The Hindu Business Line : Proposal for joint certification of e-governance products

ACCORDING priority to e-governance plan for improving service delivery to citizens and businesses, the Minister for IT and Communications, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, has proposed enabling certification of products in e-governance domain, jointly with the Ministry of Urban Development.

"My Ministry can help by enabling certification of products jointly with the Ministry of Urban Development. We would like the Ministry of Urban Development to satisfy itself about the functional features of various products on offer, while the Department of IT can, through its bodies like the Software Testing and Quality Certification Agency (STQC) certify the technical quality of the product, and if possible lay down the norms for commercial terms for the product and its support over the lifetime of its usage,"

Mr Maran said at a national seminar on e-governance in municipalities. He said that a shortcoming of the Indian IT industry was its failure to come up with world-class products.

He added that certification would enable various municipal bodies to choose from a ready list of certified solutions and zero-in on the one that fit their needs.

"I am quite clear that we cannot possibly have thousands, hundreds or even scores of different IT solutions in this domain; instead we need to have 5-10 standard solutions. This will also enable such solution providers to concentrate on continuous improvement of their products while simultaneously providing support to their existing client base," he said.

Stating that UPA Government's Common Minimum Programme laid emphasis on the promotion of e-governance across India on a massive scale, Mr Maran said that e-governance Action Plan was in top 10 priorities of his Ministry.