Comments
on the Draft EDS Bill-2011
(This
is the first of a series of articles on the Bill)
Government of India has released for public comments a draft Bill on
Electronic Delivery of Services. (EDSB-2011).
It
appears that most of the provisions of this bill when it becomes a
law will be overlapping with ITA 2008 to the extent that one can raise a
genuine doubt whether this Bill is in fact required or not.
ITA 2000
was enacted with effect from 17th October 2000 and addressed the
issue of E Services delivery by Government as part of the legislation on
the use of electronic documents.
Under
Section 9 of the Act, it was specified that the use of electronic
documents by the Government agencies will remain a discretionary aspect
of the department and the Citizen shall not have the right to demand
that services be delivered to him through electronic means.
Sections
6, 7 and 8 provided the enabling features where a willing Government
department could use electronic documents for the purpose of normal E
Governance services such as receiving applications from Citizens for
various services, issue of permits and licenses using electronic
documents, retaining documents in electronic form and for the issue of
Gazette in e-form.
The
provisions of the Act on recognition of electronic documents, digital
signatures, cyber crimes etc applied to both Government and non
Government agencies.
ITA 2008
(Amended ITA 2000) became effective from 27th October 2009 and in
particular introduced a section Sec 6A to address the issue of
"Electronic Delivery of Government Services".
The
section is reproduced here for immediate reference:
6A Delivery of Services by Service Provider
1) The appropriate Government may, for the purposes of this
Chapter and for efficient delivery of services to the public
through electronic means authorize, by order, any service
provider to set up, maintain and upgrade the computerized
facilities and perform such other services as it may specify, by
notification in the Official Gazette.
Explanation: For the purposes of this section, service
provider so authorized includes any individual, private agency,
private company, partnership firm, sole proprietor form or any
such other body or agency which has been granted permission by
the appropriate Government to offer services through electronic
means in accordance with the policy governing such service
sector
(2)The appropriate Government may also authorize any service
provider authorized under sub-section (1) to collect, retain and
appropriate service charges, as may be prescribed by the
appropriate Government for the purpose of providing such
services, from the person availing such service.
(3)Subject to the provisions of sub-section (2), the
appropriate Government may authorize the service providers to
collect, retain and appropriate service charges under this
section notwithstanding the fact that there is no express
provision under the Act, rule, regulation or notification under
which the service is provided to collect, retain and appropriate
e-service charges by the service providers.
(4)The appropriate Government shall, by notification in the
Official Gazette, specify the scale of service charges which may
be charged and collected by the service providers under this
section:
Provided that the appropriate Government may specify
different scale of service charges for different types of
services.
While ITA
2000 had already provided the necessary powers for Government to use
electronic documents for Governance, and certain State Governments had
already implemented E Governance plans through private sector companies
supported by the rules framed under the appropriate sections of ITA
2000, the new section 6A was considered as providing a clarification
that private sector agencies could be used for delivery of services on
behalf of the Government and collect service charges even for those
services for which the legacy laws did not provide collection of service
charges.
In effect
Sec 6A had already provided an opportunity to the Government to "Tax"
the citizens for the use of Electronic form of service delivery over and
above the present provisions of charging for E Governance services.
Though
Citizens of the Country have been led through a garden path that IT will
reduce cost of service and increase efficiency, Section 6A had already
enabled increase of cost without any obligation of better service.
Naavi.org
had raised an issue at one point time questioning the validity of
Government charging a fee for Electronic Copies of Gazette notifications
stating that it was the right of the Citizen to receive the Gazette
Notifications.
Section
6A countered this argument and enabled a new source of revenue to the
Government so that the tax revenue collected at present which imposed an
obligation on the Government to Govern the country was used only for
meeting the overheads of the Government, and service obligations were
slowly shifted to the private sector under additional charges.
The logic
under which roads were constructed out of toll collections, education
was privatized, health care was privatized etc was now being extended to
every aspect of Governance and Section 6A enabled the Government to
deliver all its services to public through the electronic means and
charge the public fees for such delivery.
It is
possible that this status had been brought to the attention of the
Government and the Government wanted to correct its approach to imposing
the e-Governance tax on the public through the introduction of a
separate Bill which appears to be the objective of the EDS B-2011.
Except
this and the need to repeal Section 9 of ITA 2008 creating a "Right for
Citizens" to demand service delivery through Electronic means,
every other aspect of the bill could have been implemented through
appropriate rules under the ITA 2008.
EDS Bill
2011 therefore appears to lack justification for its very introduction.
An amendment deleting Sec 9 of ITA 2008 would have been more than
sufficient to accomplish the objectives of the Bill.
We need
to therefore think deeply on what could be the other hidden objectives
of the Bill that is not visible on the surface.
(To Be continued)
Naavi
7th March 2011
Comments are Welcome at naavi@vsnl.com
