House panel questions bill on e-governance

The Centre’s plan to bring out a new legislation for ensuring electronic delivery of all government services like birth, death certificates, tax deposition and collection of land records, has hit a roadblock as a Parliamentary panel raised questions on the rationale of bringing out a separate law on e-governance.

The panel has asked the department of information technology to reconsider its decision of bringing out a new legislation as the same could be achieved by amending the Information Technology Act, 2000, and formulating new rules on e-governance under the Act.

The proposed Electronic Delivery of Services bill, 2011, was drafted in February 2011, and was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2011, after completing all formalities, including the Cabinet approval.

Curiously, drafting of the bill seems to have coincided with formulation and circulation of model state electronic service delivery rules for adoption by various states under the IT Act, which has been adopted by Manipur. At least six states, including Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, prescribed their own rules under the IT Act, on electronic delivery of public services and Jharkhand has its own law on e-governance.

“The committee was unable to comprehend the intention of the government while bringing a separate legislation for electronic delivery of services particularly when the model state electronic services delivery rules are being formulated under the IT Act,” the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology said in its report tabled in the House last week.

The committee felt that electronic delivery of services would have been facilitated through amendments to the IT Act itself. The whole issue of bringing separate legislation on electronic delivery of services should be reconsidered in consultation with legal and IT experts before the bill was taken up by Parliament, it said.