GOVT RESUMES TALKS WITH WORLD BANK ON E-BHARAT
The Hindu Business Line
Signalling the end of a deadlock, the Department of IT (DIT) has restarted discussions with the World Bank to work on a revised framework and modalities for the operationalisation of e-governance support project ‘e-Bharat'.
Sources said that initial discussions on e-Bharat could not reach a firm conclusion as the World Bank had put certain conditions with regard to the management of the project.
E-Bharat objectives are the same as those of National eGovernance Plan, albeit at a smaller scale. The project is expected to contribute to improving government effectiveness, empowering marginalised communities, increasing fiscal revenue, reducing public procurement costs and promoting private sector led growth through Public Private Partnership (PPP).
Sources said that although discussion had been held even earlier for a possible assistance of $300 million, the two sides could not agree on the framework for implementation as the World Bank purportedly was insisting on certain conditions to manage the project. For instance, against a hands-on project management approach being favoured by the World Bank, the DIT was pushing for a programme mode where assistance could be linked to targets or milestones.
“The differences are now resolved. There have also been some rounds of discussions on the new framework,” sources pointed out.
E-Bharat was aimed at supporting DIT in programme management and also specific support to certain projects (commercial taxes and PDS) by States such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
In fact, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT, in its latest report last week noted, that e-Bharat project was “in trouble”. It recommended that the issue should be “pursued with World Bank” so that the project is implemented with the financial support given by World Bank, keeping in view the significant efforts including sizeable resource put in by DIT and other Ministries and participating States for the timely completion of the project preparation activities.
MID-MKT IT FIRMS GET A PLATFORM TO TAP BIZ
Chennai/Bangalore
Business Standard
The Indian and German government have agreed to promote a new bilateral technical cooperation initiative to support the introduction of high quality eGovernance and eBusiness services in the IT-SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) sector.
The project “Economic Development though eGovernance” is jointly promoted by the Directorate for Standardisation, Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) of the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) and GTZ.
The objective of this project is to improve the competitiveness of IT-SMEs through the use of eGovernance, eBusiness and ICT services. This, in turn, shall lead to increased quality and business opportunities and, as a desired impact, to the creation of income and employment opportunities in the sector.
According to a statement, IT SMEs can get connected to IT majors for outsourcing opportunities, increase the competitiveness of their company through knowledge and skill upgrade and educate themselves about legal framework beneficial to IT SMEs.
“This initiative will also enable the firm to educate themselves on the business orientation and management skills, share the new technologies used globally |and gain credibility through certifications and revenue through business connection with eGov projects,” the statement added.
E-FILING OF RETURNS FROM JANUARY
Kolkata/Bhubaneswar
Business Standard
The Orissa government will introduce the e-filing of returns and e-challan for the dealers in the state starting from 1 January, 2010. The finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai has approved a proposal in this regard. Initially, this will be launched as a pilot project using the portal of the State Bank of India (SBI) and the system is proposed to be expanded to all the areas of the state later, Ghadai told the media.
Sources said, the Commercial Tax department and the directorate of treasuries and inspection are in the process of developing separate portals to facilitate e-payment of taxes and e-challan. Once the process is completed, it will be possible for traders and other people to pay different taxes and government fees routed through the treasuries through these portals. It may be noted, the directorate of treasuries and inspection is working on a plan to issue ‘electronic receipt’ for government taxes and fees.
The Computer Maintenance Corporation Ltd (CMC), the software developer for Orissa Treasury Management System (OTMS), has already been roped in to execute the project. Under the proposed system, there will not be any restriction on access and effort will be made to make the system as simple as possible. The new system will enable the dealers to file the return and pay the tax from their own offices.
Stating that out of 1,24,906 dealers in the state, only 47 percent of the dealers are filing return, he said, 53 percent dealers are defaulters. Keeping that in view, the month of ‘November’ was observed as the month of registration for dealers.
MP WINS E-GOVERNANCE MANTHAN AWARD-2009
The Pioneer
Madhya Pradesh has won
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