Delhi named best state for e-governance by Dataquest

NEW DELHI, INDIA: National capital, Delhi  has been declared the best e-governed state in the country by Dataquest. Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit received the award from Chief Information Commissioner Wajahat Habibullah at a gala event here late Wednesday.

The other winners included Lakshmi Narayanan of Cognizant Technology Solutions as IT person of the year, Sanjeev Bhikchandani of Naukri.com as the path-breaker of the year and D.B. Pathak of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Mumbai for lifetime achievement.

The annual awards, instituted by Dataquest publishers CyberMedia group, are now in their 16th year, and have honoured IT leaders like N. Vittal, Ashok Soota, Azim Premji, Shiv Nadar, Rajendra Pawar, Kiran Karnik and S. Ramadorai in the past.

Delhites were the most satisfied with e-governance initiatives as Delhi topped nine of the fourteen parameters in this category, according to a survey conducted IDC India for Dataquest. Delhi spent Rs 10,982 for every citizen on building its IT infrastructure and maintaining citizen-centric IT applications.

Delhi also scored well when it came to e-governance satisfaction on business services. This was an achievement in a year when businesses were hard hit following the sealing drive of its municipal corporation.

This apart, Delhi’s judicial system was also rated highly by businesses, in an indication that its efforts to modernize local courts in the capital had now started to pay off well.

Pathak, head of the IIT-Bombay Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology, was honoured for making an indelible mark on the Indian IT industry by inspiring a whole generation of young students and making them thought leaders.

Bhikchandani, a young entrepreneur, was named this year’s path-breaker for establishing a successful online business model and creating an unmatched mind share among Web users looking for jobs.

Narayanan, vice chairman of Cognizant Technology Solutions, was honoured for his role in leading the company, which has emerged as one of the largest in India’s now-reputed business process outsourcing industry.

The other corporate awardees included Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Hewlett-Packard, NIIT, Microsoft, SAP, Cisco Systems, vCustomer, iGate, Ingram Micro, IBM India and Genpact.

“The current financial crisis present an opportunity for Indian services providers to grow their market share across sectors and geographies,” said CyberMedia chairman Pradeep Gupta.

“I am confident that entrepreneurs will use this opportunity to sharpen their offerings by leveraging technological strengths and abundant manpower pool,” Gupta added.