$10 Billion e-governance program in India

Mumbai: In an attempt to provide better services to its citizens, the Indian government plans to spend $10-billion on the National e-Governance program, according to Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Additional Secretary, S.R. Rao. "The government has committed about $10-billion to this program, of which composite of some investment is coming from private partners and also from the state governments," he said.

According to Rao, the current plan to spend $10 billion may go up as new investments come in, reports PTI. "In this current financial year, it could be to the order of Rs. 5,000-6,000-crore at the minimum but I think it would be as large as Rs. 8,000-crore," he said. In 2006, the government approved the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) comprising of 27 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) and eight components.

"E-Governance will be promoted as a centralized initiative, to the extent necessary, to ensure citizen service orientation, to realize the objective of inter-operability of various e-Governance applications and to ensure optimal utilization of ICT infrastructure or resources," Rao added.