How much on-line is E-Goa

E-GOA

I had a dream that I was making my monthly trip to the E-Payment Centre in the town and I paid the Water Bill, Electricity Bill, Newspaper Subscription, Telephone Bill, Re-Charged my Prepaid Mobile, Application money for renewal of Driving Licence and Stamp Duty & Registration Charges for the new house I bought. All this while, my friend was laughing his guts out, because, he paid all these charges/bills on-line while sitting at his home with a cup of hot tea.

Will this kind of a scenario be a reality in Goa? We have been hearing about these kinds of facilities (Lokseva Kendras) being made available through advertisements and media but, we have not seen the end product as yet. There was much pomp and trumpeting, not so long ago, when the Government said that a citizen can now apply for a Driving Licence or Renewal of Driving Licence, etc., on-line. However, this is not the case, one still has to trudge to the office of the local RTO and buy the forms, fill them up, trudge again to submit them, trudge again to appear for the test or collect the licence, etc. Another odd issue is that whilst forms are available on-line and can be downloaded and printed, these are not accepted unless they are rubber stamped. And just try getting them rubber stamped, the person at the counter will tell you to buy the forms from the counter at Rs. 10/- per form! So much for on-line services! If somebody has a different experience, please enlighten me! And, by the way, some parts of the Government web-site seem to have been hacked!

While the Government is talking of making the state an IT haven, there doesn’t seem to be much headway. The IT Habitat is tangled in what seem to be unsolvable problems and the e-Governance initiative seems to be moving at a snail’s pace. When Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra with much larger and complex governance structures could implement e-Governance and e-Services, it is indeed surprising that Goa is finding it so difficult and has fallen much behind the times. Despite these drawbacks, the state is still declared/assessed the best on development indices amongst the small states. Is it a case of a government paying under-the-table money for getting good marks? The way the HSRP, River Princess and illegal Mining issues were handled speaks of the levels to which the government has fallen.

We have already seen the sad state of infrastructure, public utilities and social services and all this while the people in the government are dreaming of making Goa an IT hub, constructing a bridge across the sea and converting the key roads into 4-lane, etc. It is good to dream, but, it is better to convert those dreams into reality and before starting any new dream-projects it is important that the current state of affairs is rectified and Goa is truly made deserving the title of being the best amongst the small states.

Kali