AP adjudged best e-governed state

Monday, 10 March 2003, 20:30 IST
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HYDERABAD: India will promote e-governance by implementing the initiatives of state governments across the country, Minister of State for Information and Communication Technology Sumitra Mahajan said Sunday. She was speaking after giving away the annual awards of the Computer Society of India (CSI) here. Andhra Pradesh was adjudged the best e-governed state but Maharashtra garnered the lion's share of individual prizes. Mahajan pointed out how the e-seva project in Andhra Pradesh, under which the state government offers 43 services to citizens from one window, could easily be replicated in other states. Maharashtra was cited for a clutch of initiatives. Its Stamps and Registration with Information Technology Application (Sarita) project received the best revenue system award, the website of the public works department was declared the best in its category while the Naval Dockyard Intranet received the best office efficiency project award. Maharashtra's integrated citizens' facilitation centre project and Gujarat's e-governance initiative for citizens' empowerement jointly received the award for the best citizen-centric project. The four decade-old Computer Society of India, the oldest body of IT professionals in the country, has instituted the annual awards to promote e-governance. Mahajan pointed out e-governance was one of the 15 initiatives announced by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in his Independence Day address on August 15 last year. "We are committed to implement a comprehensive programme to accelerate and facilitate e-governance initiatives to improve efficiency, transparency and accountability in governance," she said. Mahajan held e-governance could translate into reality the concept of government by the people, of the people and for the people. It could get rid of bureaucratic delays and reduce paper work. However, since only five percent of India's population was conversant with English, e-governance would have to be implemented in other languages. For this, her ministry has devised a programme called Technology Development of Indian Languages. Pointing out the state-run National Informatics Centre (NIC) had been developing software for various states for 25 years, she noted: "We have lost a lot of time in convincing people that the computer is not the enemy of the working class. Fortunately we have come out of this and are ready to take off."
Source: IANS
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