Press Information Bureau

Government of India
Special Service and Features
21-January-2014 17:18 IST

National e-Governance Plan Striving To Touch Every Citizens Life Through Efficient, Speedy
and Quality Based e-Governance Services

FEATURE
DeitY

Republic Day 2014

K. K. Pant*
The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), being coordinated by the Department of
Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications & Information
Technology, was approved in May 2006 with a vision to Make all Government services
accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets and
ensure efficiency, transparency & reliability of such services at affordable costs to realise the
basic needs of the common man. Originally, the NeGP comprised of 27 Mission Mode Projects
(MMPs) and 8 components. However, in 2011 it was augmented by adding 4 more projects Health, Education, PDS and Posts to increase the list of 27 MMPs to 31 MMPs.
An MMP is an individual project within the NeGP that focuses on one aspect of electronic
governance, such as banking, land records or commercial taxes etc. Within NeGP, Mission Mode
implies that projects have clearly defined objectives, scopes, and implementation timelines and
milestones, as well as measurable outcomes and service levels.
The 31 MMPs comprising the NeGP are further classified as State, Central or Integrated
projects. Each state government can also define five MMPs specific to its individual needs.
The List of the 3 types of MMPs is as follows:
Central MMPs under NeGP

Banking
Central Excise & Customs
Income Tax (IT)
Insurance
MCA21
Passport
Immigration, Visa and Foreigners Registration& Tracking
Pension
e-Office
Posts

UID

State MMPs under NeGP

Agriculture
Commercial Taxes
eDistrict
Employment Exchange
Land Records(NLRMP)
Municipalities
e-Panchayats
Police(CCTNS)
Road Transport
Treasuries Computerization
PDS
Education
Health

Integrated MMPs under NeGP

CSC
e-Biz
e-Courts
e-Procurement
EDI For eTrade
National e-governance Service Delivery Gateway
India Portal

Over these years, through NeGP there has been substantial progress in providing access to
critical services and information to citizens and businesses. Cutting edge technology and its swift
advancement and embracement has helped facilitate a demand driven atmosphere for Government
services.
Over 100 Services Accessible Throughout the Country
Today, over 1000 e-governance services can be accessed across the length and breadth of
the country through NeGP. These services have been enabled by the line departments under various
MMPs as well as by the State Governments that have chosen to leverage the digital service delivery
infrastructure created under NeGP. Since Jan 2013, over 237 crore e- transactions have been
delivered across the country.
Of the 31 Mission Mode Projects under NeGP, 23 MMPs are live and are delivering
services to the citizens. Under the Income Tax MMP, over 2.12 crore returns were filed electronically
in FY 2013-14 as on 31st December 2013.
Under the Passport Seva Project, all 77 Passport Seva Kendras are operational. The related
business processes have been re-engineered to provide a seamless experience to the citizens. Under
the new scheme, approximately 1 lakh passports are being issued every week.
Mobile Devices Being Harnessed for the Delivery of Services
In order to leverage the rapid growth in penetration of mobile technology and connectivity,
public services under a wide range of e-Governance projects are now also being delivered through
mobile devices like mobile phones and tablets. Under the Mobile Seva project of DeitY, SMS and
mobile application based services have been made operational.
Currently, 864 Government departments and agencies at central, state, and local levels across

the country are using Mobile Seva for providing a wide range of mobile based services. Using the
SMS Gateway of Mobile Seva, over 60.92 crore SMS based transactions have been delivered to
citizens. 272 pull SMS based services are available on the short codes 166 and 51969 and long code
9223166166. Over 16.43 lakh pull SMS based transactions have been delivered so far through the
SMS Gateway. In addition, 243 mobile applications (m-Apps) have been made live and are currently
hosted on the mobile Appstore (m-Appstore) of Mobile Seva.
Over 1.28 lakh Common Services Centres (CSCs) Operationalized
In order to promote e-Governance in a holistic manner, various policy initiatives and projects
have been undertaken to develop: (i) Core infrastructure and (ii) Support infrastructure.
The major Core Infrastructure components are:
State Data Centres (SDCs);
State Wide Area Networks (S.W.A.N);

Common Services Centres (CSCs); and

Middleware gateways i.e. National e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway

(NSDG), State e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG), and Mobile eGovernance Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG).
The important Support Infrastructure components include Core policies and guidelines on
Security, HR, Citizen Engagement, Social Media as well as Standards related to Metadata,
Interoperability, Enterprise Architecture, Information Security etc. New initiatives include a
framework for authentication, viz. e-Pramanan and G-I cloud an initiative which will ensure benefits
of cloud computing for e-Government projects.
Common Services Centres (CSCs) is a strategic cornerstone of NeGP. It provides high
quality and cost-effective video, voice and data content and services, in the areas of e-governance,
education, health, telemedicine, entertainment as well as other private services. A highlight of the
CSCs is that it offers web-enabled e-governance services in rural areas, including application forms,
certificates, and utility payments such as electricity, telephone and water bills. In addition to the
universe of G2C services, the CSC Guidelines envisage a wide variety of content and services that
could be offered as listed below:

Agriculture Services (Agriculture, Horticulture, Sericulture, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries,

Veterinary)
Education & Training Services (School, College, Vocational Education, Employment, etc.)
Health Services (Telemedicine, Health Check-ups, Medicines)
Rural Banking & Insurance Services (Micro-credit, Loans, Insurance)
Entertainment Services (Movies, Television)
Utility Services (Bill Payments, Online bookings)
Commercial Services (DTP, Printing, Internet Browsing, Village level BPO).
The Scheme creates a conducive environment for the private sector and NGOs to play an
active role in implementation of the CSC Scheme, thereby becoming a partner of the government in
development of rural India. The PPP model of the CSC scheme envisages a 3-tier structure consisting
of:
(i)
The CSC operator (called Village Level Entrepreneur or VLE);
(ii)
The Service Centre Agency (SCA), that will be responsible for a division of 5001000 CSCs; and
(iii)
A State Designated Agency (SDA) identified by the State Government
responsible for managing the implementation in the entire State.
Currently, over 1,28,315 CSCs across 33 States and UTs are operational. CSCs offer a
wide range of services in the villages in an efficient and transparent manner.
Worlds Largest, Government approved ICT Enabled Network for Online Service Delivery

Currently, citizens have benefited from over 227 crore transactions under various egovernance projects in the country during 2013 alone and it is expected that this will increase to
approximately 250 crores by March 2014. In the FY 2012-13, over 75,000 rural village level
entrepreneurs (VLEs) provided services to almost one crore citizens each month through CSCs.
Approximately, 65% of transactions completed at CSCs are G2C services, around 40% of
transacting CSCs provide financial services and around 30% of transacting CSCs provide educational
services, making this the worlds largest, Government approved ICT enabled network for online
service delivery.
The success of NeGP is indeed creditable in such a short span of time and has shown that
significant benefits can be derived by improving accessibility to e-governance services. NeGP strives
to touch every citizens life through e-governance services with quality, speed and efficiency coupled
with greater understanding of the citizens needs.
(PIB Feature).

*Deputy Director (M&C), PIB, New Delhi

*******

With inputs from the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY)
SS-150/SF-150/21-01-2014
RTS/HSN