online, many states are yet to bring its municipal services and issuance of certificates in an electronic format,” an official said.

Officials expect the PMO to issue important directions on Monday to different ministries to improve implementation in the next few months.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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