Opinion | National Digital Week 

Nation is celebrating Digital week going on from 31st of August till 6th of September 2023 and it carries the message to curb corruption and such activities leading to corrupt practices. Red Tapism is one such major component and vital tool which has resulted in deterioration of our society, the files have been piled since long time only to pave the way for bribe which is one type of forty types of corruption as per Kautiliya, an administrative thinker who is known as Chanakya and Manu also. He is the man behind Saptanga Theory also.

Kupwara district is also one such district celebrating in Jammu Kashmir at every level and in this behalf the calendar has been issued also by taking on board the PRI (Panchayat Raj Institutions) being the institutions of gross root level democracy.

Over the years, a large number of initiatives have been undertaken by various State Governments and Central Ministries to usher in an era of e-Government. Sustained efforts have been made at multiple levels to improve the delivery of public services and simplify the process of accessing them.

e-Governance in India has steadily evolved from computerization of Government Departments to initiatives that encapsulate the finer points of Governance, such as citizen centricity, service orientation and transparency. Lessons from previous e-Governance initiatives have played an important role in shaping the progressive e-Governance strategy of the country. Due cognizance has been taken of the notion that to speed up e-Governance implementation across the various arms of Government at National, State, and Local levels, a programme approach needs to be adopted, guided by common vision and strategy. This approach has the potential of enabling huge savings in costs through sharing of core and support infrastructure, enabling interoperability through standards, and of presenting a seamless view of Government to citizens.

The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), takes a holistic view of e-Governance initiatives across the country, integrating them into a collective vision, a shared cause. Around this idea, a massive countrywide infrastructure reaching down to the remotest of villages is evolving, and large-scale digitization of records is taking place to enable easy, reliable access over the internet. The ultimate objective is to bring public services closer home to citizens, as articulated in the Vision Statement of NeGP.

“Make all Government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets, and ensure efficiency, transparency, and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realise the basic needs of the common man.”

The Government approved the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), comprising 27 Mission Mode Projects and 8 components, on May 18, 2006. In the year 2011, 4 projects – Health, Education, PDS and Posts were introduced to make the list of 27 MMPs to 31 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs). The Government has accorded approval to the vision, approach, strategy, key components, implementation methodology, and management structure for NeGP. However, the approval of NeGP does not constitute financial approval(s) for all the Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) and components under it. The existing or ongoing projects in the MMP category, being implemented by various Central Ministries, States, and State Departments would be suitably augmented and enhanced to align with the objectives of NeGP.

In order to promote e-Governance in a holistic manner, various policy initiatives and projects have been undertaken to develop core and support infrastructure. The major core infrastructure components are State Data Centres (SDCs), State Wide Area Networks (S.W.A.N), Common Services Centres (CSCs) and middleware gateways i.e National e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (NSDG), State e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG), and Mobile e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG). The important support components include Core policies and guidelines on Security, HR, Citizen Engagement, Social Media as well as Standards related to Metadata, Interoperability, Enterprise Architecture, Information Security etc. New initiatives include a framework for authentication, viz. e-Pramaan and G-I cloud, an initiative which will ensure benefits of cloud computing for e-Governance projects.

Government of JK led by Shri Manoj Sinha need to issue strict direction to officers to dispose of the grievances with positive note not by trying to create an end, and the grievances of the public remain still Unresolved technically, the grievances sent to Your Grievance cell act as lighting conductor for welfare of the public and which is true face of Good Governance. Those officers found laxing in different ways need to be put to task for creating a wedge between the Government and people, hence rather than bridging the Gap they abridge the gap between people and Government, which results in alienation and separatist tendency among the people.

Officers must move their finger tips in a positive direction on laptop and desktop to serve the public being public servants not the owners of the chairs. On a daily basis the Government must collect feedback at ground zero level about the performance and activities carried out by them during the day for the Good governance of the subjects of the respective territories.

– The author is research scholar in Public Administration and can be mailed at aatifabdullahkhan@gmail.com