New Delhi: President A P J Abdul Kalam today (Dec 18, 2003) said a comprehensive e-governance framework should be evolved in the country, which would entail setting up an e-governance commission or an empowered board, with a view to ensure transparency in Citizen-Government interface.

"A comprehensive e-governance framework needs to be evolved which should encompass an e- governance commission or empowered board, e-governance grids across Centre and States, and setting up of e-governance data-centre at both Central and State level," Kalam said at an international conference on e-governance, organised by IIT Delhi.

It would also entail setting up a multipurpose secure, authentic national citizen ID database as the primary data for all e-governance services and online issue of Citizen ID cards seamlessly.

The President stressed on the need for language independent operating systems, databases, application servers and mail server in Indian languages.

"As much as 90 per cent of the work concerning e-governance should be outsourced and Government should only manage the data-centre and maintain it for online application," Kalam said.

"There should be grids at the Central, State, Panchayat and village level to ensure e-governance in every sphere of life," he pointed out.

Emphasising on the need for innovation, Kalam said, "innovation when added to information society leads to knowledge society".

PTI