Panacea forGovernance: August 2005 Issue

ISSN 0973-161X Volume I issue 5, August 2005

Citizen Service Centres: Ensuring efficient delivery of services PAGE 6 Capacity Building and Institutional Framework for e-Governance PAGE 16 e-Collectorate PAGE 30 The first Asian monthly on e-Government

Citizen Service Centres

Panacea for Governance? esa m pa rk

e-seva

Dr ish te

Ra jee Vi v In lla ter ge ne t

e

ot do an Gy SETU

n-log Vil ue lag ek no wle dg ec en tre s Page 20 Industry Perspective

knowledge for change

From e-Business to e-Government R Ramki, SAP Asia Ltd.

Page 13 Interview: R Chandrashekhar

A special preview on Page 21

Joint Secretary Deptt. of IT, Govt. of India

www.conflux.csdms.in

Did you miss any of these?

?

Read egov online at www.egov.csdms.in

CONTENTS

The first Asian monthly on e-Government

Cover Story

6 Citizen Service Centres: Ensuring efficient delivery of services Interviews: M. Velayutham, MSSRF and P.M. Kuriakose, eSeva

10 11 12

Critical success factors for ensuring better services Prospecting rural ICT business –Drishtee model Community Information Centres (CICs)

National

13

16

Interview: R Chandrashekhar, Joint Secretary Deptt. of IT Government of India

34

Book Review

35 37 38

Event Diary

Capacity Building and Institutional Framework for e-Governance Syedain Abbasi

White Paper

18

Regular Features

‘Rights’ to information, or ‘obligations’ to society?

Michael Blakemore

Industry Perspective

20 From e-Business to e-Government

News Review Q & A: Sanjay Tyagi Director, STPI, Mohali, India

41

About Town

42

Facts and Data

21 Conflux Preview-II

32

Field Report Sampark: e-Governance Centre

A special preview on

Look for the latest updates!

Interview: R Ramki, Director, SAP Asia Pvt. Ltd.

Commentary

25

Good practices in e-Governance: Main issues and challenges Rogers W’o Okot-Uma

Event Diary

35 & 36

Tech Talk

28

corDECT technology Interview: Ashok Jhunjhunwala, IIT Madras, India

e-Revolution 2005 July 15 - 16 Chandigarh, India

International Conference on e-Governance July 29 - 31 Hyderabad, India

In Practice

30

e-Collectorate VS Raghunathan

| August 2005

3

Editorial Guidelines egov contains articles and features on e-Governance and related issues.

Authors are requested to follow these guidelines while sending their articles to egov.

Research Articles/Features: Manuscripts reporting significant original research should be between 2500-3000 words. It must contain an abstract of the article of maximum 500 words.

Book/website reviews: The word limit for reviews of book/ website is 1500. Mention the title, name of the author(s), name of the publisher, year of publication, price and number of pages and also send the cover photograph of the book

concerned in hard copy or in TIFF format with resolution at least 300 dpi.

Books on e-Governance related themes, published from year 2002 onwards, are preferable. In case of website, provide the URL. Reports or Notes on conference/ workshop/seminar(s): Reports or notes on conferences, workshops and seminars on e-Governance or related fields must be 1500-2000 words in length. Mention the theme, venue, date, and name of the organiser(s). Please supply relevant photographs. The conference held in the past two months of the forthcoming issue are preferred. Provide the URL of the organiser’s website or a link to the papers.

The Editor reserves the right to reject, edit and adjust articles in order to conform to the magazine's format. No remuneration is paid or charges levied for contributions.

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EDITORIAL

Vol. I, Issue 5

August 2005

President M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief Ravi Gupta Sr. Assistant Editor Vikas Kanungo Assistant Editors Anuradha Dhar (New Delhi) Isa Seow (Singapore) Sub-Editor Dipanjan Banerjee Designed by Deepak Kumar Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Web www.egov.csdms.in Editorial and marketing correspondence eGov G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India Tel +91 120 2502181-87 Fax +91 120 2500060 Email egov@csdms.in In Singapore 25 International Business Park #4-103F, German Centre Singapore 609916 Printed by Yashi Media Works Pvt Ltd New Delhi, India egov does not neccesarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in the magazine are those of the contributors. egov is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred, directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided. egov is published in technical colloboration with GIS Development (www.GISdevelopment.net)

Putting the cart before the horse?

It was only a few years ago that the Indian government decided to have a computer kiosk at the gate of every central ministry having information about all the schemes, key staff and work plans of the ministry. The government hoped that touts, who sold government information for a fee, would disappear from the scene with this innovation. This scheme unfortunately failed. The staff who were supposed to be operating and maintaining the kiosk would be often out of the office and gone for the tea!

The above case aptly demonstrated that the potential of computers to deliver governance services could work if there was a business model applied for services.

Thus was born a second level of innovation by way of e-Governance. In came the models of Drishtee, n-logue, Jagriti e-seva, Lokvani etc. that are looking at the significant private sector involvement in maintaining and servicing the information kiosks.

The Andhra state government has taken this concept to the next level, where the kiosk operators pay the government a ‘license fee’ to provide e-Governance services to the citizens.

Mission 2007, e-Panchayat, Rajiv Internet Village, Common Service Centre scheme of the Department of Information Technology and many more! The list of big projects for quick roll out of the CSCs is growing rapidly in India.

The government need to respond as quickly to this by providing increased eGovernment services to help sustain these growing numbers of CSCs financially.

Unfortunately, the ‘content’ for e-Government has to come from the government and this cannot be ‘generated’ by the private sector. Else it would become a case of putting the cart before the horse.

It is good to see that all the right ‘noises’ are being made by the recently launched ‘National Knowledge Commission’, Planning Commission and several other top level departments of the government on e-Governance. The jury is still out on when we will see at least one e-village or e-city in the country! egov is taking a small step in this direction by organising the assessment and reflections meeting called Conflux2005, focusing on e-Government issues in the country, and learning from the lessons of

Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in © Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, 2005 www.csdms.in

| August 2005

5

COVER STORY

Citizen Service Centres: Ensuring efficient delivery of services

C

omputerisation and automation of government departments and processes does not alone make a government an e-Government unless they use ICT to deliver the services to the citizens in an efficient, fast and hasslefree manner. A major pre-requisite for an ICT enabled effective service delivery mechanism is, to have the necessary infrastructure in place. There has to be access nodes, which can serve as onestop centres for people to get access to a host of government services and information and thus escape the need to travel to different locations for interacting with different government departments thus saving time and money of citizens.

In India, this realisation came late.

Andhra Pradesh State government became the pioneer in 1999 in deploying eSeva centres in the twin cities of Hyderabad with a similar objective.

On the footsteps of Andhra Pradesh, parallel initiatives are now being taken by many other State governments like Maharashtra, Karnataka, etc.

These one-stop windows designed to leverage a range of government, education, entertainment and other services are termed differently by different sets of people in India. Examples are Common Service Centres (as mentioned in NeGP), Information Kiosk, Information Centres, Village Knowledge Centres (as mentioned in Mission 2007), Telecentres, Citizen Service Centres, etc. They all can be defined singularly as “ICT-enabled outlet set-up to bring access to a range of services, content and information to citizens in the village or town, in which it is located�.

The cities in India cannot be compared with its rural areas, where needs and service requirements are at a very different level. With poor infrastructure, government service delivery becomes a much-more formidable task in 6,40,000 villages of India. Therefore, Government and other organisations are taking a lead to bring ICT related benefits to rural India.

6

Two ambitious national level programmes are planned in a big way.

Government’s promise: Common Service Centres

Level Entrepreneur (VLE) would not be in a position to manage and sustain a CSC from the very beginning, there would be a Service Centre Agency (SCA) to handhold VLE by providing business and technical support. One SCA may typically support 100 or more CSCs in a district/ part of a State. (See the flow diagram of Implementation Structure) The SCA would be responsible for identifying the required applications and services, harnessing the network, identifiying and training the VLE, establishing the CSC (either directly or through the VLE), supplying, aggregating and updating the content and also addressing various requirements of the CSCs from time to time. The SCA will also be responsible to conduct a detailed benchmark survey for the specific area to assess demand and viability, identify content, create appropriate service package, evaluate the suitability of a location for establishing a CSC. The primary responsibility for economic sustainability of a CSC rests with the SCA and therefore the SCAs would be crucial to the success of the programme.

These centres would deliver a

The Government of India has shown commitments to improve the infrastructure especially of villages, through its National eGovernance Plan (NeGP). The Plan envisages Common Service Centres (CSCs) as one of the integrated projects to provide a primary mode of service delivery channel and to bring the benefits of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to the citizens throughout the country, especially those in rural and remote areas. This initiative is based upon the fact that common service centres set up in rural areas, would need special financial assistance and other support from Government as compared to their urban counterparts.

According to the guidelines provided by department of IT, it is proposed that the government would create an enabling environment for establishment of at least 100,000 centres in rural areas by the year 2007 to provide all possible services.

A National Level Service Agency (NLSA)* at the central level would be given the responsibility to implement and manage this programme.

State governments would be playing a major role in facilitating the establishment of large number of CSCs in rural areas.

These centres would be on an entrepreneurship business model at the Panchayat or village level and would en-courage The implementation opportunities for nonstructure of CSC government or private programme entities to play a role in actual imple-mentation of *DIT has announced EOI for selection of a NLSA (available the scheme. As a Village www.mit.gov.in/dittender.asp#3) www.egov.csdms.in |

at

COVER STORY

package of government and localised services as required by local citizens. As per the guidelines, a list of possible services covering - agriculture, animal husbandry, citizen services, health, education, land, employment, social welfare, utility services, business, panchayat matters, consumer welfare, tourism, transport and entertainment has been suggested.

The monitoring would be done through an appropriate State level Project Monitoring Committee with representatives from the Department of IT, GoI and State National Informatic Centre (NIC) Unit to review and monitor the process of implementation.

A Nationwide Movement: Mission 2007 Another similar initiative to Common Service Centres of GoI, is “Mission 2007: Every Village a Knowledge Centre�.

Mission 2007 was initiated in July 2004.

Its goal is to take the benefits of ICT-led

Q&A Dr. M. Velayutham, Executive Director, MSSRF MSSRF is one of the major alliance partners of Mission 2007. (www.mssrf.org)

What is the difference between Citizen Information centres, Citizen Service centres and Citizen Knowledge centres?

Operationally, I would consider all of them as one and the same. Eventually the first two you mentioned will merge into a total village knowledge centre as they go along.

Initially they may have different names to start with but the totality of the service and interaction comes when you link the knowledge centre to cater to the entire population of the village in terms of their needs.

What kind of services are you planning to deliver through these knowledge centres?

It will essentially give information and knowledge for skill-training, better | August 2005

development to every village by creating village knowledge centres i.e. in over 600,000 villages in India by August 15, 2007, which marks the 60th year of Indian Independence. (www.mission2007.org) In order to achieve this ambitious mission, a National Alliance has been set up. The Alliance, which is the nodal agency for this programme, started with 43 members and has now become a national movement consisting of more than 150 members comprising of private sector, civil society organisations, bilateral agencies, academic and research institutions and government ministries. It has constituted seven Task Forces on Connectivity, Content, Policy issues, Organising, Monitoring, Evaluation and Resource Mobilisation to put forward recommendations for successful execution of Mission 2007.

Over the past one year, the National Alliance has generated immense support and commitment from various partners.

The Government has supported this farming practices, better management of the enterprises that they are doing or intend to do. If these knowledge centres have to be financially viable then you have to add on certain service providing facilities that the knowledge centres can take such as issue of birth and death certificate, land records, examination results, payment of electricity bills, payment of other bills, fax, etc.

How are you ensuring sustainability of the knowledge centres in the long-term?

It will be primarily based on business model, but not from the day one. Each one develops a business model, suiting their service and revenue generation avenues and capacity for maintaining and sustaining the centre. In the beginning it will be in terms of public service, demand driven needs and knowledge delivery.

Slowly its viability and its institutional structure will ensure that it has to come to stay in a village for ever as a knowledge centre. Thereafter additional incomegenerating activities as mentioned above can be innovated by the village entrepreneurs assisted by the village society and panchayat institution.

How would the trust be created in citizens

initiative by including it in the National Budget and providing Rs. 100 crore (approx USD 23 million) support out of the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) through the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). The seven Task Forces have given key Policy recommendations to the Government for the speedy implementation of the mission objectives.

It is still being explored how to find the synergy between Mission 2007 (10000 centres by 28 Feb 2006) and Deptt. of IT’s target (10000 CSC by 31st March 2006). for these kind of services for their reliability and authenticity?

One of our recommendations is that each of the service centre should be backed up by a scientific consortium consisting of government departments, colleges, research centers available in the district.

If they build a consortium and work with their support for content development then there will be confidence that the information that goes out of the knowledge centre will be reliable.

How are you going to achieve the target of 1,00,000 village knowledge centres by 2007? What is the implementation process?

It will be done through multi-stakeholder partnerships. 60 to 70 percent of Alliance partners are corporate. The National Alliance has started State level chapters for Mission 2007. This process of decentralizing, making cohesive groups who will start this process and identifying villages have already started in collaboration with NABARD and State Governments. So it is a truly multistakeholder participatory task and with the power of partnership the task can be accomplished.

7

COVER STORY

Showcasing success!

Lokwani: Innovative way to implement e-Governance Sitapur in State Uttar Pradesh is a backward district with mostly illiterate villagers and poor infrastructure. eGovernance and service delivery through ICT is like a dream in this district, which has been successfully achieved by District Administration and National Informatics Centre.

The project “Lokwani� (www.sitapur. nic.in/Lokwani) running since end of 2004, began with the objectives of reducing time and cost of people visiting District headquarters for various

information, extending the benefits of ICT to farmers, unemployed youth, etc. It is a single window system based on entrepreneurship model. Government charges a nominal fee for giving the license to the entrepreneur to run a kiosk centre and provides him a user name and password to access the government services. He then provides these services to the citizens for a small fee. The project is a win-win situation for all - the government, the entrepreneur and citizens. Of all the services, complaint

eSeva: Andhra shows the way Q&A

Performance of eSeva Since Inception

P.M. Kuriakose, Commissioner, eSeva eSeva is one of the earliest initiatives in the Integrated citizen services delivery through one-stop centres. (www.esevaonline.com)

Year

No. of transactions

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

289087 4487646 10490666 29508639 19839086

Value of collections (in crores) 33.43 1004.94 3869.12 4323.29 2835.62

(Till July)

From the initial vision of Chandrababu Naidu and a pilot project launched in December 1999, how far the e-Seva project has come to deliver citizen services successfully?

It was started as a Pilot at Banjara Hills in December 1999 by name TWINS with one centre. Then in August 2001, nine centres were launched in twin cities by name eSeva. Presently, 46 centres at Hyderabad and 215 centres at districts with 5 to 8 counters are operating. There has been a tremendous growth of acceptance of eSeva over the years.

Has the project moved beyond its initial vision of providing utility payment services?

Although the initial vision of eSeva was to provide utility payment services to the citizens through a single window, it was also envisaged to provide multiple services like G2C and B2C. Therefore, today a citizen not only pays his 8

Total

64615124

12066.4

telephone bills, electricity bills, property tax, water bills, etc.but a citizen can also recharge the mobile phone, purchase milk coupons, reserve movie tickets, apply for passport, etc.

At present how many Government departments have their back end systems integrated to the online services? Who are the Private players engaged in the eSeva project?

At present eight Government Departments and various other service providers participating in the eSeva have their backend system integrated to the online services. These include AP TRANSCO, HMWS and SB, Municipal Administration, BSNL, APSRTC, Commercial Tax Department, Regional Transport Authority, etc.

Private Partners are CMS Computers and RAM Informatics Ltd.

registration has been found to be most useful and successful. More than 25,000 complaints have been registered within 7 months. 80% complaints were disposed successfully. This has not only benefited the citizens but has also compelled the administration to become more efficient.

Anuradha Dhar

Is the online grievance-redressal mechanism in place?

The online grievance mechanism is already in place as part of the MultiDepartmental call centre that was started

by Government of Andhra Pradesh in February 2004. About 25 major Departments are participating in this project known as Parishkaram Call Centre. Hence, eSeva is also one of the major Departments and grievance redressal is done online through a webbased application delivered by Centre for Good Governance.

At present how many centres are spread over the entire AP. How do you plan to scale-up the reach of eSeva for the entire State population?

At present there are 230 centres in the towns and another 800 centres in big villages in the State, totally 1030 centres.

Further, another 8000 centres will be coming up in the next 6 months to cover that many villages.

At present eSeva is providing 66 G2C and B2C services. What are your plans for starting G2B services?

Government of Andhra Pradesh has started G2B services. Recently sale of Digital Certificates to private parties was launched. The A.P. Fire services Department has recently launched the No Objection Certificate Service to builders of high rise buildings. Many such services are also envisaged in the days to come. www.egov.csdms.in |

COVER STORY

Statewise government initiatives of citizen service centres State

Project Name

Andhra Pradesh

eSeva VOICE Rajiv Internet Village Programme Sampark

Chandigarh Kerala Tamil Nadu Punjab Delhi Himachal Pradesh Rajasthan Maharashtra Karnataka Gujarat

Madhya Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Jammu & Kashmir Uttar Pradesh

Project starting Year 1999 1999 2004 2004

URL www.esevaonline.com www.aponline.gov.in http://sampark.chd.nic.in/pls/esampark_ web/sampark www.keralitmission.org

FRIENDS Akshaya STAR RASI Sukhmani Citizen Service Bureau LokMitra LokMitra(Urban) JanMitra (Rural) SETU Warana Wired villages Bangalore One Bhoomi Mahiti Shakti eCity GyanGanga Gyandoot Citizen Information Centres (CICs)

2001 2003 2001 2003 2004 2004 2001 2002 2001

2000 2002

http://setu.maharashtra.gov.in http://www.mah.nic.in/warana http://www.bangaloreone.gov.in/ http://www.revdept-01.kar.nic.in/ http://www.mahitishakti.net/ http://www.gujaratinformatics.com/ “ www.gyandoot.nic.in http://www.cic.nic.in/

Sitapur Lokwani

2004

www.sitapur.nic.in/Lokvani

www.tnreginet.net http://dowire.org/library/rasi-draft.doc www.sukhmani.gov.in http://www.mcdonline.gov.in http://himachal.nic.in/lokmitra.htm http://www.rajasthan.gov.in/it/it.asp

2005 1998 2001

Initiatives in rural areas by private organisations Name of Organisation

States

Drishtee

Haryana, Rajasthan, Bihar, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu

1999

www.drishtee.com

n-Logue

Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat

2001

www.n-Logue.com

Jagriti eSeva

Punjab, Uttaranchal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh

MSSRF

Pondicherry

1998

ITC eChoupal

Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnartaka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra

2000

| August 2005

Project starting Year

URL

www.jagriti.com

www.mssrf.org

www.echoupal.com 9

COVER STORY

Critical success factors for ensuring better services

T

he enabling role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the delivery of services in the public and government sector has now gained acceptance. Government of India and several state governments have been harnessing the benefits provided by ICTs to initiate smart governance. Now, the emphasis now is on reinventing and reengineering the government at all levels to make processes simple, to reach citizens faster, to increase transparency and to provide efficient services. Several significant initiatives have been taken at the Central and State level in this direction.

While roadmaps drawn by various government agencies will facilitate the use of ICT at grassroots level, the success of any e-Governance initiative, particularly the Citizen Service Centres will depend upon a number of factors. It is necessary to understand these factors to guarantee the intended benefit to the masses, who otherwise will not absorb the new technology. The list of factors presented here are indicative and may not be comprehensive.

•

•

10

Emphasis on social return apart from income generation – The Services rendered by citizen service centres may be priced so that the centres can generate income for self-sustainablity.

Of course, the charges must be low and affordable by the rural people.

Also, the services must be planned and customized to meet local needs and aspirations of villagers. The G2C services must improve the rural economy and result in better healthcare and literacy. The ultimate yardstick to measure the success of citizen service centres is how far they can change the traditional relationship between citizens and the state and result in citizen empowerment.

Identify strategic location–These centres may be located in a place, which is within a reachable distance

of targeted users and where people are already congregating for other reasons such as shopping, post office, library, banks, coffee shops.

•

•

•

•

Place a premier anchor – Services available at citizen service centres must be well known to the citizens. This is possible only through aggressive promotion by an anchor who will be a newscaster to the villagers on the use and relevance of ICT and G2C services. This will give these centres a good image and any negative perception about computer risks or even ICT per se can be removed.

Avoid reinventing the wheel – Procedures that govern the delivery of particular type of services may be common across various states. It is therefore beneficial to opt for tried and tested solution rather than going for a new design and development.

This will not only save time but also reduce maintenance problems.

Willingness of Departments to reengineer their proceesses – People will expect multiple services from citizen service centres and it is necessary for several departments to make the government process network enabled and also integrate them in a way that citizens can easily interact with the government. The processes must be citizen focused rather than government procedural focused. e-Government is about a process of reforming the way governments work, share information and deliver services to the external and internal clients for the benefit of both the government and the citizens they serve.

Provide demand-driven content – Good content makes these citizen service centres viable in the long run.

Credit: www.mssrf.org

The need of the citizens is to get access to local content, which informs and enlightens them. It must provide more opportunities in terms of employment, getting economic benefits from the government and solving their day-to-day needs.

•

Assess citizen’s response – Citizens are the important stakeholders of CSCs. They should have a say in the type and variety of services the centers can deliver them and user friendliness of the operational aspects of the online system with which they interact. The feedback of the stakeholders in general and the end-users (citizens in this case) in particular will enrich the architecture of the solution design of G2C services and also improve the quality of services. Interaction with the citizens will enable them to appreciate each other’s problems and constraints.

•

Create a right ambience – Lastly, the real success of any e-Governance project to a largely depends on the human stakeholders of the project.

ICT can bring the benefit to the masses only if the service attitude of people involved in the operation of citizen service centres is good.

V.S.R.Krishnaiah Senior Technical Director National Informatics Centre (NIC) vsrk@nic.in

www.egov.csdms.in |

COVER STORY

Prospecting rural ICT business– Drishtee model

D

rishtee is an India-based organisational platform that provides IT enable services to rural population through a network of village kiosks, which are owned and operated by local villagers, providing electronic access to information and services for rural mass. Drishtee helps in creating rural ICT entrepreneurs by helping them to setup rural kiosks services. Before going into any new area, Drishtee conduct an Assessment Survey to find service customisation needs of kiosks for that area.

Service segmentation and revenue potential for a kiosk Services that are offered or can be offered through a Drishtee ICT center can be broadly divided into ten categories.

1. e-Government Services Most of the government services like caste certificate, domicile certificate, copy of land record, license can be availed at the district headquarter tehisil or block office and government is the only provider of these services.

Revenue Potential Factor affecting e-government service is number of household within 5 km radius Value per month = ((Population/ Family size)* 6* Unit cost * 20%)/12 Where 6 is the number of times the service is availed in a year

2. Education The kiosk can act as a computer-training centre for the panchayat.

Revenue potential Factors affecting computer education service are population above poverty line (APL), literacy rate, population between age 14 years to 24 years • If there is no government support: Revenue = (APL percent* Literacy rate* Youth percent * 10% * Unit cost)/12 • If government supports the fee Revenue per village = ((APL percent | August 2005

* Literacy rate * Youth percent * 20% * Unit cost) (BPL* Literacy rate* Youth percent * 5% * Unit cost))/12

Value = ((APL Population/Family size) * 50% * 3 * Unit cost)/12 Where 3 stands for the frequency of service availed in a year

3. Business Process Outsourcing The kiosk can act as a low end BPO center.

Government data entries like Below Poverty Line data entry, pension scheme data entry are being extended to the kiosk.

Potential revenue Factor effecting BPO service is computer literate population Value = Computer trained manpower * 25 % * 5000 * 10% Where 5000 is the number of data entries made in a year per person

4. Health Basic consultation with doctors by sharing information and picture and fixing appointment with specialised doctor are few services, which have been successfully deployed at kiosk.

Revenue potential Factor affecting computer education service is above poverty line household within 5 KM radius.

Value = ((APL population/Family size)* 15% * unit incentive) /12

5. e-Commerce Rural to urban e-commerce through the kiosk establishes a communication link between the buyer and the rural artisans and eliminates the middlemen.

Revenue potential Factor affecting is population within 5 KM radius.

Value = (Population * 5%*Unit incentive)/12

6. Desktop Publishing (DTP) Kiosk being the only computer in most panchayats, it gets all typing jobs of the villages. Printing of agreement is another service the kiosk provides.

Revenue potential Factor affecting is population above poverty line within 5 KM radius.

7. Commercial services Kiosk offer a channel for corporate services like insurance, financing etc having interest in rural India to reach the villagers.

Revenue potential Value = (APL population/Family size) * 5% * incentive

8. Agriculture Agri-advisory services, commodity market price, information and reference about agri inputs are the services that the farmers avail at the kiosk.

Revenue potential Factor affecting is landed farmers within 5 KM radius.

Value = (Total No. of Land Holdings*10%)/12

9. Communication Communication service like email and net telephony at a kiosk mostly depends on the migrating population of the village.

Revenue potential Factor affecting is population above poverty line within 5 KM radius and the migrated population.

Value = (Migrating population * 10% * Unit Price) + (APL population * 5% * Unit Price))

10. Entertainment Movie shows at kiosks and cable TV to home are services that the villagers are ready to buy.

Revenue potential Factor affecting is household above poverty line within 5 KM radius.

Value = (APL population/Family size) * 20% * unit monthly cost Satyan Mishra & Nitin Gachhayat Drishtee, satyan@drishtee.com

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COVER STORY

Community Information Centres (CICs)

U

nder the Community Information Centres (CICs) project, 487 CICs have been set up, at the Block level in the 8 North Eastern states of India covering Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. CICs have been equipped with state of the art computer communication infrastructure and two operators to run the centres and provide services to the local populace.

The infrastructure available at the CIC consist of one Server and five client machines at each of the 487 CICs. A TDM /DVB VSAT is installed at each CIC for Internet access. The DVB feature allows Video Broadcast over the CIC network which is received on the TV set provided at each CIC. The VB capability is being exploited for virtual learning and virtual class room sessions and edutainment purposes.

This is a collaborative effort between Department of IT (DIT), Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India, National Informatics Centre (NIC) and the respective state governments. DIT has funded the project and NIC has executed it with local support of state governments.

The CICs were set up to take the benefit of ICT to the remote parts of the North-Eastern India, which has remained backward due to remoteness and difficult hilly terrain. The CIC project has two broad objectives: • To enable citizens to use the infrastructure for various ICT services • To extend the reach of Citizen Centric e-Governance services up to the Block level Basic services being offered by all CICs are Internet access, email, training in computer basics, printing, word processing, DTP etc.

Computer awareness ‘melas’ are also organised by some of the CICs from time to time. The CICs charge nominal fees for these services and utilize the revenue thus generated for day-to-day expenses such as consumables, electricity and water bills etc.

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CIC Infrastructure Over the years, a number of e-Governance applications have been developed and implemented at the CICs. Primary among them are E-Suvidha and ASHA. E-Suvidha is a one-stop service facilitation centre for the issue of certificates, forms, licenses and other documents by the government to citizens.

E-Suvidha, has been awarded the e-ASIA Award 2004 in Taipei, Taiwan by Asia Pacific Council for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (AFACT).

NIC Assam in partnership with Assam Agribusiness consortium has developed a model “ASHA- Making Farmers Prosperous through CIC using ICT” for facilitating agribusiness in the state of Assam. The portal used for this is http://www.assamagribusiness.nic.in.

CIC operators update the website regularly and are helping to promote it.

In Meghalaya, the state government has undertaken the facilitation of exchange of documents between

government departments through the CIC network. Online submission of forms and public grievances, delivery of land records, printing and distribution of e-mails to the local population, health teleconsultation, update of treasury data are some of the other citizen services provided. In Tripura, under the service of Hospital Appointment Booking, patients can book appointments for specialist consultancy or medical tests at the Government hospital in Agartala, from the CICs. Rural Bazaar has been implemented in Meghalaya, which is an e-Commerce solution to address the marketing need of rural producers of handicraft and other products. Showcasing or full e-Commerce may be used. Newspapers are available on the Net in remote locations where the printed versions are delivered after long delays. RuralSoft, another useful application, enables the citizen to monitor schemes meant for the rural poor from the CIC itself.

Based on the success of the CIC project in North-East, it has already been extended to another remote and less developed part of the country viz. Jammu and Kashmir. CICs have brought IT awareness and government services at the doorstep to the local community, which is empowered with information leading to a better standard of living and all round development of the region.

Shefali Dash & Nandita Chaudhri

Computer awareness ‘mela’ at CIC Rongram

Senior Technical Directors, NIC dash@nic.in

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Focusing on outcomes through NeGP National e-Government Plan (NeGP) of India conveys the resolve of the government to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for delivering efficient government services and enhancing transparency in governance. Funds to the tune of USD 500 million have been sanctioned to implement mission mode projects mentioned in NEGP by the year 2008.

R. Chandrashekhar, Joint Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of India, is behind the conceptualisation and anchoring of the plan.

In an exclusive interview to e-gov team, Chandrashekhar communicates his vision and future strategies for ensuring the success of the programme.

Government of India has recently announced National e-Governance plan. Do you think there is a need of common e-governance plan for entire country given the cultural and administrative diversity of states and government agencies?

We believe it is necessary for several reasons. First of all, the great power of ICT based governance is its ability to integrate across the silos which exist in the government whether the silos are of departments or levels of governments at central or state level and its potential to provide a level of convenience, accessibility, transparency to a citizen which has never been possible earlier. Secondly, there are certain states which are more progressive, more advanced and have devoted more energy to this and perhaps some of them also have many IT competencies within the state. So, naturally they have progressed faster whereas other states have not progressed to that extent. There is a lot that the states which are lagging behind can gain by picking up some of the examples from the successful states and then applying them under the NeGP framework. The availability of a plan like NeGP which has inbuilt in it an element to transfer such knowledge, skills and practices is beneficial in accelerating the process in these states. It is therefore clear that it is necessary to have that kind of plan, which, while providing a common framework leaves everybody with enough flexibility to plan as per their priorities. NeGP does exactly that.

India is one of the countries having maximum number of pilot projects initiated by the individual departments or so called ‘champions’. Lots of money has already been spent on these | August 2005

projects. What happens to these projects once NeGP is implemented?

NeGP consist of projects, which have been under implementation even before the NeGP came into picture, projects which were conceptualised earlier but have taken a shape only after NeGP and lastly, projects that are even now at a very conceptual stage.

Now, the point is, that NeGP has a certain vision and a driving philosophy. It is important to understand that e-Governance is not the same as computerisation in the government.

We have had computerisation in the government right from 1980s onwards but the difference is that in e-Governance, it is citizen and service orientation that requires a whole lot of other things in addition to merely applying ICT. A lot of the projects which were done in the past and which were at various stages of implementation, did not necessarily have the citizen orientation.

What has been done under NeGP is to realign those projects and bring out very clearly and explicitly the citizen orientation.

Therefore it is not a question of either dropping whatever was done and planning something else or what was done earlier being wasted but making certain course corrections, which make investments more effective and productive from the point of view of a citizen.

Invariably most plans have timelines of implementation as their central component. Are there definite timelines for Mission mode projects in the NeGP? As I said NeGP is a framework and there are large number of projects under NeGP. You need to go down one or two steps 13

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from NeGP to start talking about the timeline. You cannot talk about the timeline for NeGP but there is a timeline for a particular project in NeGP or a particular service in the NeGP.

Do you think the percentage of the entire budget allocated for assessment and capacity building is enough for ensuring success of NeGP?

Have timelines for various mission mode projects as mentioned in NeGP been defined?

We have envisaged about 4% of the budget for capacity building.

I think this 4% needs to be understood in the right context.

There is a lot of capacity building in each project and that expenditure is incurred as a part of that project cost. When I talk about budget allocation for capacity building, it is other than the capacity building in each individual project. The bulk of capacity building is actually done in and as a part of each project.

Realistically speaking if you look at the total expenditure on capacity building it should be of the order between 10 to 20 %.

That includes expenditure on training, continuous improvement of the staff and their capabilities, educating and making people aware of projects and so on.

It has been defined very clearly for some of the projects, it is being defined for some of the other projects and for some projects, it is still too early to talk about the timeline where the conceptualisation is still to be completed. In NeGP, there are 25 mission mode projects - some of these are at central level and some of these are at state level. One state sector mission mode project at a national level translates into 29 state projects. The timeline in each state can be different because of different levels of development. In some states there are specific timelines and in some they are not yet in place. One needs to look at each case.

Is EAF (e-Government Assessment Framework of GoI) the only instrument to evaluate projects? If yes, are the evaluation criteria mentioned in EAF comprehensive? Who evaluates the projects under EAF? At the moment, yes. We have evolved EAF after a lot of discussion. It has not yet been put into practice because actual process of assessment is still to take place. One of the basic features of NeGP is that all projects should have service level goal and should be independently assessed after completion with reference to the goal. We feel EAF is a good basis to start but we are also fairly certain that it will not be the final thing and it will still evolve as we start applying it and understand the limitations. But it captures what we understand best now. Now we are working out a mechanism where EAFwould be applied by independent agencies. A process has already been initiated where organisations which have the competency to undertake such assessments have been invited to carry out the assessments of different projects.

What are the plans to take citizen feedback into account while designing e-Government projects?

Well in many of the projects now there is a concept of stakeholder analysis to see who all are likely to be impacted by a project in terms of people within the government, people outside the government, institutions and so on. There are cases where certain amount of consultation has taken place, like Department of Company Affairs. Consultations were held with representatives of companies, institutions like Institute of Chartered Accountants, Company Secretaries and so on. However, the practical aspect is, in some cases it is difficult to actually speak to the citizens who are likely to be impacted. I would like to emphasise that even if the consultation with citizens is not there at the stage of design, it can be brought in later for further improvement. Secondly a lot of people in government are also users, so in most of the cases there is a popular understanding of what a citizen really wants. Initially it may be based on some subjective impression. These subjective impressions are unlikely to be totally wrong. They can be improved further based on the feedback.

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Most of the long term plans are made taking into account the future needs of the users and governments. Has any study been conducted for need assessment of citizens in next ten years?

Quite frankly, I don’t think that we have tried to look very far ahead for a particular project. I think we also need to understand that the first steps are far more basic and once we have reached a certain level of e-Governance, then only you can start having a look ahead in terms of technology, demand pattern, or citizen behavior. In most of the cases I don’t think we have reached the level where we can look that far. But at the conceptual level and within the framework of NeGP, the look ahead is quite far into the future. The whole concept of integrated service delivery, concept of integrated access point, community access centers is being created looking at a timeframe of 10 years.

“...as far as e-Governance is concerned it is a little bit like economic liberalisation. People have realised certain global and national imperatives.

”

How do you see the financing model of NeGP and what role private sector would play in it?

The NeGP has a part of it focussed on public-private partnership, which means it is looking at the areas which are amenable to private sector participation or which can be done more efficiently by the private partner in terms of service delivery and so on and areas which are amenable to funding by private organisations.

In terms of technical resources, the NeGP has a much higher level of ambition than what we had earlier both in terms of areas being covered as well as the kind of goals that are being targeted.

This requires much higher levels of technical resources and therefore we have moved away from using purely governmental technical resources for every activity.

What role Common Service Centres will play in ushering eGovernance in our country?

CSCs are a critical element of e-Government but they also pose www.egov.csdms.in |

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a very unique challenge. It is a chicken and egg problem.

If CSCs are not there then there are no outlets for delivery of e-Governance services in rural areas and if there are no e-Governance services then CSCs have a big problem of viability.

So in a sense the challenge is to make sure that CSCs and e-Governance services come up and they support each other.

The way that it has been envisaged in NeGP, CSCs will become viable by a combination of government and private sector services. This is one of the mission mode projects in NeGP and we are going to unveil soon the details of that programme. We are actively working on that program and submitting a proposal within the government for approval very soon.

Many industry players point out that at present standardisation, interoperability and security are the key concerns in implementing e-Government in India. What do you have to say about them? How will you address them?

Within the government, integration and standardisation has been looked at as a part of the NeGP. An institutional mechanism has been envisaged and is being put into place. Decisions have been taken to drive the entire standardisation process on a continuous basis. I think that aspect has been fairly understood and necessary processes have been put in place. Additionally, if there is any concern that anyone has about standardisation, there is mechanism and a forum for dealing with those issues, at least within the government.

As far as security is concerned there is no doubt that as we move into a more network and web-based architecture, security is going to be a major concern and will remain so for the foreseeable future. There is a whole body of work here and whole new organisations are coming up to look at this. Before any project migrates to a 100% digital mode, security audit is invariably being done and brought in as a regular feature in implementation.

Which are the successful e-Government projects in India that have been scaled from the pilot stage to the state/ National level?

If you take in the state sector, land records is one project where half a dozen states have them online. In registration there are at least 6 to 10 states where the entire process has been rolled out all over the state. We are also seeing that in the municipal sector some urban bodies have been fairly effective in implementing e-Governance projects. At the national level, Income tax is one project that has gone quite far with fairly ambitious goals. So there are many such areas where roll-outs have happened; and we are not talking about pilots but about a large number of locations. In government a large number would mean a few hundred or maybe a few thousand locations.

It has been seen that national e-governance plans are not successful unless backed by the highest levels in the government? Is it a fact in India too?

It is a fact all over the world that major national plans are not successful unless they are backed by political and administrative support at the highest level. In India, it is strongly supported at political and administrative level, as NeGP is a part of the | August 2005

National Common Minimum Programme. There is an Apex committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary at the centre and most state committees are headed by Chief Secretaries. Both at GoI and state government level typically these committees are serviced by the Department of IT. So there are systems in place, which channel the high level political and administrative support to the whole programme and it is required precisely because this programme cuts across various departments and doesn’t relate to one single department.

How will change of government at the center impact NeGP? Any change of government has impact on every single plan of government. But as far as e-Governance is concerned it is a little bit like economic liberalisation. People have realised certain global and national imperatives. Therefore while there may be changes in priorities and focus, a little here and there and may be some refinement, the National e-Governance Plan has been accepted across the system and therefore is not something, which is subject to such fluctuation.

Does the institutional infrastructure available in the country to support this e-Governance program?

I would look at it in two ways – the institutional framework within the government and outside the government and the institutional framework to drive the program both technically and managerialy. We have identified certain deficiencies there and it is also a major area of concern. A plan of action has been formulated as the first and the highest priority in NeGP. In fact the first allocation made by Planning Commission for NeGP in the last financial year, was for capacity building and institutional capacity. So, this is something which has been well recognised and is being addressed. I won’t say it has been sorted out but it will take a certain amount of time. As far as capacity outside the government is concerned there are a lot of capacities like IITs, RECs/NITs and Indian Institutes of Management and so on, which have the competencies and capabilities. But many of them have not devoted much attention or focus on e-Governance.

This is an area where we would like to see a lot more of attention and involvement. Even from the institution’s point of view there is a serious limitation of right kind of faculty and trainers.

Even among those who have the interest, there are problems at several levels.

In this new framework of e-Governance, what happens to the older organisations like NIC which have been providing support?

NIC has been the premier technical organisation in the government and it will continue to be so. But as we go into new kinds of implementation like public private partnerships and also as we are getting a larger number of players, the NIC has to provide the technical support and technology input into the whole program, especially strategic. Secondly, for security or other reasons it is not possible to bring in third parties for all the technical solutions. The role of a premier organisation like NIC should shift to such core areas, while peripheral areas like project implementation activity can be done by other organisations or companies.

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Capacity Building and Institutional Framework for e-Governance

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he Government of India has formulated the National E Governance Plan (NeGP), which consists of 25 Central, State and Integrated Projects to be implemented in Mission Mode along with 8 support components for rapid introduction of e-Governance in the country. The Plan envisions providing all government services in an integrated manner at the doorstep of the citizen at affordable cost and aims to radically change the way governments interact with citizens and businesses and deliver services. Currently, most government offices still function with the colonial legacy handed to us by the British, which was designed to handle very few citizen government interactions on a daily basis, as opposed to the millions of interaction which are necessitated today. The result of course is delays, opaqueness, and a lot of discretion at the hand of a government employee. The aspiration levels of the government as expressed in the Plan mean that governments at the National, State and local level would have to radically change the way they function and government employees would have to learn a new way of doing business. The Technical and managerial implications of such an initiative are enormous and currently most government departments at the national State and local level are woefully in-equipped to meet this challenge.

The needs of managing such a programme at the State level to deal with issues relating to standards, security, ways of optimising costs through the use of common core infrastructure like networks, data centres and service delivery front ends requires not only a vision at the highest levels of the State Government, it also requires capacities at various levels of government to be able to implement this ambitious programme successfully, and in a time bound manner. The Government has recognised that the first step in being able to implement this plan needs capacities to be built, at the State level, where the maximum citizen government interface occurs. Considering the fact that most departments do not even have a department of Information Technology, or if they do it usually consists of 2-3 persons, who often have very little expertise to deal with the complexities of the task at hand, it is here that first capacities need to be built. Accordingly the Government of India is funding a capacity building exercise across all States through the funds made available by the Planning Commission under the head of Additional Central Assistance to States.

The guidelines formulated by the Government recognise the fact that not only are the States at different levels of e-Governance, they may also have different aspirations and priorities. Accordingly the guidelines are based on the premise that the highest level of leadership at the State level would have to see value in eGovernance and that an e- Governance Plan, particularly one as ambitious as the NeGP, requires political buy in at the highest level. The guidelines highlight the fact that it is the political leadership, which would have to provide the leadership and vision to ensure the successful implementation of the various initiatives in the State. It is also recognised that while the buy in at the highest level is essential if the plan is to success, this is not a sufficient condition for its success. Thus what is needed is an optimal mix of knowledge and authority to ensure the success of this plan. It is also recognised that currently most States do not have any institutional structure in place, which could handle the implementation of eGovernance initiatives across the State. The guidelines also acknowledge that currently, the skill sets needed to ensure effective implementation do not fully exist within most State Governments and that there is a need to bring in expertise from the private sector and marry it to the domain expertise from within government, 16

thereby creating a resource which would be adequate to meet the requirements of the tasks at hand.

Institutional Framework The following illustration provides a conceptual overview of the Capacity Building and Institutional framework in the State Government:

Apex Level Accordingly, it is proposed that each State would have an Programme Steering Council, headed by the Chief Minister, to provide overall vision, broad policy direction and guidance to the State e- Governance Program.

Further, in order to achieve the policy goals and objectives as determined by the Program Steering Council, a high level committee termed as the Apex Committee is to be set up to provide strategic direction and oversee the State e-Governance program & ensure inter departmental coordination. The Apex Committee is to be headed by the Chief Secretary and would comprise representatives from the departments of Finance, Planning as well as the line departments which are involved in implementation of the various eGovernance projects. This would ensure that the authority needed to take crucial decisions on issues relating to government process reengineering, change management, as well as on issues of standards, security, setting up and utilisation of the core common infrastructure would be institutionalised. www.egov.csdms.in |

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However, these two bodies would need to have the required knowledge and a choice of options made available to them to enable them to take the crucial decisions needed for implementation of the State e Governance Plans.

Programme Level Hence what is also envisaged is the setting up of a core State e Mission Team (SeMT) which would have the requisite knowledge and expertise to provide inputs to the E Gov Council and the Apex Committee and assist them in taking the correct decisions and making the right choices. Thus the primary task envisioned for the SeMT is to function as the secretariat of the Apex Committee as well as its in house advisory resource. It is this team, which would be ideally headed by the State IT Secretary, which would look into issues relating to the overall direction of the programme, issues relating to standardisation, the interdependencies and overlaps which would necessarily exist in a programme of this nature. This team would also look into aspects relating to security, overall architecture etc. and place the same for the approval of the Apex Committee and the Programme Steering Council, respectively. However, this is not the only task, which is proposed for the SeMT. Recognising the fact that even the basic skills needed to conceptualise and formulate eGovernance projects may not exist in most government departments, the SeMT is also viewed as a resource to assist government departments on various aspects of eGovernance projects, right from the stage of conceptualisation to project formulation and implementation.

The SeMT is not perceived as a very big organisation and it is proposed to be a group of not more than 5-10 persons. Keeping with the overall philosophy of the NeGP, what is also proposed is that wherever possible, most of the activities relating to project implementation should be outsourced. The SeMT is therefore viewed as an internal resource available to departments, which would play the role of an advisor, in assisting departments in sourcing the skills required for various activities. Thus, if a project document is to be prepared, the SeMT would help with the initial conceptualisation and thereafter help departments in the hiring of a consultant who would finally prepare the overall project report. Similarly, if a project has to be implemented on a turn key basis, the | August 2005

SeMT would advise on the preparation of RFP, assist in managing the bid process and help design and monitor the Service Level Agreement entered into. It is also recognised that the kind of skill sets required by the personnel of the SeMT, which would primarily be in the area of technical expertise, change management, Government Process Reengineering, financial management and project management, may not fully exist within the government. Accordingly it is proposed that the SeMT would have a judicious mix of people with domain experience, i.e. from within government and people from the private sector, particularly for issues relating to technology, project management, change management etc. The SeMT would also be a repository of best practices in the country as well as the State.

Thus if a department is proposing an implementation strategy which has faced problems within the State or elsewhere in the country, the SeMT would be able to advise the department about the pit falls of the strategy and how to avoid them.

Project Level The guidelines also propose that apart from the high level expertise needed at the overall State Programme level for managing the programme and assisting departments, what is also needed is a core group at the project level which would form the heart of the implementation effort needed for an e-Governance project.

Thus, the departments taking up e-Governance projects would need to have a full time dedicated Project team, called the Project e-Governance Mission Team (PeMT).

It would be the responsibility of this core group within the department to actually handle the implementation of the specific e-Governance project. It is this team that would deal with technology, process & change management related issues specific to that project. This team would also manage outsourcing tasks like preparation of project proposals, preparing the consulting assignments, System Design & Architecture etc.

Concluding observations Essentially, the guidelines have been based some crucial realisations, gleaned from the success and failures of successful e-Governance projects across the country. What has been seen is that while there have been a huge number of eGovernance initiatives which have been undertaken across the country, the success rate of these initiatives has been low. Usually, the initiatives, which have succeeded, have had a person in a critical position, (Champion) with sufficient authority, knowledge and the vision to make an e-Governance initiative a success, and who was able to build a core team to support him. Secondly, most initiatives that have failed, have largely done so because even if the persons driving the initiative were well meaning, they did not have recourse to the necessary expertise which could advise them on the best course to follow. Thus most e-Governance initiatives were looked at as a simple marriage of hardware and software, not realising that this was the simplest and usually the least important component in the success of any e-Governance initiative. Thus these guidelines are an attempt to create an institutional mechanism, which ensures that a project does not succeed or fail just because of one crucial person.

The attempt is to institutionalise the concept of an internal core team closely associated with the Syedain Abbasi decision making structure is to ensure that failures in project Director, Department of Information implementation are minimised during Technology (DIT), Government of India the implementation of the States syedain_sabbasi@mit.gov.in e-Governance plan.

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‘Rights’ to information, or ‘obligations’ to society?

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ver the past three years Roger Longhorn, Max Craglia and I have been trying to understand the emotions and principles of the debates surrounding rights of access to information, particularly to information produced by government (PSI – Public Sector Information). It is relatively easy to produce convincing arguments that access to PSI is a societal, even a human right, where a policy assumption should be that all information is available unless there are compelling reasons to restrict access – this is an ‘enabling’ legislative context. The opposite context would be an official secrets regime, such as that in Singapore (Skinner 2001), where information is deemed secret unless it is specifically made available for wider access – a ‘controlling’ legislative context.

Access to PSI includes arguments that allowing citizens to use information enhances democratic participation and allows citizens to evaluate the performance of government. Further arguments would state that access to PSI should be non-discriminatory, and there should not be levels of pricing that exclude user groups that need to use PSI, or that the emergence of ‘digital divides’ should be minimised.

The rich literature surrounding rights of access to PSI is strongly contrasted by the much less coherent literature on what we could term ‘obligations of use’ (Maxwell 2003). This paper will focus mostly on some of the dilemmas surrounding the use of information that include, but also go beyond PSI, and the extent to which societal obligations of use are contained in a contest between national scale rules and local scale behaviours. We should see ‘rights’ not as stated rules of access to PSI, but as fluid environment of information practice, where we negotiate between contests of legislation, rules, national, corporate, social, and individual behaviours that occur when we consume PSI. Rights can be stated as being 18

We should see ‘rights’ not as stated rules of access to PSI, but as fluid environment of information practice...

‘absolute’ (we have the right to information), as being ‘circumscribed’ (if you use that information you must be critically aware of the consequences), or even ‘contextualised’ (you cannot presently access that information at present due to outbreaks of terrorism). In the context of global terrorism and the threat of attack, US government agencies are contextualising the US Freedom of Information legislation. By noting that new requirements to protect critical infrastructure mean that they should now refuse access to information that was openly accessible before (RCFP 2005). Yet, it is possible to use the Internet to make that information available, which is censored in one nation. This introduces the first ‘rights dilemma’- are we ethically justified in using information, no matter if there is negative impact for society?

The second rights context occurs when we use PSI even when we do not have access to metadata, or even do not use the metadata, that provide us with

important information about issues such as sampling and accuracy. This ‘right to consume’ goes deep into consumer behaviour when purchasing products from global corporations. We use information tools, such as GIS, largely as black-boxes where we do not understand the complex algorithms that make up such processes as polygon overlay, yet we still use them to make policy decisions that affect citizens. Second dilemma of rights to data therefore states that ‘I do not know enough information about a process or product, but I will still use it’.

Third dilemma of rights to information argues that ‘it is just my job’, so do not blame me for denying your access rights. This is where you are aware that legislation restricting access to information is still practiced rigorously in government agencies, even though the information being restricted is available elsewhere. The Survey of India (SOI) has for long practiced its restricted map access policy (SOI 2004). Even the new National Map Policy for India remains conservative in areas of security so that “national security objectives are fully safeguarded” (India 2005). The Policy also notes that public access maps “will ensure that no civil and military Vulnerable Areas and Vulnerable Points (VA’s/VP’s) are shown”, and “if the international boundary is depicted on the map, certification by SOI will be necessary”. However, Dilemma 3 is fundamentally a lose-lose process, where those in Government can be criticised for not restricting information rights in the face of global terrorism, and can also be criticised if they maintain access rights, because that may be seen as supporting terrorism.

Fourth dilemma concerns our desire to protect our own information, while wanting access to information about others – this is the ‘societal benefit dilemma’. In UK, recently there was an outcry about population register records being computerised under contract in India (Kablenet 2005) and there was a fear www.egov.csdms.in |

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of national confidential information moving beyond the physical borders of the nation state. More prosaically, we rely on data protection legislation to help ensure that the use of individual data is both regulated and kept to a minimum (Purdam, Mackey, and Elliott 2004) and in Europe the general approach is known as ‘opt-in’ where we must give permission for our individual information to be used for purposes beyond those that are legally defined. However, we do dilute these constraints through our social behaviour, since the right to information can conflict with a powerfully stated (by UNESCO) right to communicate (McIver, Birdsall, and Rasmussen 2003).

The fifth dilemma states, ‘I know that this information is restricted, but it is in the public interest that I make it available (leaking information)’? Do we have a right to ‘whistle-blow’ – to use our own initiative to make information publicly available, even if organisation rule forbid it? This was of concern in July 2005 when an IT specialist identified critical security failings in Cisco IT infrastructure that was a major component of the global Internet.

Cicso responded by claiming that he violated trade secrets, and others regarded his publicising of the failings as possibly alerting terrorists (Zetter 2005).

These five rights dilemmas are by no means exhaustive, but the intention is to highlight the complex relationship between access to information and the obligations of use. The prevailing climate of recent decades has been very much towards information commons and freedom of information. However, for every action there is a reaction, and this is where the wider research literature provides insights for policy-makers.

The first reaction exists in the debate surrounding privacy, which often is promoted in connection with data protection to maximise our personal rights to minimise the use of our personal information, and even to become anonymous.

Second, and more directly in the context of rights and obligations, is the strong emphasis on privacy. Governments wish us to participate more in democracy and society (the European Commission has the term ‘active citizenship’ as a priority), yet they also promote the | August 2005

protection of privacy. The two components of rights and obligations have been largely disassociated in recent western society. While I am not implying that privacy activists are ‘idiots’ in the current use of the work, governments are worrying about the impact of globalisation on what we term ‘community’ and ‘society’.

Rights supersede obligations, and this is no more seen at present than in the increasing use of the patents systems.

First, patent protections have been used to stop India making cheaper copies of patented drugs (Tata 2005). Second, patents are being used to take out monopoly ownership of software techniques that are often regarded as common knowledge, a recent case being the US Patent for “locating available real estate properties for sale, lease or rental using a database of available properties at a central location and remote stations which use a graphic interface” (Anon 2005).

Rights to information therefore are not independent of obligations, but where they are regarded as being separate. There is considerable scope for misuse and abuse of information. That may explain why the prevailing model for PSI producers generally is not to look towards social contracts that embody obligations, but to use much broader mechanisms of restricting access. The former requires complex auditing processes, and for some PSI producers, notably official statistics, the risk of even one case of confidential data being disclosed is too risky. The UK Office for National Statistics noted in 2001 “once a claim of disclosure was made, confidence and trust in ONS would be damaged” (Statistics 2001). The latter situation of restricting access is more broad brush, easier to administer, and is a risk-averse policy. It is therefore not surprising that access controls remain a critical part of the information policy toolkit.

Lastly, there are wider issues to information rights. We may have rights to access and use PSI, but that may require considerable administrative reform and culture change within government agencies (TOI 2005a). Second, we may have rights of access to information, but may not be able to afford the IT

Citizens campaigning for Right to Information in Rajasthan, India. After a long wait, Indian parliament finally passed the landmark Right to Information Bill on May 12, 2005. infrastructure to process it, or have the skills to analyse it (Jagadheesan 2005), perhaps implying that we need rights of access to technology. What is clear, however, from all the research on PSI access and use, is that a continuing liberalisation of the PSI landscape is a powerful contributor to economic growth, citizen participation, and democracy. It is right that information users should continue to press for more PSI availability, but it also is right that they do so through an understanding of the policy dilemmas facing PSI producers. Rights, in the end, are not definitive entities, but are fluid and complex contexts within which PSI production and use are contested and negotiated.

The complete article with references can be read at www.egov.csdms.in

Michael Blakemore Professor in Geography Durham University, UK michael.blakemore@durham.ac.uk

19

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

From e-Business to e-Government SAP is a recognised leader in providing collaborative business solutions for all type of industries and for every major market. SAP has increased efficiency, improved accountability and enabled responsive constituent services in more than 1,050 public sector organisations worldwide. eGov team talked with R. Ramki, Director, SAP Asia Pvt. Ltd., to discuss key e-Government initiatives of SAP in India.

What are the initiatives taken by SAP in the domain of e-Government in India?

In the area of providing solutions for the government we talk about four segments - Core government, healthcare, education and defence/security. We have been providing solutions for various government institutions and organisations for a pretty long time. These solutions are mainly ERP or GRP based solutions, solutions for citizen service interface, solutions for tax payment, social welfare, managing public grievances and public cases. For the last one-year this sector has been a focus for SAP in India.

Today we are working with different governments and government agencies for providing either backend ERP based solutions and also solutions providing constituent service.

What is your agenda in the e-Government arena in India for the next two to three years?

In the near future we are planning to set up a Centre-of-Excellence in India where we will be showcasing e-Government products and solutions for states, centre and also for various other government agencies.

Can you kindly elaborate on the objectives of setting up your e-Government Centreof-Excellence?

Main objectives of setting up the Centreof-Excellence is to showcase the e-Government solutions that we have with us, highlighting their phenomenal scalability and emphasising the standards that are built-in with respect to their interoperability, security and such allied issues. We would try to showcase enterprise class solutions for the government in terms of running 20

governments own internal processes and also for providing citizens and businesses with various services. This initiative would be a joint effort between SAP and some select partners.

Which are those countries outside India where you have such Centres-of Excellence?

We are having centres in US, Germany, Japan and Latin America. These centres are primarily used as platform to interact and exchange ideas with various government policy makers, consultants, academicians in order to design more efficient and effective solutions for the government Sector. We have also worked with government agencies in various countries for evolving standards for their applications What kind of partners are you looking at for setting up such Centre-ofExcellence?

In this regard we are looking at various options from the private organisations as well as government bodies. SAP in India works very closely with our 15 odd partners who range from global giants like IBM, Siemens to local giants like TCS, Wipro, Satyam. In terms of government agencies we have a tie up with NICSI. Are you looking at collaborating with research and academic institutes of India in the area of R&D for e-Government solutions?

We have already tied up with a number of premier academic institutions of India.

At present, we have tied up with institutes like IIT-Kanpur IIM-Bangalore, IIM-Calcutta, S P Jain Institute of Management, which also have our packages as part of their academic

curriculum. As far as R&D is concerned our development centres work with various academic institutions around the world.

According to you, what are the challenges that we are facing in India in the way of making e-Governance to be put into action?

We have to understand that in eGovernance, ‘e’ is a small part and ‘governance’ is a bigger part. We also have other challenges in terms of capacity building within the government itself.

While the Civil Servants are capable of managing very large and complex projects in the areas like infrastructure, public services, very few of them have the detailed knowledge to manage mission critical IT / ICT projects. Changing the mindset of people in any organisation is another very big challenge and there is no magic wand which can make this happen in a hurry.

While the government has come up with comprehensive NeGP, there are multitudes of similar plans, most of them small or even tiny deployments, which are happening at various local levels.

Managing these when the larger deployments happen would be an additional challenge Where do you see India in relation to other Asia-Pacific countries?

Compared to countries like Singapore, and Korea, we have a long way to go. Right now the focus is more on planning and there are not enough actual deployments.

Although the directions are right and a genuine willingness is there, a lot need to be done to remove huge areas of government inefficiencies, which would come in the way of ground implementation. www.egov.csdms.in |

CONFLUX 2005 PREVIEW II

The Grand New Delhi 17 - 19 October, 2005

e-Government: Evolution or Revolution?

KEY SPEAKERS Shiela Dikshit Chief Minister of Delhi

Prof V S Ramamurthy Secretary Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India

Maxine Olson United Nations Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in India

J. Satyanarayana CEO National Institute of Smart Government (NISG)

R. Chandrashekhar Joint Secretary (e-Governance), Deptt. of IT, Government of India

Amitabha Pandey Principal Resident Commissioner Government of Punjab

Deepak Maheshwari Secretary ISP Association of India

Dr K Subramanian Deputy Director General National Informatics Centre

Prakash Kumar IT Secretary Delhi

Dr Thomas Riley Chair Commonwealth Centre of e-Governance

Jeremy Millard Head e-Governance Programme Danish Technological Institute

Ian Swann Vice President SAP AG

Dr Morten Falch Technical University of Denmark

Aruna Sundarajan Country Programme Facilitator, India gesci

Prof Michael Blakemore Department of Geography University of Durham

Organisers

Host state

Institutional partner

Co-organisers

Government of NCT of Delhi

Conflux 2005 Secretariat Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) G - 4, Sector-39, NOIDA - 201 301, India Tel: +91-120-2502180 to 87, Fax: +91-120-2500060 URL: www.conflux.csdms.in E-mail: info@conflux.csdms.in

Supported by

Gold sponsor

Media partners

Conflux 2005: 17 - 19 October 2005, The Grand New Delhi

e-Government: Evolution or Revolution?

Digital Learning 2005

Introduction Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can help governments and the public sector to deal with the challenges of economic, social and environmental development and contribute to boosting economic growth and innovation.

However, driving good governance with appropriate change management strategies, state-of-art technology and robust public private partnership models are the key to success or failures of e-Government initiatives.

About Conflux 2005 Conflux 2005: The e-Government Conference, is a joint effort by Center for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS), Government of NCT of Delhi along with Department of Information Technology, Government of India, UNDP, Danish Technological Institute and key academic and civil society organisations and various multilateral agencies.

The aim of this conference is to provide a knowledge sharing platform and a forum for policymakers, practitioners, industry leaders and academicians for converting e-Government vision to actionable program.

A one day seminar on Digital Learning will be held on 18 October 2005 along side Conflux 2005, on the theme ‘ICT and Education: Challenges and Practices’. The objective of the seminar will be to create a platform for interchange of views among experts, professionals, researchers and academicians regarding theoretical and practical aspects of ICT implementation in education. Special focus will be made on open source applications and related policy issues.

This one-day seminar will be of interest to policy implementers, persons associated with advocacy, decision makers, managers, administrators, e-Learning content developers, ICT experts and the learning community. Mr. Sudip Kr. Banerjee, Dept. of Secondary Education and Higher Education, Government of India, Mr. K. Desiraju, Joint Secretary, Secondary Education and Prof. Deepak B. Pathak of IIT Mumbai will be some of the main speakers in the conference.

The themes to be covered in four sessions of the seminar including a keynote address will be as follows: Keynote address: Learning ICT and Learning through ICT: Prospects and Challenges Session I:

Important Dates Last date for abstract submission: 30th August 2005 Last date for full paper submission: 15th September 2005

Session II:

Abstracts and papers should be sent at: papers@conflux.csdms.in

International participation Conflux 2005 will bring participants from all across the globe to showcase some of the good practices in e-Government from several countries of Europe, South Asia, South East Asia, Middle East and North America. The conference promises to be one of the few knowledge sharing events in the field of e-Government, which will have judicious mix of national and international perspectives on a single platform.

www.conflux.csdms.in

Session III:

Session IV:

Tools for Learning through ICT: Availability and Scope • For Formal Education • For Non-formal Education e-Learning: Best Practices and Challenges • e-Learning in Developing Countries: Digital Divides • Content Development in e-Learning: Issues and Challenges • Case Studies/Projects in e-Learning Open Source in Education • Issues in Focus • Case Studies Policy and Advocacy: Critical Issues • Policy Issues in ICT and Education • Public-Private Partnership for Development of ICT for Education

We welcome ICT and Education practitioners from private sector, civil society (NGOs and networks) and Government departments to write to sejuti@csdms.in to present a paper. Last date for receipt of abstracts September 15, 2005. www.conflux.csdms.in |

and challenges in making them an effective tool of e-Government.

The session on CSCs during Conflux 2005 will focus on its critical success factors, implementation challenges, sustainability models and best practices.

Special Sessions NeGP The Government of India has recently launched the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), which is perhaps the biggest initiative launched in the country towards usage of ICT in governance. Conflux 2005 will discuss in detail about the roadmap of NeGP, the implementation plan, possible impact and ways to take the message of NeGP agenda to a much wider and deeper level within the Government system.The conference would encourage State governments to discuss their NeGP action plans, time-lines and potential areas of collaboration with industry, civil society and within the Government.

Common Service Centres (CSCs) Governments can make best use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to serve citizens, especially in rural areas, by creating access points called common service centres - as one-stop shop for a host of Government services for citizens. CSCs can deliver a range of G2C and G2B services including governmental, educational, entertainment, commercial and other services to its citizens. A number of initiatives, both government and nongovernment are being taken to rollout CSCs throughout the country. However, in order to make them successful, there is a need to discuss and debate on strategies, case studies, success stories

Rural Computing Information Communication and Technology (ICT) can greatly improve the quality of life of rural population.

However, technology and computing solutions for rural masses need to take in consideration the challenges of low spending capacity of people, inadequate power supply and lack of general IT skills in such regions.

Introduction of cheap and robust computer devices and deployment of rural IT infrastructure are the key requirements to give computing a fillip in those regions. The session on Rural Computing during Conflux 2005 will look into understanding the needs of people in rural areas and bring out the innovations of governments, corporates and civil society organisations in addressing these issues.

session on the subject in association with the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India.

ICT in Agriculture Most developing nations of the world, including India, thrive on an agrarian economy. Thus, agriculture forms the mainstay of a large section of people living in these countries. Very often, farmers lose out on getting good yields due to lack of on-time information and proper scientific knowledge that is critical to agricultural output. ICT has a tremendous potential of delivering such crucial information to farmers and help them learn new agricultural practices coming out of labs.

This can revolutionise the way farming has traditionally been done and spearhead the economies that depend on it. Conflux 2005 will have a session on ICT in Agriculture that will bring together government officials, scientists, IT experts and grass root practioners to share ideas, expertise and knowledge in applying ICT for agriculture.

e-Health

The success of National e-Government Plan of India largely depends on IT capacity building and enhancement of absorptive ability of personnel working at the Panchayat level. A strategic framework to bridge this access divide at grass root level has been prepared by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India.

A right implementation will help Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) leapfrog traditional problems of developments like poverty, illiteracy, corruption, disease, unemployment and social inequalities. In order to discuss the strategies and know about the current developments in this sector, Conflux 2005 will have a dedicated

Effective health systems needs two basic requirements to be fulfilled. One is appropriate services and information for people and the other being service and information accessibility. Information has a crucial role in health domain as it generates awareness and leads to better decision-making, better service provision and greater outreach of services. ICT has increasingly become more specialised in information management and dissemination and it is this, which makes it indispensable for all development efforts, including public health. The session on e-Health in Conflux 2005 will be organised in collaboration with leading government and non-government organisations in this sector.

• •

Passport department Police departments

• •

• •

Postal department Registration services

e-Panchayat

Key sectors to be addressed • • • •

Citizen services Income tax/Commercial tax Land records Municipal e-Government | www.conflux.csdms.in

Transport Treasuries automation

Organisers’ profile Supporting Partners

Co-Organisers

Organisers Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies

Department of Information Technology, Government of India

The Commonwealth Centre for e-Governance (CCEG)

Centre for Science,

The Department of Information

CCEG is a think

Development

and

Technology (DIT) under the

tank operating un-

Media Studies (CSDMS)

Ministry of Communications and

der the auspices

is a leading Asian non-governmental insti-

Information Technology, Govern-

of an e-Governance program of the

tution engaged in advocacy, research and

ment of India is the Central

community building in e-government, ICT

department responsible for all administrative

for Development and knowledge manage-

functions relating to formulation, execution

ment issues through capacity building and

and implementation of IT policies in India.

media initiatives. www.csdms.in

www.mit.gov.in

GIS Development Pvt. Ltd.

UNDP

Commonwealth Secretariat in London, UK. www.electronicgov.net

Technical University of Denmark (DTU) DTU is a self-governing university contributing to value crea-

GIS Development strives to

United Nations Development

tion in society on a sustainable

promote and propagate the

Programme

global

foundation through collabora-

usage of geospatial technol-

development network of UN,

tion in R&D activities with pri-

ogies in various areas of

advocating for change and

vate enterprises and through

is

a

development for the community at large.

connecting

It remains dedicated to foster the growing

knowledge, experience and

network of those interested in geo-

resources for their overall development. They

informatics across the world and Asia in

are presently working in 166 countries, with

particular. www.GISdevelopment.net

a commitment towards finding solutions to

countries

to

global and national development challenges.

Host State

www.undp.org.in

Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi

Danish Technological Institute (DTI), Denmark logical Institute (DTI)

creditable work in integrating/

electronic public services available. www.delhigovt.nic.in

Institutional Partner Indian Institute of Technology Delhi

ISPAI

Since the announcement of Internet privatisation in 1998,

ISPAI has taken a leading role in promoting Internet in India. www.ispai.in

The Danish Techno-

Government has executed

government departments and making

Internet Service Provider Association of India

Internet Service Providers Association of India

In the past few years, Delhi

automating services of various

the University’s academic programmes. www.dtu.dk

is one of the oldest

global e-schools and community initiatives (gesci)

technological institutes in the world. DTI has

global

successfully carried out a projects like BEEP

community initiatives (gesci)

(Best e-Europe Practices), PRISMA (Providing

is an initiative of the UN ICT

innovative service models and assessment).

Task Force that aims to

www.danishtechnology.dk

improve education as a

e-schools

and

cornerstone of sustainable socio-economic

The Society for Promotion for e-Governance

development. www.gesci.org

It is a premier centre

The Society for

of excellence in

Promotion

of

National Institute of Smart Government (NISG)

higher education,

e-Governance

NISG, Hyderabad is a

training, research and development in the

(SPEG) is a mission

non-profit institution-

field of science, engineering and technolo-

mode organization in India for the promotion

of-excellence in the

gy in India. It has been engaged in e-

of e-Governance and e-Democracy as tools

area of e-Governance in India. The institution

Governance research, consultation

for enhancing efficiency and transparency

has a leading role in providing integrated

documentation, analysis and events for the

in government services to the citizen.

e-Government services to citizens and

past few years. www.iitd.ac.in

www.egovindia.org

businesses. www.nisg.org

www.conflux.csdms.in |

COMMENTARY

Good practices in e-Governance: Main issues and challenges

I

nformation Technology (IT) has become a vital instrument in various aspects of human endeavour and practices in the West. In the context of developing countries, IT is a technological revolution whose application, production and applicability has been somewhat limited but whose potential for diffusion has continued to hold great promise in national development. In confrontation with the needs, requirements and praxis of other cultures and value systems, the introduction and applicability of Western models have been questioned, both in their role as solutions worthy of imitation and as adequate descriptions of reality. In particular, the introduction of e-Governance into a developing country jurisdiction is not without these challenges.

Articulating good e-Governance practices: ‘Context- StrategyOperation’ Model This article seeks to advance that in order to articulate good practices in e-Governance implementation, there is need to do so not as a narration of good practices per se, but must be placed in ‘form, structure and process’ as articulated by the context – strategy-operation tripartite model as below: • Contextual problems, as problems due to a weak fit or mismatch between models of Western or Northern design and applications and the realities of Southern contexts, semantic discrepancies and ambiguities, a North-South dichotomy brought to bear upon the articulation and understanding of phenomena as well as in the accommodation of references to different value systems and different concepts of rationality; • Strategy problems, as problems relating to local, national or regional policy initiatives, as manifested through institutional intervention mechanisms of influence, regulation and implementation.

• Operational problems, as problems of informediation due to technical and economic constraints and paucity of skilled human resource to drive any | August 2005

pertinent change brought to bear upon the introduction of informediation in a jurisdiction.

Implementating e-Governance: What does it mean?

Implementing e-Governance denotes the implementation of an e-Governance initiative (programme or project) in a jurisdiction and carries with it all the challenges required to transform vision to reality. For most of the less developed countries and some of the more developed countries, e-Governance is still very much about computerising existing Government businesses and to a lesser or greater extent, reengineering Government processes, systems and structures. For most part, the roadmap to full e-Governance implementation will be arduous and tortuous for many jurisdictions. Good practices in e-Governance implementation cannot be cast in stone. They, however, represent some practicable and pragmatic practioner consensus with regard to successful implementation.

The following comprise essential features of good practice in e-Governance implementation: • The implementation of ICT initiatives for e-Governance and other applications, namely, ICT Infrastructure, ICT Infostructure and their associated concomitants, must be managed as a Programme of Action running multiple, sequential and parallel projects. Critical in the implementation of an e-Governance initiative lies the creation of a Change Management System, driven under the aegis of a Change Manager for e-Governance. Change Management may be perceived as a critical aspect of enabling the implementation of an e-Governance initiative or masterplan.

• The change management process will commence with Process Enablement, which looks at the existing manual processes in each area defined for e-Governance implementation and establishes solutions for computerising and/or automating or integrating.

• People Enablement will be looked at as a contrivance to verify whether the right human resources are in place for managing and driving the change.

People issues like artefacts, skills, heuristics, experience, natural talent and social networks vis a vis training, Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and qualifications should be looked at in the context of change management that is poised to determine. Moreover, it must be remembered that strategies do not create change – people do.

• People enablement is followed by Infrastructure Enablement, namely, a determination of the nature of infrastructure that e-Governance applications and systems will be running on. Infrastructure enablement is followed by System Enablement, which involves procuring of ICT equipment and making it run on the established infrastructure in line with the business requirements of the e-Governance vision.

Change management, Process Enablement, People Enablement, Infrastructure Enablement and Systems Enablement, which are essential generic features of an e-Governance implementation, will exist in a milieu charaterised by multi-level problems of context, strategy and operation. Good practices in e-Governance has therefore to be viewed in this context.

The illustration in Figure 1 provides a succinct schematic definition of e-Governance as deployed in this article and the relation that it bears to Good Governance.

25

COMMENTARY

Figure 1: From Good Governance to e-Governance in a Schematic

Good practices in e-Governance in a milieu of contextual problems Good practices in e-Governance in a milieu of contextual problems predicate the need for the following: • Building an IT culture and promoting the Acculturation of IT - Good practice in e-Governance implementation within the purview of a people-centred focus for a country’s National Information Technology Strategy, including an e-Governance strategy, relates to the need for building an IT culture and Promoting the Acculturation of IT. • Creating public awareness programmes - Implementation of e-Governance in a social-economic context of a jurisdiction introduces into the socialeconomic milieu a new cognitive map which does not necessarily form part of an existing cultural tradition onto how “things are traditionally done here”.

There is thus a need to obtain public support in order to ensure that implementations put in place are owned and sustained by the community and the citizens.

• Formulating and implementing a communications strategy - It is crucial that the communications strategy deployed in the implementation of an e-Governance initiative conveys a number of key messages, namely, that e-Governance in a jurisdiction has the objective to realise a number of aspirations for the benefit of citizens and government employees besides businesses.

• Articulating and assessing the status of ePreparedness.

The above are a necessary requirement in order to be able to prepare the target population for what would have otherwise been alien in characteristic, new in applicability and presenting a cognitive map, which is difficult to accommodate or to comprehend, or even accept and/or claim ownership of.

Good Practices in e-Governance in a Milieu of Strategy Problems Blueprint for e-Governance Good practice in e-Governance implementation starts with the articulation of a Stakeholders’ Statement of Requirements (Stakeholder Expectations) as the basis for a baseline assessment for e-Governance readiness or preparedness. As a mark of good practice, the output of this assessment is the blueprint for e-Governance, which more often than not constitutes an e-Governance Masterplan (eGMP). An 26

e-Governance Masperplan will comprise a documentation of Stakeholders’ Statement of Requirements, an articulation of the Baseline Asessment of Critical Success Factors (CSFs), ICT infrastructure, ICT infostructure and ICT Public Private Partnerhips (PPPs) for e-Governance followed by an articulation of Aggregation Scenarios that specifically provide inferences in respect of perceived Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Risks for e-Governance implementation. This is buttressed by Recommendations for Strategic Options and an Action Plan for e-Governance Implementation. As part of the e-Governance Masterplan blueprint, recommendations will need to be specifically made in respect of the following: • Implementation as a Project Management Process, incorporating, among others, recommendations for resources, timelines, milestones and strategies; • Implementation as Change Management Process, incorporating, among others, an Action Plan to effect change that is brought to bear upon the introduction of an e-Governance initiative in an otherwise traditional national economic environment.

The above mode of approach has been found to be successful for the Governments of Mauritius and Lesotho.

A particular aspect of such baseline assessment comprises an assessment in respect of Critical Success Factors (CSFs).

This is multidimensional in characteristic, namely, assessment in respect of a number of factors, including the following which, based on years of learning experience, have been identified as necessary initial conditions for a successful e-Governance, eStrategy or ePolicy initiative in a given national jurisdiction: • Top-level commitment - Many national jurisdictionc have made not much progress in e-Governance implementation primarily because Top level commitment has been lacking, insignificant or not even thought of or considered.

• Organisational responsibility Many national jurisdictions have only marginally succeeded in their e-Governance implementations because form, structure and process with regard to organisational responsibility has been left vague, unfocused and lacking in leadership and direction, with the result that multiple organisations in a jurisdiction have claimed leadership, www.egov.csdms.in |

COMMENTARY

•

•

•

• • •

leading to serious role ambiguities and, sometimes, a stalling in progress. It is therefore necessary that organisational responsibility is addressed appropriately.

A shared vision, mission, strategies - An articulation of a shared vision is good practice for initiative focus, branding and national image projection beyond national jurisdictions. e-Governance Policy “Orientation” - An articulation of “Policy Orientation” vis a vis e-Governance places a useful but somewhat obscure strategic factor of interest on good practices for e-Governance implemenation. An assessment of policy orientation for e-Governance predicates the extent to which any of eGovernment, eDemocracy or eBusiness is deemed to have a comparative advantage in a country’s e-Governance initiative. e-Governance Policy “Scope” Policy Orientation vis a vis Outlook Perspectives predicates the extent to which any of inward, outward and indigenous IT business outlook is deemed to have a comparative advantage for a jurisdiction’s following and provides latitude for strategic choice for any or combinations of the following options: An inward outlook policy orientation; An outward outlook policy orientation; An indigenous IT business outlook.

Role of Government The role of Government in terms of regulation, influence and implementation is strategic and generally wide in scope. Among others, the roles illustrated in figure 2 are considered particularly useful for the benefit of countries making ingress into e-Governance, particularly as new-comers.

Good Practices in eGovernance in the Face of Operational Problems Existing ICT Infrastructure for eGovernance ICT infrastructure for e-Governance relate to the hard-wired strategy options required for the proper functioning of structures and systems for eGovernance (eStrategy and ePolicy). Good practice in eGovernance will seek to assess existing ICT Infrastructure, which may be perceived to comprise, among others, an ePeparedness assessment with respect to the following broad categories: | August 2005

•

Technology perspectives of the ICT infrastructure o The Telecommunications infra-stucture o The Internet infrastructure • Implementing a total ICT solution o Building a National Information Infrastructure; o Becoming part of the Global Information Infrastructure; o An ICT infrastructure services model. o eSecurity and Government Secure Intranets (GSI).

Learning experience from various jurisdictions demonstrate that the telecommunication infrastructure and the Internet infrastructure exist, which together are changing the paradigm for communications in any national jurisdiction.

It has become an imperative for good practices in e-Governance to view these as the technology perspectives of the ICT infrastructure. The telecommunications infrastructure and the Internet infrastructure can be perceived as conjointly comprising the telecommunications physical infrastructure and the electronic network infrastructure, with their concomitants of application, architecture and infrastructure. A jurisdiction’s ability to succeed or fail in its pursuit of an eGovernance initiative will, to a larger extent, rely on the putting in place or not, a fully functional telecommunications infrastructure and Internet infrastructure.

To date, many developing country jurisdictions are focusing on ensuring that the two technology perspectives of the ICT infrastructure are in place and, in particular, that monopolistic tendencies are gradually giving way to divesture and liberalisation of the services with minimal bottlenecks.

Conclusion It is hoped that this article will find use and application in parts thereof by both neophytes and entry-level jurisdictions as well as to individuals and jurisdictions well seasoned in the process of e-Governance implementation.

References [OKOT-UMA 1992]: Okot-Uma, Rogers W’O, A Synthesis Perspective of Operational, Contextual and Strategy Problems in Informediation in Developing Countries, Proceedings of IFIP Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, ISBN 0-07462040-1, S C Bhatnagar and Mayuri Odedra (Editors), Tata McGraw-Hill New Delhi [OKOT-UMA 2003(1) et al ]: Electronic Governance Masterplan : The Government of the Republic of Mauritius Rogers W’O Okot-Uma & The Commonwealth eGovernance Team, Commonwealth Secretariat (October 2003), xxviii + 385pp, Price: Free, Restricted Circulation [WOMUDHU &OKOT-UMA 2003] Electronic Governance Masterplan : The Government Rogers W’o Okot-Uma of the Republic of the Kingdom of Lesotho –The Khokelo Thutong Project (Connectivity Independent e-Governance Adviser in Education) Godfrey Womudhu Kyama of Commonwealth Informatics and Rogers W’O Okot-Uma, Resources London, United Kingdom Commonwealth Secretariat (August 2003), okotuma@hotmail.com 141pp Price: Free, Restricted Circulation

27

TECH TALK

corDECT Technology

C

orDECT is a low-cost advanced Wireless Access System designed keeping in view the economic realities of a country like India. It has been developed by Midas Communication Technologies and IIT Madras, in association with Analog Devices, USA. The technology provides a complete wireless access solution with seamless integration of high quality voice and 35/70 kbps Internet access to its wireless subscribers. The technology is based on the DECT (Digitally Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication) air interface standard specification of the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI).

It supports 10 Km of line-of-sight connectivity and has the provision to extend this to 25 Km using Repeaters. corDECT technology comprises of a number of components.

These are: • DECT Interface Unit (DIU) • Wall Set with Internet Port (WS-IP) • iKON Remote Access Switch • Network Management • Compact Base Station (CBS) • Relay Base Station (RBS) • Base Station Distributor (BSD)

DECT Interface Unit (DIU) The DIU is a fully redundant subscriber radio exchange, which can also act as a voice PBX with up to 8 E1 connections to PSTN/Voice. It switches voice traffic to the telephone network to connect to an exchange. It also switches Internet calls to a built-in Remote Access Switch (RAS), which then routes the traffic to the Internet network. The System reliability is guaranteed by redundant hot standby architecture and the OMC (Operation and Maintenance Console) that allows real-time monitoring and management of the entire corDECT system.

Wall Set with Internet Port (WS-IP)

DIU

28

The Wall Set is the equipment that provides access at the place of the subscriber. It has 2 ports one that connects to a DTMF or decadic telephone, a FAX machine or a modem and the other, which is an Internet port, for connecting to a computer,

Ashok Jhunjhunwala of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, is the key expert behind innovation of cordDECT technology. In this interview with egov team, he discusses the benefits of corDECT, Broandband corDECT and about the potential such technology holds for rural population.

What is CorDECT Technology?

It is a wireless in a local loop (WiLL) technology. What it means is that the connection from an exchange to any home is on wireless, very much like mobile, instead of copper wires. It is a fixed wireless connection, which can be used not only for telephony but also for Internet connectivity. This technology started 7-8 years back. We developed it in India, at IIT Madras and MIDAS communication, and we were partially responsible for bringing telephony to large sections of people. We have recently come up with a technology called a broadband CorDECT. It will provide 256 or 512 kbp per second to each user.

It is the most spectrum efficient wireless technology available today and will enable broadband to be made available in villages and urban areas.

Which are the places where these technologies have been implemented?

The earlier version of the CorDECT has been implemented by almost all the service providers in the country and deployed at several thousand places and in 15 other countries. In India, it is being widely done in places like Jaipur, many towns of Rajasthan (by Shyam TeleLink), Chandigarh, towns of Punjab. BSNL has deployed it in about few hundred towns all over the country and is also using this technology to connect many rural areas.

There are companies like nLogue, which are using it in rural areas widely. Some of the other countries where CorDECT has been deployed include Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Iran, Tunisia, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Angola, etc.

How can you say this technology is innovative and different from other technologies?

Well, lets talk about today’s broadband wireless. With 512 kbps, it is by far more superior than any other technology in terms of raw output it provides. Lots of innovation has gone into this technology - like we have tried using horizontally polarized signal and vertically polarized signal. No other commercial wireless technology uses it today. The exchange that we install in small towns works upto 55 degree C, so it does not require an air conditioner. Similarly the total power requirement is only 1 kilowatt so one can have a small diesel generator as a back-up.

It is extremely useful and from that small town where fibre is

www.egov.csdms.in |

TECH TALK

thus obviating the need for a modem. The PC establishes an Internet connection using a standard dial-up utility.

It runs on a 12 V adaptor or a solar pannel and in addition it has a built-in battery with 16 hours stand by an 3 hour talk time for voice calls. already there, now in 25-30 km radius telephony and Internet can be provided.

What are the drawbacks of this technolgy?

It is a line of sight technology. It is not a mobile technology. It is a fixed technology. It is the main drawback ; it has been designed for that high speed Internet rather than for mobile.

Can this be said that it is a tailor-made technology for rural areas?

It is tailor-made for broadband deployment and for rural areas.

How cost-effective is this technology?

It is extremely cost-effective. Today the cost of per line deployment in a village if you deploy one tower and connect 300 villages, the cost may come to barely Rs.8000 per line. Maybe Rs.10,000 including tower, power supply etc.

What is the future of this kind of technology in India?

Well, Broadband is being introduced in a big way from this year and I think Broadband corDECT will be used widely by operators. There is also a version called Cable wireless where the upstream is carried on wireless and downstream on cable.

That will really hit even big cities like Chennai, Bombay, Delhi. I do see probably 10 million lines of this to be connected in the next 3 and a half years.

‘CorDECT’ has evolved to a ‘broadband CorDECT’. Now what is next?

We are looking at how to further expand. So far we have been using DECT radio. We may change the DECT Radio tomorrow and go for OFDMA technologies.

Have you faced any challenges in the roll-out of this technology?

All the time we have been facing lots of challenges. At technology level, at the Operator level, at the deployment level.

In the beginning it was difficult to get spectrum clearance.

Fortunately today spectrum exists, but at one time it was not there and we faced lot of difficulty. But challenges are a part of life. Basically today there is more trust in Indian technology than when we started 8-10 years back.

iKON Remote Access Switch The iKON Remote Access Switch (RAS) terminates the connection from subscribers and initiates connection to the DIU.

Network Management CorDECT provides comprehensive operation and maintenance control (OMC) through the corVIEW OMC Console. Features include hardware and software configuration, subscriber administration, accounting, fault notification and traffic.

CorVIEW supports the SNMP protocol and can be connected to the corDECT system by any IP network.

Dependting on the distance, the Wall Set can be connected to the DIU through: • Compact Base Stations (CBS), for distances up to 10Km • Relay Base Station (RBS), for distances up to 25Km • Base Station Distributor (BSD), for distances beyond 35Km

1. Compact Base Stations (CBS) The CBS provides the radio interface between DIU and Wall Set. The DIU feeds both power and signal to the CBS. A DIU can be connected to up to 20 CBS and each CBS supports up to 12 simultaneous voice calls.

2. Relay Base Station (RBS) The RBS extends the range of the corDECT system by another 25km. It relays DECT packets between the CBS and subscriber units through a two-hop DECT wireless link, one between WSIP and RBS and the second between RBS and CBS. It can handle 11 calls simultaneously.

Does this kind of technology exist in other countries?

Well, wireless technology has been developed in the West. I think this is the only wireless technology developed in a nonwestern environment. Now China is looking into developing such technologies, though I don’t think anybody has developed a wireless technology with a particular rural focus.

Any other company coming up with this kind of technology in India?

Not this kind of technology but there are many companies working on advanced versions of mobile technology, which can be deployed in rural areas. There are also a number of people trying to deploy WiFi in rural areas.

| August 2005

3. Base Station Distributor (BSD) The BSD is a compact, remotely located, locally powered, rack-mountable unit that supports up to 4 CBS. It connects to the DIU, which may be on copper, fibre or radio. It is designed to connect pockets of subscribers located far away from the DIU. 29

IN PRACTICE

e-Collectorate The effective village-level services aggregated at the district level using the state of art communication technology becomes a viable model having the data centre in the district. e-Collectorate of Palakkad district, Kerala, is one such model, which uses DC* suite, specially designed and implemented using open source technologies to bridge the services of collectorate and citizens who consume it.

I

ntegrated, collaborative, centralised enterprise application is the most needed one for the implementation of effective e-Governance solutions in India. The advent and spread of communication technologies has become enabler for carrying the government services to the citizens bridging the digital divide. The effective village level services aggregated at the district level using the state of art communication technology becomes a viable model having the data centre in the district. Thus a modern Collectorate using the state of technology can bridge the services of Collectorate and citizens who consume it. To provide quality services for citizens it is essential to empower the government employees to offer better and quality service.

Recognising these needs, DC*Suite was designed and implemented using open source technologies at the Collectorate of Palakkad, Kerala.

DC* Suite is an integrated suite of ICT infrastructure and interoperable applications for the Collectorate having the data centre at the Collectorate with the scope for extending services to the grass root levels. The ICT infrastructure of DC*Suite comprises of the state of art physical infrastructure with a computer for each employee in a cubical, data center, academy hall, Video Conference hall, public conference hall and connectivity to all taluks and disaster recovery center at the Collector camp office. The integrated solution architecture of DC*Suite is designed as a workflow based File Management System. DC* Suite is aimed at bringing transparency and providing quality service to the citizens through various modes viz. Internet touch screen, IVRS, counters at taluks and Collectorate.

Fully computerized modern Collectorate was inaugurated by Honorable Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh on 26th October 2004 at Palakkad. The following facilities are inaugurated.

• DC* Suite District Data Centre • DC* Suite Academic Centre • DC* Suite Touch Screen Services

e-Collectorate

DC* Suite IT modern Collectorate Video Conference facility at the Collectorate • DC* Suite Open Source software for paperless office management In the last one year after the project was inaugurated, the project has met the following initial objectives: • All the modules are integrated in one package • Workflow model implemented • Paperless office concept introduced • Correspondence in local language • Public grievance module implemented • Revenue recovery module implemented • Natural calamities module implemented • Touch screen services started e-Services layer is the front-end layer of DC* Suite which interacts with citizens and offer services to the citizens. There are several methods proposed in DC* Suite.

The key functional areas addressed by DC* Suite are The services are offered over touch screen File Management Pension Schemes kiosks, interactive voice response system, License Information Court Case Management Internet and front-end counters. The first Natural Calamity Management Housing level proposal connects all taluks to the Public Grievances Assets management Collectorate and all other government Revenue Recovery Management Natural Resource Management departments through dial-up facility.

Pay roll & Personnel Management Elections and Electoral Analysis Middle layer is the Internet services Land Management Law and Order layer, which offers lot of collaboration Inventory Management National Security services and tools. E-mail, messaging, chat Financial Management Development works video conferencing, bullet in boards are Certificates Public Information Portals and District few worth mentioning.

30

• •

www.egov.csdms.in |

IN PRACTICE

Back office layer is the key functional area comprising of all 21 functional modules with which the government staff will work and carry out the backend operations.

IT infrastructure layer comprising of the data center, terminal for each staff, academy hall, computer hall, VC hall etc.

Technology used The

software

is

developed

using

Open Software Technologies LAMP. The applications, which are of public interest, will be given access through INTERNET, IVRS and Touch Screens based Kiosks using standard software and web interfaces. DC* Suite is developed in Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP(LAMP).

The project has made a good beginning in the e-Governance era reaching the grass root level. The data centre established in the Collectorate has to offer many more services to the citizens through Internet, counters, SMS, IVRS, touch screens etc. It is only question of time for the next phases of the project to get completed, reaching the villages and panchayats through the wired and wireless modes, which is going to make revolution in the country.

VS Raghunathan State Informatics Officer & Technical Director, National Informatics Centre, Kerala State Centre, Trivandrum sio@kerala.nic.in DC* Suite Architecture:

GIS Institute page 31 AD

| August 2005

31

FIELD REPORT

Sampark: e-Governance Centre A recent visit by egov team to Chandigarh brings out this first-hand report on the city’s eGovernance initiative through its Citizen Service Centres – ‘Sampark’ ...

I

n an effort to leverage e-Governance and provide citizens with the convenience of electronic access to Government services, the Administration of Chandigarh – a union territory in north India, started with a project - ‘Sampark’, in September, 2004. Under this project, the local administration has set up citizen service centers (named Sampark Centres) at select places in Chandigarh, for providing e-Government services. These centres located at refurbished existing bill collection offices of Electric Supply and Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh, are acting as single-point, multi-service delivery centres for various Government departments. At present, about 11 services are being offered through these centres ranging from Tax payment, payment of electricity bills, issuing of bus passes and even submission of passport applications. (A detailed list of services, categorized according to their concerned Departments, is provided in the adjoining table).

(N.B. - Payment of Telephone bills will soon be added to service offerings of Sampark centres) Currently, there are six operational Sampark centres in Chandigarh, with another three soon to be commissioned.

Although these centres are housed within Government premises, they are almost entirely run and operated on a public-private partnership model, wherein, the service delivery and maintenance are being handled by personnel of a private IT partner – SQL Star International. Sampark also involves UTI Bank – a public sector bank, as its official banking partner for handling payments, collections and financial transactions done through its centres.

All Sampark centres are operational between 8a.m. to 8 p.m. on working days, providing maximum time convenience for citizens to avail the facility. Each centre is headed by a ‘Supervisor’ - a Government employee, who manages a team of three ‘operators’, a ‘receptionist’ and a ‘team leader’, being deputed by SQL. Although general operations and customer service are being handled by operators themselves, the Supervisor is the sole authorised signatory for putting initials and Government stamps on documents requiring the same.

According to Ms. Sandip Kaur, team leader of one of the Sampark centre, the number of transactions performed on an average weekday at her centre reaches about 800-1000, while weekend registers as much as 1200-1500 transactions. On financial terms, this amounts to a gross average monthly transaction of about INR 60,000. According to her, the most popular services at her centre are payment of water and electricity bills and issue of bus passes. On asking about the general demand of public for new service addition in Sampark centres, Ms Kaur names railway reservation, telephone bill payment, issue of voter ID card and ration card as most desired services for the users.

32

Services provided at Sampark Centres Department

Services

Excise & Taxation

Payment of Taxes

Transports

Issue of Bus Pass

Social Welfare

Issue of Senior Citizen Card Issue of Disability Identity Cards

Births & Deaths Registration

Issue of Birth & Death Certificates

Chandigarh Police

Tenant Registrations Domestic Servants Registrations Sticker and Postal Challans

Engineering Municipal Corporation

Payment of Electricity Billic Payment of Water & Sewerage Bills

External Affairs

Passport Application www.egov.csdms.in |

FIELD REPORT

“Each Sampark centre is

Besri Ram Supervisor of Sampark Centre at Sector-18, Chandigarh

headed by a Supervisor (a government employee) who takes care of authentication functions on behalf of different departments that provide services through these centres

”

“The number of transactions

Sandip Kaur Team Leader of one of the Sampark Centre

performed on an average weekday at her centre reaches about 800-1000, while weekend registers as much as 1200-1500 transactions. On financial terms, this amounts to a gross average monthly transaction of about INR 60,000.

”

“The convenience of bill payment at these centres saves me a lot of time and effort... through Sampark Devi Lal Rickshaw puller and a care taker in a school, user of Sampark

centres, it is just a matter of

”

minutes.

Read egov articles online at www.egov.csdms.in | August 2005

According Devi Lal - caretaker of a local school and a user of Sampark centre for over a year, “the convenience of bill payment at these centres saves me a lot of time and effort”. He further comments that even a year before he used to spend about an hour standing in the queue of the bill collection office… “through Sampark centres, it is just a matter of minutes,” says Devi Lal. Another user Rajni Sharma - a college student, who came to get a bus pass from the Sampark centre was against the idea of issuing such passes from the centre and rather finds it convenient to get the pass directly at bus depots.

Citizen’s Wish list Although citizens are quite satisfied with the services of Sampark centres, a few demands from their end are as follows: • There is a need to open more Sampark centres in Chandigarh.

The six existing centres are found to be quite inadequate for serving the entire population of around 0.9 million.

• Centres should be well distributed all around the city.

Currently, the distribution of existing Sampark centres is not sufficient to make them easily accessible from all places.

• There should be more effort on behalf of the Government to promote these centres. Presently there are no landmarks/ hoardings/banners/posters within the city for publicizing and promoting these centres.

• More services should be offered by Sampark centres. Some of these are - railway reservation, telephone bill payment, issue of voter ID card, issue of ration card, ticket booking for cultural programmes/events.

• There is a need to offer Sampark services for migrant population of the city. Due to increased in-flow of nonnative people from other parts of the country, there is a demand for services like – change of residence address in government documents like ration card, voter ID card, PAN card etc., application for new telephone connection, application for admission in Government schools and like wise.

Information and services provided by Sampark centres are also available on-line at the Chandigarh Administration website (www.chandigarh.nic.in).

33

BOOK

Book review E-Governance – Concepts and Case Studies C.S.R. Prabhu 2004: Prentice Hall of India Private Limited New Delhi, India 248 Pages; Price INR 295.00 ISBN 81-203-2647-4 National Informatics Center is one of the premier organisations that was involved in the e-Governance initiatives of India right from day one. More than two decades of pioneering work and experience of the author C.S.R. Prabhu during his tenure in NIC is reflected in this book that provides a panoramic view and insight relating to e-Governance development initiatives in India. Additionally, the e-Government initiatives were pioneered in the state of Andhra Pradesh and Mr. Prabhu’s involvement in those initiatives is reflected in the form of his experience about the life cycle of e-Government projects.

Organized into four chapters and a collection of 22 case studies from India and abroad, the book is different from the other literature on the subject, which mostly focuses on the theoretical aspects. A word of caution though for the readers- the case studies mentioned and the inferences drawn are the views of the author and not of a jury of experts from different domain areas of e-Government.

The book includes both the theoretical concepts and description of practical experiences gained in designing and implementing e-Governance projects in several departments of union and state governments.

Chapter one provides the conceptual overview of e-Governance along with the history and present trends in the domain. Most of the statistical data used is from the surveys conducted in the year 2001 and 2002 which may require readers to have themselves updated with the current figures as both the application as well as consumption of services has changed drastically since then. Same is the case with the findings given at the end of the chapter. The current figures are very different than the ones provided in the book. This is due to the rapid change in the usage of IT and the miniaturization of technology. Chapter two mainly has a focus on the models of digital governance. The understanding of these models will equip the government officers with a step-by-step approach to implementing eGovernance initiatives. The models presented are not exhaustive, but they are very helpful for the beginners as well as advanced users.

The third chapter is titled “E-Governance Infrastructure, Stages in evolution and strategies for success”. The author has tried to provide an overview for helping users plan the projects for success. This chapter is more of an overview, as the issues discussed in the chapter need much more attention and practical experience than a mere listing of steps. Also the strategies, infrastructure and evolution of e-Government services are more relative than absolute terms, which depends greatly on the location, political conditions and the local context where the projects are initiated. The fourth and final chapter talks about applications of data warehousing and data mining in government. The author has provided examples of various government departments where these techniques are being used, even though at a very elementary level and not for the purpose of facilitating 34

decision making in governance issues. This chapter will be of use to the states or central government agencies who are in the advanced stage (have reached the maturity model as per the definition provided by the author in earlier chapters). This also requires a much-detailed treatment for deriving any benefits.

One of the most useful aspects of the book is a collection of case studies from most of the Indian initiatives and some initiatives abroad. The book contains a total of 22 case studies. Some of the key projects covered from India are Bhoomi, CARD, Sachivalaya Vahini, e- Khazana and e-Panchayat. While on the case studies from abroad, the author has provided information on projects from USA, China, Brazil and Sri Lanka. The case studies provide with the information on the projects already implemented and can help in replication of some good practices thus saving the time and money for reinvention of the similar initiatives planned in other parts.

However the case studies are more focused on the reporting the modules of the systems, as a software developer will do. The sections on evaluation, lesson learned from the projects, positive and negative points and benchmarking are missing which make the case studies merely references than the learning tools.

To summarize, “e-Governance – Concepts and Case Studies” is a book that encompasses the information on the subject ranging from definition of e-Governance to its history and evolution, e-Governance models, infrastructure and manpower facilities and data warehousing possibilities. The author has missed some important issues such as Business Process reengineering techniques, benchmarking and evaluation methods for egovernment projects, knowledge management, need assessment of citizen services etc., which are the vital components of any e-government strategy and are the areas of interest for serious readers of e-governance literature.

The book should be of use to computer science students, managers of public administration besides government departments.

However, this leaves the advanced practioners wanting for much more.

Vikas Kanungo www.egov.csdms.in |

EVENT DIARY

e-Revolution 2005 e-Revolution 2005 held in the picturesque city of Chandigarh on July 15 and 16 was a showcase of immensely untapped potential of the union territory of Chandigarh, along with states of Punjab and Haryana, to emerge as future IT hotspots of India. This two-day conference, which was first of its kind in this region, served as a platform for the participating states to review the present situation and discuss the potential future growth of IT industry and e-Governance.

DAY I The first day of the conference earmarked as NASSCOM Conference on IT-ITES: Emerging Opportunities & Challenges, started with an elaborate inaugural session graced by the presence of a host of mandarins from state IT departments, industry, academia and the media.

The opening speech by Mr S K Sandhu, Secretary IT, UT Chandigarh, highlighted the need to deliver the benefits of IT to common man through citizen services. Mr Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM hinted upon the necessity of developing data security standards for e-Governance and the initiatives of NASSCOM to meet that end.

H R Binod, VP, Infosys commented about the potential of the region to come up as an IT destination and praised the efforts to further improve facilities. Mr Mahendra Nahata, Chairman, HFCL informed about HFCL’s investment of 20,000 million rupees in setting up telecom infrastructure for the region. Captain Amarinder Singh, Chief Minister of Punjab, eloquently spoke about the fast-track development of this region towards delivering better quality of life. He also announced the investment of 2000 million rupees for infrastructure development in the city of Mohali. Governor of Punjab and Administrator UT Chandigarh, Gen. (Retd.) S. F. Rodrigues emphatically brought out the dire need of reducing the unequal access of IT between sections of the society.

Sessions that followed over the day focused on multiple facets of IT and ITES business. Discussions on ‘Emerging | August 2005

cities as preferred IT destinations’, ‘Latest BPO trends’, ‘Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO)’ and ‘Indian IT investment scenario’ proved to be highly informative and insightful.

A number of power packed presentations went along, focusing on the current status and future opportunities of the IT sector.

DAY II The second day of the conference was dedicated for issues pertaining to the role of ICT for society. National and international trends in e-Governance, privatepublic partnerships, ethics of technology usage, knowledge management and capacity building were also discussed upon. Most speakers emphasized upon the need to make ICTs work for the common man.

Almost all agreed to the fact that mere deployment of technology in Government departments does not serve the purpose of leveraging e-governance.

Thus, the common vision that emerged over the sessions was to use technology in a manner that levitates accessibility, transparency and convenience of availing Government services by citizens.

Conclusion Deliberations over the three days of the conference emphasised upon the aspirations of the industry, Government and citizens to revolutionise the society through technology. New ideas and concepts of innovative IT-entrepreneurship, higher industry

growth and an overall e-enabled citizenry were addressed by various sections of speakers. Proposals were put forward for possible improvement of current efforts and commitments were made to build a prospective future for the region. As a whole, e-revolution, Chandigarh, set up a blueprint for leapfrogging the economic and social development of the region by investing in technology.

35

EVENT DIARY

eGov 2005

A

n International Conference on ‘E- Governance in the Developing World: Best Practices and Critical Success Factors’ was held during July 29-31, 2005 in Hyderabad, India. The conference was organised by the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) (www.asci.org.in) in collaboration with the Commonwealth Centre for E-Governance (CCEG) (www. electronic gov.net) with co-sponsorship from Commonwealth Secretariat, London, Government of AP, India, Government of Kerala and others. Experts from developed countries were invited to speak and make presentations on best practices, successful implementations of e-Governance. The purpose of the event was to present expert knowledge on how Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and other evolving technologies can be used to help governments in developing countries.

A learning and training programme on e-Governance for GMS (Greater MeKong Sub region) Countries was conducted before the conference, at Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) and Center for Good Governance (CGG) during July 11-22, 2005. The programme was sponsored by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) under the GMS Pnom Penh Plan (PPP) for Development Management. Twenty-four participants from the GMS countries participated in the programme, four from each of the following six countries: China/Yunan Province, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos PDR. On the first day of the conference (July 29, 2005), in the inaugural session, welcome address was delivered by Conference Chair, Dr. N.Gorla who is Professor of Information Technology in Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI). The opening remarks were made

by Dr. S.K.Rao, Director General of ASCI. The Inaugural Address was delivered by Shri Dayanidhi Maran, Hon’ble Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Government of India. In his keynote address, Michael Turner, Assistant Deputy Minister, Government 36

of Canada discussed some of the issues Canada has found necessary to be addressed while implementing e-Government services for citizens and business while presenting his paper ‘Ten Learnings on the Road to e-Government’. In special address, Mr Devindra Ramnaraine of Commonwealth Secretariat discussed ‘Commonwealth Action Programme for the Digital Divide & National ICT Strategic Planning’. In special address, Mr Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, IT, Government of Andhra Pradesh highlighted some major issues related to the implementation of e-Governance for citizen services and also highlighted some of the initiatives taken by the State Government of Andhra Pradesh to facilitate e-Governance service to the citizens. At the end of the inaugural session, Professor Thomas Riley of Commonwealth Centre for e-Governance delivered the Vote of Thanks.

The sessions were based on themes of the presentations in three days. On the first day of the conference, papers were presented in three sessions on the following themes respectively: (i) ‘e-Readiness’, chaired by Professor Subhash Bhatnagar, Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad, (ii) ‘e-Governance in the Developing Countries’ chaired by Mr Michael Turner, Government of Canada, and (iii) ‘Public Private Partnerships’, chaired by Dr. N.Gorla, ASCI, Hyderabad. On the second day of conference, there were four sessions on ‘Rural e-Governance’, ‘e-Education’, ‘Rural e-Governance’ and ‘ICT and e-Governance’, chaired

by Mr. Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, IT,

Government of Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Aman Kumar Singh, Chhattisgarh Infotech and Biotech Promotion Society (CHiPs), Dr. N. Gorla, ASCI and Dr. P.K.Mohanty, IAS, Centre for Good Governance respectively.

On the last day of the conference, i.e. on 31st July, there was only one session on ‘Planning for e-Governance’, chaired by Mr. R.Chandrasekhar, Government of India followed by round table discussions on four specific themes and panel discussion. All the sessions were followed by a question-answer session that provided a scope of interaction among the delegates and the audience.

On the last day of the conference, round table discussions on specific themes in groups were arranged on four topics: (1) Poverty Alleviation with e-Governance, (2) Rural e-Governance with Agriculture, (3) e-Governance Readiness, (4) e-Governance in Policy/ Decision Making. From each of the groups, one representative presented the discussion results with two main focus during the panel discussion at the end of the conference. The issues were best practices and critical success factors. The conference ended with a detailed lively discussion on the best practices and critical success factors of e-Governance in various field of application in the developing countries like India. This threeday event, explored a diversity of issues regarding the evolution of e-Governance in developing countries. The overarching focus of the event was to bring government officials, industry and academic experts from both the developed and developing world to engage in dialogue on how developing countries can move forward through the use of ICTs. www.egov.csdms.in |

NEWS REVIEW

INDIA AP government wins five e-Governance awards…

Computer Society of India (CSI) in association with the Union Government and Nihilent Technologies, have recently announced ‘CSI-Nihilent e-Governance awards 2004’ in which Andhra Pradesh bagged five awards.

State Secretary to IT and Communications Department, K Ratna Prabha has said that Jawahar knowledge centre and student knowledge fora were selected as winners in best ‘e-Governance project in terms of their sustainability’, e-Village Chilivur at Guntur district under Rajiv programme in terms of e-Governance project for their cost-effectiveness and ‘e-Governed state’ in terms of policy framework and eReadiness.

…e-SEVA centres to start Land Certification services

Assam government to boost up e-Governance To give a boost to e-Governance, Assam Government is set to sign an memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Institute for Smart Government (NISG), Hyderabad.

A draft of the MoU has been worked out and the state government aims at harnessing the immense potential of ICT through the proposed tie-up between the Hyderabad institute and the Assam Administrative Staff College.

Land registration records goes online in Bihar In Bihar, land registration records would be available online and people would now be able to download them, too. The information and technology (IT) and registration departments are jointly implementing an e-Governance project seeking to digitise the state’s entire registration documents, executed during 1991-2000. Completion of the work is expected by the end of this year, after 8lakh documents with more than one-crore pages are recorded.

Delhi government’s initiative to convert normal classrooms into multimedia centres Acquiring landholding certificates is going to be much less tedious process for people of Andhra Pradesh. e-Seva centres started by the state government will be providing land certification services to the public. After some preliminary trial run of this service in select centres, the facility is now being extended over the entire district of Ranga Reddy. About ten million people residing in the district is expected to be benefited from this service. At present there are 230 eSeva centres spread in the entire district.

Read more about egov on page 8 in this issue. | August August2005 2005

The Delhi government is all set to launch a Computer Aided Learning (CAL) project in 200 government-run schools in association with leading multinational consultants such as Earnst & Young (E&Y) in order to convert the normal classroom into multimedia classroom.

The Directorate of Education has signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with E&Y to flag off the project on a pilot basis in 200 schools through the Universal Elementary Education (UEE) Mission. This is part of the initiative by the Education Department to bridge the gap between the children studying in government schools and those who pass out from public schools. The objective of the project is also to reduce the drop-out rate from sixth standard onwards as the trend has been that a large number of students after completing their primary education in Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) schools till fifth standard are not able to reach the government schools for various reasons.

Himachal Pradesh begins videoconferencing facility Recently videoconferencing facility was started in Himachal Pradesh set up by the National Informatics Centre (NIC). Himachal Pradesh becomes the fourth state in the country to avail the facility after Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Uttaranchal.

The Chief Minister said that it must be ensured that all secretaries and heads of the departments held their meetings with the district-level officers regularly using this facility. The zonal and divisional officers should also carry out their periodical reviews in a similar manner. In fact, ministers and senior officers could even interact with the citizens directly using video-conferencing.

Centre provides $6.66 million for Maharashtra’s eGovernance project In India, Maharashtra government’s plan to connect its administrative headquarters with local offices in the state to implement e-Governance projects of various departments received a boost with the Centre allotting $6.66 million for setting 37

up optical fibre cable connectivity to district headquarters and taluka headquarters. The facility of video conferencing would also be provided in all the districts to enable Ministry officials to communicate with district officials. The first batch of 25 officials have been trained and they would be providing the same training to juniors in their respective offices. The state government also plans to start training centres at taluka and district levels to educate employees on the use of computers.

Q&A with Sanjay Tyagi Director, STPI Mohali, India

UK visa status available on SMS From now on Indians going to UK can track their visa applications through an easy and convenient service over their mobile phones. Visa and passport status can be obtained by SMS-ing to 7333 from any mobile phone across all service provider, on both GSM and CDMA. The Visa Department of the British High Commission has outsourced this service to Visa Facilitation Services, which is providing this facility in India. This service was started keeping in mind the growing number of Indians travelling to UK. According to 2004 figures about half a million Indians travelled between UK and India and about 0.3 million UK visa applications were processed in India.

UPSC of India to introduce on-line government recruitment Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) is planning to put to select government jobs on a fast-track recruitment by intorducing on-line application and processing. Following a visit to London, the UPSC Chairman has proposed to introduce this system in order to reduce the current recruitment time of nine months for appointing civil servants.

However, the Chairman was of opinion that it will not be feasible to completely switch over to on-line recruitment, as a majority of rural Indians still do not have proper access to Internet.

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Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) is one of the few Government agencies providing high end professional services to the software industry. With its stateof-art connectivity infrastructure and proven expertise in consulting services, STPI can play a leading role in IT initiatives of the Government. In an exclusive interview with Sanjay Tyagi, Director STPI Mohali, e-gov finds out the status on development of software industry in Chandigarh, Punjab and Haryana and get his views on possible role of the agency in National e-Governance Plan of India (NeGP).

What has been the role of STPI in promoting an industry-friendly IT environment in Chandigarh and adjoining states of Punjab and Haryana?

The main reason behind the growth of software industry in our country has been the cost-advantage of infrastructure and quality manpower. However, this factor has been gradually shrinking due to rising cost of real estate and human resource in metropolitan cities. That is why, in 1998, Government of India decided that STPI should come to smaller cities and towns like Chandigarh, Mohali and others, where there is virgin infrastructure and enough

manpower available at competitive cost.

In the first expansion of STPI, we went to three cities - Navi Mumbai, Chandigrah and Jaipur. When we came to Chandigarh in 1998, there was no prominence of IT in this region - neither was infrastructure available nor was the local Government geared to welcome the industry. Thus, our objective was not only to bring the industry out here but also to create awareness among local Government about the potential of IT industry. To begin with, we set up our ‘gateway’ out here to have good connectivity, thereafter; we started marketing for this place. The model of development that came in our mind is the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida as a tri-city concept.

The same is being replicated out here with Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali.

Initially, we set up our office in Mohali, as Punjab took the initiative and gave us land and support. We started our operation by helping the local Governments of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh to develop their IT policies and made them aware about the kind of infrastructure required by the industry. Today the industry has grown from rupees 5 crores to 300 crores in exports (as in the last financial year). Right now we have 225 companies registered with us. Besides big names like Quark, Infosys and Dell we have a number of small and medium enterprises working out of this region.

How do you think that coming of IT industry and involvement of STPI has contributed towards the overall development of the region?

From the beginning our focus was to improve the infrastructure and data connectivity of this region. Moreover, we urged the Government to provide more connecting flights to Chandigarh, along with increased number of trains from Delhi. Within two to three years we saw a considerable increase in number of

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trains that connect Chandigarh with the rest of the country. Along with this, we also encouraged opening up of more number of engineering and technical colleges in this region that could provide quality manpower for the industry. The first major company that came here was ‘Quark’. During that time the ratio of native to non-native IT professionals was almost 1:4. However, over the past five to six years this ratio has almost reversed and presently we have more number of local employees than outsiders.

At present we have around 10,000 people being employed by the IT industry in this region, out of which, about 40% are software developers and the rest are into ITeS. Is STPI also working towards improving the technical infrastructure of Government departments in this region?

As soon as we came in this region, we extended our connectivity to Government departments of Chandigarh, Punjab and Haryana. We were of the view that mere presence of STPI in this region would not serve any purpose unless Government departments are connected to us. With this view, we provided free connectivity to Government offices from our own infrastructure, which they have been enjoying for the last three years.

In the recently announced NeGP there has been a lot of emphasis on interlinking of Government departments through data and voice services. Since STPI has long been doing this job for industry, what role do you see for STPI to work in this domain, being a Government agency itself?

When STPI started its journey about 15 years ago, its purpose was to facilitate the growth of software industry in India.

However, it was simultaneously involved in the process of creating connectivity infrastructure for the entire nation. Over these years we have set up 40 international ‘information gateways’ throughout the country and provided connectivity to the entire IT industry.

This same infrastructure that we developed across the country can now

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STPI is ideally placed to help government agencies in finding private partners and developing IT infrastructure for e-Government initiatives. be used by state Governments for their e-Governance projects. All throughout our existence, we have been trying to build-up an interface between the Government and the industry and help both the sectors to improve their capacities. Right now STPI is in a position to use its infrastructure and capitalize the skill sets that have been developed over these years to help State and Central Governments to improve their IT environment and succeed in their e-Governance initiatives.

Does that mean that the domain of Government-to-Business (G2B) services can be handled by the STPI network?

STPI definitely has the capacity to do so.

Moreover, our organisational goal is facilitation and promotion of IT industry and that of IT enabled services of Governments. We are very much sure that all G2B and even G2G services can be handled through STPI networks.

What role do you envisage for STPI to play in terms of developing PPP models and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for e-Governance projects of different state Governments?

In fact, we are already playing this facilitatory role for a number of state Governments. Various state Government IT Task Force committees are having STPI Directors on the board who are actively working towards developing the Government-Industry relationship. We are providing them end-to-end consultancy and helping them identify vendors for e-Governance projects. In future, our scope of involvement can be enlarged by taking up monitoring, evaluation and benchmarking studies of on-going projects in India.

Indian Judicial system to be modernised through IT infrastructure Government of India has announced a comprehensive plan to modernise the Judicial system of the country by using IT infrastructure.

Government has drawn up this programme involving a review of judicial manpower at all levels in consultation with Chief Justice R C Lahoti. There are plans for complete computerisation of all Judicial offices across the country and inter-linking them using connectivity technologies. Apart from that the term for the existing 1,562 fast-track courts have been extended by five years to March 2010 for clearing the huge pendency of cases at district level.

Rural India to get Internet connectivity for e-governance The Panchayati Raj Ministry of India has allocated 10800 million rupees to connect 240, 000 panchayats (rural government bodies) to the Internet. This will be done with the intention to give a fillip to egovernance initiatives of the Government.

This has recently been announced as a ‘mission mode project’, with a provision of 1000 million rupees for training half a million panchayat staff, taking two members from each panchayat.The project is expected to be completed by October 15, 2007.

NIC, UNESCO jointly launch e-Government toolkit A toolkit to help policy makers and senior executives in developing countries on how and when to start successfully eGovernment projects is recently published

by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and India’s National Informatics Centre (NIC) 39

as a contribution to promote transparency in public administrations and democratic processes.

The toolkit, that is available on CD-ROM, aims to demystify the concepts behind e-Government and strengthen the understanding of all those involved in the planning and execution of e-Government projects. The toolkit offers an action framework involving all stakeholders in developing countries and guide them through various phases in their e-Government initiatives.

Indian Railways to begin on-line issuing of Railway Receipts for freight booking Indian Railways is in the process of introducing the facility of on-line issuing of Railway Receipt (RR) for booking freights and goods. Under this facility customers would be able to print and issue their RRs at select destinations. This facility is already available in the Southern, South Central and East Central Railways and very soon it will be available to all Zonal Railways. As of now, RRs are issued manually at goods sheds where the customer pays for his goods and later uses the true receipt (not a copy of it) at the destination end to claim the goods.

Thus, RRs have to be physically couriered to the destination so that it can be handed over at the receiving end. Once the system is introduced, the customer would no longer need to courier the RR at the destination, as the destination station officials can access the receipt online and get a print-out if necessary.

India’s Ministry of Comapny Affairs to go for an automation overhaul The Ministry of Company Affairs of Government of India is going for complete automation and computerisation in order to provide on-line accessibility of information for companies on various aspects of company law, regulations, methods and procedures. Indian IT firm 40

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been engaged to design and implement the project, which is expected to be completed by the middle of next year.

This initiative would help the Ministry to spearhead its e-governance initiatives in the coming days.

Corporate leaders announce a joint initiative to bridge the digital divide Wyse Technologies, the global leader in network-centric computing, Comat Technologies, Ltd, a leading e-governance company based in Bangalore, and ICICI Bank, the largest private bank in India, are jointly announcing an initiative to deliver electronic access to vital educational, financial and social services in select rural areas in the state of Karnataka, India. The pilot project to deploy these “Rural Business Centers” (RBCs) officially started on June 16, 2005.

They will also look forward to helping more companies join the RBC network to bring additional services to rural communities. This is the first time when these communities will be able to access and interact with leading private enterprises, such as ICICI Bank, and other service providers in the insurance and education sector.

CHINA Chinese city invests US$17 million in e-Government Huian City in China is going for a large investment in e-Government infrastructure and services. Huian City Government in China has chosen China Expert Technology (CXTI) for a US$17 million contract to implement its e-government services program, ranging from hardware and e-government training facilities to call centre services. Apart from this, Beijing’s Municipal Office of Informatization has said that around 72 per cent of tax reports

are now submitted through the internet, according to China Daily. Farmers are also making extensive use of online systems and in one township 57 per cent of the total peach output in 2004 was sold through online channels.

UNITED KINGDOM UK cities rule top ten list of European cities for e-Government University of Zaragoza in Spain has recently conducted an e-Government readiness survey for European cities.

According to this study, 6 out of the top 10 European cities for e-governance come from the United Kingdom. The study covered around 35 European cities having more than 500,000 inhabitants, across 12 EU Member States. The study found that the majority of European cities are still mostly offering non-interactive e-government services and nondeliberative e-democracy facilities. The survey came out with Birmingham, Barcelona and Amsterdam at top three positions respectively.

SOUTH KOREA South Korean city of Busan equips citizens with smart cards The South Korean city of Busan has issued a new smart card to enable citizens pay for public transport and gain access to municipal government services. The ‘e-Smart-MYbi’ cards launched by Busan authorities will be issue to the entire 3.65 million population of the city. These cards were developed following an agreement between the city government, MYbi Company, an e-currency infrastructure provider for public transport and micro payments in South Korea, and smart card provider e-Smart Technologies. These cards based on biometric technologies can be used as e-government ID cards and as payment cards for mass transportation, as well as for banking transactions, etc. www.egov.csdms.in |

ABOUT TOWN

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This section lists upcoming e-Government conferences, exhibitions, and other public events for the benefit of our readers.

17 August 2005

19-21 September 2005

18-19 October

itsGov Technology Showcase: Technology Buying at Year-End Washington DC U.S.A.

The 5th Enterprise Architecture Conference & Exhibition Washington, DC

EWorld Government & Healthcare London UK

http://www.e-gov.com/events/2005/ea/

http://www.eworld-government.com

20 September 2005

19-21 October 2005

IDeA e-champions network annual conference and exhibition 2005 Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster

eChallenges 2005 Slovenia, Austria

http://www.idea-knowledge.gov.uk/idk/core/ page.do?pageId=1700346#annual2005 e-champions@idea.gov.uk

26-28 October 2005 IFIP International Conference on eBusiness, eCommerce and eGovernment (I3E’2005), Poznan Poland

http://www.itsgov.com/

22-26 August 2005 DEXA 2005 - Incorporating EGOV05 Copenhagen Denmark http://www.dexa.org/drupal/?q=dexaprogram

22-26 August 2005

http://www.echallenges.org/2005/

EGOV05 International Conference on EGovernment Denmark, Copenhagen

3 - 5 October 2005

www.iwf.gku.at/events/egov2005/index.htm

http://ing.utalca.cl/collecter/papers.php

http://www.multiagent.com/dailist/ msg00056.html

25 August 2005

10 October 2005

27-28 October 2005

Swiss e-Government symposium Switzerland, Zurich

eGovernment Conference 2005 An IDG Event Italy, Rome

The International Conference on E-Government (ICEG 2005) Lord Elgin Hotel Ottawa, Canada

http://www.i-web.ch/de/infocenter/kalender/ ?action=showevent&event_id=547

12 September 2005 User Involvement in e-Government development projects Rome, Italy http://www.effin.org/egov-workshop.html

CollECTeR LatAm 2005 Talca, Chile

http://careers.idg.com/www/IDGProducts.nsf/ 0/b0799a03066941cb00256fea006afa0b?

OpenDocument

10-11 October 2005

9 - 11 November 2005

FT E-fficiency in Government Conference London, UK

Government Technology Africa 2005 Johannesburg South Africa

19 September 2005

http://www.financialtimesconferences.com/ pages/conference.asp?ecode=ZZ1107

Semantics and Orchestration of eGovernment Processes Compiègne – France

16-18 October 2005

http://www.egovinterop.net/SHWebClass.

ASP?WCI=ShowDoc&DocID=1556&LangID=1

19-22 September 2005 GTC East 2005 Seventeenth Annual Government Technology Conference Albany New York http://www.govtech.net/gtc/ ?pg=conference&confid=230

http://www.academic-conferences.org/ iceg2005/iceg2005-home.htm

15 – 17 November 2005

socitm05 Brighton, UK http://www.socitm.gov.uk/Public/events/ Socitm%2B2005/

GTC Southeast 2005 Fifth Annual Government Technology Conference Atlanta Georgia http://www.govtech.net/gtc/?pg=conference &confid=253

17-19 October 2005 Conflux 2005 The e-Governance Conference The Grand New Delhi India Conflux e

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http://www.conflux.csdms.in

http://www.terrapinn.com/2005/govtechza/

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The e-Government Conference

17-18 November 2005 Government Health IT Conference Washington, DC, USA http://www.fcw.com/events/ghit/

Tell us about your event at egov@csdms.in | August 2005

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FACTS AND DATA

e-Governance awards 2004 The awards for exemplary implementation of e-Governance initiatives for 2004 were presented by Government of India during the inaugural session of the 8th National Conference on e-Governance on 3rd February 2005.

Category

Golden Icon

Silver Icon

Bronze Icon

Professional excellence for Process Re-Engineering -New Entrants

E-Sampark, Department of Information Technology, Chandigarh Administration www.chandigarh.nic.in

Tax Information Network, Income Tax Department, Deptt. of Revenue, Min of Finance, GOI http://tin.nsdl.com

Citizen facilitation centre Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, Maharashtra www.pcmc.india.org

Professional excellence for Process Re-Engineering-Professional

Haryana Board of School Education, Bhiwani http://hbse.nic.in

REFNIC : Reference Monitoring System, Government of Himachal Pradesh http://admis.hp.nic.in/refnic

Saathi Registration & Stamps, Rajasthan

Exemplary Leadership and ICT Achievement of the year -New Entrants

Directorate of Education, Govt. of NCT, Delhi http://delhigovt.nic.in/ education.asp

KAVERI Karnataka Valuation and E-regi strati on Karnataka www.karigr.org/egov/ kaveripaper.pdf

Jawahar Knowledge Centres, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh www.apit.gov.in/ egov.html

Exemplary Leadership and ICT Achievement of the year Professional

VAT- MAC, Government of Haryana

Save the Girl Child Datamation Foundation www.indiafemalefoeticide.org

DGSD e-tendering DGSD, M/o Commerce http://dgsnd.gov.in

Outstanding performance in Service Delivery -New Entrants

e-Krishi Vipanan, Madhya Pradesh www.mpmandiboard.com

HALRIS- Government of Haryana www.rewari.nic.in/nakal.htm

Telemedicine, Department of Information Technology, Govt. Of WB

Outstanding performance in Service Delivery -Professional

Declaration of Examination Results -NIC http://results.nic.in

Review on CARD Project in APO/o Commissioner, Registration of Stamps, Hyderabad

BSNL Portal and DOTSOFT www.bsnl.in

Innovative Operations and Best Practices -New Entrants

e-Vikas, Government Himachal Pradesh http://himachal.nic.in

AKSHAYAGovernment of Kerala www.keralaitmission.org

e-Governance implementation in Dte and Field Units of Dept. of Agri Department of Agriculture (DACNET) http://dacnet.nic.in

Innovative Operations and Best Practices -Professional

Rural e-Seva, Andhra Pradesh www.aponline.gov.in

e-health Care Foundation www.ehealth-care.net

SAPNET-Andhra Pradesh www.sapnet.gov.in

Trail Blazing application of the year

Text to Speech and Text to Brail - West Bengal

Forest Mapping -Forest Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh www.ap.nic.in/apforest

Best Documented Knowledge Resource and Case study -New Entrants

Kalasampada-Ministry of Culture, Government of India & SENET-Ministry of SSI Government of India http://ssi.nic.in

Incredible India -Department of Tourism Government of India www.incredibleindia.org

Source: www.darpg.nic.in/awards2004.asp

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Digital Learning 2005 Call for papers to a Special seminar on ICT and Education: Challenges and Practices 18 October, 2005 at The Grand, New Delhi Deadlines:

Abstracts: September 15, 2005 Full papers: October 01, 2005 write to sejuti@csdms.in or call + 91-9313106126 e

ov knowledge for change

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Asia's first and only monthly print magazine on e-Government.

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