Translated material
Virtual spanking
Governors will be responsible for providing electronic services to the population
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited Bashkiria yesterday. The region and its president, the elder of the Russian gubernatorial corps, Murtaza Rakhimov, greeted the head of the federal government with oriental hospitality. The guests from the center did not make any complaints, but, on the contrary, cited the republic as an example - especially in the field of information technology development. In fact, the topic of electronic power was key to the prime minister’s trip.Arriving in Ufa, Vladimir Putin made an unplanned visit to one of the city’s military units. The visit was caused by sad events: recently four special forces soldiers sent from Bashkiria to Chechnya died in a clash with a gang.
Then the prime minister toured clinic No. 46, where he was presented with one of the components of the “Social Card of Bashkortostan” project - an electronic ID that is linked to the healthcare sector and allows, for example, to make an appointment with a doctor and receive free medicines. Mr. Putin went through this procedure - he actually got an appointment with a doctor almost without a queue.
It was no coincidence that the region was chosen as a site for a meeting of the government commission on regional development of information technologies in the constituent entities of the federation. Before the meeting, the Prime Minister was told about the “Electronic Government of Bashkortostan” project. As it turned out, within the framework of a single republic, many of the federal initiatives are implemented much faster. Residents of the republic are provided with social cards with extensive capabilities; they can use telemedicine services; republican authorities have the ability to remotely monitor territories.
Opening the meeting, Vladimir Putin noted that the success of the widespread implementation of information technologies directly depends on the coordinated actions of all levels of government. “The integrated system adequately meets the needs of the modern economy and society. Information technology is no longer something abstract,” the Prime Minister explained the need for the meeting in terms appropriate to the occasion and more like an Internet-loving president. The head of government once again compared the process of citizens going through official bodies with a literary work he loved: “We need to make it easier for citizens to go through the pain.” In addition to simplifying various procedures for ordinary Russians, virtual government agencies have other advantages - increasing the efficiency of budget expenditures and reducing the scope for corruption.
But the prime minister did not stop caring about citizens: “Over the past year, every adult Russian turned to various government agencies three or four times and experienced all the so-called delights of public places.” But the transition to electronic services should not cause even more problems and less pleasure: “The isolated development of territorial and departmental information systems will cause compatibility problems, new difficulties may appear at a new level,” the Prime Minister recalled the need for coordination of federal departments and regional governments.
The head of the Ministry of Information and Communications, Igor Shchegolev, emphasized that it is the regional authorities who are obliged to provide the majority of the most popular services among citizens, which means that a large share of the work on entering the electronic information space rests with officials of the constituent entities of the federation. Regional bureaucrats might be concerned that the active depersonalization of government services will lead to job cuts in government agencies, but it seems that this is still far away. To begin with, the reverse process is necessary - it is necessary to form management structures for projects to transfer services into electronic form, to identify operators of local electronic governments.
The minister tried to further stimulate regional authorities to work more actively, saying that in India, with the introduction of information technologies in one of the megacities, tax collection increased by 125%; in Canada, the cost of one public service provided in person is $44, and a request implemented in electronic form, costs the authorities $1. In Russia, the annual distribution of notifications from the Pension Fund costs 3 billion rubles, and with the introduction of personal e-mail for communication with government agencies for each citizen, the costs will decrease by an order of magnitude.
President of Bashkortostan Murtaza Rakhimov, having received the floor, first of all warned federal officials against excessive excitement in instilling information culture in citizens. “The transition to information technology is not perceived unambiguously by all people,” Mr. Rakhimov complained, but perseverance is rewarded, including by international organizations that noted Bashkiria’s success in introducing electronic services.
As a result, Mr. Putin placed personal responsibility for the virtualization of government services on regional authorities.