The problem with common minimum programmes is that policy gets reduced to the lowest common denominator. The final document is a mishmash of promises taken from election manifestos of ruling coalition partners and the political party which has the potential to create the most nuisance gets a larger share. There is no vision. This is true of the common minimum programme hammered out between the BJP and its partners. In the process, the BJP has had to overturn policies followed by the previous government in order to please its partners and keep them on board.
The CMP is totally out of sync with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for a Digital India. In fact, the CMP makes no mention of a Digital Goa. There is no effort to consolidate and take forward the existing e-governance measures. There was no mention of the creation of a central authority to guide each department on how to utilize technology to energise the government-people interface and bring about greater transparency through e-governance. Believe it or not, the transport department still does not accept the Aadhaar card as proof of identity and address even as Modi races to link practically everything to it.
The central government launched a portal to facilitate online booking of appointments in hospitals across the country. Every day, over 1,000 appointments are booked online through this system. Goa, sadly is not part of it. The Centre has also set up a portal to take appointments with department heads and ministers online. The Goa government is not aware of this portal. In the year 2013-14, the number of digital transactions stood at 254 crore. This figure shot up to 866 crore in 2016-17. Andaman and Nicobar Islands have an online system for booking bus passes while our transport department is still struggling to set up a system. Payment of challans have gone online in some states but in Goa, which aspires to be a model state, one still has to make a trip to the department to pay the fine.
Goa has over 30 services that have gone online, but the rate at which more services are being added is slow because the government still hasn’t completely understood the advantages of technology to improve delivery of services. And the CMP reflects this lack of understanding. There are several services in every department which can be taken online, but without an apex department to drive it, the task of widening the scope of e-governance get broken up into several pieces. A plan for digital Goa, ideally, has to be driven by the chief minister, just like it is being pushed forward by the Prime Minister. Parrikar is not only tech savvy but also an engineer of a high order. He is the right person to usher total e-governance. The question is, does he want Goa to be part on Digital India?
