E-Governance applications on mobiles soon, says Minister

With 930 million mobile phones already in use in the country the next e-governance revolution will happen using the mobile phones according to Union Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology K Kruparani.

Keeping this possibility in mind, the Government of India has already created a special programme to ensure that all the services that are provided online through internet kiosks are also made available on mobile platform, she said on Friday.

Addressing a national seminar on IT and IT-enabled services, the minister informed that as part of this exercise the government is planning to set up 2000, new cell phone towers to improve signal coverage in tribal areas at an estimated cost of Rs 3,000 crore. According to the minister, the e-governance would bring in transparency and accountability in the system while there are 31 mission mode projects already in execution to achieve this end.

Besides being the backbone of the e-governance initiatives, the IT and the ITeS sector has been presently providing 1.2 million jobs and an indirect employment to another 8 million people. The direct employment alone is set to grow to 12 million jobs by 2020, the minister said. In an effort to encourage indigenous industries in electronics sector, the government is also planning to create 2,000 PhDs in electronic sector in the next five years, the minister said.