Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah Wednesday reiterated the necessity of e-governance to galvanize the system of service delivery with promptness, bringing in transparency and catapulting responsiveness of the Administration to attend the needs of people on development count. “e-governance is right initiative to provide good governance and remove all kinds of red tape that hampers delivery of services in a time bound manner”, he said adding that his government’s focused concentration on IT and ST sectors is yielding encouraging results. He said that the process of change in the functioning of government departments through IT initiatives and e-governance measures would bring revolutionary turn around in the system.
Taking review of the achievements registered in the departments of Information Technology and Science Technology at a high level meeting, he chaired here, the Chief Minister gave nod to the digitalization of cabinet records and approved Rs. 40 lakhs for the purpose.
Omar Abdullah directed for exploring possibilities of direct placement of 1.5 percent budgetary grants earmarked in each department for e-governance to the IT and ST Department making it accountable for initiating measures for total e-governance in the government departments in a phased manner. “The Planning and Development Department should look for working out a viable and befitting strategy in this regard”, he added.The meeting was attended by Minister for Science and Information Technology, Feroz Ahmad Khan, Chief Secretary, Mohammad Iqbal Khandey, Principal Secretary Planning and Development, B. R. Sharma, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, B. B. Vyas, Commissioner Secretary Science and Information Technology, Bipul Pathak and various senior officers.
Giving brief about the performance and achievements of the departments, Commissioner Secretary ST&IT in a PowerPoint presentation said that State Data Centre has started functioning in the State since 2013 while posting of CCTNS, Commercial Tax (DR Site) and NPR is in process and the RFP for State-wide area network has been floated. He said DPR have been approved and RFP floated for e-district scheme and State Service Delivery Gateway is likely to be launched fully in January 2014.Bipul Pathak said that under the capacity building programme of J&K e-Governance Agency (JaKeGA) 150 KAS officers have been trained in project management and soft skills, 100 officials in EGLC and 1150 officials in CCC. He said 130 FA/CAO of Finance Department have been trained while capacity building training for 540 Accounts Officers and Assistant Accounts Officers has been completed and for 280 more is in pipeline.
He said 17 departments have been covered under e-procurement while as 1074 tenders have been floated worth Rs. 500634 lakhs till date. He said pay roll accounting and personal information system has been implemented. He said 84 Urban Local Bodies have been brought under e-municipalities while as 140 locations have been covered under mother and child tracking system. He said national animal diseasing system, e-hospital, vahan-sarathi and e-treasury besides date of birth certificates, electoral roll system etc are in place.He said a Vision Document for Rs. 427 crore has been prepared for implementation in the State for realizing various short term and long term goals in IT sector.The Chief Minister while receiving brief on Science and Technology Department gave nod to the undertaking of projects upto 10 MWs by JAKEDA and said that with the capacity building improvement in the Agency the upper limit can be further raised upto 25 MWs. He laid stress on harnessing of solar and other non-conventional energy sources to meet the domestic and commercial requirement of power in the feasible areas particularly in rural and far-flung villages.
The meeting was informed that 28 mini and hydro electric projects of about 50 MW-capacity have been taken up for execution during the current year. It was given out that 104 projects with 180 MW-capacity have been identified and DPRs of 75 have been prepared.The meeting was informed that work is also in progress to explore launch of 2000 MW MMRE projects in Kargil and 5000 MW in Leh. It was stated that a Special Purpose Vehicle has been put in place to rope in joint venture partners in these projects.