‘IT hub’ K’taka ranks No 12 in e-deals
The article by Christin Mathew Philip was published in the New Indian Express on December 27, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.
Among the states with maximum number of e-transactions this year so far are Andhra Pradesh, topping the list with 101 crore e-transactions followed by Telangana (80.35 crore e- transactions) and Kerala (75.30 crore e-transactions).
Karnataka’s poor standing on the e-governance transactions front can largely be attributed to a low number of e-services - 86 - in sharp contrast to Andhra Pradesh’s 250. The e-services include registration of births and deaths, land record registration, utility, bill payments and other government related services.
This clearly underlines the fact that Karnataka needs to include more government services online and also create more awareness among the people about the existing e-governance projects to achieve ‘digital India’ and cashless payment system.
When contacted, Karnataka’s IT minister Priyank Kharge said: “Karnataka is a pioneer in e-governance projects, which includes Bhoomi, Khajane and Mobile-One. Mobile-One is offering nearly 4,500 services, both government and private services at the finger tip. All these initiatives have become the model for other states.”
Statistics from Union government web portal Electronic Transaction Aggregation and Analysis Layer (etaal), which manages e-transactions undertaken by e-governance projects, suggests that Karnataka ranks 12th in the country.
Commenting on this, IT Minister Priyank Kharge said, “The Centre has also recently ranked Karnataka at No.13 in ease of doing business in the country. I don’t know how they are coming up with such rankings without considering the merit.”
Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet Society, a Bengaluru based-research organisation, said: “The government should make e-services friendly to the citizens and also make it more transparent.” He said implementation of proposed Electronic Service Delivery Bill, which will make it mandatory for every government organisation to deliver public services online at a stipulated period, will bring more accountability and attract more people to use government e-services.
