Apologies for cross-posting.

Dear All,

Greetings from IT for Change!

2008 will be an important year for the National E-governance Plan (NeGP) with the expected massive roll-out of the Common Services Centres (CSCs) and other components of this plan all over the country. While we have been speaking of greater participation of citizens in this plan, such participation must begin at the policy-making process itself. However, unfortunately, there has been little text to read on the NeGP anywhere. The link on the Department of Information Technology (DIT) - http://mit.gov.in/default.aspx?id=115 - gives a very sketchy outline of the NeGP. One wonders if that is the final NeGP policy document, or is there any other comprehensive policy document. One would expect such an initiative like the NeGP which at its heart may redefine (through re-structuring) Indian governance systems to have a rather elaborate policy write-up. We can find some implementation level documents on CSCs and State Data Centres (SDCs) etc, but the overall policy document should be one with clearer and elaborately laid out overall vision, objectives, context, challenges and possibilities. If there is any such document we have not been able to find it and request others who may be in possession of such documents to kindly share it on this list serve and others so that we can engage in a constructive discussion on the NeGP.

Easy availability of all information and documents pertaining to policy processes is the first condition of citizen participation. We have tried to search for all documents that we could find about the NeGP, and its state wise adoption. In fact, though we believe that we follow happenings on many list-serves that concern themselves with these issues, it was almost by sheer accident that we found that many states have either written elaborate e-governance roadmaps, or are in the process of writing one. (We also wonder why the NeGP itself, as the mother policy / implementation node for e-governance in India doesn't have one for itself.)

These roadmaps are very important documents for the future structure of Indian governance systems. And we do think that these should be prepared with a greater consultative process. These roadmaps redefine the nature, objectives etc of Indian governance processes, and such redefinitions are then expected to be captured in new process designs. We would think that this is a very political task, and requires the thorough participation of all citizens. It would be wrong to construct this task as technical or even managerial, and as relating most of all to project management issues.

To aid such citizen participation, we provide below the links to such documents that we could lay our hands on. We will request others to add to this list if they know of any other documents.

The following are the documents on NeGP on the World Bank website. The World Bank is a funder of this plan.

http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?pagePK=64283627&piPK=73230&theSitePK=40941&menuPK=228424&Projectid=P091383  

State-wise documents that we have been able to find are as follows.

Chattisgarh

1. E-Governance Vision Map

http://www.chips.nic.in/E-Gov.Vision%20Documet.pdf

Himachal Pradesh

1. E-Governance Road Map

http://himachaldit.gov.in/EGOVRMap.pdf

2. E-Governance Strategy

http://himachaldit.gov.in/EGStrategy.pdf

Mizoram

3. E-Governance Road Map

http://www.mizoram.gov.in/links/file/mizoram_egovernanceroadmap.pdfs

Madhya Pradesh

1. E-Governance Roadmap

http://www.mp.nic.in/dit/E-governance%20Road%20Map%20MP.pdf

2. E-Governance Capacity Building Roadmap

http://www.mp.nic.in/dit/Capacity%20Building%20Road%20Map%20MP.pdf

3. DPR for Capacity Building

http://www.mp.nic.in/dit/Detailed%20Project%20Report%20for%20Capacity%20Building%20MP.pdf

Tamil Nadu

1. E-Governance Vision

http://www.elcot.com/egov-reports/Draft%20e-Governance%20Vision%20Ver%200.1.zip

2. E-Governance Strategy

http://www.elcot.com/egov-reports/Draft%20e-Governance%20Strategy%20for%20GoTN%20Ver%200.1.zip

3. E-Governance Blueprint

http://www.elcot.com/egov-reports/Draft%20E-Governance%20Blueprint_GoTN%20V.0.1.zip

Orissa

1. E-Governance Roadmap Vision document

http://www.ocac.in/userfiles/file/EGRM.pdf

2. E-Governance Road Map - Strategy & Blueprint

http://www.ocac.in/userfiles/file/Strategy%20&%20Blueprint.pdf

3. E-Governance Capacity Building Road Map

http://ocac.in/userfiles/file/CBRM%20for%20Orissa.pdf

4. Detailed Project Report

http://ocac.in/userfiles/file/DPR%20for%20Orissa.pdf

Rajasthan

1. E-governance Roadmap

http://www.rajasthan.gov.in/rajgovresources/egovernanceinitiatives/eGovernanceRoadmap.pdf

Delhi

1. E-Governance Roadmap

http://it.delhigovt.nic.in/doit/presentation.pdf  

The National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) website mentions that NISG assisted the following state governments through the involvement of its empanelled consultant firms in the preparation of Capacity Building Road Maps (CBRM). Few of the states which took NISG's assistance in formulating the CBRM are given below:

1. Assam
2. Arunachal Pradesh
3. Chattisgarh
4. Delhi
5. Jharkhand
6. Karnataka
7. Maharashtra
8. Manipur
9. Meghalaya
10. Madhya Pradesh
11. Orissa
12. Punjab
13. Sikkim

This clearly indicates that these states would have e-governance roadmaps. While we were able to locate the e-governance roadmaps of some of these states, we could not find all of them on the Internet. Anyone who has access to them may please share them. We think all of them should be put on the DIT NeGP web page since these state road maps are after all a part of the overall NEGP system.

Best regards

Vivek

Vivek Vaidyanathan

IT for Change (ITfC)

Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities

Tel:(+91 80) 26654134, 26536890

Fax:(+91 80) 41461055

www.ITforChange.net