State takes a beating in e-governance

The state which always led in e-governance till three years ago has now been downgraded to the ninth place. It has now been displaced by comparatively less-progressive states like Assam and Uttrarakhand due to the lack of competitive leadership and sheer negligence on part of the government, say sources.

Recent survey conducted by leading IT magazine Dataquest and IDC have revealed the deteriorating position of the state in the field of e-governance. The survey which had scoring on four different categories, talks about e-governance, citizen satisfaction, e-readiness and business satisfaction. Except for citizens’ satisfaction, Maharashtra does not score in the other categories.

The survey points to the need for assessing the availability of ICT infrastructure, the rollout of e-gov projects in the 20 select Indian states. Goa tops the e-governance scorecard with 72.83 points followed by Karnataka (66.69), Delhi (65.67), Gujarat (63.05) and Andhra Pradesh (62.82). Maharashtra has scored 58.63 points, based on the study conducted in phases including survey of citizens, business organisations, state IT secretaries and heads of State Nodal IT agencies.

Maharashtra could not meet with the satisfaction of businesses as it could not find a place in the first three states in 17 services taken into account for the survey. Karnataka tops the chart in business registration, small business assistance, government tenders and contracts, incentives and grants. The state came in 11th in the category of business satisfaction.

E-readiness also has let the state down with it scoring a meagre 38.41 per cent. Goa was the top scorer again with 71.41 per cent followed by Delhi and Andhra Pradesh with 70.21 and 53.97 per cent. The only respite was Maharashtra stood fourth with a percentage of 67 in the citizen satisfaction in e-governance category. Three thousand and thirty three citizens and business houses were interviewed for the survey.

The poor performance of the state was due to the negligence said officials from state government’s IT department.

“Incompetent officials and lack of vision in planning and implementation has is the reason for the failure. No new project has been undertaken in last three years,” the official said. He also added that at least a dozen competent officials who were technically trained have left the department on getting attractive incentives from private firms.