The Centre plans to pass the Electronic Service Delivery Bill, 2011 in the budget session of the Parliament, said V Narayanswamy, minister of state for personnel, public grievance and pension at the inauguration ceremony of 15th National E-Governance Conference here.

“This is an important bill. We will introduce it in March,” he said.

The bill was tabled in December last year, but could not get through. It envisages timely and electronic mode delivery of public services by all government departments and prescribes penalty in case of delay.

The Centre is also keen to design the e-governance system according to local need and sees huge opportunity for small and medium IT firms in this initiative.

“There is an opportunity for MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) IT firms to be part of the e-governance process. These firms can create software according to local need. Hence, there is tremendous opportunity for business here,” said Sachin Pilot, minister of state for Communication and IT.

To deliver effective e-governance throughout the nation, the Central government is focusing on creating local language websites, he added.

Besides e-governance, another thrust area of the government is IT hardware manufacturing. “If the government does not have a policy regarding IT hardware then India is going to import $400 billion hardware in future. China is a leader in this segment and India needs to catch up,” Narayanswamy said.

Speaking on the occasion, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said, Orissa has been a pioneer in implementing e-governance projects. “The state government has developed a number of successful e-Governance initiatives like, e-Registration, e-Commercial Tax Automation, e-Treasury, e-Grievance Redressal, Electronic management of CM’s Relief Fund, universal e-Admission to all +2 and +3 colleges, e-District, e-Municipality, e-Panchayat, e-Sishu and e-Pragati for tracking of children from delivery to primary schooling,” he said.

Source: business-standard.com