Over the years,
various State Governments and Central Ministries to usher in an era of
e-Governance have undertaken a large number of initiatives. Sustained efforts
have been made at multiple levels to improve the delivery of public services
and simplify the process of accessing them.
The National
e-Governance Plan (NeGP) takes a holistic view of
e-Governance initiatives across the country, integrating them into a
collective vision, a shared cause. Around this idea, a massive countrywide
network infrastructure reaching down to the remotest of villages is evolving,
and large-scale digitisation of records is taking
place to enable easy, reliable access over the internet.
The ultimate objective
is to bring good tangible governance to the citizen’s doorstep. After all,
accessing land records, obtaining birth certificates and passports, filing
income tax returns and getting medical opinion from the country’s best doctors
should be as simple as clicking mouse. And as near home as the neighbourhood shop!
Genesis of
a National Plan
The e-Governance
scenario in India has evolved from computerization of Government Departments to
initiatives, which encapsulate the finer points of Governance, such as, citizen
centricity, service orientation and transparency. The approach, implementation
methodology and management structure for National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) was approved by the Government in 2006. Experiences
from successes as well as failures of the various previous initiatives played
an important role in shaping the e-Governance strategy of the country.
Due cognizance was
taken of the notion that if e-Governance was to be speeded up across the
various arms of Government at the National, State and Local levels, a programme approach would need to be adopted, guided by a
common vision and strategy.
This approach was seen
as having the advantage of enabling huge savings in costs via sharing of core
and support infrastructure, enabling interoperability through standards. This
approach was also seen as a step towards presenting the citizen a seamless
view of Government.
The NeGP Universe
The NeGP covers 27 Mission Mode Projects and eight Support
Components to be implemented at Central, State and Local Government levels. The
Support Components aim at creating the right governance and institutional
mechanisms, core infrastructure, policies and standards, and the necessary
legal framework for adoption of e-Governance.
The eight Support Components cut across the
MMPs and the responsibilities are with the Department of Information Technology
(DIT) and Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DAR&PG).
The DIT components are Core Infrastructure (SWAN, SDC and CSC), Support Infrastructure,
Technical Assistance, Core Policies and R&D. The areas of joint responsibility
of the DIT and DAR&PG are HRD training, Organizational Structure and Awareness
& Assessment.
Mission
Mode Projects
There are 27 Mission
Projects under the NeGP that encompass nine Central,
eleven State and seven Integrated MMPs spanning multiple
Ministries/Departments. “Mission Mode” implies that the objective and the scope
of the projects is clearly defined, there are
measurable outcomes (service levels) and well-defined milestones and timelines
for implementation.
The
27 Mission Made Projects identified on the basis of high citizen and business
interface are:
Central MMPs: MCA 21, Pensions,
Income Tax, Passport and Visa/Immigration, Central Excise, Banking, MNIC/UID,
e-office and Insurance.
State MMPs: Land Records Ph. I, Land
Records Ph. II & Reg., Road Transport, Agriculture, Police, Treasuries,
Municipalities, e-District, Commercial Taxes, Gram Panchayat and Employment
Exchange.
Integrated
MMPs: CSC. e-Courts,
EDI, India Portal, NSDG, e-Biz, e-Procurement.
Common
Services Centres
The Government has
approved a Common Services Centres (CSCs) Scheme for
providing support for establishing 100,000 plus Common Services Centres across more than 600,000 villages. The Scheme, as
approved by the Government, envisions CSCs as the front-end delivery points for
Government, private and social sector services to the citizens of India, in an
integrated manner.
The objective is to
develop a platform that can enable Government, private and social sector
organizations to align their social and commercial goals, especially for the
benefit of the rural population in the remotest corners of the country through
a combination of IT-based and other services.
The CSCs have the ability
to provide high quality and cost-effective video, voice, and data content/services
in the areas of e-Governance, education, health, telemedicine, entertainment
etc. A highlight of the CSCs is that they can offer web-enabled e-Governance-related
services in rural areas such as application form download, certificates, payments
of electricity, telephone, water, and other utility bills.
Taking
Flight with SWAN & Ensuring Delivery via SDCs
The State Wide Area
Networks (SWAN) Scheme is one of the three Core Infrastructure pillars of NeGP. It has an estimated outlay of Rs. 3334 crores, and
was approved by the Government in March 2005 with an objective to set up SWANs
interconnecting each State/Union Territory Head Quarter with District Head
Quarter, and each District Head Quarter with the Block Head Quarters with
minimum 2 Mbps leased line.
The objective of the
Scheme is to create a secure Close User Group (CUG) Government network for the
purpose of delivering G2G and G2C services. The duration of the project is five
years with a pre-project implementation period of 18 months. The project is
being implemented as a Central Sector Scheme with Rs. 2005 crores as Grant-in-aid
from Department of Information Technology and balance fund from the State Plan
fund under Additional Central Assistance (ACA) allocation
State Data Centre (SDC) is another Core
Infrastructure pillar under the NeGP, it is proposed to create SDCs for the States to
consolidate services, applications and infrastructure to provide efficient
electronic delivery of G2G, G2C and G2B services. These services can be
rendered by the States through common delivery platform seamlessly supported by
core connectivity infrastructure such as State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and
Common Services Centre (CSC) connectivity extended up to village level.
SDCs provide rich functionality, such as, acting as the Central Repository
of the State, Secure Data Storage, Online Delivery of Services, Citizen Information/Services
Portal, State Intranet Portal, Disaster Recovery, Remote Management and Service
Integration. SDCs would also help minimize overall cost of Data Management,
IT Resource Management, Deployment and other costs.
(www.negp.gov.in).
*Deputy
Secretary (e-Governance) is the Nodal Officer for NeGP
Awareness & Communication.
RTS/VN
SS-80/SF-80/11.08.2009
(Release ID :51768)