EVENT DIARY
National Summit on e-Forms
Courtesy NIC, e-Governance standards to take shape M
N. Vijayaditya, Director General (NIC) welcoming D S Mathur, Secretary (IT), Govt. of India
Participants attending the summit
N. Vijayaditya, Director General (NIC), D. S. Mathur, Secretray (IT), Mr. Moni, Deputy Director General (e-Governance Standards), Govt. of India
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any developments initiated by various government agencies are seemingly done in isolation. Different development platforms are used and the applications under different platforms are seldom interoperable with the result that it is difficult to integrate them even though many have similar features and functionalities. Added to this, is the fact that there is no single agency responsible for framing enforceable e-Governance standards and processes that must be adhered to by all developers. There is a perceptible need to institutionalize the task of codifying e-governance standards and processes for the sake of ensuring interoperability of applications and solutions. Evolving standards and adoption of these for various components of e-governance is indeed a high priority activity and is critical to the success of NeGP. Further, the Dept. of Information Technology (DIT) is encouraging multiple agencies to get involved in e-Governance initiatives and therefore, setting standards in e-governance applications and maintaining them have become a matter of great concern and importance. Keeping in view of the strategic and contemporary importance of standards for e-Governance, DIT has instituted an apex body to oversee the process of bringing out e-Governance standards. The following five areas have been identified to begin with: 1. Network and Information Security 2. Metadata and Data Standards for Application Domains 3. Quality and Documentation
4.
Localization and Language Technology Standards 5. Technical Standards and eGovernance Architecture As regards the Institutional mechanism and processes are concerned, an Apex body has been constituted under the chairmanship of Secretary, DIT with senior representatives from Government, NASSCOM, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), etc. with a mandate to approve, notify and enforce the Standards formulated by various Working Groups and to oversee that they are in accordance with international practices in this regard. National Informatics Centre (NIC) is the DIT arm with a presence in all the States and Districts in the country. NIC provides a range of services to all the government departments at the Center, States and Districts. National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been entrusted with the task of originating white papers on all the desired standards. A separate “eGovernance Standards Division� has been created by NIC to steer the process of evolving the Standards. These white papers would serve as discussion papers for working groups to develop the Standards. Working Groups have been constituted in all the areas mentioned above with members from DIT, Associations, Industry, Academia, representatives from Central and State Government etc. Once the Apex Body approves the standards developed by Working Groups, STQC will be responsible for release of these approved Standards on the web and make them available to all www.egovonline.net |
the stakeholders for Panel Discussion Chaired by Additional Secretary (DIT), free download. STQC Mr.R.Chandrasekar will further ensure conformance & certification (where required) of these standards. A separate “e-Governance Division” has been created by STQC for this purpose. Subsequent to the Participants attending the summit through VC issuing of these initial standards, STQC will be responsible for enhancement of these systems, to be discussed through National in work flow, which involves a Service standards and liaise with the national & Summits. As e-Forms is one of the focus Oriented Architecture (SOA) and international standardization bodies for areas, NIC recently held a “National accessible to people with disabilities. The Summit was inaugurated by Sh. harmonization and acceptance of these Summit on e-Forms” for e-Governance standards. (STQC - Standardisation, on June 12-13, 2006 in association with D. S. Mathur, Secretary, DIT. In his Testing and Quality Certification, is the the Industry partners IBM, Microsoft, inaugural address, Secretary (IT) emphasized that in order to make NeGP Directorate of DIT with offices across the Oracle, Adobe and Newgen. Forms have been the currency for all reach the un-reached - the common man, country. It provides Services in Quality & Information Security with specialization activities of the Government. The concept it is essential to develop applications and in Testing, assessment & evaluations of a form originated with paper document solutions, based on e-forms, in local using International Standards to Indian with the intent to collect, store and present languages with strong Workflow Process information, using paper as medium. The Automation, over SWAN and NICNET. industry and users) R.Chandrasekar, Additional The e-Governance Division of NIC form and the information it contains are and STQC function in close coordination inseparable, once the form is filled-in. Secretary, DIT, N. Vijayaditya, DG (NIC), with e-Governance PMU of DIT, which is Now, however, with the transmission of S. N. Tripathi, Commissioner & Secretary, responsible for overseeing their working. paper to digital medium, the paper form Dept. of Information Technology (Orissa), One of the important outcomes of has become the electronic form (e-Form). Pankaj Agarwal , Representatives and The e-Forms are playing an speakers from IBM, Microsoft, Oracle this initiative is to herald a standards-based approach in all e-Governance application increasingly important role in how ,Adobe and Newgen , Officers from developments by multiple agencies. Government operates its business and Central/State Government Ministries/ When enforced, the data, metadata and communicate with its citizen. The benefits departments including NIC Headquarter operational specifications will be are more. It is efficient; it can be made officials and Industry participated in the standardized in order to facilitate real-time secure through encryption; it can be two day summit. NIC officials from State management of government activities authenticated using digital certificate; and Centres also participated in the summit through video conferencing. Suchitra and services. E-Governance Standards it is user-friendly. Adoption of e-Forms in Government Pyarelal, Technical Director and Head of will have far reaching influence on the accelerated growth and spread of e- process, which are related to G2G, G2B, the Division welcomed the gathering and G2C, G2E and G2X, will be addressed introduced the theme of the Summit. Shri Governance across the country. It is considered important that the smoothly, more than 50% of processing M. Moni, Deputy Director General (enew standards should allow transparency complexities. Meta-data driven e-forms Governance Standards) conducted the between all kinds of e-governance provide an opportunity to reorganize the Summit and initiated the deliberation on applications, without in any manner government’s data collection activities, formulating a National Policy on e-Forms disturbing existing legacy applications and eliminating redundancy, promoting data which is expected to reduce 50% of their codes. This effort will also support sharing, facilitating components based complexities while implementing the eboth NeGP Mission Mode Projects as well architecture, promoting Reuse & Governance Programme in the country. The summit aimed to assess the as the other projects of the Central and Harmonization across forms, high degree of inherent consistency across forms, realistic requirements of India’s e-Gov State Governments. reducing reporting burden and reducing projects and a draft policy document for cost. Capturing data from e-forms is implementation of e-Forms as electronic e-Forms Summit In this process, National Informatics nearly always demonstrably faster than front-end to all key applications, was Centre has identified various areas, which capturing data from paper, and the built- arrived at, after intense brainstorming will have a greater impact for accelerated in validations in e-forms ensure a higher sessions, deliberations and panel development and deployment of ICT degree of accuracy. e-Forms participate discussions. | July 2006
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