DARE - Because Entrepreneurs Do

The Union government has permitted Department of Information Technology to hire IT professionals from private sector to popularize its e-governance initiatives in rural India and initially sanctioned Rs.300 crore for the purpose, disclosed Additional Secretary, Department of IT,  S.R. Rao.

Delivering his Keynote Address at ASSOCHAM Summit on E-Governance, Rao said that such e-governance projects would aim at building capacities through private-public partnership since the government has little IT resources at its command.

The Department of IT will order private placements to restore IT facilities throughout the country by launching pilot projects for a period of 6 months, said Rao adding that the proposed e-governance projects would fall under Bharat Nirman initiatives of the government in which the centre each year spends Rs.1,50,000 crore for creation of rural infrastructure.

The amount of Rs. 300 crore has initially been sanctioned at the latest Cabinet meeting and aims at connecting rural India with uninterrupted broadband facilities, said Rao.

Responding to a query raised by one of the ASSOCHAM member during the question-answer session,  Rao said that due to shortages of power which comes at stumbling block for telephone connectivity and broadband facilities in Gram panchayats, the Ministry of IT is in talks with Renewable Energy Ministry to provide to it solar panel so that such panels are installed in urban India to provide power to ensure telephonic and broadband connectivity.

Dr. Rao announced that by June next year, 60% of land mass of rural India would be provided with telephone connections as well as broadband facilities for which power resources would be given by  Ministry of Non-Renewable Energy Sources.  In next 3 years, 99% of rural India would be connected with e-governance initiatives by providing it to high powered broadband facilities.

Dr. Rao also indicated that the Union government is also formulating to policy for financial inclusion on mobile platform which would mean that after the policy guidelines are rolled out, users would be able to transact most of their transactions such as payment of electricity and telephone bills etc. through  mobile.

Speaking on the occasion, IT Secretary of Govt. of Uttar Pradesh, Chandra Prakash blamed state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam for not providing connectivity for e-governance initiatives at least in the State of Uttar Pradesh.

Because of inadequate infrastructure of BSNL in Uttar Pradesh, the State could establish only 4500 Computer hubs in the state in the last 1½ years against target of 17,000 such centres. Power is another stumbling block in making e-governance initiatives a liability and until the required inputs are ensured, the e-governance initiative under Bharat Nirman project will remain ambitious and unrealistic, said  Prakash.

Among others who spoke on the occasion demanding creation of better facilities by Department of IT for making e-governance initiatives of the government pervasive and intensive comprised Ravi Venkataraman, CEO, Vakrangee Softwares, Umang Das, Chairman ASSOCHAM e-Governance Committee, Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Microsoft India, Sunil Kanoria, Vice Chairman, SREI Infrastructure, Rajeev Weimin Yao, Executive Director, Huawevi Telecomm and Neel Rattan, Executive Director, PWC.

Source: ASSOCHAM

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed