The Chief Minister of Haryana, Manohar Lal Khattar, shared his experience of using technology for good governance. He was inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who introduced him to computers in 1996. Khattar worked hard to learn the DOS operating system and eventually bought a laptop to store data related to his political party.
In the early 2000s, Khattar used his laptop to keep track of party candidates for local civic body elections. He discovered that one leader had made changes to the list of candidates between two meetings, and when confronted, the leader was surprised that everything was recorded in the laptop.
In another incident, an MLA suggested that laptops were only for children to play with. Khattar showed him how it worked and fed his name into the system, which revealed that he was a “rebel MLA”. This shocked the MLA and brought him back into the party fold.
Khattar believes that technology can help deliver good governance by weeding out corruption. To this end, the Haryana government has hosted the Haryana Engineering Works portal, which makes it mandatory for all government departments to use e-tenders for their works. Although there was resistance at first, people eventually supported the initiative because they understood that it would cut corruption.
