Microsoft India to frame policies for e-governance

With Madhya Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir entering into a tie-up for providing e-governance, Microsoft is trying to push the Central government to frame a policy in this regard so that more and more states can offer services through e-governance platform.

Microsoft India is also exploring possibilities in the health sector in Madhya Pradesh.

“We have spoken to Union IT ministry and we want states to work on cloud platform, as Madhya Pradesh is working for Jammu and Kashmir. MP is providing data, network and server for J&K government to develop e-governance facilities at various centres.

This way J&K is able to save funds and speed up its service facilities,” Pratik Mehta, director public sector Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd told Business Standard here. After initial failures during previous Digvijay Singh-led Congress government, Microsoft India has made strategic investment in the state for unknown sum in various sectors.

“We want the Central government set up application factory wherein various e-governance models of various states can be replicated to provide maximum benefits to citizens. This would not only save cost but will also help government to reach common masses in a better way,” he added.

Microsoft has covered a fair share on cloud computing platform in schools and colleges through its Live@edu project and Project Shiksha. The Live@edu project, on one hand, connects alumnae of various colleges and schools, project Shiksha is aimed at imparting training for school teachers on short terms basis in partnership with the state government.

“We have trained as many as 31000 school teachers by using state government infrastructure,” Irina Ghose, Director Education Microsoft told BS.

Using Microsoft software and operating platforms, state government has launched its various projects like e-districts to reach common masses through digital route. However digitization of land records is the biggest issue for the government.

“By using cloud computing platform, governments can slash their funds and offer maximum benefits. As Madhya Pradesh is providing support for J&K citizens in terms of e-governance, state government can offer more in health sector, sadly there is no IT policy for health sector,” Mehta added.

Microsoft is also gearing up to cover more government sectors to come under cloud computing platform to faster time to market and resource utilization in e-governance endeavor. It is pursing government to adopt easier citizen friendly technology like PC-to-PC video calling, and simplified tax solutions through its partners across the globe.