Good Governance is Boosting Service Industry in Chandigarh

Chandigarh is a city and a union territory that serves as the capital of the states of Punjab and Haryana. The city tops the list of Indian States and Union Territories by per capita income. The city was reported to be the cleanest in India in 2010, based on a national government study. Chandigarh won six SKOCH Order-of-Merit—three in Education, two in Municipalities and one in e-Governance.

Key Achievements

The largest numbers of Order-of-Merit have been awarded in the Education segment. These have been won by Society for Promotion of IT in Chandigarh (SPIC) for various projects. These are C-TOSS: Chandigarh—Training On Soft Skills; Campus Wide Area Network at Government Medical College & Hospital, Sector 32, Chandigarh and e-Campus, College Management System. Taking the Campus Wide Network project as an example, the vision of the project was to make the Institute fully connected using state-of-art technology infrastructure. To realise this vision, an Optical Fiber connectivity across the Government Medical College & Hospital, Sector 32 premises was envisaged with a bandwidth of 10G or higher with redundant connectivity for failsafe network. Post the networking project, the Health Management Information System (HMIS) runs on this network. The project ‘e-Campus’ aims at improving citizen service delivery of the Department of Higher Education, Chandigarh. Through this project, the users, mainly students, have been empowered to avail the relevant services of the department.

Chandigarh is emerging as a regional hub in the areas of service industry, education, health, information technology, food and vegetable processing etc

The Municipalities category has two winners, the Municipal Corporation Chandigarh’s projects ‘Tracking and Monitoring of Municipal Solid Waste’ and ‘Providing Sustainable Livelihood to Urban Poor Youth through Skill Building’. The latter project’s goal is to provide gainful employment to urban poor youth with sustained income and growth to take them out of vicious cycle of poverty. As a result of this project, the average placement rate is now 50 per cent with over 75 per cent opening bank accounts and saving part of their incomes.

In the e-Governance category, the Society for Promotion of IT in Chandigarh (SPIC) won the Order-of-Merit for its very successful and well-received project: e-Sampark. The project e-Sampark was initiated to bring together the services of all the departments under one single umbrella and give citizens of Chandigarh a “multi-service”/“single-window” experience apart from eradicating the undue harassment met by the citizens due to lack of transparency. The project was started way back in 2004 and from just 11 services of 7 departments the project has graduated to provide 43 services through three delivery channels apart from increasing the number of centres from three to 14 Sampark Centres, 14 Gram Sampark centres and 10 Kiosks.

Look Ahead

Chandigarh is emerging as a regional hub in the areas of services, education, health, information technology, food and vegetable processing etc. Chandigarh’s plan priorities clearly focus on the targets and objectives contained in the National Common Minimum Programme. The Administration is determined to provide information about services of various departments and also to provide information and facilitation to residents regarding private services and other Government of India services from the 70 e-Jan Sampark kiosks, which are to be set up in each sector and each village of Chandigarh. With the help of Department of Rural Development, 17 locations have been identified to set up these Centres. These include, Panchayat buildings lying unused and the Gram Sampark Centres, which will be set up after reconditioning these buildings.

Chandigarh is fast becoming one of the most preferred destinations for technology companies

Chandigarh is fast becoming one of the most preferred destinations for technology companies. Significant work has already been done in the Departments of Excise and Taxation, Licensing and Registering Authority, Transport, Registration of Births and Deaths and Police. Other Departments like Estate Office, Health, Education and Food & Supplies are currently being taken up for computerisation.