Pune now has has a CIO - whose job it is to guide all use of information technology related to PMC. This includes external facing services like property tax payments, marriage/birth/death registration, and also internal use of IT like MIS and ERP. Dr. Anupam Saraph, who has been appointed the CIO of PMC, is an industry veteran with a good understanding of the latest trends in both technology and e-governance. As a result, his vision for PMC goes far beyond simple computerization of services - this includes initiatives to encourage citizen participation through the use of wikis and social networking, games and competitions to increase citizen involvement, use of maps, GIS, and mashups to increase usability and usefulness of the services and websites.
However, I don’t think this is something that can be done without active community participation. For really successful implementation of some of these ideas, what is really needed, in my opinion, is the involvement of the tech community to help with the execution - frontends, backends, usability, evangelization. I would like to start a discussion on how we can help.
Dr. Saraph has agreed to attend IdeaCampPune for a few hours in the first half o the day. If we can get a few discussions started around this topic, he can participate, clarify his vision for us, and answer questions. I have also requested him to write an article giving some more details on his ideas and initiatives, so we can start thinking about how best the community can help in each of those areas. He hopes to have it done by Monday or Tuesday, and I’ll post it here as soon as I get it. Please check this site again on Tuesday.
If you have any immediate questions or suggestions please post them in the comments below, and I can have Dr. Saraph answer them.
Related articles:
PMC to re-charge Pune wi-fi project
Pune Municipal Corporation gets CIO, new website, wiki
