Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad   

Sri Lanka for collaboration in e-governance

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD June 26. The Sri Lankan Government is evincing keen interest in Andhra Pradesh's e-governance initiative and its success in organising poor women in Self-Help Groups.

Stating this, the Sri Lankan Minister for Housing and Plantation Infrastructure, Arumugam Thondaman, has said that he is leading a

15-member delegation of senior officials to discuss cooperation and collaboration in these areas with the State Government officials.

The delegation met the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, on Wednesday. Mr. Thondaman is slated to visit some of the SHGs near Hyderabad on Friday.

Mr. Thondaman said that he was hopeful that this visit would lay the groundwork for the formal signing of MoU between his Government and the Government of Andhra Pradesh to computerise and network public utilities in Sri Lanka during Mr. Naidu's proposed official visit to the island republic in October this year.

He said that Andhra Pradesh had been selected from a short- list of six e-governance initiatives in different countries as it was best suited to Sri Lankan conditions. The Sri Lankan Housing Ministry also controls the water and sewage board, construction and housing finance.

One of the proposed projects is computerisation and networking of the water utility for which the Sri Lankan Government would use US$ six million of the US$ 100 million Line of Credit which India extends them, Mr. Thondaman added.

Mr. Thondaman was keen that State officials should visit Sri Lanka by the end of July to finalise the modalities of the collaboration. "If they are not able to come to Sri Lanka I would send my officials here to finalise the matter,'' he said, underlining his urgency.

Active TU leader

Mr. Thondaman heads Sri Lanka's largest trade union, the Ceylon Workers' Congress. The trade union was founded by Mr. Thondaman's grandfather, Soumyamurthi Thondaman, in 1939 on the advice of Jawaharlal Nehru. It is active among tea plantation workers who are mainly labourers taken from Tamil Nadu by the colonial Government.

Mr. Thondaman remains an active trade unionist despite his position in the Sri Lankan Cabinet. Hours before he emplaned for Hyderabad, Mr. Thondaman was busy organising a four-hour plantation strike, sources said.

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