As extracted from the Lok Sabha debates

27.12.2011 Uncorrected / Not for Publication

 

ELECTRONIC DELIVERY OF SERVICES BILL

 

1109 hours

THE MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AND MINISTER

OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI

KAPIL SIBAL):  I beg to move for leave to introduce a Bill to provide for

electronic delivery of public services by the Government to all persons to ensure

transparency, efficiency, accountability, accessibility and reliability in delivery of

such services and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. 

 

MADAM SPEAKER: The question is: 

 “That leave be granted to introduce a Bill to provide for electronic

delivery of public services by the Government to all persons to

ensure transparency, efficiency, accountability, accessibility and

reliability in delivery of such services and for matters connected

therewith or incidental thereto.” 

 

The motion was adopted. 

SHRI KAPIL SIBAL: I introduce the Bill.

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Delivering services the Kalyan-Dombivli way – Isher Judge Ahluwalia

For over a decade now, we have taken pride in the great performance of India’s IT sector in the global market for software development and also in the Indian corporate space. But the benefit IT can bring in delivering a variety of public services, what is often called e-governance, has been less in focus in India. The potential from this activity is enormous and it is only just beginning to be realised.

An outstanding example of what IT can do to deliver public services in Indian cities is provided by the e-governance project of the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation (KDMC) in Thane district in Maharashtra. The project was conceived in 1999, started implementation in 2002, and is now being replicated across the 231 urban local bodies of Maharashtra. Its lessons are also being incorporated in the mission mode projects of the National e-Governance Action Plan which was launched in 2003.

KDMC covers an area of 67 square kilometres in the twin cities of Kalyan and Dombivli, about 54 km outside Mumbai. Like most municipalities, it provides services such as issuing birth and death certificates, granting permissions for building, licences for trading, water connections, and collecting payments for property tax and water. There are actually over 100 such services!  Citizens interact with the municipal authorities through enquiries, registration, submitting forms, paying bills, and placing complaints. Prior to 2002, the state of service delivery at Kalyan and Dombivli was no different from any other city in India. Sometimes the residents did not know whether to go to the municipal office at Kalyan or at Dombivli to get a specific job done.

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Shri Ajay Sawhney, President and CEO NeGD was asked to deliver a presentation on the Electronic Delivery of Services Bill, 2011 as part of the valedictory session on the International Seminar on e-Governance organised by the Industry body ASSOCHAM

The e-grama kendra was located in a village about 44 kms north of Gandhinagar in Mehsana District. There is a computer, a laser printer , a dot matrix printer and a web cam installed in the e-Gram kendra. The connectivity is provided through a Airtel VSAT connection.  The entire equipment at the e-gram centre is provided by the State Government. The e-gram centre  is run by a village entrepreneur who earns his income through providing services through the e-Gram centre. The Village entrepreneur is selected by the Village Panchayat to run the e-gram kendra.

Currently only land record copies and electricity bill payment services are available through the e-Gram kendra. The e-Gram kendra earns about 700 Rs. through electricity bill collections - about Rs. 5/- per bill which is generated bi monthly and about Rs. 700 through providing copies of land records. 

The entrepreneur earns additional income of Rs. 2000/- or so through providing other services like submitting job applications through the Gujarat Government site ojas.guj.nic.in.

Seetaram Yechuri - Now, I come to the question of Citizens’ Charter.   Again, we are, actually, talking of it as though this is something new that we have brought about.   There are Right to Services  Act that have been passed by five States in our country already.  They are Bihar, J & K, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.   They  are proposed in  Jharkhand, Kerala and Rajasthan.   I was surprised to see, Sir, -- the hon. Chairman of the relevant  Committee is not here at this moment –the other day, on the Internet,  the  draft Electronics Services Delivery Bill.  It was also written that citizens may send their responses to Abhishek80.gov.in by 4 th  of May, 2011.  It is in the public domain.  In public domain, there is a Bill of 2011 called  Electronic Services Delivery Bill.  The scope of the Bill, actually, says, that  every competent authority of the appropriate Government shall publish (i)all the public services of the Department/Agencies or Body  which have to be delivered through electronic mode – that is the mode that all of us, surely, should move to; this applies to all; then, (ii) the date by which these services shall be made available;  (iii) the manner of delivery of such services and their service levels and this is most important (iv) the grievance redressal mechanism available to  any person  aggrieved about the outcome  of any request made by him for such service...   This is there.   Your Bill is in public domain.  You are discussing it.  I do not know why the Government is not even referring to the fact that this mechanism has already been proposed by this very Government.   You already have a mechanism that you have proposed.  It is there in the public domain.  Either the left hand of the Government does not know what the right hand is doing, or, the Government  itself is not realizing that  what it is, actually, doing.  So, such a mechanism  has already been suggested  by it.   So, if it can be brought into the framework of the Lokpal saying that such a mechanism is there,  very good.  You can bring it. But the point is  that such a mechanism is, absolutely, necessary. 

When 35-year-old Gowramma gave her thumb impression for the online registration of her land in the sub-registrar office of Tumkur on Friday, Karnataka stepped into another chapter in e-governance. Afterwards, Gowramma received an SMS alert on her mobile phone from the revenue department stating that her land transaction deal has gone through.

This happened after the revenue department launched its online integration of Bhoomi (online delivery of rural land records) and Kaveri (Karnataka valuation and e-registration) software on Friday. The project was initiated by revenue minister G Karunakara Reddy in Tumkur. The integration is now done in 25 taluks in phase I and will gradually be extended to all 176 taluks across the state. The integration is aimed at reducing the hardships for farmers.

“The sale transactions will now take place only if the land is identified with a specific survey number. The name of the seller and the extent of transaction will be made available on a database, which the farmers will have access to. This will ensure that there will no fraudulent or bogus transactions in the future,” said the revenue minister.

Once the sale is done, Bhoomi will start mutation process almost on the same day without any data entry of sale transactions, officials said.

“The manual data entry and procedures with the present system takes a lot of time, and the integration system would reduce time consumption by 50%,” said secretary of revenue department (Bhoomi and UPOR) Rajeev Chawla. Now farmers will get an SMS alert in both English and Kannada on all stages of the mutation process.

“All these days, farmers were running from pillar to post to know the status. Now, an SMS alert will be sent to farmers whenever a land transaction is initiated,” he said.

The farmers have to register their mobile numbers with the revenue department or taluk office. Congress leader and MLA from Shira in Tumkur, TB Jayachandra, said that the department should also concentrate on resolving existing problems with the Bhoomi system.

“There are many errors in land records, which the farmers are fed up with. This needs to be addressed,” he said. Reddy said that there was a shortage of surveyors in the state, which is hampering the land transactions. “We will soon recruit 2,000 surveyors to resolve the issue,” he said.

IAS officer cleans school toilet

  On Thursday afternoon, a rare sight met the eyes of students of Government Girls' Secondary School — a senior IAS officer cleaning their school's toilet. Faridabad Deputy Commissioner  Praveen Kumar, a senior IAS officer, literally cleaned the toilet of the school situated in Old Faridabad.

The deputy commissioner had conducted the inspection of the city's oldest school in the morning. Over 3,000 students study in the school.

At the school, some of the students told him that the school had just one sweeper to clean the toilets. He also came to know that "a few students had fallen unconscious on Wednesday due to the scorching heat".

The officer promised the schoolchildren that he will be back around 1.30pm. He kept his word and came to the school. He also advised the students that they should change their mindsets and focus on doing things themselves.

And he did it by giving his own example — he entered one of the toilets and started cleaning it. It took the officer nearly 20 minutes to clean the toilet thoroughly, leaving dumbstruck the school principal, teachers and students.

"We could not believe that the deputy commissioner cleaned the toilet of our school," said Praveen Kaushik, the school's principal.

"He has set an example and it will have positive a impact on the students," he added.

"There is absolutely nothing wrong in a cleaning toilet of the school," Kumar told Hindustan Times. "I took this step as we shy away from doing things which we can do ourselves."

"I am sure the students will now clean the toilet themselves as there is only one sweeper," Kumar said. The DC also ordered that facilities in the school be revamped so that students do not have to suffer.

Speeding up government

The Electronic Service Delivery Bill, 2011, which aims at delivering all public services to citizens in the electronic mode, is a welcome piece of legislation. By eliminating paperwork on a massive scale, the new measure can cut the red tape and corruption that notoriously plague governance in the country. The draft Bill published by the Ministry of Information Technology at its website is similar to the Right to Information Act, 2005 in that it incorporates a complaints mechanism and prescribes penalties for failure to comply with the provisions. Importantly, it sets a five-year deadline for all public services to make the online transition, with a further concession of three years in some cases. What people can expect in the new dispensation is electronic submission of forms and applications, issue or grant of any licence, permit, certificate, sanction or approval, and receipt or payment of money. No time must be lost in enacting the law, given India's poor record of delivery of citizen services. Moreover, services now facing severe bottlenecks, such as passports, should be prioritised for electronic processing. The draft provisions make it incumbent on the central and State governments to publish a list within six months of the date of enactment, and they would do well to pick the worst-performing departments for inclusion first.

India badly needs a major initiative on electronic service delivery and e-governance. That it has done little to use Information and Communications Technology to help citizens is evident from its 119th rank among 192 countries in the United Nations E-Government Development Index 2010. Although there is no standardised measure of e-governance, the indicators used by the U.N. — online service availability, telecom infrastructure, and human capital — suggest that India is below the world average for the composite index. This underscores the need to get the electronic service delivery law in place urgently and to enforce it seriously. The experience with the RTI Act indicates that public support for modernisation will overwhelm any resistance from vested interests. What must be noted, however, is the continued failure of many government departments to disclose information pro-actively on the Internet, as laid down under the RTI Act. Successful e-government requires that citizens get maximum information, and are able to conduct online transactions and participate in decision-making. All this calls for wide access to online services in the form of kiosks and special centres. Rising India must make progress on each of these metrics, if it hopes to leave its colonial baggage of red tape behind.

Original link here 

http://t.co/u5jY0B8

or  

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article2004253.ece