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SB Singh, DDG, NIC, UP State Unit, talked to Mehak Chawla about the e-governance road-map and initiatives undertaken by the largest state in India
e-governance in UP must come with special challenges given the size and sprawl of the state. Tell us about the vision for the state’s e-gov efforts.
We are looking at IT with a vision of economic development and inclusive growth. We have a three pronged agenda with respect to using IT in UP. The first is to position the state as an IT destination for both the public as well as the private sector. The second is to bring about greater transparency and efficiency in the services that the government renders to people through the use of ICT. The third is related to employment opportunities for the unemployed youth. This part also entails bringing about greater awareness amongst government employees for e-governance initiatives. Building skill sets amongst government employees is an important aspect of our IT mission.
What is the status of mission mode projects in the state?
This year, the state government has announced the commencement of 17 Mission Mode Projects. Last year, we spent around Rs 400 crores in terms of CAPEX alone. Thanks to a Chief Minister who is keen on IT and dedicated to taking it to all of the 73,000 talukas in the state, we are looking at an investment of Rs 7,000 crore through two models. Firstly, we intend to use a coupon-based system or a smart card system for connecting to these levels. Additionally, we are spending some Rs 300-500 crores on IT infrastructure projects.
Are there any unique e-governance projects being initiated by the government of UP?
We have one of the most automated treasuries in the country. We have been investing in this project for the past ten years and, today, the treasuries of all the districts are completely automated. We have also reformed our e-payments on the back of this project. All of our payments to government suppliers happens in an automated manner, through the server that is connected to the treasury. We are also in talks with the GoI for a centralized treasury project that should get clearances in a couple of months. This is a Rs 50 crore project for core treasury management.
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Another key e-governance project in the state is that of VAT computerization. We computerized VAT back in 2008 and it’s a fully automated system today that citizens can use for filing their taxes etc. VanijYakar Automation System (VYAS), is a browser based solution designed to automate almost all of the activities related to the VAT system. This software contains the database of over five lakh dealers and traders with provision for capturing photographs and thumb impressions of dealers for use in the future.
Our land records system has achieved a World Bank rating. The manual system has been discontinued and the IT-based electronic delivery system has been implemented in all of the 312+ tehsils impacting over 25 million landowners spread across a lakh villages and 100 million plot holdings.
We get a huge amount of revenue from land registration and, by automating the process, we can do away with the possibilities of fraud and false verifications etc. PRERNA or Property Evaluation & Registration Application is another project that we have linked to Land Records. The project has been implemented in 106 Sub-Registrar Offices in the 70 districts.
We have also rolled out e-municipality last year and it is currently being tested at Kanpur. Our focus is on house tax as well as birth and death certificates.
How is UP utilizing IT for Rural Governance?
Tehsil Divas and Lokvani are our key ventures in the rural governance space. Both of these projects are aimed at simplifying the grievance redressal mechanism with kiosks being set up in remote areas and an automated monitoring mechanism to track complaints till they are sorted out. Both applications have been implemented across the state and a total of 14.37 lakh applications have been registered through the tehsil divas application of which 13.73 lakh have been disposed off with a disposal rate of 95.51%.
How is UP leveraging mobility for e-governance and what is the roadmap for Cloud computing?
A lot of our apps in the public domain are making some use of mobility. We are using SMS heavily for notifications, verification etc, especially for the e-municipality and e-district projects. We are focusing on achieving flexibility in our services through the use of mobility. Although, we haven’t yet come out with direct applications for any OS, that is the natural way forward on the mobility curve.
As far as the Cloud is concerned, we are well on our way to a structured data center and co-location services. A concrete policy around Cloud computing has to come from the top level. However, state governments across India will soon make a move towards the Cloud and UP would be no different. Even though the security part can be handled, the exit clauses in the case of Cloud computing are not always well defined.
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