GUWAHATI, June 7 � IT may be the buzzword the world over but in Assam, successive State governments have failed to frame the rules of the State IT Policy with the result that the policy has fallen short of delivering the goods.
The dilly-dallying over the formation of rules is not just causing confusion among the IT entrepreneurs but the developments have also become a stumbling block in transparent and effective implementation of the IT policy.
The first IT policy was declared during the AGP Government in the year 2000 but the exercise of framing the rules was left undone. The Congress Government then replaced it with a new policy but again no rules were framed. Despite repeated representations made by IT bodies and more importantly, despite an announcement by the State Government itself to the effect that the rules would be framed by December 31, 2010, nothing has materialized till date.
Another grievance of the State�s entrepreneurs in the IT sector is that the Government has wilfully chosen to keep them out of the process of bidding for taking part in e-governance projects.
�We have nothing against big parties having the necessary expertise but it is wrong to shut the door completely on the local entrepreneurs. They too should be allowed to be the stakeholders in the process by taking part in the bidding � a practice followed initially but done away with later by the Government to leave them out of the entire process,� Monikangkan Barooah, general secretary of the North-East IT Association (NEITA) said, adding that it was tantamount to depriving the entrepreneurs for no fault of theirs.
It has also been alleged that contractual employees in various e-governance projects are getting a pittance even though the projects involve huge amounts of money. Apparently, the interests of a crucial component in the projects like the contractual employees are being ignored even though such an arrangement runs the risk of adversely impacting the implementation of the projects.
Barooah pointed out that the contractual employees in education projects like teachers engaged in the Rajiv Gandhi Computer Literacy Programme (RGCLP) were getting a meagre monthly amount.
