Karnataka slips to 9th rank in e-governance

Best known for its IT prowess, Karnataka which stood second in the list of the best e-governed states in the Dataquest-IDC e-Governed States Survey in 2007, has now slipped to a humbling ninth position from among 20 in the third survey for 2008.

Even states like Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh which were way behind, have now gone several notches up in their rankings.

The survey has also exposed another southern state Andhra Pradesh which has fallen to number eight from the earlier fifth position.

Politically-sensitive Gujarat has witnessed a major fall in its ranking by dropping 15 levels to occupy the 19th position.

However, Tamil Nadu which houses many major IT firms, has gone up in the ranking to occupy the 4th position, compared to the 8th it occupied in the previous survey.

Significantly, corporates and business houses have voted Tamil Nadu along with Chhattisgarh as the best in the overall satisfaction levels for e-governance services for businesses. They were closely followed by Delhi, Maharashtra and Kerala.

In terms of the citizen user-satisfaction, the worst-performing states were Jharkhand and Uttarakhand followed by West Bengal, Gujarat and Punjab.

Many in the industry belief that the last two governments in Karnataka have scored miserably in using information technology for various e-governance initiatives as also in attracting new IT companies to the state.

"The political uncertainties in the state owing to the coalition governments and the lack of political will is evident in the findings of the report," said an industry leader.

Earlier, R Chandrashekhar, Additional Secretary (E-Governance), Department of Information Technology at the Centre had told Business Standard the e-governance initiative by the Centre was not taking off due to the lack of efforts by the states.

"There are about 10 states which are fairly pro-active and who have made significant progress in e-governance, whereas a group of another 10 states who are recent converts, are keen and trying their best to implement e-governance projects.

However, another 10 states are yet to wake up," he said, without naming the states.

According to the Union IT ministry, among the government departments, Income Tax and some parts of Customs have already started offering significant  services. The projects which are in the conceptualisation state involve departments like land records, transport and property registration.

Delhi has topped the list of the best e-governed states in the 2008 Dataquest-IDC survey, followed by Goa, Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu. Himachal Pradesh has improved its position to number 7, as against the previous year's 16th position, whereas Punjab has gone up to rank 10th position from the earlier 18th.