With an objective to cut down paperwork in offices and check corruption, the Himachal Pradesh government is planning to adopt the e-governance model successfully implemented in Gujarat.
Tata Consultancy Services, which developed the e-budget software among others for Gujarat government, gave a detailed presentation to senior government officials here last week.
“We are studying merits of e-governance model prepared by the Tata consultancy which is implemented by Gujarat,” Chief Secretary Asha Swaroop told PTI on Sunday.
He said the state has already taken several initiatives to popularise Information Technology (IT) in the government functioning to make delivery system faster.
Initiatives like SMS gateway, e-samadhan and interactive web-based services have been launched, Mr. Swaroop, who had served as secretary in the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry, said.
“We will see how can the model prepared by Tata Consultancy could supplement our efforts to expand the usage of IT,” she added.
Principal Secretary of IT department, B K Aggarwal, enumerated the various initiatives by the government to popularise IT in the hill state.
The IT department has set up “Sugam centre” in Shimla and Solan where a person can deposit electricity/ telephone bills, apply for driving license and registration of vehicles among others by avoiding long queues. Buoyed by its success, efforts are on to open similar centres at Hamirpur, Mandi and Kangra districts, he said.
The SMS gateway service under which a person can get all relevant information through SMS has been launched in Shimla, Hamirpur and Solan districts, Mr. Aggarwal said.
Efforts are on to computerise the fair price shops under public distribution system, the IT Principal Secretary said, adding the programme would soon start in Shimla town and Mashobra block of Shimla district on a pilot basis.
He said a state-level ‘Data Centre’ would be set up in Shimla, at an estimated cost of Rs 40 crore. The Centre will have a “fool-proof” mechanism with anti-hacking facility and safeguard data that can even withstand a natural calamity.
Work is progressing to open a “Lokmitra kendra” in every panchayat which would have at least one computer operated by a locally trained person to provide facilities like application for land records and other services to the citizens, Mr. Aggarwal said.
“The government’s effort is to take the use of computer down to the grass-root level and make every government officer a computer literate,” Mr. Aggarwal said, adding Himachal Pradesh has already been ranked second after Tamil Nadu in Data quest survey.
