CAG slams e-governance initiatives of Revenue Dept

While the independent survey had left the state government fuming, and wanting to send rejoinders, the latest CAG report is based on the scrutiny of government records. Tabled before the state Assembly on the last day of the session on Wednesday, the report has slammed the e-governance initiatives of the Revenue Department for being high on hardware purchase and low on its use.

Under the head "IT audit of computerisation of land records", the report says that there are major deficiencies in input, access, operation and security controls leading to inefficiencies. In an example of how duties defined to various functionaries were exercised by others, the performance audit states that duties of talatis, circle officers, and mamlatdars are being performed by data entry operators at e-Dhara centres – offices meant for supplying digitised land records.

In yet another hilarious example, the report found that while a whopping sum of Rs 98 lakh was spent on digitisation of cadastral maps as a pilot project in Anand and Sabarkantha districts, the director of land records was continuing to use hard copies of the digitized maps!

In many places at the district level, the absence of proper access controls was exposing the system to the risk of unauthorised use. The report further found that additional computers and hardware were provided to district data centre offices, more than could be put to use. Giving example, the report said that scanners purchased for 225 e-Dhara kendras at a cost of Rs 17.01 lakh remained unutilised, though the reason was the failure of the NIC to develop software to make them operational.