UP politicians game for e-governance

Uttar Pradesh, known as a hotbed of politics, has politicians going in for e-governance.

The people’s representatives are shedding inhibitions and slowly turning votaries of e-governance for faster delivery of a host of public utility services at a fraction of the earlier cost. Legislat-ors across the political spectrum are even suggesting fresh ideas to the central and state information technology (IT) departments for ushering in e-governance in more areas.

These facts came to light in the three-day ‘e-governance leadership meet’ organised in the state capital, which concluded last evening. The objective of the programme was to sensitise politicians and government officials towards IT tools for giving faster services in a transparent manner.

The programme was attended by 12 state legislators of different parties and five state ministers.

“It has been decided to conduct such programmes by rotation every three months, so that all the legislators are able to participate and share knowledge,” state IT and electronics principal secretary, Chandra Prakash, told Business Standard.

The legislators contributed to the cause by suggesting novel ideas for inclusion in the e-governance suite. These mostly pertained to health, education and public distribution system (PDS) segments.

Students in rural schools would be able to take quality lessons electronically, since absenteeism among village teachers is high. The state education secretary has been told to explore such a possibility.

Besides, state health minister Anant Kumar Mishra has proposed a tele-medicine facility be launched for primary health centres in rural areas.

This facility would be supported by the Lucknow-based Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Medical University doctors to provide expert medical advice.

Besides, principal secretary food and civil supplies, Jacob Thomas said a smart cards system would be introduced for the PDS all over the state to stop pilferage and illegal diversion of ration.

The state government has been running a pilot project in select PDS shops in Sitapur district with smart cards entailing bio-metric identification. “It was found that 35 per cent of the BPL card holders were not coming to take ration in the pilot outlets, which means these cards were not legitimate,” Prakash added.

In 2006, the state launched e-governance project in six districts —Gorakhpur, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Sitapur, Sultanpur and Rae Bareli.

So far, 6,000 common service centres known as Jan Suvidha Kendras had been set up to offer host of services online. These would be ramped up to 17,000 with the help of private parties.

JSKs provide services such as income tax, caste, death, birth and domicile certificates, besides issuance/renewal of ration card, old- age pension, etc.