The Hindu 14.07.2009
Comprehensive e-security, e-waste policies soon
Special Correspondent
| IT Minister announces formation of think-tank |
Poongothai Aladi Aruna
CHENNAI: The State government will release a comprehensive e-security and e-waste policies in the current financial year, according to Poongothai Aladi Aruna, Information Technology Minister.
The e-security policy would give broad guidance and specific measures for information security across government departments, she told the Assembly on Monday.
Dr. Poongothai said the e-waste policy was aimed at minimising e-waste generation and utilising generated e-waste for beneficial purpose through reuse and recycling. “This will ensure environmentally sound disposal of residual waste.”
Pointing out that mobile phones had become the easiest mode of communication and it had been possible for the public to access services through mobile phones, she said the Department of IT would work with mobile service providers, other government departments and financial institutions to deliver citizen services.
“Mobile governance or M governance shall become an important mode of service delivery offering online services to citizens and business,” she said.
Dr. Poongothai said that as a first step towards providing e-services to the citizens, a State Portal would be set up at a cost of Rs 16.13 crore. The centrally assisted project, she said, would eventually act as a common interface for utilising government services by citizens and business community. The other proposal was to set up TNeGA (Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency) whereby all basic information and documentation on IT applications in the State would be stored as to enable easy retrieval.
Dr. Poongothai announced constitution of a think-tank, comprising experts in the academic and research fields and those who had experience at seniormost levels in the corporate world, to assist the IT Department to adopt the constant changes in the field and to further the cause of e-governance.
She said a comprehensive e-governance policy covering a wide range of issues such as technology type, architecture and framework standards would be framed and issued next year.
A help desk would be set up in the ELCOT to provide answers to all queries of IT units.