INDIA POST SET TO GET NEW TECH ADDRESSES
Arindam Ghosh, New Delhi
The Economic Times (Delhi edition)
Targeting improved postal services in India, the government has proposed setting up 12 automatic mail processing centres (AMPCs) in the country during the ongoing Five-Year Plan (2007-12). The AMPCs will have high speed sorting machines that will lead to quicker distribution of mails.
?The government has planned to invest Rs 275 crore to set up 12 automatic mail processing centres all over the country,? said a government official on condition of anonymity. The AMPCs are likely to come up in Delhi and Kolkata by the end of March 2010, the official said. By the end of the Plan period, AMPCs will come up in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubansehwar, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Kochi, Patna and Vashi, giving a boost to the efficiency of postal services all over the country, he said.
Recently, there were reports that India Post plans to invite consultants to help the loss-making institution acquire technology solutions, including software applications and computer hardware. The institutions also plans to spend around Rs2,300 crore on technology, according to the reports.
Two AMPCs are already functional in Mumbai and Chennai, which were established in 1993 and 1996 respectively.
?All the AMPCs will have highspeed sorting machines that can sort up to 30,000 letters in an hour,? the government official added. Under automatic mail processing, letters are sorted at a faster pace, leading to quicker distribution of mails. All the letters meant for automatic sorting must have a pin code and should be machinable.
The steps being planned to develop automatic mail processing centres is a part of the initiative taken by the government to modernise and upgrade the operations of the postal services and give a new corporate image to India Post.
E-FILING OF I-T RETURNS CATCHES UP, JULY SEES 1 LAKH NEW USERS
Shilpa Shree, Mumbai
Financial Chronicle
There is a sharp rise in the number of people filing income-tax returns online after the income-tax department clarified that there is no need to provide unique transaction number (UTN) this year.
3i Infotech Consumer Services, a subsidiary of Mumbai-based 3i Infotech, which is the only company handling e-filing of I-T returns of individual taxpayers, said the number has crossed 3 lakh, with around 1 lakh new users e-filing their tax returns in July. In 2008-09, the total number stood at 2 lakh.
The unique transaction number was supposed to be given out by the I-T department to employers, who paid tax for the year 2008-09. The department, though made it mandatory for taxpayers to quote the transaction number while filing returns, could not provide the unique number to employers.
3i Infotech is the only certified authority to provide online tax returns facility to individual customers. There are seven other certified authorities that offer digital signature services to companies and institutions. These include Tata Consultancy Services, Sify, Ncode (a Guajarat government-promoted company), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL), customs/excise departments, Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) and National Informatics Centre (NIC).
?For a long time, we did not see good response because the income tax authorities had not clarified the unique transaction number issue. But after they clarified, we are seeing almost 7,000 registration everyday, with around 3,000-3,500 people filing returns,? said Ravi Jagannathan, managing director and CEO of 3i Infotech Consumer Services.
PANCHAYATS TO BE COMPUTERISED BY 2010
Shimla
The Tribune
?The state is poised to give new dimensions to the use of information technology (IT) to deliver services to every citizen at their doorsteps as all the gram panchayats would have computers by the end of 2009-10.?This was stated by Forest Minister JP Nadda while presiding over the sixth meeting of the Cabinet sub-committee set up for monitoring and reviewing the implementation of the election manifesto, held here today.
?A total of 2,370 panchayats have already been provided computers in the first and second phase while the remaining 873 gram panchayats will be covered during the current financial year,? he stated.
While reviewing the progress of the Excise and Taxation Department it was informed that taxation procedure had been made transparent and practical. ?The Toll Policy-2009-10 has also been made flexible and toll tax being realised quarterly and yearly has been reduced by 50 percent for the people residing near the boundaries of the neighbouring states and are using their private vehicles,? he said.
Reviewing progress of the Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Department, Nadda said Rs. 322 crore has been utilised under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act during last year and about 2 crore-man days had been generated.
HANDS TIED, THANKS TO VINTAGE COMPUTERS
S Kushala, Bangalore
The Times of India (Bangalore edition)
The government initiative is good but there seems to be a problem in click-starting it.
The government on July 8, 2009, ordered that sub-registrars verify documents with the original survey sketches of agriculture lands by going online logging into the Bhoomi website and tallying the sketches with the documents submitted for registration.
But poor connectivity in the sub-registrars offices may make this initiative a non-starter.
The plus
Under Bhoomi, agriculture lands have been computerized and survey sketches are online. It will be easy for the sub-registrars to check the veracity of the documents.
The catch
Majority of the sub-registrar offices do not have upgraded computers and Internet connectivity is still a distant dream. The stamps and registration department has been talking big about computerisation since two years without much progress in that regard. Where is the Internet connection to log into the Bhoomi website? You cannot expect a sub-registrar to go in search of an internet cafe to log into the website and check the survey sketches. Even with the available computers, its difficult to manage, officials in the department pointed out.
The order
Special secretary (Bhoomi), revenue department, Rajeev Chawla. wrote to inspector general of registration and commissioner of stamps K R Niranjan on July 8, 2009: As you are aware, 11E sketches are now created through the Mojini computerized system in about 120 taluks. It is noted that sometimes, fake sketches are being submitted by certain parties to the sub-registrar. It is therefore advised that the sub-registrars check the authenticity of the 11E certificates by logging into the Bhoomi website and verify the genuineness of the 11E certificates by keying in the serial number of the certificates.
Subsequently, Niranjan on July 10, 2009 sent out circulars to all the sub-registrars to follow the order. Not all sub-registrar offices have upgraded systems. We have placed orders for complete computerisation of sub-registrar offices across the state and in the next 15 days, the computers will be supplied. In the second phase, Internet Connectivity will be provided, says Niranjan.
What is Bhoomi
Bhoomi meaning land is the flagship e-governance project of Karnataka, wherein agriculture land records are computerized and are available online.
2 crore land-records of 70 lakh farmers in 176 taluks have been computerised Designed by NIC, the project gives out Record of right, Tenancy and Crop certificate (RTC) to the land owners. A user fee of Rs 15 is charged per record.
Bhoomi incorporates the process of online updation, which has adopted state-of-the art bio-metric system that authenticates users based on their fingerprints.
SMART CARDS TO CHECK MISUSE FROM AUG 1
Bangalore
The Times of India (Bangalore edition)
To avoid misuse of ration cards, the government will issue permanent ration cards along with smart cards from August 1 this year.
Food, civil supplies and consumer affairs minister H Halappa on Tuesday said the process of issuing permanent ration cards was already on in four districts Dakshina Kannada , Udupi, Kodagu and C h i k m a g a l u r. Though the Centre has fixed the limit of the below poverty line (BPL) cards at 32 lakh, the state has issued 1.06 crore BPL cards, making it obvious the lacunae in the system.
To avoid misuse of cards, he said the government had planned to issue smart cards along with ration cards. The smart cards will have the names and thumb impressions of the beneficiaries. The beneficiary should go to the shop, prove their identity through thumb impression and buy the ration.
Halappa said they had already started the pilot project to issue smart cards at 20 Points of Sale. We have allocated Rs 10 crore for the project. After the pilot, we will extend it to the entire state, he added.
RS 345 CRORE NABARD LOAN FOR RURAL PROJECTS IN STATE
Jaipur
The Times of India
The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has sanctioned a loan of Rs 345.47 crore for infrastructure projects in the state under Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) for the current year. This includes one rural drinking water scheme in Jodhpur, 237 e-Vikas Kendras in 22 districts and construction of 65 hostels for disadvantaged groups in all the districts.
The drinking water project in Jodhpur is meant for 6,78,825 villagers in 113 villages. The e-Vikas Kendras will serve as nodal IT centres for exchange of information between state headquarters and the blocks. They will also act as common service centres (CSC) to provide a single-window approach to facilitate various government to citizens (G2C) services at the block level.
The proposed investment for construction of hostels would create healthy learning environs for the students. This would enhance the quality of education and reduce dropout rates.
No comments:
Post a Comment