E-Governance News: 29/4/10

ID PROGRAMME FACES FIRST CHALLENGE OVER PRIVACY, DATA
Venkatesha Babu & Karen Leigh, Bangalore/New Delhi
Mint  

In the first significant challenge to the government’s ambitious programme to give more than one billion Indians a unique identification number, a group of NGOs are planning to take the government to court over a range of issues, including concerns over privacy and the safety of information. About 100 NGOs, including Alternative Law Forum, Centre for Internet and Society, have come together to oppose the implementation of the project in its current form.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) “is not a statutory body, not having been created by any Act or under any law, but by executive fiat”, he said. “It is set up as an appendage to the Planning Commission. It cannot be scrutinized either by Parliament or the Comptroller and Auditor General.” In what had been expected to become a hurdle to the project, those against it are citing data protection and privacy, factors that led to the failure of a similar initiative in the UK.

IT ROAD MAP FOR GOA IN 6 MONTHS
Panaji
The Hindu

The Goa government will form an IT Task Force to create an IT road map for Goa within six months. Chief Minister Digambar Kamat made this announcement here at an interactive programme with the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) on Tuesday.

IT TRAINING COS VIE FOR UID DEAL
New Delhi
The Economic Times

The announcement by Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) of a large IT and biometrics training tender to train over 1 lakh enrolling agents on Wednesday has thrown up new opportunities for large training companies like NIIT, Aptech and Jetking, spread across the country.

The UIDAI plans to train about 1.04 lakh agents and will need about 430 centres across major capitals in the country over the next four years. Each enrollment centre would have to complete at least 60 enrollments to complete the massive target of enrolling 1.2 billion people by 2014-15.

India’s largest IT training company NIIT is already is making plans to bid for the project. Second largest IT training company Aptech CEO Ninad Karpe said that his company would bid for both testing and training components of the project.

 

E-Governance : 28/4/10

I-T DEPARTMENT, UIDAI AGREE ‘IN-PRINCIPLE’ TO ROLL OUT PAN CARDS
New Delhi Business Standard  

The Income Tax department and the Unique Identification Authority of India have agreed “in-principle” to come together for rolling out PAN cards with unique 16-digit Aadhaar number. Official sources said both the UIDAI headed by Nandan Nilekani and the finance ministry has held series of meetings on the subject and are now in the process of working out the modalities.

This collaboration might pave the way for the delayed biometric PAN cards, an initiative proposed by the then finance minister P. Chidambaram in 2006 to counter the problem of duplicate PAN cards which were uncovered during IT searches and raids by police and other enforcement agencies. It could also, however, cap the plan as the UID number itself will cut out the duplicates.

SPENDING ON E-GOVERNANCE MUST FOR GOVT DEPARTMENTS
Mumbai
Hindustan Times

The state government has asked all its departments to spend one percent of their annual outlay on e-governance. The government said that the reserve fund will help departments offer people easy access to administration and also enhance governance. This step has been taken to keep the state ahead in e-governance. The Centre has also adjudged the state as a leader state while complementing it for implementing e-governance in its 'India e-readiness assessment report'.

BIOMETRIC PASSPORTS
The Tribune

Forged documents, especially those used in international travel, are a major security breach since monitoring people after they have disembarked is very difficult in any democratic nation. As such, it is a matter of concern that according to the Home Ministry, 865 such cases were detected at international airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Amritsar in 2008. The government’s comfort bid regarding issuing of machine-readable passports, installation of passport-reading machines and immigration control system software to verify the details of passengers and to prevent impersonation notwithstanding, there is an urgent need to be more alert at our airports, which are effectively our borders for international travellers.