state update
karnataka
MN Vidyashankar
Principal Secretary, e-Governance Department, Government of Karnataka
“Right to Information project will be fully operational in Karnataka from April 2011”
W
hat is the progress on implementation of State Mission Mode Project (MMPs) in Karnataka?
Karnataka has been way ahead in implementing Mission Mode projects, well before Government of India formulated MMPs. The land records project Bhoomi, the treasury project Khazane, the stamps and registration project Kaveri and the municipal property tax collection project Aasthi are some such examples. Besides, the revenue department’s UPRO project for Accurate Updated Ownership Records of urban area was implemented in the state quite ahead of others. In addition, Karnataka launched several new projects at its departments, including Rural Development and Panchayath Raj, Panchathantra, which deals with the computerisation of gram panchayaths; Commercial Tax department’s e-Sugam which deals with collection of commercial taxes; Transport Department’s Smart Card project; and Police Department’s Intelligent Traffic Management and Enforcement project.
MN Vidyashankar is an Indian Administrative Service Officer of 1982 batch and has served in different departments in the State Government of Karnataka. He is currently working as Principal Secretary, e-Governance Department, Government of Karnataka. In an interview with Prachi Shirur of eGov, MN Vidyashankar talks about the state’s progress in e-Governance in the year gone by and the plans for the coming year.
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egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011
What have been the state’s key achievements in implementing e-Governance projects in G2C, G2B, G2G categories in 2010? One of the key achievements is the rapid adoption of e-Procurement project in the government-to-business category by various state departments. The state government is making all its procurements transparently through electronic media, under this project. Even though it started in six establishments on a pilot basis, during the last two-and-a-half years, this scheme had been extended to 86 departments, by the end of November 2010. Procurement to the tune of `47,000 crore is made through this platform. As the platform has encouraged competitive spirit among the bidders, increased participation resulting in savings of more than 10 percent. With this, the expenditure for the state exchequer got reduced by `4,700 crore. As it is a Web-based application, anybody can participate without any hindrance. As a result more than 10,000 users have registered for it. The project bagged Futuregov Award 2010 for best practices in Asia’s public sector during the year.