IT Scan

October 31, 2002
President Kalam unveils e-governance strategy for Karnataka

BANGALORE -- The much talked about e-governance strategy for Karnataka was unveiled by the President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam at the ongoing BangaloreIT.com.

SM Krishna, the Karnataka Chief Minister -- while handing over the e-governance policy to the President -- during the session on 'IT for common man,' a part of the BangaloreIT.com event, said: "IT for the common man has almost become an obsession with many of us. Tools of technology, unless they reach the downtrodden and the neglected, do not hold any special significance if they only cater to the elite and the haves."

According to him the ultimate objective of software is to serve every person in the nook and corner of the state and country. Krishna said: "I believe in technology and believe that technology revolution is taking place globally and is extending to our country too. And, the most important outcome of this is e-governance."

The new strategy lists out the different features -- government processes re-engineering, citizen-e-governance, administrative mechanism, role of private sector, procedures, local languages, standards, finance, and audit and e-governance projects.

President Kalam said that unless standard interfaces are worked out for all applications deployment, IT would really not benefit the common man.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu added that e-governance initiative had taken off in his state. "After two years of gathering information and digitising it, we can say that APOnline has taken off where 31 services have been computerised," he said.