IT to counter complaint on governance: Oommen

     Raipur, November 9, 2009: The top most bureaucrat of Chhattisgarh P Joy Oommen today said use of the Information Technology would help them in countering the situation of lack of governance in the state.

     “People ask us where is governance, when we talk about e-governance. Similarly when we highlight the issue of e-class people question when there is lack of teachers and proper classes why to talk about e-classes,” Chief Secretary Oommen said here today after inaugurating iStates: e-Gov Capacity Building Conference here organized by the Chhattisgarh InfoTech Biotech promotion Society (CHiPS).

     But information technology has the answer to all those questions, he said.

     For various reasons the administration may not have a presence in an area but e-governance can reach out to the people and using that the citizen can avail all the facilities, he said.

     It was also difficult to get best of teachers for all the critical subjects like Mathematics or Physics in all the schools of the state but through e-classes all the students of the state can have class rooms and teaching from the best of the teachers, Oommen said.

     However, the Chief Secretary urged the IT and related people to have the e-governance forms in simple languages, so that the citizen should not be forced to visit any of the government offices to seek clarification how to fill the forms.

     He also subscribed to the idea of having certain qualification for becoming people’s representatives.

     “We are expecting the panchayat to be e-panchayat and work more efficiently, when we have not prescribed any qualification for the sarpanches and panchayat secretaries,” Oommen said.

     IT and Power Secretary Aman Singh said Chhattisgarh was the only state to provide 2 MBPS speed even in block headquarters through the government programme Wide Area Network (SWAN).

     Stating that the state government believed in transparency and honesty, the senior bureaucrat, who is also Secretary to the Chief Minister, said e-procurement was a great success in the state through which about Rs 50 billion worth of tenders have been floated for eight departments of the state.

     Joint Secretary to the Government of India on Information Technology Shankar Agrawal praised Chhattisgarh for providing qualitative governance to its people.

     Technology was a very small part. In fact the IT was here to change the mindset of the people, Agrawal said.

      The guests also thanked Chief Executive Officer of CHiPS Vinod Gupta for organizing such an informative workshop and even the Chief Secretary impressed upon him to such programme to the district level.