How technology delivers good governance

GN Bureau | January 27, 2010



Technology can help improve governance only if efforts are made to bridge the gulf between the policy-makers and the masses. Distinguished participants highlighted this pressing need at a lively debate at the launch of Governance Now magazine and web portal in New Delhi this evening.

“Governance in the Connected World”, the theme of the first Governance Now Forum, elicited passionate responses on both the possibilities of the use of technology and the failure to use it to its full potential.

 

Arvind Kejriwal, prominent RTI activist

People casting vote does not make India a democracy. “True democracy is one where people have a say in the daily activities of governance,” said Kejriwal.

He gave the example of an experiment in two municipal wards in Delhi where people conduct mohalla sabhas to decide how the money in the councillor’s fund should be spent. Each municipal ward has been divided into 10 mohallas where people meet every week. Three days before the meeting, the councillor writes to all the families in the mohalla inviting them to attend the meeting.

This is a forum where people can directly interact with the decision makers including the councilor and representatives from civic agencies such as the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, Delhi Jal Board and Central People Work Department.

Earlier there was a situation where the government was spending the money irrespective the needs of the people. But now, the fund is utilised in a way people want it to.

“The idea is make the people realise that the babus are actually public servants and its not a big deal if they do the work without demanding bribe,” said Kejriwal.

He cited a recent example where the fares of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses were raised. “We do not want the DTC to suffer losses. We are demanding that the profit and loss statement of the DTC should be made available to the public,” he said.

R.S. Sharma, CEO, Unique Identification Authority of India

Complementing Governance Now, Sharma said a magazine in this domain is the need of the hour. “Though we talk of governance and public services, we lack a concerted effort in this direction. I am sure Governance Now will fill in the gap,” he said.

Sharma emphasised the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in governance stating it has immense potential to change governance. He gave the example of the railway reservation system. “Today one can get a railway reservation done anytime anywhere without having to stand in a long queue,” he said. However ICT tools have not been leveraged as they should have, he added. Land records for example should have been digitised all across the country.

“We need to leverage the tools of ICT for better delivery of services a. it will not only improve accountability and transparency but it will also help in attitudinal and behavioural change,” he said.

Speaking about the benefits of the unique identity project he said it will help an individual get access to government services without having to produce a number of certificates. “I can imagine a labourer from Bihar getting an account opened in Delhi without any hassles after the UID project is implemented,” he said.

Under the project, he said, 600 million identity cards will be issued in about four years and the first set of these will see the light of the day as early as November this year.


 

Comments

 

Other News

Boost to offshore wind energy projects

In a major decision, the Government has decided to grant waiver of ISTS charges to Off-Shore Wind Projects and extend the waiver to Green Hydrogen/Green Ammonia. This decision has been taken to facilitate wider execution of offshore wind energy initiatives, to promote the expansion of Green Hydrogen / Gree

Duty of stakeholders to provide cost effective, alternate energy fuels: Gadkari

Urging use of alternative and cost effective fuels to reduce pollution caused by vehicles, union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday said finding cost-effective fuels is the need of the hour and underlined that use of fuels like bio-CNG and green hydrogen help in protecting the e

Record production of rice, wheat, and sugarcane estimated

The foodgrain production of 3305.34 lakh tonnes is estimated in the current agricultural year 2022-23 – higher by 149.18 LMT as compared to the previous year, according to the Third Advance Estimates of production of major crops released by the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare.

India`s ‘AIRAWAT’ ranks 75th in top 500 Supercomputing List

The AI Supercomputer ‘AIRAWAT’, installed at C-DAC, Pune, has been ranked 75th in the world. It was declared so in the 61st edition of Top 500 Global Supercomputing List on Tuesday at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC 2023) in Germany. It puts India on top of AI S

Ocean Dialogue a great opportunity for G20 members

The ongoing third Environment and Climate Sustainability Working Group G20 meeting (May 21-23) has focused on three aspects: land degradation and reclamation of mining areas, Blue Economy and sustainable ocean management and resource sufficiency and circular economy. Leena Nandan, secretary,

Semi hi-speed trains, buses could be primary alternative to cars

We are not paying sufficient attention to the rapidly growing oil imports (from pre-Covid-19 to post-Covid, in 2022). They surged from 102 million tons (MT) in 2019-20 to 168 MT in 2022-23, an increase of 68%.   India is the largest importer of oil in the world, and, at current rate, we

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter