It will promote e-governance and easy access to all departments

A new portal for the State government, the State Service Delivery Gateway, and e-forms project, will be unveiled in a month's time, Information Technology secretary Santhosh Babu has said.

Speaking at the inaugural of the Citizen Centric e-Government State consultation workshop, organised in Chennai on Wednesday, Dr. Santhosh Babu said the old portal would cease to exist soon. The new website, alongside with the SSDG and the e-forms project would facilitate implementation of e-governance and easy access to all government departments, he added.

He listed the various State government initiatives in the e-governance sector, particularly in Krishnagiri district, and went on to draw the road map for the future.

E-Governance refers to efforts in public sector to use the internet to enhance the access to and delivery of government services and information to citizens, businesses, employees, and other Governments, according to the definition of the National e-Governance Plan.

Tamil Nadu had adopted the National e-Governance Plan, investing it with the following main components: Tamil Nadu State Wide Area Networks, State Data Centres, Common Service Centres, SSDG and the Tamil Nadu State Portal. He hinted at the possibility of wide-ranging action in the field of e-governance in the State in the coming years.

The workshop was organised by the Department of Information Technology (DIT) and the National e-governance plan in partnership with NASSCOM.

IT Minister R.B. Udhayakumar said the aim of the government is to provide service at the doorstep of the people, especially those living in rural areas. IT connotes the urban milieu, but all government departments should provide services to rural areas through the internet. Most government departments had done a significant amount of hardware and software upgrade, but he pointed out that e-governance would not be successful unless initiatives are taken to go down the last mile and reach the people. He urged every State department to identify at least five citizen-centric services that could be delivered in a time-bound manner. The Krishnagiri experience of providing e-governance had actually transformed the roles of all those departments that were roped in, Mr. Udhayakumar added.

Chief Secretary Debendranath Sarangi listed the various programmes and plans already being implemented in the IT sector in Tamil Nadu. There was good leadership in Tamil Nadu to take forward the e-governance project, and clear instructions had been received from the Chief Minister herself on the importance of the project to the State. “Tamil Nadu means e-Governance,” he said, expressing the confidence of the State in leading the nation in the sector.

K. Purushothaman, regional director, NASSCOM, said the IT and ITES industry put together comprised about 3.5 lakh people in Tamil Nadu, and by the end of 2012, another 50,000 youngsters would be joining the workforce. The worth of IT in both the domestic and export markets together tots up to an impressive Rs. 60 crore. At this juncture, Tamil Nadu was at the crossroads in terms of attracting investments and hoped that the governments would facilitate this.

Ajay Kumar, joint secretary, DIT, provided an overview of the National e-Governance Plan. Representatives of various government departments made presentations on the state of Mission Mode Projects. Sessions on capacity building and training were held in the afternoon session, and emerging technologies (by industry) were held during the day.