The National Knowledge Commission headed by Sam Pitroda has suggested an end to the British era practices by "re-engineering" government processes and services. |
"e-governance is more about opportunity for administrative reforms than just electronics, IT and infrastructure. If we miss this opportunity to re-engineer government processes before computerisation, the cost will be enormous," Pitroda said after presenting the commission's recommendations. |
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The e-governance report was prepared by a group of the commission headed by Infosys Chief Executive Officer Nandan Nilekani. The report was discussed by the Planning Commission and presented to the communications and IT ministry. |
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A committee headed by the prime minister would oversee the implementation of the recommendations, Pitroda said. "We can expect some result over the next few years. We might spend Rs 5,000-7,000 crore on e-governance in the coming days," he added. |
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Pitroda said the government should identify 10-20 important processes and services, starting with birth and death certificates and ration cards. "Each state should implement these processes and learn from each other," he said. |
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He said computerisation should happen at the national level. "The present state-level e-governance initiatives are fragmented. Many programmes are vendor-driven, hardware-centric, and not scalable. It is essential to develop and implement standards uniformly over all states and central ministries," he said. |
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Pitroda said it was important to provide a nationwide secure broadband and associated hardware, software and hosting facilities with easy access at all levels. |
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"This infrastructure should be based on user-pay principle and public-private partnership. The work should be led by the Centre," he added. |
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