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Central Government, Policy

Indian e-govt 'faces corruption threat'

By James Smith | 21 August 2008

“Corruption is the biggest enemy of e-government,” Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Vice President of government industry solutions at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), has announced to the press.

“There are vested interests everywhere,” Chakrabarty said. “Politicians fear that they will lose control with e-government, and this is coming in the way of successful implementation of e-government projects in India.”

Chakrabarty is in a better position than most to comment, as TCS has been one of the big winners in supporting the Indian central government’s National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) since it was announced in 2006. NeGP’s stated objective is to make all government services accessible through common service delivery outlets, delivering efficiency, transparency and reliability at an affordable cost. The total outlay for the NeGP, spanning 2006 to 2011, is expected to be US$5.5 billion.

TCS was contracted to deliver one of the key programmes of NeGP - the Ministry of Commercial Affairs’ MCA21 project. Implemented in 78 weeks, the MCA21 programme helped move over 90 per cent of its stakeholders to e-filing - above its initial target of 25 per cent. TCS is now implementing the e-passport programme of the Indian government.

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