E-Governance Project in Karnataka (India): A Case Study of Delivery of Land Records ('Bhoomi')

摘要

Introduction of e-governance is a key to make information technology relevant to ordinary citizens in India where a large numbers of population are poor and a digital divide is a significant problem. E-governance will allow ordinary people to constantly interface with the government in both local and central level on various matters. Land record is a crucial document in the lives of people. It is essential for security of loan tenures, crop loans, bail applications, getting scholarships for children, planning rural development programmes etc. In Karnataka state of the Indian economy, 20 million land records containing details such as ownership, crop, bank loans, irrigation etc, covering 67 lakh farmers spread over 27,000 villages, were kept in manual format. Nearly 9,000 village accountants were the lords and masters of these data. As a result, the system was plauged with corruption, like tampering of doucments. non-availability of records in time, non-updation of records and non-availability of instant data for planning purposes. In this paper an attempt is made to assess the welfare gain or loss to the farmers in Karnataka due to implementation of e-govemance project called "Bhoomi". Though project is much publicized, its results are mixed one. In conclusion it is suggested that the scheme be extended from taluk level to hobli level so that the additional cost involved by the farmer to go to sub district place for getting the record will reduce much.