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Centre's e-Service rhetoric falls flat with paper-crazy babus

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Chokkapan
New Update

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Welcome to Government of India's corridors of power in New Delhi!

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Take a virtual tour around the Union Ministry offices and what's common across 78 departments are bulky photocopiers and reams of paper-based documents. You can also find paper-crazy babus (bureaucrats) in almost all the ministries. This, despite the government's ambitious e-Service hoopla.

At the Ministry of Communications and IT that aspires to connect 250,000 village panchayats (units) with optic fiber to facilitate electronic delivery of services, e-mails are literally downloaded and taken in a form of printout, before it reaches top officials for a final say.

The situation at DeitY (Department of Electronics and Information Technology) is no different. Over here, nothing is acceptable until a request is made through fax. Such is the case with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, too, that talks carbon footprint demagogy.

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Speaking to CIOL, chairman of the CII Office Automation and Imaging Industry Division and senior vice-president at Canon India, Alok Bharadwaj, said that the Centre's contribution to the printing economy is around 40 per cent by units and 30 per cent by its value.

PSUs spend, he said, is close to one-third of it. "Of the total printer-deployment base of 4 million units, around 1.6 million units are installed in the government sector alone. CII, citing resource constraints, however, does not foresee higher government uptake during FY 2013-14. In India, A4 and A3 Laser MFDs create a total of 10 billion prints a year," he explained.

Bharadwaj added, "The cost of these prints is around Re. 1 per page for monochrome and Rs. 6 per sheet for color that amounts to Rs. 2,000 crore. Out of this, around Rs. 600 crore comes from printing done by the government. DGS&D (Directorate-General of Supplies and Disposals) rate contract, however, governs the procurement price for the entire Central ministries and their associated agencies and departments."

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Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal was recently quoted as saying that they were conceptualizing paperless government that would have e-filing process. Sibal believes that millions of tonnes of paper are being wasted in making photocopies in government offices with repercussion on environment and which is time-consuming.

Center has also embarked on biometrics-based Aadhaar, in addition to an e-Governance initiative that aims to cut paper clutter.

Well, there is right intent, but shouldn't the government first e-train its own babus?

©CIOL Bureau

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