Babus foil Buddha146;s e-kiosk plans

West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee8217;s ambitious e-governance project, under which citizens were to be given an internet ...

West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee8217;s ambitious e-governance project, under which citizens were to be given an internet interface with the government via private-run kiosks, has been grounded by his own bureaucrats. True to form, no government department is willing to supply the forms that were supposed to be made available by the 82-odd kiosks supporting the portal, called Banglarmukh, or Face of Bengal.

Now, the kiosk owners have decided to go in for arbitration against Webel, the nodal government agency that promoted the scheme. Each e-kiosk owner invested around Rs 1 lakh, with the expectation of earning fees from people who wish to download forms, browse for government tenders and notices, or send email to government officials.

A kiosk owner, Biswaranjan Jena, said customers have not been able to download a single form, as the government departments have not supplied the formats. 8216;8216;There has been no revenue generation and we were left high and dry after investing around Rs 80,000 to Rs 1 lakh,8217;8217; Jena said.

The project is a 70:30 joint venture between Tata Consultancy Services and Webel, on a cost-and revenue-sharing basis, and is the first step of a five-year e-governance project. The kiosk owners were asked to pay a licence fee of Rs 40,000 a year, in return for the right to charge a nominal fee for their services. While the portal itself is accessible by any Internet user, services like forms are available only through the special kiosks.

The Chief Minister inaugurated the portal on January 8, with the promise of a host of services in its first phase 8212; viewing and downloading of government tenders, email services, agriculture-related services and even direct communication with officials. Webel involved TCS to function as an application services provider ASP for e-enabling applications for various government departments.

Minister for Information Technology Manabendra Mukherjee admitted that there are some problems with the portal. 8216;8216;We hope to solve them in the next one month,8217;8217; Mukherjee said.

Webel officials said the main hurdle is the lack of an institutional mechanism to co-ordinate the various activities of the 54 government departments.

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The government expects the project to catch on and reach every citizen after four years, complete with payment gateways and facilities for retail transactions.

TCS has disclaimed all responsibility for the failure of the kiosks. However, the company said, there is no question of TCS walking out of the project.