The West Bengal Government has plans to spend Rs 41 crore to roll out e-district project across 19 districts of the state, and the project, which is a part of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), will be rolled out on 1st of January.

Each district will get around Rs 2.14 crore for implementation of the citizen-centric services electronically.

Partha Chatterjee, Minister for Commerce & Industry and IT, said the project would be completed within six months after launch. Chatterjee was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a seminar organised jointly by FICCI and the Project Management Institute.

Speaking on the topic, Chatterjee added, "A major chunk of the funding will be from the Centre while the State's role will be primarily to monitor and successfully implement the scheme. A small contribution to the project will be from the State."

The Minister added that appropriate training would be provided to government employees to enable them to offer online services.

"The ultimate objective of NeGP is to bring public service to the doorstep of all citizens," Chatterjee said.

FICCI and PMI said they surveyed people in the district of Bankura, where the initiative had been carried out, and found that a great majority of the people surveyed interviewed claim that the initiative was beneficial as it led to reduction in time and simplification of process for certificates' issuance.

Chatterjee said that the main objective of the project was to bring public service to the doorstep of all people.

NeGP is also been rolled out in a number of others states, including Assam, Mizoram, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Punjab, Haryana, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh.