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| E-governance in state – a distant dream | | As proposal on separate IT directorate gathers dust, department loses 10 Cr every year | | Early Times Reporter
Srinagar | May 29
Even as the tall claims of the coalition government about e-governance and employment generation in the state of Jammu and Kashmir were falling flat, the proposal to create a separate directorate for Information Technology in the state was eating dust for last about six years forcing the department to surrender Rs 10 crore annually.
Highly placed sources in the civil secretariat revealed that government had proposed separate IT Directorate for Information Technology in 2002 for the purpose to open call centers, IT parks and software development in the state so as to attract foreign investment.
"The government had decided to set up an IT Directorate in the year 2002 but could not appoint IT Director which was aimed to create jobs to thousands of unemployed youth of the valley through setting up of Software development institutes, activating Software Technological Park, setting up of call centers etc", sources, wishing anonymity, said and added that even most of the departments like forest, revenue, education and others whose official records are damaged and were intending to be computerized.
Sources said that said that no department other than general Administration department got computerized and the IT technology remained confined to the civil secretariat only.
Surprisingly no IT directorate was created despite the lapse of six years resulting in the huge losses to the government exchequer.
If sources are to be believed the reasons behind the appointment of the Director are purely political and no interest was taken by the PDP-Congress coalition government even on the ending year of its rule.
"Every year about rupees ten crores are returned back as the said amount is not being utilized by the IT department" sources preferring anonymity said, adding the coalition partners failed to decide the name of the officer to be posted as director IT J&K.
He said that despite availability of funding for the infrastructure development it failed to nominate a director for the said organization allegedly for the political reasons.
Nearly sixty crore rupees have been surrendered by the present govt in six years earmarked for IT sector besides thousand becoming jobless in the absence of a IT directorate.
Government in its proposal had also kept options for the investment of multi national companies which could have provided employment to the unemployed youth and the students qualifying IT related courses would have been absorbed.
As the Information Technology has created millions Jobs across the country, the state of Jammu & Kashmir is yet to have a Directorate which could have played a key role in attracting investments from IT giants of the Country in the valley which is considered as most suitable place for IT sector.
The coalition government after taking over the reins of the state in 2002 had promised to provide jobs to the educated youth and make all the government offices accountable besides creating work culture and transparency in the government departments.
Some of the local youth who are working in this sector outside the valley have proved their worth but the state government could not provide a plate-form for displaying their ability in this sector.
Not only this government had spent a huge amount on setting up of community Information Centers across the valley but these CIC's manned by Rural Development Department are mostly defunct and the people have to run to hundreds of miles to avail the facility of Internet. |
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