E-Governance - making some headway to help common man As per the mandate of the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, all the central ministries and departments have a website of their own. Of the ministries & departments with key G2C (government-to-Citizen) processes, about 69% are using Website to directly connect to the common man and 64% have implemented email as a mode of interaction. As regards automation of these G2C processes, about 15% have already automated and integrated these into their IT system. Another 50-70% have partly automated their G2C processes and are on their way to integrating it with their internal processes. This is as per a recent study undertaken by the eTechnology Group@IMRB International for the Department of IT. There has been a slew of silent activity among these Central ministries and departments in carrying forward these G2C programmes. Some of the projects currently implemented have already begun to make impact on the lives of the common man. The Ministry of Railways has been at the forefront and has smoothened its customer interface by implementing passenger reservation system (PRS) all over the country. Some of the other projects are National Train Enquiry System (NTES), Unreserved Ticketing system (UTS), Freight Operating Information System (FOIS) that allows freight customers to track the consignments as they move over Railway system. The Department of Post has also taken significant strides to provide postal, banking and insurance services to the common man. Some of the recent projects include (a) VSAT network for speedy money order transmission was established linking about 2500 Post Offices. (b) Speednet service to provide on line tracking facility to speed post customers, also internet based "speed net" had been launched in Jan 2002. In this the citizen can trace his speed post article status using a bar code in Internet. The Department of Land Resources has undertaken computerization of land records for the four years and is in the process of strengthening the revenue administration and updating of land records. Interestingly, the Department of Tourism has installed Touch Screen Kiosk to enable tourist to get ready access to information. The department has installed 60 touch screen kiosks at various tourist related places such as airports, railway stations, hotels, FRRO, airline booking offices etc. The kiosks are of 2 types. One that is a general purpose multimedia type and second is a GIS based kiosk. This plots road maps and given specific road routes and distances to guide the tourist. The department has also implemented a 24/7 Interactive Voice response system (IVR) at regional offices at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkatta to enable tourists to get information by dialing specified numbers. Not to be left along, the Ministry of Urban Development has also undertaken steps to help the government servants providing them with unique Allottee Account Number (AAN) to each allottee of government accommodation to facilitate accounting. The DDOs submit the monthly license fee recoveries statements through e-mail / floppy which are used to directly update the databse. Monthly license fee recoveries along with other details are kept in the web-site of the Directorate for reference by the allottees to check completeness and accuracy. The Directorate will also use the AAN number as a reference key for the allottee for various purposes related to allotment of accommodation. The system also allows a Computerized Complaint Registration and Monitoring Information System (CCRMIS) which has been developed and implemented for CPWD. The system allows registration of complaints pertaining to service requirements by residents of government accommodation through interactive voice response system (IVRS) on telephone and also through web. It also allows monitoring of complaints by senior officers of CPWD through web. While significant headway is being made thanks to the glamour surrounding IT technology, it is hoped that such technologies will not only facilitate the life of the common man but also bring about changes in the quality of service delivered and the much-needed transparency in government interactions.