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NeGP - Initiatives to usher in
good governance
by Abhishek Singh
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.
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