Info centres to bridge digital divide: India

Info centres to bridge digital divide

CORPORATE BUREAU
Posted online: Friday, August 26, 2005 at 0000 hours IST




NEW DELHI, AUG 25: As part of the first ‘outcome budget’ the government on Thursday unveiled its plan to establish 60 community information centres in Jammu & Kashmir by October this year.


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Internet-enabled, these centres will aim at bridging the digital divide as part of the national e-governance plan.

Apart from J&K, Lakshwadeep and Andaman & Nicobar will also be connected through such information centres by January 2006. At least 487 centres have been established in the north so far.

A hub will be established at Roorkee by September next year. Proposals for state wide area networks have been sanctioned with an outlay of Rs 1,027 crore of which Rs 206 crore has been released.

Proposals from eight more states have been received which will be approved by this month.

An amount of Rs 58 lakh has been released for the e-governance pilot gateway. Selection of an agency to build and run the gateway will be completed by March 2006.

Policy guidelines on state data centres are also under formulation. Taking note of the recent BPO frauds, the government said that it will respond to such incidents in a proactive manner. Police and judiciary are also being trained in cyber crime.

A core group has identified the areas for standards in e-governance. These are technical inter-operability, quality and documentation and data security. The report is awaiting approval from the ministry of communications & information technology.

The National Informatics Centre has submitted a proposal for the implementation of India portal project. The proposal is due for approval next month.

Line ministries have been advised to define the service levels of their mission mode projects. The department of telecom (DIT) has appointed Pricewaterhouse Coopers for this task which has submitted its report.

Service levels of mission mode projects in areas like excise, property, registration, road transport, e-business, treasuries, municipalities and employment exchange have been finalised with the concerned line ministries.