Monday, February 4, 2013

2950 - Nilekani headed committee recommends CIO in all ministries



Proposes recruitment of professionals from outside the government and enable framework for attracting, retaining and optimally utilising such skilled persons

GN BUREAU | JANUARY 22 2013

Most of e-governance projects fail due to lack of skilled human resource and programme management approach in the government. Thanks to recommendations of the expert committee headed by Nandan Nilekani on human resoruce policy for e-governance, situation may improve in the days to come.  

Nilekani, who is the chief of unique identification authority of India (UIDAI) along with other members of the committee, presented the report to the union communications minister  Kapil Sibal here on Monday. 

One of the key recommendations include putting in place electronic services division (ESD) headed by chief information officer (CIO) in central ministries and electronic delivery of services (EDS) directorate in states and union territories. It also proposes to set up dedicated project teams for managing projects.

The committee has emphasised on enhancing the role of national informatics centre (NIC) as a technology advisor to the government.

Lack of human resources with required competencies has been a constraining factor for successful implementation of e-governance projects, Sibal said in a press statement. He advised the department of electronics and information technology (DEITY) to immediately initiate the process for implementing the recommendations.

In another recommendation,  the committee has suggested various policy interventions required to grow the internal resource pool in the government and provide institutionalised training and capacity building mechanisms.

Moreover, the expert group has recommended recruitment of professionals from outside the government and enabling a framework for attracting, retaining  and optimally utilising such skilled human resource. 

The recommendations, if implemented in letter and spirit,  will fast track the successful implementation of the national e-governance plan (NeGP), which was passed by the union cabinet in 2006.