The Hindu Business Line : Replicate e-governance successes: Maran

THE Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr Dayanidhi Maran, today said it is imperative to identify success stories in the realm of e-Governance and use them as a basis for rapid implementation in other States or at other locations in the same State.

Delivering the inaugural address at the 8th National Conference on e-Governance 2005 here, Mr Maran said there was "no need to reinvent the wheel in such cases". On its part, the Centre has evolved a programme to provide handholding support to States and agencies that wish to implement e-Governance projects rapidly, based on successes achieved elsewhere.

The focus was on creation of common infrastructure that can be shared by all departments, the governments at the Centre and in the States as well as by the common access centres. The Chief Minister of Orissa, Mr Naveen Patnaik, said it was unfortunate that e-Governance projects were confined to select departments in some States only. He said the success rate of e-Governance projects was pegged at a mere 15 per cent and called for augmentation of the success rates.

Earlier, Orissa's Minister for Information Technology, Mr S.N. Patro, said 1,000 acres of land had been identified near Bhunaneswar for setting up an IT city with an IT park. He urged Mr Maran to take steps to declare the IT park a special economic zone so that companies in the IT park could benefit from special fiscal benefits. In response, Mr Maran said the proposed IT park would receive "full support of the Government of India".

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