Chandigarh, July 21:Mr. Neel Rattan, Executive Director Business
Solutions, Price Waterhouse Coopers, said that need of the hour for
country like India is to put citizens first, and empower them and focus on
governance rather than the technology, which is just an enabler.

Speaking on the first plenary session of e-revolution 2006 on global
trends in e-governance, he emphasized that public-private partnership can
speed up the process of delivering services to the citizens effectively
and efficiently.

Mr. Vinesh Paperwala, District Manager South East Asia, Intel, said that
in order to implement the e-governance issue and take the transformation
in the fields of health, education, training, rural is no longer rural,
since it concerns citizens all across the country, Intel was involved
working closely with the state governments and had been at the forefront
in training over 550,000 teachers in various states including Panjab.

He informed that Intel was engaged in localizing the technology to meet
the needs of each country and said that special PCs are being developed in
their facility in Bangalore which are rugged and can face the rigours of
operating them in rural environments, and similarly new tablet computer is
being developed, again in Bangalore, for children in school.

Niraj Prakash, General Manager Solutions and Technologies, Oracle India,
informed that the company was working on various software solutions for
the state and central government departments not only to manage the rural
and urban development projects but also enabling internal efficiency
within the departments.

Dr. Jai Menon, Director IT and Innovation, Bharti Airtel Limited, said
that number of telecom users are on the rise but average revenue per user
continues to decline. We are one of the lowest in the globe in terms of
the revenue per minute, which is fantastic for the Indian masses making it
affordable. This has helped integrate government services to the
citizens through telecom innovations.

Mobile is no longer a communication devices it is about complete portal
and a handheld pc available with the citizens to access host of services
they need irrespective of the fact whether they are in urban or rural
areas using diverse technological resources at the back end bringing
together truly integrated innovative utility model, said Menon.

Vijay Shekhar, Country Manager, India & SAARC, Cisco, speaking about
wireless mobility-expanding reach to enable eGovernance, especially
through rural broadband. Cisco has developed solutions for remote access
through secured wireless systems

Chandigarh Desk

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