New Delhi, Aug 15, 2000

Shri. Pramod Mahajan, Hon'ble Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Information Technology and Shri. Arun Shourie, Hon'ble Minister of State of Disinvestment and Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances inaugurated the Centre for eGovernance at Electronics Niketan, Department of Information Technology, here today.

Promoted by the Department of Information Technology and managed by C-DAC, the Center aims at showcasing the best practices in the area of eGovernance, conduct programs to create awareness amongst decision makers in the Central and State Governments, demonstrate the feasibility of the concept of eGovernance and assist the Central and State Governments in defining and implementing policy and process changes.

On the occasion, Shri. Prabhat Kumar, Cabinet Secretary released the brochure outlining the activities of the Centre. Shri. B.B. Tandon, Secretary, Dept. of Personnel and Training, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension, also released a multimedia CD installed at a kiosk at the Centre describing the activities of the Centre.

An eOffice package, which will simplify day-to-day functioning within the Ministry, was also released on the occasion. The initiation of such a package will substantially reduce paperwork and the need for movement of people to search for more information thereby, reducing delays, saving costs and the need for duplicating data at various points.

The participating organizations in the Centre for eGovernance, besides C-DAC, currently are CMC, NIC, Microsoft, Oracle and IQ Virtuals.