Kahani Sitapur Ki

The services rendered under the e-district project has certainly saved
villagers like me from running to the block every time, whether to get a birth
certificate or issuing a ration card, says Ram Chander, a resident of Sitapur
district in Uttar Pradesh, one of the six districts where the state government
is implementing the e-district project.

A State Mission Mode Project (SMMP) under the National e-Governance Plan(NeGP),
e-district aims to target certain high volume services and also undertake back
end computerization to e-enable the delivery of these services through Common
Service Centers (CSCs). For every state that rolls out the e-district, their
implementation strategy would be dependent on the infrastructure currently being
created under the NeGP such as the SWAN, SDC, CSC and State Gateway. The
e-District Scheme focuses on e-enabling the delivery of majority of
citizen-centric services that are administered by the district administration.
As Mrityunjay Kumar Narain, district magistrate, Sitapur puts it, The
objectives of the e-district include back-end computerization to enable
efficient delivery of government services and to proactively provide a system of
spreading information on government schemes, planned developmental activities
and status of current activities under NeGP.

However, the first state in India to deploy e-district was Malappuram in
Kerala which incidentally also rolled out the worlds largest rural wireless
broadband network through which payment of electricity bills, getting birth
certificates, etc. could be easily done by emails, thereby doing away with long
bus journeys and the wait at counters. The police stations of the district were
also made accessible to people through Akshya Kendras or information kiosks for
filing complaints to police stations. The Malappuram panchayat also introduced a
computer literacy program.

An e-district CSC center in Sitapur, an example of how innovative use of technology can transform the life of a common man by bringing government services to the doorstep

e-District in Oudh

For improving a host of citizen-centric services, the government of Uttar
Pradesh introduced the e-district pilot project in the six districts of the
state. The project is the first in line with the governments initiative to use
information technology for improving services for citizens.

The services include issuing of certificates for proof of income, birth,
death, caste and marriage and different types of pension, revenue related
matters and other utility services. It also includes procuring identity cards,
land revenue and pension records and services related to the PDS and licenses.
The Lokvani Committee, headed by district magistrate was made the key driver for
implementing the scheme.

However, it was not an easy task to implement computerization and deploy
e-district without hiccups. Computerization is seen more as a publicity tool
and hence there is no people support for it. Moreover, a majority of government
employees have a mental roadblock when it comes to computerization. There have
been more efforts for G2G than G2C, leading to no perceptible benefits to common
people, says Narain.

The state leadership has taken upon itself to change the mindsets of people.
As a first step in this direction the state introduced e-district in six
districts in the state including Gautam Buddha Nagar (Noida), Ghaziabad,
Sultanpur, Gorakhpur, Sitapur and Rai Barelli. Work is steadily on in all the
six districts with software application development for modules completed by NIC.
A team of consultants has also reviewed all the modules in adherence with FRS.
Even the hardware procurement work is in progress and change management training
is in progress in all the districts, says Ravindra Singh, member SeMT, Center
for e-Governance, Uttar Pradesh.

Status Update

Singh goes on to add that as per the e-district guidelines, work on data
digitization is already complete; a change management plan, along with
procurement and financial management plan has been chalked out; and most
importantly an IT infrastructure upgradation plan is in place.

Divulging details of the training module, Singh adds that under e-district
training, 964 government officers were imparted change management training
covering modules like orientation training, basic computer training, process
training, activity training and specialized and e-district application training.

Under data digitization activitydigitization of the details of 6,00,881
families as part of Pariwar Register was done; 5,152 revenue court cases; 50,242
cases of old age pension; 27,000 widow pension details; 8,173 handicap pension
details; 186,859 caste certificates digitization; 28,363 handicap certificate
digitization work was completed and that too within deadline.

As part of the e-district pilot project, State Wide-Area Network (SWAN) for
connecting tehsils and blocks has already been established in Sitapur wherein
six tehsils and nineteen blocks are connected with twenty POPs being fully
functional. Horizontal connectivity from SWAN to line departments through BSNL
would be done by the end of December 2008, says Narain. For providing better
citizen centric services, the district management has already established
twenty-five common service centers (CSCs) functional in Sitapur and plans to
start seventy-five more by the end of this year. The Jan Suvidha Kendra at
Collectorate is being managed by Lokvani Society apart from the society managing
a single window system at all six tehsils.

Lokvani is an Internet kiosk-based G2C interface for providing various
information and public grievance redress in a transparent, accountable and
time-bound manner by forging effective public-private partnership (PPP). The
unique concept of Lokvani has bagged several awards including the Prime Minister
award for Excellence in Public Administration for 2006-2007; Golden Icon Award
at National e-Governance Conference-2006 and also won a special mention (second
place) in Public Administration category at Stockholm Challenge Awards 2006.

With the requisite changes in procedures and with imaginative use of
technology and easy adoption, the common mans trust in government has been
re-enforced. E-district has not only managed to improve upon the implementation
and delivery of services but also continuous improvement of services leading to
hassle-free and reduced manual interface resulting in reduced corruption.

Stuti Das

stutid@cybermedia.co.in