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My
joy knew bounds when I read “Expression of
Interest for Establishment of 8464 Common
Service Centres (VASUDHA) in Rural Bihar” in
today’s edition of the Times of India. So,
e-Governance is about to reach the villages of
Bihar. Truly, it is step towards right
direction, a step to reaching out to the
un-reached. To be precise, e-Governance is an
emerging trend to re-invent and re-define the
way the government works. The positive thing
about it is that Bihar Government, in order to
improve the quality of governance, has taken up
the modern approach to provide service delivery
to the rural masses. In the process, Bihar is
set to create 8464 CSCs in rural areas.
The Government of India has launched the
National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) for delivering
e-Government services at the doorsteps of the
rural citizens of India. The NeGP aims to
empower the rural India through the power of
Information Communication Technology (ICT). In
principle, the front-end interface of the NeGP
with the rural citizens is the Common Service
Centres (CSCs) through which the government
services as well as other value-added services
would be delivered to the rural citizens. The
notable services include: building education and
health care for rural citizens, especially for
children and elderly people; creating and
maintenance of transport and communication
infrastructure; ensuring safety of the rural
people; preparing a productive rural work force;
and providing economic viability etc.
Not only the step will make the government more
simple, transparent and efficient, but also
become accountable to the people, as the
electronic services are not prone to human
corruption compared to the existing system.
Readymade information on 24/7 environment on
vital services will be made available to the
villagers, who often find themselves at
disadvantageous position. Indeed digital divide
has put the poor and marginalised at great risk
of being denied the opportunities and accesses
to the services that they must avail, like any
other citizen in the city.
Through it, implementation of e-Commerce for
marketing their produce in what is called Rural
Bazar developed by NIC, would surely come as a
long-awaited opportunity for rural people.
Often, the lack of knowledge about the various
types of services put the villagers in deep
predicament leading to third-rate services at a
higher price. Health risk is bound to be the
ultimate resultant in such cases. Now with
services through e-Governance at the rural
threshold, people will have the choice, which
means the rural areas will become
knowledge-oriented societies. In addition, it
will help the villagers to be more proactive and
feel engaged and elevated in receiving the
value-added services at their doorsteps, which
have been the legacy of the affluent class. More
importantly, the strong networking through
e-Governance will make the outreach easier for
the rural people as well. Last bit not the
least, it would provide job opportunities to a
large number of unemployed young lots.
Information and communication technologies (ICTs)
are playing increasingly important roles in the
day-to-day lives of people, revolutionizing
their work and leisure, and changing rules of
doing businesses. Development of ICT leads up to
E-governance, which has now become the most
talked word around the world.
However, key challenges, as Dr N Vijyaditya,
Director General, National Informatics Centre,
Ministry of Information and Technology,
Government of India, puts it, with e-Governance
for rural areas lie in extending the reach of
services to 70% of Indian population that lives
in villages include: assessment of local needs
and customising e-Governance solutions to meet
those needs; connectivity; content (local
content based on language); building human
capacities, e-Commerce; and sustainability.
I can pray for the ambitious e-Governance
programme to be successful believing that the
leadership would provide all the possible
assistance to make it a reality, though the
mismanagement factors cannot be ruled out. Let’s
hope for the better.
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