Government of India to invest Rs. 20,000 crores on e-Governnace by 2014

By Vikas Kanungo, July 19, 2010

Indian e-Government initiative under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) provides a great opportunity for Indian companies to overcome the impact of global recession by focussing on developing applications for the Mission Mode Projects under NeGP.The central Government has already invested around INR 10,000 crore since the launch of NeGP in 2006, has decided to pump-in another INR 20,000 crore in various projects under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) in the next few years. This was informed to the media persons after the conclusion of Apex Committe meeting for NeGP that was held on July 16, 2010 at New Delhi. The meeting was chaired by Cabinet Secretary Mr. K M Chandrashekhar.

While 14 major e-governance projects, including some high-profile ones such as MCA-21 have already gone live, the Government expects all the 27 mission mode projects envisaged under the e-governance blueprint, to take off by end of 2014.

“Of 27 mission mode projects under NeGP, 14 have commenced delivery of services in different parts of the country. By end of 2014, all mission mode projects will go live — this will enable the delivery of public service to citizens of the country as outlined in the programme,” the Cabinet Secretary, Mr K.M. Chandrashekhar, told newspersons during a recent interaction.

Projects such as MCA21, Common Services Centre (CSCs),  Pensions, Central Excise, Income Tax, Passport,  Land Recordsetc have already been initiated for deployment and few others are ready to be deployed soon.

“In all, the total outlay for all projects together is almost Rs 30,000 crore, inclusive of both capital expenditure and the operational expenditure. Almost Rs 10,000 crore has already been done, and another Rs 20,000 crore will be incurred during the remaining project life. Since this includes the operational expenditure, it will spill even beyond 2014,” the IT Secretary, Mr R. Chandrashekhar, said.

Addressing a conference after the Apex Committee on NeGP reviewed the progress of various projects, the Cabinet Secretary said that against 1,100 citizen and business centric services targeted for delivery, over 600 services are now available electronically. For instance, citizens can now obtain copies of their land records, job cards for employment under MNREGS, and certificates (relating to birth, death, income, and caste) on-line.

So far over 80,000 Common Services Centres (CSCs) have been set up across India; the number is expected to reach one lakh by the end of the fiscal.

“During the review meeting, it was decided that IT Department would create a group comprising State and Central Government officials to work out a roadmap for business process re-engineering. Also, we have recommended that some delivery of services should be mandated by legislation. However, these will have to be identified by authorities that are undertaking these projects,” the Cabinet Secretary said.

 The Society for Promotion of e-Governance (SPeG) has been involved in accelerating e-Governance in India since 2004 through various knowledge activities and have helped various government agencies with new developments in the domain. The eGovWorld and Government Transformation Forum (GTF) has been two flagship initiatives of SpeG that have constantly endevored to bring the multiple stakeholders together for reviewing the progress of various eGovernance initiatives and discussing the way forward. eGovworld 2010 is the fifth international conference in the series.