Uttar Pradesh achieves 3.70 crore e-transactions via State Portal

Uttar Pradesh, home to nearly 200 mn citizens of India is aiming to provide smart governance to all its citizens. The state is taking various initiatives to digitally empower every citizen in line with the ‘Digital India’ programme. The state government’s vision is to transform Uttar Pradesh, into a digitally empowered society and a thriving knowledge economy.

The goal of the state administration is to create a system where there is no physical interface between citizens and government staff, and all services are delivered at the doorstep and/or electronically via the computer, mobile phone or tablet to the applicant. Going forward, the state government has fixed a target to add 90 more services to be provided through Common Service Centres and Lokvani centres.

The e-District project is being rolled out in the 69 districts while it was already implemented in six districts in 2008. Under the state-wide rollout, e-Governance cells/ computer labs are being established in each district headquarters with 14 computers, each tehsil with four computers, each block with three computers and laptops are being provided to each SDM and Tehsildar for improving efficiency through an end-to-end automated system.

The IT Policy of Uttar Pradesh released in 2012 and the Electronics Manufacturing Policy 2014 aim at reinforcing the position of the state as an attractive destination for IT and Electronics sectors. These policies have led to creation of a more conducive business environment.

Uttar Pradesh is currently focused on developing necessary infrastructure, develop human capital, proactively engage with investors and ensure effective policy implementation. The IT Policy 2012 is helping to develop Agra and Lucknow as IT hubs under PPP (Public-Private Partnership) arrangements with leading organisations. As per the policy, all IT companies establishing their units in the state are eligible for 100 per cent exemption from Stamp Duty and 5 per cent interest subsidy (not exceeding Rs. 1 crore) for a period of five years.

CMR’s research based on engagement with stakeholders across Government Departments and PSUs in Uttar Pradesh, highlights some ‘pain points’ encountered by stakeholders. These range from capacity building to infrastructure and networking issues, from IT system challenges to issues of broadband connectivity and legacy IT systems.

Commenting on the developments, Pradeep Gupta, chairman, CyberMedia Group said, “We are happy to receive the whole-hearted support of Govt. of Uttar Pradesh and our technology partner, Dell. We are committed to encourage debate on and adoption of scalable ICT infrastructure and solutions, to deliver ease and convenience to citizens, customers and stakeholders. We believe the coming months and years will see many transformative models emerge, as a result of successful collaboration between government organisations, India’s vast and vibrant public sector and technology vendors.”