Sibal’s e-delivery module hits plan panel roadblock

Telecom minister Kapil Sibal’s grand plan to check corruption by providing public services online has hit the Planning Commission roadblock.

Updated on: Jun 4, 2012, 01:55:52 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Telecom minister Kapil Sibal’s grand plan to check corruption by providing public services online has hit the planning commission roadblock.

The Union Cabinet in last December approved the electronic delivery of services bill, 2011, which gave governments --- centre and the states --- five years to provide public services such as issuance of driving license or ration card online.

The centre and state governments will have to list the services which it can provide online once the bill – presently being examined by a Parliamentary Standing Committee --- is notified. Within five years, the listed services will have to be provided online and commissions --- at Centre and state levels --- will have to be constituted to address public grievances.

Before the bill become law, the governments were required to do lot of ground work to meet the prescribed deadline. It included of having existing database in a digital format, buying adequately powered servers to run the online system, setting up state data centers and over a million common service centers.

For this, the Department of Information Technology --- mandated to help governments in providing online services --- had launched national e-governance programme. The department had initiated 27 mission mode projects and aims to provide broadband connection to every panchayat in the next few years.

To make it feasible, the department has sought Rs 15,000 crore from the country’s fund allocating body --- the planning commission --- for the 12th five year plan (2012-17) to create Information Technology hardware and infrastructure. The ministry had also prescribed why the money was necessary.

But, the plan panel had ruled out the possibility of made Rs 15,000 crore available. Instead, it says, only Rs 7,900 crore will be available for the entire plan, while admitting that it could result in significant pushing of e-governance programme goalposts.

In an internal document circulated for allocating of resources to different ministries in the 12th plan, the panel had said the existing commitments of the UPA government for social sector has hampered allocation of additional resources to new programmes.

These include national e-governance programme, national skill development mission, revamp of public broadcaster Doordarshan and All India Radio and some clean environment programmes.

The department, however, says that ensuring public service through online mode will ensure efficient, transparent and reliable delivery of services and will also reduce corruption. Telecom minister Kapil Sibal had described the Electronic Delivery Service Bill as a “modern tool” to check corruption by reducing human interface.

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

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.