Rs 500 cr to be spent on 50 e-governance projects

The Orissa IT department will spend around Rs 500 crore both under the Centre's National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) and the State Plan over the next 2-3 years on the implementation of 50 e-governance projects in the state.

While the State Data Centre Project, being taken up under NeGP, is scheduled for completion by November 2010, the Orissa State Wide Area Network (OSWAN), also under NeGP, is set to be commissioned by September this year.

Request for Proposal is being prepared for the State Service Delivery Gateway project.It has been proposed to roll out 8558 Common Service Centres (CSCs) across the state and these CSCs are under various stages of completion.The e-district project being taken up in Ganjam district is set to be operational by October this year while the e-municipality and e-registration projects are under implementation.The state IT secretary D N Gupta on Tuesday gave a detailed presentation to the state Chief Secretary B K Pattnaik on 'Key Policy Issues for e-Governance'.

"There were discussions on the status of the different e-governance projects being taken up under the Centre's NeGP. Our objective is to strengthen e-governance services at all levels- state, districts and blocks. The Centre has provided around Rs 290 crore to the state in the past four years for the execution of various NeGP projects”, Gupta told reporters after the review meeting.

Apart from execution of various e-governance projects, it has also been envisaged to create a Centre for Excellence in e-Governance. The objective of creating this Centre for Excellence is to develop the vision, strategies and plans for state-wide scaling up of e-governance projects in different departments.