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egov / www.egovonline.net / June 2011
egov 75: vision
R Chandrashekhar
Secretary, Department of Telecom & Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communication & Information Technology
“Mobile is the only medium which can reach out to 850 million people�
T
he rural areas though have the mobile connectivity, the data connectivity is abysmally low. So, what is the roadmap or vision for the rural data connectivity?
One of the key objectives on communications infrastructure has been to provide connectivity to the rural areas, to support various kinds of activities including broadband services, simple financial services ranging from education to entertainment which are bandwidth intensive and livelihood services. It would be a wrong model if we look at rural areas as mere consumers of various services and the communication infrastructure to provide the services. Given the economic profile in the rural areas, its equally important that this broadband infrastructure can be used by people in rural areas for purposes related to their livelihood enhancing their own income, opening opportunities for earning additional income by way of greater access to markets, buying the kind of things that they need for the agricultural activities, training programmes for enhancing their skill sets and rural BPOs for providing marketable services. So all of these, are linked to free flow of money. The combination of all of these is important to make the communication revolution also result in economic revolution for people in rural areas. If this does not happen then the mere availability of communication and broadband will only result in underutilisation of this infrastructure as people will not have the buying power to consume the services. This should be the emphasis. Between connectivity and services, it is connectivity that should happen and open up markets. So the broadband has an important purpose of integrating rural and urban areas, thereby spreading economic opportunities evenly in both the areas.
R Chandrashekhar talks about the noble responsibility that he is shouldering, and the road ahead in the Department of Telecom in a freewheeling interview with Dr Ravi Gupta and Dr Rajeshree Dutta Kumar.
What are the activities that are happening at the block level? As of now, we do have reliable connectivity and more than 95 per cent blocks are connected as there is optical fibre. But it is below the block level that the problem arises as there is no optical fibre, where the quality and reliability is not so good. So the effort June 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov
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egov 75: vision
Please throw some light on USO funds. Are they optimally used. Can you throw light on the ongoing changes? Yes, the USO fund has not been aggressively used in the past. So we are working on a strategy to use this funds to achieve the goals. The key government programmes are increasingly getting digitized, especially the rural programmes, so the need for ensuring connectivity to the last mile has increased. The next important thing is targeting or identification of these programmes are also important. So UID is also getting its importance. So
other governance related areas which also need to be taken care of. The institutions at the local level are panchayats, hospitals, schools etc which need to be connected. This is a mammoth task to achieving. Too big a task which cannot be achieved by one organization alone. The connectivity is entirely the job of the Telecommunications Department. There are other aspects which are also time taken. For instance, if a project for health services has to be implemented through the digital medium, there are a number of functions that needs to be put in order other than just laying of the optical fibre, upon extensively. Along with this, there are other governance related
“the broadband has an
important purpose of integrating rural and urban areas to spread
economic oppurtunities evenly in both the areas”
is to extend the core network to connect the district headquarters to block levels and panchayats also. The objective is to reach every significant habitation which is a mammoth task. So the first step is to go with the aggregation layer which connects the tributaries to the core like in the telecom sector. Various service providers can be connected through the aggregation layer. When it comes to the last mile, the strategy is to use wireless in conjunction with wireline which will be provided by service providers and also pursue the goal convergence at the carriage level to make use of all infrastructure. Getting optical fibre to all the village is a difficult task
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getting personal EDUCATION M.Sc Chemistry M S Computer Science Area of Specialisation Finding innovative solutions to IT related problems Positions held Associated with organisations like UNESAP, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
digitisation of these are happening now. In the coming 2-3 years, the maturing of all these programmes can be seen.To ensure the utilisation, we have created a dedicated organisation to rule out the role of optical fibre. So that no time is lost in building this organisation.This organisation is nucleated within the organisation i.e BSNL. The next important aspect we are working aggressively is working on spreading infrastructure. Getting optical fibre to every panchayat is what we are targeting. But for all this creating the right content, digitizing and creating the necessary ecosystem are the challenging areas for us. The most challenging part is to change the people’s mindset.
Please share your agenda on connecting all institutions, offices and schools ? The ultimate goal is to provide optical fibre to each and every village with intention of connecting the key institutions, with developmental focus area like education, health, skill development. These three are the major areas we have to work upon extensively. Along with this, there are
areas which also need to be taken care of. The institution at the local level are panchanyats, hospitals, schoolsetcwhich need to be connected. This is a mommoth taskto achieve which ia too big a task which cannot be achieved by one organisation alone. The connectivity is entirely the job of the Telecommunications Department. There are other5 aspects which are also time-consuming. For instance, if a project for health services has to be implemented through the digital medium, there are a number of functions that needs to be put in order other than just laying of the optical fibre atleast equipped with some functions ready. Like in schools, the HRD is already equipped with a massive programme—National Mission on Education through ICT, in which connectivity is an important part. As far as the hard infrastructure is concerned, the involvement of private and public sector are involved. The incremental infrastructure that is created is very important to achieve the goal. What is of prime importance is that it should be available for a non-discriminatory usage of every service provider. The mobile revolution is the only revolution that has touched a billion people in a
egov 75: vision
short span of time. This could happen only when the price points were brought down and became affordable and acceptable to people. We are working on this kind of revolution. The second thing is faster distribution. We are not rigid as to whether government or private sector has to do it. It is whoever does it faster.
How do you see e-Governance in the coming years? e-Governance has come a long way in providing services to people which has improved the efficiency. Many of the departments and organizations have done great job but the progress has not been as quick as it should have been. Of course this is a journey which cannot be done in a day’s time. So the advent of cloud computing has tremendous significance on e-Governance. There is no shortcut or there is no magic wand and the only thing is to keep planning. That’s why the overarching vision and the overarching convergence of approaches was so important . Without this, different people doing different things at a different pace would become difficult. once the overall vision and strategy and the architecture is common, then if people work at a different pace, it is not disastrous.
Having a global experience, how do you foresee the future of the IT Industry in India? As far as IT policy is concernced, our key goal has to be as to how to accelerate and proliferate the services. Technology and infrastructure are small part in the whole creation of services. The real issue is about people, institutions and procedures. This requires huge amount of rethinking of the implementation of plans. This rethinking cannot be done by technologists. For instance, people in
the health sector have to actually imagine how it would be in 2020, when the whole sector is connected through broadband and whole system is digitalized. One should be able to envision an ideal endstay and this requires intimate knowledge of
it is done vigorously, that too in an appropriate time. We should be able to implement it quickly. Today, we are on the threshold of bringing broadband in the next two or three years in the rural areas, the timing is right to look at how those sectors can be
“The ultimate goal is
to provide optical fibre to each and every village with
focus on education, health, skill development”
the domain and should be able to reconfigure. There is a need for change leaders to emerge in each sector by a few forward looking individuals.
What are the various initiatives being taken in healthcare? When NeGP was approved by the union cabinet, health and education were not put as explicit mission projects. The mandate was that in both these sectors the mission is to deliver health and education. Wheras the other projects, the mission is the service itself like the license. So there is a qualitative difference in both kinds of services. But while approving various mission projects, it was clearly mandated by the Cabinet that major developmental areas like education, healthcare etc would also be moved on to e-Governance mode. For the health, the critical element is actually packaging the real service itself and ICT is only a small part of it. Whereas in other services like income tax or others, its different.
Do you think there is a need for an evangelist push to happen? When you evengelise something, it is essential that
reinvented. You could not have done it without connectivity or broadband. So what is important is doing the right thing at the right time. So this is the right time to really put people together. It is evident in the education sector that things are moving in a positive mode but whereas in health, it is at an early stage where the seeds have been planted in different places to really trigger that process.
How can the National Information Utility framwork, as proposed by the Technical Advisory Group for Unique Projects play a role in e-Governace? As far as, information utility is concerned, the emergence of cloud computing services and platform-based services are important. But for the provision of platform, utility is important. So the utility is the organisational phase of the cloud and the platform. The concept of Utility, which was brought in by Technical Advisory Board, is the model going forward for the e-Governance across different projects as well. The generic platform and the generic utilities will be driven by DIT.
R Chandrasekhar : His sojourn with e-Governance E-governance is 20 percent ‘e’ and 80 percent ‘governance’, so says R Chandrashekhar. His journey with e-governance started in Andhra Pradesh with turning Hyderabad into ‘Cyberabad’. He established the first Department of Information Technology in the country in Andhra Pradesh, and also heralded the most innovative and path-breaking efforts like the public-private partnership (PPP) concept in e-governance projects. He was the first Andhra IT Secretary. Chandrashekhar is credited with the conceptualisation and implementation of various key initiatives like the setting up of the IIIT in Hyderabad. The plum of the pudding was his role in developing the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), CSC and SWAN as well as driving the evolution of the concept of integrated service delivery in e-governance projects.
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