Safe State? : April 2011

LIVE Dr R P Sharma, IGP, Karnataka, on Need for an effective Criminal Justice System p7 ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON E-GOVERNMENT

April 2011 > ` 75/VOLUME 07 n ISSUE 04 n ISSN 0973-161X www.egovonline.net

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Safe State? Technology has to be fused with people, intelligence and processes to create security architecture. p16

state focus

e-Gov in Rajasthan

watch out for

issues and developments in e-Governance in the state p32

event report Smart City 2011 p42

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Tech@work when disasters strike

e are very vulnerable to nature’s fury. Natural disasters can strike anytime, anywhere. Floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes and landslides are a recurrent phenomenon. The losses that developing countries suffer when a disaster hit are greater than that in developed countries. More than 95 percent of all deaths caused by disasters occur in developing countries, and losses due to natural disasters are 20 times greater (as a percentage of GDP) in developing countries, as per World Bank’s Disaster Risk Management Report of January 2011. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) like Internet, Geographical Inforamtion System (GIS), remote sensing, satellite communications, can play a great role in planning and implementation of hazards reduction measures. GIS can improve the quality and power of analysis of natural hazards, guide development activities and assist planners in the selection of mitigation measures and in the implementation of emergency preparedness and response action. It is often said that ‘disasters don’t kill people, buildings do’. Realising the importance of robust and disaster resistant physical infrastructure, technology is being used for building earthquakeresistant buildings and bridges. Both traditional media (radio, television) as well as new media (cell broadcasting, Internet, satellite radio) also play a major role in educating the public on the risks of a potential or impending disaster, and in finding missing people. ICT played a major role in alerting and connecting citizens before and after the March 11 (2011) earthquake and in Tsunami hit Japan. Different technologies have been installed in Japan to counter earthquakes. One of the examples is bridge design technology in Japan that proved effective to prevent more deaths. The sophisticated instruments installed to their structures by the Japanese engineers helped a lot in minimising the loss of life during earthquake. Social media also played a huge role when communication system failed during the recent catastrophe in Japan. Japan’s tech networks, social media, and mobile smart-phones prevented much greater damage, and without them the recent disaster in Japan would have been a totally different experience. Although, the Japanese Tsunami was much bigger than the Tsunami which occurred in the Indian Ocean in 2004, yet the damage there was much less. At least 227,898 people died in Indian Ocean Tsunami, while the toll in Japan’s Tsunami was 1/8th. India and the world have a lot to learn from the Japanese experience and should ensure minimum damage from disaster by using latest technologies. In this April issue of eGov, we are carrying a comprehensive coverage of the application of ICT in homeland security and disaster management and preparedness. Continuing with the same agenda, eGov is organising ‘Secure IT 2011’ – the National Convention on ICT in Public Safety and Security and Disaster Management on April 20, 2011, in New Delhi. Please join us at the Convention and be a part of its deliberations!

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January 2011

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Contents april 2011

second grid grid name issue 04 nâ&#x20AC;&#x201A; volume 07

state focus Health of e-Gov in Rajasthan A detailed stock taking of the status of e-Governance in the state of Rajasthan

NeGP Update New Feature News, events and updates on the NeGP

16 | cover story

Safe State? Technology has to be fused with people, intelligence and processes to create security architecture. A layered architecture will add more value in enhancing security measures

gov talk dr r p sharma Need for an effective CJS

project update Marching Towards Modernisation A report on CCTNS

On e-Governance in Rajasthan

On state of CSCs in West Bengal

interview Sanjay Malhotra

interview Jean Paul Jainsky On the progress in UID and other projects of Morpho

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

Analysis Whither CSC in West Bengal

Event Report smart city 2011 Report on Smart City 2011

opinion HsCM On use of supply chain management techniques in healthcare sector

further reading Editorial india News news industry news world

03 10 12 14

Taking IT into the wild at Kanha MADHYA PRADESH FOREST DEPARTMENT Kanha National Park | Madhya Pradesh

REAL-TIME GOVERNANCE

Technology brings hands-on management to forest officials for: Faster response to fire-prone zones mapped on the Fire Alert Messaging System built using reliable Microsoft technologies such as Microsoft SQL Server Efficient surveying of forest area and wildlife using GPS-enabled PDAs operating on Microsoft CE Framework

Synapse|www.synapse.co

Real-time information updates using data synchronisation applications

Located in a region removed from modern telecommunications, forest officers of Kanha National Park felt the need for more effective monitoring of their environment. Tracking animals, mapping land holdings, and containing forest fires – this unpredictable ecosystem posed a real challenge. The M-Mantra for Forest and Wild Life Management System provided the ideal solution. Today, over 27,000 officers in the depths of the Madhya Pradesh jungles are connected to a Command Centre in Bhopal via PDAs. Now they can efficiently gather data, share information and notify citizens. Geomapping technology has helped the MP Forest Department trigger quick alerts and faster response times in such a wild environment. The result - Greater reach and control over the most inaccessible depths of India’s wilderness.

ENABLING INDIA This is one of the many steps to bring e-governance to the grassroots. Over the last 17 years, Microsoft has partnered with 14 state governments and created over 300 applications to-date. To know more about Microsoft’s initiatives, visit www.microsoft.com/india/msindia

april 2011 issue 04 n volume 07

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Asia’s First Monthly magazine on ICT in Education

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Interactive White Boards (IWB) and Audio Visual (AV) Equipments Special Issue highlights the existing market trends in IWB segment in the education sector. Highlights l Carries information about products in IWB and AV equipment space and details out future trends and innovations in this sector l Survey of market trends in Interactive White Boards in India, specifically in the education sector l Overview of diverse range of AV Equipments meant to enhance teaching and learning methods l Profiing of schools that have productively used IWBs for enhancing teaching and learning processes l Voices from K12 & Higher Education Institute representatives across India, providing an analysis of the level acceptance and penetration of IWBs

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Zia Salahuddin, Amit Pal, Anil Kumar IT Team Mukesh Sharma Events Vicky Kalra Editorial & Marketing Correspondence egov – G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA–201 301, India Phone: +91-120-2502181-85 Fax: +91-120-2500060 Email: info@egovonline.net egov is published by Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd in technical collaboration with Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS). Owner, Publisher, Printer: Ravi Gupta, Printed at H T Media Ltd, B-2, Sector-63, Noida 201307 , U.P. and published from 710 Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50 Noida, UP Editor: Ravi Gupta © All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or

The Enterprise of Healthcare (www.ehealthonline .org) Key Highlights Special focus on: Electronic Medical Records l Electronic Health Records and Patient Health Record l Hospital Information System and Hospital Management Information System, Laboratory Information System l Clinical Information System l Radiology Information System & Picture Archiving and Communication System l Telemedicine l mHealth Interviews with Anil Swarup, Director General for Labour Welfare, Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana; Dr S Vijaya Kumar, Special Secretary at the Health and Family Welfare department in Tamil Nadu; Babu hamed, CEO, Aarogyasri Health Care Trust; Dr K Ganapathy, President, Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation; Dr BS Bedi, Advisor-Health Informatics, CDAC, Government of India; GP Capt (Dr) Sanjeev Sood, Hospital and Health System Administrator, Air Force Hospital, Chandigarh Dr Nagendra Swamy, President Manipal Hospitals.

by any means, electronic and mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage or retrieval system, without publisher’s permission.

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gov talk

dr ranvir p sharma inspector general of police karanataka

need for an Effective Cjs There is a need to create an index or grading system of evidences to enable the generation of a score card. This will make the gleaning of evidences and presentation in the courts more scientific and disposal of cases faster and in transparent manner

he perceptible failure of the Criminal Justice System (CJS) in prosecuting the guilty stands to be addressed and that too, immediately. In a quest to find solutions to this problem, investigating agencies, prosecuting agencies and judicial system need to work coherently to address the issue, imbibe new ways and means to improve CJS along with simplifications of procedures. There have been arguments to give more credence to circumstantial evidence or, sometimes, to scientific evidence, but we have not been able to grade evidences gleaned in variety of cases so the entire system is yet to become ‘Preponderant Evidence System’. Rather it remains evidences linked system, which is rather vague. There is a need to create an index or grading system of evidences to enable the generation of a score card. This will make the gleaning of evidences and presentation in the courts more scientific and disposal of cases faster

and in a transparent manner. In case the prosecutor finds that the score card attached with charge sheet does not show sufficient evidence, it will be open to prosecutor to ask the investigating agency to further investigate the case. Similarly, in cases where the accused finds that impeccable evidences have been produced, may bring ‘plead guilty’ phenomenon and ask for mitigating the punishment and thus, judicial time spending will be economical and judicious. It is high time we evolve an objective presentation of evidences and their appreciation and bring mandatory changes in procedural laws so as to incorporate the system of grading of evidences gleaned by investigating agencies and presented by the prosecution to make the entire exercise fair, objective and transparent. Crime is a threat to our freedom and democracy. Crime reduction is essential for stability, security and development of the nation. However crime reduction cannot be achieved in isolation without having an effective CJS in place in the country. There is a

Criminal Justice System has failed largely due to poor investigation, prosecution and lack of a system to assess evidences

strong belief that the present CJS has failed to deliver and is likely to collapse if remedial steps are not taken immediately. The present system is exhibiting signs of overload and lack of effective management. There are four essential prerequisites to generate faith in CJS: efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, and fairness. Efficiency refers to the utilisation of resources in an optimum fashion to achieve the goals set by the Law and the Constitution. Effectiveness embodies the principle of healthy balance between liberty and security along with observance of the requirements of the law towards the accomplishment of the goals of crime prevention besides punishing the guilty in time effective and cost effective manner. Transparency is the fulcrum on which the accused, the victim and all other stakeholders exhibit their satisfaction. The satisfaction of all the stakeholders is the bottom line in any transparent system. Fairness is the attribute of a transparent system. It should be amply demonstrated in any system so as to build faith in a system. April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

gov talk

Problematic areas in present CJS Even after prolonged and costly procedures, not even one-fourth of cases end in conviction.The rich often get away lightly and the poor are put to suffering and discrimination. Quite offen delays defeat justice and the offenders go unpunished; witnesses are threatened and have no protection. The victims are ignored in the system and get no relief for the injuries or losses suffered. Even registration of complaints often becomes difficult without money or influence. An unholy nexus is perceived to prevail between criminal syndicates, politicians and law enforcement officials, affecting criminal proceedings and the rule of law. Corruption has taken a heavy toll on the system.

essential for stability and development of the nation, crime reduction cannot be achieved in isolation without having an effective CJS in place The existing system has some shortcomings. Voluminous documentation in various court trials, which make the system least penetrating to prioritise evidences is one. Another is most of the judicial time is utilised in examining oral testimony by way of various examinations. Lastly, mindset of all the appendages of today’s judicial system is tilted toward oral testimony and not towards scientific testimony.

What do citizens seek from criminal justice system? Citizens want efficiency, accountability and zero tolerance against corruption. But the question emerges, how can this be achieved? The reforms may include the following: criminal law reforms, both in substantive as well as procedural laws; institutional reforms of police, prosecution, courts and prisons, etc; qualitative improvement of people and material involved in Criminal Justice System. Criminal Justice System has four stages which are recognised in the Indian Legal System: registration of the case; investigation of the case; trial of the case; rehabilitation and corrective measures, if any. Criminal Justice System has failed largely due to poor investigation, poor prosecution and lack of a system to assess evidences. There are different standards being used to decide different cases, which pave way for subjectivity in the system. The aim of this paper is to provide a solution to the problems plaguing the present Criminal Justice System. It also aims to grade different evidences in a numerical grading format based on the type of evidence gathered during the course of investigation and lays emphasis that every charge sheet, which is put up for a trial, carries a sufficient numerical total score.

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

Suggested scoring patterns

Numerical indexing of evidences requires in-depth study of various criminal cases, issues of perception of evidences & admissibility of such evidences which entail proper deliberations

To make things more simplistic some explanatory score indexes are suggested below. However, numerical indexing of evidences requires in-depth study of various criminal cases, issues of perception of evidences and admissibility of such evidences. This may entail a very long exercise with proper deliberations before grading of evidences reach statutory finality. The score is on a scale of 0-10 with 0 being the least and 10 being the maximum. • The cross-matching of DNA finger prints with sample collected in ideal conditions score may be - 10 out of 10. • Judicial confession not retracted - 10 out of 10. • Extra Judicial confession - 6 points. • Documentary evidence like sample matching handwriting, finger prints, - 10 out of 10, if collected in ideal conditions. • Oral testimony non-corroborated - 1 • Corroborated oral testimony - 5 • Oral testimony of government official - 3 • Oral testimony of non-government official - 1

Scorecard drivers Every chargesheet will be accompanied with score card of the evidence and that shall be cross verified by the prosecutor. In case of any variation, investigating officer will have to explain the discrepancy to the prosecutor. If prosecutor is satisfied with the explanation given by the investigation officer, he will issue a certificate to this effect and chargesheet will be filed in the court of law. If not satisfied, he will be asked to do further investigation and change score with the certificate to this effect. The rationality of chargesheet and its usage in criminal justice system are issues which have caused more grey areas than addressing these issues. There is a need for a fair transparent and objective criminal justice system which is not only free from ambiguities but also is least time consuming. There is a need to bring statutory changes to ensure chargesheets, which do not carry sufficient cumulative score of the evidences, do not get registered by the courts and before taking the cognisance on a charge sheet it shall be the duty of the court to pass a reasoned order satisfying with the score card attached with the chargesheet. This system will satisfy Police, prosecutor, accused, victim & the courts equally & thus paving way for transparent criminal justice system.

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news Delhi Cabinet Approves Geospatial Data Bill The Delhi cabinet has approved the draft Delhi Geospatial Data Infrastructure Bill, 2011 - a flagship project of the government launched to frame and implement policies relating to geospatial data. The Bill will serve as a base for planning and executing various development projects and utility services.

As per Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Delhi State Spatial Data Infrastructure (DSSDI) project was launched to frame and implement policies for issues related to geospatial data. The data could be utilised through the Geographical Information System established at two centres in the city, reported IANS.

human resource

Haryana to Upgrade IT Facilities for Better e-Governance The Haryana government has decided to create an information technology (IT) cadre for implementation of the state’s e-Governance initiatives in various departments. An official spokesman said that the state government has already prepared the basic structure for the IT cadre and it would be finalising the same shortly, reported IANS. The state government has also decided to set up Informa-

tion and Communication Technology (ICT) labs in more than 2,600 government schools and all the government colleges. This facility would be in addition to the IT education facilities in various technical institutions in the state. “Special programmes have been designed for the training of government employees so as to enable them to increasingly use ICT in their day to day work,” spokesperson said.

projects people policy events products Security

Goa Roads to be Monitored Through Surveillance Cameras In a bid to make Goa “terror alert”, all major roads will soon be monitored througnh unmanned surveillance cameras, according to the Economic Survey tabled in the State Assembly recently. “The surveillance project would ensure setting up of surveillance cameras at major roads and junctions, public places, places of strategic importance,” the report says. With increased security and terrorism

threats in the country, building a comprehensive surveillance system is

right to information

File RTI on Phone in Karnataka Karnataka is all set to open a business process outsourcing (BPO) centre - the first of its kind in the country — exclusively for filing petitions under the Right to Information Act. Citizens will just have to call up the centre, expected to be located in Bangalore, to file RTI applications, in lieu of some charges. Any citizen can call up the BPO call centre and file an RTI against any department of the state. The user will be charged

for the call which will be considered as the fee for the RTI application. Called as ‘Mahiti’ (means information in Kannada), the project will be launched in June. Along with the BPO, the

The Way Forward in Cyber Security A national seminar on ‘Cyber Threats: Issues and Challenges’was organised by MCA/CS/IT Departments at I.T.S Engineering College, Greater Noida on 2nd April 2011. eGov was the media partner to the event Dr Gulshan Rai , Director General, CERT-In (Computer Emergency Response Team-India) and Group Coordinator

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

critical for enhancing safety and security of citizens and assets.

of e-Security and Cyber Law Division in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology was the Chief Guest at the event. The theme of the first session was ‘Emerging Cyber Threats’. Cyber threats such as cyber warfare, virus attacks, cyber terrorism, hacking, phishing, credit

card frauds, theft of information, e-mail spoofing, spamming, cyber stalking, damaging computer systems; insider threats and MMS scams were discussed. The speakers brought out that cyber security threats today are more organised, targeted and have financial motives and call for new organisational structures, greater

government will also club it with grievance redressal supervision and monitoring system to track the RTI complaints. The medium for filing the petition will be in Kannada and English.

news

Polling in West Bengal to be enabled by GIS The Election Commission will install web-based geographic information system (GIS) in West Bengal’s polling booths to help the State Chief Electoral Officer track them on their website. The system will provide a map showing the exact location and nearby landmarks of all the

51,919 polling booths in the state on the website, an official said, reported IANS. The software will give a 360-degree view of the entire area falling within the 200-metre radius of each booth, including approach roads and nearby installations.

It will show every detail of the polling station, such as the number of voters, number of polling and security personnel deployed, details about the current law and order situation and reports of past violence or disturbance in the area, the official added.

government 2.0

office automation

Indian Postal Services to be Computerised by 2013

In a new e-Governance initiative Government of India (GOI) has approved a proposal for the ‘Information Technology Modernisation Project’ of Department of Posts (DoP) to be implemented in a phased manner by 2012-13, subject to availability of funds for improving postal operations. The proposal includes computerisation of all non-computerised post offices, development

of software for various operations of Department of Post, commissioning of a data centre, provision of network connectivity and implementation of rural technology solution. A state-wise list of the number of post-offices already computerised had been released in which Uttar Pradesh has the most number of computerised post offices- 1510 and the least number of computerised post offices in Jammu and Kashmir- 132.

awareness and coordination between agencies. The theme of the second session was ‘Combating Cyber Threats’. The speakers elaborated on the issues, trends and challenges in the area of information security. They also discussed challenges to make students aware of

basic principles of system security. Cloud computing related security issues were also discussed during this session. The faculty members and students of CS/IT/MCA departments along with 55 delegates from various institutes in NCR attended the seminar.

After Delhi Traffic Police, Tihar joins Facebook In a bid to update various events happening in the jail and gather suggestions and feedback to make ‘Tihar, a prison with difference’ Tihar Jail has recently created a page on Facebook. After the huge success of Delhi Traffic Police’s Facebook initiative many government organisations are hoping to bask in the social networking media glory and rightly so as it has become the most convenient way to connect and network with the citizens and key stakehold-

ers. Tihar Jail is India’s largest correctional centre working for the rehabilitation of thousands of inmates. Various events like Tihar Olympics, Literacy

Drive, Music Festivals keep happening inside the centre and thus it seems suitable to have a domain on one of the most popular social networking site as well.

broadband

Govt to Invite Bids for Broadband in Rural Areas The government will soon invite bids from telecom firms to provide broadband services in rural areas of the country. For this service the providers will get subsidy from the Universal

Service Obligation (USO) Fund. The Department of Telecommunications will soon come out with a tender for rural wireless broadband through the Universal Service Obligation fund by the end of

the month. This particular project is aiming to cover 60,000 villages. Lack on broadband connectivity has been a prime reason for the digital divide in rural and country site region.

M N Vidyashankar Appointed IT Secretary, Karnataka Karnataka e-Governance Secretary M N Vidyashankar has also been given additional charge of Information Technology, Science & Technology and Biotechnology, in a bureaucratic reshuffle

effected by the State Government. IT, S&T and BT Secretary Ashok Kumar C Manoli was transferred to the Revenue Department. Vidyashankar has served in the post before, an official press release informed. A K

Monnappa, Commissioner for Cane Development & Director of Sugar, Bangalore, was transferred and N Sriraman, Managing Director, Mysore Minerals Limited, Bangalore, was given the additional charge.

April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

news

industry

m-banking

wireless

Union Bank Partners Nokia for m-Banking Solutions

HCL to Deploy Wireless Network for Indian Air Force

Rolling out mobile payment services for the masses, Union Bank of India has announced a strategic partnership with Nokia. Through this partnership they have announced m-banking services available for Union Bank account holders on their Nokia handsets through a Java-based mobile application.

The service has been initiated in Gurgaon and will soon be going live in Noida, Faridabad and Delhi. A pan-India roll out is planned by the year-end. The range of services offered include money transfer through mobile phone numbers, payment of utility bills, prepaid SIM recharge and cash-out service wherein one can with-

draw cash from ATMs or empowered agents. The service is currently available in only English language and thus will not be as relevant for financial inclusion but it’s a first in the market and with one such service now available there is bound to be rolling out of more such services owing to market pressure.

emunicipality

TCS Bags Kochi e-Gov Project

Tata Consultancy Services has bagged the

technical bids for Kochi Corporation’s e-Governance programme. The project, initiated many years ago, aims at bringing major services

online. The services include utility management, property tax, registration of births and deaths, water supply and other utilities,

grievances and suggestions and building approvals.The terms of the contract stipulate that TCS should implement the project within a year.

HCL Infosystems has bagged a Rs 300 crore order from the Indian Air Force to deploy a portable wireless network covering many air force stations across India. The new network will be integrated with the existing air force network and will provide it with the backbone connectivity and ensure video interactivity for video calls and other communication platforms, the company said in a statement, reported IANS. “We are honoured to partner with the Indian Air Force in the deployment of this highly efficient state-of-the-art wireless network and congratulate them for their vision in embracing technology to play an active role,” HCL Infosystem’s Executive Vice President Rothin Bhattacharyya said. “This being one of the key wins under our defence system integration practice further highlights the company’s vast understanding in various industry verticals,” he added.

broadband

Broadband TV for `99 by Bharti Airtel Telecom major Bharti Airtel announced the launch of its ‘airtel broadband TV’, which will allow its broadband users to watch live TV on their computers for a monthly rental of Rs 99. With the service,

airtel broadband subscribers will be able to access 28 Live TV channels including UTV Bindass, UTV Movies, Bloomberg UTV, TLC, Animal Planet, all Discovery channels, Sakshi TV, Live India

and Tarang Music. The company also plans to offer 19 Video-ondemand (VOD) channels and 12 movies channels as per the chosen subscription plan. The service will work on Wi-Fi networks as well,

Mehta added. Airtel will introduce three monthly subscription plans -- Gold Pack with all Live and VOD channels and movies for Rs 99 and Night Pack (all channels and movies from 9 PM to 9AM) for Rs 49.

2011 Will Be The Year of PaaS: Gartner All the leading enterprise software vendors, as well as large cloud specialists, will introduce new platform-asa-service (PaaS) offerings this year, making 2011 the year of PaaS, according to Gartner. These leading vendors are expected to deliver new or strongly

expanded PaaS service offerings and cloud-enabled application infrastructure products. Today’s PaaS offerings come in over a dozen of specialised types; however, during the next three years, the variety of PaaS specialist-subset offerings will consolidate

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

a few major application infrastructure service suites, and, over a longer time, comprehensive, full-scale PaaS offerings will emerge as well. As per Gartner during the next five years, the adoption of PaaS in most mid-size and large organizations will not

lead to a wholesale transition to cloud computing. Instead, it will be an extension of the use patterns of on-premises application infrastructures to

hybrid computing models where on-premises application infrastructures and PaaS will coexist, interoperate and integrate.

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world

transport

Buses in SL under GPS Scanner Sri Lanka has started using satellite technology to monitor the movements of buses in a bid to “detect and control misdeeds” committed by drivers. The buses would be monitored

to ascertain whether they run according to time tables and whether they follow the stipulated speed limits, Lankan Information Department said. The movements of the

buses would be displayed on screens at monitoring centres, and errant drivers would be instantly advised to follow rules over satellite phones placed in the buses.

Disaster Management

e-MUNICIPALITY

University researchers in Taiwan have released a mobile phone application that with one touch can transmit to any number of people the location of users trapped in earthquake rubble or debris. The app transmits the latitude and longitude co-ordinates of people stranded in disaster areas. It has recently been put on sale in the mobile application stores following the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. Users anywhere can download the application, called

Dubai Municipality has re-launched its web portal with a new design, the fourth since 1998, which was the first launch to create an e-Audience for Dubai Municipality on the Internet. Now, the change is based on the new trends in the field of technology, especially Internet-related and consistent with the requirements of the public who deal with the Municipality on a daily basis. Hussain Nasser Lootah, Director General of Dubai Municipality said Dubai Municipality has

In Aftermath, New Disaster Alert Mobile App Released

Mobile Saviour for $2.99 in English, Chinese or Japanese. All proceeds from the sales of this app

will go to victims of the devastation either through Japan’s foreign ministry or Red Cross chapter.

gEOGRAPHICAL iNFORMATION SYSTEM

New Spatial Support System in Taiwan Taiwan GIS Centre (TGIC), the country’s GIS “think tank” is developing its webbased spatial decision support system on the Government Cloud, which would enable the central and local government, private industries, and the general public to access spatial information through various medium such as the Internet and mobile phones. TGIC is developing an application portal that would use a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) to enable better reusing, sharing, and managing of spatial information. The framework is said to include four

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

components: Geospatial ontologies enabling domain experts to contribute knowledge and models for reuse and sharing; an ontology registry allowing web service providers to register GI services into ontologies; a web portal where domain experts can evaluate results and SDSS developers can find solutions for specific geospatial problems; and an ontologies engine to infer relevant registered GI services based on the knowledge in the ontologies in response to a geospatial problem submitted in the web portal.

Dubai Municipality’s Website Revamped worked to develop the site in terms of form, content and sections so as to ensure ease of use. It has also taken care to provide more information and to add new channels to achieve the goal of customer satisfaction and support their requirements. He said all the criteria of the Government of Dubai in developing e-Government portals have been applied to support the “Zero Visit” initiative, and to integrate and unify all the portals of the departments of the Municipality in the main portal.

disaster management

ICT for Disaster Management at UN Workshop The United Nations Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development, a regional institute of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNAPCICT/ESCAP), kicked off the Fourth Regional Training of Trainers Workshop in Seongnam, Republic of Korea. The

five-day workshop was held from 22-26 February, 2011 and aimed at giving training on the use of information and communication technology (ICT) for disaster risk management and climate change abatement. As is now widely accepted by the scientific community and the general public, climate change constitutes a major threat to the earth’s ecosystems.

national conference on ict in public safety, security & disaster management

20 APRIL, 2011 | The Claridges, New Delhi

securing citizens through technology Focus Areas

Key Speakers

• Homeland Safety & Border Security • Access Control & Identity Management • Critical Infrastructure Security & Control • Cyber Security & Internet Governance • Disaster Management & Recovery • Emergency Response System • Fraud Detection & Mitigation

Anil K Sinha

Dr Shailesh Nayak

B Bhamathi

Shankar Aggarwal

Vice Chairman Bihar State Disaster Management Authority

Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India (GoI)

Addl Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, GoI

Add Secretary, Dept of IT, Ministry of Communications & IT, GoI

Target Audience • Senior Officers from Key Government Defence Establishments • Heads of Police Departments & Intelligence Agencies • Security Experts & Defence Analysts • Technology Providers & Suppliers

PRESENTED BY

N S Kalsi Joint Secretary, (Police II), Ministry of Home Affairs, GoI

Shambhu Singh Joint Secretary, (North East), Ministry of Home Affairs, GoI

HK Mittal

Head and Advisor, Dept of Science & Technology, Ministry of Science & Technology, GoI

Dr Ramachandran Centre Director, National Technical Research Organisation, GoI

OrganiseD BY Maj Gen (Dr) R Siva Kumar Head (NRDMS) & CEO (NSDI), Dept of Science and Technology, GoI

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Maj Gen R C Padhi

Dr Gulshan Rai

Dr N Vijayaditya

Military Survey (GSGS), Ministry of Defence Indian Army

Director General, CERT-In, Government of India

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www.secure-IT.in

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egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

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Safe

State?

Technology has to be fused with people, intelligence and processes to create security architecture. A layered architecture will add more value in enhancing security measures By Prachi Shirur e-Gov Bureau

ecurity of life, infrastructure and territory is the primary concern of any nation. The nature and scope of potential threats to physical security is changing and scaling, faster than ever. Much more alarming is the increasing number of terror attacks and loss of lives, world wide. Besides, largescale natural disasters and pandemics pose additional threats to public security and safety. And it is not just the physical security which is at stake, as against the man-made and natural disasters but also the digital and information infrastructure of the nation states. With the changing nature of threats, prevention and response mechanisms need regular revision. Technology, especially, the information and communication technologies, is a big enabler here. The governments need to be equally equipped and conversant with technology in order to counter criminals, terrorists or those who try to undermine stability and peace in the country. Agencies responsible for public safety need to respond quickly to incidents. However, often the public security sector suffers from resource crunch and inadequate information and intelligence. To overcome such limitations, the governments in developed countries are turning to technology and are using latest surveillance systems, situational modeling and visualisation software, chemical/biological detection monitors to counter security threats. Though, India is among the countries most affected by terrorist and insurgent activities, it was the 26/11 terrorists’ attack in Mumbai, that forced the Indian government to seriously consider improving the country’s homeland security apparatus. Rothin Bhattacharyya, CEO, HCL Security Ltd., opines that the perception of security threats

faced by India has changed drastically over the years. “In the year 2008, India was world’s third most afflicted country by terrorism incidents. To cope up with these increased number of attacks, there was a need to enable robust security across the cities. Hence, several ICT projects were undertaken by the government and latest security technologies have been deployed in various areas of the country to combat terrorism.” In an emerging economy like India, with a billion plus population, maintaining the GDP growth rate of eight to nine percent is one of the prime concern of the government. It is therefore, an important focus of the government to strengthen the homeland security with the help of technological interventions, as also leveraging the private sector expertise in ICT, for providing advanced and intelligent solutions to the security forces. Given this scenario, Government of India intends to spend April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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B Bhamathi Additional Secretary Ministry of Home, Govt of India

“No software or technology solution can be panacea for all issues surrounding the functioning of police. CCTNS can act as a catalyst for initiating a change in Police functioning.” $10 billion on India’s homeland security in the coming two to three years. The top security agencies in India are leveraging the benefits of ICT for securing India. Today, technologies such as CCTVs and surveillance cameras are equipped to monitor terrorists activities and other such threats. However, India has still lots to do to ensure public safety and security. The government, now also realises the importance of protecting digital infrastructure – digital government data, since the government websites, networks and computers are at the receiving end of information hackers. The situation is grim, given the fact that the terrorists today are extremely tech-savvy. Coupled with this, India has a poor state of policing and intelligence, ill-equipped security agencies and weak criminal justice system making it extremely difficult for any security agency to respond to the newer threats and challenges. While India has made enough progress in ensuring safety, the challenges to public safety will continue to grow. India should thus ensure a robust safety and security system.

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Technology Comes Handy Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has a paramount role in securing homeland as well as disaster prediction and management. ICT systems are able to collect, analyse, assess and disseminate information quickly and completely. The fast and effective communication of relevant details to security agencies, and enhanced awareness of potential threats improves decision making and helps anticipate threats and risks better while also making efficient use of critical resources to prevent and eliminate potential threats to public security. At the same time, technology enables better management of natural disasters with focus on overlapping phases of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Technology driven knowledge-based information infrastructure helps provide balanced support to each phase of these activities in the disaster management cycle. ICT plays a major part in interpreting geo-spatial data. Image processing, predictive analysis, like Tsunami Early Warning Systems, data modeling, GIS and Advanced Meteorology are some of the key applications that have been deployed worldwide. Standards have evolved like the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) – an information interchange standard that can be used collect all types of hazard warnings and reports locally, regionally and nationally, for input into a wide range of information management and

warning dissemination systems. Systems using CAP have shown that a single authoritative and secure alert message can quickly launch Internet messages, news feeds, television text captions, highway sign messages, and synthesised voice-over automated telephone calls or radio broadcasts. As Abhay Bhargav, CTO, we45 Solutions India Pvt. Ltd., puts it, “With reference to homeland security, IT could be used extensively in storage, processing and transmission of intelligence information, defense information and so on. Using integrated application, law enforcement and defense agencies can gain relevant and comprehensive information about threats to homeland security.” With reference to Disaster Preparedness and Management, Abhay informs, “IT systems can be invaluable in terms of prevention and detection of disaster situations. For instance, through applications and communication networks, the nation can issue advisories against people visiting certain sections of the country affected by a natural calamity. With effective monitoring, using IT applications and communication networks, the government can issue evacuation orders for people in the area, thus preventing loss of life in case of a disaster”. Major General Ramesh Chandra Padhi, MOGSGS, Military Survey, Indian Army, also hails the role of ICT in security domain. According to him, “ICT has brought the capabilities in depiction, integration, visualisation

cyber threats: Top Five Exploits l My Doom’s Mass Infection: Estimated damage $38 billion This fast-moving worm first struck in 2004 and tops our list in terms of monetary damage. The worm was designed to infect computers and send spam emails. l A“I LOVE YOU” Worm’s False Affection: Estimated damage $15 Billion The “I love you” worm (named after the subject line of the email it came in) proved irresistible in 2000 as millions of users

opened the spam message and downloaded the attached “love letter” file. Unfortunately, instead of sweet nothings, they got a bitter virus. l ‘WConficker’s Stealthy Destruction: Estimated damage $9.1 Billion This 2007 worm infected millions of computers. Conficker was designed to download and install malware from sites controlled by the virus writers. The malware included a keystroke logger

and other PC-control software that gave cybercrooks users’ personal information as well as access to their machines. l Stuxnet Worm—Targeted and Dangerous: Damage unknown This recent worm targets critical infrastructure, such as utility companies and control systems, by taking advantage of several vulnerabilities in Windows. Stuxnet has reportedly damaged government facilities in India, the U.S. and Indonesia, as well as nuclear facilities in Iran.

Source: ‘A Good Decade for Cybercrime’, McAfee’s Look Back at Ten Years of Cybercrime, 2010

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and analysis of geo spatial data. Improved bandwidth, high speed data processor and data storage capacity has enabled fusion of military and intelligence inputs so that a common operational picture is made available to all security managers, commanders and officers at different levels”. However, he suggests that maps need to be properly geo-referenced, because worldwide there are many reference-frameworks that most people get confused. So there is a need of a common reference framework. It is with this concern that the National Map Policy has been designed in India, on a global reference framework. However, as Dr Rajvir P Sharma, IGP (Planning and Police Modernisation), Office of DGP & IGP, Karnataka State Police quips, “Monitoring of micro-information from gleaning to processing to collating and dissemination is yet to be achieved leading to loss of microinformation and consequent information loss.” Micro information management technology therefore, needs to be optimised. Loknath Behera cautions against mindless use of technology without proper standardisation, which causes more problems than it sorts out. Thus, technology has to be fused with people, intelligence and process to create security architecture. A layered architecture will add more value in enhancing security measures. “Technology should not only be deployed but should be integrated with devices/ equipments in such a way that they compliment with each other and offer actionable intelligence” suggests Rothin Bhattacharyya.

Major general Ramesh Chandra Padhi MOGSGS, Military Survey, Indian Army

“Improved bandwidth, high speed data processor and data storage capacity has enabled fusion of military and intelligence inputs”

Worldwide market for security is about $100 billion and growing at the rate of 12 percent, as per industry sources. Frost & Sullivan pegs the market for security and surveillance equipment in India at `1,800 crore and the video surveillance market at `866 crore, both of which have a compounded annual growth rate of 25-30 percent. Some of the leading players in this market are SAP, EADS, Smiths Detection, Palantir, Tyco, Bosch, Adaptive Imaging, Vigilant Systems, Fluor Corp, Northrop Grumman,

Mathew Thomas Vice President, Strategic Industries, SAP India Subcontinent

The Great Security Spender! The global security climate has caused an aggravation of existing security concerns and necessitated the development of holistic physical security solutions. Nations are realising that in order to effectively protect people, property and critical assets, they need physical security and safety programmes, designed to address not only traditional crime, but also sophisticated terrorist attacks, and natural disasters. The government remains the biggest spender on physical security or surveillance solutions. Growth can be seen coming from various sectors such as urban security, public transport, hospitality sector, airport security, BFSI and education. Governments are now looking towards adopting a more holistic and integrated approach to physical security.

“ Security agencies need an IT infrastructure that’s fully integrated and capable of real-time updates among government, industry, and non-profit stakeholders during all coordination phases”

Siemens, Lockheed Martin, Accenture and many more.

Security Apparatus Overhaul After the 26/11 terror incident in Mumbai, structured efforts have been made to bring about a streamlining in the operations of government public safety bodies in India through the modernisation of operations. The areas where ICT is playing a role in modernising security apparatus includes access control and perimeter security systems, investigation management, crime analytics, monitoring and surveillance systems for Internet and electronic media, telecommunications, procurement of specialised vehicles for bomb disposal and riots, personal body armor etc. With the operationalisation of the MultiAgency Centre (MAC), through an Executive Order issued on December 31, 2008, every piece of relevant information or intelligence gathered by one of the participating agencies is brought to the table. At the same time, a network is being created of all the databases that contain vital information and intelligence. Since, each database stands alone, and does not talk to another database, crucial information that rests in one database is not available to another agency. In order to tackle this issue, the Central Government decided to set up National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID). Under NATGRID, 21 sets of databases will be networked to achieve quick, seamless and secure access to desired information for intelligence/enforcement agencies. With the objective of having an integrated approach towards policing, the Ministry of Home Affairs has come up with a `2000 crores project – Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) that is scheduled April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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Rothin Bhattacharyya CEO, HCL Security Ltd

“Technology should not only be deployed but be integrated with devices/equipments in a way that they compliment with each other and offer actionable intelligence” to be in place by 2011-12. CCTNS aims to facilitate storage, collation, analysis and transmission/sharing of crime and criminals related information at the police station, district, state and central levels. National Crime Records Bureau, on behalf of the Ministry of Home Affairs, is the nodal agency for overseeing the implementation of this project. Commenting on the role of CCTNS project, B Bhamathi, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Home, says “No Software or technology solution alone can be panacea for all issues surrounding the functioning of police. However CCTNS can act as a catalyst and technology enabled agent for initiating a change in Police functioning.” To address issues pertaining to natural and man-made disasters, the Disaster Management Act of 2005 was passed leading to the formation of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). It is mandated by the Government of India to create the policy framework, transform disaster management plans and establish guidelines for effective response to disasters. The enforcement of its policies and implementation of its guidelines, disaster mitigation provisioning and disaster prevention also form the broad charter of this apex body. However, the pace at which the envisaged reforms and modernisation initiatives are being adopted are not the same as that on an international level. As Mathew Thomas, Vice President – Strategic Industries, SAP India Subcontinent notes, “The multi-tiered security agency framework, slow collaborative outcomes, information silos, lack of a centralised, quick-response, ICT-enabled command and control system – coupled with issues like corruption and procedural wrangles have led to slow realisation of the set objectives.”

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

Partners in Security Agenda Public-private partnerships can help fill gaps in homeland security that neither government, nor business can fill alone. Increasingly, they are assuming a vital role in our nation’s homeland security strategy. Mathew Thomas feels that there is a huge potential for partnership in the areas of safe practices, disaster mitigation, disaster preparedness and response, reconnaissance and recovery. Abhay Bhargav of we45 Solutions says, “The private sector is replete with experts who will RK Vij IGP, Durg Chhattisgarh

“An ICT project’s success or failure will depend heavily on the organisational capacity to manage and respond to the information transmitted by the technology”

be able to leverage the ever-increasing power of the web, networks and IT deployments and will be able to optimise the way homeland security and disaster management is approached in the country.” For instance, private IT security companies will be able to help the government secure its IT deployments and networks against the advanced persistent threat of state-sponsored cyber terrorism by providing cutting edge security and testing services.” Ramandeep Singh Walia, Head-System Engineering Group, Check Point Software Technologies, suggests that it is important for government to collaborate with private sector to ensure the awareness of the security risk attributes. “The source of revenue from cyber terrorism or cyber attacks have far exceeded the revenue generated due to drug trafficking. For this, processes, policies and awareness programmes have to equally compliment the security controls. Private sector can play a major role in this regard.”

Road to Secure Nation For seamless response to security threats, security agencies need an IT infrastructure that is fully integrated and capable of real-time updates among government, industry, and nonprofit stakeholders during all coordination phases. This necessitates putting in place such security systems that fully integrate resources – financial, human, and technological with operational and back-office information assets, to maximise visibility across the entire security framework. To foster and augment the process of information sharing, ICT should be used at all levels in the security sector. In this regard, a standards-based policy needs to be evolved that evaluates available technologies based on their readiness, usage and effectiveness, while shortening the solution availability cycle. The road to a secure nation lies in creation of a framework that covers the governance of their physical infrastructure, IT infrastructure, networks and so on, encapsulating preventive, detective and corrective mechanisms to protect the security of all government agencies and departments. Apart from physical security, information security is the need of the hour. Government agencies and departments contain a wealth of information that is invaluable to attackers. Therefore, it is quintessential that the government takes information security as seriously as physical security.

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gathering of global leaders and experts on education conference with thematic sessions exposition on education technologies watch out for World Education Summit awards!

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13-15 JULY 2011 | the ashok, New Delhi, INDIA Organisers

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Power tracks on > School education > Higher education > Skills development

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PROJECT UPDATE

CCTNS

Marching Towards Modernisation Even though cctns is not a panacea for all policing related issues, it is expected to transform the existing state of policing and police and citizen interface By Pragya Gupta, eGov Bureau

nstalling surveillance cameras, installing computers and other information and communication technology (ICT) resources are not enough to make the policing efficient and effective. The current state of policing is marred with lack of objectivity, accountability, transparency, integrated approach, information and intelligence sharing mechanism, inter alia. In immediate past, India has witnessed a spate of terror attacks in different parts of the country. Despite the urgency of information and intelligence sharing between states and respective security agencies, there was no mechanism in place through which a seamless information sharing could be made an integral part of the agencies operations. To deal with these challenges and reform the working of Police forces across states and UTs, Ministry of Home Affairs has come up with Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS). It has been made a state mission mode project under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) to modernise the police force giving top priority to enhancing outcomes in the area of crime investigations and criminal detec-

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

Loknath Behera IGP, National Investigation Agency (NIA)

“CCTNS will increase the efficiency of the police through better data management, time management and knowledge and skill management” tion, in information gathering, sharing among various police organisations across the country and in enhancing police and citizen interface. If implemented completely, CCTNS can emerge as an overhaul of the way policing is being done in India. Commenting on the need for integrated sharing between police departments across the country, Prakash Kumar, Director Internet, Cisco Systems India, “In an event of terrorist attacks, the most essential thing is to disseminate the real-time

information about the event and channel it to the authorities and to have a reliable G2G communication network.”

Project history CCTNS intends to provide an integrated application software platform and creation of a nation-wide networked Police infrastructure connecting more than 14,000 police stations and nearly 6000 higher offices in 28 States and 7 UTs of the country and enabling seamless

CCTNS

PROJECT UPDATE

project guidelines MHA has issued guideline for the appointment of System Integrators (SI) for the migration of CIPA and CCIS police stations and higher offices to CCTNS. SIs would execute the migration of the police stations and higher offices currently operational on CIPA and CCIS to CCTNS. NCRB is the nodal agency looking after the project implementation and monitoring.

information sharing. The need of IT in Police was never ignored earlier, it started with NCRB’s projects like Crime and Criminals Information System (CCIS) and Common Integrated Police Application (CIPA). However, the importance and need of real time information sharing has been realised in recent years. All these initial projects focused primarily on collection of data and automation of Police Stations. While CCIS was launched in 1990, it focused exclusively on creating a national level database of crime and criminals. However, duplication of efforts, lack of motivated staff and network connectivity for information sharing emerged as major hurdles in execution of the project. Conceptualised by Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in 2004, CIPA had a core focus on automation of police stations. Later, it was felt that a standalone application cannot provide the enhanced outcomes in the areas of crime investigation and criminal detection. Eventually, to provide an upward integration of the Police station databases – to the District and state headquarters and a better public delivery system, MHA came up with `2000Crore

project, CCTNS. Loknath Behera, IGP, National Investigation Agency (NIA), “CCTNS will increase the efficiency of the police through better data management, better time management and better knowledge and skill management. So, police will be more efficient, which is the first requirement in security.” It will enable security agencies to keep track of the progress of the crime and criminal investigation and prosecution cases, including progress of cases in the courts and will also help in reduction of manual and redundant record keeping.

Implementation The CCTNS project includes vertical connectivity- linking police units at various levels within the states - and as well as horizontal connectivity which involves linking state headquarters and the central headquarters to external entities. To provide this link, Wipro Technologies has been selected as the agency which would develop the core application software (CAS) to be used by the states and another core application to be used by the Centre for digitisation of crime and criminal records. The solution is being developed on multiple

technology platforms to address different levels of functionality required at the centre and state. Once implemented, the application will link the State Crime Record Bureau (SCRB) with the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). It would facilitate real-time information sharing between states and the Centre. MHA has issued guideline for the appointment of System Integrators (SI) for the migration of CIPA and CCIS police stations and higher offices to CCTNS. SIs would execute the migration of the police stations and higher offices currently operational on CIPA and CCIS to CCTNS. NCRB is the nodal agency looking after the project implementation and monitoring.

State updates ASSAM: Assam has received `26 lakhs for the financial year 2010-11, towards funding for strengthening infrastructure at RTS/PTC. An agreement has been made for State Project Management Consultant (SPMC) between Assam police and IL&FS. State’s Nodal agency, AMTRON, started IT Basic Training Course to the police personnel. Assam Police has signed an April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

PROJECT UPDATE

CCTNS

“Adopting SOA Approach for Policing” to data standardisation, Generation of reports, redundancy in data entry, mapping of major and minor crime heads, etc.

What is the current status of the project? It has been estimated that CAS would be ready for roll out by 30th September 2011 and shared with states for customization and integration with specific requirements. Based on the progress of the project till date and support from all states it is envisaged that project would be implemented and made functional across all the states by 2012. B Bhamathi, B Bhamathi, Additional Secretary (Centre State), Ministry of Home Affairs

How are the challenges of CIPA being addressed with CCTNS? CCTNS-CAS is being developed on a Service oriented Architecture which shall enable the seamless sharing of information on crimes and criminals within police departments and across various other external agencies like Courts, Jails, Transport departments, Passport authorities, etc. It will have advanced search functions when compared to CIPA. CCTNS addresses several functional and technical challenges with respect

How will CCTNS address the issue of security of information? The security architecture proposed for the CAS application shall ensure complete authenticity and integrity of data and transactions. Access control procedures shall cover all stages in the life-cycle of user access, from the initial registration of new users to the final de-registration of users, who no longer require access to information systems and services. Special attention shall be given, where appropriate, to the needs to control the allocation of privileged access rights.

Karnataka Karnataka Government is leading ahead with its own ICT project ‘Police IT’. Unlike many other states, Karnataka Police is working on an end-to-end solution covering 12 modules. Police IT can be called as a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) system providing seamless integration to the day to day operations of the police. Police IT in its conceptualisation, creation and roll out would have a pioneering impact in the way the police in India would go digital in the days to come. The basic features of Police IT software are that, it is based

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on a centralised architecture, is bilingual (both in English and Kannada), has a workflow design and a role based access. Being developed by Wipro Technologies, the Police IT software application has been divided into 12 modules. These modules take care of the workflow within the concerned module and across modules. The core functions of police have three modules namely, crime, law and order and traffic. On the administration side, the software has another three modules namely Finance, Administration and Stores.

Armed, Motor Transport and Training provide the ancillary support and the technical modules are the Wireless and the FSL. All seven end-user tasks are finally divided into 64 roles. The software could be viewed in 519 screens and can generate 406 reports. “We have deployed four modules and three are in pilot. There are possibilities to conclude things in three months. SI will take care of completion of bundle of services but are yet to be appointed,” shared Sanjay Sahay, IGP and Head of State Crime Records Bureau, Karnataka.

agreement with HCL Infosystems for supplying of hardware and peripherals. MANIPUR: Manipur government has selected Leasing and Financial Limited (IL&FS) as SPMC for the implementation of CCTNS. RAJASTHAN: Capacity building module is under execution under the state CCTNS project. In April 2010, training centres across 41 districts in state were set up to educate the cops about computers and imparting basic IT literacy. Updating on the progress of work under CCTNS, A Paunnuchami, IGP, Nodal Officer, SCRB, Rajasthan informs, “Seven days training is being given out to the cops. Till now, 16,000 police personnel have under gone training. We have deputed 250 cops as trainers to these district centres, five cops at each district centre. These cops belonged to the in-house pool of 2000 IT literate cops, who were shortlisted for the same. These 250 cops, too, were trained before they get on their job.”

Challenges Not every police station has a broadband connectivity. Connectivity is a major challenge in difficult regions like dense forest, hills etc. In India power deficiency also poses difficulties for long term connectivity. One of the major challenges is resistance for change among the people or attitudinal change in the policeman. From last five years, police training includes computer literacy but those who have passed out before this face challenge to get them fitted into a new era of ICT. Fund flow is also a major concern. Centre will support this project for three years after which states will be responsible for its operation and maintenance. Effective data integration at all the levels is one of the most important challenges. At the state level, envisioning by state to integrate an ongoing evaluation system that monitors the effectiveness of daily operations and allows responding to problems and making midcourse corrections in a timely fashion for this project, is of utmost importance and achieving it is a big challenge. Since, the project deals with a great amount of information related to the authorised Police personnel, hackers may be able to compromise the system, leading to anything from data breach to loss of data. The system has to be designed with confidentiality, integrity and accountability as the highest priorities.

Analysis

Whither CSCs in West Bengal Common service centres

Building a state wide information infrastructure by setting up 6,000 CSCs covering all villages is a commendable plan, but the digital inclusion strategy in the CSC scheme can be effective only when the center owners, service center agency and local government representatives work together for common public goods By Shib Shankar Dasgupta

he common service center (CSC) scheme under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) envisages setting up of 100,000 CSCs to offer online services to all the 600,000 villages in India. This article investigates the implementation strategy of the CSCs scheme in West Bengal to highlight three different levels of analysismacro, meso and micro. The arguments in the three-level analysis helps in understanding the overarching theme of the NeGP in India: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Make all government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common manâ&#x20AC;? (Department of Information Technology, Annual Report, 2009-10). The argument at the macro-level is that business efficiency and social equity trade off in the CSC scheme,

A CSC in Bankura District of West Bengal

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Analysis

though essential, has to nurture certain egalitarian approaches to bring the benefits of the new initiative to the ordinary citizens in West Bengal. The reengineering initiatives conceptualised and designed within the discourses of the NeGP in West Bengal form the meso-level of analysis. It is argued here that the backend reengineering necessary for connected governance is not about investments in ICT hardware and software only. It needs a drastic change of mindset of bureaucratic decision makers to look for genuine potentials for integrating local resources to make the CSCs in West Bengal more sustainable and meaningful for the ordinary citizens. The efforts in operationalising the CSCs and interactions of the citizen-users at the centers constitute the micro-level analysis of this study. At the micro-level, success of the CSCs in West Bengal depends on the combined efforts of the kiosk owners, local government representatives, and the local citizens to work together and identify local needs to foster some common public good.

Process reengineering This meso-level analysis offers the advantages of connecting the project directly with the technocrats and bureaucrats who control the process of engineering and finance for the CSCs in West Bengal. The various state mission mode projects (MMP) under the NeGP in West Bengal are primarily interested in the procurement of new technologies for digitising the backend operations of various government functions. The idea of reengineering to adopt automation and transform bureaucratic hierarchical structures, functions and service delivery mechanism in a holistic manner is hardly evident in the activities of the state ministries and departments in West Bengal. But simple digitising of existing processes without changing the hierarchical decision making processes does not improve accountability, efficiency and transparency in government functions. Public services delivered through CSCs are not static offerings for one-time consumption only. Services through the CSCs have certain intrinsic values that generate more opportunities for the citizens in a cascading fashion. For example, delivering examination results through the CSCs is for one-time consumption but delivering courses over the Internet is a continuous process that demands a reiterative loop involving citizensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

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The authorities in West Bengal have failed to integrate the ordinary citizens with the common service center scheme feedback. Organising such alternative opportunities based on the needs and concerns of local citizens is totally missing in the reengineering part of the NeGP in West Bengal. Further, improving the state of e-literacy among ordinary citizens is a crucial issue in the common service centers scheme. In West Bengal, where e-Literacy is abysmal and poverty is widespread, organizing subsidized e-Literacy programs to avail e-Governance services for the ordinary citizens is a massive challenge. West Bengal government already has its own established IT training centers in the district level. It is not clear whether the local Panchayats will support the privately owned CSCs or their own government IT training centers. Similarly, the local Panchayat offices in West Bengal also have acquired huge number of hardware and software to offer public services across the state.

Performance Building a state-wide information infrastructure of 6,000 CSCs distributed in all the villages in West Bengal is a commendable plan to serve the ordinary citizens in the state. But the digital inclusion strategy in the CSC scheme can be effective only when the center owners, service center agency and the local government representatives work together for some common public good. It is extremely difficult to enforce any community control over the activities of the CSC owners as they are private entrepreneurs in West Bengal. As a result, there is a constant conflict of interest between the business commitments of the private centers and the broader social and developmental objectives promised in the CSCs in the state. Revenue generation model of the centers is another important concern. It is extremely difficult for the centers to remain financially

viable, given the dearth of online services. Some of the centers are offering private goods and services to remain economically viable. Consequently, question arises on the basic objectives of embarking on creating a state-wide information infrastructure, when the government doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have public services to offer to the citizens through these centres. Moreover, all the center owners in West Bengal report to the service center agency, Shrei Sahaj Private Limited, a division of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited. By bringing in a private company as a service center agency, the state government has blocked all electronic service delivery competitions in West Bengal. Finally, almost all the center owners in West Bengal have plans to start IT training courses to support their businesses. But all these IT training courses are for-profit projects and not e-literacy programs to develop a critical mass of ordinary citizens and create a demand for electronic services in West Bengal.

Conclusion The authorities in the state have failed to integrate the ordinary citizens with the common service center scheme. On paper, the Left Front government has accepted the NeGP but in reality they have surreptitiously made the CSCs defunct by blocking the backend operations with the frontend Internet centers. In the process, the three primary attributes of the NeGP, namely, efficiency, transparency and accountability in public services can never be accomplished in West Bengal.

the author Shib Shankar Dasgupta is a PhD Candidate at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, USA.

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Rajasthan

Health of e-Gov in Rajasthan Save departments akin Commercial Tax and Excise, it’s quite rare to notice a theory underlying various e-Governance projects across all the departments By Pratap Vikram Singh, eGov Bureau

rowing with six percent plus growth rate over the past two decades, Rajasthan has emerged as one of the foremost players in the national economy. Increased industrial growth, agriculture, tourism and young demographics –almost 40 percent of the population- are engines for the high-paced economy. In information technology, the state has emerged as one of the favourite destinations for many domain business houses as is it ranked the eighth biggest IT hub in the country. It is also one of the first few states to have an IT Policy in the year 2000. While making Jaipur as a preferable destination for attracting IT investments, the Vasundhara Raje regime had built the much required ecology for e-Enabling the state. The subsequent, also the present government has remained vigilant, given the regular stock taking of several e-Governance projects done by the current top state leadership. Rajasthan deserves appreciation for being the first state to have issued an executive order mandating the departments to allocate three percent of the Plan Budget for rolling out critical online government to citizen (G2C) services. It’s also the only state to have mandated the ownership of the common services centre (CSC) [under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP)] to women. Besides, it’s a pioneer state to use mobile platform for bringing in transparency and convenience to citizens in service delivery. [Read projects: e-Sanchar, iFACTS] With the thrust provided by the state top leadership, the revenue earning departments – the commercial tax and excise – started automation in year 2002-03. Today, Department of Excise has become a virtual paper-less office, where more than 80 percent of the work is being done through IT. Commercial Tax department get its 45 percent of the revenue through electronic mode. Department of Mines of Geology, too, is way ahead of its counter parts in other states in leveraging GIS in its business processes. However, in spite of all forward moves taken by the state authorities on e-Government, the e-Enablement of state as was envisaged by the government in the IT policies of the year 2000 and

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2010

2007 is still a distant dream. Save the revenue earning departments-Commerical Tax and Excise- in the state, the re-engineering and automation of business processes and electronic delivery of services are yet to be made a priority in most of the departments. Use of three percent of plan budget expenditure on providing electronic services was first mentioned in year 2000 policy and was repeated in IT and ITES Policy 2007. However, it was only in the year 2009 when Chief Minister Ashok Gahlot mentioned in his address to the state assembly that all of the departments will be using three percent of their Plan Budget for rolling out online critical G2C services, on the obvious request from the state Department of IT. Following the budget announcement, the state government issued a circular (dated January 18, 2010) mandating the departments to roll out a minimum of two G2C services within a period of six months. Quite expectedly, departments were again indifferent to this ambitious deadline. As of now, the IT dept has appointed consultants for preparing reports for almost eleven departments for rolling online services.

RAJASTHAN

Infrastructure Projects Infrastructure Projects

Project Details

Project Status

Project Cost

Implemena tion Agency

SDC

Total Rack Space in SDC: 46 & 60TB (SAN) storage capacity

Implemented | up and running

INR 30 Crore

Spanco

SWAN

2Mbps at blocks, 4Mbps at district

Bid evaluation under process

INR 160 Crore

CSC

Target: 6626 CSCS

Achieved 1800*

INR 35 Crore**

CMS Infotech and Zoom Developers

SSDG

42 services of 7 departments

Placed work order

INR 11 Crore

Wipro

eDistrict

integrated and seamless delivery of services in districts

Pilted in Jodhpur and Ajmer

INR 6.42 Crore

* Till January 6, 2011 ** For 2010-11

The progress under NeGP is not satisfactory. Though state was able to set up a State Data Centre in December 2010, it has to still cover a long way in projects like State Wide Area Network (SWAN), Common Services Centre (CSC) and mission mode projects including land records, municipalities and road transport.

presently. In rural areas, under NeGP, around 6626 Common Services Centres are to be set up across the states, out of which 1800 are operational (as of January 06, 2011). CMS Infotech and Zoom Developers are the Service Centre Agency (SCA) working on this project.

Infrastructure

Electronic delivery of services is another area where the state has to still work upon. Contrary to a list of promises made in the IT policy documents, online availability of services being one

The NeGP aims to set up IT infrastructure across the country for providing electronic delivery of services at citizen’s doorstep with a strategy of centralised planning and decentralised implementation. In SWAN project, the authorities are yet to place the work order. The project was approved way back in the year 2006. In fact, Rajasthan was among few states to get approval immediately after NeGP got in existence. The consultant, 3i Infotech, was appointed the same year. Reportedly, prior to the current bidding, there has already been bidding for couple of times, however, the department of IT was unable to finalise the bidder. State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) project is being implemented by Wipro Technologies and by July 2011 it is expected to be operational. However, state has to its credit a successful model running in almost all of its towns, popular as e-Mitra. Launched in the year 2005, more than 600 e-Mitra kiosks are working,

Services

state focus

of them, the state is yet to pull its socks. Out of a list of ten critical government to citizen services which includes land records, public grievances and police complain registration, the state has a few, relatively less critical services online. At a time when the Government of India is planning to make available every government service online by the year 2014, and when many of the states are drafting legislation to ensure availability of services through internet, the state of Rajasthan is yet to pull its socks and transit to a get-set-go mode on the online services front.

Policies Rajasthan has state Information Technology Policies with vision as broader as leveraging technology for “integrated participation” in the development process, improvement in the “quality of every aspect of human life”, and emergence of a competitive society and a vibrant economy. Seven years later, state came up with another policy on IT in 2007, which laid out three essential objectives– leveraging ICT for good governance (i), economic development through attracting investments on IT & ITES sector(ii) and nurturing IT skilled human resource and bridging digital divide in the state (iii). Even a quick glance at these documents clarifies its impeccability in terms of being the blue prints for the state e-Governance roadmap. However, most of the things that were proposed in these documents were not followed by concrete administrative action, cutting across all the departments. As a result, even after 11 years since the first policy was announced, the vision and objectives on e-Governance has mostly remained on papers.

Services

Online service availability status

Land Records

Birth & Death Certificates

√

Public Utility

√

Registration of Police complains

Police Verification

Education(Scholarship)

Pension

NREGS

√

Public Grievances System

Health

April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

state focus

Rajasthan

IT & ITES

Policy 2007 Review S.No

Policy Initiatives

Project Details

Status (Mar 11)

CARISMA*

Wireless network for PRIs;

In Process

Departments’ five year IT Plan

Plan with yearly deliverables

In Process

Comprehensive eGov Architecture

Integration, interoperability & uniform information sharing among all depts

In Process

ICT for RTI

Speedier delivery of information services

In Process

CIO for every Department

Responsible for automation

In Process

Recommendations

IT Security Policy for ICT Infra

Government Websites

Maintenance and updating of depts' web

In Process

BPR

State to establish nodal committees at departmental level to monitor BPR & CM

In Process

State e-Governance Council

Formulating policies

In Process

IT Investments

Creating IT Hubs in tier 2 & 3 cities

In Process

* Computerisation Automation Refinement & Integrated System of Management and Accounts

There are a number of factors that have acted as roadblocks in true adoption of e-Government in state, be it the slower developments in terms of infrastructure, online services availability or policy execution.

Roadblocks In almost every government body, a genuine hurdle in planning and executing an e-Government project is the administrative capacity. In response, the state IT dept has underlined this very basic challenge and is in the process of doing mass hiring of IT personnel who will be placed with various departments at the middle management level and below, and also intends to pursue a CIO programme, covering all the departments. Business continuity is yet another challenge in implementation of projects in government. It is one of the prime reason behind the delay in execution of state specific IT projects and policy initiatives for furthering modernisation and increasing the capacities into the government. Within a span of four years, the Department of Information and Technology and Communication (DOITC) is having its third Secretary in office. While being the Principal Secretary with Department of IT mid 2007 to early 2009, C K

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2010

for maximizing state revenues, it’s quite rare to notice a theory underlying various eGovernment projects across all the departments. Though the terminologies like ‘citizen centric’ governance and ‘transparency’ are quite popular in most of the project documentations, the clarity on its actual significance and the leadership role provided by the departments head, is yet to be seen in most of the offices.

Mathew penned the IT and ITES Policy 2007, which laid out clear roadmap for adoption of e-Government and promotion of state as favorable destination for attracting IT investments. He was succeeded by Tanmay Kumar, who floated the guidelines for use of three percent budgetary allocation for implementing IT projects and rolling out electronically a minimum of two G2C services, across all the departments. Sanjay Malhotra, an IAS officer of the 1990 cadre is the successor of Kumar and is presently holding the position of Secretary cum Commissioner with Department of IT and Communications. Taking note of the existing dearth in administrative capacity for executing eGovernance projects, Malhotra is working on pumping in fresh blood in to the IT department and provide an army of ICT practitioners to all the state departments. However, whether his association would be for a minimum of three years or as short as of his two predecessors, is a question mark. Indifference and lack of ownership towards IT automation projects in departments is one big challenge, the Department of IT has been struggling with. Save departments akin Commercial Tax and Excise wherein clarity exists on use of ICT

Be it any state, aligning e-Governance roadmap and vision with state’s broader-developmental agenda can go a long way in inculcating skills and buy in for use of ICTs in internal business processes and service delivery. Business Process Reengineering is yet another critical part in any transformational project. State IT and ITES Policy 2007 did mention about undertaking BPR across all the departments and in fact it went to the extent of setting up department specific teams under the leadership of Secretary/ Principal Secretary, which could drive the BPR in the department. Given the fact mere automation of the legacy processes won’t go long way in achieving the organisational goals, BPR must be mandated in almost all of the eGovernment projects. After having completed the phase of setting up IT infrastructure across the state, the emphasis should be primarily on increasing the number of electronically delivered critical G2C services. The hundreds and hundreds of crores of expenditure on ICT in government would not be worth if the authorities did not succeed in ensuring efficiency, effectiveness and convenience to the citizen in service delivery. An example of prioritising electronic delivery of services can be seen at the Central level as well as in states like Maharashtra where the governments are working on legislative framework for making at least a hundred online services available to citizens and businesses in a time bound manner. In Rajasthan, the apex level committee through its regular meetings for stock taking of various Central and state IT initiatives has been a driver for furthering the automation and Government 2.0 agenda in the state of Rajasthan. The departments and areas where the progress is below normal, the committee ensures that the required follow up actions are taken there on. However, a full fledged ownership requires a direct push from the CM Office. Projects receiving direct CM intervention have usually done better. A case in point is the ‘Prashasan Gaon Ke Sang’ programme, where in the state authorities have set

RAJASTHAN

Other Key state e-Governance

initiatives

e-Gram project Besides, IT is also being leveraged in the non-revenue generating departments, with its application for pursuing long term goals like human development, particularly in rural and remote areas. e-Gram is one such state project, having been implemented by the State NIC team. Started in October 2007, with the direct push from the Chief Minister Office, eGram has been envisaged as a tool to monitor the availability of ‘basic amenities’ at the village level across the 33 districts in the state. Currently, it covers rural infrastructure and services under 11 departments. By the end of every month, the government gets the data from nearly 45000 (revenue) villages across the state. It’s a web based application – a monitoring tool - where in current data on the state of availability of drinking water, food [public distribution system], health, education and electricity is measured, quantitatively and qualitatively by a local designated official in the villages. Data collection is done though the village official [Gram Prabhari], who carries a paper document – essentially the forms for the reality check of the service / infrastructure – to the village and source the data (feedback) directly from the residents. This data is fed into the system at the nearby block or the district headquarters. Thereafter, the data goes live, online, which can be accessed by the District Collectors (DC) and the concerned senior level officials of the departments. Following the data entry, DCs and other District Level Officers are required to take the corrective measures in areas where the citizens are facing trouble. However, the web based application is still for in house usage. Though recently, the Planning department, the nodal agency for the project, has planned to put the e-Gram website in the public domain in a month’s time. Currently, the Chief Secretary of State himself reviews, monthly, the performance of departments, as recorded under e-Gram, through directly interacting with all the DCs, via video conferencing. Terming project a success, Officials related to e-Gram said, even in times of frequent elections in the past two years, the department has been able to get the data from almost 80-85 percent of the villages out of the total number of 45,000. Online monitoring of Prashasan Gaon Ke Sang ‘Prashasan Gaon Ke Sang’ was a government 52 day campaign which involved officials from different departments going to village panchayats for hearing public grievances related to 18 departments, went on between November

10 and December 31, 2010. The officials were asked to dispose the cases, if feasible, on spot, or relatively in a shorter span of time. The data related to day to day applications were updated on website, on daily basis, and so over all monitoring was being done centrally from the Chief Ministers Office. Online monitoring tool for CSC The application to monitor the number and amount of transactions, types of services was developed by the state department of IT and Communication. The Central Department of IT has scaled this monitoring tool to CSC being run in 27 states. The URL for the Rajasthan CSC monitoring is http://www.cscmis.emitra.gov.in/ e-Sanchar and proposed iFacts e-Sanchar [e-Speech Application through Network for Automated Communication, Help and Response)] is yet another unique project of the state– which aims to reach out to the rural residents with information on government to citizen services – through a personalised voice call – being done through the integration of mobile telephony and Information technology. The services on which information is sent include: old age pension, handicap and widow for the sanction and monthly release of pensions and social messages. The voice calls mitigate the gap of literacy in the given services delivery. The application has been successfully implemented in the chief minister relief scheme at Shahpura near Jaipur. And now the dept of IT is planning to roll it out for many more departments, covering whole of the state. RajCOMP is working on proof of concept for leveraging the mobile telephony for reaching out to citizens for getting their feedbacks. An automated IVRS call would go to a resident’s mobile or telephone which would ask him about his feedback on services. When implemented, this would lead to a complete transformation of the way monitoring is done for government to citizen service delivery. Arogya Online Sawai Man Singh Medical College and Hospital, the biggest tertiary care hospital in the state, became the first hospital to adopt the IT enablement of its various clinical and non clinical operations. The modules executed under HIMS includes: registration, indoor patient department, billing, enquiry, investigation (Central Lab), diet, pharmacy and OT. The IT enablement of SMS is part of the Arogya Online project of the state, under which the six government medical colleges and hospital and their associate hospitals would be computerised and provided with HIMS.

state focus

up a camp in rural areas to dispose of the citizen’s application for various government to citizen services. In most of the cases, disposal is done either on-spot or in an earliest possible duration. The whole monitoring of this unique programme is done at the CMO. e-Government perhaps demands an equal priority. It is important to notice here that the State e-Governance Council, which is headed by the CM, is yet to convene its first meeting, after years of its inception.

Ray of Hope Moving ahead, a ray of light seems glittering on the other side of the tunnel. Quite recently, Ashok Gahlot in his Budget 2011-12 speech has read out some corrective measures that would be taken to expedite the slow transformation in eGovernment domain. Gahlot assured on the availability of funds for implementing IT projects in the state. He informed that as the follow up to the three percent budgetary allocation for execution of office automation and rolling out online services, `300 crores have been earmarked for the fiscal 2011-12 for all the departments. To provide the actual benefit of the ICT initiatives, being undertaken in various bodies of government, CM has announced ‘Rajasthan Online Project’, which would prioritise the online operations and service delivery for better government and citizen interface. Moreover, to bring in the much talked about ‘transparency’ into the government, including the tendering (tenders above `50 Lakh) and procurement process, he also proposed to have ‘Rajasthan Transparency Act’ – which would provide for phase wise execution of eProcurement across departments. In sum, the fact that chief political and administrative executives are quite positive about using e-Government for enabling good governance in state can’t be negated. This is the time when state departments can use the current ecology in their favour, for enhancing the state citizen interface with help of technology, and resources at their disposal. Businesses have already found IT an inalienable part of their work processes and roadmap to success. The sooner the government moves towards modernising and transforming its processes and service delivery mechanism, the better would be the state citizen relationship, and so would be political, social and economic stability. It is high time that the political and administrative leaders join hands together to realise a true electronic government and governance in Rajasthan in a time bound fashion. April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

in person

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

interview in person

Sanjay Malhotra

Secretary to Government, Department of IT & Communications, Government of Rajasthan

“pumping state capacity is key to

enabling e-Government”

hat is your vision and strategy for enabling e-Government in Rajasthan?

The vision is to deliver the services to citizens in a hassle-free and cost-effective manner. Firstly, we propose to set up a robust IT infrastructure for the state government, so that the particular departments may not have to worry about IT, and the applications for the departments’ operations and services delivery could be done ‘on demand’. Secondly, capacity building of state government personnel is key to enabling e-Government in the state. Under National eGovernance Plan (NeGP), National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) is facilitating an executive training programme on e-Governance at the Manipal University. We have sent our first batch of seven officials to this programme. We have now mandated e-Literacy as the eligibility criterion for LDC recruitment. Besides, to create e-Gov champions in every department, we are planning to provide an executive three months mentoring-cum-training programme on e-Governance for the middle management personnel from next year onwards. Thirdly, we are planning to pump in fresh blood into the IT department and recruiting nearly 70- 80 personnel in the departments at the middle management level and 300 to 400 people at the lower levels to drive eGovernance projects across all the departments. In sum, we envision facilitating more and more citizen centric services, electronically. This would include PDS, transport, agriculture, commercial tax, inter alia.

Despite all implementation challenges like business continuity, lack of administration capacity and indifference of line departments, the Department of Information Technology (DOIT) is doing a 9 to 9 job to push the e-Governance agenda in the state. Sanjay Malhotra, Secretary to Government, Department of Information Technology and Communications, Government of Rajasthan in conversation with Pratap Vikram Singh talks about e-Governance road map, initiatives and challeges in the state of Rajasthan

Can you elaborate on ICT projects being implemented across departments in the state? IT infrastructure is a basic need for all the departments. With GIS, we have a common infrastructure, which could be leveraged across all the departments. The spatial technology is being used for road construction, on a regular basis. Public Health Engineering Department is another department which is using the same technology in their work. The other project we are working on is e-Office, which is aimed at improving April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

in person

utilisation but not much action has been taken. Initially, we did not have enough of manpower to do it. As I said earlier, now we are increasing our human resource. In just one year time, we have almost doubled our human resource in the IT department. Things would start happening in another 12 months time. For the coming fiscal year, we would have funds more than `125 Crore at our dis-

1,75,000 G2C transactions and about 75,000 B2C transactions. Apart from spreading CSCs geographically we also need to increase the breadth of the services, which at present are very few. We have added some B2C services in last 2-3 months which include railways and roadways online ticketing , LIC and ICICI Prudential. Now we are roping in services like utilities - telephone and mobile payments. Moreover, we are

“ The commitment for

using three percent of plan budget is the result of determination

at the highest political

and administrative level”

posal. We are now confident that we will be able to progressively move towards achieving this vision. internal efficiency and automation of the government offices. Besides, we have been doing e-Procurement. Although, we started e-Procurement five years back, adoption of technology has been an issue. The results have not been very satisfactory. Now, we are upgrading it and there is a willingness to do the electronic procurement in a big way. Another key application is human resource management (HRM), which has been done in states like Gujarat and Karnataka. These are three common applications which we want to build for departments to use other than GIS for planning purpose. On the Government to Citizen (G2C) front, we are in the process of preparing detailed project reports for 11 departments, including PDS.

How has been your experience of pushing the use of three percent of Plan Budget by all the departments for rolling out e-Services? The allocation would be happening in the coming fiscal year. Even though the departments were asked to do so in the previous fiscal year, we have not been able to use that fund. All these were on paper. Guidelines were issued for fund

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

getting personal

born 14th February 1968 education B Tech, Computer Sc and Engg; Master of Public Policy ( Princeton Univ ) Business Initiative: Various e-gov projects like SDC, SWAN, SSDG, CSC, HIMS Passion: Using technology to empower people past time Golf and bridge

What are your recommendations for adopting the three percent budget allocation formula to other states? The government should ensure the business continuity of the official looking after it, say for at least three years. Moreover, there should be determination from the top leadership. In our state, we have been continuing with the allocation plan for speedier roll out of e-Services, in spite of initial not-so-encouraging response from all the departments. This has been possible just because of the commitment at the topmost levels in both political and administrative set-up.

CSCs have been struggling for viability and sustainability in all states in the country. How are you proposing to fix these isues in Rajasthan? If you don’t consider the sheer number in terms of setting up CSCs, setting up rate is not very high but our success rate is much higher. Number of transactions is increasing at the rate of 20 percent per month. Last month, we did about

now planning for making available land records and bonafide resident, caste and birth and death certificates. For certificates, we have got the application ready.

Please elaborate on the state CIO initiative? The aim is to achieve a CIO in every department. There are almost 70 – 80 departments. So we need to have 70 -80 CIOs. For others we are doing, short training of three weeks. Gradually, we will be able to make use of this skilled resource pool for government IT projects, in respective departments. So we might not be able to achieve target of one CIO in every department in a short time, it might take five to seven years, to achieve the same.

Do you have policy on standardisation and plans for having legislation on cyber security and information security? We have now made it mandatory for all applications to obtain a certificate that they are safe and get a security audit done. They have to have a security audit and get a certification on applications from the apex certification agency – that is CERTIN. All the technical parameters, like interoperability, standardisation, etc., are being looked after so that the applications can talk to each other.

neGP Update

NeGP Update 8th Meeting of Council of Mission Leaders

Indian National e-Government Workshop

Documentation for Increasing Stakeholder Competency Playing role of knowledge repository in the e-Gov domain, the new section on e-Governance updates in e-Gov magazine would provide the much needed information to all the key stakeholders By Shankar Aggarwal

D Shankar Aggarwal Additional Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Government of India

epartment of Information Technology (DIT), through National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) is creating national information infrastructure with an aim to modernise and further empower the public sector to keep pace with the rapid and continuous sophistication in technology, reform the service delivery and simplify the government and business interface. The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), takes a holistic view of e-Governance initiatives across the country, integrating them into a collective vision, a shared cause. Around this idea, a massive countrywide infrastructure reaching down to the remotest of villages is evolving, and large-scale digitisation of records is taking place to enable easy, reliable access over the Internet. The ultimate objective is to bring public servic-

Conference on Tech Solutions for Rural Service Delivery

escloser home to citizens, as articulated in the vision statement of NeGP. The government approved the NationaleGovernance Plan (NeGP), comprising of 27Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) and eight components, on May 18, 2006. The government has accorded approval to the vision, approach, strategy, key components, implementation methodology, and management structure for NeGP. However, the approval of NeGP does not constitute financial approval(s) for all the Mission Mode Projects and components under it. The existing or ongoing projects in the MMP category, being implemented by various Central Ministries and States would be suitably augmented and enhanced to align with the objectives of NeGP. In the Plan execution, the Department of IT is undertaking several activities each month to ensure proper implementation and monitoring of the respective Mission Mode Projects. The activities vary from regular meetings on projects update, review and monitoring and capacity building through conferencesand workshops across 35 states and Union Territories. Nevertheless, equally important is the documentation and sharing of these developments to all key stakeholders, across the country. Besides, the documentation has to be done by the domain experts. I am happy to learn that from April onwards, egov magazine will have dedicated section for the coverage of all these essential activities. egov has been a knowledge repository in the e-Governance domain since last six years. I wish this section would provide the much needed information and updates to all the key stakeholders including citizens, businesses and especially, government officials and the political executives. I thank the egov team for taking this initiative and wish them all success. April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

neGP Update

Participants at the Indian National e-Government Workshop at NDMC Convention Centre, New Delhi

Indian National e-Government Workshop Department of Information Technology, Government of India in collaboration with United Nations Project Office on Governance organised ‘Indian National e-Government Workshop’ between February 28 and March 1, 2011 in the Capital. The workshop witnessed participation of high level delegation from South Korea and champions from all Indian states and UT governments’ Information Technology departments. From the Central level, senior officials from Department of Information Technology and Director General of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) participated in the conference.

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

Speaking at the workshop, Ram Sewak Sharma , DG, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) informed that the Authority aims at assigning unique identity number to 600 million of population by 2014. Making a presentation on diverse applications of UID, he said with UID being assigned to all the residents, people would be on the [government] radar and it would be easy for the authorities to track people related with security concerns. “We are assuming that in a single identity paradigm, things will move in a better manner,” he said. UID would enable tracking of end to end service delivery. It would play a role in subscription to new services. It would simplify and expedite money trans-

fer and consumer banking as a whole. It would have social security number of type linkage. Besides, UID, technology-enabled banking would result in reduction of per transaction cost which could be from `15 to `2. Dr M Jae Moon, Professor of Public Administration, Yonsei University gave a presentation on On-Nara Business Processing System, which is in practice in Korea. Under this system, all the decision making processes are recorded and managed online and around 55 central government agencies in Korea are currently using On Nara system. Moon elaborated that with On Nara system being in practice, all the decisions and opinions are recorded in e-Document cards. It has also resulted in the history manage-

neGP Update

ment of all the edited documents and online administration of the entire policy making process. Averring the fact that the system has resulted in the enhancement of government efficiency, Moon stated that almost 96.6 percent of officers now use On Nara business process system. Gregory J Pokorny, Principal Manager with the Global Cooperation Division of the National Information Society Agency elaborated on the global adoption of Cloud Computing in government. He informed that in Australia, the departments of Finance and Census are positive about using cloud-based services in their business operations. In UK, cloud computing is part of the digital Britain strategy, as proposed by UK CIO. In US, the country has a Federal Cloud Computing Strategy. Here, almost 20-25 percent of IT budget in government goes to the cloud computing technology. In China, IBM is offering platform as a service to develop applications. In South Korea, there has been a $520million investment in cloud creation. Contrasting the popular adoption of cloud technology in these countries with India Pokorny said there is no support policy or legislation or research and development to promote cloud adoption.

Council of Mission Leaders discuss MCA21 The Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India conducted the 8th Council of Mission leaders meeting on March 17, 2011. In this meeting, Ministry of Company Affairs gave presentation on the MCA 21 – the Mission Mode Project (MMP) under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) and enlightened on the do’s and don’ts for the execution of projects. MCA 21 is the first national MMP which got executed well before time in the year 2006. Project’s successful implementation and operation has set a bench mark for other MMPs. Council of Mission Leaders is an initiative of the Department of Information Technology for sharing of common issues, challenges and possible solutions coming across in various phases of the MMP execution, among all key mission leaders and make recommendations to the Apex Committee chaired by the Cabinet Secretary.

Each Mission Leaders of these MMPs have valuable learning from the practical experience of working on these MMPs. It is quite obvious that there is a need for a high collaboration and sharing of knowledge. The prime roles of the Council includes: to act as a forum for exchange of ideas and sharing of learning; to act as a coordinator in helping to resolve issues related to coordination such as interoperability, alignment of timelines etc.; to look out for future challenges and take appropriate measures to adequately address them in advance; to share knowledge and best practices which will facilitate solutions expeditiously. Besides, the mission leaders have also the task of contemplating on the need for CIOs with each line ministry/department, business process reengineering, monitoring and evaluation framework. Globally, US has a CIO council, which aims to achieve information resource management objectives delineated in legislation including the e-Government Act of 2002, Government Paperwork Elimination Act, Paperwork Reduction Act, Government Performance and Results Act, and the Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996. The Chair of the CIO Council in US is the Deputy Director for Management for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Vice Chair is elected by the CIO Council from its membership. Membership on the Council comprises CIOs and Deputy CIOs from 28 Federal executive Agencies. In Australia, under the direction of the Secretary’s ICT Governance Board (SIGB), the Chief Information Officer Committee (CIOC) investigates, identifies and endorses ICT issues and solutions and emerging trends to be applied at a whole-of-government level. The CIOC is chaired by Finance and comprises Chief Information Officers (CIOs) representative of central bodies, portfolio departments and service delivery agencies. Governments in UK and Estonia, too, have constituted CIO Council for intensifying the deliberations on improving and up scaling of ICT projects in the public sector

National Conference and Exhibition on Technology Solutions for Rural Service Delivery To promote innovations in technologies for service delivery in rural areas, National Informat-

ics Centre organised National Conference and Exhibition on Technology Solutions for Rural Service Delivery between March 24 ad March 25 in the Capital. In his inaugural address, Kapil Sibal, Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology pointed out to the significance of uniformity and standardisation in e-Governance projects. The minister said the rural areas have their own specific requirements. The solutions working in the developed world, may not be suited best to the interest and requirement of the Indian rural region. He cited the example of making available ` 1500 laptop to every child in rural India, which if otherwise procured, could cost government a sizable chunk of the Budget. The minister also apprised about the recent decision taken by the Cabinet to enable online repository and management of academic certificates. He reasoned, “If share certificates can be in demat format, why can’t degrees be demat format.” It would be a data repository with the government, from which pupil can obtain certificates by paying small fee. Besides, he emphasised on the need for innovation in service delivery, technology solutions, devices, and highways of information. Giving the welcome address, Dr B K Gairola said NIC has been in the field of eGovernance for the past 30 years. He stated that the dynamics of application of ICT in government has changed rapidly over the years. Initially, eGovernment was confined to MIS and decision support systems in to the government. However, now the focus has shifted to government to citizen interface. R Chandrashekhar, Secretary, Department of Telecom said even with the technology infrastructure in place, it is too hard to obtain information. For achieving true e-Government at the local level, “It is very important that data entry doesn’t happen in manual format but in digital,” he said. Connectivity has been an issue in bridging the digital divide. However, with advent of broadband plan, connectivity may not remain an issue. After complete connectivity and integration, the leakages into the social sector schemes could be fixed. In his concluding remarks, Chandrashekhar stressed upon the need for solutions particularly suited to the rural areas. April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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Smart City 2011 report

Driving Forces Behind Smart Cities

Smart city via denizens’ feedback A key step towards building smart cities is to include citizens as stakeholders and participants and not as mere beneficiaries

(From L-R) Saugata Roy, Union Minister of State, Ministry of Urban Development; Dr Ravi Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, egov; Aruna Sundarajan, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Housing and Poverty Alleviation; M P Narayanan, President, Centre for Science Development and Media Studies; Sanjeev Mital, CEO, National Institute for Smart Governance; Sameer Sharma, Minicipal Commissioner, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation; Tapas Ghatak,Former Director, Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority

gov in collaboration with the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India (GoI) hosted the second edition of Smart City event on March 4th, 2011, in the Capital. The convention this year focused on the issues such as challenges faced to build sustainable smart cities with proper usage of resources and also saving up the non-renewable ones; how can technology be an effective enhancer and enabler for urban governance; challenges faced by municipal corporations and scope and need of municipal e-Governance. In his inaugural address, Saugata Roy, Union Minister of State, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India said that the uncontrolled population explosion is leading to creation of slums and worst conditions of living. To deal with this issue of rising slum

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

and Singapore.” He talked about six dimensions of a smart city, which includes smart economy, smart mobility, smart environment, smart people, smart living and smart governance; and stressed upon the role and significance of information and communication technology in facilitating the same. Stating the objectives of Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), Aruna Sundarajan, Joint Secreatary, Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation said, “ With the help of JNNURM we have managed to bring to centre-stage the need for reforms; and several cities and states have enthusiastically gone ahead with the reform agenda.” She stressed upon housing as a main issue and also a growth sector. “There is also an increasing realisation in countries all over the world that housing is a huge growth multiplier,” Sundarajan said on the issues of housing and slums development in urban areas. Sanjiv Mittal, Director, National Institute for Smart Government spoke on the importance of planned development of cities so as to enable them to become urban centres of growth. Pointing out the need for a uniform national policy or framework for e-Governance projects, Mittal said, “If every city does e-Governance projects as an independent entity it will take a long time to reap its benefits.” “Can we take advantages of what has already been done in one city and take

six dimensions of smart city include smart economy, smart mobility, smart environment, smart people, smart living and smart governance Rajiv Awas Yojana was formulated. “Although this year, there has been little allocation for Rajiv Awas Yojana in the budget, next year we will have an allocation of `6,000 crore,” the minister stated. Speaking about the concept of smart cities he said, “The smart city infrastructure is an introductory step for establishing the overall smart city framework and architecture. Very few smart cities have recently been established in the world including Dubai, Malta, Kochi

it across?” he reasoned. Tapas Ghatak, Former Director- Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority, in his address proposed the Ministry of Urban Development release documentation of the ‘best and worst practices’ of JNNURM across states so that lessons are learnt and successful models reviewed by everyone. He conceded that citizens were not yet a part of the planning process and thus a key stakeholder is being missed out.

Smart City 2011

Building Sustainable Cities

Sustainability is the key Optimum utilisation of available resources, streamlining of IT and planned governance are key to sustainable cities

(From L-R) Sidharth Agarwal, Director, Urban Health Resource Centre, Delhi; Dinesh Mohan, Volvo Chair Professor, IIT Delhi; Vivek Bharadwaj, CEO, Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority; Jay B Kshirsagar, Chief Planner, Town and Country Planning Organisation (TCPO), Ministry of Urban Development; Brijesh Kumar, Former Chairman and CEO, Greater Noida Authority; Naval Khosla, Project Manager, IBM; Subrata Das, Industry Director, Public Sector, SAP India; Rashmi Singh, State Project Coordinator, GNCTD-UNDP and Prakash Kumar, Director, Global Public Sector Practice, Cisco Systems

he panel brooded upon issues including building smart and sustainable cities. The session developed a consensus that it takes proper utilisation of available resources, streamlining of IT with traditional methods and a planned governance to make a city sustainable over a period of time. The session was moderated by Prakash Kumar, Director, Global Public Sector Practice, Cisco Systems and had some very eminent personalities from public as well as private sector. “We need to have sustainability as the main goal in three fronts- economic, environmental and social,” he said. Vivek Bharadwaj, CEO, Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority apprised about the new project of Baruipur Development in Kolkata. He opined that the project has taken into consideration challenges including conservation of energy and resources, integrated infrastructure and use of latest technology. He

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ous pockets in our cities with all world-class amenities or we have the extremely poor, there is a huge segment which is the average citizen whose needs are getting ignored due to these extreme situations,” he said. He also gave a brief chronological presentation on Greater Noida’s development and planning. Dinesh Mohan, Volvo Chair Professor, IIT Delhi defined a smart city as, “A city where my daughter and grandmother, both, can walk and cross the roads alone in evenings.” Articulating technology’s role in building smart cities, he said, “We must remember that there were wonderful cities about 50 years ago like Amsterdam and Barcelona when the level of IT availability was zero. So the issue is not just technology availability, the issue is basic infrastructure.” He gave statistics regarding urban transport and its relation with climate change saying, “IT in urban climate change is an enabler but not attractor.” He further elaborated on increased carbon dioxide production of different countries and regions. Presenting some facts, he said, “By 2050, our per capita carbon dioxide production would be around 5 tons.” “Poor people will have to increase energy consumption and rich and middle-class must reduce energy consumption to attain equity,” he added.

there is need for a concerted strategy which will bring together all components to bridge disconnects or the gaps in society shared a presentation showing various aspects of the development project and thus gave lessons to learn and knowledge to share. Brijesh Kumar, Former Chairman and CEO, Greater Noida Authority stressed upon the urbanisation challenges. The resource crunch and the environment issue which has risen due to climate change. “Planning and simplified governance are the key issues to build and sustain a smart city,” he said. He also said how huge sociological gaps have come up even when it comes to infrastructure and urbanisation, “We either create luxuri-

Rashmi Singh, State Project Coordinator, GNCTD-UNDP concluded the session by elaborating on what all make a city sustainable. She said, “There is no dearth of resources in big cities like Delhi, there is rather a need for a concerted strategy which will bring together all components to bridge disconnects or the gaps in society.” She spoke about using cutting-edge technologies and what are the various implementation challenges when it comes to do a fusion of human resources and ICT for the cause of all-round development of cities. April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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Smart City 2011

Enhancing Stakeholder Competencies

Making services available to all Keeping pace with innovations in technology and regular capacity building are critical to improving stakeholders competency

(From L-R) Rajeev Chawla, MD, KSCMF and Special Secretary (Bhoomi and Registration of Urban Properties, Government of Karnataka; S Velmurugan, Senior Scientist, Central Road Research Institute; Tapas Ghatak, Former Director, Former Director, KMDA; Ranjit Mitra, Former Director, School of Planning and Architecture; Tarun Seem, Head, Health Systems Support Unit, Public Health Foundation of India; Anurag Goyal, Director, e-Governance, Department of IT; Shrikant Shitole, Vice-President, Cisco Systems and Satyendra Garg, Joint Commissioner of Police, Delhi Traffic Police

ith the growing aging population in the government, especially in municipalities, capacity building is a mammoth task. Keeping pace with the innovations in technology; having an in-house resource pool to manage technology; integrated approach towards governance; capacity building and change management were the point of deliberations of the session. The session was moderated by Rajeev Chawla, MD, KSCMF, Special Secretary, Bhoomi and Registration of Urban Properties, Government of Karnataka. Satyendra Garg, JCP, Delhi Traffic Police (DTP) threw light on the new social media initiative, sms alerts and interactive website undertaken by the DTP for citizens. “The Facebook page started with an aim to connect

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

touched upon the key aspect of importance of healthcare infrastructure in a smart city. “It’s not about monetising the municipalities or raising money for the government, it is about universal healthcare,” he commented. “Healthcare is a growing sector and a key vertical for proper growth of a city,” he added. Anurag Goyal, Director, e-Governance, Department of Information Technology talked about the monetising issues of municipalities, where from and how to generate revenue for various services required by the citizens. “When the population increases, the demand for services like sewage disposal, water, roads, electricity, etc. rises,” he said. “Estimates say that we would require about $1.2 trillion for capital expenses and $1 trillion for maintenance of that infrastructure in the next 20 years,” he revealed. He also threw light on issues like managing financial resources for all the essential services and IT upgradation in Municipalities. Goyal pointed out that land revenue, taxes and allocation of funds from central government are the three main sources of money for municipalities. He also referred to underlying discrepancies in data management across the sectors in all authorities. He advocated use of technology for data management, which in turn would help in proper collection of rents and increased revenue for urban local bodies.

The Facebook page started on a notion to connect with citizens and now it has more than 50,000 members with citizens and now it has more than 50,000 members,” he stated. Shrikant Shitole, Vice-President, Cisco Systems spoke on the various new technologies that can be used in all aspects on governance from commutation to surveillance to better infrastructure. He also highlighted the changing role of government to make any nation progressive with the changing times. Tarun Seem, Head, Health Systems Support Unit, Public Health Foundation of India

Tapas Ghatak, Former Director, KMDA dwelt upon Municipal e-Governance and its sustainability and the importance of realising citizens as the main stakeholders and participants. “Let me reiterate, citizens are being left behind in the decision making process and thus a key stakeholder is being missed out,” he said while talking on the importance of citizens in the progress of a city. The session concluded with S Velmurugan talking about making land transport environmentally sustainable.

Smart City 2011

Automation of Municipalities

Of new technologies and sustainability Automation and simplification of service delivery critical to empowerment of citizens and building of smart cities

(From L-R) Sameer Sharma, Municipal Commissioner, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation; Vijay Gupta, CEO, Softech Engineers; Sanjeev Chopra, Joint Secretary & Mission Director NHM & NMMI, Ministry of Agriculture; Government of NCT of Delhi; AK Jain, Urban Consultant & Former Commissioner (Planning), DDA; Vijay Kumar, IT Commissioner, Kolkata and Savitur Prasad, Secretary IT, Government of NCT of Delhi

he session was moderated by Savitur Prasad, Secretary IT, Government of Delhi. The session dwelt upon new technologies and how Municipal e-Governance can be made more efficient and interactive. Municipal e-Governance is taking shape across the country with Municipalities being an MMP under JNNURM. Various initiatives have been successfully carried out in various states and cities. Savitur Prasad stated the possibility of computerisation of basic services like PDS, vegetable mandis and many others. “When basic amenities will be computerised and simplified then only citizens will be truly empowered and cities will become smart,” he said Sanjeev Chopra, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture talked about the sensitivity of food prices in India and how big a challenge it is to ensure good food for everyone in the city. He also stated, “Usually the importance of agriculture gets diminished in talks of e-Governance

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Real-Time Monitoring (OSRT) system which enables managing of civic amenities in a transparent and efficient manner. It uses a combination of Global Positioning System and General Packet Radio Services technologies through cellphones. He displayed real-time how garbage disposals are monitored with the help of the real-time monitoring system and thus efficiency is attained. He shared how the initiative was born, “When I was in the IT department I always thought Mobile Phone as a technology and medium has the greatest potential. And when I moved to the Municipal Commission I was looking for accountability tools. We wanted social audit but in real time.” AK Jain, former Commisioner (Planning), DDA gave the definition of smart city as, “Smart city is basically a synergy of space, services and the systems.” He talked of five-sensed smart cities and some idealisitic concepts for building infrastructure. He spoke on new-age recyclable building materials which are more effective and citizen-friendly. “We have to develop such a system which is self-sustainable and recyclable so that there is minimum wastage and maximum utilisation of resources,” he stated.

need to develop a system which is self-sustainable and recyclable so that there is minimum wastage and maximum utilisation of resources as the focus usually gets on infrastructure, technology, health, sanitation and good food for good cities takes a back seat.” He spoke on using new age technology such as GPS or some sort of monitoring through which everyone involved in the cities’ food chain can be tagged electronically and monitored. This is a way to curb the huge black marketing of food grains, fruits and vegetables. “Smart cities will need smart food and right technologies need to be incorporated to give smart food to the citizens,” he concluded. Sameer Sharma of GHMC talked about Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation’s new mobile-based IT initiative Off-Site

He also discussed renewable resources of energy and their optimum utilisation. “India is blessed to have solar energy in abundance but unfortunately, we don’t use it as much as we should,” he opined. Vijay Gupta, CEO, Softech Engineers Pvt. Ltd. identified coordination of multiple agencies as the biggest challenge in the working of a municipality. “For example, if a building has to be built, the permission has to be obtained from a number of departments including: construction approval, property tax, fire, water supply, electricity board, among others.” This paves the way for a lot of data transfer and data management. April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

in person

The main drivers of biometric projects are the on-going revolution in e-Governance due to citizen-driven expectations

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

in person

Jean Paul Jainsky Chairman and CEO Morpho

“Moving

towards Realising

the UID Dream”

ahindra Satyam-Morpho is among the three successful bidders to the prestigious Aadhaar (Unique Identification) project of India, and inked the formal contract with UIDAI for a duration of 2-years recently. How important is this deal for you and how optimistic you are of the project?

Jean Paul Jainsky is a French

As the world leader in automated fingerprint identification systems (AFIS) and ID management solutions, Morpho has proven its ability to manage large-scale projects and develop customised solutions. This project represents another challenge due to the size of the database. In addition, it is a multi-purpose project that combines social and financial aspects. The UID Project is a major technological challenge since very few companies are capable of successfully implementing such a large database. Morpho has already proven its ability to deploy large-scale projects in France, Colombia, Ivory Coast, Malaysia and other countries – although these are of course limited compared to the impressive scale of the UID project. Looking beyond the solely technological aspects, the UID project also gives us the opportunity to take part in a project that will support India’s development and take advantage of the demographic dividend to keep moving forward. This is at the heart of Morpho’s mission and reflects our ongoing commitment to India. The UID Project is clearly a transformational initiative that will change the course of biometrics technology. Moreover, we are pleased to put our know-how and technology to the service of the UIDAI. We are confident that this project will be a success due to the implication of the UIDAI team and the government and the number of resources involved.

Nationale Supérieure des Arts

national with over 30 years’ experience in industry and a consistent focus on the security of individuals, companies and states. He is a graduate from the French ENSAM (Ecole et Métiers) in Paris. Since July 2007, he is the Chairman & CEO, Morpho (earlier Sagem Seurite). In an interview with Prachi Shirur of e-Gov, Jean Paul informes about the prestigious importance and implementation of Aadhaar project, for which UIDAI has partnered with Morpho along with others. He also shares Morpho’s e-Governance initiatives in India.

How is India’s UID project, unique compared to other such projects world-wide? The UID project differs from others in a few ways. Most of the projects worldwide are deployed to eventually issue ID cards. In this regard, UID is the first April 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

IN PERSON

Rashtriya Swastya Bima Yojana (RSBY), Public Distribution System (PDS), Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) and MNIC 1 & 2 (Multipurpose National Identity Card) our Indian subsidiary is a market leader and has been active in a number of e-Governance programmes in providing smart cards, technology and also field implementation. The Smart Card Driving Licenses in various states, the RSBY programme and a large number of other e-Governance initiatives are being implemented by us, at the enrollment phase. The card personalisation, card production, and card issuance are the areas where Morpho is a known name. Today, Morpho has already deployed

antees the basis of all links between a citizen and his/her government, the fact to have an acknowledged identity from the State. The second is of course security concerns with trans-border criminal and terrorist threats.

Morpho (Safran group) has also recently won a Security Innovation Award for its MorphoSmart FINGER VP, the world’s first ever multi-modal finger vein and finger-print device. Tell us more about this device. The Finger VP, a multi-modal device, has been developed in collaboration

“in today’s digital world

Expectations of the citizens, are an instant and efficient

exchange of services based on technology”

identification system where the token (a card) may or may not be issued. UID is unique from the other identification projects in the world on three main aspects: the most relevant in the scale, UID is multi-biometrics and the third is in the manner of authentication (from the backend). UID could lead to a revolution in the identification process worldwide by creating the first intangible identification system at such a big scale. It combines the iris, the fingerprints and a photograph in its database. However, it differs on the size of the database. Enrolling 1.2-2 billion persons, represents an important technological challenge. The goal is to enroll 600 million persons in the next 4 years.

Tell us about the progress of your company’s other projects with the Indian Government. In projects such as National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA),

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

getting personal Education Graduate from the French ENSAM (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers) in Paris Recognition Security including biometrics solutions for governments (fingerprint, iris, face recognition), access control, biometric terminals, smart cards (identity, payment, telecommunications), payment and lottery terminals

more than 30,000 biometrics terminals in India. We produce one million smart cards per day, and since 2003, more than 30 million persons have already been enrolled through our technology in India. Morpho has been implementing biometric and smart card based programmes worldwide. Thus, we have a wide experience in various cultures, countries and contexts. For this reason, Morpho has been very successful in such programmes in India.

What are some of the growth drivers of biometrics projects globally? How big is this market world-wide? The main drivers of biometric projects are the on-going revolution in e-Governance due to citizen-driven expectations. In our digital world, the expectations of the citizens are an instant and an efficient exchange of services based on technology. In that sense, biometrics is the only technology that fully guar-

with Hitachi. It combines Hitachi’s Finger Vein technology and Morpho’s fingerprint identification technology. A Finger VP is capable of capturing and processing at the same time fingerprint and finger vein biometric data. The Finger VP detects a very large amount of complementary and relevant biometric features. A consolidated template is generated. The fore, middle or ring fingers are the ones recommended for capture. Biometric data are extracted and matched in the device.

What are some of your future plans for Morpho in the coming years? First of all, Morpho will deploy all its resources to make the UID a success. In parallel, as we are already involved in the UID project, we will certainly be present in the e-Governance projects that may come soon in India. Sagem Sécurité (Safran group) was renamed as Morpho in May 2010

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opinion

hscm

Akhil Chandra prof, Institute of Logistics & Aviation Management

Upgrading Health With Scm Conditions are right for another round of major healthcare supply chain improvements due to pressure on management to reduce costs and increase efficiency and have a customer-responsive approach

upply chain management techniques which have successfully been employed almost throughout the segments of industry are employed in healthcare sector too. Like other segments, here also these techniques have successfully been employed to match supply and demand so as to supply the material in the right quantity, to the right place.

Why Supply Chain Approach? Like every enterprise, hospitals and health systems are equally under pressure to control their rising costs of supplies primarily locked up in inventories consisting of pharmacy, surgery, medicines and drugs and yet maintain their ultimate obligation in providing timely, efficient and effective treatments to their customers (patients). The supply chain costs represent today the second largest expenditure category of hospitals’ operating expenses next to costly manpower. These costs are increasing exponentially due to growth in usage of medication and very expensive and clinically-sensitive devices and implants,

egov / www.egovonline.net / April 2011

rise in IT budgets at healthcare institutions and cost of packaging and labeling requirements of drugs. The subject popularly known as Hospital Supply Chain Management System (HSCM) due to its potential in saving heavy costs and in satisfying patients has gained its prime importance in healthcare industry. Senior financial executives these days need to recalculate the strategic significance of the supply chain and plan accordingly. Supply chain of hospitals integrates suppliers, transport and warehouses and hospital services so as to serve the patients by optimum utilisation of resources. The resources in terms of materials/medicines used in the hospital can be classified majorly based on their applications such as diagnostic, surgical, therapeutic, bedside, service, engineering, housekeeping and ICT. To substantially reduce supplyrelated costs, a hospital must develop a fully integrated enterprise wide supply chain in which all processes as mentioned above are coordinated and supported by state-of-the-art technology.

Areas of Improvement The most effective action is to develop systematic contingency plans, including

factors like alternative production sites, manufacturing flexibility, factory-direct shipping capabilities, offsite backup distribution center capacity, and critical safety stocks. New technologies, such as radio frequency identification (RFID) offer the prospect of ensuring supply chain integrity. Healthcare supply chains need to move toward an integrated “demandpull” model, so that manufacturers have much earlier visibility into actual consumption.

Conclusion

Senior financial executives these days need to recalculate the strategic significance of the supply chain management

The supply chain as such should be part of the enterprise strategic plan, incorporated across all components and service lines of hospitals. A hospital’s or health system’s strategic plan should include supply chain management as a key strategy for maintaining fiscal goals, improving quality and satisfaction levels, and addressing industry trends and developments. There is a tremendous scope of applying IT, telecommunication techniques and automation in hospitals. The mantra is to concentrate on improving efficiency, quality, and responsiveness to patients and apply innovative methods of supply chain coupled with technology to achieve the end goals.