Govt mulls $10 bn spend on e-gov programme

MUMBAI: The government plans to spend $10-billion on the National e-Governance program, a senior Government official said. “The government has committed about $10-billion to this program, of which composite of some investment is coming from private partners and also from the State Governments, ministry of communication & information technology, additional secretary, S R Rao, told reporters on the sidelines of CII organised conference here on Wednesday.

Currently, its a $10-billion kitty but everyday more and more investments are coming in, he said. “In this current financial year, it could be to the order of Rs 5,000-6 ,000-crore at the minimum but I think it would be as large as Rs 8,000-crore ,” Rao said. In 2006, the government approved the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) comprising of 27 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) and eight components.

“e-Governance will be promoted as a centralised initiative, to the extent necessary, to ensure citizen service orientation, to realise the objective of inter-operability of various e-Governance applications and to ensure optimal utilisation of ICT infrastructure/ resources,” Rao said.