Shimla: Even as chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal plodded Information Technology officials to roll out the 3366 common service centres (CSC) Lok Mitra Kendra’s early for delivery of government to citizen services, a two day workshop on national e-governance that was inaugurated today was informed that there could be delays in the roll out.
SR Rao, additional secretary IT with the central government in his presentation said, said that Rs 50,000 crore investments had been envisioned to roll out IT services across the country.
Lauding the achievement made by Himachal in e-governance, he said that it was one of the few states that had launched the SWAN program and a state data centre was coming up fast. The centre has extended Rs 166.75 crore towards e-governance and rolling out IT services to Himachal, he said.
By end of June, the two bid winning service providers i.e. Zoom Developers, and Tera-GNG, under a public-private-partnership model had only been able to set up 814 of them.
Zoom Developers which is setting up the CSC kiosks in Kangra division had only been able to set up 401 (31%) Lok Mitra Kendra’s out of the 1296 it is contracted to set up.
Tera-GNG which is setting up CSC in Shimla and Mandi division had out of 1114 CSC’s set up 241 (22%) in Mandi division and out of 956 CSC’s set up 172 (18%) in Shimla division.
However, the target to set up all 3366 IT enabled community service centre (Lok Mitra Kendras) is 8th September, the workshop was informed.
In his inaugural speech chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said that with the objective of providing various services at the doorstep of every citizen, 3366 Lok Mitra Kendras would be set up soon, with one catering for each panchayat in state.
Record and functions of revenue courts and public distribution system would be computerised for delivery of better services and HIMSWAN would be extended down to sub-tehsil level, he said.
The State Wide Area Network (HIMSWAN) was a scheme which connected grass-root level revenue units of sub-tehsil with district and state headquarters through IT, he said.
To protect the states forest wealth as well an effectively monitor catchement area treatment (CAT) plans in different river basin, the government intended to activate satellite based Geographical Information System (GIS) for it, said Dhumal.
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads a team of media professionals at Hill Post.
Spanning a career of over two decades in mass communication, as a Documentary Filmmaker, TV journalist, Print Media journalist and with Online & Social Media, he brings with him a vast experience. He lives in Shimla.
