Mumbai: The Pondicherry government has announced that IBM Business Consulting Services India has helped them strategise a master plan and implementation roadmap for e-governance. Ravi Trivedy, partner, IBM Business Consulting Services India, handed over this blue print to Pondicherry Chief Minister N Rangasamy at a ceremony.

The e-governance master plan aims at improving services to citizens and businesses, and to ensure increased transparency and efficiency in operations across different government departments. The blue print covers 16 key departments and encompasses the overall IT architecture, the IT organisation structure, cost estimates for funding the recommended IT initiatives and the implementation roadmap to achieve the Pondicherry government''s vision of e-governance.

As part of the plan, the team from IBM Business Consulting Services recommends an integrated approach to facilitate the e-governance initiative for Pondicherry. The team has identified applications, which can be shared by the departments and hence jointly developed and deployed.

The IT architecture has taken into consideration the sharing of critical infrastructure such as data centre and wide-area network. This approach will help in reducing the cost of implementation and at the same time help in better integration within the departments and hence improved and efficient services to the stakeholders.

"Governments today are required to provide improved access for citizens, better collaboration across departments and enhancements in internal efficiency. To that end, they want to work with a partner who can assist them in designing and delivering this transformation," says Trivedy. "We are committed to partnering with the Pondicherry government to use IT for efficient and effective governance. This master plan will also assist in future process improvement exercises and act as an overall roadmap for all further IT initiatives."

The e-governance master plan and implementation roadmap covers 16 departments including the chief secretariat, legislative assembly, accounts and treasuries, planning and research, economics and statistics, IT, revenue, survey and land records, excise and commercial taxes, transport, electricity, civil supplies, agriculture, forestry, public works, health, education, industries and local administration department.