Experts in favour of bringing e-governance under PMO

NEW DELHI: A clutch of top e-governance experts are in favour of bringing e-governance directly under the Prime Minister’s Office instead of the department of information technology (DIT), arguing that it would work better in a federal structure.

“The DIT is basically an advisory body and cannot enforce things,” said R Chandrashekhar, former IT secretary to the Union government.

“PMO can exercise a high level of intervention and therefore e-governance under it is highly recommended.”

The government has tried to push egovernance through 31 mission mode projects (MMPs). These projects are classified into central MMPs, state MMPs and integrated MMPs with both central and state participation.

Conceptualisation of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) started in 2003 when the BJP was in power, but its execution began only in 2006 under the Congressled government.

According to Som Mittal, former head of IT industry group Nasscom, an authoritative body like the PMO is better equipped to maneuver projects that have to be executed unilaterally by states or where both central and state participation is required.

A lot of ministries are involved to execute even the simplest of projects but not all ministries function similarly, said Jaijit Bhattacharya, partner, infrastructure and government services at KPMG India.

“PMO in such cases can act authoritatively.” India is at least 15 years behind nations like the US and UK, which is a significant gap considering the pace at which technology is changing, said Vikas Kunungo, an advisor on mobile governance policy to the NeGP division.

But, according to experts, there is already a lot of infrastructure in place in India along with some successful projects. Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Gujrat and Rajasthan have taken big strides in e-governance and these initiatives can be replicated in other states too, they say.