e-Governance mandatory in five years

It will become mandatory to deliver all government services electronically in five years after the Electronic Delivery of Services Bill under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) is passed, an official said here Thursday.

New Electronic Transaction Aggregation & Analysis Layer (e-Taal) software links services offered by different state governments and agencies, said Gaurav Dwivedi, Director, e-Governance, Department of Electronics & Information Technology.

e-Taal will also measure all transactions taking place throughout the country among different state governments and agencies, he said.

Till now, as many as 1,400 services from central and state governments are connected to e-Taal and more than 90 crore transactions have taken place since Jan 1, 2013.

"The focus now is on providing services through mobile devices and reducing the digital divide," Dwivedi said.

Maharashtra has become the leading state in the country in implementing e-Governance services with the service delivery almost stabilised, Dwivedi noted, at the 28th national consultation workshop on the issue here Thursday.

Inaugurating the workshop, organised by the central government's department of information technology, NASSCOM and state IT department, state Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat called for taking the benefit of central scheme funds in IT to benefit the maximum number of people.

Minister of State for School Education Fauzia Khan urged each department to deliberate individual e-Governance needs to move in a swift time-bound manner to ascertain if speediers and citizen-centric facilities are reaching out to people.

The NeGP, one of the largest e-Governance initiatives in the world, spans central, state and local levels of government involving multiple authorities at various levels and is changing the way people access public services.

With its single window concept, one can access most public services closer home at an affordable cost.

NeGP covers 31 mission mode projects being implemented at the central, state and local government levels and projects in banking, insurance, income-tax, pensions, passports, Aadhaar card, land records, health, public distribution system, e-courts, e-procurement, among others.