One of the most prominent initiative that has helped Assam to establish itself as the best in the eastern region, is a portal for farmers, called Asha. The project won the National e-Governance award in 2006 and rightfully so, as it reaches out to 69% of Assams workforce engaged in agriculture. Its passport services are also rated high by citizens. Even though Assam has performed better than West Bengal and Orissa (at #17 and #13, respectively), the other two states from the east zone, its rank has fallen from last years #7.

The citizens of Assam are satisfied with services like employment exchange, transport/RTO and education, whereas the areas in which they are not satisfied are land/property department, healthcare, and power utility. For the business category, water utility, judiciary and police, and security are the pain areas, but services like passport services, financial assistances and supplies provisions have scored high. The services related to employment exchange have improved substantially from 43.4% last year to 72.8% in the current year.

In parameters like ease of interaction, quality and availability of services, passport service is at the top, both for citizens and corporates. Ratings given by citizens and corporates for passport services put together are in the range of 73.6-89.4%, which tells the success story of these services on its own, even though the satisfaction level here has gone down as compared to last year. On the other hand, the worst area under the above mentioned parameters has emerged as police and security for corporates and power utility and water utility for citizens.

Quick Facts Population: 29,086,500 Area: 78,483 sq km Intake of engineering students per 1,000 population: 0.03 Internet subscribers per 1,000 population: 1.4 Telephones per 100 population: 8.3 No of PCs per 1,000 population: 0.9 Per capita IT spend: Rs 1,290

Citizens and businesses have drawn benefits from these e-gov services in terms of ease of use and speed of delivery. However, the government needs to look after issues pertaining to police and security, water utility, power utility and judiciary to improve e-gov services in the state.

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