vii) Environment
1) Pollution Information, Monitoring and Control
2) Eco-technology and Bio-architecture and Circulate Metabolism
3) Intelligent Services & Transport
4) Non-conventional sources & Energy Efficiency / audit
viii) Governance & Urban Management
1) Managing Time-Space relationship
2) Knowledge Platform and Distant Learning
3) Participatory mode of local planning through Virtual townhall meetings, video-conferences, MIS, interactive web site etc.
4) Capacity Building, Empowerment of the Civil Society The concept of urban planning needs to be reviewed. Planning at District/Taluk and regional level becomes more pertinent than at the settlement level. The phenomenon of high quality development of smaller towns (like NOIDA, Gurgaon etc.) catering to multinationals and hi-tech sector is already discernible. The planners have to explore the potential of growth of smaller towns, linked with high standards of transport and communication networks. The definition of urban-rural needs to be reviewed and the concepts like polynodal, polycentric pattern need t o be reassessed. The planners have to be hi-tech with deeper perceptions of cyber city and space.

e-Governance has been successfully implemented in certain States and is in the process of implementation in other states.

The Bhoomi Project of Karnataka is one of the success stories of e-governance. Under the Bhoomi Project, 17 million land records have been computerized. Bhoomi kiosks have been set up in various areas in Karnataka and farmers can get printouts of their land records and revenue survey maps for Rs. 15 per copy at these kiosks. The government has recovered most of the cost of this project by selling these records.

Bhoomi is a project of computerizing land information, which was started in the year 1999, with data entry of backlog information. The project covered all taluks by 2002 and manual system of issuing Record of Rights was stopped, benefiting 70 lakh farmers. Approximately 200 lakh documents were computerized under this project. The records are updated 3 times a year. An extension of Bhoomi project called ‘NEMMADI’ was introduced in 2006, with Telecentres at sub-taluka level. 230 such centres are already working. These telecentres provide 30 services alongwith Land Records like Death and Birth certificate, Domicile certificate, Renewal of licenses, Collection of taxes etc. This project is totally outsourced.

The Computerisation of Department of Stamps and Registration – KAVERI (Karnataka Valuation and E-registration) project, started in 2003, covers all the activities of Registration department. The Registration process is completely automated which includes taking digital photos of Seller, Buyer & witnesses and also thumb impressions at the time of Registration & storing in electronic media. At present it is working in all 203 Sub-Registrar’s offices in Karnataka. The Kaveri and Bhoomi integration is achieved by electronically connected system. The sub-registrar’s office generates XML file and sends it to Taluk Bhoomi centre. By using Internet the ‘J’ slip information is electronically generated which is sent to State Data Centre first and from there through dedicated Satellite lines. The taluk office processes Registration transactions through automated process. All the 203 Sub-Registrar’s offices and 203 Bhoomi centres are interlinked through State Data Centres for online data transmission.