State sleeping over e-project for 2 years: Pilot to Dhumal

“It has been observed that the RFP for SDC is yet to be received from Himachal Pradesh even as the proposal had been duly approved by the Department of Information Technology (DIT) in March 2008,” says Pilot’s letter sent on June 7.

The Union minister told Dhumal: “Considering the importance of SDC to the success of NeGP,it is required that work related to various activities towards setting up of SDC is initiated urgently by your state. I personally request you to instruct the officers concerned to expedite the RFP submission for approval at the earliest.”

The CM,who appeared upset over the inability of the IT department to take steps for sending an RFP to the ministry,has summoned the file along with details of the steps taken so far.

According to Pilot’s letter,the NeGP envisages deployment of all e-governance applications and e-enabled citizens services in the state. The ministry has set out a target of making SDCs fully functional by June 2011 in all states and UTs.

Till now 26 states have already submitted the draft RFP to the DIT,of which 21 have been already cleared. Twenty RFPs have been published and 11 states have made significant progress by issuing the work order. Twelve SDCs will be made operational by December 2010 as the progress is being monitored by high level committee and reports are being sent regularly to the prime minister’s office (PMO),the Planning Commission and Cabinet secretariat on a fortnight basis.

Enquiries reveal that the state government is likely to get a support of nearly Rs 40 crore from the Centre in the SDC project and once it is made fully operational it will revolutionise citizens services,cut down delays and curb corruption.

A senior IT official said the slow pace of work on the construction of the building by HIMUDA,a government PSU,was the main cause of the delay,but the work on preparation of the RFP was already underway. “In fact,a draft document is ready to be sent to the Centre,” he said.