Uttar Pradesh Govt. Embraces Convergence

Lucknow formally launched internet protocol television (IPTV) recently. With this service in place, a person can talk on the landline phone, surf internet and watch television at the same time using the same connection. The technology IPTV is the one where channels are encoded in the Internet protocol (IP) format and delivered to TV using a smart electronic device. The technology is different from the 3-G technology which is wireless.

Vir Singh,Chief general manager, BSNL, Uttar Pradesh (UP), Om said that the IPTV was also launched for Kanpur, Allahabad and Varanasi from Lucknow. He added that in all, around 98 cities all over the country have been identified where the technology would be launched. The technology has already been introduced in cities like Bangalore, Pune and Kolkata. Commenting on expansion in UP, director broad band, AK Jain said, other cities of the UP East circle will be roped in the IPTV network in a phased manner.

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India holds fourth rank in world with 81 million Internet users

In top ten nations in the world, India has been ranked fourth with 81 million Internet users even as the world aggregate touched 134,85,72,040 by the end of 2007.
United States is leading in the chart with 220 million Internet users followed by China (210 million) and Japan (88.1 million). Brazil comes next to India with 53.1 million users, UK 40.2 million, Germany 39.1 million, Republic of Korea 35.5 million, Italy 32 million and France 31.5 million.

Asia has the highest number of Internet users with an estimated 68.7 million people followed by the Americas with 377.9 million. From about 70 million people (1.7 per cent of the world population) who had access to the Internet at the end of 2007, the figure crossed 134.8 crore by 2007. Asia has the highest number of Internet users with an estimated 568.7 million people followed by the Americas with 377.9 million. India, however, does not find place among the top ten nations in terms of broadband connections where too the U.S. stands first with 73.2 million connections. China has 66.4 million, Japan 28.28 million, Germany 19.6 million, UK 15.6 million, France 15.5 million, Republic of Korea 14.7 million, Italy 10.8 million, Canada 9 million and Spain 8 million broadband connections. While there were a total of 13.5 million internet subscribers in India, representing 1.15 per 100 people, broadband subscribers accounted for five million among them. These statistics were released in the Internet Governance Forum held from 3-6 December 2008 at Hyderabad.





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Event- iStates 2008: eGov capacity building conference

Date: 09 Jan 2009 Pragya Bhawan, Pt Nehru Complex, Agartala

Governments across the world have a commitment to meet by year 2015—that of the Millennium Development Goals, a mandate that shows the strong commitment of the states towards the right to Education, Health for all, peace and security, gender equality, poverty eradication and sustainable human development.

While laudable efforts are being made at the national and the state level across the world, India has emerged as one of the few countries that is making an effort to address the MDG issues through both strategic initiatives—like National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan—as well as through ICT intervention like the NeGP.

However, a big issue that still remains to be addressed is the capacity building of all stake holders, including the executives and the policymakers in successfully rolling out these initiatives, particularly those in the e-Governance space.

While iGovernment has been trying to help the cause by disseminating information on e-Gov and Good Governance through its informative and thought provoking content and daily e-Newsletter across its 40,000 subscribers, we have decided to take the efforts further by reaching out to the required audience through state level capacity building seminars in partnership with the Department of IT, Ministry of Communication & IT, Government of India.

The capacity building initiative aims at creating awareness as well as buying commitment from the government employees by actively involving them through thought provoking presentations and interactive discussion, including an Open House, where experts from the bureaucracy and industry would be available to address any e-Gov related queries.

Contact for further information:
RAJESH ARORA
Mobile: +91-9810093486,
E-mail: rajesh.arora@igovernment.in

PRAVIN PRASHANT
Mobile: +91-9899004608,
E-mail: pravin@igovernment.in

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Spanco projects CSC network as self-employment opportunity

Spanco Telesystems and Solutions Limited has started the process of developing a network of information and communication technology-powered common service centres (CSC) in the Pune and Konkan revenue divisions. The company has been mandated to set up 3,689 such centres that will offer a host of government-to-citizen, business-to-consumer, and business-to-business services at nominal charges.

The company is among the four bidders that won the mandates for creating the network of CSCs across the state using the Maharashtra State Wide Area Network (MahaSWAN) as the backbone. Information technology department's principal secretary Kshatrapati Shivaji told TOI that the MahaSWAN, which was set up to connect each district headquarters in the state with the headquarters in Mumbai, has already been connected. The CSCs will be the second initiative in implementation of e-governance in the state.

There will be a CSC for every four villages in these districts which will offer basic government services such as land records, domicile certificates, birth and death certificates and ration cards. The company will develop its own data centre that will be connected to the state government's data centre, Bhatnagar explained.

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Tamil Nadu the best e-governed state: IDC survey

Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have climbed three spots over their last years ranking to emerge as the No 1 and No 5, respectively as per the survey conducted for the year 2008-09 by IDC, a global provider of market intelligence for IT.

Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Haryana have secured No 2, 3 and 4 positions, respectively in the survey. Delhi has slipped two ranks from No 1 last year and Himachal Pradesh and Haryana have climbed up 5 and 14 places, respectively.
The results of the study are based on a two-level survey that assesses every states IT vision, implementation plan and ease of use of services. It also takes into consideration IT allocation for new projects in 2007-08, implementation of new projects and user satisfaction among 3,150 citizens and businesses.

India's states are lining up ambitious e-governance projects for taking governance to citizens doorsteps. From being one among many government programmes, e-governance has now become a top priority for the government. The Union Budget for 2008-09 increased the allocation to the department of Information Technology to Rs 1,680 crore, an increase of nearly 12 per cent over the previous year, the IDC study reports.

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Now, Ignou students can submit fees online

Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) has signed an agreement with Punjab National Bank (PNB) to facilitate students deposit their fees online. Now students enrolled with Ignou can get their enrolment and examination fees deposited through more than 4,000 core banking group services of the PNB online.

Ignou Vice-chancellor VN Rajshekharan Pillai said that the online payment facility will be a boon for those students who live in villages and have to travel to district towns to deposit their fees. With this new facility, the students would be able to deposit their fees in the PNB branches. They will have to only fill up their registration numbers while submitting the fees. "The new arrangement will formally begin functioning from next month," PNB Managing Director KC Chaturvedi said.

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MCD steps up e-Gov, to become paperless soon

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) office will soon become paperless. The MCD will digitise all its records in files before shifting to its new premises at Civic Centre early next year from Town Hall. MCD has already invited bids for preparation of digital form of records of building and town planning department.

The municipal corporation had initiated the e-Governance initiative about 18 months back, but it has speeded up now in view of shifting of the office. The MCD employees will be also imparted training after e-Governance gets fully operationalised.

According to MCD's Standing Committee Chairman Vijendra Gupta, presently e-tendering was already operational in engineering, health, environment, horticulture, slum and JJ departments. "But to deliver transparent and effective civic services to the people, all other departments will be fully computerised," he added. MCD had no intention to bring all files and documents at the new headquarters, he said.

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Andhra district to have community radio soon

The people of Gulbarga district in Andhra Pradesh would soon be getting a community radio station which would empower the region particularly women, farmers and students to help them in socio-economic and cultural development of the area. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has signed an agreement for establishing, maintaining and operating a Community Radio Station (CRS) with the Sharanbasaveshwar Vidya Vardhak Sangha, a Gulbarga-based non-governmental organisation (NGO).

As per the agreement, the CRS is expected to be operational at within three months. With this, the number of CRS will increase to 39 in India. Sharanbasaveshwar Vidya Vardhak Sangha has service oriented patronage for the welfare of all sections of the society, education of the youth more particularly of girls, uplift of women and much more.

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Digitisation of jail records in Bihar begins

Project: All records of jail inmates in 55 jails of Bihar would be digitised and put on website in a phased manner. The project has already been launched in Patna's Beur Central Jail on pilot basis. The project will be later introduced in all six central jails, 33 district jails and 16 sub-jails of the state.

Bihar is facing the problem of overcrowding in Jails. According to economic survey report, 2008 of the government, there were 39,920 inmates in all 55 jails as against the maximum capacity of 29,598 only. The overcrowding in jails has been a major concern both for the government as well as rights activists. To keep records of visitors in the jails, the project seeks to introduce bio-metric system. Few months back, video conferencing system was introduced to speed up the trial of cases and lessen the chances of escape of jail birds during production.

Meanwhile the government has initiated steps to expand the capacities of new divisional jails in Gopalganj, Jammui, and Jehanbad and sub jails in Bennipatti and Daudnagar to lessen the overcrowding in the jails.

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All police stations to be digitised by March 2010

Project: All the police stations in India will be provided with computer facility and Internet connection by March 2010 at a cost of Rs 2,000 crore for the computerisation in 11th Five Year Plan. Meanwhile, the Lok Sabha was also informed that CCTV cameras have been installed in Tihar jail to monitor prisoners and help the prison authorities to keep a better check on untoward incidents and enhance vigilance.

Under the Scheme of Modernisation of Prisons, the state governments have been allowed to utilise 10 per cent of the funds allocated for their Annual Action Plan 2006-07 on purchasing equipments for modernisation of jails and building and improving infrastructure for undertaking correctional programmes.

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Bihar NREGA to have e-muster roll

Project: The Government of Bihar has decided to introduce e-muster roll to ensure transparency in making payments to the labourers working in all schemes under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and Bihar State Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (BSREGS).

Coverage: At present, Araia, Aurangabad, Bhabhua, Bhagalpur, Darbhanga, Gopalganj, Jehanabad, Katihar, Kishanganj, Lakhisarai, Madhubani, Munger, Muzaffarpur, Nalanda, Nawada, Patna, Rohatas, Samastipur, Sheohar, Supaul and Vaishali districts of the state are covered with NREGA with 90:10 centre-state funding.

Tulip has presence in all these locations.

Tripura plans to set up State Data Centre

Project: The Government of Tripura is planning to set up a State Data Centre (SDC) envisaging a robust infrastructure to enable the state government deliver the services quickly and effectively to its stakeholders.
The SDC will be integrated to the State Wide Area Network (Swan) to provide e-Governance applications and services to government employees through Intranet and to the citizens through the Internet and Commons Citizen Centres (CSCs).

Source: http://www.igovernment.in/site/Tripura-plans-to-set-up-State-Data-Centre/?section=eGov/

Himachal Food & Civil Supplies Dept to go digital

Project: All the processes right from procurement of food grains to the actual distribution to the people would be computerized to facilitate transparency and efficiency in the Public Distribution System (PDS).

All the fair price shops would be provided with small computers having details of family members, entitlement of food grains and fingerprints of all ration card holders, besides a beneficiary entry would be made automatically in the stock through the computer.

Everyday data regarding distribution of food grains and remaining stock would be sent to the main computer installed in the District Food and Supply Controller (DFSC) office.

Opportunity:

· This system would be implemented on pilot basis in one of the districts and then would be rolled out in other districts.

· Through this system, information could be disseminated to beneficiary through various means such as voice supported system, Internet and SMS through mobile so that dealers cannot cheat consumers.

Source: http://www.igovernment.in/site/Himachal-Food--Civil-Supplies-Dept-to-go-digital/?section=eGov/