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The Union Cabinet today approved the establishment of the National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) as a Section 25 not-for-profit Company with equity of 49 per cent by government and 51 per cent by the private sector.
The Cabinet also approved the Contribution of Equity of Rs. One crore each by the Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances and the Department of Information Technology. Thus, the total Central Government Equity would be of Rs.2 crore.
This will help in creation of an institutional mechanism for channeling private sector competencies and resources into the national e-governance effort and enabling development of e-Governance projects speedily and in a cost effective manner.
A high powered National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development was earlier set up under the Chairmanship of the Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission in May, 1998 to formulate the draft of a National Informatics Policy. The Task Force prepared three reports (i) Part I – Software, (ii) Part II – Hardware and (iii) Part III – Long Term IT Policy. The first report “IT Action Plan (Part-I Software)” which deals with the issues relating to software development and export, encompasses a preamble and has made 108 recommendations as part of the Information Technology Action Plan.
The 108 recommendations of the Information Technology Action Plan were approved by the Cabinet and notified in the Gazette of India Extraordinary on July 25, 1998. Recognising Information Technology to be a frontier area of knowledge, and also a critical enabling tool for assimilating, processing and productivising all other spheres of knowledge, recommendation No.97 provided that “A National Institute of Smart Government shall be set up to focus on all issues concerning IT-supported governance”.
National Institute for Smart Government
The NISG was conceived to offer high end, vendor-neutral consultancy for structuring and implementing e-governance projects that involve private sector resources and competencies and to assist the entire process of project development including the induction of appropriate consultancy organizations, funding and implementing agencies, establishment of appropriate institutional structures wherever required and to monitor implementation of these projects. The key service which the NISG can make available to user departments/organizations would be to provide a single Agency to guide the process of induction of private sector resources and competencies into e-governance projects. The NISG would help channelise the expertise and resources available in the country and elsewhere with viable public-private partnership (PPP) mechanisms which can foster growth and development in the country through responsive, accountable, transparent and effective Governance.
RK/HS/LV
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