eGov Magazine August 2014

eGov Magazine

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ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON E-governance ` 75 / US $10 / ISSN 0973-161X

august 2014 | VOLUME 10 | ISSUE 08

Social Media Revolution Changing the Face of Governance in Maharashtra

Knowledge Exchange Lonavla

1-3 August 2014

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August 2014

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Contents volume 10 n issue 08

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8 Rajesh Kumar

Principal Secretary, Water Supply and Sanitation Department, Government of Maharashtra

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26

Baldev Singh

Managing Director, State Industrial & Investment Corporation Of Maharashtra Limited (SICOM)

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Maharashtra A State with e-Edge

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interviews 10

Rajagopal Devara

Secretary, Cooperation, Marketing & Textiles Department, Government of Maharashtra

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30

K P Bakshi

Rajesh Aggarwal

Development Commissioner (Planning) and Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Maharashtra

Principal Secretary, It, Government of Maharashtra

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Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Government of Maharashtra

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Mahesh Zagade

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Ajay Bhushan Pandey

Malini V Shankar

Principal Secretary, Water Resources Development, Government of Maharashtra

Deputy Director General, UIDAI, Government of India

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Commissioner, School Education Department, Government of Maharashtra

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20

S Chockalingam

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Praveen S Pardeshi

Principal Secretary, Revenue and Forests Department (Forests), Government of Maharashtra

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2014

Sujata Saunik

Prinicipal Secretary, Public Health Department, Government of Maharashtra

Dr Shrikar Pardeshi

Inspector General of Registration & Controller of Stamps, Government of Maharashtra

ICT Domesticated

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aharashtra has several firsts to its credit in various fields, and of late, it has also emerged as the leader in eGovernance. At a time when most of the states are still toying with the idea of using technology for better governance, the Maharashtra Government has successfully harnessed the power of IT and ICT for effective, transparent and accountable governance over the years.

However, rolling out the numerous eGovernance projects would have still been a pipedream if a visionary state government would not have decided to lay down an e-Governance Policy in 2011 to reap the benefits of technological innovations across the world. As if that was not enough, with the rate of mobile phone penetration rising all around, the government establishments in the state also have been issued guidelines to exploit the potential of mobility to the fullest, especially in the hitherto mostly off-the-radar rural areas.

Thanks to a pro-active approach of both political as well as bureaucratic leadership of the state, Maharashtra is today leveraging cloud computing, worldwide web of Internet, various social networking platforms and the newly-discovered power of mobility to deliver citizen-centric services in every nook and corner of the state, and with greater accountability.

The Virtual IT Cadre scheme, comprising a team of eGovernance champions, of the Maharashtra Government deserves a special mention here. The scheme, initiated late last year, aims to ensure successful implementation of the eGovernance initiatives and sustained development of the same in the line-departments of the state.

With a view to highlighting the commendable work done by the state government in the eGovernance sphere and emphasising the need for adopting newer technologies to strengthen the e-Governance ecosystem in the country, Elets Technomedia, in collaboration with the Government of Maharashtra, is going to organise “eGov Knowledge Exchange – Lonavla� on August 1-3, 2014.

The Knowledge Exchange will serve as an ideal opportunity for all the stakeholders of eGovernance to come together and discuss ways to better governance in the country through the use of ICT. The event is all about exchange of ideas. The ambiance and the unique settings of the event will give enthuse people to ponder on the issues and come up with some out-of-the-box ideas that will lead to seminal transformation in the area of eGovernance.

Look forward to hearing your views!

ravi guptA Ravi.Gupta@elets.in

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ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON E-governance

August 2014 volume 10 n issue 08

Partner publications President: Dr M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief: Dr Ravi Gupta

I C E CO ECT Connecting Technologies,Trends & Business

Infrastructure Construction Engineering

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Owner, Publisher, Printer: Dr Ravi Gupta, Printed at Vinayak Print Media, A-29, Sec-8, Noida, U.P. and published from 710 Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50 Noida, UP Editor: Dr Ravi Gupta © All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic and mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage or retrieval system, without publisher’s permission.

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cover story

Maharashtra has always been at the forefront in e-governance adoption to facilitate anytime, anywhere access to citizen services, and to bring in efficiency, transparency and accountability in governance, writes Nirmal Anshu Ranjan of ENN

Maharashtra A State with e-Edge

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aving led the nation in social, political and economic arenas on numerous occasions, today the State of Maharashtra has also emerged as the frontrunner in the field of e-governance. Overcoming the barriers of time and its vast geographical expanse, it is turning out to be a model state in terms of e-delivery of citizen-centric services.

It was in September 2011 that Maharashtra became the first state in the country to formulate an e-Governance Policy to provide seamless guidance to the administrative machinery as a whole to prepare and take up meaningful

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or government functioning in general, there is an e-solution just a click away. The IT and ICT tools are also giving a substantial push to education in Maharashtra.

The state has been pro-actively adopting technologies that facilitate transparency and accountability in the functioning of a government. The efforts have been focussed on synchronising technology initiatives with overall administration, so as to take the government to the citizens’ doorsteps and usher in a digitally-inclusive society.

m-governance swing e-governance initiatives for the welfare of its citizens. By April 2012, it was ready with the policy implementation plan, along with specified timelines.

An enabling policy The e-Governance Policy laid the groundwork for development of an integrated environment for delivering various Government to Citizen (G2C), Government to Business (G2B), Government to Government (G2G) and Government to Employees (G2E) services in a smooth and costeffective manner.

And, there has been no looking back ever since. Be it an issue relating to civic services, land records, banking and finance, agriculture

In view of increased mobile penetration in villages, last month, the Maharashtra Government went a step ahead and announced to provide various services to citizens through mobiles.

The Department of Information Technology has issued guidelines for mobile governance (mGovernance) for all departments.

As per the guidelines, existence of e-governance application is not a prerequisite for starting m-governance services. Departments can use SMSes to disseminate information related to Government Resolutions (GRs), circulars, office orders, etc. For deployment of mobile application for delivering citizen services, each department would make use of delivery channels like SMS gateways and

cover story

Vision & Goals Through its vision of “Transforming governance and enriching lives through the power of Information & Communication Technology”, Maharashtra wants to: • Substantially improve delivery of all government services and create e-Services without borders • Enable Transparent, Open and Inclusive governance • Develop cost-efficient and streamlined governance • Enhance people participation in policy making • Ensure continuous innovation and evolution

unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) provided by the state IT department in association with Mahaonline Ltd.

Technology tamed The state government has, thus, been adopting e-governance and m-governance to reach out to citizens in a more effective manner and the age-old conventional functioning is being revamped through exhaustive business process reengineering and electronic service delivery.

The unproductive steps in the workflow are being done away with to ensure faster decision making and service delivery complimented by backend office and workflow automation.

Virtualisation and cloud computing play a critical role in enabling the Government of

In view of increased mobile penetration in villages, in July this year, the Government has announced to provide various services to citizens through mobiles

Maharashtra’s vision for e-governance. The state is using UID for data de-duplication to root out the menace of bogus beneficiaries and include those who are left out, along with focusing on bank transfers, with an aim to make the money transfers to and from the government completely electronic.

Maharashtra is using e-governance effectively to deliver citizen services through e-Mojani, e-Chavadi, e-District and e-Registration along with creating a strong presence in e-Tendering and e-Office. It has not only built world class technological infrastructure but also has created internal capacities in its employees in order to sustain these efforts.

Timely action

Projects of pride l Document Journey Management System (DJMS) DJMS is used for tracking the files & documents movement within departments. l Document Management System (DMS) DMS relates to scanning and digitisation of scanned files in offices. l Biometric Attendance System (BAS) BAS successfully implemented at various

government offices, wherein fingerprints are used to verify a person’s identity, record time-in and time-out. l GIS A transformational programme to enable departments to implement GIS as a service. l Business Intelligence A plan to ensure that all departments and organisations use Business Intelligence reports and dashboards to perform analysis to get meaningful and actionable information.

SMS Gateway The state government uses the massive reach of mobile phones to enable easy and round-the-clock access to public services, especially in rural areas. l Payment Gateways Payment gateways in operation for e-payment through credit card, net banking or debit card. l Land Records Online availability of land records for their upkeep, and public reference and transaction. l

Over the years, the information revolution has created tremendous opportunities for government, businesses and citizens. It enables the government to provide better services to citizens and businesses, and meet the everincreasing demand for greater efficiency, effectiveness and accountability while reducing costs and risks.

Although e-governance is not a tool to improve the performance of the government sector overnight, it is a powerful enabling tool that has aided governments across the globe to achieve some of their development and administrative reforms goals. And, having taken the idea home in time, the Government of Maharashtra has emerged as a clear winner among the Indian states in harnessing the power and exploiting the potential of technology for the welfare of masses.

August 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

K P Bakshi

Development Commissioner (Planning) and Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Maharashtra

IT-Skilled Recruits will Push eGov Better Employees at every level must be exposed to IT as then only they can take IT initiative and e-governance at a larger scale, says KP Bakshi in an interaction with Ragini Srivastava of ENN

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hat benefits does your department get through the implementation of IT?

I serve as an Additional Chief Secretary and Planning Development Commissioner of Maharashtra. I look after the main programmes as well as the entire planning of the state. The sector where I am directly responsible for my activities is MPLADS (Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme). Under the scheme, each MP has the choice to suggest to

the District Collector for works to the tune of `5 crores per annum to be taken up in his/her constituency.

The department has issued the guidelines on scheme, concept, implementation, and monitoring. The department has initiated all necessary steps to ensure that the scheme is successfully implemented in the field. The progress of the works being implemented under the scheme is monitored on a regular basis.

We have software that helps in deciding what activities should be taken up and what not. For example, at the lower levels, sometimes there is demand for a work which is not admissible. It becomes very difficult for the local level func-

K P Bakshi

tionaries to decide whether the work should be taken up or not. But then we put it in the software that immediately accepts or rejects the proposal. Some works which are not allowed by the state governments can be immediately decided by the functionary. This is a completel automated system through which we use IT to monitor MPLADS.

Brief us about the initiatives implemented and the feedback of users towards the services?

As I mentioned, we are involved with state level planning; we do not get involved in execution or lower level monitoring as it is done by respective departments. We only supervise from a broader perspective, allocate funds and generally coordinate between various secretaries to take some of the developmental activities forward. Here, the entire policy making, advising various departments in making cabinet notes, approving or giving our consent for the cabinet notes, which go to the cabinet for decision, everything is done by us. So, there is not much of IT being used in that field.

What are the major hurdles during the implementation of IT and how do you counter them?

One of the major hurdles is the invention of new technology in short span of time. Technology is changing rapidly, while the government procedure in appointment of a consultant, fixing up a panel of consultant is a time-taking process. By the time they are ready with the panel of consultants the technology has changed and there is no use of consultants.

At the time of appointing a consultant he will be completely updated about the latest technol-

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IN PERSON

ogy but when the government is done fixing up its contracts the technology has moved ahead and thus the appointed consultant is found to be inadequate. This is one issue that needs attention and solution. Secondly, procurement of hardware or all IT related initiatives also poses a problem because this is a time-taking procedure and too faces a similar problem.

There again, changes in technology and lack of clarity in specifications, these are the things that come in the way. For example, Mumbai is proposed to be linked with 6000 surveillance cameras. At the time of deciding upon the specifications of CCTV cameras, IT department and user department (Police dept.) would give two different set of opinions. Arriving on a unanimous decision takes a long time and when it happens the technology has been replaced by a newer one in the market with altogether different set of specification. This project with an investment of hundreds of crores has been on hold due to these reasons. This is just one example as similar problems can be found with small and big projects around the country.

Tell us about the initiatives in the pipeline for exploring the potential of IT. As I mentioned, MRSAC (Maharashtra Remote Sensing Applications Centre) is involved in mapping and monitoring of natural resources for their better management. MRSAC also offers benefits of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. The centre has promoted this technology to government departments and academic institutions for various applications in areas like soil and water conservation, ground water potential, forest and biodiversity studies, crop acreage estimation, watershed development and monitoring, urban development, etc. Apart from the applications, MRSAC is provides software solutions in Geo-spatial domain and has developed information / decision support systems. With the sound foundation of multi-scale databases and its Web Geo-portal MRSAC is committed to help the state to achieve e-Governance.

Keeping these benefits in mind I requested the government to open units of MRSAC and they agreed, so, we now have one unit each in Mumbai and Pune. Earlier, MRSAC was based in Nagpur only. Thus there are three units of MRSAC in Maharashtra and all these three

The government should make IT knowledge a compulsory requirement at the entry level so that everybody has some basic knowledge of IT... Every employee must be exposed to IT as then only they can take up IT initiatives and e-governance at a larger scale units are covering the respective areas and respective departments.

What is your vision for the use of e governance in enhancing the functionality of the department?

I feel that e-governance has a tremendous scope in public administration/government activities. But the problem that we face is of our own recruitment system where qualifications are not updated. Even if the present setup allows us to recruit highly qualified people, we do not have the system of recruiting those qualified people in the government setup. And unless they recruit updated IT qualified people, they won’t be able to take e-governance forward.

Therefore, the eligibility criteria for recruitment need to be changed. The government should make IT knowledge a compulsory requirement at the entry level so that everybody has some basic knowledge of IT. Every employee must be exposed to IT as then only they can take up IT initiatives and e-governance at a larger scale. As of now, we have

started to implement it but still, a lot needs to be done.

In this scenario, IT departments have set an example as they have the best consultants in their unit. It has helped them to take up e-governance projects. If similar practice is extended to other departments and if we allow them to have technically qualified people then they too can be in sync with the current developments.

Your views on Knowledge Exchange forum?

This is one platform where all government functionaries and important private sector players can interact and exchange their views, their experiences and then learn from each other.

Normally, what is happening in a remote state will not be known to us unless I locate them on their website. This would only give me an idea of their innovative practices, experiments or projects, but direct interaction, questioning, getting their answers, hearing their doubts is only possible via such interactive exchange forums.

Organising such forums will really help in taking e-governance forward.

August 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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news

news

Movements Shailendra Kumar moved to Tourism Dept Divisional Commissioner Kashmir Shailendra Kumar has been posted as Commissioner Secretary to the Government in the Department of Tourism and Culture.

Rohit Kansal appointed Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir Rohit Kansal, 1995 batch J & K cadre IAS, awaiting orders of adjustment in the General Administration Department, has been transferred and posted as Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir.

B Ashok assumes charge as Chairman, IOCL B Ashok has taken over the reins of Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. as its Chairman effective from July 16, 2014. Prior to his appointment as Chairman Indian Oil, Mr. B Ashok was Executive Director (Retail Sales) and Executive Director in the Corporate Office at New Delhi.

J P Singh appointed as PS to General V K Singh J P Singh has been appointed as Private Secretary to General V K Singh, Minister of State for DoNER. He is a 2000 batch IPS officer.

Ministhy S appointed as Special Secretary, Home in UP Ms Ministhy S has been appointed as Special Secretary, Home in Uttar Pradesh. She is a 2003 batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre.

Shankar Agarwal is new Secretary, Urban Development Shankar Agarwal, a 1980 UP cadre IAS, has been appointed as Secretary in the Ministry of Urban Development. At present, Agarwal is serving as Secretary in the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which post will be taken over by Vinay Sheel Oberoi, a 1979-batch IAS Assam-Meghalaya cadre officer. Agarwal was appointed in place of Sudhir Krishna, a 1977- batch IAS officer of Karnataka cadre, who has retired.

V S Oberoi is new Women and Child Development Secretary Vinay Sheel Oberoi, 1979 batch Assam-Meghalaya cadre IAS, has been

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appointed as Secretary in the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

Sanjay Kothari is new Secretary, DoPT Sanjay Kothari will be new Secretary Department of Personnel. 1978 batch Haryana cadre IAS officer Kothari will succeed Shyamal Sarkar on August 1. Rajan Katoch is new Secretary Heavy industries Rajan Katoch will succeed Sutanu Behuria as Secretary Heavy Industries. 1979 batch IAS officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre Katoch would continue to hold Additional charge of Director Enforcement.

J K Mohapatra is now Secretary, Fertilisers J K Mohapatra has been appointed Secretary Chemicals and Fertilisers. He is 1979 batch IAS officer of Odisha cadre. Prior to the current role he has served as Chief Secretary, Odisha Government. Shri Jugal Kishore Mohapatra, a Post Graduate from Delhi School of Economics, joined Odisha Cadre IAS in 1979. Later, he obtained Master Degree in Economics from Boston University, USA. Shri Mohapatra has all round experience in Govt. of India and Govt. of Odisha as well, especially in National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and Implement ation of PMGSY during 2004 ­2009. He served as Secretary to the Hon’ble Chief Minister, Odisha, Principal Secretary Finance and Development Commissioner – cum ­Additional Chief Secretary.

Rakesh Garg is new Secretary, Telecom Rakesh Garg has been appointed new Secretary Telecom. He is 1980 batch IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre.

N Ravishankar is Secretary, Administrative Reforms N Ravishankar has been appointed Secretary Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances. He is 1980 batch IAS officer of Uttarkhand cadre. Prior to current role he served as Additional Secretary & Administrator, USOF, Department of Telecommunication, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India, and Chairman cum Managing Director (CMD) of Bharat Broad Band Network Ltd, New Delhi. He is an 1980 batch IAS officer of Uttarakhand cadre. Prior to joining as CMD, he was Joint Secretary at the Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DietY), where his core areas were e­Infrastructure and e­Learning and overseeing key projects across India.

August 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

Rajesh Aggarwal

Principal Secretary, IT, Government of Maharashtra

eGov will Hinge on SMAC SMAC is the way for everything - be it governance, rolling out of services or a task as simple as changing a name, says Rajesh Aggarwal in an interview with Kartik Sharma of ENN

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he Maharashtra Government is one of the early adopters of modern technologies. How is the government leveraging technologies like Social Media, Mobility and Cloud for e-governance?

SMAC (Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud) is no longer a buzz word as it is being used at various levels. Starting with Social, nowadays it has been seen that Mantralaya employees use Whatsapp as an office tool; they share their work-related queries on a groups created in it and also share personal info, jokes, stories etc.

Through this, we have seen, not only work efficiency but also the personal bonding between employees increases.

After the general elections, government employees also realised the benefits of social marketing which was previously considered a private sector affair. As a result, at all the levels in government, there is an awakening that they can also use social media to interact with the citizen, listen to their issues, find solutions and do more.

What is your take on this new age of mGovernance? What is the acceptance of mobility in the government sector?

Mobility starts with a simple mobile application, like an SMS. There are approx five lakh candidates applying for police, another nine lakh applying for ITI and thousands of people taking part in the MHADA lottery. For them

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Rajesh Aggarwal

IN PERSON

to receive a confirmation SMS of their application, whether they are successful or unsuccessful in their attempt, is a huge relief.

In the near future, we will see mobile-based citizen-centric apps for easier access to services. mGovernance will be making its mark in the near future, so it is necessary to design websites for mobiles, not for desktops.

Maharashtra is one of the early birds to fly in the Cloud. What have been state’s achievements in terms of cloud computing?

Yes, coming to the Cloud, we are running the best cloud infrastructure in any government in the country. Our data centers are almost 100 percent on the Cloud, we are using physical servers to a bare minimum and we are also able to give a department a virtual machine in flat two to three minutes, which was previously not possible. We also have a cloud burst system that if in a situation there are too many hits on something, we automatically cloudburst on the nearby BSNL data center where we only pay for the time we use their virtual machines.

Another example is of the Employment Exchange Commission of Maharashtra. They had a Rs 30-crore project of computerising all the employment exchanges. We used the Cloud to cut down their costs and reduced the costs to five crores. And, in a matter of four months the software was rolled out. This initiative helped nine lakh candidates, instead of the previous three lakh, applying online for ITI admissions.

So the Cloud saves money not only in costs but also in rolling out a project.

Introduction of new eGovernance technologies also involves largescale capacity-building exercise.

Tell us about such initiatives in the government sector.

It’s a mixed bag, and I would not say that Maharashtra rules the roost here. My belief is that aspirations of the younger generation — which is tech savvy, believes that the need to stand in queues is over and delves into a thought like if a pizza can be delivered home, then why not a driving licence or a passport — would drive the way the government is supposed to deliver services.

Over 80 percent of Maharashtra is covered under the Aadhaar

scheme. Tell us about the further plan of the government in terms of UID enrolment.

Going back, when the Supreme Court ordered that it was not mandatory for departments to share data with each other, our backend came in handy and the order did not affect us much.

We are still the only state to have our own eKYC platform where a person puts in his UID No. and finger print, and gets a YES or a NO answer confirming or disapproving his ID. We’ve integrated this with a lot of our services. For example, previously, if a tenant were

our project was completed. Currently, we are engaged with Nasscom to reach out to more smaller players.

If you see our latest RFP for mobile apps, you would find that we’ve also mentioned that college kids could also make apps for us. The reason is that a big company would do it for something around Rs 10 crore, while a collegegoing kid would do for Rs 50,000…and I am not joking.

What are the challenges you face in getting the departments e-Ready?

I feel that authorities lack in making their employees aware about the parameters determining the success of a project… If a project is smart and provides benefits to both citizens and government, we do not see much resistance.

Sometimes the vendor and government’s ways

In the near future, we will see mobilebased citizen-centric apps for easier access to services. mGovernance will be making its mark in the near future, so it is necessary to design websites for mobiles, not for desktops to vacate a rented apartment in search of a new one, both the owner and the tenant had to visit the registry office to submit their papers, and spend time and money for obtaining another piece of paper. For that, we have provided centers around Maharashtra which would enable the owner and the tenant to do the changes from the comfort of their home. Through this, we plan to bring transparency, accessibility, authenticity – all from one’s home.

You have always been an advocate of encouraging startup companies, and small and medium scale enterprises. How is the government engaging the private sector for state’s development?

When we were starting on NeGP, we wanted the work to be done by the best IT companies in India, which at that time were Wipro, NIIT, TCS etc. But there were some other IT companies also that had benefitted through outsourcing. So, through multiple levels of outsourcing

of working do not match and that also determines the success of a project. Also, we see at times that there are transfers of officials in between the project, so a new official might say that he wants this to go this way, and that delays the project.

For this we are trying to sensitise the consultants who provide documentation in such a way that lots of stakeholders know the way you want to make things work, so that later on changes in the management process is clear and the vendor straight away starts work after getting the order.

How do you visualise eGovernance for Maharashtra in the coming years?

About three to four months back we circulated a list of priority projects for all the departments which sets the tone for the next five to 10 years.

If even 70 to 80 percent of these projects get completed in the next five years, the state will continue to retain its number one position in terms of egovernance in the country.

August 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

Malini V Shankar

Principal Secretary, Water Resources Development, Government of Maharashtra

Tech Plug for Water Wastage

Technology will keep an account of water and prevent future fights, says Malini V Shankar in an interaction with Kartik Sharma of ENN

P

use. Projects are primarily for irrigation but non-irrigation water use has increased in recent years and is one of the challenges for lease give an our department. The Irrigation Development overview of your Corporations have geographical jurisdiction department’s based on river basin boundaries which are operations.

Water resources department responsible for planning and development has two main operations, one is the planning of new surface water schemes for irrigation/ and development of the water resources and multi-purpose use, construction of ongoing the other is its management. Our department projects and management of existing schemes.

One of the key initiatives taken in an looks after irrigation and non-irrigation water e-governance project for water was ‘e-Jalseva’ in 2012-13. So basically the issue is manageMalini V Shankar ment of assets, we are managing so much water but at any given point of time we do not have the information of how many assets do we have. All the three sectors are on human resources. 45,000 posts have been sanctioned but we have no idea about where they are, what they are doing and how much they are earning.

IT tools come handy in such situations.

Another part is financial which is common to all departments. Then follows the operations part which means accounting for the water resource. We need to know how much water is being pilfered and what revenue we get by selling water, especially to non-irrigation areas. This was a fairly neglected area. In the last

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one year, we have given our focus to this sector.

How do you manage to keep track of the water for nonirrigation purposes?

This is all a part of e-governance data and management of information system. We are also looking at developing software which will look at the water accounting and is another part of river basin management.

One initiative that we took in Krishna water basin is of flood management, so all the information relating to flood management of the Krishna River is procured from there. But if we are looking at Godavari basin, it doesn’t have frequent flood problems, especially on the western side. The Vidarbha side has flood issues but in Nashik there’s drought.

To prevent future fights on the issue of water we are looking to use technology to account water so that everybody is aware about the amount of water they are entitled to and if there is water shortage then, it should be shared across the basin.

Previously, it used to be people from downstream who had the water access as there were no dams 50-100 years back. Now, with the dams present, upstream people have more access as opposed to downstream.

There has been the question of environmental flow which has been the topic of debate for Government of India, International agencies and experts on river management. They’ve been mentioning that a river has to keep flowing; and how do you know whether river can actually be kept flowing unless you know where the water is going.

Our final part is to reach the people. We have

IN PERSON

developed a model, which is in testing phase, where we are planning to get people to register their water demands online. It has been established to know the demands of citizens and whether they can be met.

Will schemes like Aadhaar be able to help you in allocating water resources?

It is little premature at the moment but I do not see any application right now as ours is a community oriented sector. Now with farm holdings becoming smaller and participating irrigation being the norm today the farmers have to move from water user associations as water is a bulk entitlement to the association.

But who knows that in future this bulk supplier can be looking at Aadhaar to deliver water to farmers. But I think this might not be the top priority for other applications.

How do you respond to the challenge of increasing nonirrigation water supply and drought management?

The challenge will be for all the non-irrigation users, especially for those for whom water has been reserved, it should be 100 percent metered and priced. Pricing for water is like electricity metering. If an individual is using more than his share then it would be signal for him to cut down the usage. He has an option. Similarly, it would be a signal for them to economise their water usage, otherwise everybody would waste it.

In rural areas, access to quality water is a big issue. So, metering should be taken into account in cities. Maybe, 50 years ago, cities were not consuming much water, but now much of the non-irrigation water is actually consumed by

as there is a feeling that government is doing away with the primary responsibility.

There have been initiatives in other countries, where they assure private sector that they would get the money. In addition there is this incen-

Pricing for water is like electricity metering... If an individual is using more than his share, then it would be signal for him to cut down the usage urban areas. Installation of meters would help finding solution to the problem.

Second thing would be the quality. If I live in an urban area and I am assured that I do not have to buy a water bottle and I can have my drinking water direct from the tap then I would probably be willing to pay a little more. But for that I need to know what is supplied to me. If I don’t know then I tend to trust a water bottle even though quality would be lower.

How important do you think is public-private partnership?

When we talk about public-private partnership, private organizations want some kind of assurance that they will get their returns because they are not here for charity. Moreover, they feel that the profit should be from the general public in terms of collection. They say they won’t be able to collect from every single family

tive bill which makes private players entitled to incentives in case of improvement in coverage ratio. At present the government is not able to follow this process. But there have been initiatives where private organisations have been included for system improvement that helps in increasing revenue and coverage as well. It is working in 3-4 cities with mixed results.

One of the key things in this kind of partnership is formulation of the terms and conditions for private and public as contract management itself is a very big topic. Government officials are not very knowledgeable on managing the contracts. So this can be another problem in public-private partnerships.

Your message to water users?

Please conserve precious water reserves, as we need to leave it for our future generation, too.

August 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

Ajay Bhushan Pandey

Deputy Director General, UIDAI, Government of India

eKYC will Initiate

UID Services

Identity crisis still haunts people in various parts of India and prevents them from availing even the fundamental services, but eKYC will change all that, says Ajay Bhushan Pandey in an interview with Kartik Sharma of ENN

T

ell us about the UID initiative in Maharashtra.

Maharashtra has a large population of 11 crores, out of which, approximately 9 crores has enrolled itself for UID. Not only this we are onto the next phase which is application of UID in the system of governance, to make processing efficient for both the government and citizens, so that it’s a win-win situation for both.

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With the UID, the government built a robust eKYC system which is rolled out to various states government departments; as a result when a resident walks in a government office, he does not carry any document or proof of identity with him. All he has to give is his fingerprint or the iris and the UID no. for identification, and the identity is confirmed or declined based on the details with the authority. The best part is that it can be done on the mobile devices which have android operating system, making the services easy to deliver and to use.

The government has also started to link the various beneficiaries database like scholarship, pension, etc with the Aadhaar numbers. The advantage gained by the citizen is of identity proof, as they would not need to carry identity documents. The other advantage is of eliminating the fake beneficiaries.

We have advised various state governments and central government to link the beneficiary database with the Aadhaar’s. For that to happen they’ll have to contact the beneficiaries and take their UID numbers and simply merge it with their databases. Through this, a list of those having UID numbers and those who do not have, will emerge. After this the concerned department will contact the concerned people to be enrolled for Aadhaar. All this will help the government identify that whether the person existing is real or otherwise.

What challenges did you face in implementing the UID initiative in a populous city like Mumbai?

There were many challenges owing to a large population like that of Mumbai, but luckily to counter that we have enrolment agencies and a much standardised system for data capture. It is an open platform and is not tied to any vendor as such. In turn, it was relatively easy for the enrolment agencies to procure the machines like an iris scanner, a fingerprint device, a laptop and a printer.

The people operating the machines were also certified and are well-aware of their operation techniques, which is why we had a drop in the error rate to less than one percent, considering that we had 65 crore employees and as many machines to do the job of data capturing. We also had to work very closely with the registrars who in turn gave their help and scaled up the operation.

The other government departments like those of LPG and Ration card requested the people to get Aadhaar and the people in turn

IN PERSON

felt the need, hence, the demand for Aadhaar, drastically increased. To take those demands head-on, we were well equipped and matched the ratio, so that is how we were able to take up such a mass exercise.

Cloud and Aadhaar are massive data holds. What initiatives have been taken for their security?

When we mention cloud it automatically evokes a sense of superior security; and data is available on this platform, because it is secure. Talking about the security of our data, it is secure and only accessible through our secure partner.

For an instance, KSAs which are few in number are the ones who have access to our data center infrastructure. Our core data center is not open in the Internet and we have several layers of security firewalls. So far owing to our vigilance we haven’t had any major issues, but that doesn’t mean that we are lax with our arrangements, we still continue to be vigilant.

How is Aadhaar enabling expansion of financial inclusion?

Aadhaar can be very important for those people who are not included in the system. The one reason that has been preventing people from accessing banks is not having a proper proof of identity. Aadhaar cards are easily accepted by

One reason preventing people from accessing banks is not having a proper proof of identity. So, Aadhaar cards can be very important for those who are not included in the system…it is easily accepted by any financial institution any financial institution. But now with the RBI setting up various committees like the Nachiket Mor Committee, which have dealt with the

issue of use of Aadhaar in the banking system for various modes of e-payment, not only they can open a bank account but also do banking through various methods like mobile etc. All of this is possible through Aadhaar and the eKYC infrastructure.

What is your vision for UID in Maharashtra?

I would say that Aadhaar in Maharashtra has reached a level of saturation, and is one of the few states in the country which uses Aadhaar in every governance exercise. Through eKYC employee attendance is ensured —whether a doctor in a rural hospital or a primary school teacher—where incidents of complaints regarding to absence are high, now can be kept in check through the biometric attendance system.

And the use of UID can be of convenience to people as the government can get the work done efficiently and deliver the services faster, and the bogus benificiaries hopefully will become a thing of the past through this initiative.

August 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

19

IN PERSON

Praveen S Pardeshi

Principal Secretary, Revenue and Forest Department, Government of Maharashtra

Green Blankets Get IT Cover Forests will no longer be dark, deep and hidden as IT sets stage to penetrate deep into them and brings out the secrets for the whole world to see, Praveen S Pardeshi tells Kartik Sharma of ENN

T

What are the challenges faced by you in implementing the IT initiatives?

ell us about the IT implementation for e-Governance in the Maharashtra Forest Department.

The vision of the Forest Department is to move away from the paper mode of working and shift towards e-Governance. The most important task for our department is to monitor the forest cover on the ground, prevent encroachment, illicit felling etc. with the staff and then undertake conservation activities like afforestation. All this is done by the forest guards, and in the course of last three years, we have provided Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to more than 2,000 guards and will provide to 8,000 more.

The motive of providing PDAs to forest guards is to GPS-enable them for referencing and for report-keeping of any forest offence like encroachment, poaching etc. So, when a forest guard on patrol comes across any such activity, he can take all the GPS coordinates and make a report of it. This approach also enables the senior officers to monitor the work done by their field staff as they are in the deep interiors of the jungle. Today, about 2,000 forest guards are recording offences through their PDAs which is connected to a central forest server where all the data related to forest offences is present.

The second thing we have done is to digitise all forest land records such as compartment boundary, dividend boundary, circle boundary etc. This has been placed on an online GIS which is accessible from each GPS available to officials at the senior level. This is done so that the data of forest offences can be recorded on

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upgrade. There are many senior field officials like the Range Forest Officers (RFOs) who are in the deep interiors of the jungle where having a mobile network is impossible. We provided them with broadband Internet connections through satellite connectivity. So far, we have provided Internet connections to 800 RFOs through this initiative. The IT infrastructure is also in place.

Previously, there used to be a long process for submission of documents for major applications of infrastructure like coal mining. But now, the entire process of submission has been computerised, right down to the application maker as well.

Last year and this year, the entire auction of timber was done through e-auction where NIC and the SBI have been our partners. So, that way, large transactions in the forest department are e-enabled. We have made the entire process of bidding electronic wherein bidders deposit their money online and they get online work orders as well.

Apart from enabling infrastructure does it bring ROI for you?

Praveen S Pardeshi

The motive of providing Personal Digital Assistants to forest guards is to GPS enable them for referencing and for report-keeping of any forest offence these maps and proper counter-measures be decided for the same.

We also went for a massive IT infrastructure

The reason why e-initiatives do not work in a department like ours is because the field agents are not connected to the output. This results in a very superficial e-processing of the output, and passes off at senior levels because of lack of knowledge of computerisation. So, the initiative of PDAs for forest guards enables the connectivity in the entire hierarchy.

What is your vision for the coming years?

What we aim to do in the next one year is to hire forest guards with intermediate qualification having science as a subject, compared to those who were previously uneducated. We aim to arm them with PDAs and then connect them with GIS. This would be a paradigm shift in the way things were being done earlier. The end result of this shift would be that senior officers would be able to monitor the movement of their guards and will be able to communicate with them. Not only will they be able to communicate, they will also get a ball by ball update of any offence the guard is reporting accurately.

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IN PERSON

Sujata Saunik

Prinicipal Secretary, Public Health Department, Government of Maharashtra

Healthcare Just a Click Away

Human Resource Management, Hospitals and Medicines, Communication, and Administration and Citizencentric approach are our five focus pillars, says Sujata Saunik in an interview with Veena Kurup of ENN

H

ow do you visualise the changes in your department through adoption of IT?

IT and ICT have a major role in refining the operational process of any large governing department, especially for a crucial department like Public Health. Besides, these technologies act as productive and vital modes in managing large manpower. Since the Government of India and the state Ministry of Health are focussed towards implementing new programmes to bridge the prevalent gaps in public health services, IT and ICT play a key role as a productive tool for ensuring good governance.

Maharashtra has been in the forefront in implementing e-Governance initiatives in the country. In line with the state’s progress, the Public Health Department has also been a frontrunner in terms of e-Governance projects and is one of the leading virtually connected departments in Maharashtra. The department with its wide array of e-Governance initiatives has introduced efficient new ways of delivering services, internal to the organisation as well as for the citizens. The department has effectively laid the fundamentals of the information society, spurring the delivery of all kinds of e-practices and e-services. The department under its e-Governance ambit has developed an array of applications catering to its internal needs.

Effective citizen service is a key responsibility of the Public Health Department. How has IT helped in empowering the department’s mode of service delivery?

India today has become highly tech-savvy,

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provide various citizen-centric and employeecentric services aiding all employees and citizens towards a more channelised, informative and processed approach. The focus of the department has been primarily on five pillars: Human Resource Management, Hospitals and Medicines, Communication, Administration and Citizen-centric approaches.

Sujata Saunik wherein the country’s most productive force, the youth, are actively utilising mobile phones, social networking platforms etc. IT and ICT have hugely contributed in generating awareness at a much faster and much wider scale across communities. These technologies have supported the health department’s initiatives well. Today, information about a disease, its prevention, relevant examinations, treatment processes and cure are at just a click away. The other advantage is that these technologies help in achieving an archive of missed out valuable information.

According to me, an individual who is aware of the technical dynamism is most capable to avail such services and exploit its potential well. I treat these technical transformations as path-breaking achievements which enable us, the people in government, in actively spreading the information. The department is focused to

Rural areas are vital operational areas for your department. Has the lack of connectivity network hurdled the department’s initiatives?

Yes, connectivity is one of the major issues we face in providing services in the rural areas.

The department has already approached BSNL

IN PERSON

to remove this hurdle. However, mapping the entire country on an IT platform is not an easy task. Convincing the masses to utilise the system is another hurdle faced at such locations. A constant reminder and initiating awareness workshops and campaigns at such locations are thus vital for the success of such projects in rural and interior locations. The department is dedicatedly focussed to overcome these hurdles soon through a planned approach.

How effectively has the department fared in utilising such technical platforms?

I think the department has fared well. Today, we have collected all the important data such as number of employees, record of institutions, etc. All these data are being made available on our web portals. We are also planning to create programmes for better analysis of the data. This will help in understanding our key focus areas.

Brief us about the projects empowered through e-platforms?

We have successfully conceptualised, designed and implemented 18 live projects while 11 others are in pipeline. These include large-scale projects like Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) and Drug Inventory Management System (e-Aushadhi). HMIS or ‘e-Sushrut’, as it is christened, is a comprehen-

house management software built by sheer vision of the department coupled with state’s priority parameters. e-Aushadhi primarily focuses on providing root-level monitoring of drugs, vital medicines’ stocks, quality control of drugs, purchase order management and supplier payment tracking. The project has been a runaway success with more than 4,000 users at 2,000+ locations operating the application within the first year. A major achievement has been reduction of rates of medicines due to faster processing of payments.

Another noteworthy success is the “Emergency Medical Services’’ (EMS) through 108 ambulance services launched across the state.

IT has hugely contributed to awareness generation much faster and at a much wider scale across communities. These technologies have supported the health department’s initiatives well sive application with 21 different modules like patient registration, billing, lab investigation, pharmacy, blood bank, central sterile services, OPD, IPD etc., covering all critical, non-critical, operational and daily procedures of a hospital.

HMIS is aimed to bring relief to patients from long queues, cut down operational costs, create a unique health record for every patient and provide a plethora of ground level information for the state to assist in decision making. The department plans to roll out this application in 27 different hospitals across the state within a span of two years. e-Aushadhi is a comprehensive drug ware-

This project is aimed at giving immediate medical assistance to anyone under any emergency.

The department has designed a dashboard to monitor live ambulance status, live call reports, district-wise emergency patients served report and district-wise ambulance report.

The department by leveraging the power of IT has developed a systematic process flow for its several programmes, and utilised several IT methodologies for communication as mobile technology in the form of Pull SMS and Bulk SMS technologies.

We are trying to make our website more user-friendly and also developing a system to

check the performance of our employees. We are also in the process of designing medical reimbursement software, which will give us a detailed disease profile of an individual. Once this information is gained, the department can effectively spread awareness on treatment prevention and cure facilities.

Is capacity building a concern in implementing such initiatives and utilising these technologies?

Yes, qualitative capacity building is a major concern. However, we have been training various cadres for the ongoing processes. At present, we are providing only need-based training, but from the next year, we will focus on implementing a more co-ordinated and effective training policy.

What is your vision for e-governance? Share with us your suggestions to enhance the scope of utilising such vibrant platforms?

Paperless offices, a smart corporate style of workplace and real-time availability of information together form my vision of e-Governance. Analysis of data is the other key e-Governance focus area. I believe that we have not fully exploited the potential of ICT for awareness generation. Technologies hold the potential of analysing data at each level of administration. However, we have to design a more effective user-friendly e-platform.

With the positive shift towards digitisation and government’s continued focus on improving citizen services and governance, we are confident of the opportunities ahead.

August 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

Rajesh Kumar

Principal Secretary, Water Supply and Sanitation Department, Government of Maharashtra

Upholding an e-Refined Approach

C

Rajesh Kumar shares his insights on the potential of e-Governance platforms and departmental initiatives in an interaction with Kartik Sharma & Veena Kurup of ENN

tered across the state and rural areas are one of the vital locations for such initiatives.

Establishing connectivity, availability of infrastructure facilities, trained workforce and live communication networks were the major hurdles faced at such locations. The department, however, is constantly focussed towards overcoming such hurdles by gradually resolving these concerns.

an you brief us about the e-Governance approach adopted by your

department?

e-Governance is a vibrant platform for escalating the scope of administrative, management and governance practices. The evolution in technology has considerably aided enhancement of the scope of operational functions. The contribution of these technologies towards governing institutions has also been commendable over the years. The Department of Water Supply and Sanitation has actively adopted this pace of technical innovations and keeps exploring the varied modes of IT and ICT-enabled practices. The department is already practising and following different e-modes of operation like e-Office, e-Leaves and e-Knowledge practices.

We have also focussed on taking our operational data online on real-time basis The department is also working on making the website more user-friendly. Our aim is to constantly follow and adopt more such active opportunities, which can enhance our operational services to citizens and the level of transparency in our functions.

Please tell us about the Jalswarajya initiative?

One of the major steps streamlined for the citizens by the department is the Jalswarajya-II project. The Government of India, Government of Maharashtra and the World Bank have signed a US$165 million credit agreement to help Maharashtra achieve the vision of ensuring safe drinking water and improved sanitation services, especially for rural communities. The objective of the programme is to improve the performance of the state’s institutions in plan-

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How has IT contributed in the success of your department activities?

Rajesh Kumar ning, implementation and monitoring of the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Programme to improve access to quality and sustainable services in peri-urban villages, and in waterdeficient and water quality-affected areas. The project to be executed over a period of six years (2014-2020) is the first of its kind programmefor-results operation in India.

Earlier, the Jalswarajya-I project, which was implemented during the period 2003-2009, benefited 6.7 million people with improved water services, and about 61 percent of Gram Panchayats in the project area have become open defecation free. The Jalswarajya-II project is expected to further extend this success benchmarks to new heights.

How does the department tackle the rural implementation challenge?

The beneficiaries of such initiatives are scat-

IT and such evolving technologies have evidently helped in enhancing the success of our departmental initiatives. Today, we have most of our data on web-based platforms, even monitoring of the services is being undertaken online.

The response and participation from the citizens and users has been positive and encouraging. The Operation & Maintenance activities are also being undertaken with the assistance of such evolving technologies. These vibrant platforms have helped us in considerably reducing the cost involved with human resource utilisation.

What is your vision for enhancing these initiatives through e-platform? eGovernance and such platforms are always crucial for achieving transparent and efficient governance patterns. The department aims to utilise and leverage the scope of implementation of such platforms to achieve productive outputs.

We are also planning to initiate utilising these technologies in water quality monitoring systems. These processes are ongoing and dynamic in nature and will be adopted as per the requirements.

IMImobile is the presenting sponsor of elets e-Gov Knowledge Exchange 2014 www.imimobile.com

IN PERSON

Baldev Singh

Managing Director, State Industrial & Investment Corporation Of Maharashtra Limited (SICOM)

Technology for

Efficiency

In conversation with Kartik Sharma and Poulami Chakraborty of ENN, Baldev Singh delves into the ways that IT has been leveraged for transforming operational performances and the challenges faced while doing so

T

echnology has been transforming governance modes in our country across sectors.

Share with us your opinion about the contribution of IT technologies in leveraging the scope of governance.

The government recognises the need to leverage ICT for governance, but the public agencies have systems and services that are largely silo-based, replicative, insufficiently secured, and do not leverage electronic services sufficiently in support of public sector reform efforts. The lack of clear guidelines, standards and shared infrastructure has exacerbated this issue and presents a major barrier in providing seamless e-services.

Hence, there is a critical need for technology foundations to improve public sector efficiency, effectiveness, and information risk management - such as shared data centres, interoperability framework, information security governance, and enterprise architecture. There is also a need to leverage e-Government services to support governance priorities in the country, especially for on-going initiatives to increase transparency, promote inclusion, and improve the business environment. In this context, the government has sought assistance in increasing skills and the institutional capacity for developing the country’s IT/ITES industry and in establishing e-Government foundations and develop e-Services to support public sector reform and modernisation efforts.

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How has IT helped in transforming the operational and functional performances in your departmental initiatives?

In SICOM, there are five major systems that cater to the need of user, management, external agencies, auditors etc. These include financial accounting, loan accounting, bill discounting, treasury and employee accounting. Besides these, there are subsystems like CRG, legal etc. that are associated with one or more of

Baldev Singh

them. The introduction of these systems over a period of time has assisted the user in performing repetitive tasks with speed and accuracy.

The time taken to fetch information and MIS reporting has also improved considerably.

There have definitely been benefits that have been observed due to the computerisation drive in SICOM. The multi-user, multi-tasking environment has reduced the time taken for voluminous data entry and has facilitated simultaneous record entry. Security access con-

IN PERSON

trols have ensured confidentiality of the information and the LAN environment has assisted cross-functionality of applications, instant validations etc. Connectivity, internal and external, has ensured that information can be exchanged within the head office and regional offices with speed and accuracy and importantly, bank reconciliations, TB, P&L reports can now be generated on a monthly basis.

How successful have you been in establishing effective communication networks particularly in tier II cities? What are the prime challenges faced while utilising these technologies for operational initiatives and how did you tackle them?

SICOM’s Information Service Section earlier termed as EDP - was established in 1985 with a single PC-XT and preliminary software environment like BASIC, LOTUS 1-2-3 etc., and the applications were developed and implemented on a standalone PC. Subsequently, they were converted to operate in LAN environment. The applications and reports were also changed to handle multi-user and multi-tasking situations. The FOXPRO database was used for applications’ development and reporting. Subsequently, UNIX/SCO operating system-based server and ORACLE database were procured and applications like loan accounting, incentives were implemented on the same.

In the initial stages, the main challenge was to convince the user and the establishment of EDP department of SICOM. There were apprehensions in the users’ minds that were clarified and explained through operational training, demonstration of repetitive task automisation, printing with speed and accuracy etc. The next set of challenges came when the networking was installed and applications were converted to LAN environment.

The users in the past (around late 80’s) were familiarised with the security and access control at login and application levels. Subsequently, audit trail, control mechanism at session and application stages was illustrated to them by hand-holding process.

The challenges grew when all regional offices of SICOM were connected for e-mail communication. In tier II cities, there were problems related to infrastructure, permissions from local and regulatory authorities, government policies

in the past, quality and cost of hardware devices, etc. SICOM, with the help of the government, resolved these issues and the hardware-related problems were solved jointly with vendors.

The improvement in information transfer by communicating through electronic devices was noticeable, more accurate and faster as compared to our earlier experiences.

Please elaborate on your fundbased and non fund-based services and how IT has been implemented in these arenas of operation.

Our fund-based services include long-term loans that constitute of project finance and equipment finance. Under project finance services, we provide term loans for projects in the industrial, services and infrastructure sectors and for diversification, modernisation and expansion of existing projects. This includes funding up to 60 per cent of the cost of the project for a period of nine years for the SME sector and seven years for the infrastructure sector.

users are governed by an electronic authorisation utility in which the role and authority are defined for them and a maker-checker concept helps maintain accuracy.

It is a very user-friendly system. Till date, no slippages have been experienced in the application. The Loan Accounting & Monitoring System (LAMS) is another major system implemented. Presently OLIAS & LAMS are operating independently and the interface between FA & LAMS is handled through data files being transferred using FTP by manual intervention.

There is some delay as compared to other modules but accuracy is maintained and no errors are experienced. We have also implemented the HRMS system which integrates the HR section and the salary group of the accounts department.

Share with us some insights over the department’s immediate initiatives that have been streamlined and your vision on exploring the potential of IT.

In the initial stages, there were apprehensions in the SICOM users’ mind that was clarified and explained through operational training, demonstration of repetitive task automisation, printing with speed and accuracy, etc Financial assistance is up to `1 billion per company and `1.8 billion per group.

Under equipment finance, we provide for purchase of additional or balancing equipments like energy saving devices and pollution control facilities in an existing project, apart from other equipments that may add value to the existing project. While corporate or medium term loans range between a tenure of one to five years, the tenure for short-term loans ranges between three to 11 months. We also undertake bill discounting services. Our non fund-based services constitutes advisory services to the SME sector.

As a part of IT integration, we have implemented the On-Line Integrated Accounting System (OLIAS), a multi-user application software. It covers financial accounting and bill discounting applications. Through OLIAS,

At SICOM, IT is a support service function with a miniature IT set up as compared to a software consultancy organisation or a data centre. The legacy applications have been developed and implemented periodically in silos having a heterogeneous environment and have been satisfying user needs. So, there are procedures set for major activities and are practically followed. Therefore, instead of a well-defined policy document, the documentation of prudent practices is available. SICOM is in the process of replacing the existing applications and shifting to modern technologies. It is already in the initial stages in terms of the process of migration and development of legacy applications to the latest platform with an end-to-end solution. Majority of the features and policies will be available after the integrated application is implemented.

August 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

27

IN PERSON

Rajagopal Devara

Secretary, Cooperation, Marketing & Textiles Department, Government of Maharashtra

Exploring e-Gateways for Productive Results Rajagopal Devara speaks of the benefits and challenges in implementing IT and ICT in his department during an interaction with ENN

T

he Cooperation Department has been an active player in utilising the potential of IT. Can you take us through the approach adopted to explore these technologies?

Our department reaches out to 2.23 lakh cooperative societies, which in turn, caters to the need of 647 lakh society members. Cooperative movement is more than 100 years old in Maharashtra, but since the last

2-3 years, considerable IT-centric operational reforms are being implemented within and by the department.

Crowd-sourcing is a very innovative concept these days and has become a mega-trend as many business giants like Facebook, Apple and Amazon etc. are using the same to serve their business needs. We instrumentally used the crowd-sourcing concept in our department for effective governance. Our administration used to collect huge data from fields and used to manage it manually, which used to consume the efforts of our field staff.

We outsourced it to our stakeholders (cooperative society, auditors etc.) and provided an electronic platform where the society and auditors could create online accounts. We also provided an online account to our Registrar to manage the societies online. Today, we have an online database of 1.83 lakh co-operative societies online. This has also helped us in weeding out the dormant or inactive cooperative societies. Today, any department can view the co-operative society profile of any district, talukas or village online. We presently have about 7,600 auditors whose entire profiles are available on our website to all cooperative societies.

‘Deemed Conveyance’ was one of the key success initiatives implemented by the department. Can you take us through the operational success achieved through this initiative?

As per the previous systems, all the concerned parties had to go through multiple hearings with three departments, i.e. land records, registrar of stamps and Cooperation Department. The Cooperation Department conceptualised an online application so that housing co-operative societies could apply, track progress and download hearing orders online. We have also provided applicants with payment gateway for online payments.

Our officers review the applications online and manage the cases online.

It has resulted in shortening the lifespan of such cases as hearing mostly used to get deferred due to non-availability and accessibility of case orders, case documents. This technically-empowered process has helped in faster decision-making and achieving productive and accurate conclusions.

Please share with us the impact of such initiatives in leveraging the success of the department’s functions.

Rajagopal Devara

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As per our e-Governance roadmap prepared by KPMG, we have identified key processes for digitisation. We have saved almost 5 man-month efforts per office (more than 700 offices) and the consequent cost savings

IN PERSON

have been considerable. For example, earlier we used to send notices to co-operative societies or auditors physically for any non-compliances.

Today, we can send SMSs to Chairmen and Secretaries of selected societies through the SMS gateway. Technical assistance has also elevated efficiency in the monitoring and auditing process by making the system more effective, transparent and productive. The department has been receiving a positive response from the users and co-operative societies through these initiatives.

Technology has transformed the way the department used to function. Today, we have eliminated redundant processes which involved manual intervention. Paper-based processes and multiple human touch points led to poor data collection over which critical business decisions were made by our field officers.

Today, real time information is available online round the clock on our website, thus ensuring availability of a single version of data to our hierarchy. The services have also evidently contributed in curbing fallacies like red-tapism and involvement of middle-men in processes like deemed conveyance. The department aims to further leverage the potential of IT and ICT. Developing and establishing Open Data Bank and State Data Bank with the support of the Department of Information Technology are a few such initiatives.

What were the prime hurdles faced while implementing such initiatives and what were the strategies adopted by the department in overcoming these challenges?

The key challenges were awareness among stakeholders and capacity building of our resources up to the Taluka level. For awareness among stakeholders, we used local newspapers and websites in order to reach out to out stakeholders. Awareness about new processes was addressed by providing technical support through social media and a dedicated citizencentric call center. Capacity building was carried out at each division and district level by the KPMG team. Our officers were trained during the training programme and supporting documents like user manuals are also provided to them for ready use in bilingual format. We have also provided a dedicated video conferencing setup extended by the DIT up to district level.

Our prime challenge even today is the lack of IT infrastructure in our department. We have an acute shortage of computers at our field offices.

Many offices are using available PCs on sharing basis. As per our IT assessment, we urgently need more than 2,000 PCs with connectivity. We

As per our e-Governance roadmap prepared

by KPMG, we have identified key processes for digitisation. We have saved almost five man-month efforts per office (more than 700 offices) and the consequent cost savings have been considerable

need to immediately attend to the same as our key e-Governance systems are in place.

How would you sum up your experience in rolling out IT based applications in this domain?

Co-operative societies in the state are scattered across the country, hence a major focus was to achieve up-to-date data on the exact number of societies located in the untapped regions. Ensuring qualitative approach was the other prime focus area for which the department undertook a three-key focused mode. This included establishing a democratic, transparent and effective platform for co-operative societies, compilation of all the essential data on up-to-date basis about all the co-operative societies, educating the co-operative societies and creating qualitative awareness about the services available.

The usage of IT and ICT technologies has evidently supported in creating a vibrant, informative and effective platform. It has helped the department focus on the e-Governance road map and its implementation. Today, all the departmental activities are being operated through crowdsourcing platforms, wherein real-time data has evolved in a qualitative manner.

August 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

T

echnology has been transforming governance in our country across sectors. Share with us your opinion about the contribution of IT in leveraging the scope of governance.

The word governance emanates from laws, rules and regulations which are formulated for the benefits of citizens. However, the loop lies in the fact that the hands-on implementation and adherence by the law, is significantly low. There are some elementary provisions in various laws enacted in India that safeguard the average consumers, but the implementation is not 100 per cent, as very few observe them.

With the implementation of IT and ICT across various sectors of government departments, it’s been a procedure that is easier for both the end consumers as well as the officials in keeping track of records and being well-informed about the department’s roles and functions. The reach of awareness, though, is yet to attain the optimum level and is still in a growing stage.

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Mahesh Zagade

Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Government of Maharashtra

Need to Shun Age-old Methods The prime challenge faced while introducing IT was the mindset of the existing machinery, says Mahesh Zagade in an interaction with Kartik Sharma of ENN

We work closely with all stratas and it is important for us to cater effective service to all. Being a regulatory authority, it is our duty to stay connected with everyone through our online portals, websites and internal connectivity. Another aspect that needs to improve is the content that is used as a mode of information dissemination. We have also introduced our own mobile communication through SMS and will soon introduce applications that will bring our services to users at their finger-tips.

Our motto is to bring in seamless communication within our client base.

How have IT helped in transforming the operational and functional performance of your department?

What were the challenges faced while utilising these technologies and how were those resolved?

There is need for a greater level of re-engineering of technologies to generate interest among the staff towards newer concepts. The department is moving towards optimum implementation of IT in its entire proceedings.

In the initial stage, e-governance was mistaken as computerisation, which has slowed down the growth and implementation of IT and ICT, particularly in departmental services.

This needs to be eliminated by organising and involving the staff in regular board meetings in order to impose the importance of IT over computerisation. There is need for a greater level of re-engineering of technologies to generate interest among the staff towards newer concepts.

The prime challenge which we faced while utilising IT and ICTs for our operational initiatives was the mindset of the existing machinery.

The people or the staff find it difficult to accept and get updated to any new system or technology introduced in the department. They feel uncomfortable to shun the age-old methods in government departments. Hence, this mindset needs to be changed. This can be achieved through the inclusion of the staff in monthly board meetings and explaining to them the importance of IT implementation in government departments.

Mahesh Zagade brought in an entirely paperless office, which is less bureaucratic and much easier for tracking complaints on food, drugs and cosmetics and other related products. We are also establishing strong communication networks both within and outside our department as it plays a pivotal role in the successful implementation of e-governance modes of operation across various sectors of the government.

Brief us about the few projects being implemented, especially using the potential of IT.

How has the department ensured establishing effective communication networks particularly in tier II cities?

In our department, we strictly believe in working towards the cause of environment. As far as licensing and registrations are involved, we have

For us, at the Food and Drugs Administration department, there is no differentiation between metropolitan cities and tier II cities.

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2014

How are you looking at exploring the potential of IT? Our department is going entirely paperless and that is one of the prime projects that we are getting streamlined at the moment. The licensing and registration procedures for fresh issuance and renewals through our online portal are other projects that we are exploring with the potential of IT.

news

projects people policy events products

Electronics manufacturing hub for Bihar!

The Centre wants Bihar to have manufacturing hubs for electronic goods in the state to improve employment and revenue opportunities, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad has said.

“We are ready to provide all help for establishing electronic manufacturing hubs as they will increase employment and revenue opportunities in the

state. I have written to Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi,” said Prasad while addressing a

e-Visa at 9 airports soon: Jaitley The facility of Electronic Travel Authorisation (e-Visa) shall be introduced in a phased manner at nine airports in India, according to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Making this announcement recently, he said that the facility of e-Visa would give a major boost to tourism in India.

The necessary infrastructure would be put in place within the next six months, the Finance Minister said. The countries, to which e-Visa facility would be extended, would be identified in a phased manner, according to him. This would further facilitate the Visa-on-Arrival facility, he informed the House.

two-day BJP state executive meet in Patna recently.

“The state just needs to provide us land and we will help establish electronic manufacturing centres. Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants India to develop in electronics and manufacturing of electronic goods,” he said.

Elaborating his department’s plans for Bihar, Prasad said BSNL is working towards setting up 500 new mobile towers during the

2014-15 fiscal to improve its connectivity across the state. “Around 70 new towers have already been set up during this financial year.

BSNL will also set up 650 new towers in the next fiscal. This will solve connectivity issues of the service provider in the state,” said Prasad. He also said his ministry is chalking an ambitious plan to upgrade BSNL telephone exchanges in the state to modern digital ones by 2016.

India leaves a mark at MIXiii 2014 The Department of Electronics and IT participated in the First Israel Innovation Conference - MIXiii 2014 held recently in Tel Aviv, Israel. Around 35 exhibitors from India including private companies, SMEs, government R&D organisations, Trade Promotion Department, venture capital firms and others participated in the India Pavilion, which was the largest country Pavilion at the expo.

In addition to the central government ministries, the state governments of Karnataka, Gujarat, Kerala

and Maharashtra also enabled participation of their respective SME units.

Over a period of three days, the India Pavilion attracted a great deal of attention. The participants also had B2B discussions opening leads for further business. An India-focussed panel discussion was also held on the sidelines of

MIXiii 2014 on the topic “India –Israel Partnership in high-tech and bio–med: Potential and promises”.

Eminent speakers such as the Chief Scientist in the Israeli Ministry of Economy, Chairman-Sun Pharmaceuticals and President-Indian Cellular Association, among others participated in the discussion.

Mobile app to book autos in Delhi

Now, smartphones can be used for hiring an autorickshaw in the national capital. Lt Governor Najeeb

Jung recently launched a new app “Pooch-O” for the purpose. Developed by the Delhi Integrated Multi-Model

Transit System (DIMTS), Pooch-O will allow users to locate GPS-fitted autos near them and call their drivers, whose numbers are registered with DIMTS. “After booking auto through this app, commuters can share their travel

details on Facebook and Twitter so that their friends and family members can get to know about their locations. Besides, there are several security elements in this app which would be very useful for women travelling in autos at night,”

said Jung.

Pooch-O app can be downloaded on android phones from Google’s Play Store. ACP (Traffic) Anil Shukla, who was also present, said if a driver refuses to take Pooch-O users, he would be penalised.

August 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

S Chockalingam

Commissioner, School Education Department, Government of Maharashtra

Big Data for Better School Education IT has helped in making government’s initiatives more efficient and transparent, thus providing equal opportunity to every kid, says S Chockalingam in a conversation with Kartik Sharma of ENN

P

lease throw light on some of the landmark initiatives by the Education Department that contributed to the welfare of Maharashtra.

The education sector has witnessed a seachange due to excellent implementation of IT and ICT, leading to widespread modernisation in the admission procedure. Online admissions have successfully been introduced in Pune and Mumbai schools, ensuring easy admission to students and relaxing parents from neverending queues outside institutions. Admission forms are easily available to students on the internet and at comfort of home. Once they are through with this initial step, they are allotted to schools according to their preferences, keeping in mind the total available seats. Implementation of IT has helped in assuring transparency and ease, for end customers.

Underprivileged students with no internet access can visit our help centers, where they can avail facilities of online admission, avoiding long queues at desired institutions.

For instance, where vacancies outnumber applications, seats are allocated randomly to students based on their preferences of subject or curriculum.

There are 4000 students in Pune and 2000 in Mumbai and each one of them received an allocation letter, without actually visiting the institutions.

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S Chockalingam

Allocation letter is generated online for every student and the moment they visit the school with a hard copy, they are qualified for admission. They also received an instant SMS confirmation on their allocation and soon it is processed. The online admission is meant for the benefit underprivileged children by granting them 25 per cent quota under the RTE (Right to Free and Compulsory Education) Act. This implementation of IT in education

is one sector which has received positive reaction from beneficiaries.

What kinds of schools are involved with this initiative?

This online admission initiative covers all the schools. But when we brought this initiative with 25 percent quota under RTE Act, only private schools were covered, as the govern-

IN PERSON

nection. The same is not with the students as the number is massive, so we’ve decided to have at least one PC or laptop per school but even that is cost-sensitive. For the internet connectivity, we are planning to connect, through National Open Fiber Network (NOFN) which is currently being undertaken in the areas of Gram Panchayats.

So, will this initiative help you build smart classes?

We are planning to introduce smart schools on a small scale… World class education quality will be ensured by data classes, required hardware and internet connectivity. But all that would be critical and costly because of the large number of schools, and that remains a big challenge ment schools provide admission to kids from varied backgrounds. The online admission was basically designed for private or self-financed schools so that these institutions have 25 percent seats reserved for underprivileged kids.

This implementation of RTE has been more effective online. Do you think the use of IT helped you in implementing RTE more effectively in the State and do you have initiatives for rural schools?

Yes, the involvement of IT has helped in making the initiative more efficient and transparent, thus providing equal opportunity to every kid.

For rural areas, the department will soon create three big datas. Though we are having database for schools and teachers, we feel the need of having similar detailed data of students.

There are more than 1.6 crore students in the state and we are trying to get all of them on our planned data base. This will help us to know

about a particular student, who is eligible for scholarship or some special benefits.

The data would also assist in monitoring the progress of students which can be shared with parents as well. Teachers too can analyse the educational progress of kids. We will be integrating this city with parents’ portal and a timely SMS would be sent to the parents informing them on important matters about their kids.

An additional initiative would be to eliminate paper mark sheets, instead mark sheets will be uploaded online where students can log in and find out about their scores.

Is managing the huge data of students a challenge, if so, then how do you counter it?

Indeed it is a big challenge, as far as students are concerned there are lakhs of them. But concerning the teachers it’s not a big issue, as there are 5 to 10 teachers per school and their data can be entered from cyber cafes or from neighboring schools who have internet con-

Definitely, we are planning to introduce smart schools on a small scale- 100 schools of the like, immediately and at least 500 this year. World class education quality will be ensured by data classes, required hardware and internet connectivity. But all that would be critical and costly compared to the connectivity because of the huge number of schools and that remains a big challenge.

Do you think a PPP would help in delivering better education in Maharashtra?

We don’t have exactly a PPP model but rather a CSR model, for example Thermax foundation is running a model as a CSR policy in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) where the buildings are owned by PMC but Thermax has taken over, teaching and other IT infrastructure. But for PPP there are concerns with the large real estate in places like Mumbai and Pune. However, we have various service agreements with various private organisations, they provide us with the services like hardware, software and other services for a certain period of time and they get paid for the services they provide for that period of time.

Tell us about your vision for the education sector in Maharashtra.

I feel that the big questions on education today should and cannot be answered by small steps but by technology like big data and a strong content delivery. Through this we can make a big change in the education sector in Maharashtra. I believe that Maharashtra is very good in parameters quantity wise but we have a lot to do in quality and this is the right time for us to do it and technology will help us to achieve that.

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IN PERSON

Vijay Singhal

Sugar Commissioner, Government of Maharashtra

Productivity

Efficiency

Transparency ICT has not only changed the way the sugar industry operates, but also proved to be a boon for farmers and various people associated with the industry, says Vijay Singhal in an interview with Veena Kurup of ENN

S

hare your outlook on the potentials of ICT in enhancing the scope of

governance.

Technology is a great enabler. Today every department/regulator is migrating to technology-centric innovative governance models. Various government departments are embracing technologycentric reforms for effective governance and providing quick, affordable and reliable services to its stakeholders. The biggest contribution of IT and ICT technology is that it increases the productivity, efficiency and transparency, and brings down the cost of our operations.

What challenges do you face in managing the sugar domain and what counter measures do you intend for them?

The Commissionerate of Sugar has an important role to play in the development of the socio-economic landscape of the state. The role of the Sugar Commissioner is both Developmental and Regulatory.

We observed few challenges in managing this domain manually on paper. The sugar industry sees a turnover of Rs 30,000 crore annually and is spread across the vast geography of the state. Governing these large entities is an arduous task that requires leadership,

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Vijay Singhal

vision, co-ordination at various levels and the ability to understand problems faced by the industries and farmers in their everyday operations.

Maintaining the databases of information related to these entities is a huge task and efficient communication between the sugar offices and the factories across the state is very much required. Information about factories, various schemes proposed by the government, important government resolutions, court judgments etc, need to be readily available to various stakeholders of the industry. Also, it is important for the Commissionerate to provide appropriate mechanisms for farmers to convey their issues/grievances to the government.

Another major challenge faced by the Sugar Commissionerate, especially in last few years, has been protests by farmer’s association (Shetakari Sanghatana) demanding higher prices for cane.

In order to overcome all these challenges we chalked out an eGovernance roadmap to bring in technology-centric reforms in the system.

Our eGovernance roadmap was prepared with the assistance of KPMG under which we have identified key areas and processes which could be digitised and made more effective and efficient through ICT. We have also implemented solutions on mGovernance for the use of innovative crowd sourcing. Technology has changed the way we do governance to develop and regulate the domain.

Detail us about the key initiatives being implemented using ICT. As part of our eGovernance roadmap, a new web portal of the Sugar Commissionerate has been developed. It contains information about the sugar industry in Maharashtra, details of the Commissionerate, and all cooperatives and private sugar factories in the state including their address and Google maps of their locations. The website will also carry information related to the Sugar Department like important government resolutions (GR), circulars, court orders, guidelines etc.

Web portal of the Sugar Commissionerate won the Bronze medal at Government of Maharashtra’s eGovernance Awards 2013.

This project also won the Skoch Gold National Award in “Innovative Use of Technology for eGovernance”.

The Commissionerate has also implemented a push SMS system for quick and efficient communication between sugar offices and factories. Pull SMS system is being used to collect daily crushing report from factories in a predefined SMS format. The pull SMS project also won the Silver medal at the Government of Maharashtra’s “eGovernance Awards 2013” and the Skoch Gold National Award for “Innovative Use of Technology for e-Governance”. The Project for Real-Time Cane Crushing Information Collection through Pull SMS won the eIndia National

IN PERSON

Award in “Innovative Use of Mobile Technology in eGovernance” category.

Commissionerate has also implemented Business Intelligence for better assessment and analysis of data.The various dashboards developed with BI tools give a complete picture of current position of any sugar factory in the state.

All information related to a factory’s crushing statistics, financial position, efficiency, working of plants etc is available on a single platform. The BI dashboards help in identifying the best performing factories in state or a particular region and also in comparison of working of different factories of same capacity. Their methods could be analysed and replicated across the industry for improvement in overall performance.

Sugar Commissionerate is implementing a GIS solution. In first phase, all sugar factories in the state have been mapped on the states district wise map and all factory information is available at the click of a button. In the next phase, villagewise listing of factory working are is marked on GIS maps to denote high and low recovery zones, high production capacity areas, and factories showing good financial performance etc.

There is also progress in the development of the Maharashtra Sugar Information System (MSIS) – an application for automating the governance structure of various sections in the Commissionerate and allied offices across the state including the sugar factories. The MSIS will have users at various levels –Mantralaya, the Sugar Commissionerate and its Regional offices as well as the sugar factories.

Through this software, the department will be able to track various details like sugar crushing, production statistics, administrative and financial details of factories etc. Using these applications factories will be able to submit online proposals for cane crushing license, technical sanctions, expansion, modernisation, administrative and financial approvals, various loans and grants, proposals etc.

What were the prime challenges faced while utilising these technologies for operational initiatives?

Key challenges faced by department were stakeholder awareness and internal capacity building.

KPMG is managing the implementation and rollout of various applications. Detailed bilingual user manual were made available online to various stakeholders through our website. SMS gateway also helped us in sending bulk SMSes

The Commissionerate of Sugar has implemented Business Intelligence for better assessment and analysis of data.

Various dashboards developed with BI tools give a complete picture of current position of any sugar factory in the state related to compliances etc to our stakeholders.

Detailed training sessions were conducted at regular intervals by consultants deployed at the Divisional and Commissionerate level in order to build capacity as required.

How equipped is the department to tackle cyber security concerns?

We are very thankful to our IT department which has ensured proper compliance mechanism which safeguards all our concerns related to cyber security. Our vendor has to adhere to standards, guidelines and policies framed by DIT, so that our application could be hosted on SDC. All our applications are thoroughly tested and certified by agencies to ensure full compliance towards IT security.

Share with us the department’s vision and initiatives towards enhancing the scope of utilising such technologies?

The department is planning to revive the portal developed for online sale of sugar and byproducts by SSKs. The total annual turnover of sugar and its by-products is estimated at Rs 25,000-30,000 crore. Implementing sugar sale online will help in improving transparency in the sale process and accordingly sugar factories will start getting better realisation.

Our vision is to connect all sugar factories in the state of Maharashtra with Commissioner of sugar office online and make the entire office paperless. It is our endeavor to provide all information on our website and also through the use of m-Governance and e-Governance.

It is also proposed to create a UID Aadhar linked database of members of all co-operative sugar factories in the state. This will enable factories to transfer the member’s payment directly into their Aadhar-linked bank accounts which in turn will result in simplified and quick processing of cane payments to the farmers.

August 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

Asheesh Sharma

Managing Director, Maharashtra State Power Generation Co Ltd

Mahagenco

Upholds e-Mantra Acceptance issues and reluctance to adopt new technology are the major concerns that creep in while implementing IT-related service delivery systems, says Asheesh Sharma in an interview with Veena Kurup of ENN

W

hat is your opinion on the increasing use of IT in various government

sectors?

e-Governance can be considered as the best alternative to improve administrative efficiency.

However, a prime problem concerning the success of such IT-enabled or e-Governance initiatives is a common wrong practice of top-to-bottom approach. For instance, if an organisation is moving forward and an initiative is being imposed upon it, then the pressurised situation often leads to deviation in the operational focus from the core aim.

The other problem is the issue of comparability in analysing the effectiveness of such initiatives across distinct departments or governing bodies.

Though many organisations today propagate on achieving complete operational success and efficiency, on real-time basis we lack the ability to achieve or analyse the solid evidence in measuring the actual success of the organisation’s initiatives.

As a result, small initiatives are often highlighted while the bigger ones are often left behind. Such a situation often de-motivates the workforce behind these initiatives for the future ventures.

The situation, thus, requires a bottom-to-top approach, wherein productive evaluation can be attained at each level of individual participation. Mahagenco is one of the first PSUs using the SAP ERP system.

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Asheesh Sharma

Can you take us through the experience of using this technology?

are the second-largest power utility company in India. The nature of job, size of the company, our geographical spread, management functions, and finance and procurement issues together require a platform like SAP to integrate with one another.

It took us four years to implement the initiative, and over the years, we have completely transformed our old operations and are trying to get all our data on to the SAP platform. Acceptability issues and adoption of new technologies cropped up as the major initial hurdles, due to which the process took a longer implementation period. After the training period, the key issue focussed was feeding the data into various SAP modules. At present, we have data being stored into the system from all possible locations.

Today, we are trying to convert the data into knowledge, due to which it has started acting as a support system in assisting our decision making process. This is a stage where you leverage SAP to deliver better and productive services.

Technology initiatives like SAP are crucial for an electricity generating company like ours. One of the prime factors is that our plants are scattered over 10-15 locations across Maharashtra, as we

What strategies Mahagenco adopted to tackle the initial operational hiccups?

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2014

Mahagenco adopted this technical approach about four years ago, wherein we focussed on implementing a bottom-to-top approach. At the initial stages of implementation, acceptability was a key hurdle as people doubted the success of this new inverted approach mode.

Hence, it was very difficult to convince people entering the data about the benefits to be gained through such an approach.

However, through a planned operational approach Mahagenco has succeeded in initiating this effective system. Today, we have an individual owner for each module and we are encouraging them to take the ownership of that module. Moreover, instead of remaining as just owners, we are encouraging them to use it in their day-to-day functions. Gradually, we are also withdrawing our legacy systems. In the coming four to five months we will focus on achieving paperless operational office.

Share with us your vision for exploring e-platforms.

We will have to ensure that the decision support system is built in a manner that it actually helps as a decision-making tool. The system being utilised should be capable of assisting the respective officers in analysing each level of data. This approach ultimately results in improved performance and achieving administrative efficiency.

Our aim is to make the operational environment more business friendly, as we are an administration-centric PSU body.

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IN PERSON

Dr Shrikar Pardeshi

Inspector General of Registration & Controller of Stamps, Government of Maharashtra

IT Paves the SARITA Path Dr Shrikar Pardeshi elaborates the department’s e-approach in ensuring productive services in an interview with Veena Kurup of ENN

W

hat is the potential of IT in enhancing the scope of governance?

The revolutionary growth in Information Technology has led to a smaller global world that has people more closely connected to each other through Internet based social networks. And

Dr Shrikar Pardeshi

considering the change, Department of Registration and Stamps, a 200-year-old government department, started its humble journey into the domain of e-Governance. The advent of the new user-friendly technology and policy reforms by the government clubbed with all the problems faced using the manual mode, gave way to the first computerised application called SARITA (Stamp and Registration Information Technology Application) in the state of Maharashtra in 2002. Gradually, the need for utilisa-

tion of better technology and understanding of eGov reforms led to the web based application of i-SARITA in 2012.

However the major hurdles include prolonged completion time for registration process, lack of transparency, involvement of middlemen especially in dealing with land related issues, wastage of paper and photocopies, difficulties in tracing transaction history etc.

Can you take us through the success of SARITA and its transformation to i-SARITA? During the implementation of the SARITA project, the department realised the importance of further developments in Information Communication Technology space (ICT), and going forward launched SARITA-2 and SARITA-3 in few offices as a pilot project. A need for a better application that could use the technology to the already computerised but stand–alone department activities to a centralised, real-time web-based one was thought of as the future for the department. This technological up gradation led to the web based application of i-SARITA in 2012.

Leveraging the operational benchmark which was already set in 2002, i-SARITA aims to enhance and provide more citizen friendly services and also to reduce the administrative burden on its employees. i-SARITA started in the year 2012 with a new well-connected network to centralise the whole administration and implementation of the registration process. Initially during earlier SARITA project, the traditional computer-based technology was implemented as a standalone system at each Sub Registrar office where as i-SARITA project uses improved digital communication technology with a web based solution. It has a 3-tier web based centralised application and web servers and centralised open source SQL 8.4 database. Network Connectivity is a secured pipeline connectivity through which more than 520 offices (including administration offices) of department are connected. i-SARITA is a web-based application developed by NIC which connects the 480 Sub Registrar offices in the State of Maharashtra. For better administrative control and ease of implementation of i-SARITA, the State of Maharashtra has been divided into five work divisions i.e. Pune, Mumbai, Thane, Nashik and Nagpur.

How has been the response from the users towards such services?

The initiatives have effectively helped in

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ing System (GRAS). The payment can also be done using online payment through Internet banking and debit cards. The payment can also be made across the counter (ATC) payment at designated bank branches. The project started with digitisation of 10 year old data and scope was expanded to 25 years; this was kick started by the department with the help of NIC.

What is the approach adopted by the department to build qualitative implementation?

enhancing the reach of citizen services, creating more effectiveness in operations and transparency in functioning. Those have also helped in eliminating the wastage of paper, saving time and energy, and in bringing more productive results in the department.

Brief us about the other IT powered initiatives implemented by the department?

Since the department is guided by subordinate legislation and statutory guidelines, the processes could not be re-engineered. Hence, the department is focused towards enabling IT to achieve its operational objectives by expanding the e-services to different services. Introduction of Public Data Entry System was one such initiative. The data entry was the most time-consuming and error-prone activity in the process. So, the department re-engineered this activity into public data entry, enabling the citizens to control their data fully which would avoid unnecessary rework at Sub Registrar office.

The other major initiative involved is the introduction of ‘e-Step in’ which allows the citizen to book an appointment at the Sub Registrar office online, ultimately enabling to reduce the time wasted during registration process. In addition, the mandatory collection of photocopies of documents during registration process has been replaced with the scanned copies of the original documents, thus, reducing the consumption of paper

and expenses. Furthermore, citizens are now provided with thumbnail print of their documents and also a soft copy on the CD for easy storage and future references.

Now, the registration process has to be

During the implementation of earlier SARITA project an awareness generation campaign was conducted to motivate the employees towards the computerisation of the registration process.

What is the department’s future vision towards utilising

IT initiatives have effectively enhanced the reach of citizen services, bringing effectiveness in operations and transparency in government functioning. Those have helped eliminating wastage of paper, saving time and energy, and bring more productive results completed within the office working hours, as the system does not take any entry after office hours. This feature has helped to curb any kind of dubious activities that might happen at the Sub Registrar office. During the earlier SARITA project the documents collected were printed on one side of the paper to facilitate scanning but it turned out to be time consuming. In i-SARITA ADF scanner was introduced which could scan back-to-back printed documents and this helped in reducing the time of scanning. e-Payment services is the other vital service being implemented and successfully operated through the utilisation of IT. Payments are made through Government Receipt Account-

e-platforms to enhance the scope of citizen services?

The department will enhance the focus on prevention of fraudulent activities, particularly about the information related to authenticity of the property, providing alerts between search and registration processes, and launching of e-registration and e-filing services. The Department Of Registration and Stamps of Maharashtra has a vision of implementing e-Registration for complete transparency and high efficiency.

In this system of e-Registration the citizens can prepare their documents online, make necessary payments online, and submit documents for registration which would be sent by the department electronically.

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IN PERSON

R D Shinde

Secretary, Social Justice & Special Assistance Department, Government of Maharashtra

IT Facilitates, Delivers

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Transparency, efficiency and accountability are the three key objectives achieved through utilisation of IT-enabled platforms, feels R D Shinde in conversation with Veena Kurup of ENN

ow does IT help in refining the operational pace of administrative system in the country?

IT plays a key role in refining the process of governance initiatives and facilitating transparency in operational practices. Availability of information in public domain leads to transparency and empowerment of citizens. Efficiency in operation is the other prime element being achieved through active utilisation of IT. Migration of schemes to an online platform has dramatically impacted reduction in overall time required to process an application. Time reduced at each touch point helps in streamlining the entire process. The digital trail of actions undertaken further leads toward achieving overall accountability.

How far ICT has helped in transforming the overall performance of your department?

The department has implemented several IT-powered initiatives like eOffice, eMails, SMS facility, Payment Gateway, Video Conferencing and IT Training. The eOffice solution enables electronic file movement and enables faster processing of files. The department also is focused towards achieving a complete paper-free desk operation. Through the eMails services, the department has migrated completely to email system in ‘maharashtra.gov.in’ domain. This has enabled the department officials to exchange important information conveniently. The users also get the required support to resolve the technical issues through State Data Center (SDC). Also, SMS facility is being rolled out across multiple schemes (e.g. eScholarship and Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana).

Furthermore, the Central Plan Scheme Monitoring System (CPSMS) is being used to transfer pension benefits to beneficiaries. We are also checking the feasibility of using CPSMS in the eScholarship system. Video conferencing facility has enabled us to conduct meetings and resolve issues without making the officials travel from distinct districts. We also encourage the department officials to attend training workshops and sessions that are conducted in Mantralaya, so that they are up-to-date regarding the latest trends in technology. As a result of these initiatives our officers have become more efficient and decision making has become faster.

Can you spell out the success of e-initiatives implemented by the Social Justice Department, Government of Maharashtra?

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R D Shinde

Our ‘e-Scholarship’ initiative was implemented with the objective to bring the socially and economically backward students to the mainstream development track. Earlier the process was completely devoid of automation and the entire process of scholarship application by students, approval by colleges/welfare officer and disbursal was executed through manual process. The eScholarship solution has enabled in automating the process of application, approval and disbursal.

In 2013-14, we received 17 lakh applications for the Government of India (GoI) Post Matric Scholarship & Freeship Scheme, and Rs 1,700 crore of funds have been disbursed in this academic year. The system also provides the department with MIS to monitor and analyse the scholarship distribution and disbursement. This is first-of-its-kind initiative to be implemented in the state.

The Department of Social Justice and Special Assistance also introduced ‘Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana’ (AABY) solution in Maharashtra and

IN PERSON

enabled transformation in providing insurance to landless labourers across the state. The scheme provides insurance for the head of the family or an earning member of the family of rural landless household between the age of 18 and 59 years against natural death as well as accidental death and partial/permanent disability. The initiative also offers an add-on benefit of scholarships for two children of the beneficiaries studying in 9th to 12th standard.

Through the AABY portal, the process of application by beneficiaries and approval by district authorities has been automated.

Our ‘eOffice’ solution is also being used extensively by the department officials. At present, we have 86 total users, 1,885 eFiles are already created, 16,467 eReceipts are diarised, 85 eLeave applications created and in Knowledge Management System (KMS) seven documents are uploaded till now.

How successful has been the department in establishing effective operational networks, particularly in the rural areas?

Communication is a vital element to reach out to citizens and streamline operations in rural Maharashtra. With the active support of Department of Information Technology, we have succeeded in establishing connectivity up to the Tahsildar level through MS-WAN. Gaining reports and guiding the field level officers have become very easy through the video conferencing facility. For schemes like Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana (AABY), the department utilises services of CSC centers established by the Government of Maharashtra to increase its reach to the citizens. We have also created respective email IDs of each Tahsildar so that department can communicate with them easily. In addition, IT assistants have been provided by the department in every district to assist the officials in IT-related work.

How has the department tackled hurdles in the implementation of e-initiatives?

The scope of any initiative of Social Justice Department has a direct impact on the socially and economically weaker sections of the society. Since initiatives span across all the 35 districts of Maharashtra, the key challenge is to establish and maintain effective co-ordination with multiple stakeholders. All affected parties have to be first sensitised about the initiative

Communication is a vital element to reach out to citizens and streamline operations in rural Maharashtra. With the active support of Department of Information Technology, we have succeeded in establishing connectivity… and its benefits, and outlined the solutions, which can be rolled out to improve efficiency in day-to-day working activities.

Other challenge being faced is the low literacy rate and awareness amongst the section of the society whom the department caters to.

A very basic IT solution developed by a vendor may be complex for them to understand. Also, the tech-savvy nature and readiness amongst the departmental staff is also a challenge which the department is facing.

To tackle these challenges, the department through distinct initiatives focuses in streamlining and developing a healthy trained employee force.

Please share with us the department’s future initiatives.

Key initiatives pipelined for the future are Dr

Babasaheb Ambedkar Regional & Training Institute (BARTI), a scanning and digitisation programme, and National Social Assistance Programme (NASP). Under the BARTI initiative, scanning and digitisation of caste certificates sent to committees for verifications is underway. There are 36 lakh cases and eight crore pages to be scanned and digitised. This project is targeted to be completed in the next 8-10 months. Under the NASP programme, we are planning to make the process of application by beneficiary to issuance of sanction order online through eDistrict. The development of software is underway and we are targeting to select a pilot district and roll it out in the next three months.

As a result of e-initiatives our officers have become more efficient and decision-making has become faster.

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IN PERSON

A K Nigam

Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and MD, Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra Limited

Tech Tools Conserve Nature Information Technology has struck the right chord in the development of eco-tourism and related services, says A K Nigam in an interaction with Kartik Sharma & Poulami Chakraborty of ENN

H

What challenges do you face in the utilisation of technologies and how do you counter them?

ow has ICT transformed the operational and functional working of FDCM?

Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra (FDCM) is a public sector company founded in 1974 and has been continuously running in profit since 1987. To weed out old and the obsolete information and lessen the burden of heavy documentation, help of Information Technology has been frequently and readily taken. To meet such requirements, a computer with latest software support is handy.

In the first stage, Local Area Network (LAN) was set up in the headquarters, and regional and divisional offices. Wide Area Network (WAN) was also set up with the help of web-based software and Internet services. Efforts are being made to link the field staff with Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to make the monitoring, reporting and retrieval of field related functions and operations more real, spatial and less time consuming.

Brief us about the projects fostered by IT and implemented by the Eco-Tourism Department.

FDCM is implementing some eco-tourism projects along the fringe or peripheries of Protected Areas (PAs) in Maharashtra, like Moharli and Kolara along the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Chandrapur district; Pitezari, Nagzira and Nawegaon in Nagzira-Nawegaon Tiger Reserve, Gondia district; Semadoh and Kolkhaz in Melghat Tiger Reserve, Amaravati district; and Bor in Bor Sanctuary, Nagpur district.

Earlier, the bookings for resorts and safaris were made manually. It frequently caused undue harassment to visitors regarding unavailability of

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facilities due to pre-occupancy or partisan attitude of the booking personnel. Management was unsure of its occupancy positions and at times also deprived of its revenue. Client satisfaction was jeopardized due to uncertainty.

Resort and Safari bookings have now been made online services. Clients are assured of their stay and their trips to PA are enjoyable and pleasant. FDCM Ltd is now also assured of its revenue. Client can now cancel their trips any time with nominal cancellation charges. It has rendered great service to the people, with an element of transparency and fairness.

How successfully has the department established communication networks in rural areas?

It has prevailed over traditional methods in many ways. Earlier, procurement and installation of communication networks involved large capital often leading to delays. Now, regular staff is trained in all these activities and they support various processes, resulting in faster disposal of services. All offices are linked and image enhanced across the state.

The prime challenge faced by department in the utilisation of technology was ill project management which involved procedures, timelines and costs. That in turn hindered the process of clear communication and accessibility involving all stakeholders and as a result software-hardware implementation, route selection, ownership at executive level etc, everything gets disrupted.

How has technology helped you curb poaching and generate nature awareness?

IT and ICT have been effectively utilised in the field of forest protection —preventing illicit felling of trees, curbing poaching of wildlife and generating awareness amongst youths by providing adequate training, among others.

FDCM has a website http://www.fdcm.nic. in/ through which lot of information can be accessed. Also, we are using the technology for staff recruitment.

Tell us about future initiatives and the department’s vision in exploring the potential of IT. We are following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for –“Minimum Government, Maximum Governance”. This is only possible by using IT & ICT in addition to other inputs. FDCM shall be using modern technology for good governance and in providing quality food and services expeditiously.

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IN PERSON

O P Gupta

General Manager, Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport Undertaking

BEST Turns Better with IT

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Managing city transport with state-of-the-art facilities is no easy job for a loss-making enterprise, but with the urban transport policy acknowledging this issue, O P Gupta sees brighter days ahead for BEST. Excerpts from an interview with Kartik Sharma of ENN

ive us an overview of BEST undertaking.

The Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) is the civic transport and electricity provider public body based in Mumbai. We provide bus transport across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region including Thane, Navi Mumbai and other major regions.

Electric supply is provided from Colaba to Mahim on the western side and from Colaba to Sion on the eastern side. Unlike the New Delhi Municipal Council, which provides electricity to only parts of New Delhi, BEST is one of a kind that is responsible for two services together.

How do you manage to operate two different sectors?

Earlier, there was much more integration, but now the two are two different services. As an administrator, I have to deal with different functions very carefully. There are specialised divisions – supply and technical. When my team is focussing on the technical aspect, I elaborate upon the work plan and schemes in terms of policies, formulation and their longterm implementation.

Brief us the ‘Cashless Travel’ service that you have introduced.

Traditionally, bus transport in India has been associated with conductors punching paper tickets for the commuters. In 2010, we introduced the electronic ticketing system and the electronic ticketing machine replaced

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O P Gupta

the paper ticket. Simultaneously, we started the RFID Smart Card for people who travel frequently on certain routes. These commuters can take certain packs which can be monthly, quarterly or annually. With this card, they do not need to carry change money as a fare. We also realised that there are several occasional travelers and introduced the RFID card for them too. All these commuters have to do now is pre-load the card and travel for the entire day without any cash transactions.

These services come under our ‘Cashless Travel Best Travel’ facility.

Are there any plans for introducing a single card for all means of transport in Mumbai as it is in Bangalore?

This idea was initiated in Mumbai itself. Four years ago, BEST, in association with the railways, introduced a ‘Go Mumbai’ card, which was valid for railways as well as the BEST buses. The only problem was that the card did not have a proper mechanism. Seamless operation has been made possible after we introduced our electronic ticketing system.

The government then asked for a single card

IN PERSON

for passengers to travel across the city. They passed instructions to other cities too to join the common platform. In Mumbai, we are trying to implement it across various modes of transport. We have been in touch with the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). But after the contracts were awarded to these people, technology innovation did not take place.

What are the initiatives being taken to maintain the quality of buses?

In the last three years, we have introduced CCTV cameras in BEST buses. In over 3,000 buses, two cameras have already been installed with the recording capacity of 72 hours. A GPS-enabled service has also been installed in 2,000 buses and another 2,000 buses will get it by the year-end. The GPS system will be used to track buses and divert them in case of emergency.

BEST has also installed LCD screens inside the buses and using GPS service we plan to make announcements of ‘the next bus stop’ on the screens. We have also installed audio-visual screens at every bus stop. Passengers will know in advance when their stop will arrive. BEST has also launched a mobile service that allows commuters to get mobile and Internet updates about the scheduled time of arrival of a bus at a particular stop.

As far as elevating quality standards, we will move on to next generation buses as current buses were built on an old platform. Now, the Indian government has finalised bus specifications which have been notified for the urban bus system. With this, the new buses that will be procured by city transport services will match those specifications.

One big challenge in Mumbai is running closed-door buses because the number of people travelling in peak hours is huge. But we are planning to bring closed-door buses as it would help in promoting safety and would also enhance the commuting experience in the long run.

Any plans on introducing energyefficient buses or other green initiatives?

This initiative was taken by BEST almost 10-15 years back. Even though it costs a lot but BEST, even before the Supreme Court order, started CNG buses in Mumbai. CNGrun buses are almost pollution free as com-

BEST has been fully conscious of the alarming levels of pollution in the cities.

But with modern and reliable technology, we have been making constant efforts to keep pollution levels within check pared to the diesel-run buses. With modern and reliable technology, we have been making constant efforts to keep the pollution levels under control.

You have mechanised the public helpline system. How is it helping people?

We have arranged a helpline system where commuters can call our toll free numbers in case of a problem with BEST services. Once an online complaint is received, facts of the complaint are verified followed by instituting an inquiry. In inquiry, the complainant and the person against whom the complaint has been made are informed and if the person is found at fault, strict action is taken against the employee. People now have the confidence that if a reference is made to BEST regarding any issue, it will be addressed. Employees too have become aware that complaints against them will not be overlooked.

What is your vision about BEST and the integration of IT in the organisation?

In terms of operation, efficiency and services,

BEST is probably the best in the country.

The only problem faced is finance which is a common phenomenon everywhere; city transports run as a loss-making enterprise. In all other places, money is either paid by the body running the service or the state governments. BEST is unique as it operates as an autonomous organisation. The cross-subsidy in all these years came from the electrical side. However, after the implementation of the Electricity Act, limitations in generating profits from the electrical supply side have cropped up and we are also facing financial issues from the transport side for quite some time now.

We tried surpassing the financial problem via PPP but such joint ventures come with their own limitations. Private firms are not interested in such ventures as this sector hardly makes any profit beyond a set margin. Thankfully, the Urban Transport Policy has acknowledged these issues and is planning to bring forth a national transport fund and city transport fund that can provide financial support for the services to run efficiently. If such funds and financial schemes are implemented, BEST Undertaking services will definitely get a boost.

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IN PERSON

Dinesh Oulkar

Commissioner, Cooperation Department, Government of Maharashtra

Technology Plays the Enabler Buoyed by the success of e-Sahakar, the Cooperation Department is looking to introduce a Society Information System which will put critical performance indicators in public domain, Dinesh Oulkar tells Kartik Sharma of ENN

W

hat is your opinion on the contribution of IT in leveraging the scope of governance in the prevalent scenario?

Maharashtra has the largest number and variety

of co-operative organisations in India. Sugar co-operatives, co-operative spinning mills, cooperative banks, all have huge memberships.

The number touches almost half the population of the state. The role of the Commissioner for Cooperation and Registrar, Cooperative Societies (CCRCS) as the friend-philosopher-guide of the co-operative movement will be much more efficient and impactful with the assistance of IT

Dinesh Oulkar

and ICT technologies. Governance will improve because of e-Sahakar - both within the department as well as within the co-operative institutions in the state.

How has IT helped in transforming the operational and functional performances in your departmental initiatives?

The CCRCS has the responsibilities of developing a conducive atmosphere for the transparent functioning of co-operative organisations.

Among other duties, the CCRCS causes to audit each co-operative society annually and further monitors the rectification of audit para in each audit report. The Audit Tracking Model helps the department to closely monitor the performance of the auditors as well as the co-operative societies. In the case of co-operative housing societies aspiring for deemed conveyance, the e-Sahakar module helps to reduce human touch points and footfalls to and from government offices. Introduction of Online Crop Loan Management System helps the department closely monitor the agricultural credit system linkage (NABARDMSCB-DCCB-PACS). This ensures timely disbursal of crop loans for both Kharif and Rabi and also with timely recoveries with an objective to avoid stagnancy.

Brief us about the few projects being implemented by the department and the distinct e-services being offered.

Broadly, E-sahakar has three modules. The first is the Online Society Process Management System. This module enables the auditors and co-operative societies to function with minimum human intervention. This has reduced

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IN PERSON

hassles for the co-operative societies and the auditors, who can then attract appropriate businesses based on their track record. The module aims at bringing in transparency in the auditors-society selection process. Additionally, the Audit Tracking Model helps the department monitor the performance of the auditors as well as the co-operative societies.

This has a far-reaching impact on the performance of the co-operative sector as a whole.

The second module of e-Sahakar is the Online Deemed Conveyance Management System. Through this system, the co-operative housing societies can submit their deemed conveyance proposal online to their Registrar.

This module has brought transparency and efficiency, much to the relief of cooperative housing societies and its members. The applicant society can now track the progress of their proposal online, thus reducing visits to the Registrar’s office.

The third system that we have introduced under e-Sahakar is the Online Crop Loan Management System. Agricultural credit is one of the most important inputs for the unorganised agricultural production sector. Timely agricultural credit ensures sustained growth in this sector.

District Central Cooperative Banks, along with commercial and scheduled banks, are involved at the grassroot levels for disbursal of crop loans to the farmers and recovery of the same. This module assists the department to appropriately monitor availability of crop loan to eligible farmers in different stages of crop production, and also track its recovery.

How successful has the department been in effectively involving co-operatives located across the region? e-Sahakar involves online enrollment by cooperative societies and auditors. The department has disseminated guidelines for enrollment and validation to all the stakeholders online and offline. Various training programmes and interactions through video conferences were held during the process. In rural areas, the department is represented by Taluka offices headed by the Assistant or the Deputy Registrar and its staff. These officials have been duly sensitised about the e-Sahakar programme.

The co-operative societies were also invited to create and update their profiles online. Till date, 84 per cent of the 1.73 lakh co-operative

societies have been enrolled successfully and their validation is in progress. Similarly, 69 per cent of the 7,472 auditors have been validated till date.

What are the prime challenges faced while utilising these technologies for operational initiatives?

Earlier, a majority of the stakeholders interacted personally with the Registrar’s office, thereby establishing a definite pattern of a one-to-one exchange of views and docu-

Previously, majority of the stakeholders interacted personally with the Registrar’s office… This was time-consuming and cumbersome.

But after the introduction of e-Sahakar, now people can create and update their profiles without any additional help

ments. This was time-consuming and cumbersome for co-operative societies as well as auditors. After the introduction of e-Sahakar, those with the knowledge of IT could create and update their profiles without any additional help. For the others, various training programmes and interactions through video conferences were held.

What is the department’s vision on exploring the potential of IT? Any projects streamlined? e-Sahakar has brought speed, accuracy and transparency in undertaking the audit of co-operative societies and handling cases of deemed conveyance, much to the benefit of cooperative societies, auditors and co-operative housing societies.

The response from the stakeholders has been encouraging, considering the huge number of enrollment and validation completed within a short time. Moreover, several online proposals of deemed conveyance have also been received by the department. With the introduction of e-Sahakar, the departmental machinery has also understood the modified business process flow. The department understands the importance of minimising human intervention, increasing transparency and reducing footfalls. Building upon the success of e-Sahakar, we are exploring the possibility of introducing a Society Information System which will put critical performance indicators in public domain.

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IN PERSON

Subrata Gupta

Chief General Manager, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development

Banks will

gain from IT IT has kicked off a phenomenon with the digitisation of banks, but still more needs to be done, says Subrata Gupta in an interview with Kartik Sharma & Poulami Chakraborty of ENN

D

igitisation and technology implementation has brought a revolution in almost every sector. Share with us your how you think the same has been implemented in the governmental operations over the years.

There is no stronger and more concrete an evidence of how vigorously IT implementation has changed the scenario in operations across sectors than banks. Almost 15 years back, banking could be considered a routine and a rigorous time-consuming procedure. However, the difference between drawing money now and then is quite clear. It is an easy, less time-consuming procedure today.

The evolvement of information technology and its utilisation has surely assured the end-customers an ease of operation and easy handling, with additional time-saving. However, we need to acknowledge that the back-end complexity has reached new heights. The process involved for delivering seamless and easy service to customers, involves complex procedures and build-up at the back-end, leading to service providers to go through several firewalls to ensure superior security in the system.

How has NABARD implemented IT in various functions and operations?

During the 1985-86 period, when computer was first introduced in our country, NABARD was one of the first institutions to utilise computers in its daily work procedures. However,

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the progress in usability among staff has not progressed much in comparison to the progress in IT, and this was primarily due to an unknown fear and ambiguity about it in mind.

completely new package, wherein we will have a totally computerised accounting for all sorts of our functions including treasury, finance and accounting.

At NABARD, we have an entirely computerised human resource system with minimum human interference. We also support a fully computerised accounts system for large-scale banking. Besides these, we are also in the process of implementing a

Communication is considered as the string that connects all the strata of the community as well as industry. How well has communication been utilised by NABARD to connect with people,

Subrata Gupta

IN PERSON

including Tier II and Tier III cities?

At NABARD, we have a centralised email system through which we are regularly connected to everybody in the team across locations. Through this intranet connection, we share information and documents within our employees network to continue with a seamless connectivity. We also have 403 District Development Magistrates who are in charge of our operations in the Tier II and Tier III cities. They are also connected to us through our online medium which in turn keeps us in loop with those cities as well.

What are the stress areas that NABARD has experienced while implementing IT in its operations?

The main stumbling blocks we come across while implementing IT in our operational networks relate to the changes in procedure and the mindset of our staff. People find it difficult to get adapted to any new technology introduced in the system. To overcome this handicap, we regularly hold meetings within the institution to communicate with them and elaborate on the importance of IT implementation in our department.

Also, when the IT implementation is complete without any human interference, there are several stages of communication procedure to get the process completed. Hence, this is a time-consuming procedure and often a painful task to handle.

Share with us a few projects that NABARD has accomplished well with the help of IT. There are numerous such projects wherein we have implemented IT and have been wellaccepted y receivers across. We played roles in support to several institutions for advisory purpose. We have a fully IT-supported pension schemes and also supported several banks for Smart Cards and incurred the cost involved for Rupay Debit cards for banks.

We have also introduced Kissan Credit Card (KCC) and mobile application that ensures quick access of it through mobile. Initially this was introduced among personals wherein, both buyers and sellers are from the same bank, however, now it is easy among all others, except for the processing time. Mobile

The main stumbling blocks in implementing IT in our operational networks are changes in procedure and the mindset of our staff... People find it difficult to get adapted to any new technology introduced in the system Payment facilities are also available for farmers which take him only two phone calls and a SMS to process the entire proceduresaving on their time, energy and resource. We have a unique combination of technology, Cloud Computing and vendors- TCS and Wipro; which give us a privilege us of a superior technological background.

Inflation is the recent cause of concern and has dug a hole in almost every pocket in the Indian economy. What are NABARD’s initiatives in controlling the situation of high food inflation?

Food inflation is the biggest challenge that the country faces and is considered most stubborn in protein-based nutrients — milk, egg, meat,

and fish. Though we are inclined in measuring inflation through monetary measures, but unless we remove the supply constraints, longterm inflation reduction in these commodities is not possible. Nabard’s priorities are to reduce inflation in these commodities.

In certain cases, we need to encourage lending to certain specific activities. Protected agriculture, or agriculture in controlled conditions, which is efficient agriculture and supports minimal use of water and fertiliser, should also be encouraged. In controlled conditions, we have lesser pests also. It’s possible to some extent in tomatoes and potatoes. Nabard has initiated three pilot projects — for potatoes in Hooghly, West Bengal, for tomatoes in Karnal, Haryana and onions in Nashik, Maharashtra — with an outlay of Rs 35 crore.

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Event Report

‘Future Cities will Move on ICT Wheels’ Crowding cities call for measures to overcome the gaps in infrastructure demand and supply. But given the limitations of resources, going smart seems the way forward. And, that’s the message experts, stakeholders and policy-makers sought to convey at the Elets Technomedia-organised ‘3rd Smart City 2014’ event in New Delhi on July 18, 2014

A view of the conference

In line with most other countries of the world, India is also transforming rapidly into an urban nation. Her rise from an agricultural country to a semi-developed industrial country in the last 67 years of Independence has led to the creation of some of the most populous metros of the world like Delhi and Mumbai. The number of one million-plus cities in the country is also increasing with each passing year. Accommodating about 31 percent of the Indian population, India cities are home to around 410 million people today, according to the 2011 census figures.

The fast pace of urbanisation has left both centuries old centres for urban living and the cities taking shape after the Independence

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under immense pressure, and the urban infrastructures have begun to creak under the load. Even the basic requirements like housing, transportation, water, energy, transportation and health etc., are falling short of the requirements of the urban dwellers, thereby leading to a situation of chaos. And, what is more, the situation in the cities could further worsen in the business-as-usual kind of scenario, as the urban population is predicted to hit 590 million by 2030.

To reduce the stress on our cities and its infrastructures, we need more planned and better designed urban settlements. In this backdrop, the emerging concept of Smart City seems a workable alternative. The idea of smart

city, as proposed by the two erstwhile successive UPA governments, has been put in focus by the present BJP-led NDA Government as well. It announced to develop 100 high-tech smart cities across India.

A smart city assimilates the essence of space, ecology and infrastructure with people for developing smarter, economically sound and happy living places. This unison is achieved through use of ICT to attain the goal of more efficient services by making amenities like telecommunications, logistics, water and gas supply more efficient.

With a view to focussing on different aspects of a smart city, the Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd, a pioneer in proliferating the concept of ICT in

Event Report

governance and development issues in India, organised an interactive conference. The event also threw light on the vision and needs of an efficient, deliverable and liveable modern city.

The event—3rd Smart City 2014—was an enlightened gathering of various stakeholders, including the policy makers, users and solution providers for urban development, both from government as well as private sector. Eminent personalities, speaking at the meet held at Hotel Lalit on July 18, 2014 in New Delhi, shared their knowledge and experiences on the idea of building smart cities in India.

Rakesh Ranjan, Advisor, Planning Commission of India The role of municipal bodies is of crucial importance in making a city smarter and organised. Provided with extensive authority and resources at his command, a Mayor can do wonders in terms of development of a city. Private investors generally shy away from investing in civic amenities because of the lack of transparency and knowledge of right person to be approached for clarity in approvals and regulations.

With respect to the present government’s goal of achieving housing for all by 2022, there is dire need of proactive approach in planning of civic services, power supply, broadband connectivity, etc. The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) should be exploited to the fullest for providing certain urban facilities like sewage treatment, solid waste management, urban transport, etc. Given the shortage of urbanm housing infrastructure , even the role of affordable housing is very crucial in shaping the future cities.

Vincent Lim, General Manager, HP Enterprise Group, AsiaPacific and Japan The idea of developing 100 smart cities is a great vision. A smart city can be developed through efffective interaction among its various segments. HP has collaboration and partnerships in different cities across the world where it is offering communication technologies to make city life simpler and living smart. If cities are not made smarter nothing can save them from turning into slums.

Plans and strategies for making cities smarter should veer around the aspirations of people living there. The technology-friendly cities should be specific to needs of older as well as kids. Besides, ICT-enabled cities will also give rise to a healthy competition between cities, which will make things only better. Better information to the city leaders would also lead to better policymaking, which will eventually lead to a better urban space. Smart cities are also likely to see accelerated pace of growth and a robust economy as compared to other cities. An effective use of strong human capital, social capital and ICT infrastructure would only boost the process.

However, all these goals cannot be achieved unless supported by tremendous innovations in technology and their implementation. To make our cities smarter, there is need for sustained innovation in Business Models, Services, Processes, Operations and Partnerships.

The event commenced with the lighting of the auspicious lamp by the speakers of the inaugural session. After the traditional ritual, Dr Ravi Gupta, Editor-in-Chief of eGov magazine, welcomed the guests and speakers at the meet. In his opening remarks, Dr Gupta applauded the NDA Government for taking a prompt action towards

developing the proposed 100 smart cities. He also spoke about the quintessential features of a smart city and juxtaposed it with the contemporary major metros of the country. He spoke at length about the likely challenges that developing smart cities could face, and asked the present audience about their idea of smarter cities.

A S Bhal, Economic Advisor, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India Instead of analysing the nature and activities of smart cities as a concept, there must be greater focus on the implementation aspect of urban planning. However, diversionary trends have been observed in the policy-making, where industrial economic zones are given precedence over Green, eco-friendly cities. London and Singapore are the ideal examples of organised smart cities, also incorporating all the features of an eco-friendly city. Most of the cities meant to be ‘greenfield cities’ are today getting converted into ‘brownfield cities’, globally.

With respect to the 100 smart cities vision of the Narendra Modi-led NDA Government, the role of Mayors, local governments and states is of utmost importance. There has never been a problem of finance and resources and that would never happen. However, it is imperative that planning, regulation and demands come from the states. It will be the pro-active approach of states that will lead to greater release of central funds for developing infrastructure.

The future of cities under development at locations along the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) — the most ambitious infrastructure project of the country — seems promising.

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Prof Jagan Shah, Director, National Institute of Urban Affairs Smart cities are not just about Information Technology (IT) but also about expeditious implementation of policies. The Informaion and Communications Technology (ICT) initiatives and policies in smart cities must touch day-to-day life of people. SMS services, service portals and other setups for public services should be aimed at making the life of people better and easier.

The focus must not solely be on creating new cities, but the existing cities should also be made smarter through retrofit method. As for the role of ICT in making smarter cities, it should aim at making city management systems intelligent.

Innovative solutions for generating real time data by tracking the public services system like transportation, water supply, tax collection, etc., should be put in place. The data thus generated can be used for making services more efficient through informed decision making. With the ICT, cities will become more effective, faster, accountable and transparent.

R D Nazeem, Secretary, Department of Urban Development & Town Planning and Housing, Govt of Himachal Pradesh

Dr Ratna Jain, Mayor, Kota Municipal Corporation According to Dr Ratna smarter use of ICT enables a city to become cleaner and infrastructure-wise sound in very effective manner. The projects and services using ICT involvement are adding to the growth and development of city of Kota. She also talked about her visits to international conferences and knowledge shared there around city development and waste management.

The ICT-enabled e-governance services in Kota city is doing wonders. eServices developed on the e-governance model in Kota, known as “Nagar Nigam Helpline”, and e-governance mobile application “Samadhan” provides solutions to every municipality-related query to the citizens.

A GIS survey also took place in the past to keep a track of land records in the city of Kota. She made a special reference to GIS-based citizen reporting and waste management system in Kota. This GIS-integrated Web and Android-based application can do analytics, report generation and SMS alert delivery.

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The Informaion and Communications Technology is needed in day-to-day life of the masses. Harnessing the power of ICT can make the life of a common man easier. All the decisions, policies and implementations should be related to his livelihood issues. ICT services like SMS-based alert and information systems takes services to doorsteps of citizens.

Aameer Azeemi, Managing Dierctor, Cisco Systems Technologies in India are almost at par with the western countries, but the difference lies in their effective use in solving day-to-day problems. Nature of the urban problems are similar everywhere in the world: issues like traffic, electricity, water, poverty, crime, education and healthcare are same in every big city of the world. The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) offers very far-reaching and prompt solutions to all the woes of the urban world.

Enabled solutions integrating people, processes and data provide seamless solutions for effective provision of citizen services, infrastructure and business services.

In terms of monetary estimation, the business volume of IT services for urban civic services amounts to somewhere around US$4.6 trillion. To tap this huge potential, digital infrastructure should be inherently integrated with the planning and designing of modern-day cities and buildings by planners and developers. In fact, it is the ICT in architecture of a city that would decide the urban ecosystem to a great extent.

Further, to make cities less crowded and efficient, cloud computing can offer some effective solutions like remotely-operated services with minimal human intervention. Distance offices and learning centres are some of the examples of integrated Information and Communications Technology solutions for making cities more liveable and less cluttered.

Cloud-based solutions, equipped with sensors and tracking devices, provide fast and effective solutions for city management activities, like healthcare, traffic, parking and waste management, apart from many other related civic problems in the cities.

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Chandrakant Dalvi, Settlement Commissioner and Director of Land Records, Government of Maharashtra Maharashtra has successfully implemented a number of e-governance solutions for e-streaming of land records for better access and record keeping. There are various e-projects run by the Land Records Department of Maharashtra that have made land management an easier, simpler and hasslefree process in the state for both citizens as well as officials.

There is a need for maintenance of land records data in the electronic form. Rapid urbanisation is responsible for the imminent need for modernisation of land records and the related data, as around 40 percent of India’s population is living in cities, according to the 2011 census. In such a situation, a proper land management is not only necessary, but it is also a must.

Digitisation programmes for various land records is being undertaken across the state. About 55 lakh Property Cards are being maintained by the Land Records Department in digital format under Property Card Information System (PCIS).

These records are based on the surveys carried out in municipal corporations and villages having more than 2,000 population. As for cities, surveys have been carried out in 25 municipal corporations and 222 municipal councils.

Detailed land record management projects are taking place in the state under e-Mahabhoomi project, which entails computerisation of registration process, computerisation of village office records, computerisation of process of current measurement cases and re-surveys using latest technologies. In the series of e-initiatives underway in Maharashtra, eMojani is the project where entire process of handling citizen application for measurement as well as sub-division of land parcels has been computerised. eMutation is another innovative land record maintenance system in the state, he said. In eMutation, land record transfer and other related activities are entirely carried out online with minimal usage of offline methods and processes. For maintenance of village records in digital format, a scheme of eChawadi is being implemented by the Revenue Records Department in the state. Controlled by Talathis, village level revenue officers under eChawadi, maintenance of village registers is done in digital format at secured State Data Center. Data is easily accessed by a Talathi using laptop and data card for the benefit of villagers.

Anirban Kundu, Urban Lead Specialist, KFW Development Bank The Information and Communications Technology activities need to be transparent, effective and accountable, and all the ICT activities should be combined as an integral tool for reaping the outcome of good governance. With respect to technological innovations, there is a need to to develop an interface as a console where citizens could know about as well as access technology to enjoy various benefits of civic services in a city.

Harphool Chander Kalyan, Mayor, Chandigarh Municipal Corporation The planned development of Chandigarh is one of the reasons for its recognition as most one of the most preferred cities of affluents. ICT has been used in various developmental schemes in Chandigarh and day-to-day working of the municipal corporation. Be it civic facilities, regulate traffic or safety and security of its citizens, Chandigarh is fast moving towards becoming a smart cities.

One has to visit Chandigarh see how it has come up over the decades.

Dr NC Borah, Chairman and Managing Director, Guwahati Neurological Research Center The country’s medical services are in a shambles today. Private medical system has become almost unaffordable for the common man in India due to its high costs. On the other hand, the condition of public health system in the country is pathetic and it is virtually crumbling under the growing pressure of patients. In such a scenario, the role of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is laudable in facilitating at least some affordable and easily accessible healthcare system in the country.

The Guwhati Neurological Research Center (GNRC) — a hospital made from bamboo in Guwhati — has taken a number of initiatives towards pioneering affordable healthcare system. Village camps and other efforts made by his organisation has reduced the cost of healthcare in Guwahati and nearby areas.

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Smart City 2014 A Window to Future Cities 1. Dignitaries inaugurate ‘Smart City 2014’ by lighting the traditional lamp at Hotel Lalit in New \Delhi on July 18, 2014. 2. Narcotics Control Bureau DDG BB Mishra, DMRC ED Anuj Dayal and CRPF Academy, Gurgaon’s Director Dr BN Ramesh at a Smart City 2014 session. 3. Speakers and participants at Smart City 2014 release the July 2014 issue of eGov magazine. 4. CEO and Editor­-in­-Chief of eGov Dr Ravi Gutpa interacts with guests at Smart City 2014.

5. Gujarat Secretary for Urban Development and Housing Mona Khandhar, Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police (Traffic) Anil

Shukla and Dr Pawan Kumar, Associate Planner, Towns and Country Planning Organisation, Ministry of Urban Development, India. 6. Dr Ratna Jain, Mayor, Kota Municipal Corporation takes notes at Smart City 2014. 7. Guests at Smart City 2014 pose for the lens at the start of the function. 8. Vincent Lim, General Manager, HP Enterprises Asia Pacific and Japan, addresses the gathering. 9. Dr NC Borah, Chairman and Managing Director, Guwahati Neurological Research Centre (GNRC) briefs audience on the use of technology in the field of healthcare. 10. Anirban Kundu, Urban Lead Specialist, KFW Development Bank speaks on the need to customise ICT to meet people’s aspirations. 11. Abhishek Kumar of Axis Communications expresses his views on CCTV and the related aspects in the present day security scenario. 12. Anjum Parwez, Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation Managing Director shares his experiences of successful implementation of ICT. 13. Smart City 2014 award winners pose for a group photo at Hotel Lalit in New Delhi on July 18, 2014

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Anjum Parwez, Managing Director, Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC)

Anil Shukla, Joint Commissioner (Traffic), Delhi Police Accoroding to Shukla, seriousness of Delhi’s traffic problem can be gauged from the numbers of vehicles registered in Delhi — around 85 lakh. To nab the offenders on the street, Delhi Police’s e-Challan programme has worked well.

The estimated the number of challans imposed daily at around 50,000 in Delhi.

In e-challan, a defaulter vehicle on the spot is checked from the database for a number of traffic violations and accordingly fined or prosecuted. With e-Challan, the process of challaning has become very fast and effective. Other measures that Shukla mentioned are various ICT initiatives of the Delhi Police, including Traffic Police Mobile Application featuring traffic-related alerts, advisories, fare calculating auto/taxi app and emergency passenger call facility.

Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS) is another tool that helps Delhi police in maintaining better enforcement, regulation and information dissemination on the city roads. .

IT been of immense help in managing traffic in Bangalore. The traffic woes of Bangalore are no different from the problems in other cities of the country. Excessive traffic on roads due to increasing number of personal vehicles is responsible for long travelling hours on road. Increased income levels and desire to own a vehicle, coupled with an inefficient, unreliable, crowded and uncomfortable public transport system, has primarily driven the middle class to owning personal vehicles.

As smart phones have reached almost every citizen in the Indian cities, BMTC has begun to use IT and geo-spatial technologies in its day-to-day working and operations. Successful implementation of Intelligent Transport System (ITS) was entrusted with the objective to achieve goals like vehicle tracking system and two-way communication, electronic ticketing machines, passenger information system, data and command control center and depot management system. In addition to the ITS measures, BMTC smart card, CCTV at bus stations, passenger information kiosks and kiosk-based leave management system have effectively helped in improving traffic management in Bangalore and effecting internal discipline in BMTC, apart from rooting out corruption from the department to some extent.

Prashant Choudhary, Director, CA Technologies Without ICT, a smart city cannot function properly, and there is constant need for monitoring the IT infrastructure installed in a smart city. Every service in a city, ranging from energy management, pollution controlling, traffic monitoring, parking monitoring, video surveillance, etc., depends on network and communication services, forming a digital interaction between citizens and services. The IT infrastructure in a smart city, therefore, is required to be evaluated and monitored through a controlled data center that can distribute, allocate as well as track utilisation of resources.

Mona Khandhar, Secretary, Department of Urban Development and Urban Housing, Government of Gujarat The ambitious Gandhinagar International Financial Tec City (GIFT) project is a one-time solution for all the urban woes of modern Indian cities. Although India is a great success story today, it has also led to virtual crumbling of the urban infrastructure. This is the biggest hindrance to strong urbanisation trends and systematic cities in India. GIFT project would emerge as a role model for the planned smart cities in India.

The range of infrastructure facilities proposed in the GIFT city includes Roads & Transport, Waste Management System, ICT, Power Generation & Distribution, District Cooling System, Domestic Gas Distribution, Waste Managment System, and Landscaping and Maintenance System. As for the transportation sector, there are proposed grid of six arterial roads, Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) and Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) to keep the city mobile.

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Pawan Kumar, Assistant Town and Country Planner, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India Smart cities are sustainable cities powered with Information and Communications Technolody for delivering better services, reducing carbon footprints and creating sustainable environment with a better quality of life. He emphasised on the role of three 3Es — Economy, Ecology and Equity — in making a city more sustainable and qualitative.

With the deliberation of smart city on the parameter of 3Es related to transportation needs of a high-tech moder-day city: the first E-economy should satisfy the needs of transport hub and its connection with the parent city; the next E-ecology should relate to need of environmentally-sustainable transport (EST); and the third E-equity should focuses on the need for public transport itself.

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Ravi P Gupta, Head of the Information Technology Group, Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS) Efficient transport operations are a must for a city to qualify as a smart city. Intelligent Transport roadmap providing complete information to a commuter about entire activities happening around him is a key to successful running of a city’s transport system.

The Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System plays a crucial role in implementing ICT in various transport systems in Delhi, including Metro, BRTS, etc. However, in the context of intelligent transport systems for delivering better services, extensive use of Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system, Passenger Information System, Automatic Fare Collection System, GPS-backed tracking and complaint management system and Intelligent Signalling Systems (ISS) are recommended. DIMTS AVL, Electronic Ticketing Machines (ETMs) , cluster AVIs, Passenger Information System, Intelligent Signalling Mobile Application, etc., are only some of the devices installed by DIMTS in the national capital.

Rajesh Aggarwal, Principal Secretary, IT, Maharashtra Moving beyond the traditional use of closedcircuit television cameras (CCTVs), there is a need to use modern technology for enabling safer environment and secure atmosphere in the cities. Innovative solutions are also needed for advanced usage of CCTV and related peripherals to ensure better security surveillance around human habitats. The use of CCTV cameras in a security setup in current usage is required to be more advanced and be integrated with innovative solutions to make them more secure.

The integrated processes that connect the CCTV streams at different places together offer better security scenarios to security agencies and the authorities. Inter-connectivity of CCTV cameras and their integration with smart phones can further raise the security bar in our cities.

Anuj Dayal, Executive Director, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation The Delhi Metro is an example of a built-in security network system. Its security setup one of the best.

Delhi Metro is one of the largest metro networks in the world touching close to 400-km stretch. The present daily ridership of Delhi Metro is approximately 25 lakh commuters. Equipped with an extensive network of CCTV cameras and security personals from CRPF, Delhi Metro is a safe mode of travelling for the womenfolk. Apart from domesticating the ICT, there is also a need to follow safety norms at construction sites, which is largely ignored by construction companies in India. Today metro is a viable mode for transport in urbanised Indian cities.

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Abhishek Kumar, Key Account Manager, Axis Communication Safety and security is an integral part of a smart city. A city that is not safe can never be smart. Hence special attention should be paid to the safety aspect. Apart from other ICT-enabled safety devices, CCTV cameras are surveillance devices of importance. The centres and periphery of urban centres are more prone to crime requiring the highest level of security, as the rate of crime is directly associated with the size and density of population of a city.

CCTV cameras aligned with IT-enabled technologies are an effective instrument against common threat perceptions.

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Dr BN Ramesh, IG/Director, CRPF Academy, Gurgaon Safety and security situation in a city should be treated as a real situation instead of being just a perception. Socio-economic situations and circumstances are responsible for criminal activities in a city. Rising population is one of the reasons for the shooting number of incidents of crime in Indian cities. Apart from technology-enabled security measures like CCTV about 95 crore smart phones with Indian citizens acts as an effective security measure. With a smart phone in hand, a person can upload a crime video on Youtube or any other security agencies-provided depositaries.

BB Mishra, Deputy Director General, Narcotics Control Bureau, Government of India There are many reasons responsible for unsafe cities of the day. The low public/police ratio and good grasp of criminals on technology are just two of the several reasons for increasing rate of crime in the Indian cities. A criminal using communication applications like Whatsapp and Skype cannot be tracked for trial and prosecution and always remains ahead of investigating agencies.

Better solutions for intelligent analytics for data study received from CCTV and other security devices are required. Without any adequate analytics system, monitoring of a large number of security devices is not possible through a limited number of control rooms. Manpower of security agencies, therefore, must be trained to handle and nullify the technology advantage of criminals.

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Vishesh Garphale, Commissioner, Bhopal Municipal Corporation We have taken up various IT initiatives in the course of day-to-day functioning of the Corporation.

As ERP has been fully implemented in the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC), manual bills are not issued by a number of departments anymore. The Corporation has also introduced many SMS alert services for citizens to inform about new schemes or notifications from the municipality. BMC also boasts of public service felicitation centers where a citizen can obtain information about any ward from a single point of presence.

G S Naveen Kumar, Special Secretary, Department of Information Technology, UP Government The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is the right tool for better governance today. Merely computerisation would not solve the urbanisation problems; rather it calls for involvement of more advanced technologies to can make governance seamless and easy. Geo Location Systems are now in extensive use in Uttar Pradesh. ICT devices coupled with sensors and IERS (Integrated Event Response System) are already delivering in Greater Noida.

Amit Bhatt, Strategy Head-Urban Transport, EMBARQ India Public spaces are good spots for spreading awareness and making them better breathing spaces.

Introducing the concept of PPPP (Public Private People Partnership), as successfully experimented in Gurgaon under the “Rahagiri” initiative, has turned out to be a people-friendly move. Under the initiative, motorised traffic was blocked on a four-km stretch of a road in Gurgaon between 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock, while it remained open to public for fun activities like cycling, yoga, painting etc. Non-profit organisations and corporates enthusiastically participated in Rahangiri. Bhatt suggested these types of events to be organised more frequently to promote use of non-motorised vehicles.

Ganga Kumar, Managing Director, Bihar State Building Construction Corporation Limited Urban infrastructure should be raised through extensive planning. Besides, inter-departmental coordination of different government agencies is a must for successful e-governance results.

Through intervention of ICT, urban planning in Bihar is now focused towards Strategic Infrastructure, Sustained Business and Public Private Partnership models.

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Chetan Vaidya, Director, School of Planning and Architecture Interlocking of different services in a city brings more effective and efficient delivery of services. Role of ICT is very crucial in devising this integration.

Adoption of technologies for better results is the need of the hour. However, what is of utmost importance is to incorporate the concept of smart cities as the theme of every urban planning.

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Govt may resume Aadhaar-linked DBT plan With a view to stopping improper exploitation of DBT schemes by bogus beneficiaries, the government is thinking of restarting the Aadhaar-linked DBT scheme. The UIDAI and the Planning Commission officials are touring the country to study the impact of the Aadhaar-based scheme for the purpose.

The Aadhaar-linked DBT had been discontinued after the Supreme Court observed the identification number cannot be made mandatory for availing benefits of the schemes.

DeitY forms panel for smart cards

There is a huge demand of smart cards and RFID devices in several sectors like Unique Identification (Aadhar), metro rail ticketing, health insurance scheme called RSBY, NREGA scheme, e-passport scheme, etc. Moreover, India has a subscriber base of over 1 billion SIM cards.

In view of the above demand, DeitY has constituted a Joint Working

Group under the chairmanship of Dr Ajay Kumar, Joint Secretary, DeitY for Smart Card, Biometric and RFID Industries consisting of members from the government, concerned industries, R&D organisations and members from industry associations.

The Terms of References for the Group include objectives like promoting manufacturing of Smart Card in the country, creating a road-map to align technology, demand, standards and regulations for enhancement of competitiveness of domestic manufacturing across the supply chain of the Smart Card, Biometric and RFID manufacturing. The working group meetings will be held at least twice a year, and as many times as required.

Telangana plans 2,400 e-Panchayats The newly-created State of Telangana is planning to start e-Panchayat initiative in 2,400 Gram Panchayats (GPs). As per the proposal, the government would set up “one stop shop” in these gram panchayats to facilitate payments relating to MGNREGS, pensions, watershed and other government programmes, according to a government official.

As per the proposal, the government would set up “one stop shop” in these gram panchayats to facilitate payments relating to MGNREGS, pensions, watershed

and other government programmes.

The goal of the e-Panchayat is to provide computerised services at the local government level, officials

said, adding, the State government would like to empower these GPs to be transparent, accountable and responsive. e-Panchayats are likely to make the Gram Panchayats like a village level secretariat. The government proposes to start e-Panchayats with broadband connectivity so as to offer complete computerised services, including tax collection, layout fees, fee collection on birth and death certificates, preparation of “Mana VooruMana Pranalika” plan monitoring expenditure of various schemes of the GPs.

STPI to set up ‘Electropreneur Park’ in Delhi

The DeitY has approved setting up of an incubator, titled “Electropreneur Park”, to support start-ups in the Electronics Design and Manufacturing. The said incubator will be set up by a consortium comprising Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), Delhi University and India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA).

The incubator will specifically focus on development of products and IP creation in the Core Advisory Group for Research and Development in Electronics Hardware (CAREL)-identified six mass consumption electronics product.

Based on the public private partnership (PPP) model, the total project cost approved for assistance is `21.1 crore. STPI will set up an incubator facility of 10,000 square feet as part of this project. At least 50 start-ups will be supported over a period of five years, according to the plan.

Push to cyber security, e-governance With the announcement of `3,929.10crore outlay for the electronics and IT sector in the Union Budget 2014-15, both cyber security and e-governance projects are set to get a boost in the days ahead. The increased budget allocation will not only provide

opportunities to the sector but also to the companies, feel industry veterans and analysts.

The government has allocated `755 crore for projects similar to NeGP, compared with zero investment last year. The budget also includes

a provision of `100 crore each for programme on good Governance and best practices, and programme on enabling all schools with virtual classrooms. For cyber security, a sum of `116 crore has been allocated as against `53.37 crore last year.

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Govt vows broadband connectivity in rural areas The Centre has promised to extend the broadband facility to every village in the country with the active cooperation of state governments. Telecommunication and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said more than 1.34 lakh internetenabled centres have been set up in rural areas to promote and develop information technology in rural areas of the country.

“Our government is committed to expand the information technology to every village in the country...

State governments have to be on-board in our initiative. Involvement of state governments is very important. Both central and state governments have to work together,” he informed the Lok Sabha during Question Hour recently.

Prasad said bandwidth is not available in many areas in the country and the Central government is trying to improve the situation. The Minister assured the House that he will give direction to the IT officials to ensure that the broadband facility is available in priority areas, like issuing caste certificate, in panchayat offices, etc. He said the

situation of IT-enabled services is better where the panchayat is headed by a woman.

The minister said the government is aware that regional language barriers have impeded the e-governance initiatives in rural areas. India being a multilingual country with 22 official languages, he said, less than 10 per cent of the people in the country can read and write English.

Govt to take postal services to every village In its effort to take postal services to every village, the government has decided to open 80 Gramin Dak Sewa post offices and 80 sub-post offices in the country under the Rural Business and Access to Postal Network scheme.

All these post offices will be opened in areas with population of 3,000 in the group of villages (in case of normal area), 500 population in the individual village and 1,000 population in the group of villages in hill, tribal, desert and inaccessible areas, Telecommunication and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said. Prasad said country’s postal department is 150 years old and needs improvement and the government is trying its best to do the needful. “There are challenges and opportunities. Postal department has to remain alive to all these. Focus of the postal department is to reach every village in the country,” he said during Question Hour in the Lok Sabha recently.

UP Govt undertakes major cloud initiative With a view to stopping improper exploitation of DBT schemes by bogus beneficiaries, the government is thinking of restarting the Aadhaar-linked DBT scheme. The UIDAI and the Planning Commission officials are touring the country to study the impact of the Aadhaar-based scheme for the purpose.

The previous government suspended the ambitious DBTL scheme due to complaints that many were not getting monetary benefits in the absence of either an Aadhaar card or a bank account-linked Aadhaar. The Aadhaar-linked DBT had been discontinued after the Supreme Court observed the identification number cannot be made mandatory for availing benefits of the schemes. The government would have to seek apex court’s permission to resume the old plan format. The Planning Commission and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which implements the Aadhhar project, are jointly preparing a report on the Aadhaar-link DBT scheme.

The source said the UIDAI and the Commission’s senior officials are visiting 300 districts spread across the country to study the impact of the Aadhhar-based scheme.

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“There are various issues regarding Indian languages such as orthography (spelling issues), pronunciation, one script for many languages and many languages with one script etc,” he said.

Prasad said mobile web in regional languages also has many challenges such as character encoding, bandwidth cost, presentation issues, device limitations, lack of standardisation, fonts, backward compatibility with legacy devices, rendering issues, lack of availability of all characters, issue of multiple scripts, standardisation of glyph support, syllable composition and logic dependency on implementation level of handset manufacturer.

Delhi cluster buses to have CCTV cameras soon The Delhi Government has decided to install CCTV cameras in cluster buses (orange buses) plying on the streets of the national capital in a bid to provide a secure environment to its passengers, especially women.

The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) has already started the process to install CCTV cameras in 200 buses of its fleet in the first phase.

According to a Transport Department official, cluster buses have now become an important part of the public transport with a current fleet of 1,157 buses and the installation of CCTVs in these buses would be very helpful to keep vigil on every passenger. “Transport Department has decided to install CCTV cameras in cluster buses in a phased manner. In first phase, around 150-200 buses will come under this project,” said a senior Transport Department official.

The official also said that the work on this project will be started as soon as DTC completes the installation of cameras in 200 buses. “Such a step will also prove very useful for the women passengers, who travel in corporation buses, especially at late night,” he said, adding that all DTC and cluster buses will come under this project in phased manner.

Conference Awards

Expo

22nd August 2014 New Delhi

About PSU Summit: Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) play a very important role in the Indian Economy. Over the past decade, their contribution to the national economy has been phenomenal. Elets PSU Summit 2014 conference, awards and expo aims to focus on the exemplary work being done by the stakeholders of the PSU sector, highlighting innovations of this sector along with the prevailing opportunities and challenges.

Key Speakers @ past events

A N Sahay CMD, Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd

Rakesh Tandon Additional Member, Railway Board

Sunil Kumar CMD, Centre for Railway Information Systems

R K Bahuguna CMD, RailTel Corporation India Ltd

Vimal Wakhlu CMD, TCIL

K Gururaja Rao CMD, Gujarat Informatics Limited

S K Tripathi CMD, MSTC

Arup Roy Chowdhury CMD, National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd

Anil Kumar CMD, Bharat Electronics Ltd

A K Purwaha CMD, Engineers India Ltd

A K Jain MD, REIL

Vishal Dev CMD, Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation

B Venkatesham CMD, Andhra Pradesh State Housing Corporation

V P Agrawal Former CMD, Airports Authority of India

Neeru Abrol CMD, National Fertilizers Ltd

Gopal Singh CMD, Central Coalfields Ltd

R K Upadhaya Former CMD, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd

And many more...

PSU Awards: • • • • •

Government to Government (G2G) Project Government to Business (G2B) Project Government to Citizens (G2C) Project Financial Inclusion Initiative Innovative mining technology solution

• • • • •

Initiative in power sector Initiative in transportation sector Effective Utility Service Innovative ICT Implementation Usage of ICT In Urban Development

And many more...

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