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.