Nitin Patel ushers in E-governance in Mehsana

mehsana: on the 55th independence day, small and medium irrigation minister nitin patel, who is also the district's in-charge minister opened the e-governance and computerised video conference room under the state-wide area network programme. inaugurating the video conferencing room at the public amenities centre at the collectorate, nitinbhai said his government had taken a vital step towards e-governance by opening such rooms in all districts on the 55th anniversary of independence.this facility, he said, would enable people to interact with the district officials directly without wasting time, money and energy. this could be used at international level, too, he added. nitinbhai claimed that after andhra pradesh, gujarat was the second state to create the facility of e-governance and video conferencing. talking of advantages of e-governance in the information technology age, nitinbhai said any citizen could access this facility, irrespective of his or her social or economic status. people need not run from pillar to post for their work. e-governance would end red-tapism and speed up disposal of public works, he hoped. a common man now would be able to keep track of the progress of his redressal petitions. the minister appealed to bureaucrats to create public awareness about the utility and use of the latest technology. he also expected them to change over to computer culture from the file-culture. earlier, collector a s patel said it was a proud occasion for the district to get the information gallery cum public amenities centre built at a cost of rs. 1.50 lakh inaugurated on the 55th anniversary of independence. he said people's applications would be accepted at the centre and a computer would provide a receipt of each application. now, the people will not have to go to different departments for submission of their grievances or complaints. this would be a great benefit of the central registration system at the pubic facility centre, patel said. he further said 75 employees had undergone behavioural training to equip them with a new perception of administration which entailed computer friendliness on them. later nitinbhai had video-conferencing session with it minister bimal shah at kheda and with water minister narottam patel at surat with whom he had an interesting chat on the progress of the project of narmada waters for north gujarat.