Karnataka - Others   

Expert says e-governance is solution to corruption

Special Correspondent

`Indian politics will be marked by coalition governance'

POLITICALLY CORRECT: Chief Whip of the Ruling Party in the State Assembly K. Abhayachandra Jain sharing his views with honorary founder-president of Karnataka State Political Science Teachers' Association R.L.M. Patil at the inaugural function of 7t h State Political Teachers' Association at Moodbidri on Tuesday.

MOODBIDRI: If there is a way to tackle corruption in administration, it is through e-governance. E-governance has been successfully implemented in a gram panchayat near Bangalore, said former faculty of Institute of Socio-Economic Change (ISEC) B.S. Bhargava on Tuesday.

Mr. Bhargava was speaking at the State-level Political Science Teachers' Conference here.

He said that e-governance facilitates transparency in administration. The experiment at Belanduru panchayat in Bangalore Urban district with e-governance has resulted in a gram panchayat, with no extraordinary sources of income, gaining an annual revenue of Rs. 3 crores. This panchayat has a council room where meetings are televised through cable network and it has computerised data on tax collection to check defaulters.

The panchayat maintains an electronic public service registry, which takes care of water, power, road and drainage problems.

Mr. Bhargava said many foreign delegates including those from South Asian countries have visited the panchayat to study e-governance and its benefits in the grassroots level.

He urged political science students to research the benefits of e-governance in a democracy. E-governance will open new horizons in public administration, he said.

Coalition politics, which is a relatively new entrant in Indian politics, came in for some sharp remarks from political scientists and politicians at the conference. Speakers at the conference had positive and negative things to say about coalition governments.

Chairman of the National Administrative Reforms Commission M. Veerappa Moily advised coalition partners not to engage in "sangharsha" (conflict) but in "samavesha" (confluence), which will consummate the spirit of coalition as in West Bengal and Kerala. He said a team from the State should be sent to tour Kerala and West Bengal to study coalition governance there.

Mr. Moily said there should be "coalition" within the political parties that govern the States.

Yuva Janata Dal leader Y.S.V. Datta likened a coalition government to a man trying to swim with weights tied to his legs and a buoy tied to his neck that will keep him alive, but with great difficulty.

Mr. Datta stressed on the importance of coalitions, particularly in a diverse country such as India. He divided the last century into the Gandhian era, the Nehruvian era, one influenced by the ideology of Jayaprakash Narayan and the coalition era which is a new trend since the 1990's. Mr. Moily and Mr. Datta agreed that coalition governments are here to stay considering the prevailing socio-economic conditions of the country.

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