Learner’s Submission: Online Voter Registration – A Public Service of Puducherry Union Territory, India

“Puducherry a union territory of India online voter registration is a public online service provide for the people to view the voter identity card status. It is the public service maintained by government of Puducherry

Eligibility for the purpose of enrolment in electoral rolls is.

In India, Indian citizens above 18 years of age, with sound mind should not be of unsound mind (If he/she is of unsound mind and stands declared by a competent court then not eligible to be register as voter), be ordinarily resident in the area from where application is made, should not have been disqualified from voting under provisions of any law relating to corrupt practices and other offences in connection with election that is, 171E, 171F of IPC & Section 8A(1), 125 135, 136(2)(a) of Representation of People Act, 1951 ,with all necessary documents needed for registering can register online if they are residing in the constituency .They can participate and cast their vote for the contestants.

To register the citizens have to log on to http://www.ceopondicherry.nic.in after logging in the home page which is completely user friendly .it has four options:

a) Addition of users to a specific constituency
b) Deletion of users from a specific constituency
c) Modification of existing users data if it needs any modification
d) Transposition from one constituency to another.

Further for any assistance in any of the process or doubt in this process a toll free number is given for the user convenience.
After registration the details are verified in person the date of verification is intimated to the citizen .after verification is done and if the citizen is verified by the official the EPIC (electoral photo identity card) is given to him who can also be used as an identity card for may purposes within the country

Form 6 is needed to be filled by citizen who has attained 18 years of age.
Form 6a if he /she is an non residing Indian.
Form 7for deletion of existing user names.
Form 8if any correction in the voter card details printed.
Form 8a if shifting your place from one poll booth to another poll both within the same constituency.

Uploading the scanned copy of the birth certificate, and residence proof is optional but at the time of verification by the booth level officer.

The birth certificate also can be obtained from the common service centres another public service which brings government services to the people.

For the residence proof either the ration card, or any other proof of residence like driving licence can be provided.

Another salient feature of this website is its multilingual content which helps the users to fill the forms online in their own native language.

A search option is also given for citizens to verify their name has been updated in the electoral rolls in their constituency or not.

The search can be made by either the person name or residing address which was given during the voter registration or by the EPIC card number which is available in the voter card.

From the 2014 plastic voter identity cards are given to voters who are getting registered .its integrity can be verified by checking those cards under ultra violet lights. This move by the department is highly appreciated and welcomed by the people. These electoral rolls are revised every year.” – Prabhu Djeapragassam – Puducherry, India

Learner’s Submission: Open Data Portal – Edo State Government, Nigeria

“The online public service that I have made use of in my home country is the Edo State Open Data Portal which is the only online state public service in Nigeria and first sub-national portal in the continent of Africa.

It is a new initiative by the Edo State Government to make information more readily available to those who need it, enhance transparency in government and encourage investors. It is an online platform which makes it easy for the citizenry to access and reuse data from the Edo State Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies free of charge.

The Edo State Open Data Portal which is powered by the Edo State Information and Communications Technology Agency (ICTA) is aimed at improving Government and nipping the embarrassing phenomenon of ghost workers, wastages and misuse of public information and other forms of resource misuse in the bud, empower citizens and ultimately reduce government expenditure, and also effectively break away from the bureaucratic bottle-necks usually experienced while soliciting for information that should normally be made available to the public on request as well as the slow pace of Government officials when speed is of utmost importance.

All that anybody who is in need of information has to do is to have access to the internet and log on to data.edostate.gov.ng where the visitor can randomly search for any information of her/his choice, provided it is in relation to the state and within the purview of its concerns. One could also click on individual hyper links which the reader can directly follow, depending on what is desired by the visitor or available for view.
Being the first online public service in the state, it will take a thorough and extended effort to make Edo State Government data truly useful. Stakeholders expect to have improved data quality. Agencies will have to begin improving the quality of their data simply to avoid public embarrassment.

Up to now, the government’s release of open data has largely been a one-way affair: Agencies publish datasets that they hope will be useful without consulting the organizations and companies that want to use it. The government is therefore expected to build feedback loops from data users to government data providers.

Open data is also of value for government itself as it can increase government efficiency. For example, if the Edo State Ministry of Education can publish all of their education-related data online for re-use, the number of questions they receive will obviously drop, reducing work-load and costs, and the remaining questions will also be easier for civil servants to answer, because it is clear where the relevant data can be found.

Open government data can also help citizens make better decisions in life and make them more active in society. People can easily re-use cadastral information from government data as well as local registers to publish information which helps them find public utilities such as public toilets, public libraries, public parks, hotels, etc.
New combinations of data can create new knowledge and insights, which can lead to whole new fields of application. This potential can be unleashed if government data is really open, i.e. if there needed information are actually available and there are no restrictions (legal, financial or technological) to its re-use by others. Every restriction will exclude people from re-using the public data, and make it harder to find valuable ways of doing so.” – Uhunwa Benard Otamere – Edo State, Nigeria

Learner’s Submission: Open Government Data in India

“Area of open government data is new in India. It’s just initiated and needed to be matured enough to be proved effective. The address of the portal is https://data.gov.in/, It’s a National Level portal. India’s open government data initiative has gained momentum with the adoption of an official open data policy and the publication of nearly 5818 data sets so far on the portal data.gov.in, it has still quite some way to go in making its mark globally on this front going by the rankings of an international Open Data Index. 

It published 5818 data sets of 58 Ministry/Departments of Government of India and 4 State Government. Major participants are Ministry of Agriculture Ministry of Agriculture (1795), Department of Agriculture and Co-operation (1739), Directorate of Marketing and Inspection (DMI) (1734), Planning Commission (822), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (766), Ministry of Water Resources (644), Ministry of Power (411), Central Electricity Authority (411), Rajya Sabha (244), Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (211) (1795), Department of Agriculture and Co-operation (1739), Directorate of Marketing and Inspection (DMI) (1734), Planning Commission (822), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (766), Ministry of Water Resources (644), Ministry of Power (411), Central Electricity Authority (411), Rajya Sabha (244), Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (211) etc. Those data sets are mainly in excel and csv format and can be analyzed.
It can be used for further analysis and can be used as no prior permission is required for using those data. Definitely those data are useful an analyzing various parameter. However it is required to add more data as 5818 data sets are nothing in respect to the magnitude of the nation like India.
I like about the portal:
• Data Management System (DMS) – Backend Module for users in the standard metadata format.
• Content Management System (CMS) – Module for managing and updating various functionalities and content.
• Visitor Relationship Management (VRM) – Segment for collating and disseminating the feedback or suggestions from the stake holders on datasets and applications. Feedbacks or suggestions could be shared through feedback form, suggest datasets or apps and contact us.
• Communities – Option sharing of opinion among people with same interest, belonging to the same sector or having interest for the same datasets and to create interaction and knowledge sharing.

People are participating through the Blogs, Discussions forum however the level of participation are very low. 2,730 liked its facebook page and its participation is decreasing. 5,179 people are following at twitter, which is very low. It’s needed to be popularizing by increasing utility.
Data set related to Map, Land ownership, Government spending, Company register, Legislation, Public transport, Crime statistics, opinion poll on various issues is to be incorporated. Those data should from ground level up to the central level and recent updated data.” – Rupak Ghosh – West Bengal, India