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April 2014 | VOLUME 10 n ISSUE 04 n ISSN 0973-161X
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Securing India
Special Report on eBihar and eJharkhand
R S Sharma, Chief Secretary, Government of Jharkhand
Dr Nirmaljeet Singh Kalsi, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India
N K Sinha, Commissioner, Commercial Taxes, Principal Secretary, IT Government of Bihar
N N Sinha, Principal Secretary, IT, Government of Jharkhand
Rajesh Aggarwal, Principal Secretary IT, Government of Maharashtra
Dr Gulshan Rai, Director General, CERT-IN, DeitY, Government of India
Dr Shefali Dash, Director General, National Informatics Centre
April 2014
Contents volumesecond 10 n  issue 04 grid grid name
Special Reports
20 08 K S Popli
Chairman and Managing Director, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd (IREDA)
12 K S Srinivas
Secretary, Department of Industries and Information Technology, Government of Kerala
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14 HE Jaime Nualart Ambassador of Mexico to India
16 Injeti Srinivas
Development Commissioner and Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Odisha
44 18 viewpoint Dr B N Ramesh
Director/IG, CRPF Academy, Gurgaon
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Editorial...........................................05
Empowering Citizens, Securing Country
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cyber attack on Russian communication systems by anonymous hackers recently has compromised India’s defense dealings with Russia, according to reports. This incident has raised alarming concerns about a possible major security breach. Thus, the importance of security is ever reinforced with every instance of lapses in security. Both physical as well as cyber security are equally important aspects of security. Major breaches in security have given rise to massacres like 9/11, 26/11 which have left scars in the psychology of men and women worldwide. With the agenda to highlight the major security issues that the country is facing, the fifth edition of SecureIT was held on 14th March in Hotel Claridges, New Delhi. The event was attended by various senior Government officials, representative of Security Agencies and by the industry who are making constant efforts to tighten in security infrastructure. Upholding the Government’s spirit to promote IT in the states, we have ventured into Jharkhand and Bihar. Both these states have taken up various e-Governance initiatives to take services to the last mile. Initiatives such as Aadhar, SDCs or CSCs, SWAN and many more such visions of GoI have been executed quite well. eJharkhand and eBihar conferences, held in February witnessed a gathering of the ministers, policy makers, representative of industry, who are working to promote good governance, by means of ICT. This issue of eGov is a reflection of the deliberations made at the conferences by the who’s who among the policy makers and the industry. Hope you have an informative and an interesting read.
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april 2014 volume 10 n issue 04
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IN PERSON
K S Popli
Chairman and Managing Director, Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd (IREDA)
IREDA on growth path
“The renewable energy sector is set to take off in coming years in India,� says K S Popli.
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IN PERSON
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What is the scenario in the wind energy sector? lease give us an overview of the Indian Renewable Energy Development
Agency Ltd.
Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Ltd (IREDA) is a non-banking financial company. IREDA promotes, develops and extends financial assistance for renewable energy and energy efficiency, conservation projects. It was established in 1987, and since then it has been promoting renewable energy projects. Now in India, renewable energy sector is taking off. In this scenario, the role of IREDA becomes really very important as it is the only dedicated financial institution which is financing renewable energy projects. We have sanctioned more than 2000 projects so far and our asset book is more than rs.8000 crores.
What is your view of the overall renewable energy sector in the country? Government of India has set the target of generating 30000 MW in next five years. This speaks quite clearly that focus is on generating more and more renewable energy in the country. This will give us energy security and access to energy. Apart from these, renewable energy will help us in generating green power. I feel that the targets are achievable. We should help in facilitating development of the projects.
The wind energy sector has reached the stage of maturity. In terms of performance wind energy sector is doing well as envisaged in the detailed project report. The scenario in this sector has changed over the years. People have started investing in wind energy sector. Luckily there are no non-performing assets with us in this sector. It gives lot of comfort to bankers also. In the last 2-3 years solar energy sector has also done well. But now credibility is getting built up for the solar energy sector. I think people are now getting more into the solar field. Recent developments also show that confidence is increasing among the developers. There is no dearth of investments in the solar energy sector. I feel that solar energy will get at par with wind energy in terms of installation in coming two years.
Please share your analysis on the progress of wind energy sector and the future potentiality of this sector. In the last year of the 11th five year plan period, more than 3500 MW capacity was installed in the wind energy sector. Target of 15000 MW generation has been set for next five years. We need to install almost 11000 MW capacity for wind energy sector in coming three years. Thus target can be
IREDA: At a Glance l Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited (IREDA) was established on 11th March, 1987 as a Public limited Government Company under the Companies Act, 1956 and it promotes, develops and extends financial assistance for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency/ Conservation Projects. l IREDA has been notified as a “Public Financial Institution” under section 4 ‘A’ of the Companies Act, 1956 and registered as Non-Banking Financial Company (NFBC) with Reserve Bank of India (RBI). l IREDA’s mission is “Be a pioneering, participant friendly and competitive institution for financing and promoting selfsustaining investment in energy generation from Renewable Sources, Energy Efficiency and Environmental Technologies for sustainable development.” l IREDA’s Motto is “Energy for Ever.”
achieved. The ministry has also taken up the issue of having offshore windmills. But I think it will take some in India to go for offshore windmill system. Though work in this sector has already been started.
Please shed some light on the cost effectiveness aspect of the renewable energy. There are issues with renewable energy. This is a capital intensive sector. I can say that cost of solar energy projects were `20 crores per MW till four-five years back. So the cost of solar power generation was around `18-19 per unit. But over the years the cost has been decreased. It is now around `6-7 per unit. If we look at the wind energy, which is the largest among the renewable sources, the cost is coming between `4-4.50 per unit. This is at par with the cost of thermal power per unit. I feel that there will be huge scaling up in the field of renewable energy sector. April 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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IN PERSON
IREDA’s Quality Policy IREDA is committed to maintain its position as a leading organization to provide innovative financing in Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency/ Conservation and Environmental Technologies through efficient systems & processes for providing total satisfaction and transparency to its customers. IREDA shall strive for continual improvement in the quality of services to its customers through effective quality management system.
What is the scenario of private or government company participation in the renewable energy sector? Let me explain the hydro energy sector first. Earlier Large Hydro Project (LHP)s were completely government owned. But in the Medium Hydro Project and Small Hydro Projects, participation of private companies were more. We have seen some big players getting into this sector. In the last decade private sector has gained more experience to be associated with the renewable energy industries. But there are some problems with private companies who are into manufacturing. In the solar energy sector issues are little complex.
IREDA is basically a financial institution. Please elaborate on the financial health of the company. Since the inception of the company, IREDA has been a profit making company. In the last five years our profits after taxes have gone up from `57 crores to more than `200 crores. Company’s net worth has gone up to almost `1900 crores in last five years from `500 crores. We understand the sector. There are some bad projects. But it is a learning process. We are learning from our mistakes. NPAs are manageable. We believe that this sector has got good potential.
What are the challenges before IREDA? As far as policies are concerned, Ministry is taking up feedbacks from the stakeholders and from various conferences. The support is also forthcoming for IREDA. Sector wanted
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“Government of India has set the target of generating 30000 MW in next five years. This speaks quite clearly that focus is on generating more and more renewable energy in the country. This will give us energy security and access to energy. Apart from these, renewable energy will help us in generating green power. I feel that targets are achievable. Only thing needed is that we should help in facilitating development of the projects.” cheap funds and I think they are going to be made available under the National Clean Energy Fund. Other challenge was renewable purchase obligations. Ministry is trying to address this concern by taking some effective steps. But I think problems will be keep coming and we have to overcome the problems and challenges. It happened with the mainstream energy sector also. I can say that the things are moving in the renewable energy sector.
Please share your vision for IREDA with us. IREDA has grown up more than 4 times in last five years and we want to grow 4 times again in the next five years. That will be a great achievement for our organization. It will help us in building critical mass as our asset base will be more than `20000 crores in next three to five years. On the other hand, observing last five year’s growth trend I am very confident that the renewable energy sector will grow more by next ten years.
IN PERSON
K S Srinivas
Secretary, Department of Industries and Information Technology, Government of Kerala
e-Governance
Success story of Kerala
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lease share your vision for promoting Information Technology sector in the state of Kerala. Kerala is one of the first states in the country to set up the largest IT parks. Technopark is a technology park in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India. In the last 15 years, Technopark has succeeded in attracting many MNCs. It has also provided employment to more than 30 to 35,000 professionals. We have also started an IT park in Kochi called Infopark. Infopark Phase I is spread over a 125 acres campus. Considering the need for space and land, another 120 acres are being acquired in Phase II. Infopark houses many big IT companies. The third IT Park, which is called Cyberpark, is under construction in Kozhikode. We would like to have ‘hub and spoke policy’ as far as IT infrastructure is concerned. In Thiruvananthapuram, Technopark is the hub and it has spokes in neighbouring Kollam district, where some area is also being developed. Similarly, at Infopark in Kochi, we have two spokes, one is in Alleppey and another one is in Thrissur. Similarly, at Cyberpark in Calicut, we would like to have one or two spokes in and around the area, may be in Kasaragod and Kannur. We are also trying to make three hubs in three major cities of Kerala—Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode and each hub will have one or two spokes. This has been our policy.
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“We are banking on hub and spoke policy to boost IT industry in Kerala,” says K S Srinivas. In conversation with Nayana Singh, Elets News Network (ENN)
IN PERSON
What is the mandate of these IT Parks and how are they going to work? We have developed these parks on government acquired lands and are providing different facilities. We are also offering lands to the companies on lease or purchase basis. Seeing this, many companies are coming to the state. This is how, we are developing the area.
What is the role of Department of Information Technology, Government of Kerala in promoting e-Governance in other departments of the state government? Government of Kerala is encouraging e-Governance in a big way. Several projects in e-Governance are being implemented and we can say proudly that when all other states are finding it difficult to provide citizen-service centres, Kerala already has around 2,300 such centers throughout the state by the name of Akshaya Centres. Idea is to have at least two Akshaya Centres in each panchayat. We have over 1,000 panchayats. These Akshaya Centres were started initially to provide e-Literacy. Gradually, we felt that they could be used for other purposes also as we had already made the investment. This has a unique business model. We encourage people to become entrepreneurs. We allowed and helped them to get loans from banks for setting up Akshaya Centres. Initially, they made less profit, but now they have become profitable. Akshaya Centres are also used for Aadhar registration and certificates are also issued under the e-district programme. People now don’t need to go to village or revenue offices for getting different certificates as they can get the same at Akshaya Centres by paying a nominal fee. It is running smoothly and we have not got any complaint till date. We are using the Kerala State Wide Area Network. Some of the village offices are connected by Optical Fibre Connectivity (OFC). We are also using BSNL network and RailTel network in some districts. These initiatives have made e-Governance a success in Kerala.
When it comes to education, Kerala boasts of the highest literacy rate in the country.
What are the e-Literacy initiatives of the state? In the healthcare sector also, Kerala is well above the national average. What are the specific IT related interventions in these sectors? Kerala, with 95 percent rate, tops the chart among the literact index of the country. Our aim is to achieve the same target in e-Literacy. For this purpose, Akshaya Centres were set up in 2002. We started it as a pilot project in Malappuram district. Soon, we rolled it out across the state in two phases. There has been a huge success as people are interested to learn more about computers. And government is also trying its best. IT can play a major role in every field. It does the same in healthcare sector also. In fact, we are proud of our health care system—
How is the start up village in Kerala helping in incubation of small entrepreneurial initiatives? We have a start up village in Kochi. There are young people, who are graduates. They want to do something. They don’t want to seek jobs, but give jobs to others. However, they need funds, support and appreciation to begin with. Taking cognizance of these things, Government of Kerala has initiated the start up village concept. The government gave land and some of the infrastructure facilities like built up space in Kochi called Kinfra Industries Park. They have also formed a society. Many people are not only making money, but have also become millionaires in no time. They are good at providing software solutions, website designing, m-Governance applications, smart phone apps., etc. It
“If we are able to provide a proper service delivery system, a citizen will get his or her services in a very seamless manner without spending much money and time” we have Homeopathic, Allopathic and Ayurvedic doctors in every nook and corner of the state. Our nurses are also famous all over the world. The next target in health would be to get advanced equipments for hospitals. Some hospitals now use CT scan, X-Ray machines, MRI, etc. We are also trying to improve infrastructure in all the districts and medical college hospitals. Thanks to the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), we are now able to upgrade the facilities in most of the district hospitals. The next step would be to connect these hospitals. e-health is one of the important initiatives of the Government of India. We are also working out as to how to make use of the e-health projects. Medical records have to be computerized and made available to all the hospitals. We are working on that and will soon roll out e-health projects.
has started in a small way, but it is progressing well. Our start up village will hopefully become a role model for other states too.
Please share with us your future roadmap for the progress of IT industry in the state of Kerala. People need services from the government. Every citizen wants support from the government right from his/her birth till death. Once a child is born, he needs a certificate and many other things are also required later. In all these things, service delivery is very important. It should be fast and easy. If we are able to provide a proper service delivery system, a citizen will get his or her services in a very seamless way without spending much money and time. It would be a great achievement for us. We are moving in this direction only. We have achieved some. But surely a lot needs to be done to make our state better.
April 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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In Person
HE Jaime Nualart
Ambassador of Mexico to India
Mexico
the Emerging IT hub of Latin America Mexico, the second largest IT market in Latin America has adopted an exceptional approach to e-services. HE Jaime Nualart, Ambassador of Mexico to India, in conversation with Shahid Akhter, Elets News Network (ENN), shares his insight on the dynamic IT changes in Mexico
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lease provide us with an overview of the usage of IT (in e governance) in Mexico? Mexico, being the second largest economy in Latin America and the fourth IT services supplier globally, has taken important steps to tackle and reduce the digital divide. IT, in that matter, is a powerful tool to reform public administration, to transform the institutions and its interaction with the citizens and to increase connectivity. The main objective of the usage of IT at a governmental level in Mexico is, as in any other country, to improve the quality of public services offered, the promotion of efficiency and the access to information. As it was stated by the OECD, Mexico has been “focusing on the widespread application of ICT, the dissemination of information and the production of as many online services as possible. This contributed to an international recognition of Mexico´s performance and e-government development”.
What recent transformations have taken place in Mexico’s IT arena? The Mexican government implemented some programmes in the 90s to address this issue. However, it wasn’t until 2002 that an increasing number of initiatives were established. In that year, former President
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In Person
of Mexico, Vicente Fox, through the Presidential Office for Government Innovation, launched an e-government initiative as part of the Presidential Agenda for Good Government with the aim to improve transparency and accountability. In the 90s Compranet was developed by the Ministry of Public Administration and implemented very successfully. It is a web-based national and international bidding system for government projects in Mexico regarding goods, services and public works that has increased transparency in the federal public administration. After 2002 several deregulation measures were created. Some of the most relevant initiatives were the enactment of the Federal Transparency and Access to Governmental Public Information Act (LFTAIPG) that “regulates the right of everyone to access to information held by the Powers of the government, autonomous constitutional bodies, the federal administrative tribunals and other federal agencies” and the creation of the Federal Institute for Access to Information and Data Protection (IFAI), which began operations in 2003 and is responsible for promoting and disseminating the right of access to information and to resolve the authorities refusal to respond to requests for access to information. IFAI is not subject to any authority and it adopts its resolutions in full independence.
How does IT impact the businesses and individuals? Tramitanet Portal is a government website consisting of an online catalogue of over 2,000 federal and state forms with the purpose of centralizing the information and reducing the number of filings. Declaranet, for instance, is an online system that facilitates the financial and patrimonial declarations of public servants.
IT Highlights u Mexico to host the 19th World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT 2014), the ‘Olympics of the ICT World’ that brings together global leaders in business, government and academia. u Mexico’s IT spending is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10% over 2011- 2015, but with strong variation between sectors and regions. u In 2011, Mexico’s Tax Administraion body, the Servicio de Administracion Tributaria (SAT,) announced that it had implemented a plan to bring its federal tax collection and investigation systems online. u A s early as 2008 UN e-government survey found that Mexico had the most advanced e-services development in Latin America, with a ‘strong national government portal’ that encouraged online consultations
•
DeclaraSAT, on the other hand, is an electronic tax filing system. • The portal www.gob.mx is the main single access to the services offered by the Mexican government and it allows citizens to search in a simple and easy way for specific information. • The implementation of the advanced electronic signature aimed to improve security operations and increase efficiency for the government, individuals and businesses.
What are they key elements of the IT agenda of President Enrique Peña Nieto? With the announcement of the National Development Plan (NDP) 2013 – 2018, published in May 2013, President Enrique Peña Nieto established five main national goals and three cross-cutting strategies for the Mexican government. The plan outlines the following goals: achieve a Mexico in peace; an inclusive Mexico; Mexico with quality education; prosperous Mexico, and Mexico as a global responsible player. As part of the main strate-
Proximity to the US ensures that high quality levels are maintained amidst tough competition that prevails throughout. Simply speaking, the Mexican portal is a search engine that integrates services that respond to users’ search criteria. It is replete with information filtering features that allow users to filter content in order to narrow row down searches for specific information
gies, the government will ensure a responsive government and the efficient use of public resources; the use of new information technologies; and the promotion of transparency and accountability. In that sense, the Mexican government is committed to improve the e-government agenda within the NPD, launching the Program for a Close and Modern Government 2013 – 2018. The program seeks to improve government efficiency and strengthen its relationship with the citizens. Its goal is to achieve a modern public administration using IT technologies. The Mexican government is fully devoted to implement, strengthen and consolidate policies that improve government operation, the efficient use of resources, transparency and civil society participation, and accountability.
Please tell us about the use of ICT in local and provincial governance? The Ministry of Public Administration, through the Digital Government Unit, has developed in the last years cross-cutting strategies for electronic services, as Compranet, the electronic signature and the Single Registry for Businesses, among others, in which states and local governments can participate in order to improve the quality of its services. Collaboration with the state administrations has been a fundamental task of the federal government. This is relevant for establishing best practices schemes within states and municipalities and for improving the coordination with the Inter-Secretarial Commission on Electronic Government Development. April 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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IN PERSON
Injeti Srinivas
Development Commissioner and Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Odisha
Need Full Fledged
e-Governance Framework
eGovernance is a way forward but there seems to be no unanimity on the framework under which it should be used for governance. “We need an e-governance framework which provides end to end solution, involved everybody and should be able to achieve the outcome of the initiative� says Injeti Srinivas, Development Commissioner and Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Odisha. In conversation with Mohd Ujaley, Elets News Network (ENN)
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IN PERSON
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ou have served the Government of Odisha in various capacities and also had a comparatively longer tenure with the Government of India. How has governance evolved over the years? What are your views on e-Governance?
When you look at the governance, earlier the focus was more on the process than on the outcome and therefore quite often outcome suffered on account of the process. And, also process lacked transparency and accountability. With the increasing literacy as part of our socio-economic development efforts, awareness and expectation of the people have grown and patience has come down. So there is a situation where people are demanding more and more and I must say it’s a very good development. For example, 25 years ago, when we were district magistrate & collector, visit to a village used to be a big event for the people of the region, they would queued up and mildly put across their grievances and even with the patient hearing they were satisfied. However, today when a magistrate & collector goes, people are ready to gherao with their demands. This is changing India; the old fashion administration will have to learn to respond with minimum gestation. That is why ‘e’ in e-Governance has become very important because it transcend the limitation of time and space to great extent. Today, there is high emphasis on responsiveness, citizen centric programmes and accountability and transparency.
You have mentioned about responsiveness, accountability and transparency but don’t you think discretion is majorly responsible for delays and lack of transparency? You may be right, but I believe we need a system and the process will automatically remove the discretion. So it will be impossible to have delays in the process and I am sure that will also bring transparency and increase accountability. As a person who has been involved in administration, I find this is how it is going to change.
People say e-Governance is a way forward but there seems to be no unanimity on the framework under which e-Governance should be used for governance. In your opinion what should be the way forward? e-Governance is neither a magic wand nor a development of software application or hardware and even conducting IT training alone. e-Governance has to be preceded by complete change of the mind-set. We will have to own the technology and new approach. We need an e-Governance framework which provides end to end solution, involved everybody and should be able to achieve the outcome of the initiative. In many cases, we have found that the outcome had been far below than what we have envisaged. The reason is that there is either no e-governance framework or weak framework. Majority of the e-Governance initiatives are becoming a kind of kneejerk reaction or a desperate attempt. In government, we need a framework where we should have 100 percent clarity right from the Request for Proposal (RFP) stage. And, it should have close relationship with delivery mechanism system. Different structure for different things will not yield good results.
want to get IT hardware industry in the state. Today we export about a billion worth of IT export and we are aiming to increase it further. In our new IT Policy, very clear objective have been kept such as how much employment generation you want etc. At the end, we need both IT hub for the software application and then use of IT application in the governance to empower the people. Infrastructure deficiency is there but lot of investment is happening, we have many areas which are remote and deficient so we are working very hard to see that all the communication and connecting issues and socio-economic development indicator issues are addressed in the time bound manner. In addressing them I think, e-governance will also play important role.
ICT is being be leveraged to bring mass inclusion and provide quality service to the citizens, what role do you see ICT playing in the implementation of key schemes such as Food Security and DBT etc.? In everything there is a role of ICT, wherever you have to reach out to the cutting edge, the best option is to use IT application because technology
“e-Governance is not a magic wand, it has to be preceded by complete change of the mindset” The e-governance initiative should not become a totally a consultant or a procurement driven exercise, quite often we are getting into such an exercise where the procurement of the hardware and development of the software is becoming an end in itself. The framework should have a holistic view and in overall architecture – interoperability, system design, capacity development must be taken into account and duplication and multiplicity must be avoided.
Attracting investment and building infrastructure is key to the inclusive growth, Isn’t it infrastructure deficiency seems to be one of the biggest challenge for Odisha? Partly you may be right, I would still say that Odisha has been reasonably successful in attracting IT industries but we have largely succeeded in bringing the software companies but we also
alone can solved most of the limitation we face. When you are looking at National Food Security Act and DBT, in my opinion technology is the only way to get the best result. In Odisha, we have little over four crore population and it translate into 80 lakh families and about 82 percent of them are eligible to be covered under this Act. Issuing ration card to 80 lakh families, monitoring their offtakes and inspecting how Fair Price Shop (FPS) are handling the Public Distribution System (PDS) material requires high level of IT engagement. We are using information technology for weed out ineligible people who are holding the ration cards. We have studied the various methods prevailing in the country for ration card enrolment. We have come out with the process wherein we have clearly indicated the criteria for automatic qualification and disqualification, the families can make both offline and online application. Whatever the data come to us, we will collaborate with the various databases for exclusion. April 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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Securing India Dr B N Ramesh, Director/IG, CRPF Academy, Gurgaon
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ndia emerged as an independent country 67 yrs ago after successfully ending the colonial era and gave itself a democratic constitution. The strategy and structure of governance was in line with the democratic ethos that the Indian national State is known for centuries. We know that the management theory of strategy that follows the structure and structure must always be suited to execute the strategy. In following this maxim India gave to itself a democratic setup, periodical elections and also expert agencies to take care of its emergent challenges to work because of its historical experiences, especially its emergence as a nation with an inimical neighbor called Pakistan and its emergence as one of the key factors in the international politics because of its huge population and potentiality to alter the international politics. India’s role as a regional player in power politics in the subcontinent and also in Asia started immediately after its independence with the first Prime Minister being an External Affair Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru took lot of interest in Asian Unity and he was one of the main artist of the Panchseel Principles. It used to be said during those days that India’s non-alignment is nothing but an international explanation of Gandhian principle of non-violence. Be that is it may, nonalignment movement suited in the cold war arena for three region Asia, Africa and Europe namely Yugoslavia, Egypt and India playing key roles for nearly a decade and half after India’s independence. Even though India fought Chinese war in 1962, with Pakistan another war in 1965 and Bangladesh liberation war in 1971. The Challenges to national security emerged much more serious in 1980s and still continue to be there. The following can be delineated as the most important challenges to national security. l The national security challenges from anti India elements abroad including terrorist organizations like L.eT, Jaish-i-Mohd etc.
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Dr B N Ramesh, B Tech, MBA (IIM)-Cal, PhD (IIT-Kharagpur), LLM
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The cyber criminals. The economical offenders. l The inimical agencies of foreign states. l The insurgent groups of North East. l
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The separatists groups of Kashmir and some North East separatist groups l The Left Wing Extremist elements in the Central India and southern India.
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The local communal groups including the Rabbit communal organizations like banned SIMI and its later avtar as Indian Mujahideen. l The Indian Mafiosi, which is there in almost all the emerging cities of India including areas which are known for commercial and political importance. l The bureaucratic politicians’ mafia nexus as has been evidently pointed out by the N N Vohra committee in a report. Thus the 10 above challenges to National Security are very serious in nature and they play a vital role in different parts of the country both in time and space relational matters. While there is no point in offering volumes of explanation, historically there, emergent trends etc were all these ten challenges. I would like to focus on here on two aspects namely 1) Left Wing Extremism and 2) Cyber Criminals as the key challenges to the national security of India and international Security of India also because of two simple reasons (1) The left wing extremism is older than India’s independence in its challenge to Indian States or the State in India and the (2) India being an emerging economy cyber criminals and cyber terrorism is a natural challenge as it is happening elsewhere in the world. While the rest of eight challenges can be handled by an improvement in governance and strict adherence to principles of effective criminal justice system. These two challenges to the national or internal security require lot of innovative thinking and equally innovative implementation of those policies. Left Wing Extremism also known as Naxalism and Maoism in different parts of the country started in 1940s with the first uprising of the people on massive scale in the Telangana region of Nizam’s independent State in South India and it continued for nearly 6-7 years and with the intervention of Indian Army and Police under the leadership of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel this was controlled and along with this the Rajak Kanoon and which is counter to this which has launched by Nizam Government was also caressed. However, the seeds of Left Wing Extremism movement can be taken back to 1920s in the forest and tribal regions of Costal Andhra and Telangana when Alluri Sitarama Raju who was a revolutionary led the tribal movement in the southern part of India. Similarly in the northern part of India we have Birsa Munda movement and the tribal uprising
in the Chota Nagpur belt which has also got elements of tribal rights which later assumed the role of the naxal movements in 1960s and maoist movement in 1980s, 90s and now maoist movement is serious challenge from 21st Sept 2004 onwards with the clubbing of South India People War Group and North India MCC. Thus Left Wing Extremism is an old problem which has got various challenges like the tribal issues, the land distribution issues, the crop issues, the land-man relationship issues, the governance issues, the compensation issues, the mineral policies, the industrialization issues, the extraction of national resources issues and the corruption issues specially in the light of recent scams that emerged in the Coal
“Cyber space has got both potentiality to vitiate the environment and also at the same time can be used correctly to detect and to anticipate various challenges”
Sector and the other mine resources like Bauxite mining etc. The second most important challenge which requires attention is cyber security and cyber terrorism. With increasing emphasis on e-governance there is every possibility that entire systems and processes of banking, finance, administration, security related issues can be put to a risk if you don’t have adequate measures of security in meeting the challenges to the cyber space in India. While India has been using the cyber space related technology and has been in the forefront in using the information communication technology revolution for its administration and also indulging both in private and public sector in tremendous appli-
cation of its research and project consultancy work, it is a remarkable journey that today 1/3 of Indian population is internet linked; mobile telephony and almost three-fourth of active population are in possession of a Cell phone connection. Thus the information communication technologies made the communication an all India phenomenal which reduce the cost and today one can possess a cell phone with lifelong free SMS and with very little amount that is required for the outgoing calls. While information and communication technology empower the Indians who are living in rural areas and tribal areas in accessible areas, there is always a possibility of an attack on the privacy, as well as fundamental rights of these groups and also to spread communal venom and confuse the people through SMS and web-site uploading, you-tube transmissions. A recent example will explain this better. The North-East population in Bangalore were frightened by the illegal activities of an ultra right organization in parts of Karnataka which resulted in huge amount of exchange of SMsS and opinion in cyber space which resulted in mass exodus of North-East population who are working and studying and contribute to the economy of Karnataka in the BangaloreMysore region. Later on it took lot of efforts by the government both at Karnataka and all India level to remove the communication effects and to establish the normalcy and to bring back the concept of faith to the north-east population so that they can return back to their place of work namely Bangalore. Thus the cyber space has got both potentiality to vitiate the environment and also at the same time if it used correctly to detect and to anticipate and to totally neutralize various challenges. One example is of yesterday’s origin where in the chief of the Indian Mujahidin was arrested from abroad as a follow up action of the arrest of the Yasin Bhatkal which was involved in multiple blast incidents in different parts of the country. To conclude, India has got the talent to naturalize various challenges to its internal and national security. It is suicidal if there is complacency and a self congratulatory syndrome of staying in comfort zones and expecting others to do the dirty work as Chankya rightly pointed out It is important that the state should treat its citizens as its own children and nurture them to the concept of security because it is ruler’s primary job is to reassure the ruled or the citizens of his concern for them through action and not through propaganda. April 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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IT for Security SecureIT 2014, in its fifth year,was held at Hotel Claridges, New Delhi on 14th March 2014. The event saw a gathering of security experts from the Government, Security Agencies, Corporates who deliberated on the various aspects of Cyber Security and Physical Security which are prevailing in the country and ways and means to counter them. A report...
(L-R) Dr Ravi Gupta, CEO, Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd; Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Managing Director, National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT); Prakash Kumar, National Technology Officer, Microsoft India; Rajesh Aggarwal, Principal Secretary (IT), Government of Maharashtra; Dr Nirmaljeet Singh Kalsi, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India; Arun Chaudhary, Director General, Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB); Dr Shefali Dash, Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC); Dr M P Narayanan, President, Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd launching inaugural issue of ICE Connect magazine at SecureIT 2014
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Inaugural Session: Dimensions of National Security Prakash Kumar, National Technology Officer, Microsoft India I am sharing with you all a glimpse of the kind of threats we face and how do you take care of this scenario. Now let us talk first about the bad guys. By saying ‘Bad guys’ mean the hackers who are attacking computer systems worldwide. But who are they? They can be part of any country’s forces. They can be part of organized gangs. In fact they are organized like any other big company. For example I can mention that 15 million computers were affected by a particular botnet and they were controlling and passing 40 billion spam emails everyday during 2006-2011. This particular botnet was neutralized by Microsoft. There are also some groups who do this only for the sake of fun. So we have different kinds of people who are attacking our systems. In the Indian context, I can say that our country stands much higher than the world average in terms of cyber threat occurrences. Monitoring of systems, network and infrastructure, educating people, specially people working in the government departments, strong authentication are some of the important measures we advice.
Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Managing Director, National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) The topic of securing IT infrastructure is the demand of time. Everyday technology is evolving and government is striving to promote citizen centric service delivery system with the help of ICT and e-Governance. In this scenario it is more important that we discuss about securing the IT infrastructure and cyber space. Talking about cyber crime, we must remember that the cyber criminal activities are designed to accomplish tasks such as stealing intellectual property, secretly listening to government communication and targeting government’s national security related sites. On the other hand advanced persistent threats are mainly applicable to the advanced countries. But slowly these advanced persistent threats are moving to other countries also. Therefore, we need to be very careful of these activities. Government, education, service, aerospace, financial security and telecommunication sectors are the major target areas for cyber attacks. We need to be more careful as we are on the verge of using extensively cloud technology. We are thinking of following the secure activation design and malware detection procedure to counter the threats of cyber crime in this present age of fast changing technology.
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Dr Shefali Dash, Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC) I would like to focus upon the need and challenges for cyber security. In the present times, we can see that cyber attackers are trying to break the defense and security system of a country by the way of cyber attacks, apart from general way of forces attacking a country with army or forces. We all realize that nearly every aspect of citizens’ daily life has been considerably transformed by the Information Revolution. So, a trusted and resilient digital infrastructure that can withstand attacks would provide a platform for innovation and prosperity, the benefits of which could be reaped by the common man at the grass root level. I think that due diligence to be done to address safety in the cyber space, including both proactive and reactive. NIC has undertaken various measures to tackle cyber crime. Forming dedicated cyber security group as part of its common ICT infrastructure for e-Governance. Making dedicated and experienced team of cyber security professionals covering the areas of network security, application security, malware analysis and other emerging areas. Application Firewalls provide extra layer of security against application level attacks. Security Information and event management systems to collect, analyze, correlate security events to identify intrusion attempts in real-time. 24x7 Security Operations Centre to monitor & remediate attack attempts are some of the measures being undertaken by NIC.
Rajesh Aggarwal, Principal Secretary (Information Technology), Government of Maharashtra At the onset, I would like to make it clear that we have to first learn to stress upon quality in this country. Unless we have quality, we can’t have security. It may be harsh to say, but the fact of the matter is that our country glorifies ‘jugaad’ system, rather than glorifying quality. My crisp message is that we should focus on quality first or otherwise we should stop talking about security. Let me give an example. All our banks are computerized. Have we ever thought that who actually stores the passwords of the servers? These are saved with the vendors, not with the bank managers. Yes, this is the reality. Still we talk about security in information technology system. My opinion is that we should first focus on enforcing quality everywhere. Our system must have SOPs for passwords and these should be enforced strictly.
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Arun Chaudhary, Director General, Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) Shasatra Seem Bal (SSB) basically looks after the IndoNepal and Indo-Bhutan border protection. All the central armed police forces in the country have their own IT application and software to make easy their core functioning in the area of their work. In a very small way we have tried to familiarize our assistant commandants, sub inspectors (SI), constables deployed in the border areas to be using the security applications based on IT. We also tell that the accessibility of the software and hardware given to them will be limited. We try to educate our SIs or constables about the security aspect of the IT applications with the help of our training programs and taking help of the private sector experts. But I must also accept the fact that the data collection is going on a slow pace at the present juncture. We need to move fast.
Dr Nirmaljeet Singh Kalsi, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India My focus is upon our national security perspective. It has got many dimensions. Physical security to securing our strategic assets窶馬ational security perspective means all these aspects. Another focus area is critical infrastructure, specially securing critical information infrastructure. Economic or energy security or any other important security, everything , is being connected in the cyber space and thus we need to secure the cyber space and within the cyber security category, information security is the most important aspect in respect of national security. On the other hand we have to keep in mind that cyber espionage is a major area of concern for us in the global perspective. In the context of India, I can say that securing sensitive information is a strategic challenge for the country. Apart from that economic stability is essential for economic security and securing intellectual property is also important. I must say that protecting information is the key enabler for the national security. It is important as almost all the services are becoming digital and it brings along with the threat of breach in information security. We are in the process of framing the National Information Security Policy after studying various guidelines and policies prevailing in the country. It will be compulsory for all the government departments and PSUs to follow these guidelines. But it will not be compulsory for the private sector. April 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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Session: Technological Framework for Safe & Secure Cities Sanjay Sahay, Additional Director General of Police, State Crime Record Bureau (SCRB), Karnataka
S Suresh Kumar, Joint Secretary (Centre-State), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India The topic- ‘Technological Framework for Safe & Secure Cities’ is relevant in the present scenario. Most of the states are working towards securing cities in the country by using some of the models available in the western countries. Cities like London, Paris, Vienna, New York and others do have very extensive systems in position for undertaking initiatives for safe and secure cities. But in India this idea is still not understood to the extent it ought to have been.
The US, post 9/11 saw the administrative integration of almost 23 departments finally ending up in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in October, 2002. Our response have been different in the post 26/11 scenario. I think that US acted in a way it did and India reacted in a way it did is merely because of the backend system which US had in place during the 9/11 attacks. On the other hand, the operation Abotabad has been the single best example of usage of digital technology in preserving security. But it is also about people, process and technology.
R C Tayal, Additional Director General, Shashastra Seema Bal (SSB) Fortunately, things have changed in India since the 9/11 attacks with respect to security in airports. But still lots need to be done. I am giving example of airports security because during 9/11 attacks I was associated with the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security in India. I think that we should focus on integration of human effort with technology. Otherwise our systems cannot become effective. Human caliber needs to be developed at the level of the people from the security agencies who are given the task of using technology. On the other hand, introduction of technology to the level of police station is necessary as the real policing happens at this level.
Purshottam Sharma, Additional Director General of Police, Bhopal Identifying and tracking criminals is the foremost challenge before us when we speak about crime and criminals. My focus is on the biometrics fingerprint system. The biometrics systems by which the digitization of the fingerprints were done was in a poor state in most of the part of the country. This was my realization when I worked as a nodal officer for the CCTNS project. Things are changing now. But when we did a study on pan India basis, we found out that 12 states don’t have proper FS system till recently and in the states, where it is present, they are not at all functioning well. So these are the operational problems. Systems also have technological flaws. We have tried to address the issue of criminal tracking by providing a handheld device to all the police stations to obtain fingerprints of the criminals.
B N Ramesh, Inspector General of Police/ Director, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Academy According to me I4 has to overpower IM3. For me 3IMs stand for Indian Mafia, Indian Maoist and Indian Militants. I stands for Idea, Implementation, You & I and the biggest of I is our country, that is India. This is the big challenge before us. We need to have customized solutions for emerging problems. For example I can tell that the tracking of criminals through the video analytics can be used more by the security forces. On the other hand I opine that technology should go together with the human face also.
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Rohit Bhambri, Director, Cyber & Intelligence, NICE Systems I am focusing on how web intelligence can be used for building technological framework for safe and secure cities. Web intelligence is also referred to as open source intelligence. This technology can provide a supplementary factor to the law enforcement agency’s city surveillance infrastructure which is already in place and proposed for infusing further data into it by maintaining public safety and law and order. It can also monitor social issues and can draw inferences from systemic analysis on public opinions. This can also be used to detect threats. Apart from these one can identify new targets with the help of this technology. I think cloud technology needs to be harvested well. At the end I can say that our tools are fully intelligence oriented and these are designed by intelligence professionals.
Prem K Gautam, Superintendent of Police, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) My focus is on the secure-IT environment and perspective CBI investigation and e-governance. Till now CBI has handled more than 5000 cyber crime cases. CBI mainly focuses on the cases related to the phishing websites, credit and debit card fraud, lottery fraud, job fraud, pornography, fake websites for cheating, source code theft, domain name theft, software piracy, RTGS fraud, etc. As a nodal point for Interpol in India, CBI gets information and intelligence from various countries. We have crack teams based in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata for various cyber crime cases.
Session: Data Security: Protecting Businesses and National Assets Dr Gulshan Rai, Director General, CERT-IN, Department of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India
Lt General SP Kochhar, AVSM, SM, VSM (Retd); Chief Executive Officer, Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) I feel that Information Technology and Telecom cannot be treated separately anymore in the present age of technology. And if we talk about IT or telecom, it is all about dealing with data. So the primary focus must be on the data security. Data at rest, Data on move and Data at use- the entire ICT technology can be divided in to these three categories and we need to secure all these three. Then only we can say that we have been able to secure data.
Most of the cyber attacks are really deceptive in nature. Today we are in an era where the things are much different in terms of technology and process and technique. From mere hacking to cyber espanioge to attacks from faux servers- nature of attacks in the cyber space has evolved over the years. This is the time of cyber warfare. I must say that these are the challenges before us and we must deal with them in an effective manner.
Anubhav Tyagi, Senior Solution Specialist, Safenet India Pvt Ltd The protection needs to be centered on data itself. We believe that encryption is an essential process to protect sensitive data, provide risk management and ease proof of compliance. I think that a new mindset is needed for securing data. We must understand that the sole perimeter security is no longer enough. Breaches will happen and we must prepare differently. Data is the new perimeter encryption with Secure Key Management and above all we must realize that security is all about enablement.
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G S Naveen Kumar, Special Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics, Government of Uttar Pradesh; Managing Director, Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited At the onset I would like to mention that we have witnessed more than 100 per cent jump in cyber attacks against Indian government and financial institutions. Keeping in mind this Uttar Pradesh government has envisioned the Information Security plan which is aligned with GoUP IT Policy 2012 & National Cyber Security Policy -2013. Setting up of State Cyber Security Incident Response Team, working towards establishing a multi-disciplinary Centre of Excellence (COEs) in cyber security areas and trying to make cyber security audit mandatory are some of the initiatives under this plan.
S N Pradhan, Additional Director General, Criminal Investigation Department, Jharkhand Police My focus is on the data which is already there with the police forces and data which will be part of the force in future. It is my belief that anything which is networkable it is also crime workable. That is the serious aspect of the entire system. We have to keep this in mind. Another thing I want to emphasis is that we are having a faith based approach in data security. The problem is that we are not yet in a position to respond systematically; rather we are banking on individual response to this.
Rajendra Dhavale, Senior Director – Technical Sales, CA Technologies In today’s context I think national assets means data related to core banking sector, property details, taxes and all of these. National assets are not about structures only, it is all about data and it is essential for us to understand the importance of data protection. It is important to raise the question that who should have access to this data. Here comes the importance of identity for working with the data. In this context we need to understand the digital identity, which is being created in the systems.
Sastry Tumuluri, Information Technology Advisor & Chief Information Security Officer, Government of Haryana I think that the some of the scary parts of not having proper understanding about the data security in our country in its entirety are incredible lack of awareness not only among users, but also IT professionals and ultra-low standards to being an information security professional. On the other hand the hackers have moved from being script-kiddies. But we haven’t. To cope up with the challenges for data security, we need to move away from the audit once / once-a-year mindset, pool expensive resources and use them efficiently. We also must focus on increasing the use of open source tools.
Rishi R Sharma, Technical Consultant, India, Trend Micro I am speaking on the advanced targeted attack and the steps to counter it. The threat environment has evolved over the years. All of these threats still exist out there, but new and more damaging threats are being developed each year. Now, we are dealing with targeted attacks, advanced persistent threats and creative mobile attacks that take advantage of new vulnerabilities, social engineering and mobile proximity. They are stealthy and are designed to fly under the radar, undetected, and to steal your valuable data. And your data is everywhere -in the cloud, on virtualized servers, and on mobile devices. It needs to be protected, without slowing you down.
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Rajesh Kumar S, Technical Consultant, Juniper Networks We need proactive security system. If something happens, we react- we are working on this model most of the time. We need to change this. Deceptive techniques can be used to protect our data from the sophisticated set of hackers as these kinds of attacks effects our national security also. What I am trying to say is that we should attack the attackers rather than responding passively. with the various state governments and the National Crime Records Bureau. So the entire data of a particular criminal is saved and it has helped us in tracking of the criminals. At the same time we are focusing on the integration of all the state government systems for criminal identification and tracking program.
Session: ICT for Infrastructure Security & Information Security Abhishek Singh, Private Secretary to Minister of State (Finance), Government of India
Major General R C Padhi, Additional Surveyor General (Technology), Survey of India The GIS applications have become very critical in disaster management, decision support system, location based devices and military technical system. The objectives of National GIS are to have a seamless nation-wide GIS ready database, to serve as a platform for g-Gov and state of art data/ apps hosting environment. It also aimed at enabling service provision for different user groups and to capture and assimilate data owned by public owned agencies.
The data security and importance of Information and IT security is very critical for people in the government. But the way technology is growing and the way ICT, internet and web enabled technologies are dominating our lives, it is important for us ensure that we have safe and secure data. The pace at which internet technology has grown, it has created the ramification on all of us especially to the government. When the different government department adopts e-governance they build networks, infrastructure, data centers, and systems. Ultimately the objective is to make the life easier and convenient for citizens.
Loknath Behra, Inspector General, National Investigation Agency (NIA) I think that more than 95% of police men in the whole country are blissfully ignorant of anything called information Technology. Then there are issues related to filing and registering cases. But it is also true that ICT also has made the life of police to some extent more comfortable. For example many of things they do on daily basis, now they will type in the computer, they will keep particular things over there. Also in terms of forensics IT has put the police force in an advantageous position. In CCTNs we have the visualize solutions where we can provide solution which will help police men to have information on their mobile phone while they are on move.
S D Mishra, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police, Economic Offences Wing, Crime Branch, Delhi Police The safe city project is an initiative and it is more of an experiment. The need of the project actually emerged in post CWG, where we suddenly realized that the organization per say has the negative confrontation towards technology. The natural tendency within Delhi police was actually to reject technology. With human potential stretching to limit, we suddenly realize that in order to be more efficient we had no other option but to adopt technology in a big way. The objective of this project was to use technology as the facilitator in crime prevention and detection.
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Sailesh K Tiwari, Director, Computerisation & Information System, Railway Board, Ministry of Railways
Sachin Malik, Consultant, Microsoft Consulting Services We are going through a digitization phase and we are on the fast track for the digitization. If you look at the government side e-governance is there and everything is being digitized like UIDAI, etc. We need to have the security for that. It is also important to decide about the accessibility to these digitized data. We need to have privacy to be taken care of and it is also important to ensure the reliability of information, along with following best practices.
In the last 25 years Internet revolution has brought tremendous growth and development in the society across the world. Obviously it has brought huge comfort for all of us. But it has the darker side; it has exposed our individual life, society and the nation to greater risk. It is said that good and evils moves together, when good is ahead then no problem but when evils moves ahead of good catastrophe is created. Security of information system is a way to ensure that the evil side of information age doesn’t take over the good side of it. Indian railways have deployed world class governance system across India and about 8 billion people use the services in a year. Naturally the security of the system is very important.
Amit Sharma, Special Secretary, Government of Jammu & Kashmir Let me point it out at the onset that State of Jammu and Kashmir is a state where security measures matters a lot. I think e-governance projects have not taken pace in most of the states yet as desired. This will also result in IT security initiatives to go up and also budget for that will increase. At the end I would like to make it clear that more and more awareness campaigns are needed to have a proper safe and secure IT environment.
Session: Innovations in Capacity Building, Cyber Security & Forensics Alok Tripathi, Joint Director, National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) As the attacks are dynamic in nature and it is in real time. We also have to design counter measures in real time. We must have a training environment where real type of scenario is there. It will help us in a situation when real attack occurs. Counter measures are designed at the same time. A team should be made for this and there should be good coordination between them. NIELIT has developed an advanced virtual training environment with the support of e-security division of DeitY at a cost of `2.04 crore.
Colonel Navjot Singh, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Joint Warfare Studies (CENJOWS) There is a surge in proliferation of ICT and its assets in the various wings of armed forces. All types of assets like hardware, networking, software applications, etc have taken a boost. Expansion has not only been in the range, but in the depth and applicability. The convergence between the IT and communications field in inevitable. ICT offers the powerful tool for greater economy and benefit to all. In the recent past, Defense Expenditure Review Committee has been formulated to expedite the various procedures..
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Vijay Devnath, Chief Information Security Officer, Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) Our focus is on availability of the service. We are more harassed by touts and fraudsters than any kind of hacking as we don’t hold any kind of sensitive data. The data which we hold is already in public domain. We don’t need to do things like data leakage protection. More of our security and vigilance infrastructure is devoted towards negating the influence of touts. Most of our people who are involved in IT and IT security are themselves experts and they are not able to discipline themselves being government employees. So no process works. end of the day we realizes that issues like high internet connectivity, link person to IP, social networking sites, major servers are being based outside India are posing challenge for us and we are working towards overcoming these challenges.
Dr Samsher, Director, National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) Security has to go from an end to another end. To achieve this, we have to build capacity from the base level. NIELET has many programmes of basic computing and IT-related subjects at graduate and post graduate level. We also go for research and innovation projects. In security, we have to be pro-active rather than active. We have to create an innovative counter mechanism, which will enable us to act on time and safeguard us.
Golok Kumar Simli, Principal Consultant & Head Technology, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India If we talk about security in e-governance, we need to open up first and then think about other things like security. On one hand, security is real while on the other, it is imaginative. We have to start working on something to come up with proper security. It is purely up to the departments on how do they analyze and classify data.
Thank You Partners
For more information visit: secureit.eleltsonline.com April 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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eBihar 2014 Emerging IT Destination Government of Bihar in partnership with Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd. organises first eBihar Summit on 19-20 February, 2014 at Hotel Maurya in Patna with the objective of showcasing Bihar as an emerging IT destination. The event was huge success and well attended by various stakeholders. Team egov presents a brief report
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Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Bihar inaugurates exhibition at eBihar event in the presence of Shahid Ali Khan, Minister of State for Minority Welfare and Information Technology; Ashok Kumar Sinha, Chief Secretary, and NK Sinha, Commissioner, Commercial Taxes; Principal Secretary IT, Government of Bihar A special issue of the eGov magazine which focuses on holistic development of Bihar is being launched by Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar with key dignitaries
Inaugural session Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister, Bihar: Before becoming Chief Minister, we used to say about worse condition of the state, but when I assumed office, I realized it was much worse. In CM Secretariat, old typewriter machines were used in 2006. After two years, Bihar was conferred an award on e-governance by Government of India. At first, full computerization of Registration department was done. After this, computerization of Treasury department was done to keep a check on irregularities like Animal Husbandry scam. Recently, a businessman’s son was kidnapped in the city. And our police rescued him in a very short time after monitoring cars going out of the city with the help of City Surveillance and Dial 100 project, whose trials were being run. Bihar is the first state to come up with Right to
Public Services Act. Karnataka is pioneer in IT, but when we brought RPS Act, people from Karnataka came to understand it and also made it in their state. It brings transparency as it shows file movements. How much time government is taking in making decision? We can monitor everything. We have implemented Food Security Act this month. Door delivery system for PDS has also been started. The PDS vehicles’ movement from Food Corporation of India (FCI) to State Food Corporation (SFC) godown and then to PDS shop will be monitored. There were many discrepancies in PDS, which will be checked now. In many states, grains meant for PDS are sold openly in markets. Some raise this concern while some catch the culprits, but this problem never gets solved. But with the help of GPS technology, we are tracking these vehicles to check all discrepancies. We also put load cell to
“We have been told many a time by people that Bihar is a late starter. We may be, but if we have begun, it is for others to watch where we end up” N K Sinha, Commissioner, Commercial Taxes; Principal Secretary IT, Government of Bihar
check the theft of food grains. With technology, many discrepancies can be stopped, facilities can be provided on time and transparency can be brought in government decisions. We have also given land for IT Park and given in principle approvals and cabinet approvals to many important policies. We have also started Angel Fund to help young entrepreneurs. Patna is suitable for IT companies and will benefit all. NK Sinha, Commissioner ,Commercial Taxes; Principal Secretary IT, Government of Bihar: We have been told many a time by people that Bihar is a late starter. We may be, but if we have begun, it is for others to watch where we end up. The technological advancements have come to ameliorate our disadvantage of being a late starter if at all. World is moving fast on the path of technology. With the arrival of new technologies and proper vision and planning, we can convert our disadvantage into a highly competitive advantage. In India, three to four years ago, we set N K Sinha out to connect universi- Principal Secretary, IT, Government of Bihar ties with one gigabit per April 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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R Chandrasekhar President, NASSCOM
Dr Barry Sandrew CEO, Legend 3D
second connectivity, which was thought to be perhaps an overkill. In the states, we were with eight megabit per second connectivity, which we are still today. Do you see Bihar connecting its districts with 10,000 mbps connectivity and all its blocks with 1000 mbps connectivity at a lesser cost than what we spent for 8 mbps connectivity. Would you believe it? Hold on, you might find Bihar to be the first with this kind of connectivity in the country. Would you also believe that so-called laggard state of Bihar is no longer laggard and in a short time perhaps, we could boast of the largest and longest city wifi network in the country and world. People would say no, but then we wish to show them what is the place of Bihar in the community of people who are doing hard work for technological advancements. Bihar has started its journey, acceleration is phenomenal, the ecosystem is developing very fast and the kind of leadership and encouragement that we are getting from the government and especially, the Chief Minister of Bihar is unimaginable. Please come to Bihar, invest and reap the benefits. Dr Barry Sandrew, CEO, Legend 3D of San Diego, US: An ambitious programme to build an IT multimedia hub in Patna can place the state of Bihar on world stage as a first class
high technology source of excellence, innovation and entrepreneurship. Patna is far from cities like Bangalore and Chennai and doesn’t have the glamour of Mumbai and Hyderabad as well. It also doesn’t have the huge real estate, IT and power costs of those regions. What it has is the young and educated population, entrepreneurial with can do attitude and innovative spirit and motivation to make anything reality they set out to accomplish. I have seen it myself and this is the reason why Patna has become my prime outsourcing destination for past 14 years. For well over a decade, UNO Digital, the studio that I work with, has
“Seeing the recent developments, one can surely say that Bihar is IT savvy and now, looking for investments in IT sector” B V Naidu, Founder, STPI and Sagitaur Chairman and CEO
been and continues to be the highest quality outsourcing facility for making 3D movies in India. World class documentaries, big budget commercials, blockbuster feature films like Pirates of the Carribean, Hugo, Shrek series, Green Hornet, Green Lantern, Smurfs 1 and 2, etc have been processed here. Many movies have also been converted into 3D on time and on budget.
Esteemed Guests at e-Bihar Summit 2014
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B V Naidu, Founder, STPI and Sagitaur Chairman and CEO: While watching the high tech inaugurations, I was wondering why people think Bihar is not an IT savvy state. In last two terms, the Chief Minister has changed the perspective of Bihar. Seeing the recent developments and money spent on different e-governance applications, one can surely say that Bihar is IT savvy and now, looking for investments in IT sector. If in less than six months, Bihar can start to catch up with what is happening elsewhere in the country, I think Bihar can do much more wonders. When I came to Bangalore in 1991, there were only 13 companies probably doing 5 million dollar exports. From there onwards, industry has grown. In 2010, it reached 17 billion dollars. As we speak, we are 28 billion dollars industry. If Karnataka can do it, so does Bihar seeing the active participation of government and IT industry. It’s good to hear that Bihar has created the `25-crore Angel Fund, which no other state in the country has. Even though we talked about this in Karnataka, we still don’t have it. The NIELIT’s plan to hold training of all government officers is also unique. You have done a lot of work and have many wonderful policies, now you need to do branding and tell people about the good work done in the state. R Chandrasekhar, President, NASSCOM: I complement Dr Barry Sandrew to have realized the potential of Bihar long before people knew about it. Sometimes you miss what is right under your nose. Today there is a huge demand of IT skills. Populations are ageing in many developed countries. For these countries, India with a young population is seen as a very rich source for such manpower. Twenty years ago, this manpower used to go abroad and work, but today the industry chases the manpower and goes to where people are. This is the reason why it came to India from other parts of the world and today some parts of industry is also going to other countries like Philippines, Vietnam, etc from Bangalore and Mumbai. It is happening because other parts of the country, which are eminently qualified, have not quite got their act together. The most interesting feature of the industry today is that a large number of innovative start up companies are coming up. The beauty of today’s generation is that many of the brightest youngsters are not looking for good jobs or good universities, but are becoming job creators rather than job seekers. If it can be encouraged through incentives, then you will find remarkable change in the state. The next step in e-governance is to not just provide services, but also to be able to link up
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between the different departments like Land Records and Registration department or Passport Office and Police department. E-governance is forcing different departments to work together. The first step to ensure this kind of collaboration is a greater degree of convergence. Data Centre, Wide Area Network, Citizen Service Centres (Vasudha Kendras) are important steps towards integrating that face of the government. One of the big problems in e-governance is that we are inducting the new technologies, but old processes in the government are not getting changed. If a group of exceptionally bright and competent officers is put to make the changes and ensure implementations of the projects, then it would change the whole paradigm of service delivery. Today, people want to participate in governance and not just vote once in five years. Through technology, there is a great opportunity to create a platform for citizens to be a part of government. This will help the government to link with the citizens and encourage them to be a part of governance on a regular basis. Shahid Ali Khan, Minister for Information Technology and Minority Welfare, Government of Bihar: In 2007, Department of Information Technology was set up by Shri Nitish Kumar. Some days back, we formed a core committee, which travelled to many states to understand the things happening in IT. After coming back, we all discussed and formulated different policies. Now, Bihar is making significant progress in the field of IT. It is happening under the guidance of Chief Minister Shri Nitish Kumar. Atul Sinha, Managing Director, Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (BELTRON): Many of Hollywood 3D movies like Superman, Transformer, 300, Little Mermaid, etc are being created in Patna nowadays. Our engineers are working on cutting edge IT technologies like digital image processing in Patna. This is the power of Bihar. I appreciate Dr Barry Sandrew, CEO, Legend 3D of San Diego, US present here to recognise the talent pool of Bihar. Bihar State Data Centre is situated in Beltron Bhawan, Shastri Nagar. It has 1600 sqft server room, which can accommodate more than 40 server racks, where more than 600 servers can be placed. It will be sufficient for server hosting for all departments of government of Bihar for over ten years. It is capable in every sense and has three generators of 425 KVA for power back up. It has security of international standards. It has come up at a cost of `20-25 crore. It will satisfy
L to R: N K Sinha, Commissioner, Commercial Taxes; Principal Secretary,IT, Government of Bihar; Dr Barry Sandrew, Founder& COO -3D Legend (US); Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, MD, NIELIT; B V Naidu, Chairman, Sagitaur Ventures India Pvt Ltd; Vinod Nair, Vice President, VC & Contact Centre Sale, AGC Networks Ltd; Atul Sinha, Managing Director, Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (BELTRON)
“Many of Hollywood 3D movies like Superman, Transformer, 300, Little Mermaid, etc are being created in Patna nowadays. This is the power of Bihar” Atul Sinha, Managing Director, Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (BELTRON)
all the needs of all departments of government of Bihar for around ten years. At City Surveillance and Dial 100’s control room, one can see Patna Police’s 140 PCR vans, which are installed with GPS devices, on digital map of Patna. If any citizen dials 100, the officers at control room can send the nearest PCR van on the map for helping the caller instantly. Live feeds of more than 100 surveillance cameras can also be seen here. They cannot only zoom, rotate 360 degrees, but can also work at night. It also has automated number plate recording system, which helps in recording number plates of vehicles coming in and going out of the city. It is vital for keeping a tab on crime. This project is one of its kinds and has made Patna a lot safer. Bihar State Services Delivery Gateway portal will be used by citizens to avail all the facilities. It has SMS, payment and mail gateway. If one registers at this portal once, he or she will not have to fill the common information like name, father’s name again and again. Eight services related to labour department and human resource development department can be availed right now. World’s longest free city wifi
project has been started at Maurya Hotel and nearby places on an experimental basis. Till now, nobody has ever thought that illiterate people can be made e-literate. Today, we have shown the way by educating illiterate ladies the way to use low-cost tablet for doing various important things of day-to-day life with the help of videos.
Bihar- The Emerging Destination for IT Companies N K Sinha, Commissioner, Commercial Taxes; Principal Secretary,IT, Government of Bihar: Bihar has talent of a very high quality.
B V Naidu
Vinod Nair
Chairman and CEO, Sagitaur
VP, AGC Networks Ltd
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Dr Ashwini K Sharma MD, NIELIT
Atul Sinha MD, BELTRON
Go anywhere, you will find people from Bihar who would be contributing for the upliftment of the country or company they are working for. There is no dearth of talent, which can be assured. Get raw talent and convert it into actualizable talent, which means training, education and literacy. Seeing IT Infrastructure and connectivity, it goes without saying that in a very short time, Bihar will be the best connected state in the world. We will be the first in the world to claim that every household woman in Bihar is digitally literate. Since we are the beginners in utilizing the e-learning space, there is a huge potential that would open up. Barry Sandrew, Founder & CCO, 3D Legend (US): For 14 years, my company, 3D Legend’s business with Uno Digital, Patna has been happening on a handshake and not contract. It doesn’t happen between a US company and an Indian company. 3D industry is growing, so we are not only going to convert more films from 2D to 3D, but we are also going to enter animation. That is going to take a lot of people. You can shoot a movie in 3D with two cameras or shoot with one camera and convert a 2D movie to 3D in computers with the help of core technology. We have only two other competitors in the world. Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Managing Director, National Institute of Electronics
& Information Technology (NIELIT): IT Industry is mainly dependent on manpower. In Bihar, there is no shortage of manpower. The good governance over the past eight years has changed the image of Bihar. It is a positive sign for attracting investments. There should be a funding agency or venture capital for encouraging and assisting youngsters, who drive IT industry. It’s good that the government has already approved the Angel Fund. A supporting policy and ownership by the government are also very important for getting investments.
“The good governance over the past eight years has changed the image of Bihar. It is a positive sign for attracting investments” Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Managing Director, National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELIT)
Bihar is the only state where the Information Technology Principal Secretary AK Sinha himself went with a proposal before the high power committee that we want a capacity building organization to be set up by DeitY. Otherwise,
we would have had to go to CM and secretaries and waste a lot of time. Vinod Nair, Vice President, VC & Contact Centre Sale, AGC Networks Ltd: A state’s prosperity can be measured by straight gross happiness index (How happy the citizens are?), experience of citizens in getting basic services, accessibility of the state government, getting affordable healthcare for all the citizens and disaster management. With a help of Smart Class Studio, a single faculty can teach five different classrooms filled with children in five different cities. It’s a two-way traffic, where voice, video and data are transferred. We have also created a virtual OPD. With the help of Data Centre, the government doctors at various locations after getting logged in the system can advice patients sitting in different locations. Atul Sinha, Managing Director, Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (BELTRON): Special incentives and grants are being provided under ICT Policy by the government to attract investments. Less time and few procedures are required to start a business. The focus is on improving business & social infrastructure by catering to varying needs of the industry such as IT Parks, High Speed Telecommunication Networks, connectivity to IT Parks with wide roads, residential areas with modern amenities, modern hospital and other amenities for recreation such as amusement parks, malls etc. Pre-Production and post-production benefits will be given to IT, ITES and EHM Sectors. The benefits are Registration and Stamp Duty Concession, subsidy on capital investment, incentive for plant and machinery for power and exemption from various laws and many others. In IT Park, presently approx. 50,000 sq. ft space is available in Biscomaan Tower. As a short term plan, a world class IT Park with 1 Lakh sq ft area is proposed to be constructed in next 1-2 years near Daak Banglow Chauraha.
Human Resource for IT Industry
Chanchal Kumar, Secretary, Building Constrution Department, Govt. of Bihar chairing the session ‘Creating High-Tech Infrastructure’ during eBihar Summit 2014
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Srinivas Tadigadapa, Director, Intel South Asia: This is a very pressing issue, which needs much attention as IT can certainly help in the development of the state. Capacity building in the IT industry has to be approached in two stages. First one is in IT enabled services, which has more than `100 billion revenue and is growing. And the second stage is the domestic IT industry. In the IT enabled services sector, there is
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huge oppurtunity for employment. 30% of the engineers of the country who pass out of colleges are not employable. We need to pay attention in the colleges and make the students employable in IT sector. While in domestic IT industry, we need to make efforts for providing skills to the youngsters. The skills of both the section of industry are different like IT enabled industry has cloud, etc. whereas domestic IT industry wants to provide basic IT services to the people. We need to plan for skills for both these sections of industry differently. Vijay Kumar, Retd Chief General Manager, BSNL and Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Patna: There is no dearth of talent in Bihar. But most of the younsters nowadays want to go for jobs outside the state because there are more jobs and better infrastructure like residential projects, clubs, etc. Apart from softwares, youngsters in IT industry should also be trained in soft skills. Shantanu Prakash, Chairman & Managing Director, Educomp Solutions Ltd: The fuel of the IT industry is people. This is our unique industry where in the evening, the most important asset of the company walk out of the door. We have to ensure that next day the assets walk into the door otherwise the value of the company is nothing. When we look at the larger perspective of human resource development for IT industry, we have to start thinking about two aspects. First one is what is the availabaility of human capital and the other is we have the human capital that can be immaediately put to work. After a lot of studies, it has been proved that IT industries today are spending large amount of money in the training of human capital, which was supposed to be already emplyable out of the door. The main challenge which India faces is how to make the human capital, employment ready. A lot of topics that are discussed in engineering colleges are outdated. The universities should make the courses which are linked to what is needed in the market. The biggest beneficiary of this will be the IT industry.
Creating high tech infrastructure for IT industry, Transprtation, Power, Telecom, etc. Chanchal Kumar, Secretary, Building Construction Department, Government of Bihar: College of Agriculture, Kishanganj, Bihar is being developed at a cost of `672 crore with a
Atul Sinha, Managing Director, Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (BELTRON) felicitating Vinod Nair, Vice President, VC & Contact Centre Sale, AGC Networks Ltd
builtup area of 199399 sqm. It will complete in two to three months. Extension of Vidhan Sabha and Secretariate building is being carried out at a cost of `362.49 Crore. Its builtup area is 54800 sqm. 80% of the work has already been completed. We hope to end the work in eight to nine months. Housing project for MLA and MLC will come up at a cost of `450 crore with a builtup
“The fuel of the IT industry is people. This is our unique industry where in the evening, the most important asset of the company walk out of the door� Shantanu Prakash, Chairman & Managing Director, Educomp Solutions Ltd
area of 128872 sqm. We will soon roll out its tender. Police Bhawan, Bailey Road, Patna will be developed at a cost of `281.34 crore with a builtup area of 54716 sqm. In 2005-06, when budget was `5,000 crore, we were able to spend only `3000 crore. Now, we are able to spend 90% of the budget. Now, we have the capacity of taking up big projects as well. Lokesh Lohiya, Regional Manager - Business Development, Cisco Systems: All the public areas like temples, railway stations, hospitals, hotels, etc and law enforcement agencies like police
need to be connected. Technology helps to connect all the parts of the city to make it secure. City Surveillance Project has become a national drive and is being carried out everywhere in the country. Now, cameras have ecome smart and cannot only take a picture, but monitor a view and detect an incident on its own as well. It can also send the information back to the control room about the information of the incident that has happened. It can detect a fire, loitering, traffic accident, etc. Today, numerous cameras are placed in the city, but at a time, we can see only a few. So, with the help of technology, we can see the ones which report about an incident. This solution creates a response mechanism as well. Kiran Shah, Managing Director, Velankani Group: Inviting IT industry to any state is a blessing and a curse. Blessing because it creates new well paid jobs. For every IT job, three non-IT jobs get added, but it can also mess up your city as well. Whether it is Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Noida or Gurgaon, the IT industry has messed up pretty much every city because the cities were not ready for the infrastructure, which was required to support IT industry. Bangalore currently creates 100,000 jobs and 1.2 crore sq ft of office building every year and its just going on
Lokesh Lohiya Regional Manager Business Development, Cisco Systems
Shantanu Prakash CMD, Educomp Solutions Ltd
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Manoj Kumar Singh Architect, Bihar Trade Tower
Pratayaya Amrit Secretary, Road Construction Dept., Govt. of Bihar
increasing. Because now the momentum is set, this industry will not stop. This is what a state needs to be mentally prepared for if they want to attract IT industry. Once you start the journey, it is very difficult to stop it. In Bangalore, for one acre of office building, they add about 1400 employees per acre. That sort of planning is required. Road infrastructure should also be planned accordingly as many cars and buses would move on the roads. If you plan accordingly, you will not have problems of Bangalore. Manoj Kumar Singh, Bihar Trade Tower: We have started a project, Bihar Trade Tower, which will be constructed in Patliputra Industrial Area with a built up area of 5 lakh sqft. We have space for more than 500 cars in covered parking. We have an e-Mall, where all shops and offices will be located. A food court, movie theatre, gaming zone, gym, pool room, spa, swimming pool at terrace, common entry for all offices will also be made. Only the authorised persons will be able to go to the offices and the visitors will have to wait at the lobby for assistance from the respected office. B V Naidu, Chairman, Sagitaur Ventures India Pvt Ltd: Bihar as a state is getting all the right ingredients required for the second
phase of the growth of IT. It is getting right infrastructure in right direction. I want to request the state government that when you plan this infrastructure, make it attractive for real estate developers to come and join government in a PPP mode. This infrastructure should be developed by private players as they know how to attract the IT industry and investors. When this IT City is being planned, don’t plan just as an exclusive office buildings from the infrastructure point of view rather create an integrated multi use infra-
“In Bihar in 2004, people could not distinguish between pothole and road, but in 2014, the roads of Bihar are not only talked about nationally, but even internationally” Pratayaya Amrit, Secretary, Road Construction Department, Government of Bihar
structure, which has talent development centres, residential buildings, commercial buildings, etc. Involve private sector more and more to attract more investments in IT sector. Pratayaya Amrit, Secretary, Road
Atul Sinha, Managing Director, Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation Limited (BELTRON) and Pratayaya Amrit, Secretary, Road Construction Department, Government of Bihar at e-Bihar Summit 2014
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Construction Department, Government of Bihar: In Bihar in 2004, people could not distinguish between pothole and road, but in 2010-11, we are talking about PPP and have more than `3000 crore projects going on under PPP. When I was the District Magistrate during elections, we used to get observers from outside the state. We used to tell them the time taken for travelling from one place to other rather than the distance as it used to take a large amount of time to travel a short distance. Travelling from Patna to Nalanda or Sitamarhi was unthinkable as a bridge was pending for 13 years. Now, in 2014, the roads of Bihar are not only talked about nationally, but even internationally. We started this journey in 2006 and I still feel we have just begun. In last six to seven years, we have constructed more than 19,000 km of roads. From any district in Bhar, you can reach Patna in less than six hours. Bihar perhaps is the only state in the country which spent `969 crore from its own kitty for maintenance of national highways.
Day 2 Emerging Technologies – Big Data Analytics, Networking, Cloud Computing & Security N K Sinha, Commissioner, Commercial Taxes; Principal Secretary IT, Government of Bihar: Big Data Analytics is an emerging field. Many big players are already into it. We want to learn from them and create wonderful solutions. It will ensure e-governance benefits are available to the every citizen for the state. For Big Data Analytics, the Cabinet has already sanctioned a massive project. `20 crore has already been approved as a first installment. We have huge databases and we need to design our data structures and processes. In e-governance, processes are very important. Around five years ago, when state wide area might have been conceptualized, eight mbps would have been considered a great bandwidth. Today, eight mbps is no good for even our home. So, network has to be upgraded from time to time. It should also be safe. Amrit Lal Meena, Principal Secretary, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Government of Bihar: Bihar has about 1.8 crore rural households and 20 lakh urban households. Current projects which our
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department has undertaken are E-Shakti, NREGASoft, CPSMS, AWAAS SOFT, Mobile Inspection System, ICT initiative by JEEViKA and Panchayat Enterprise Suites. In E-Shakti, biometric, multi-app smart card as portable & secure ID is given to villagers. A call centre for trackable grievance redressal has also been established. E-Shakti was the initiative of the state government in 2009. It was envisaged that each and every citizen would be provided an E-Shakti card. It was initiated in Patna district. Initially, five blocks were taken up. About 14 lakh cards have been distributed. NREGASoft will interconnect all the gram panchayats, blocks, districts, states and the union ministry. It captures the information right from the registration of the worker. nrega.nic.in portal provides single point access to all stakeholders of MGNREGA. It empowers an illiterate worker to easily access and verify accounts. Shailesh Shrivastava, Technical Director, NIC, Bihar: E-Governance oriented technologies and services are growing with a considerable speed around the world with need to take the electronic service delivery to masses. Cloud computing is a model for enabling on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Cloud computing provides a firm base to provide e-services to various stakeholders including taxation, social sector scheme, student services, etc. Many government agencies such as home, income tax, judiciary, etc. are entrusted with confidential information and private data. Cloud computing may seem risky because you cannot secure its perimeter—where are a cloud’s boundaries? One of these attacks is the distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. If a user could hijack a server then the hacker could stop the web services from functioning and demand a ransom to put the services back online. This is crucial for e-gov applications in which time bound services need to be delivered and availability of the service also has to be guaranteed. Virendra Singh, Director, Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra: Maharashtra has been one of the leading states in IT initiatives. We have majorly concentrated on building core infrastructure. We have also given a big thrust on capacity building.
L to R: Srinivas Tadigadapa, Director, Intel South Asia; Prof. Anil K. Bhowmick, Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Patna; Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Managing Director, National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology; Shantanu Prakash, Chairman & Managing Director, Educomp Solutions Ltd
“We have to simplify the processes and eliminate things like affidavits. Affidavits were a source of income for the British and also used as they didn’t trust Indians. It’s high time, we start trusting our citizens” Virendra Singh, Director, Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra
Our e-governance initiatives are G2G, G2E, G2B and G2C. While implementing an e-governance project, we should carry out a detailed DPR or GPR. We have to simplify the processes and eliminate some things. One such thing is affidavits. Affidavits were a source of income for the British and also used as they didn’t trust Indians. It’s high time, we start trusting our citizens. Taking the leap on this, Government of Maharashtra since last year has done away with all kinds of affidavits required for certificates. We have created robust infrastructure of IT. We have a state-of-the-art data centre, which is cloud enabled. We have about 35,000 citizen service centres (CSCs). We have partnered with TCS to come up with Maha Online, which houses more than 250 programmers. Manas Sarkar, Head Pre-Sales (India & SAARC), Trend Micro: About 1/3 of the world’s population (2.4 billion users) is on the internet. We have more information at our fingertips than we could have imagined. Google now indexes over one trillion URLs each day. There are 665 million websites – amazing when you consider this number was only 50 million in 2003. Not only are we using the internet to
access information more quickly and easily, but we are also using it to connect with others, to learn from others and share with others. One new threat is created from a cyber criminal every second. It has become its own underground economy. Virtually all cybercriminals use toolkits. They can download prebuilt executables that allow them to exploit vulnerabilities. Not surprisingly, we have found that 90% of organizations have active malware, and shockingly more than half are not aware of intrusions. And it is important to organizations as it costs them money - millions of dollars per breach. Anubhav Tyagi, Sr Solution Specialist, Safenet India Pvt Ltd: Benefits of cloud are almost zero upfront infrastructure invest-
Virendra Singh Director, IT, Govt. of Maharashtra
Manas Sarkar Head Pre-Sales (India & SAARC), Trend Micro
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Ravi Khattar Cisco
Dr S Siddharth Secretary, Urban Development and Housing, Govt. of Bihar
ment, just-in-time infrastructure, more efficient resource utilization, usage-based costing and reduced time to market. There are several issues in cloud security as well. There are technology concerns like data location, data segregation, identity/federation, distributed storage, privileged user access and control concerns like compliance issues, legal, audits, visibility, change control and SLA. Security tops list of cloud challenges. Who is accessing my data? Can I enforce an effective access control policy? Can I present a trusted audit trail of all access events to my data? These are some of the questions which are always on the minds of cloud users. When you’re moving to the cloud, you need to see that how do you maintain ownership and control of your data in a multitenant environment? This is very important. Ravi Khattar, Cisco: Shadow IT has come up in every organisation. There is a lot of money being spent in the name of IT, but it is actually spent outside the perimeter of IT for IT purposes. Ten years ago, when we defined an IT budget. Over 80-90% of the budget was under the control of IT department. With the adaptation of technologies like cloud and so on, budgets are with business groups and these groups are spending it without the knowledge of IT. CISCO CDO office estimates that over 5X or 10X of your IT Budget
is critically purchased with the IT services being involved in those purchases. In cloud, what we ensure that you have more choice of service providers. Intracloud application helps one to shift from one cloud service provider or virtualisation platform to another one. Sundar Rajan, SAS: Data is coming in from many different sources like eSHakti, NREGA, Pension, Land Records, Driving Licence, etc about the citizens. Everything pertains to individuals. Most of the social programmes that are being implemented by the government after being announced on portal,
“Good governance in Right to Public Services Act (RTPS) results in transparency, accountability and responsiveness” Dr Dharmendra Singh Gangwar, Principal Secretary, General Administration Department, Government of Bihar
should benefit the individual and the individual should be identifiable. The government should have one single data that looks at citizens with all angles to be able to indentify that he is in receipt of the benefits of the social service we are trying to provide. The citizen should be able to receive the information or benefits that are due to him without having to go through
Large number of delegates attended and enthusiastically participated in the two day eBihar Summit at Hotel Maurya in Patna
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various things. It is a challenge in a state like Bihar, which has a population of more than 10 crores. If name of a person is different on different government I-cards like driving licence, Passport, Bank name, etc, it is difficult for the government to know that they are the names of one single man. That is where we come in.
Better Governance through e-Services delivery Dr S Siddharth, Secretary, Urban development and Housing, Government of Bihar: About 25 modules are being implemented through Nagar Seva initiative. These are web portal with CMS, Citizen Facilitation Center (CFC), Birth & Death Registration, Property Tax, Water Supply & Sewerage, Building Plan Approval & Regulations, Works Management System, Registration / Licensing, Solid Waste Management, Accounting, Personnel Management System, Health and Sanitation, Rent, Lease & Sairat, Land and Estate Management, Advertisings & Hoardings, General Administration, RTI, Audit, IT support, Legal, Store Management, Q & A of Legislative Assembly, Workflow & Document Management System, Slum Management Information System, Knowledge Management System and Development Sector Schemes. The approvals for different works in these areas will be given online. Some features of Nagar Seva are that it supports multiple delivery channels, accepts legacy system data and has 3-tier architecture. It is unicode & UID compliant. It uses cloud and is highly parameterized. It has best practices to bring in transparency and time-bound delivery. Dr Dharmendra Singh Gangwar, Principal Secretary, General Administration Department, Government of Bihar: In Bihar Right To Public Services Act, 2011, delivery of notified public services is done within stipulated time limit. Fixation of accountability within the system is also done by naming public servants – Designated Public Servants (DPS) who would be held responsible for delivery of services. There is transparency in implementation of the provisions. There is a provision of a Right to Appeal at two levels in cases where services are unjustifiably delayed or denied with provisions to impose penalty on the responsible public servants. Good governance in Right to Public Services Act (RTPS) results in transparency, accountability and responsiveness. RTPS model of Bihar is different from similar schemes in other states as it delivers services to citizens free of cost. Software applications in it have been developed in-house.
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Sanjay Nayak, CEO, Tejas: Amount of pro-activeness of the government officers and political leadership in Bihar is much more than any other state. There is no point in following and catching up with other states. There are only three things needed to make an entrepreneur successful and it can be done without building too much physical infrastructure. First is creating logical infrastructure, which will help in connecting long people from Bihar into the opportunities, which are getting created here. Second is tremendous amount of skill building. The third and most important is funding. There are a lot of people, who have good ideas, but because of sub-optimal funding especially at the early stages, they don’t become successful. Some kind of an entrepreneurship fund at an early stage would be very useful to promote entrepreneurship at a major level. The last support the government can give is market access to the entrepreneurs. Anand Kumar, Regional Passport Officer, Patna: Passport office, Patna’s journey started from 1979. 800 passports were issued per month in 80s. Computerization of the department started in last decade. Our vision is to deliver passport services to citizens in a timely, transparent, accessible and comfortable manner through streamed processes and committed, trained and motivated workforce. Government of India through Ministry of External Affairs is working with TCS on PPP mode. Under this model, most of the core activities are being controlled by Ministry of External Affairs like data management, data control, etc. And all non-core activities are being controlled by TCS. This project is named Passport Seva project and under it, Passport Seva Kendra has been started in city of Patna. We are making many continuous improvements like user friendly website, electronic queue management, online appointment and payments, mPassport seva mobile app and Premium optional SMS service.
Anand Kumar Regional Passport Officer, Patna
P K Sinha Director – Astric Computers (India) Private Limited
Delegates visiting at the exhibition of e-Bihar 2014
Bihar’s Initiatives for Incubation of Small/ Medium Scale IT companies P K Sinha, Director – Astric Computers (India) Private Limited: Seeing the recent
“We are the youngest human resource, which is our biggest asset. It’s time to start enterprises otherwise, we will get only third party work” P K Sinha, Director – Astric Computers (India) Private Limited
developments in IT, this time is very crucial for us. Till now, we have been only reactive as it is in our upbringing, but now, we will have to be proactice in today’s situation. We also face many troubles in initiatives as it is not well defined. Enterprise development is about taking risk, analysing future, exploring something in middle and then, proposing for next steps. In last two – three years while closely working with few universities, we found that we have to move in an all round approach. Bihar is the major source of human resource capital of country. We are the youngest human resource, which is our biggest asset. It’s time to start enterprises otherwise, we will get only third party work. S P Sinha Chairman, CII Bihar; Member of ICT Core Commitee, Bihar: There are four
major projects, which the government in considering regarding Incubation Centre. Two of them relate to creation of incubation centres at IIT Patna and BIT. Different efforts on part of universities and another one is coming at BIA premises with the help of private sector. IIT Patna has got the approval of Central government and waiting for MoU with state government to set up the centre. It will be located at BITA in a separate building with a full-fledged lab. BIT will also be built on similar lines. The centre, which private sector, is trying to set up with the assistance of Intel Network, is little different in approach. What they are trying to do is once the idea or product is developed to a particular level, ie you have a commercial prototype, a business will be created around it, one will get close expert mentoring. Idea is to start with some centres in Bihar Industries Association. Dr Pritam, IIT Patna: The B-Tech students now don’t want more of theoretical stuff and want to develop something, which is working. I want to nurture their innovation. I was stuck as we have limitations of spending. The upcoming Incubation Centre will definitely help these minds to realise their dreams. Generally, incubation involves innovation and entrepreneurship. For innovation, the key word is to catch them young as when they grow, risk taking ability dies out. When they are young, they can dream to lead their project. If this incubation centre is set up in IIT Patna, students right from the first year, will get a chance to test their idea. And when we feel that it has sufficient technical stuff, then we will make eco-system, where there idea will be valued by mentors from the industry. Then, there will be a check. Once it passes the check, we will make a business plan for them. With the help of government, they can go for start-ups. April 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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19 -20 February 2014, Patna
Welcome
Thank You Partners
Emerging IT Destination Organisers
Co-organiser
Department of Information Technology, Government of Bihar
Supporting Partner
Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd. (BELTRON)
Government Partners
Tourism Partner
Technology Partner
Infrastructure Partner
Associate Sponsors
For more information visit: bihar.eletsonline.com
www.eletsonline.com
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bihar.eletsonline.com
special feature
Manorama Devi
Lady Behind Srijan Mahila Vikas
I
f someone asks Manorama Devi, “Can you reduce the pain of lady and make them socially and economically independent?” The answer to that will be her work force of Srijan for the last 18 years who are working towards the betterment of individual life and making female more independent in the male dominated society of Bihar. Manorama Devi believes in the philosophy that sharing others pain reduces one’s own grief. Others get retired from work at the age of 60+ but still at the age of 65, she is as dynamic and workaholic that she looks and dedicates her life in the women upliftment in the society. Recently a reporter asked her, “why you do such things for the society and what drives you to do it at the age of retireing.” Her reply was – Khusi baantne se barh jata hai aur gham baantne se ghatata hai (Happiness multiplies after sharing, while woes diminish).” Life was appearing an endless tunnel for Manorama Devi – a traditional family of village background, when her husband Awadhesh Kumar suddenly passed away in 1991, leaving three sons and three daughters in a growing up stage. At that time, her husband was working as the principal scientist at the Indian Lac Research Institute, Ranchi. “That time, the whole world around her was appearing gloomy. By her words – it was the inspiring memories of my late husband that I decided to shift
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In Global Conference on Financial Inclusion and Payment Systems, Srijan Mahila Vikas Sahayog Samiti Ltd got award for Srijan Jama-Virdhi Yojana
myself with my kids to Sabour – an area where the innocent women suffered the most during the infamous communal riots here in 1989. My husband had always said that only a burning lamp can light another lamp,” she recalls, adding, “I had also some sweet remembrance with Sabour, as I had spent my early marriage days here because my father-in-law was then the principal of the Agriculture College here.” After consulting the women of the weaker section of Sabour village, I thought that the creation must take place
after the catastrophe. “Pralay ke baad phir srijan hota hai isliye maine is sanstha ka naam bhee Srijan hi rakha (As after every catastrophe, renaissance takes place, I opted to christen my organization as ‘Srijan’ Starting ‘Srijan’ with only five women, Manorama Devi (better known as Srijan Didi) first adopted Bapu’s charkha, as the medium of building up confidence among the rural folk. “I had some spinning and carding experience with Bapu’s wheel at my father’s place in Deep village in Madhubani district, so I decided to go with it,” Srijan Didi says.
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Presently, Srijan has taken a shape of successful women’s co-operative, with a Bank, Bindi and Bangles-making units, Tailoring units, Masala division, Computer Centre for Imparting Computer literacy to Gramin people, Garment division, Pickle manufacturing and more with overall giving livelihood to more than 6000 self-employed women. Not only that, more than 500 self-help groups (SHGs) had got training from Srijan. In a recent report by the national level monitor of the co-operative societies in India Major-General (retired) P.C.Puri had also stated: “In Sabour block, there are 339 SHGs, out of which 82 have passed grade-I and four have passed grade-II. Srijan Mahila
of Srijan Mahila is to build socio-economic, moral and education development of women of Bhagalpur district. Couple of month back when Bollywood actor Shakti Kapoor got a chance to visit Bihar, came to know about Manorama Devi for her work and devotion. He can’t stop himself to meet her. He moved to her work place and saw the work done by her. Amazed to say that she has done such a good work for the society that is hard to belive in now a days.
Major programme Organizational activities Srijan Mahila directly meet women of
and Bindi become very popular brand in Bihar and Jharkhand. Self-Employment After training, Srijan Mahila samiti provide Micro credit for raw material, machinery. Major benefit of this activity is self employment among member. Bachat and Sakh From 1997 Srijan Mahila Samiti initiate banking activity affiliation from central co-operative bank Bhagalpur. In the field of banking samiti achieved several milestones. In year 2013 a global conference on financial inclusion and payment systems Srijan Mahila got award for Srijan Jama-Virdhi Yojana. Production and marketing activity Srijan Mahila not merely trained SHG but also work marketing of various product manufacture by SHG like silk cloth, silk saree, silk suit, Bindi, Pickle, Different types of Masala, Agarbati. Even Ministry of Textile, Govt. of India procures silk cloth Sarees and bed sheets from this society. Other Activities Srijan Mahila promote computer literacy among women mainly belongs to village area. Srijan Mahila concern about health of SHG member and provide free health service time to time.
Major achievement n More Than 600 SHG (Self help group) n Self reliant society without any govern-
ment funding Smt Manorama Devi Receiving Award from Hn’ble Chief Minister of Bihar Shri Nitish Kumar
co-operative society, which is playing effective role in block, is providing training to ladies in stitching, embroidery, making bedcovers, bindis and bangles.” Besides running a successful women’s cooperative, Srijan Didi also cared for the career of their respective children. Srijan Mahila Vikas Sahayog Samiti Ltd registered under Bihar and Orissa cooperative societies act 1935. The area of operation of this society in Bhagalpur District in Bihar. Till 2014 nearly 6000 women associated with Srijan in the form of SHG (Self help group). Vision
weaker section and below poverty line and motivate them organize create self group. The major achievement of this effort 500600 self group. Training programme Srijan samiti plays effective role in self employment and help women to become self reliant. Major training programme include stitching, handloom, animal husbandry, food processing, Bindi making, computer literacy and many more programme. Srijan Masala
n More than 5000 account in co-operative
n n n
n
society and encourage saving among member and provide micro credit for selfreliance among women Got ‘A’ certificate from DRDA Patna Received award From Bihar Government For Co-operative society Recently Bihar Government propose to create Srijan Mahila Cooperative Bank, it is first of its kind. In year 2013 a Global Conference on Financial Inclusion and Payment Systems, Srijan Mahila got award for Srijan JamaVirdhi Yojana.
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Launch of Jharkhand special issue of eGov magazine at the eJharkhand event. (L-R) Dr Omkar Rai, Director General, STPI, Dr M P Narayanan, President, Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd, Hemant Soren, Chief Minister, Jharkhand, R S Sharma, Chief Secretary, Government of Jharkhand, N N Sinha, Principal Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand
eJharkhand 2014
Empowering People Through e-Governance e-Jharkhand 2014, which was held jointly by Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand and Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd on the 22nd of February at Ranchi, brought together various stakeholders who are working together to develop the state by means of e-Governance...A report Inaugural Session Hemant Soren, Chief Minister, Government of Jharkhand: When it comes to e-Governance, we are doing quite well in the state of Jharkhand. At the same time we are continuously trying to look for new and better ideas by which we can use Information Technology for bringing improvement in the quality of life of the citizens. Every section of the
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society should be equally capable of reaping the fruits of Information Technology. We have taken many significant steps for promoting usage of Information Technology in various sectors. The potential for usage of Information Technology in health sector, food distribution or any other sector is immense. Connectivity is essential for any major deployment of IT; hence we are now working on improving connectivity in rural and the urban areas. I am hopeful that the deliberations made
in eJharkhand will help us in developing Information Technology in the state. N N Sinha, Principal Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand: The eJharkhand event has been envisaged to not only celebrate the success that the State of Jharkhand has achieved
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recent development is that we have been able to enroll most of the population of the state under Aadhaar and now we are successfully providing services to the citizens on the basis of Aadhaar enrollment. Now we want to take many more initiatives for the development of e-Governance and IT industry in the state, and we are hopeful that the e-Jharkhand event will help us develop new ideas and strategies for brining better Information Technology systems in the state. R S Sharma, Chief Secretary, Government of Jharkhand: I feel we have been doing well in leveraging technology for improving governance in Jharkhand. My view is that we should drop `e’ from the term ‘e-Governance’ as nowadays we cannot have any form of governance reforms without technology. So when we talk of good governance, it should be understood that the ‘e’ element, or
“Technology can be used to ensure that the entitlements and subsidies reach the beneficiaries on time and in a transparent manner” R S Sharma, Chief Secretary, Government of Jharkhand
in the field of Information Technology; it is also a medium for discussing the future roadmap of Information Technology in the state. This event will serve as a unique platform for discussing various aspects of e-Governance in Jharkhand. We will have sessions on Aadhaar, managing land records with the help ICT, best practices in e-Governance in Jharkhand, use of ICT in security and mining industry. The deliberations made in this event will definitely help Jharkhand to move forward in the area of Information Technology. It is a matter of pride and satisfaction for me to tell you that Jharkhand has been one of the pioneering states in the country when it comes to implementation of various IT initiatives. In 2004, we developed our IT policy. Also, Jharkhand is the first state to implement CSC and SWAN. We implemented the Electronic Delivery of Services act in 2011. Most
the technology, is being used to a large extent. We are already using technology in a big way to make the functioning of the government efficient and transparent, and there is scope for using technology to provide even better services. We need to keep in mind that making law is one thing whereas ensuring that there is compliance of that law is another thing. Without technology one cannot ensure that laws are being enforced effectively. Technology can be used to ensure that the entitlements and subsidies reach the beneficiaries on time and in a transparent manner. Today we can ensure that the benefits do not get siphoned away by unscrupulous elements and reach the target population. Gopal Singh, Chairman-cum- Managing Director (CMD), Central Coalfields Limited (CCL): Jharkhand is not just a mineral
rich state; it is also rich in terms of environment and forestation. Almost thirty percent of the state is covered with forests, which are a rich treasure trove of all kinds of flora and fauna. The state is also doing well in the area of industrialization; many important industries are located here. With a little bit of effort we can definitely make Jharkhand into national hub of Information Technology. There is no dearth of manpower and the climate is also very conducive. Dr Omkar Rai, Director General, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI): We are opening up a new STPI Centre in Deoghar in Jharkhand. For this an MOU has already been signed with the Government of Jharkhand. There are a few states in the country from where most of the software exports happen, but now the scenario has started to change, as the tier 1 cities are becoming very costly. So the software companies are now shifting focus to the tier 2 cities. In my opinion, time is now ripe for Jharkhand to start positioning itself as a viable IT destination. R K Bahuguna, Chairman-cum-Managing Director, RailTel Corporation of India Limited: RailTel Corporation a “Mini Ratna” PSU is one of the largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers in the country owning a Pan-India optic fiber network on exclusive Right of Way (ROW) along Railway track. The OFC network covers all important towns & cities of the country and several rural areas covering 70% of India’s population. RailTel is aggressively entering into Enterprise services market with launch of its various services like Data Center, Railwire, Telepresence,etc. RailTel is keen to connect 260 blocks in Jharkhand on OFC based broadband to run e-Governance, e-district, e-agriculture, e-learning, e-health and e-court services. April 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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Session 1: Pillars of success of e-Governance in Jharkhand – Success story of Aadhaar in Jharkhand L Khiangte, Principal Secretary, Department of Welfare and Department of Panchayati Raj, Government of Jharkhand: I am focusing on ‘e-kalyan’ programme initiated by the Welfare Department and I feel it has brought lot of convenience to all the stakeholders in the state. Through ‘e-kalyan’ project we are providing e-delivery of the post-metric scholarship. We have made provision for online application which was followed by the submission of hard copy of the certificates for verifications. From this year we have done away with the process of submissions of hard copy also and scanned documents can now be uploaded. Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Managing Director, National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT): We must take note of the fact that ‘e’ has a small role to play in governance. Essentially, e-Governance is all about smart governance. Governance has to be good and
Information Technology component can be of great help. We have to be digitally literate, even though all of us may not be literate. For instance, there is the issue of mobile penetration in the country; it is more than the penetration of computers. It means that even when a person is not literate, still he can use mobile for communication. So now the time has come for replacing e-Governance with m-Governance. N N Sinha, Principal Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand: As far as Aadhaar goes, Jharkhand has attained major successes. We have
“Now we are coming up with several solutions that will enable the citizens to reap benefits of the Aadhaar system” N N Sinha, Principal Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand
already covered more than 91 per cent population in the state under Aadhaar. Now we are on the verge of coming up with several solutions that will enable the citizens to reap benefits of the Aadhaar system, which is unique, and makes it easy to provide online authentication. I must also mention that we have come up with unique Aadhaar enabled biometric attendance system in the government secretariat for government employees. This works not only with fingerprint authentication, but also with Iris authentication and it helps us in monitoring the attendance. Arbind Prasad, Assistant Director General, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI): UIDAI started functioning in 2009. The government had given us mandate to generate 60 crores of Aadhaar numbers by 2014. As of now we have generated 58 crores Aadhaar, and now UIDAI is in position to generate Aadhaar 15-20 lakhs per day. I would like to mention that Aadhaar is helping us in refining of the database and in the authentication process. Aadhaar is also very useful in efficient conduction of KYC for opening a bank account. Anyone can open up a bank account without any document and by just visiting a branch, providing his or her UIDAI number. Shahid Ahmad, State Informatics Officer, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Jharkhand: Today with the use of IT we have been able to make a vast improvement in the PDS system. Initially we did face some challenges in this area, one of the major challenges had to do with data digitization, but now all these challenges have been overcome. Now Aadhaar is being used to detect the bogus ration cards, bring more efficiency and transparency to the PDS system in the state.
Session 2: e-Governance Implementations – Opportunities and Challenges N N Sinha, Principal Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand and Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Managing Director, NIELIT interacting with audience
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Anubhav Tyagi, Senior Solution Specialist, Safenet: Let us delve into the key benefits
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of moving from traditional governance to e-Governance? Now everyone realizes that many important benefits in the areas of efficiency and transparency can be had from e-Governance. Even in e-Governance we can make vast improvements if we start making proper usage of Cloud Technology, which not only provides flexibility, it is also cost effective. Major General B D Sharma, Additional Surveyor General, Jharkhand Geospatial Date Centre, Survey of India: Survey of India, The National Survey and Mapping Organization of the country under the Department of Science & Technology, is the oldest scientific department of the Government of India. Survey Of India Takes a leadership role In providing customer focused, cost effective, timely Geospatial Data, information and intelligence for meeting the needs of security, sustainable national development and new information markets. Dr Manish Ranjan, Mission Director, National Health Mission, Jharkhand: We are trying to script new dimensions in the health sector in Jharkhand. Our endeavour is to move from e-Governance to m-Governance. Some of the key e-Governance undertaken by us in this state are - Health Management Information System (HMIS), Mother and Child Tracking System, Direct Bank Transfer, Case Based Web BasedICT application for TB (Niskhay), National Anti Malaria Management Information System (NAMMIS), Integrated Disease Surveillance Program, web portal, MamtaVahan MIS, National Cold Chain Management Information System, Vehicle tracking system, Chikitsya Salah: 104, etc. Nitin Deo, Solution Architect, Cisco Systems: We have to keep in mind that huge amount of video data is in action for
(L-R) Major General B D Sharma,Additonal Surveyor General, Jharkhand Geospatial Data Centre, Survey of India, Dr Praveen Jha, Special Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand, Satendra Singh, Secretary-cum-IG, Department of Registration, Government of Jharkhand, Dr Manish Ranjan, Mission Director, National Health Mission, Jharkhand, Anubhav Tyagi, Senior Solution Specialist, Safenet
“Our vision is to build citizen-centric, inclusive & development oriented Information Society and to provide services to the common man in a cost-effective, transparent, rapid, efficient & easily accessible manner� Dr Praveen Jha, Special Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand
city surveillance system. If we talk about typical structure of safe city project, we can see that cameras are installed at the important junctions of a city and we can have all this data at one point and that can help law enforcement agencies to work upon. Dr Praveen Jha, Special Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand: My focus is on the initiatives being undertaken by the Department of Information Technology in the state of Jharkhand. Our vision is to build citizen-centric, inclusive & development oriented Information Society and to provide services to the common man in a cost-effective, transparent, rapid, efficient & easily accessible manner. IT infrastructures, IT services, Training of government employees and promotion of the IT industry in the state-these have been our focus area. Let me elaborate on our roadmap
for the promotion of IT industry in Jharkhand. We are setting up IIIT in the state and steering committee of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India has sanctioned it and we are on the process of starting in PPP mode soon. We are also setting STPI units in four places of the state. Our government is gearing up to set an IT park in Jharkhand. Here, MNCs will be provided infrastructure to set up IT companies. Satendra Singh, Secretary-cum-IG, Department of Registration, Government of Jharkhand: The registration of documents has been made online since 2008 in Jharkhand. Main function of the Department of Registration was to manage paperwork, starting from printing of the stamp papers till presenting it to registry office. Now after the introduction of e-stamping, whole process has been simplified. We are also sucApril 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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cessfully implementing online search initiative. Anybody can search any data by only sitting at home and there is no need for him to go to registration office. Apart from these, we have made marriage registration online and we are in the process of making society registration online also.
Session 3: Best Practices in competency in government departments and PSUs Vismita Tej, Chief Vigilance Officer, Central Coalfields Limited (CCL): e-Governance brings transparency. As a Chief Vigilance Officer of CCL, I am highly concerned about transparency in the system. We have been using many new technologies to bring more transparency in the operations of CCL. In order to stop pilferage of coal while it is being transported in trucks, we are trying to implement GPRS based vehicle tracking system, we are also having CCTV coverage in the entire CCL command area. S N Pradhan, Additional Director General, CID, Jharkhand Police: Jharkhand police has done lot of work for bringing Information Technology into the policing system. But we still have a long way to go and many
more technologies will have to be brought it. There are few key areas in ICT that the experts are focusing on. These are Cloud computing, Mobile devices, Social media, Cameras, Sensors and Big Data systems. Golok Kumar Simli, Principal Consultant, HeadTechnology, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India: Our experience in the Ministry of External Affairs shows that the best way of initiating e-Governance projects is through the PPP model. We have implemented Passport Seva Kendra Programme in record time through a well organized PPP model. Debabrata Nayak, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Jharkhand: Our focus is on
“We have to have a deeper implementation of Information Technology and we should adopt best practices in order to attain excellence� Manas Ranjan Panda, Executive Director, SAIL
building G cloud and how we can provide effective, shared, collaborative and secured governance system. We started some projects in Jharkhand Police in 2009, and by 2010, we decided to implement virtualization in surface. This has helped us in making production environment more effective and also helped us in bringing more efficiency in disaster recovery. Smita Shukla, Sales Leader, Smarter Safety & Security, IBM: Each one of us has to play a role in making our cities more secure and safe. In this context, I would like to throw some light on how IBM is working with the various state governments on development of security surveillance solutions. The main challenges before the law enforcement agencies is that there is limited intelligence response, disconnected management system, cross department collaboration challenge, etc. Manas Ranjan Panda, Executive Director, Steel Authority of India (SAIL): We have to have a deeper implementation of Information Technology and we should adopt best practices in order to attain excellence. The best practices are those that will give us better results as compared to what our competitors are achieving.
Session 4: ICT in Rural Development and Financial Inclusion
(L-R) Golok Kumar Simli, Principal Consultant, Head- Technology, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, Vismita Tej,Chief Vigilance Officer, CCL, N N Sinha, Principal Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand, S N Pradhan, Additional Director General, CID, Jharkhand Police, Manas Ranjan Panda, Executive Director, Steel Authority of India Limited( SAIL), Debabrata Nayak, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Jharkhand, Smita Shukla, Sales Leader, Smarter Safety and Security, IBM
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Mridula Sinha, Principal Secretary, Department of Institutional Finance & Program Implementation, Government of Jharkhand: Financial Inclusion is very important for the development of the country.
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It is only through financial inclusion that we can enable people from all sections of the society to reap the benefits of the modern banking system. Saurav Sinha, Officer-in-Charge, Reserve Bank of India, Jharkhand: Financial Inclusion is all about broadening and deepening the entire range of financial services. It is also about customer protection. ICT plays an important role in this. We cannot have brick and mortar model everywhere in the state, and so we must make innovative use of technology to ensure that people who live in remote rural areas have some sort of access to financial services. Jain Bhushan ,General Manager, State Level Bankers Committee and Bank of India,Jharkhand: As the lead bank of Jharkhand, the Bank of India has been contributing its mite in facilitating the implementation the financial inclusion plans of the Government of Jharkhand. In the area of Financial Inclusion lot of work has been done in the state, but lot more needs to be done, as almost 50 percent of the population is yet to be brought under the banking net. K C Pandey, GM, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Jharkhand: BSNL is playing the role of a facilitator between financial
(L-R) Jata Shankar Chaudhury, Director, SAMETI, Department of Agriculture, Government of Jharkhand, Jain Bhushan, General Manager, SLBC & Bank of India, Jharkhand, Mridula Sinha, Principal Secretary, Department of Institutional Finance and Program Implementation, Government of Jharkhand, Saurav Sinha, Officer-in-Charge, RBI, Jharkhand, Manojit Bose, Head-SeMT, Jharkhand, K C Pandey, General Manager, BSNL, Jharkhand
service providers and the citizens for financial inclusion. BSNL has provided close to 1000 VSAT terminals to the banks in the state. There are a few challenges. But we are hopeful that these hurdles can be passed and the project for financial inclusion will be successful in the state. Jata Shankar Choudhury, Director, SAMETI, Department of Agriculture, Government of Jharkhand: ICT initiatives being undertaken by the Department of Agriculture in Jharkhand can be
divided into three parts: initiatives under National e-Governance Plan in Agriculture (NeGP-A), initiatives of SAMETI, Jharkhand and initiatives of Birsa Agricultural University. Under the NeGP plan, 33000 farmers from the State were linked to Kisan SMS Facility and 3.50 lakh agro-advisory SMS have been sent in Hindi till date. Manojit Bose, Head-SeMT, Jharkhand: When we talk about e-Governance, we actually talk more about governance and less about technology per say. It is more about efficient governance. In the ‘e-district’ pilot project we have been able to develop good infrastructure for providing better services to the citizens.
Registration
Thank You Partners
22 February 2014 Ranchi, Jharkhand
Co-organiser
22 February 2014 Ranchi, Jharkhand
Government Partners
Department of Agriculture Government of Jharkhand
Department of Registration Government of Jharkhand
Department of Rural Development Government of Jharkhand
Department of Social Welfare, Women and Child Development Government of Jharkhand
Department of Welfare Government of Jharkhand
Department of IT Government of Jharkhand
Government Partners
Organisers
Banking Partners
Security Partner
PSU Partner
Associate Sponsors
For more information visit: jharkhand.eleltsonline.com April 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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event report
Hemant Soren, Chief Minister, Jharkhand at the event
22 February 2014 Ranchi, Jharkhand Gopal Singh, Chairmancum-Managing Director, Central Coalfields Ltd delivering speech in the inaugural session
N N Sinha, Principal Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand, felicitating S N Pradhan, ADG, CID, Jharkhand Police Registration of Delegates
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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / April 2014
Exhibition area at eJharkhand
event report
Lamp lighting at inaugural ceremony of the event
Nitin Deo, Solution Architect, Cisco Systems
N N Sinha, Session Chair felicitating speaker Vismita Tej, CVO, CCL
Audience enthralled by the deliberations of R S Sharma, Chief Secretary, Government of Jharkhand
Team eJharkhand
April 2014 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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news Axis Bank to Provide Kisan Credit Cards More than 10 years after the PSU banks launched Kisan Credit Cards, private sector player Axis Bank has recently started their own initiative to provide cards to farmers. Bank’s official statement says that a farmer will be able to withdraw up to Rs one lakh per day
from automated teller machines (ATMs). The card will be offered to agrarian customers on their cash credit crop loan accounts and will also help them reduce the interest burden as the interest payments start after drawl of the money, claims bank.
The bank’s executive director and head of retail banking, R K Bammi, said at present 90-95 per cent of such customers come to the bank branch for transactions and the bank expects 30-40 per cent farmers to migrate to this alternate channel.
Rbi Gives Nod to Srei to Set up White-Label ATMs Infrastructure financing company, Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd has announced that RBI has given approval for setting up 9,000 white-label ATMs in the next three years in the rural India. Initially, a pilot roll out of 200 WLAs in Tier 3, Tier 4 and Tier 5 towns would be done in the next six to eight months before it was scaled up, it said. Srei said it would leverage its over 27,000 IT-enabled Common Service Centres (CSCs) which were already in operation by village level entrepreneurs (VLEs) through Sahaj e-Village Limited. These 27,000 CSCs in the six states of Assam, Bihar, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal covered an approximate population of 280 million. “This initiative provides scope to expand Srei’s presence in the financial services sector across semi-urban and rural India in Tier 3 to Tier 6 locations as add-on to its current initiatives through Sahaj’s foot-print under the GOI sponsored Common Service Centres,” company’s Group CEO, Liability and Treasury Management, J Moses Harding said in the statement. Srei would be able to take financial products and services of the sponsor bank to the door step of the rural population.
policy
DeitY Constitutes NEPM To boost domestic manufacturing, Department of IT & Electronics (DeitY) has constituted the National Planning & Monitoring Council (NEPM) to enforce local electronics sourcing rules in case of government contracts. The move comes after several local electronics, hardware and telecom product suppliers complained that they were facing problems in participating in Rs 13,000-crore plus telecom infrastructure project for the armed forces since the eligibility norms were skewed in favour of foreign vendors. The telecom venture is being implemented by state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. In fact, leading industry lobbies such as the Indian Electronics & Semiconductor Association, Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association, Elcina Electronics Industries Association of India and the Telecom System Design & Manufacturers Association had written to telecom & IT minister Kapil Sibal, DeitY and the Prime Minister’s Office recently seeking strict enforcement of the preferential market access (PMA) policy that mandates domestic sourcing of electronics/ telecom products for government contracts. Accordingly, DeitY has set in motion a governance mechanism “to oversee implementation of a policy to provide preference to domestically manufactured electronics products in government procurement”, says the note. The policy will apply “in case of electronics procurement by all central ministries/departments, except in defence”. But it would apply for electronics purchases by BSNL towards building the telecom network for the armed forces since the project is a communications ministry initiative. The local sourcing rules will apply for electronics purchases for governmental purpose and not with a view to use in goods for commercial sale.
Centre Spends `1 Lakh Crore for Democratizing Information Government is looking to provide broadband connectivity at panchayat level under national optical fibre network (NOFN) project so that people in villages have access to information, Pitroda said at an event.
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“Government is spending about Rs 100 thousand crore for democratisation of information. I see debates on TV about corruption and other issue, but nobody talks about it,” he said. He said that government
egov / egov.eletsonline.com / April 2014
took measures to increase transparency through e-governance and sharing information openly for public use over internet. Government has earmarked Rs 20,000 crore for NOFN project
and expects to connect 1 lakh gram panchayats by September and rest of 1.5 lakh panchayats by September 2015. “We need to democratise information because poverty is directly connected to poverty of
news
technology
Swift Launches Financial Messaging Platform in India Global financial information messaging platform Swift has launched a domestic service in a joint venture with the country’s top lenders. “This is the first time in any market that we have formed a joint venture with local players and are offering a completely different platform,” Swift India Chief Executive Saqib Sheikh said. The company provides solutions for the domestic market in many countries, but those are carried out using the platform used for international messaging and there is no exclusive platform like the one it has made now, he said. Swift India will be having two data centers locally and plans to operationalize the service by end of the year, announced company. This will takes care of the concern of the local players, added Sheikh.
cyber security m-pesa
Guidance and Blue Coat to Provide a 360-Degree View of Cyber Threats
Telecom service provider Vodafone launched his popular mobile money transfer and payment service M-Pesa partnering with private sector ICICI Bank. With the use of M-Pesa account, mobile customers in Tamil Nadu and Chennai, can deposit and withdraw cash, transfer money to any mobile phone, remit cash to any bank account and can also make payments to utility bills, Vodafone said in a statement. The service was launched by Vodafone India, Operations Director (South), Suresh Kumar, Vodafone India, Business-Head, Tamil Nadu and Chennai, Apoorva Mehrotra and Vodafone India, Business Head-M Pesa, Suresh Sethi. M-Pesa, is a safe, secure and convenient service to transfer money and make payments beyond the reach of traditional banking channels, informed Mehrotra. The service would be available across 5,103 authorised agents, including 840 Vodafone exclusive stores, in Tamil Nadu and Chennai. Vodafone has launched the M-Pesa services in various telecom circles, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, West Bengal, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh East and Western regions, Bihar. The service would be made available across the country in a phased manner, the statement added.
Guidance Software Inc. and Blue Coat Systems Inc. today announced that they are partnering to deliver a groundbreaking approach for detecting evasive cyber threats. The partnership will integrate EnCase Cybersecurity with the Blue Coat Security Analytics Platform to provide an unprecedented level of visibility into both network traffic and endpoint devices that will enable enterprises to close the gap between breach and detection. The combined Security Analytics Platform and EnCase Cybersecurity
Vodafone Introduces M-Pesa Facility In Tamil Nadu
information. For this, we are doing several things. Laying network of optical fibre to connect universities, libraries to improve access to information and knowledge,” he said. Besides resolving connectivity issues, platforms like e-governance and UIDAI-linked services are being developed, he added.
solution will enable enterprises to gain a 360-degree view of all endpoint data and network traffic across their organizations-allowing proactive identification and remediation of threats that have bypassed traditional security technologies. As a result, organizations will be able to rapidly correlate data-in-motion with data-at-rest, and share actionable intelligence across information security stakeholders. The result is a dramatic reduction in the time needed to detect and remediate incidents.
healthcare
Biocon Initiates e-Healthcare Program in Odisha Biocon has started an e-healthcare program for the underprivileged and rural communities in the Odisha in collaboration with the state government. Biotech major’s CSR arm Biocon Foundation along with state government and OTTET (Orissa Trust of Technical Education) has launched the scheme to deliver e-healthcare program for underprivileged and rural communities, the biotech firm said in a statement. The scheme will be implemented under the public private partnership (PPP) model. This e-healthcare program aims to provide quality healthcare services for the 51,000 villages in Odisha. Canara bank has lent its support to the scheme and MoU has been signed for that.The official statement reads that, “Under this PPP, Biocon Foundation & OTTET will set up an electronic diagnostic facility, an e-Health Centre, managed by local young entrepreneurs, at all the Primary Health Centers (PHC) of the Odisha government.”
Delhi Metro Launches Automatic Fare Collection Facility Good news for Metro travelers in the capital city. Traveling in a metro becomes more convenient for them. People travelling by Delhi Metro can now recharge their smart cards at the entry gates itself through Automatic Fare Collection facility. This auto top-up of Metro smart cards facility will be available at 54 metro
stations. “DMRC hopes to extend this facility to all the stations of the network within the next six to eight
months. All Metro stations of Phase 3 will also have this facility,” DMRC Corporate Communication Executive Director, Anuj Dayal said. In May, 2013 DMRC started the online recharge facility of smart cards. Presently, about 70 per cent of the Metro commuters use smart cards.
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news
Banking
Mahila Bank to Open Three New Branches in North East
Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB), the first allwoman bank, will open three more branches in the north-eastern region this week, official sources said. These branches will be coming up in Tripura’s capital city here, Shillong in Meghalaya and Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh, RBI sources said here. The bank’s Chairman and Managing Director Usha Anantha Subramanian will inaugurate the Agartala branch tomorrow, BMB Deputy General Manager Maya M C said in a press statement. The first BMB branch in the north-east was set up in Guwahati last November. The bank will close the current financial year with 25 branches. It also plans to add over 55 new branches next year. Apart from regular products, BMB is offering women exclusive loans to set up day-care centres, beauty parlours and catering units. It has tied up with New India Assurance Company Ltd to extend general insurance products to the poor, under- privileged and working women.
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telecom
Telecom Commission’s Initiative to Connect Bordering Areas Telecom Commission, the highest decision making wing in the communications ministry, will soon clear a Rs 7,103-crore rollout of Greenfield 2G networks in regions close to the Chinese and Bangladesh borders that remain outside the mobile loop, a top official in the department told ET. Some 8621 villages in locations of strategic importance across the northeast are proposed to be brought under the cellular loop for the first time to bolster mobile-based surveillance on national security grounds. Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF), which will fund the project, will shortly invite bids from telcos for rolling out nearly 6,700 base stations in these regions. The USOF is the DoT’s rural network infrastructure financing arm. But it remains to be seen whether USOF
will tweak tender norms to ensure any future cost escalations triggered by India’s spectrum refarming policy are shouldered by telecom operators. For instance, a mobile operator tasked with rolling out 2G networks in the Northeast could face higher deployment costs if it fails to retain its 900 MHz spectrum and is compelled to buy airwaves in the less efficient 1800 MHz band and launch services in uncovered villages within the circle. The USOF is noncommittal at
this point. “Tendering norms will be finalised only after the project is approved by the Telecom Commission and the Cabinet,” said a top official responsible for managing the USOF. India’s decision to refarm spectrum mandates incumbent GSM operators to relinquish their efficient spectrum in the 900 MHz band during upcoming licence renewals starting late 2014 and buy them back through auctions, or shift to another band of airwaves. The Rs 7,103 crore projection has been made by Telecom Consultants India Ltd (TCIL), which was tasked by USOF to prepare a detailed project report on extending mobile coverage to these far flung, inhospitable corners.
banking
National Launch of Post Office Savings Bank ATM and Core Banking-Postal Life Insurance
finance
The Department of Posts has undertaken an end to end ‘IT Modernization project 2012 to equip itself with requisite modern tools and technologies. In order to IT enable Post Office Savings Bank, Core Banking Solution (CBS) is being implemented across India covering all the post offices. At present, 64 Post Offices have been migrated into the CBS environment in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Assam and Andhra Pradesh. As on date, four Post Office Savings Bank ATMs have started functioning. M/s Infosys ltd. has provided the Core Banking Solution, Finacle, for the IT Modernisation Project of India Post. Core Banking Solution (CBS) will enable customers to operate their accounts and avail account related services from any post office in the country. ‘Anywhere Anytime Banking’, Net-banking, RTGS, NEFT shall be available for the Post office customer. The objective of CBS is to provide faster and easier banking services through internet, mobile devices and ATMs. The Post Office ATM will facilitate the customer to withdraw money anytime.
Muthoot Finance launched its first white-label ATM in Kerala. Not only that, company says it will open 9,000 such machines in the next three years. A white-label ATM is similar to a normal bank ATM with facilities of cash withdrawal and balance enquiry. The Muthoot group company has partnered with FIS Payment Solutions & Services India, which will act as the technical partner for the project. It has also appointed Federal Bank as the sponsor bank for this venture. Former Kerala Governor Nikhil Kumar inaugurated the ATM at a function held recently in Kerala. Muthoot Group Chairman M G George Muthoot said they would be able to further empower their rural customers with the ATM services. “Foray into white-label ATMs is indeed a big step for Muthoot Finance and it only reiterates our commitment towards making finance easily accessible in the rural hinterland.” Said company’s managing director.
egov / egov.eletsonline.com / April 2014
Muthoot Finance Starts White-Label ATM