State excels in e-governance pilot.
Brand Uttar Pradesh has got a shot in the arm after excelling in the Centre-funded e-governance pilot project run in six districts of the state.
The success of the pilot in Uttar Pradesh (UP) has prompted the Centre to give a green signal to its implementation in all the 71 districts of the state.
“The state government is now awaiting the release of Rs 260-crore funds for the pan-UP roll out of the e-governance project,” UP IT and electronics principal secretary Chandra Prakash told Business Standard.
The pilot was being run in Gorakhpur, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Sitapur, Sultanpur and Rae Bareli districts.
The pilot had taken off in 2006 and UP had scored the highest success rate in all the districts among other states.
Under the pilot, around 6,000 common service centres known as Jan Suvidha Kendras (JSK) had been set up to offer a host of services online under one roof.
JSKs provided services such as certificates pertaining to income tax, caste, death, birth and domicile, besides providing issuance/renewal of ration card, old age pension etc. All these services normally take several weeks to materialise and are traditionally provided in the district collectorate and require multiple personal visits of the seeker.
“Now, these services are dispensed within seven days at a fraction of the cost. So far, seven lakh certificates have been issued in the pilot districts, which amply proves the success rate,” Prakash informed.
Recently, UP Chief Minister Mayawati had directed her officials to gear up for the pan-UP rollout of the e-governance project and plug any existing loopholes.
Under the pilot, 32 services were to be included for e-delivery, of which 22 services had already been implemented.
The government will set up a State Data Centre (SDC) in Lucknow, which will contain data of all the departments and share it with the JSKs. It would entail investment of Rs 14 crore, while UP Development Systems Corporation Limited (UPDESCO) is the implementation agency.
SDC will be set up under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode after a bidding process. The government has divided the state into seven zones and each zone would have its Service Centre Agency, which will, in turn, select Village Level Entrepreneurs for establishing rural centres in the villages.
