Rajasthan has become the first state in Country to link 10 Key schemes to the Aadhar unique identification programme. Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot  announced this as part of the larger thrust on e-governance to ensure fast delivery of services with transparency and accountability.
In a phased manner, Aadhaar will be compulsory for old-age, widow and differently-abled pension schemes, rural job cards, ration cards, driving license, property registration, water and electricity connections, Indira Awas Yojna and student scholarships.
“The use of information technology will bring transparency in work and stop corruption. Accordingly, Aadhaar enabled service delivery system would be implemented in a phased manner across the state,” Chief Minister Gehlot said in a statement.
The decision was taken recently after the event at Dudu town in Jaipur district to mark the second anniversary of issuance of Aadhar cards that was attended, among others, by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
It was also decided to launch pilot projects to link the delivery of public distribution with Aadhar cards in the tehsils of Dudu, Chomu and Shahpura.
To help implement these ambitious schemes, Gehlot has asked all state departments to spend three percent of their allotted budget on e-governance, apart from establishing 750 posts to strengthen the information technology department, officials said.
Giving an example on e-governance, a senior official said an e-office project was set up at the state’s central secretariat recently to make government procedures more transparent and easily accessible through various information technology tools.
In the first phase, 15 departments were included — each of it with a nodal officer who will ensure increased use of computerisation. This apart, official files would be dealt with electronically and comments also posted online instead of hand written notes.
“This will make it easier to know which file is with which officer at a given time. This will speed up the work of the secretariat and make the process of decision-making and solving problems of the people faster,” the official said.
The other initiatives in e-governance include:
-Online issuance of learner’s driving license
-Applicants need to come to visit transport department only once for tests
-Jaipur Police to start issuing e-challans for traffic violators
-Focus on on-line recruitment, as in case of 10,000 police constables recently
-Medical colleges asked to use video conferencing for teaching
-Online land registration and issuance of certificates using digital signatures
-Six lakh state employees to get salaries based on ‘Aadhar’ registration from February