THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Governor P Sathasivam has called for stringent measures to ensure privacy and security in e-governance initiatives. “Who knows, tomorrow’s wars may be fought not with missiles, but with bugs and viruses designed to bring society to a standstill. The increasing demand to ensure Aadhaar linking for social media accounts so as to avoid disinformation campaigns is also to be seen in such a perspective,” he said.
The governor was speaking after inaugurating the national seminar on “e-Governance for Better Governance” organised by the Administrative Reforms Commission in association with the Union Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances.
Commission chairman VS Achuthanandan, in his address, called for making the e-governance initiatives more simple and practical. He flayed the practice of making Aadhaar mandatory for e-governance services.
Achuthanandan cited the example of paying land tax through Akshaya centres. “We should examine the situation in which Rs 20 is to be spent at an Akshaya centre for remitting land tax worth `10. Making Aadhaar mandatory for e-governance services is part of an agenda,” he said.
He added that e-governance was a priority of the commission. The former chief minister said IT had helped to make file movement faster at the Secretariat during his tenure.
Kerala’s former IT secretary and the present Union Defence Secretary Dr Ajay Kumar addressed the function. The Digital India programme has helped in setting up the basic building blocks for widespread IT applications, he said.