IT and authority: National program “Information society”

At the session of the interdepartmental Working group for development of information society in regions of Russia the Head of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation Igor Shchegolev released the national program “Information society”, which is to be implemented within 2011 - 2018.

"The program’s structure is based on maintaining balance of interests of all the participants and is aimed at achievement of a number of concrete results, including improvement of life conditions of citizens, said Mr Shchegolev, adding that "this means simple available services, we daily use". According to the Minister such services include appointment arrangement with a doctor via Internet, opportunity to pay a fine not leaving house and other services. The new national program will also favour development of business. 

"The legal significance of electronic exchange of documents will be provided both between themselves and with authorities", - explained the Minister and added that it would allow to lessen pressure on business, decrease administrative barriers, and therefore, lead to increase of labour productivity.

The National program will also prove useful in increasing investment attractiveness and technological independence of the country, and improving competitiveness of economics. "One of the principles of building the information society should come technical self-sufficiency and independence from foreign information technological solutions", - Mr Shchegolev stressed.

In future special attention in development of information society will be paid to problems of information security and using national software products for ensuring it. The issue of digital content was also highlighted. "Primary goal remains information, technology should not overshadow our objectives", Igor Shchegolev remarked. It deals with creation of electronic museums, libraries and encyclopedic recourses on Internet.

Ilya Massukh, the advisor of the Minister of Communications and Mass Media, announced to journalists that direct budgetary investments made into the program by 2018 will total 375 billion rubles. Apart from them will be used non-budget sources of financing. He stated that the program was approved by the governmental commission for Information and Communication Technologies (IKT) and by the end of the year it should await Ministries’ agreement.