The Future of Indian Districts

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size="2">The Union

Government's

ambitious e-district project-earmarked as a State Mission

Mode

project (MMP) under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), is another

e-gov program that could impact the lives of millions of Indian

citizens across the country. The aim is to e-enable the delivery of

high-volume citizen-centric services such as issue of certificates,

pension and ration card related services, at the district level.

size="2">With a budgetary

allocation of around Rs 110 crore, out of which around Rs 51 crore

has already been disbursed, e-districts could not just herald a new

dawn in citizen services, but even help meet the objectives of Bharat

Nirman, both directly and indirectly. E-districts would not just

benefit citizens through a better delivery of Bharat Nirman schemes,

but also fetch IT players nearly Rs 2,000 crore by way of contracts

spanning hardware, software and systems integration.

size="2">With more than 70% of the

ambitious CSC project already under way, already administration of

many of these services has been decentralized beyond the state

capitals. There are CSC centers across many rural areas in various

states from which citizen-centric services are getting delivered. The

e-district scheme is taking this one step further where all basic

services are not just automated but integrated together-what

is

happening today as pilots in districts is obviously a precursor to

state-wide rollouts subsequently.

size="2">The pilot stage, currently

ongoing in the 37 districts, entails an expenditure of about Rs 4

crore in each district and the target is to complete all of these by

February 2010. Subsequently, the national rollout for the project

involving 600 districts is likely to kick-off by March-April 2010.

The entire project is scheduled to be completed by December 2011.

Prior to the first phase of implementation, DIT had however

undertaken an assessment of five designated districts (Gandhinagar,

Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Palakkad in Kerala, West Godavari in Andhra

Pradesh and Tiruvarur in Tamil Nadu) within the country, where

significantly visible e-gov initiatives have taken root. Palakkad and

Tiruvarur are among the 37 districts where the e-district project is

now underway.

size="2">While at best one can

express cautious optimism in terms whether a government project of

such scale would ever meet the deadlines (we are being optimistic

enough), the indications till now are mixed. While the modalities of

the national implementation are yet to be finalized, at least it has

been decided that broadly it would entail the entire IT hardware

infrastructure, besides application development and middleware,

systems software, consultancy, program management and support. This

effectively translates into automating the back-end of district level

offices, especially the more important ones like the District

Collector's office and the revenue court among others.

size="2">In the pilot phase,

however, currently undergoing in the 37 districts, the scheme

involves 6-10 categories of services. A core list of six categories

of services has been, in fact, drawn up at the national level, for

implementation by the 14 states involved. These include issue of

certificates (employment, nationality, marriage, income), social

welfare pensions, revenue court (case listing, stay orders, case

adjournment, orders), Government dues and recovery as part of land

revenue (issue of notices, recording payments, tracking of default

processes) and RTI services (application, tracking, monitoring and

redressal).

size="2">All these services are

being delivered though the CSCs and ride on the State Wide Area

Networks (SWANs) and State Data Center (SDC) infrastructure that are

envisaged under the NeGP. A citizen can access the e-district

services either through the portal (useful for more IT savvy citizens) or through the CSCs (suitable for common people). The CSCs are connected to the e-district application hosted at the district level through SWAN or alternate connectivity (where SWAN has not been established).

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Budgetary

Allocation for 37 e-districts

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size="2"> face="Times New Roman, serif">State

size="2"> face="Times New Roman, serif">Pilot

e-districts

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Total

Amount Approved (Rs crore)

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Total

Amount Releases (first installment)

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">(Rs

crore)

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Uttar Pradesh

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Gorakhpur

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Sultanpur

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Ghaziabad

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Sitapur

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Rae Bareili

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Gautam Budh Nagar

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">18.92

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">9.46

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Assam

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Goalpara

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Sonitpur

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">6.57

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">3.28

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Madhya Pradesh

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Indore

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Sagar

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Gwalior

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Guna

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Shivpuri

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">16.19

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">4.09

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Tamil Nadu

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Tiruvarur

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Krishnagiri

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Ariyalur

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Perambalur

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Coimbatore

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">12.58

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">6.29

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Kerala

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Kannur

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Palakkad

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">5.99

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">2.99

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Bihar

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Aurangabad

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Madhubani

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Nalanda

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Gaya

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">11.48

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">5.74

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Jharkhand

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Ranchi

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">3.2

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">1.6

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">West Bengal

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Bankura

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Jalpaiguri

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">5.79

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">2.9

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Orissa

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Ganjam

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Mayurbhanj

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">3.24

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">1.62

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Mizoram

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Aizawl

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">3.16

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">1.58

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Punjab

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Kapurthala

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Nawanshahr

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">6

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">3

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Maharashtra

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Nagpur

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Latur

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Pune

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">10.22

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">5.11

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Haryana

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Rohtak

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">3.32

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">1.66

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Uttarakhand

• face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">Pauri

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">2.79

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">1.4

size="2"> face="Times New Roman, serif">Total

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">109.45

face="Times New Roman, serif"> size="2">50.71

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