Maharashtra government to use information technology tools to scour voters’ lists

Times of India: Mumbai: Sunday, 04 May 2014.

The state information technology department has proposed a cleaning up of the voters' lists through data analysis, data de-duplication, use of face-matching algorithm, use of GIS, linking with UID etc. It also wants the chief electoral officer to use citizen facilitation centres for addition/deletion of names and printing of voters' identity cards.

Since 2010-11, the state has mandated every department to utilize 0.5% of its budget to implement e-governance to introduce efficiency and transparency in services for citizens. With the computerization of every department nearly complete, the IT department has now prepared a road map on what should be achieved by 48 different departments when it talks of e-governance; it issued a caveat that this would be a draft road map that would evolve.

For the chief minister's office, the IT department wants an online tracking system for complaints filed with the chief minister and an online system for disbursement and monitoring of the chief minister's fund.

It has set a deadline of June 2014 for all Mantralaya departments to ensure online submissions of RTI applications. The deadline for the rest of the state is set at March 2015. It has also stressed on end-to-end computerization of town-planning and implementation of the smart cities concept for the state urban development department. It has proposed a web based application for MP/MLA funds and a Maharashtra Plan Schemes Information Management System. Maharashtra has already achieved the distinction of floating 72,000 tenders worth Rs 68,000 crore through e-tenders. The IT department has also implemented the MahaGov Cloud at the state data centre.

Activist Utsal Karani, secretary Janhit Manch, said the use of information technology could help curb corruption drastically provided it is implemented well. "While the Centre's public grievance portal works excellently, the BMC has failed to implement e-governance effectively despite having spent crores. No building plan is accepted in soft form. The RTI Act mandates that all decisions must be present on the website, which is not true of BMC. So merely preparing a roadmap does not help. Ensuring its implementation is more important,'' he said.