India Wants e-Judiciary, Plans to Link Courts
The Union Minister of Law and Justice HR Bharadwaj has announced that the government plans to computerize and link all courts, from district-level to Supreme Court, within three to four years. Addressing the national conference on Judicio-Legal Reforms organized by the FICCI in New Delhi, the Minister said that the Central Government has already allocated Rs 800 crore for improving and modernizing infrastructure of courts at the state level. According to him, lot of progress has already been made in linking the courts from taluk to district levels. While stressing for an alternative dispute resolution mechanism to effectively tackle the problem of large number of pending cases, the minister also pointed out that the movement of ADR is spreading in piecemeal. "This has to be spread all over the country and each State should set up the system which can sort out cases through arbitration and conciliation," he stressed.

DQ: The statement of the law minister to link all the courts in four years seems ambitious. However, it remains to be seen how e-Governance would actually help reduce the backlog of cases. Besides, the benchmark should be improving all judiciary related citizen services, including eradication of the "tout-led" system that not only makes seeking justice a costly process but also a never ending journey.

RBI Promises Software for Withdrawal Tax
The Reserve bank of India has promised to put in place a solution for banks to deduct the new bank cash transaction tax from the current and fixed deposit accounts of individuals who withdraw cash above Rs 25,000 on a single day. Reports suggest that the Apex Bank will be able to get the software implemented before the Finance Bill 2005 is passed in the Rajya Sabha and gets the Presidential assent. The software is aimed at tracking all high-value cash withdrawal, and while it is yet to be announced how the tax will be deducted, reports suggest it may be deducted from the account as is done for interest on income of fixed deposits. That the Finance Minister is looking at leveraging IT to 'zero-in' on those who were using the banking channel to launder money is pretty clear and the latest move is only the second fiscal measure initiated by the government-the first step obviously was the securities transaction tax, which leaves a tax trail on unaccounted funds flowing into the share market.

DQ: It is for the first time that an e-Governance application is expected to be ready as fast as the change in rules and RBI, along with the government, needs to be lauded for their efforts of working at the 'Speed of Thought'.

Lucknow e-Suvidha Service Delayed
Citizens of the city of Nawabs, Lucknow, will have to wait for some more time to get full benefit of the proposed e-Suvidha centers. The reason: the infrastructure required to integrate operations at the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA), Lucknow Nagar Nigam (LNN), LESA and the Lucknow Jal Sansthan is yet to be installed. Besides, the project can be initiated only after the e-Suvidha society signs up the MoU with UP Ministry of Information Technology, which, reports suggest, is expected to be completed by May end-after the proposal is cleared by CMC.

The project initiated under the SMART City-simple, methodical, accountable, responsive and transparent-concept aims at providing a single-window facility for payment of electricity bill, water and house tax through an online system. The project also aims at adding services like licensing, registry and also selling cinema, rail and air tickets through the kiosk.

DQ: The delays in e-Suvidha implementation at Lucknow have once again raised doubts on the actual advantage of single window bill collection centers without actual backend integration of departments and automation of G2G transactions and processes. While Bangalore One and e-Seva have reportedly faced similar problems, Chhatisgarh's CHOiCE project is facing stiff resistance from some of the departments that are reluctant to share authority with the kiosk operators. Besides creating the technical and financial policy guideline for CSC, DIT would do lot of good if it also helps States creates a GPR framework for G2C transactions.

Centre Mulls Health Surveillance Network
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has announced setting up of the first-of-its-kind hi-tech Central Surveillance Unit (CSU) in Delhi that would be capable of detecting and issuing alert of any possible epidemic outbreak in the country. As part of the first step, the Health Ministry has initiated the process of toning up the medical laboratories-the first contact and data collection point for any patient across the country. Under the project government laboratories of nine states- Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Himachal Pradesh and Mizoram-would be evaluated and their services made uniform and connected to the CSU. It plans to link Delhi and twelve other states to the CSU in the second phase of the process. The government also aims at compiling information from 2,200 primary, 3,500 community and 600 district level government establishments, and ask all States to collect reliable, standardized data on ailments being reported and tested in their laboratories. The data that would be forwarded to the central facility will be evaluated for trends to alert the Center on any possible outbreak of an epidemic.

DQ: Even though the GOI is spending crores in various projects it still needs to get results at ground level. The spread of meningitis in Delhi is an example that these high tech projects have failed to meet the needs in crisis situations. Interestingly, while the recent launch of National Rural Health Mission envisages accessible and affordable health services to the people in remote areas of the country, the National e-Governance Action Plan has missed out on the important area of Health Networks. For an effective CSU, it's imperative that we also create a nationwide health data network and replicate the Punjab government efforts across the nation.

K'nataka Proposes 5,600 Village Kiosks
Following the launch of Bangalore One, the Karnataka government is all set to take its multi-purpose computerized kiosks to all 5,600 village panchayat centers in the state through the PPP model. According to Food Minister HS Mahadevaprasad, the kiosk would have facilities to pay electricity bills and property tax, besides other services like birth and death certificates, land records and proposed food identity cards for ration card holders. The state also plans to link the Bhoomi project to the kiosks. The proposal for setting up these kiosks under the Centre's Rural Digital Service (RDS) scheme is expected to be tabled before the State Cabinet for clearance soon. While setting up of each kiosk would cost around Rs two lakh, the Center would provide Rs 50,000, with the State chipping in an additional Rs 25,000.

DQ: While the intention to take technology to every villager's doorstep is a welcome step, this cannot be achieved without automation of G2G transactions and processes through adequate government process reengineering (GPR), and backend integration of departments. Interestingly, if the GPR is achieved, the government can utilize unemployed and even physically challenged youth in the villages itself to deliver these services through Simputers, at a much lesser cost.

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