eGovernance project of Deptt of Co-operation, Government of Madhya Pradesh wins CSI-Nihilent Award 2012-13

The department of Co-operation of Madhya Pradesh started its initiatives in 2007-08 to adopt Information Technology as the most effective enabler. The department conferred upon NIC, Bhopal to build an online solution with citizen centric interface that could cater for the problems the department was facing in ensuring G2C, G2G and G2E services to all the concerned stakeholders due to the incapability of traditional manual systems of getting information and in decision making thereafter. The NIC came up with a robust web enabled portal cum MIS, namely e-Cooperatives (www.mpsc.mp.nic.in/ecooperatives) with citizen centric interface.

The Department of Co-operation, MP has 37000+ numbers of cooperative societies. Thus the department had a very cumbersome job to gather the complete database, lying in segmented state at various field offices, through manual processes of all these co-operative societies particularly in terms with meeting of various requirements. Thus the requirement of planning and management of societies was very tedious, and department had to use not only vast amount of manual data, but also vast amount of stationery apart from the repeated non-productive use of human resources, thus rendering the whole process as highly time consuming. This process was liable to be repeated every month or rather at any time of exigency of arranging of certain meeting etc. with a very marginal time limit, with the compulsions of capturing records through offline means only, and that too without standards and without stakeholders' full-fledged participation.

Thus the subtle efforts were ensured for bringing in change management for the officers/employees of the department to work in the IT environment, coupled with induction of government process re-engineering. With this perspective and with a view to give a fillip to its initiative in department's ICT enablement , the department nominated and sent me to National Institute of Smart Governance (NISG), Hyderabad for the three months an GoI ambitious and rigorous eGovernance training programme, "eGovernment Champions' Training Programme".

The portal has, till now, records of more than 33000 societies and this is a big achievement to gather the database of this huge number of societies. The data related with other facets of overall working of societies is regularly being entered. In the G2C facet of the portal, system of online application for registration of co-operative society has been introduced. In the G2E arena of the portal, the e-Service Books of the officers/ employees are under construction and regular data entry is being done for 2000+ number of incumbents of the department. The login and passwords information for each individual has been communicated. This shall ensure transparency in overall personnel matters of incumbents.

The roadmap of the department in ICT enablement and in further enhancement of the portal services will have digital inclusion of all members of all societies, officers, field and ministerial employees. Apart from this, the various citizen services that are taken care of cooperative societies shall be gradually made available on this portal. The service delivery channels of PACS will be made available on this portal once the data of PACS is digitized.

The project was conceptualized and taken care of by me right from the beginning under the able guidance of Shri Ajit Kesari, IAS, PS (Cooperation), Shri Maneesh Srivastava, IAS, RCS and Shri Ajay Dixit, Addl Commissioner (IT)

It is really a privilege for me to apprise you all that this e-Cooperative project (an e-Governance project and MIS, built by NIC, Bhopal) of department of Co-operation (GoMP) has been nominated for CSI-Nihilent e-Governance award (2012-13) under the title of "Appreciation". The award will be presented on 14^th Dec at Vishakhapatnam as part of 48^th Annual Convention of Computer Society of India.

RFID TECHNOLOGY: IT IS SMALL, IT IS SMART

I happened to read some marvelous articles on how the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology was doing in various sectors, including service sector and commerce/industry sector. Though I was so very well aware of the role this particular ICT was playing not only in object tracking and supply chain management system, but in various other service sectors also, and the world was not enough. Just, to reckon and beckon a few:

• Traffic, Transportation and ticketing: This means Toll collection at highways and automatic vehicle location tracer. Obviously, this includes the ticketing system at Delhi metro and other metro trains. Further, in India, a committee headed by Mr. Nandan Nilekani (head of India's UID project) has recommended adopting passive RFID technology of ETC (Electronic Toll Collection) to address delays and congestion at toll collection points, besides blocking the nearly Rs 300 crore annual revenue leakage of the National Highway Authority of India. The proposal has been accepted.

• Healthcare: Pharmaceutical companies and hospitals need technology to combat drug counterfeiting which needs improved visibility throughout the supply chain. Further, RFID Tags on the instruments and readers on the sterilization chambers and storage cabinets can help tell us the status of proper cleaning. Apart from this, the patient identification and location assistance are sometime very necessary in view of rendering special health services even from a distance.

• Warehousing including Warehousing and Transportation for PDS: RFID has proved itself a great facilitator for Public Distribution System. The various shortfalls of the PDS supply chain have been attempted to be trounced by the ICT tools, primarily online communications, mobile technology, Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and RFID. Maharastra state government has also been pioneer in the initiative and has, reportedly, collaborated with Spanco to computerize complete PDS supply chain, through a grand ICT project, expected to complete by year 2012. The project shall use locationing technology such as RFID and GPS to identify and monitor the movement of the produce and streamline PDS activities. RFD is considered as one time solution to all supply chain related problems.

• Retailing and Supply Chain Management: Probably this is the most important sector, where RFID has already proved itself an integral part of the strategy of enhancement of total business revenues, by cutting across various expenses related with maintenance tracking and minimizing  of store inventory. As a result, it provide vendors with real-time visibility of their inventory at various stages in the supply chain, which in turn, enables the vendors to minimize inventory ageing

I find, how beautifully the overall behavioral patterns of commerce could have been shaped into a mammoth success with the use of RFID tags. Various success stories of industries, service and government sector which made a high altitudinal difference in the balance sheets on one hand and quality of outcomes (not of outputs), as a result of introducing the RFID technology in their functional architecture have proved beyond doubt that RFID was a key enabler and prime factor to enthuse competitiveness in overall scenario of their attempts to accomplish something big, and be different from others.

My concern in writing this blog was somehow to explore various avenues and fields in various sectors where the technology was being used. In brevity, the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology that is meant to make use of Radio Frequencies to identify uniquely and automatically some commodity, group of commodity, individual or group of items. A basic RFID system consists of three main components: a tag containing a microprocessor; a reader and its antennas; and one computer equipped with a middleware program where the corresponding software takes care of all the data and follows the business rules of that organization, as coded therein.

There is big difference, rather no comparison, between RFID and traditional Automatic Identification and Data Capture i.e. AIDC (bar coding and the like). The most important advantage of using RFID is that RFID tag requires no manual tracing since it creates an object level identification. The core competencies of RFID technology are, but not limited to, multiple tags objects reading capability; more and more data storage capability with data read/write capabilities interwoven.

In short, RFID is a tool which provides a 'unique identification' or UID or AADHAR for living and non-living, both. It is very cost-effective in terms of the results it provides for decision making on one hand and monitoring various objectives and parameter, on the other, of any organization of various fields as mentioned above. The real-time data transfer and data collection ensuring sharing thereof among multiple stakeholders including intra-and inter-organizational business processes is possible through RFID.

As per a report from Business Standard, three key factors have driven a significant increase in RFID usage, i.e decreased cost of equipment and tags, increased performance to a reliable 99.9 per cent and a stable international standard around UHF passive tags. Passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) tags cost anywhere between Rs 30 and Rs 80 per tag but can last for up to two decades. Similar Chinese tags cost Rs 12-20 but their range and durability could be lower. This report says that the estimated market size of the RFID industry in India is estimated around Rs 450-500 crore and said to be growing at 30 per cent per annum.

But the use of RFID in one field, which has probably been unnoticed hitherto in Madhya Pradesh, and which prompted to write me this blog was: RFID IN CATTLES, rather RFID TECHNOLOGY IN THE SERVICE OF DAIRY SECTOR. As per an article from rfidjounal, tracking cows and other milch animals in dairies was one of the first applications of radio frequency identification. Currently, RFID is being employed by many dairies worldwide, for a variety of applications. Chitale Dairy, in Maharashtra (India), is using a system developed at Bombay Veterinary College that combines RFID and cell-phone technologies to track data related to the health of cows. A RFID tag is punched on ear of cow and it sends information about her daily dietary needs and feeding details, among many other information, to a radio sensor located inside the farm premises. This, in turn, communicates with computer systems at the BG Chitale Dairy located in Bhilavadi village of Sangli, Maharashtra. The data collected by this system is then accessed in real time by dairy managers and other supervisors for carrying out specific activities, such as monitoring the health and changing the nutritional mix. This process is done for all the cattle in the Chitale Dairy.

Thousands of milk farmers in India in Maharashtra and Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu are becoming a part of a technology revolution that can have a far reaching impact on milk productivity of the Indian dairy industry.

RFID is small, but smart. 

WE NEED TO PUSH MORE

As per the information of CWET (Centre for Wind Energy Technology) , GoI, the total capacity of wind electricity installed in India as on 31-03-2010 was 11806.69 MW. The details are given below:

Sl. No	State	Capacity in MW
1	Tamil Nadu	4906.74
2	Karnataka	1472.75
3	Maharashtra	2077.70
4	Rajasthan	1088.37
5	Andhra Pradesh	136.05
6	Madhya Pradesh	229.39
7	Kerala	27.75
8	Gujarat	1863.64
9	West Bengal	1.10
10	Others	3.20
	Total	11806.69

As per the report from Los Angeles Times, The American Wind Energy Association says China's total capacity to create electricity from its wind turbine installations come to 41,800 megawatts, while American-based turbines can put out 40,180 megawatts. Thus U.S. is behind China in wind power energy

The association said the U.S. wind market ended 2010 with 5,115 megawatts of new installations, just half of the record amount put up in 2009. And as 2011 began, about 5,600 megawatts of wind power capacity was under construction.

To date, 38 U.S. states have built utility-scale wind projects, with Texas at the top with 10,085 megawatts of capacity.

To Municipalities – Hotels built and run purely on environmentally friendly initiatives – One of such few cases

The Rodas (an EcoTel Hotel) in Powai (Powai, Mumbai) belonging to the EcoTel group of hotels (an international collection of hotels and resorts) claims to being eco-friendly,  and the case study undertaken by EcoTel team reveals some startling outcomes arisen out of wonderful inspiring initiatives. (Courtesy: http://powai.info/2010/04/28/what-makes-rodas-ecotel-powai-eco-friendly/).

Building Construction

·         The hotel’s façade with its dual layers i.e. external arches and columns and internal walls and glazed windows, increases the insulation for the building envelope, reducing energy losses.

·         The position of building, being erected in such a way that the centre-point of its parabolic shape faces the north-east, plays an important role in reducing the effect of direct sunlight and thus helps the hotel save on the energy requirement for air-conditioning and lighting.

·         The cement used throughout the building is Portland Pozzalana (PPC), which uses 25% fly ash, a by-product of electric power generation.

·         All the wood used is either rubber wood  or medium density fibre (from the waste stalks of the cotton tree).

 

Rodas EcoTel Waste Management:

The management has laid emphasis on reducing waste at source by ensuring that the guest laundry is lightly folded and delivered to the guests in jute baskets, and not in plastic or paper covers. Further the kitchen waste is systematically and carefully segregated according to the four-bin system, and food waste is sent for composting. Guestrooms feature two bins – one for recyclables and another for non-recyclables. It is noticeable that sale of vermin compost as produced from such waste management generates an additional income.

 

Rodas EcoTel Energy Management

·         No use of boilers to heat water: The excess heat generated by the air conditioners is reused to heat water up to 50°C.

• The chilled water obtained from the air-conditioning system of the hotel is reused in general consumption after it is purified using ultra-violet rays.
• A power factor at at 0.97 to 0.99 is maintained which accrues a discount from local utility company. It encourages energy savings.

Rodas EcoTel Environment Commitment

• All refrigeration units use the gases 134A and 404A, which have zero ozone depletion potential, and are the most environmentally-friendly gases for such equipments.
• All detergents used have a very low/neutral pH value.
• Pest controlling is done through herbal.
• All hangers in the guestrooms’ wardrobe areas are made out of sawdust.

The question is: Whether the municipal corporations or States' department of excise of India can bring about a change in their policies with regard to allowing license for opening new resorts or hotels including allowing running of such hotels in their municipal areas or area jurisdiction only on the conditions that the environmental norms and initiatives as taken by EcoTel group of hotels are met with.

RENEWABLE BY A MUNICIPALITY

I want to share with you this news with great appreciation to all concerned who did it.

First of all, hats-off to the Mayor of Municipality of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) of Municipality of Los Angeles committed in 2005 to ensure electricity utility's use of clean and green renewable energy from 5 percent to 20 percent by the year 2010. After the achievement, Mr. Antonio Villaraigosa, the Mayor of Municipality of Los Angeles said, "When I became Mayor, I set a goal to generate 20 percent of the City's power from renewable energy sources by 2010 and I am proud to say that we have achieved that goal".

The implementation of the commitments that were done to self creates marvels.

This 2010 goal was achieved through a combination of major projects and power agreements. In June 2009, LADWP began full operation of the Pine Tree Wind Power Plant (120 MW total output, the amount of CO2 displaced is roughly the same as removing 35,000 cars from the road or planting 1.4 million trees) - the largest wind farm owned by a Municipal Utility in US, in the Tehachapi Mountains. Wind power comprised nearly 50 percent of all LADWP's renewable energy in 2010 with small hydro-electric contributing 30 percent, geothermal/bio-mss based, 22 percent, and solar, 1 percent.

CENSUS OF TREES: As necessary as human census, and they are doing it with GPS/GIS Technologies

With the occurrences of illegal cutting of trees unceremoniously increasing day by day, it becomes very necessary, at least, to have a scientific count or census of trees, at least in India where the forest area is on decline. By saying 'scientific', I mean that tools of latest technology, i.e. GPS/GIS to be used in order that the data could be collected less error-prone and be with more and more informative fields.

The organization that is working in this direction is 'Terracon Ecotech" of Mumbai (Maharashtra), and projects as having been done by this organization are highly commendable. In fact, Terracon and its associates is the single largest tree Census conducting organization in the country with the highest number of projects successfully completed. They have incorporated tree inventory/ census with the most modern gadgets such as GIS & GPS, which makes the results more accurate. Each project involves physical survey and recording of individual trees in the defined area with relevant details such as latitude and longitude, botanical name, common name, approx age, height, girth, canopy etc. The Partial List of such commenced and / or completed projects (as on 01.01.2010) may be seen at http://www.terraconindia.com/projects-completed.htm

The credit goes to Dr. Ramesh Madav, Chairman, Enbitech and CEO of Terracon Ecotech Pvt Ltd, who have successfully tested the most modern Tree Census Methods, using GPS and GIS. This was for the first time in India that such sophisticated technology was used on such a grand scale. Having completed Tree Census for Municipal Corporations of Thane, Nanded, Mira Bhayendar, Kalyan Dombivali, Navi Mumbai, Nashik and Greater Mumbai, Dr. Madav has become synonymous with Tree Census in India. {Source: http://hamaraphotos.com/news/business/dr-ramesh-madav-successfully-tests-gpsgis-enabled-tree-census.html}

Another organization involved in these activites and doing commendably is The Morton Arboretum  http://www.mortonarb.org/tree-census.html.

Smart Grid: Smart Meter is not an electronic meter, it is eMeter

It was probably in 1889 when Thomson came up with his recording wattmeter, the first true mechanism of measuring consumption of electricity. Thus we can say that the device we call (electricity) meter is more than a century old, but definitely the journey of gradual upgrade in (electricity) meter technology is not a long one. In fact, before the introduction of electronic meter (in India), probably 15-20 years ago, same traditional meters were on vogue, and probably no state electricity board ever provoked any thought on any upgrade thereof, or of infusing any (electronic) technology element in it. But we may say that when even the electronic technology itself was at its very inception 15-20 years ago, such a thought process, if it could have been initiated somewhere, it would have been very awesome to bring it into real practical being.

But the electricity metering has undergone strategic transformation by leaps and bound in last 10 years. The nostalgia compels me to write this piece of blog. The one very important interesting part of such a transformation I see is that the profile of meter-reader who communicates between a household coparcener and the state electricity board local office has changed drastically. I remember that in old days, one meter reader used to have come to every locality anytime in the first week of the month carrying a notebook. He used to note down the reading of the meter in his notebook, and on one card stuck with a pin on the wall near place of meter.  He was well greeted too with water and tea and sometime with snacks too. After such recording of meter reading, we used to have received the manual bill, which was paid manually, in the queue capable of making the common man understand fully that he had committed the most heinous crime by taking an electricity connection from electricity board, and who after submission of such dues feeling busted fully would come back home totally broken. That was the meter-reader, the only connection between a common man and the electricity board local office.

Now the same person turns up, but with one handoff. He will punch in some data (actual reading of meter), will give you a long piece of paper, where so much of data will be embossed on it that even the highest officer in electricity board office is unable to make out some meaning therefrom, and probably some slogan like 'Save Energy' and the like imprinted on it, though the same office will be wasting electricity like anything by keeping a large number of tube lights on in its premises with heavy curtains drawn on the windows so that no natural light could ever ever enter the room. What an irony?

Electronic meter of electricity was introduced probably to check the increasing incidences of meter tempering. The adjective 'electronic' in Electronic meter was not 'electronic' the way it was and it is used in email or eBanking or in eGovernance. This way, the newer generation of electricity meter, i.e. Smart Meter is truly electronic meter or eMeter' the alphabet 'e' being the acronym for 'electronic'.

The Smart Meter or eMeter is at the forefront of and is an integral part of the total strategy of policy makers of ushering the total reforms in strengthening the structure of energy sector, paving its ways forwards ensuring Smart Grid program. The Smart Meter has a specific role to play when key benefits of Smart Grid program are reckoned and a seamless control of overall energy value chain becomes the core issue of delivering clean and affordable power to the last consumer coupled with emancipating him of large and long queues on one hand and timely revenue collection by the distribution company on the other.

The Smart Meter has replaced the traditional meter reader particularly in communication with electricity office. But simultaneously I see a greater role of Mobile / PDA and RFID technology in moving towards the state of Smart Metering when I find that despite the meter-reader having a hand-hold device while taking reading of my electricity meter (at Bhopal, India), and further despite giving me an on-the-spot electricity bill, I am not able to pay it instantaneously online on http://www.mponline.gov.in/ (precisely on https://www.mponline.gov.in/Portal/Services/mpeb/citizen/billpay/Default.aspx?langid=en-US&Dist=BPL), and I am made to wait for 5-6 days or till the time the data from such hand-hold device of such meter-reader is loaded into some server (probably manually or by transferring electronically, I don't know), I feel somehow sick of the system. But it is definitely a lack on the part of the concerned energy distribution company, and not on the part of mponline. We must agree that mponline has done a wonderful job in ensuring i-services to the citizens of Madhya Pradesh by providing such a robust portal for interacting with various departments of GoMP/GoI. I think if somehow a PDA along with a small printer could be used for meter-reading. The use of PDA shall ensure that the data in server of electricity Distribution Company has been updated just at the time the print was given to consumer, and such PDA will be an integral part of smart meter or eMeter. The same could be done by using RFID technology too. The electricity Distribution Company will have to ponder over not only how the revenue collection could be increased, but could be collected Just In Time.

Pune Model of Captive Power Generation – A truly replicable model in cities with high scarcity of electricity

The industrial growth depends upon three basic parameters – Investment, Infrastructure and Interest (willfulness). In any industrial scenario, there are three groups of persons, three stakeholders, having their own share of concerns and lookout, having their own definitions of gains and returns. These groups comprise of – entrepreneur, government and people. 
The investment part lies in the central repository of thought process of entrepreneur. I am saying central repository, because all other issues regarding arranging and managing funds revolve round this core issue. Needless to say, providing infrastructure is a matter of concern for government. The derivability of third parameter, i.e. of infrastructure, is strongly a function of two most basic variables – i.e. Electricity and Road. The third parameter of industrial growth, i.e. interest (willfulness) is strikingly governed by achievement received on the performance of the other two parameters. And it is the third parameter, where the ingenuity has to come out from both, the government and the entrepreneur, in most distinguished and unequivocal terms to turn various ingredients of governance – nay – good governance into growth accelerators. 
But on the whole, electricity is the most basic and most important infrastructural requirement for all governed, let it be public or be industry. Being strong and committed on ensuring this very basic infrastructural support, i.e., electricity, can bring about a revolutionary jump in balance sheet of any state government. 
With this idea on backdrop of starting this blog, I want to express here on the issue of attempting, most willfully and wonderfully on bridging the gap between demand and supply of electricity and thus tackling the issue of power deficit by Maharashtra Energy Regulatory Commission (MERC), thanks to the wonderful idea of Mr Pradeep Bhargava, Managing Director, Cummins Generator Technology (CGT).
This 'No Load Shedding" model was initiated probably in 2006 in Pune, replicable in other industrial towns of Maharashtra. With the idea mooted by Mr. Pradeep Bhargava, the initiation was taken by experts from Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The idea arose out of a situation of severe electricity crunch. In Pune, the industry deemed to have had the demand of electricity upto 35 percent of total power demand against a national average of 25 percent, which definitely resulted in load shedding in various areas of Pune. Under Pune Model, several industries were called upon to have their own captive power generation plants, with a support from the domestic power users. The installation and operation of captive power plants reduced drastically the load on power distribution agencies, which resulted in more supply of power to domestic areas. It was estimated that the overall reduction on load was upto 90 MW, against a peak demand of 900 MW, which was considerably appreciable. Against this effort, the citizen of Pune had to bear a very meager sum, i.e. 40 paisa only per unit. It is learnt that MERC, so enthused by the success of this model, got it replicated in other industrial towns of Maharahtra, with reliability charge fixed by the MERC ranging from 21 paise (Pune) to 75 paise (Aurangabad).
No doubt, the deliverables have been marvelous. The Pune model is required to be studied with all its pros and cons, and replicated in other industrial towns of the country as well. The model has achieved citizens' satisfaction and come up with a solution with no more expenditure on government exchequer for mitigating the load shedding problem. Though the quantum of electricity thus generated and thus added to the overall supply for domestic users may be small, but, even if it is 10 percent total demand, it may be taken as a small leap towards a big and brighter goal.

There is no alternative to technology.

Evolution never retreads back. The people, who have enjoyed the classic advantages of eGovernance, are not ready to accept even the smallest waver in any eFacility or any relaxation in any eService from the government. Once you have used the portal of IRCTC (http://www.irctc.co.in/), you are no longer ready to stand in queue for railway reservation; and if you have used the latest beta version of IRCTC with a faster and simpler planner, you will discard the old version of IRCTC like anything, for howsoever it was so close to your heart only 10-15 minutes ago.

A technology savvy person foresees the future. His presentiments about something newer evolutions in coming future keep him ahead of space and time (परिस्तिथि एवं काल). He is the one who reposes faith in himself. I wonder. I wonder how come one could have foreseen in 1995 like this:

“Over the next decade, business worldwide will be transformed. Intranets will revolutionize the way companies share information internally, and the Internet will revolutionize how they communicate externally. Corporations will redesign their nervous systems to rely on the networks that reach every member of the organization and beyond into the world of suppliers, consultants, and customers. These changes will let companies be more effective and often smaller. In the longer run, as broadband networks make physical proximity to urban services less essential, many businesses will decentralize and disperse their activities, and cities may be downsized too."

Yes, you are right, it is none other than Bill Gates, the Tao of computer technology who set off information age and macadamized the way for information era. What was perceived by Bill Gates, is happening actually. There are so many such other issues of 'foreseeing' in his book "The Road Ahead".

Advancements in technology are never utopia in the truest meaning of the word. Let us divert for a few minutes from our topic, or rather give it a new direction. No body had even thought 20 years ago of co-generation (generation of additional electricity using the same process, using the same fuel 'bagasse'), or a very few sugar mills were pioneer in steering through launching the co-generation projects in sugar mill. Now the time has come, when no sugar mill is practically economically viable without generating additional electricity and to sell it. Almost all plants of sugar (having the minimum capacity of 2500 MT of sugar cane crushing per day) are going for co-generation. Now sugar production is becoming a secondary thing, the primary production is of electricity. The sugar plants had to say in earlier day - We produce sugar only (हम चीनी ही बनाते हैंSa), have now to say – We produce sugar too (हम चीनी भी बनाते हैंa). That is all due to tremendous advancement in technologies related with boilers, turbine, sugar boiling system over the last 20 years.

Mahatma Gandhi was a great leader, not only of politics, but also of humanity. He spent all his life for eradicating the system of carrying human excreta on their heads by manual scavengers. But he was not that successful. In fact, the success came, of whatever magnitude, when the technology of flush toilet emerged. Technology ensures the transformation in the society, and the emergence and outbreak of technology can be in any field, electronic or mechanical or any other field.

To be continued………..

क्योंकि दूरियों का मतलब फासले नहीं होता

The present society is knowledge society. What actually differentiates between present society from the traditional society is accessibility to information and knowledge for anyone who wants to have it, or who has the resources, irrespective of his societal position, rather than keeping the information only in the hands of a few only, and that of only privileged and sophisticated class of the society. Social taboos don't deprive anyone of learning. Definitely, ICT has been the biggest enabler for such a transformation of society.

eGovernance is an speaking execution of government desire to ensure citizen empowerment, timely and cost-effective delivery of citizen services, public participation in governance reducing the distance between the government and governed, having ICT at its core. Through this, the government wants to proclaim loudly - क्योंकि दूरियों का मतलब फासले नहीं होता.

eGovernance is a means to achieve good governance. Needless to say that freedom of information and effortless accessibility to citizen services are the core issues for enjoining citizens' faith in governance cutting across the centuries old barriers between the government and governed. It is step towards paving the way for trust the government bestows upon the citizens. It is a whole-hearted effort for ridding the citizen of the fear of 'being governed' he has had in his heart since long and with which he has been accultured right from his childhood.

With this objective in mind, the immense potential of ICT cannot be undermined to seek solution for achieving eGovernance. Let us not forget the Moore's Law in connection with the advancement of technologies of Information and Communication. In 1965, Gordon Moore predicted that the capacity of a computer chip would double every year. With the revolutionary growth of ICT seen everywhere, both vertically and horizontally, cutting across all boundaries of cast, creed, religion, land etc, it is hoped that service delivery mechanism will also gain momentum, resulting in more quality element interwoven in it coupled with association of more and more masses of common citizen. It will impact various other core issues of eGovernance too, and activities on such issues would get further ameliorated with a one to one harmonious relation with technology improvement. Once the information highway is further macadamized, more and more services with tremendous speed of data transfer would stand delivered at the door, i.e. at the PC of a common citizen.