IBPS RRB Officer Scale 1 Model Paper 5

Directions (121-130) : Read the following passage to answer the. given questions.Some words have been printed in bold to help you to locate-them while answering some of the questions.
 We tend to be harsh on our bureaucracy, but nowhere do citizens enjoy dealing with their government. They do it because they have to. But that doesn’t mean that the experience has to be dismal. Now there is a new wind blowing through government departments around the world,’ which could take some of this pain away. In the next five years it may well transform not only the way public services are delivered but also the fundamental relationship between government and citizens. Not surprisingly, it is the Internet that is behind it.After e-commerce and e-business, the next revolution may be e-governance.
 Examples abound. The municipality of Phoenix, Arizona, allows its citizensto renew their car registrations, pay traffic fines, replace lost identity cards.etc.online without having to stand in endless queues ‘ in a grubby municipal office.The municipality is happy because it saves $5atransction−’‌i‌t‌c‌o‌s‌t‌s‌o‌n‌l‌y$1.60 toprocess an online transaction versus $$6.60 to do it acrosss the counter. In Chile,people routinely submit their income tax returns over the Internet, which has increased transparency, drastically reduced the time taken and the number oferrors and litigation with the tax department. Both tax payers and the revenue department are happier
 The furthest ahead, not .surprisingly, is the small, rich and entrepreriurialcivil service of Singapore, which allows citizens to do more functions online thanany other. As in many private companies, the purchasing and buying of Singapore’s government departments is now on the Web, and cost benefits come through more competitive bidding, easy access to global suppliers and time saved by online processing of orders. They can post their catalogues on their site, bid for contracts submit in voices and check their payment, status over the Net.
 The most useful idea for. Indian municipalities is Gov Works a private sectorrunsite that collects local taxes, fines, and utility bills for 3,600 municipalities across the United States. It is a citizen’s site, which also provides information on government jobs, tenders, etc. The most ambitious is the British government,which has targeted to convert 100 per cent of its transactions with its citizens tothe Internet by 2005.
 Cynics in India will say, ‘Oh, e-govemment will never work in India. We are ;so poor and we don’t have computers.’ But they are wrong! There are many experiments afoot in India as well. Citizens in Andhra Pradesh can download: 14 :government forms and submit applications on the Net without having to bribeclerks. In many districts, land records are online and this has created transparency.Similarly, in Dhar district to Madhya Pradesh, villagers have begun to file applications for land j transferes and follow their progress on the Net. In seventyvillage in the Kolhapur and Sangli districts in Maharashtra, Internent booth shave come up where farmers can daily check the market rates of agricultural commodities in Marathi, along with data on agricultural schemes, information on crop technology, when to spray and plant their crops and bus and railway timetables.They also find vocational guidance on jobs; applications for ration cards, kerosene/gas burners and land record extracts with details of land ownership.
 Sam Pitroda’s World Tel, Reliance Industries and the Tamil Nadu government are jointly laying 3,000 km of optic fibre cables to create a Tamil Network whichwill offer ration cards, school college and hospital admission forms, land records,-and pension records. If suceessful, World Tel will expand the network to Gujarat,Karnataka and West Bengal. In Kerala, all the villages are getting linked onlineto the district headquarters, allowing citizens to compare the development prioritiesof their village with other villagers in the state.
 Many are still skeptical of the real impact because so few Indians have computers. The answer lies in interactive, cable. T.V. and in Internet kiosks.Although India has only five million computers and thirty-eight million telephones,it has thirty-four million homes with cable TV and these are growing eight percent a year. By 2005 most cable homes will have access to the. Interenet from many of the 700,000 local STD/PCO booths. Internet usage may be low today, butit is bound to grow rapidly in the future, and e-governance in India may not be a dream.