India: e-Governance starting Jan 2008

The Punjab PWD (B&R) department has decided to introduce the revolutionary policy of e-tendering and e-procurement from January 2008 to ensure transparency and accountability in the functioning of department.

Presiding over the meeting of Executive Board of Punjab Roads Bridges Development Board here this morning the PWD (B&R) Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa said PWD (B&R) Department has been included in the first phase of computerization by the Department of IT by introducing e-procurement. He said that Government has decided that from 15 Jan, 2008 all works above INR 10 million would be tendered electronically. Department of Information & Technology was in the process of establishing a suitable platform for these services. The Minister said that this would introduce greater competition and transparency in the public procurement.

Dhindsa said that Computerization of PWD (B&R) was also a part of World Bank funded Punjab State Road Sector Project, the largest road sector project in the state being implemented by PRBDB. A budget of INR 150 million has been kept for computerization in the project. The Minister said that total computerization of PWD (B&R) would be completed by June, 2008. These include systems for works management, financial management, personnel management, office automation, messaging, file tracking etc. In addition applications specific to the road sector like GIS based Road Information System and Road Asset Management System was also in the process of being rolled out.

Dhindsa said that the Government of Punjab was in the process of rolling out a holistic e governance strategy for the state under which the state is currently in the process of implementing a State Wide Area Network, State Data Centre and Computerized Kiosks to provide citizen services. In doing so the IT department will evolve a standard architecture which can be used for all departmental application development so that these can become interoperable and reusable as and when implemented.

Source : http://www.punjabnewsline.com