The Hindu Business Line : Kalam calls for e-governance grid across States, Centre

THE President, Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, today called for the development of a comprehensive e-governance framework that would, among other things, lead to the establishment of an e-governance grid across the States and the Centre.

Inaugurating the first ever e-governance portal at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan here today, Mr Kalam said that the e-governance framework should also encompass the setting up of e-governance data centre at the Central and State level, with real time updating from various units of the Government.

He also called for the setting up of a multipurpose, secure, authentic national citizen-ID database as the primary source for all the e-governance services and online issue of citizen ID card seamlessly.

"The primary data requirement for the effective e-governance is the National Citizen-ID card. This card should be akin to the Xerox copy of the individual with the multifactor authentication such as photograph and biometrics — fingerprint and iris-based systems and digital signature," Mr Kalam said.

Stating that the proposed Citizen-ID cards should be provided on a cost-effective basis, Mr Kalam underscored the need for selecting the right technology for the preparation of the card.

"This challenge must be taken up by the consortium of public and private industries, academic institutions with the Government. Currently, the Government is considering the discussion of a Bill for introducing multipurpose Citizen ID card," he said.

Mr Kalam also underscored the need to create language-independent operating systems, databases, application servers, mail-servers, etc., in Indian languages. Further, he suggested that 90 per cent of work concerning e-governance should be outsourced and government should only manage the Data Centre and maintain it for on-line application.

The First Citizen also inaugurated the digital library centre at Rashtrapathi Bhavan and also the e-learning centre at the President's Estate school.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
US access control cards major opens office in India

Kalam calls for e-governance grid across States, Centre