'E-governance is not just digitising age-old admn processes'

New Delhi, Jan 30 (UNI) Cautioning the government against mindless computerisation without modernising the age-old processes of governance, the Knowledge Commission has advised it to see in e-governanace an opportunity for administrative reforms.

In the Commission's view, to begin with, important processes like issuance of death/birth certificates, proof of residence and ration and ID cards which impact citizens most in their daily life should be simplified and then made available as web-based services.

Later on, more services can be taken up for simplification, it said in its first annual report submitted to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently.

''At present the e-governance efforts are primarily based on computerising age-old processes left behind by the British rule and compounded by a plethora of new layers and silos by India Bureaucracy,'' said the commission headed by Sam Pitroda, the architect of the country's telecom revolution.

''Simply digitising the existing government processes merely adds an additional layer of expense, complexity, delay and confusion,'' it said.

Redesigning the governance will drastically reduce the numbers and duration of successive steps required to obtain services. It will also provide traceable records, ensure accountability, efficiency and productivity, as well as transparency of policies and processes, it thinks.

The Commission has also called for standardisation of these administrative processes all over the country.

At present, various state governments were chosing their own ways of selectively computersing their processses which was creating inconvenience to users.

It says national standards should be designed carefully by teams of experts drawn from the governement, IT companies, academia, Research and Design institutions and users and stakeholders, who understand latest trends and technology.

A great deal of work has already been done in various Central ministries and in state governments. The key is to learn from these and design best practices available, the report said.

For redesiging the processes of governanace, the Commission has also recommended creation of an appropriate central organisation with structures that can operate in a mission mode, with full autonomy and accountablity.

''NKC is convinced that e-governanace is more about an opportunity for administrative reforms than merely about electronics and information technology and infrastructure,'' it said winding up its recommendations.

The Knowledge Commision is a high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister. It has been mandated to guide policy and direct reforms, focusing on certain key areas such as education, science and technology, agriculture, industry, e-governance among others.

Easy access to knowledge, creation and preservation of knowledge systems, dissemination of knowledge and better knowledge services are core concerns of the Commission.

The Commission was constituted on June 30, 2005 with a time-frame of three years.

UNI