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Table of Contents
Features
E-Governance vs. E-Government
Thomas B. Riley
Implementation issues in e-Governance
Dr. V. N. Garg
Quantifying and assessing e-Governance
Prof. K. Subramanian, Sameer Sachdeva
Digital Opportunity Channel
WSIS: The civil society perspective
Interview: Subbiah Arunachalam
WSIS vignettets
Commentary: Media Step Child of WSIS
Columns
i4d Seminar at Kuala Lumpur, Book Review, Quiz, What's on, ET Cetra, In Fact
 

Quiz

e-Governance initiatives in Indian states

 
D. C. Misra
Former development commissioner,
Delhi and Chairman of the Taskforce for IT Policy,
NCT of Delhi, India
dc_misra@hotmail.com 		 
 

State governments in India have taken to e-governance as fish take to water. They are now competing with each other in computerisation and provision of services to citizens online. As a result the traditional bureaucracies characterised by sloth, subjectivity and malpractices are giving way to e-bureaucracies characterised by speed, objectivity and transparency making best use of latest available information and communication technologies (ICTs). Let us check.


(a) Which was the first state in India to announce information technology (IT) policy and when, (b) How many of the states/union territories in India have announced their own IT policies and which are these states / union territories, and (c) Which was the first district in India to go online?
(a) Karnataka in 1997, (b) 18, namely, 1. Andhra Pradesh, 2. Assam, 3. Chandigarh, 4. Goa, 5. Gujarat, 6.Haryana, 7. Karnataka, 8. Kerala, 9. Madhya Pradesh, 10. Maharashtra, 11. Orissa, 12. Pondicherry, 13. Punjab, 14. Rajasthan, 15. Tamil Nadu, 16. Tripura, 17. Uttar Pradesh, and 18. West Bengal, and (c) Tiruvarur district of Tamil Nadu (http//www.tiruvarur.tn.nic.in).

(a) It is the first and the largest online delivery of services in India and is the first government department to get a certification of international specification, the ISO-9000: 2000, for its e-Governance services. Name the project, (b) What is Gyandoot project, which won the Stockholm Challenge Award 2000 in the category of public service and democracy, and (c) This union territory calls its Estate Office Handbook as SUVIDHA, literally meaning facility. Name the union territory.
(a) The e-Seva project of the Government of Andhra Pradesh. (b) It is a project undertaken by Government of Madhya Pradesh in 21 major centres in 5 blocks of Dhar district. (c) Chandigarh.

(a) What are APSWAN and WBSWAN, (b) Which city in India is known as Cyberabad, (c) What is E-COPS, (d) With what are the Web sites www.mahapwd.com and www.mahaigr.org associated, and (e) What are TANITEC and C-COMS?
(a) APSWAN is Andhra Pradesh State Wide Area Network. WBSWAN is West Bengal Wide Area Network, which will provide the backbone networking for e-Governance projects. (b) Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh, (c) E-Computerised Operations for Police Services - A project for online tracking of crime in 1,100 police stations in Andhra Pradesh (d) www.mahapwd.com pertains to the Public Works Department (PWD) of Maharashtra while www.mahaigr.com, pertains to its Stamps and Registration Department. and (e) TANITEC is Tamil Nadu Information Technology Institute at the ELCOT premises in Perungudi Elnet Software city. C-COMS is Computerised Constituency Management System in Karnataka.

(a) If it is not a women wear in India, what is SARI, (b) If it is concerned with rural Internet revolution in Tamil Nadu, what is RASI, (c) If it is not in sky but concerned with the registration of documents, what is STAR, (d) If it is a society in Tamil Nadu, what is SETS, and (e) If it is a programme in e-governance in a municipal corporation, what is Saukaryam?
(a) Sustainable Access in Rural India, a public-private-government-academia jointly promoted rural connectivity pilot project in Melur Taluk in Madurai district in Tamil Nadu, (b) SARI has now been upgraded as Rural Access to Services through Internet (RASI) to cover all the districts in Tamil Nadu (c) Simplified and Transparent Administration of Registration project, being extended to all 625 registration offices in Tamil Nadu, (d) Society for Electronic Transaction and Security, Chennai, and (v) Saukaryam, meaning facility, is a programme of e-governance in Vishakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (VMC) in Andhra Pradesh. It is a comprehensive project providing various civic services to the citizens through information technology (IT).

(a) Which is the only union territory in India, which has its bilingual official Web site in English and French (Hint: It is not Pondicherry), (b) With which state is Nai Disha, literally meaning new direction, associated, (c) This youngest city in India, which is also a union territory, is always spic and span, but then what is SPIC, (d) Citizens living within the limits of this municipal corporation in Andhra Pradesh have a VOICE, what then is VOICE, and (e) Which state has the distinction of introducing short message service (SMS), the new language of mobile phones, in e-governance?
(a) Chandigarh (b) Haryana. NAI DISHA stands for New Agent of Information - District-level Integrated Services of Haryana for All.It is a Web portal of Government of Haryana to provide about 25 citizen centric services. (c) Society for Promotion of IT in Chandigarh, (d) Versatile Online Information for Citizen Empowerment (VOICE), a project being implemented in Vijaywada Municipal Corporation by CMC Ltd. (e) Delhi. One can know the status of an application (for a certificate like marriage certificate) by sending a message at 986 8231 002.

(a) Which state proposes to set up 7,800 soochna gumties (information kiosks), (b) What is Project Allahabad, (c) In which state is the Project Arohi on the anvil and what does it aim at, (d) What is TamilNILAM, and (e) You may have a DOST, literally meaning friend, but this DOST is different. What then is DOST?
(a) Madhya Pradesh. (b) A project in Uttar Pradesh to make Allahabad a smart district, (c) The hill state of Uttaranchal. The project aims at spreading information technology (IT) education in the state and will be job-oriented, (d) Tamil Nadu Infosystem on Land Administration and Management, the computerisation of land records programme (e) Delhi Online Sales Tax, a programme of Sales Tax Department of Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD).

What are (a) MAP_IT, (b) SETU, (c) Akshay, (d) Warana Wired Village Project, and (e) Bangalore One?
(a) Madhya Pradesh Agency for Promotion of Information Technology, (b) Literally meaning bridge, it is facilitation between the citizen and the government. It is an integrated citizen facilitation centre in Maharashtra. (c) A government-sponsored community campaign in socially and economically backward district of Malappuram in Kerala. The campaign proposes to have at least one member in every family in the district to be IT-literate in three month's time. (d) The wired village project at Warana Nagar in prosperous Kolhapur district of Maharashtra. It aims at providing computerised facilitation booths in 70 villages linked to the central computer at Warana Nagar. (e) The citizen portal project in Karnataka providing single point delivery mechanism for e-governance.

(a) The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, inaugurated the Centre for Good Governance (CGG) on January 6, 2002 in the capital of an Indian state. Where is the centre located, (b) Chamravattom village in a backward district is set to become India's, and indeed, some say, world's, first wholly computer-literate village or e-village. Where is it located, (c) Why was Nangal Chaudhary, one of the most backward villages in Narnaul district of Haryana in news some time back, and (d) What are CICs?
(a) It is co-located on the 30-acre campus of Dr M.Channa Reddy Institute for Human Resource Development (HRD) in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. (b) Triprangode panchayat of most backward Muslim-dominated Malappuram district of Kerala. (c) A lone cyber café was inaugurated in this village on July 30, 2000 ushering in an information technology (IT) revolution for the masses in Haryana, and (d) Community Information Centres.

In Delhi, (a) What is the AVTS pilot project, (b) What has EPIC got to do with elections, and (c) What have Sarathi and Vahan to do with vehicles?
(a) Automatic Vehicle Tracking System (AVTS) approved by Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi. The AVTS will monitor continuously the fleet of buses plying in the Capital and the emerging service vehicles - breakdown, relief vehicles and ambulance (b) EPIC is Electors' Photo Identity Programme launched by Chief Electoral Officer, Delhi. (c) Sarathi is smart card-based driving license while Vahan is smart card-based registration card.

(a) If this state has STAMINA, name the state, (b) Why was Bhoj Open University in news, (c) Chant this MANTRA and you can translate an English text to Hindi. What then is MANTRA, (d) What is LILA (Hint: It has nothing to do with the ancient Indian text on Mathematics titled Lilawati), and (e) What are LILA PRABODH, LILA PRAGYA, and LILA PRAVEEN?
(a) Bihar. STAMINA, which stands for Sales Tax Administration Management Information Network Aided, is a sales tax management software project. (b) It is a virtual university initiative of Government of Madhya Pradesh to equip a person with an online degree. (c) Machine Assisted Translation tool, developed in 1999 for translating English text to Hindi, (d) Learn Indian Language through Artificial Intelligence, an intelligent, multimedia-based self-tutoring software package series developed by C-DAC, Pune (e) LILA PRABODH is first-level course, LILA PRAVEEN , the second-level course after completing the PRABODH stage, and LILA PRAVEEN , the third level course, after completing PRAVEEN course.