BHOPAL: Union Minister of State for Personnel and Public Grievances Suresh Pachouri said on Friday that e-governance was providing a number of services ranging from Income Tax returns and bill sourcing to complex applications.

He was participating as a chief guest at the two-day 10th national conference on e-governance, based on the theme "Enabling Government to Accelerate Transformation", here.

He gave credit to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi for taking the lead in ushering in the computer revolution in the country and said the national e-governance plan was a major initiative for meeting the long-term goals of e-governance.

The priority was to transform the socio-economic landscape of rural India by empowering rural citizens like never before. This was being done by establishing 1-lakh common service centres (CSCs) which would cover 6-lakh villages and be linked through broadband and State-wide networks by March.

Citizen-centric

Mr. Pachouri said all efforts were on for building a citizen and business-centric environment for governance. "We need to address the question whether we are applying e-governance to areas and sectors where conventional systems were continuing to cause inconvenience to the common man."

He stressed the need to introduce e-governance in agriculture, healthcare and education.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan said Information and Technology (IT) played a very important role in growth and development. Stressing that e-governance was essential for good governance, he said it would be difficult to expand the concept without e-democracy.

State Minister for Public Works and Information Technology Kailash Vijayvargiya said the prospects for the IT sector in Madhya Pradesh were huge. Emphasising that people want to invest in Madhya Pradesh, the Minister said the Centre should give preference to States lagging behind in the IT and e-governance sectors. Such States should get priority while setting up prime institutions such as IIMs and IITs. He stressed the need for a liberal attitude for setting up special economic zones.

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