Bihar wins National Award for e-governance

'Jankari', a Bihar government project to empower people with information under RTI over telephone, has bagged the National award for e-governance.

"The award will be given to the state government's unique project, Jankari Call Centre under Right to Information Act (RTI), on February 12 this year at the national conference on e-governance in Goa," Amir Subhani, Principal Secretary, Personnel, told reporters here.

Bihar is the first state to start the Jankari project, a brain child of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, which enables people living in remote corners of the state to make applications under RTI through a telephone call, Subhani said.

The operators receiving the calls in call centres draft the applications under RTI and send it to the public authorities for providing requisite information to applicants.

During the two years of its existence, the call centre received 22,600 calls of which 7,070 were to submit applications under RTI, 3016 calls for filing first appeal and 1,400 calls for filing second appeals before the state information commission, Subhani said.

Admitting that the ratio of applications received from rural areas was less in comparison to those received from Patna due to poor dissemination of the programme and poor connectivity of BSNL landline phones, the secretary said that the department had taken steps to correct the problems.

The state government, he said, was taking steps through its public relations department to make people aware of the programme.

The state government had given a slide presentation of the Jankari programme in Delhi on January 19 before a jury who appreciated the state government's efforts, Subhani said.

The award would be given by the Department of Administrative Reforms under Ministry of Personnel, New Delhi. link