Special Article : Chhattisgarh will become a Model State for E-Governance

Anand Prakash Solanki, Assistant Director

New Government of Chhattisgarh has pledged to make Chhattisgarh a model state for good governance. Good governance refers to the transparency in administration for the betterment of people, timely completion of works, adherence to the quality standards, good management, public participation, accountability, efficiency and compliance to the law. The new government will utilize information technology as the main tool to establish good governance in the state, and hallmark of the same can be seen in the budget for financial year 2024-25.

To realize Chief Minister Shri Vishnu Deo Sai’s vision of making Chhattisgarh state a leading state in terms of e-governance, IT based systems are being developed to facilitate e-monitoring of schemes, transparent administration. Budget allocation has also been made to establish Chhattisgarh Center for Smart Governance. A provision of Rs 266 crore has been made for arranging necessary equipment and modern software etc. to encourage the use of information technology in all the departments.

A provision of Rs 30 crore has been made for development of the budget and accounting module in 168 urban bodies of the state and also the GIS based software for property survey in 47 urban bodies. This will bring transparency in property tax receipts. Department-wise important records will be digitalized and made available in the Chhattisgarh Web Archives for the convenience of general public. A provision of Rs. 03 crore has been made in the budget for this purpose.

Unified monitoring of all major public welfare schemes run by the state government will be done through Atal Dashboard, for which a provision of Rs 5 crore has been made. Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS- 2.0) will be commenced for daily monitoring of the income and expenditure of government funds. A provision of Rs 15 crore has been made for the new version of the Integrated E-Procurement Project. National Education Policy 2020 will be implemented promptly through Digital and AI Education based eco system.
Under the Bharat Net project, 9,804 gram panchayats of the state have been connected with optical fiber cable. A provision has been made to create a pool fund of Rs 66 crore for its maintenance and operation. Hot-spots will be established in rural areas of the state through Wi-Fi. For this, a provision of Rs 37 crore has been made under PM Vani Project for providing Wi-Fi facility in 1,000 gram panchayats in the first phase. Arrangements will be made for necessary testing and certification for cyber security of e-assets, mobile apps and websites used by various departments of the government.

Information Technology is being deployed in all the departments to bring transparency in tax administration system. The monitoring system will also be strengthened to improve tax receipts. For improvement and transparency in the collection of Goods and Services Tax, a Business Intelligence Unit will be established in the state headquarters and other measures will also be taken to increase revenue and to ensure data driven fraud analysis using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. A provision of Rs 9 crore 50 lakh has been made for this purpopse. A provision of Rs 5 crore has been made for the establishment of a tribunal for speedy disposal of appellate cases related to Goods and Services Tax. The use of National Common Document Registration System (NGDRS) software will be implemented in all the districts for transfer of land and buildings and other miscellaneous registered transactions, this will curb the trend of fraud and unknown transactions. There will be an increase in revenue receipts due to the option of online calculation of market value of the properties under auto evaluation module, a provision of Rs 10 crore has been made for the same.

In the budget of Chhattisgarh Government for the year 2024-25, provisions have been made to develop Raipur-Bhilai and surrounding areas as State Capital Region and world class IT sector. “Livelihood Center of Excellence” will be established in Nava Raipur, Atal Nagar and “Center of Entrepreneurship” will be established in Durg district. Incubation center and BPO will be established to encourage startups.

Digital information system will be developed for better management of water resources. For this, a provision of Rs 1 crore 56 lakh has been made for the establishment of State Water Information Centre. For monitoring Jal Jeevan Mission, a system of online application will be started for grievance redressal and new connections along with dashboard and state portal. Water quality will also be monitored online.

Geo-referencing of land maps will be done and Bhu-Aadhaar card will be issued in each land block giving UL PIN number. A new survey of land will be started in urban areas on a scale of 1:500. With this, it will be possible to register small land plots in urban areas on the land map. Land records will be linked to civil courts, making it possible to do correction in land records through online process in compliance with the orders passed by the Civil Court in land related cases. The process of land diversion will be online and simplified.

In view of the increase in the number of cyber crime cases, a provision has been made in the budget to establish 04 new cyber police stations in Kabirdham, Korba, Rajnandgaon and Raigarh districts. For the implementation of the e-Court Mission Project, a provision has been made for the creation of 596 posts of Hardware Engineer and Data Entry Operator.