Bihar's unique attempt to accept Right to Information (RTI) applications through phone calls - Jaankari - has been selected by the Centre for the first prize (gold) for "outstanding performance in citizen centric service delivery" under its e-Governance project for the year 2008-09.
Incidentally, 11 of the total 18 National Awards for e-Governance under different categories this year have gone to NDA-ruled states with Gujarat taking the lead with five prizes, including one gold, one silver and three bronze.
Announcing the annual awards, minister of state for personnel Prithviraj Chavan said: "These awards are given to recognize and promote excellence in implementation of e-governance initiatives."
Under the category of citizen-centric service delivery in which Bihar won the gold for Jaankari, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh were selected got the bronze for their e-krishi-kisan (Agricultural University, Anand) and HIMPOL (state police website), respectively.
Praising the Bihar government's citizen-centric service delivery project "Jaankari — RTI facilitation on phone", Chavan said: "In this, you can make a phone call and the call centre person will keep all the details. The cost of the RTI application will be deducted by adding it to the phone call charges." He said the Delhi government had also shown an interest in implementing the project.
The awards to these states will be given away during the 12th National Conference on e-Governance in Goa on February 12-13.
On excellence in government process re-engineering, Chhattisgarh's department of food and civil supplies bagged the first prize while in the exemplary horizontal transfer of best practice the first prize went to Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.
Nagpur Municipal Corporation, the national panchayat portal of the ministry of panchayati raj and the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, Hyderabad, won awards in the category of best government websites. Tripura, Karnataka and Haryana were the other states which won awards in different categories for their efforts towards promoting e-governmence for the benefit of citizens.
Chavan said as part of Centre's initiative to streamline the official websites, the government has issued guidelines for all official portals which will help people to get required information easily.
As part of the government's e-governance plan, 27 mission mode projects would be rolled out across the country with an outlay of Rs 20,175 crore. Out of this, 16 projects have already been cleared by the Union Cabinet with an outlay of Rs 10,626 crore.link
Showing posts with label Right to Information Act. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Right to Information Act. Show all posts
Saturday 7 February 2009
Thursday 29 January 2009
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
"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
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