On the e-governance front, rapid strides have been made around the country. but the story still remains rather uneven
INDIA'S BEST COLLEGES, INSTITUTES and UNIVERSITIES
Sidhu Ram was sweating profusely. The ageing resident of Uttar Pradesh's Ballia district was trying to get an appointment with the district magistrate. His grievance: alleged irregularities in the state government's old age pension scheme. But reaching the official concerned was easier said than done.
A disconcerted Sidhu met this writer around two months ago. I suggested that he should send an e-mail to the DM. I logged on to the UP government website and went to the Ballia administration homepage. I then sent a mail to the district magistrate and the superintendent of police. It bounced within minutes. The message read: 'Delivery Notification ' Delivery has failed'. Par for the course!
In order to ascertain whether this was a one-off or the norm, I sent more than 100 test mails to government officials of Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, UP, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Over 95 per cent of the mails bounced. Though many e-mails sent to Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra went through not a single response was received from anybody. Bridging the digital divide Ranjit Goswami, a research scholar at IIT Kharagpur, hit a similar wall and wrote about his experience on his blog. He sent e-mails seeking clarifications regarding the Employees Provident Fund. Three-fourths of the mails bounced. He says: 'I pose a simple question to you. Which is the official website of the government of India ' sarkaritel.com or parliamentofindia.nic.in? I can bet the first answer that hits your mind is sarkaritel.com.' He is, of course, right.
The Web information company, Alexa, ranks sarkaritel.com at 8336 among all Indian websites. The Parliament of India website is way behind ' close to 35,000. Ramesh Kumar, chief technology officer of Bangalore-based Human Search Engine, analyses the websites of various tourism ministry sites. He says, 'Royalplaceonwheels.com is a good website. Incredibleindia.org is cluttered. Keralatourism.org is many times better. The Tamil Nadu tourism website is average.' The problem with most Indian government websites is that they do not use a proper 'Content Management System' and have static pages.
A strong presence on the web is the first step towards digital empowerment. However, very few government departments have made efforts to enhance their web presence. These websites usually lack attractive content and user-friendly features. However, the MEA website can be touted as a rare success story.
The railway ministry has a feature on its website that enables passengers to easily track the status of an RTI application. The railway ministry site is indeed one of the topmost Indian sites. Alexa Web information database ranks it seventh.
The income tax department, which is used by the public for filing online returns, is high in the rankings. The income tax website is ranked 341st and its tax e-filing website ranks 483rd. However, compare that with the online tax filing site of a leading business newspaper ' it is ranked 13th despite being a paid site. Bridging the digital divide E-governance started late in Bihar. The attitude of the Lalu Prasad government regarding e-governance was best reflected in his statement: 'E-governance aur phi-governance ka hota hai? E sab samanti ke hathyar hai (What is e-governance? It's a tool in the hands of capitalists).' This attitude slowed down the progress on the e-governance front in Bihar. The first official website of the state could only come up in the year 2000.
The current Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar understands the power of information technology and has taken steps to put every department online. Two years ago, the Bihar government launched an SMS service for the monitoring of the NREGA programme. The Rajasthan government has now turned to Bihar for help in the domain of e-governance.
However, states like Bihar, UP and MP have always been derided for poor governance. But the Nitish Kumar and Mayawati-led governments have made considerable headway. According to Alexa, Bihar's official webpage rank is 3270, surprisingly ahead of Karnataka, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
However, many ambitious e-governance projects in Bihar are facing delays due to the tardiness of the National Informatics Centre (NIC). Subhash Kumar, a former trainee in NIC Patna, says, 'I was told to work on a project of the panchayati raj ministry. I worked there for 3-4 months and when I left the work was still unfinished. Then a new batch of trainees came and they started the same work from scratch. This is why no progress is made. Employees here simply do not want to work.' Many states have provided their MLAs with laptops but they are hardly used. In Bihar, grandsons and granddaughters of MLAs have been found using these laptops.
States like Karnataka, Goa, Rajasthan, Orissa and Tamil Nadu have made all land records available online. Karnataka has one to the extent of establishing bhumi kiosks in the villages for the purpose. However, land records in many states are not available online yet.
Nitish Kumar
Chief Minister, Bihar
"We had earlier tried to put the janata darbar applications online. But due to the lethargic attitude of NIC, it was not successful."
Dinesh Trivedi
Union Minister of State, Health
" Being a government department we have to first take the help of NIC. If we do not take care of NIC, then its fate will be similar to that of Railtel."
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Sidhu Ram was sweating profusely. The ageing resident of Uttar Pradesh's Ballia district was trying to get an appointment with the district magistrate. His grievance: alleged irregularities in the state government's old age pension scheme. But reaching the official concerned was easier said than done.
A disconcerted Sidhu met this writer around two months ago. I suggested that he should send an e-mail to the DM. I logged on to the UP government website and went to the Ballia administration homepage. I then sent a mail to the district magistrate and the superintendent of police. It bounced within minutes. The message read: 'Delivery Notification ' Delivery has failed'. Par for the course!
In order to ascertain whether this was a one-off or the norm, I sent more than 100 test mails to government officials of Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, UP, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Over 95 per cent of the mails bounced. Though many e-mails sent to Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra went through not a single response was received from anybody. Bridging the digital divide Ranjit Goswami, a research scholar at IIT Kharagpur, hit a similar wall and wrote about his experience on his blog. He sent e-mails seeking clarifications regarding the Employees Provident Fund. Three-fourths of the mails bounced. He says: 'I pose a simple question to you. Which is the official website of the government of India ' sarkaritel.com or parliamentofindia.nic.in? I can bet the first answer that hits your mind is sarkaritel.com.' He is, of course, right.
The Web information company, Alexa, ranks sarkaritel.com at 8336 among all Indian websites. The Parliament of India website is way behind ' close to 35,000. Ramesh Kumar, chief technology officer of Bangalore-based Human Search Engine, analyses the websites of various tourism ministry sites. He says, 'Royalplaceonwheels.com is a good website. Incredibleindia.org is cluttered. Keralatourism.org is many times better. The Tamil Nadu tourism website is average.' The problem with most Indian government websites is that they do not use a proper 'Content Management System' and have static pages.
A strong presence on the web is the first step towards digital empowerment. However, very few government departments have made efforts to enhance their web presence. These websites usually lack attractive content and user-friendly features. However, the MEA website can be touted as a rare success story.
The railway ministry has a feature on its website that enables passengers to easily track the status of an RTI application. The railway ministry site is indeed one of the topmost Indian sites. Alexa Web information database ranks it seventh.
The income tax department, which is used by the public for filing online returns, is high in the rankings. The income tax website is ranked 341st and its tax e-filing website ranks 483rd. However, compare that with the online tax filing site of a leading business newspaper ' it is ranked 13th despite being a paid site. Bridging the digital divide E-governance started late in Bihar. The attitude of the Lalu Prasad government regarding e-governance was best reflected in his statement: 'E-governance aur phi-governance ka hota hai? E sab samanti ke hathyar hai (What is e-governance? It's a tool in the hands of capitalists).' This attitude slowed down the progress on the e-governance front in Bihar. The first official website of the state could only come up in the year 2000.
The current Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar understands the power of information technology and has taken steps to put every department online. Two years ago, the Bihar government launched an SMS service for the monitoring of the NREGA programme. The Rajasthan government has now turned to Bihar for help in the domain of e-governance.
However, states like Bihar, UP and MP have always been derided for poor governance. But the Nitish Kumar and Mayawati-led governments have made considerable headway. According to Alexa, Bihar's official webpage rank is 3270, surprisingly ahead of Karnataka, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.
However, many ambitious e-governance projects in Bihar are facing delays due to the tardiness of the National Informatics Centre (NIC). Subhash Kumar, a former trainee in NIC Patna, says, 'I was told to work on a project of the panchayati raj ministry. I worked there for 3-4 months and when I left the work was still unfinished. Then a new batch of trainees came and they started the same work from scratch. This is why no progress is made. Employees here simply do not want to work.' Many states have provided their MLAs with laptops but they are hardly used. In Bihar, grandsons and granddaughters of MLAs have been found using these laptops.
States like Karnataka, Goa, Rajasthan, Orissa and Tamil Nadu have made all land records available online. Karnataka has one to the extent of establishing bhumi kiosks in the villages for the purpose. However, land records in many states are not available online yet.
Nitish Kumar
Chief Minister, Bihar
"We had earlier tried to put the janata darbar applications online. But due to the lethargic attitude of NIC, it was not successful."
Dinesh Trivedi
Union Minister of State, Health
" Being a government department we have to first take the help of NIC. If we do not take care of NIC, then its fate will be similar to that of Railtel."
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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Rashmi Bansal Publisher of JAMMAG magazine caught red-handed, for details click on the following links.
A language that divides
Ragging rights and wrongs
Indian universities and higher education institutes seem to be caught in a time warp teaching things
Best Colleges for Vocational Courses in India
Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU): Students' Unions can not be banned
The hunt for hostel and paying guest (PG) accommodation for students
Role of Media in the moulding of youth
posted by IIPM: A Leader in Academic Excellence @ 10:12 AM
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