CSI-Nihilent Showcase e-Gov Awards

Currently running in its seventh year, the CSI-Nihilent e-Governace Awards
for 2008-09 were announced during the CSI Annual Convention at Pune. These
awards recognize the best e-governance initiatives in citizen services at the
state, department, district and project level.

The state of Madhya Pradesh was conferred the Best e-Governed State Award
while the district of Jalgaon in Maharashtra won the award of excellence in the
district category. The Education Department, Madhya Pradesh and the Finance
Department, Gujarat received the awards of excellence in the department
category. In all, twenty-three e-governance initiatives were awarded under
various heads.

Madhya Pradesh was awarded for its initiatives such as computerization in
government departments, manpower development for IT, guidelines for setting up
of information kiosks and development of web sites by all government
departments. Its major initiative, MPOnline, a citizen services portal that
delivers a wide range of government services (copy of land records, forms for
professional examination board, birth/death, caste certificates, etc), was also
recognized.

Anurag Jain, secretary IT, Madhya Pradesh (extreme right) receiving the Computer Society of India and Nihilent Best e-Governed State Award 2008-09 fromS Mahalingam, president, CSI (third from right) at the CSI Annual Convention at Pune. Also seen: Ravi Teja, country manager, India, Nihilent (second from right), Dr Deepak Shikarpur, chairman, OC CSI 2009 (fourth from right) and Anil Srivastava, MD, MP Warehousing and Logistic Corporation Madhya Pradesh (extreme left)

The district administration of Jalgaon, Maharashtra received the award of
excellence in the district category for developing an Integrated Voice Response
System (e-Lokshahi) that provides twenty-four hour online public grievance
redress system and FAQ forum being used widely through telephone and mobile.

Other projects that were awarded were e-Procurement, Karnataka; e-Krishi,
Kerala; TWADNEST, Tamil Nadu; Geographical Information Systems (GIS),
Chhattisgarh; ICT in Judiciary, Gujarat; and Indian National Tsunami Early
Warning System (INCOIS), GoI.

The selection process included online submission of nomination forms, field
visits by team of experts to assess project implementation and impact on people
benefited by these projects and presentations by short listed nominations,
followed by final selection based on combined score. All government agencies
(both centre and state/UT governments, down to district levels), government
organizations and semi-government corporations, district collectorate, municipal
corporations, autonomous bodies including public sector, were eligible to apply
for the awards.