UNDP official praises MP's e-governance

Dr Hafiz Ahmed Pasha, Deputy Chief, United Nations

Development Program (UNDP), has said that high standards of governance has

enabled Madhya Pradesh to make impressive achievements in human development

field.

Dr Pasha said that good governance has been demonstrated

through well-designed programs that are behind these achievements. He

complimented the CM Digvijay Singh and the Chief Secretary for this remarkable

success. Dr Pasha held discussions with the Chief Minister here today.

Praising the efforts of state government in human

development and decentralization, Dr Pasha said that these would be held to the

rest of the world as a model and would be exposed to the world as best

practices.

CM Digvijay Singh informed the UNDP team about steps

taken in the state for human development. The Chief Secretary, KS Sharma, and

the State Mission Coordinator and Secretary to Chief Minister, R Gopalakrishnan,

appraised Dr Pasha of the various development initiatives in the state at a

separate meeting.

The UNDP also offered to host an international

consultation in Bhopal for exposing to the world the pro-poor decentralization

initiatives of Madhya Pradesh. He said that Madhya Pradesh has vindicated the

preparation of human development report by the UNDP. And added that the state

stood out as an example of good governance and many best practices could be

adopted from the state not only in other states of India but also outside and

would cite the examples of Madhya Pradesh internationally and enlist on its

website.

He was highly appreciative of the Gyandoot project and

said that UNDP would like to promote similar e-governance projects. He was

impressed by the ease with which children could handle a computer mouse at a

nearby school where the HEADSTART program for computer-enabled education was

being implemented. He found that Mandi prices were being daily updated on the

website and the facility was much in demand. He also tried his hand at the

matrimonial column of the Gyandoot project by filling a fictitious form.

Dr Pasha said that the Gyandoot project was a

well-designed and sustainable project, which made it suitable for faster

replicability. He showed interest in providing software support for adding

agriculture extension services, covering the gender aspect of IT usage and

providing support for rural health information program.

Brenda McSweeny, Head, UNDP (India), said that in three

critical areas, the planning commission of India has sought a best practice

manual. The UNDP has found that practices in governance, social service and land

and water management followed in Madhya Pradesh were the best practices.

(CNS)