It’s an interesting idea that can be replicated in states like Sikkim where access to information and government initiatives is always an issue due to mountainous terrain. The good thing about telecommunication is that in worst of circumstances mobile connectivity reaches to the remotest areas.
Like Gujarat, Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Chamling and his Sikkim Democratic Government for all its claims of being hugely popular ought to go for transparency in implementation of state-led welfare measures.
It could be a good PR exercise for the government which will be facing Panchayat election in the coming year, and state assembly election in 2014. Mobile governance has widespread benefits. And the benefits would be even more in a small Himalayan state like Sikkim with small population. It could also be used for computerisation of land records and broadband connectivity in all villages of the state.
The major problem of governance today is that it mostly remains top to bottom and doesn’t consider feedback and interaction from the people as a necessary part of the governance. Governance remains in this case a bureaucracy driven, party driven and state driven phenomenon. Without denying the role of either of the three, governance should ideally be people driven. That is also where comes the importance of redressing people’s grievances. An effective mobile governance could ensure quick redressal of people’s problem.
We have an RTI, a PIL, a court system, a police and a mechanism to register online grievances but at a time when all of them appear to have been constrained by a host of factors, it is time to give in the hands of common man a powerful tool which can unleash real democracy.
There is need to give people real power by bringing a truly widespread and democratic tool like mobile to bring good governance. Anti-social and anti-national elements can target RTI activists but what can such people do when the whole society becomes activist.
Sikkim, SDF and Pawan Chamling would do a great favour by rising above the mentality of control and state-led governance to bring a new era of people led governance through mobile.
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Quelle/Source: iSikkim, 17.12.2011
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