Facilitating Governments to Reorganise Data Collection Activities: August 2007 Issue

I SS N 0 9 73 - 1 6 1 X

VOLUME 3

| ISSUE 8 | AUGUST 2007

www .e go v o nl ine . ne t

THE E-GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE FOR ASIA & THE MIDDLE EAST

Multilingual Online Tax Collection: A Challenge Innovating for Instant Access to Documents Email Based e-Forms

M-CONNECT

TELECOM NETWORK FOR THE DELIVERY OF EXTENSION SERVICES DELIVERING ON-DEMAND MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT

SU B S C R IB E R CO PY N O T F O R SA L E

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

INTEGRATING ACCESSIBILITY, CONNECTIVITY, EDUCATION AND CONTENT COUNTRY FOCUS: PHILIPPINES

E-COMMUNITY PROJECT

STATE FOCUS: TAMIL NADU

INFORMATION KIOSKS COMMENTARY

CITIZENS’ ADOPTION OF E-GOVERNMENT SERVICES

Rs 75

Facilitating Governments to Reorganise Data Collection Activities

w w w . e g o v o n l i n e . n e t | volume 3 | issue 8 | august 2007

COVER FEATURES

Electronic Forms Interview: M. Moni (moni@nic.in), Deputy Director General, National Informatics

Centre, Government of India

Multilingual Online Tax Collection: A Challenge

Prof. Hamant Joshi

Innovating for Instant Access to Documents Interview: Punit Jain, Senior VP Sales & Marketing, Newgen Technologies

Softwares Ltd.,

17 20

Email Based e-Forms Mizaji Lal

MCA21 Project

MCONNECT

Telecom Network for the Delivery of Extension Services

Deepak Chanduka

News

Delivering On-Demand Mobile Entertainment

Intervies: B. Vamshi Reddy, Co-Founder and Director of Apalya Technologies

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Integrating Accessibility, Connectivity, Education and Content

Intervies: John McClure, Director-Marketing, Intel South Asia

COUNTRY FOCUS: PHILIPPINES

e-COMMUNITY Project

Roberto A. Cabarrubias

STAE FOCUS: TAMIL NADU

Information Kiosks

Sandeep Kaur & Dr.N.Mathiyalagan

COMMENTARY

Citizens’ Adoption of e-Government Services

Mohammed Wanous and Samer Ibrahim Moﬂeh

PRODUCT SHOWCASE

Networked Storage Solutions

R E GU L AR FEATURE

WHAT’S ON 46

August 2007

EDITORIAL GUIDELINES egov is a monthly magazine providing a much needed platform to the voices of various stakeholders in the arena of e-Government, apart from being a repository of valuable information and meaningful discussion on issues of e-governance in general, and e-Government in particular -- both to the specialist and the generalist. Contributions to egov magazine should be in the form of articles, case studies, book reviews, event report and news related to eGovernment project and initiatives, which are of immense value for practitioners, professionals, corporate and academicians. We would like the contributors to follow these guidelines, while submitting their material for publication.

ARTICLES / CASE STUDIES should not exceed

2500 words. For book reviews and event report, the word limit is 800. AN ABSTRACT of the article/case study not exceeding 200 words should be submitted along with the article/case study. ALL ARTICLES / CASE STUDIES should provide proper references. Authors should give in writing stating that the work is new and has not been published in any form so far. BOOK REVIEWS should include details of the book like the title, name of the author(s), publisher, year of publication, price and number of pages and also send the cover photograph of the book in JPEG/TIFF (resolution 300 dpi). Book reviews of books on e-Governance related themes, published from

year 2002 onwards, are preferable. In case of website, provide the URL. THE MANUSCRIPTS should be typed in a standard printable font (Times New Roman 12 font size, titles in bold) and submitted either through mail or post. RELEVANT FIGURES of adequate quality (300 dpi) should be submitted in JPEG/ TIFF format. A BRIEF BIO-DATA and passport size photograph(s) of the author(s) must be enclosed. ALL CONTRIBUTIONS ARE SUBJECT TO APPROVAL BY THE PUBLISHER.

Please send in your papers/articles/comments to: The Editor, egov, G-4, Sector 39, NOIDA (UP) 201 301, India. tel: +91 120 2502180-85, fax: +91 120 2500060, email: info@egovonline.net EDITORIAL CALENDAR 2007 MONTH

SOLUTION FOCUS

APPLICATION FOCUS

STATE FOCUS

JULY

LOCALISATION AND LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGY

LAND RECORDS

HARYANA

AUGUST

E-FORMS AND DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

INCOME TAX/COMMERCIAL TAXES

TAMIL NADU

SEPTEMBER

INTEROPERABILITY AND OPEN STANDARDS

CENTRAL EXCISE

PUNJAB

OCTOBER

WIRELESS

MUNICIPALITIES

KERALA

NOVEMBER

E-GOVERNANCE ARCHITECTURE

COURTS

MADHYA PRADESH

DECEMBER

MOBILITY

POLICE

WEST BENGAL

EDITORIAL CALENDAR 2008 JANUARY

WEB ACCESSIBILITY TECHNOLOGY

RAILWAYS

BIHAR

FEBRUARY

ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE

E-BUSINESS

GUJARAT

MARCH

AUTHENTICATION & DIGITAL SIGNATURE TECHNOLOGY

PRIVACY & SECURITY

UTTAR PRADESH

APRIL

BROADBAND

DEFENCE

RAJASTHAN

MAY

ELECTRONIC VOTING

E-DEMOCRACY

SIKKIM

JUNE

WEB SEMANTICS

WATER

HIMACHAL PRADESH

JULY

META DATA & DATA STANDARDS

E-PROCUREMENT

ASSAM

Your daily cup of hot tea with hot e-Government news!

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ov volume 3 | issue 8 | august 2007

PRESIDENT

EDITORIAL e-Forms: Crucial for G2C Interactions

Dr. M P Narayanan EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Ravi Gupta SR. EDITOR

G Kalyan Kumar SR. SUB EDITOR

Prachi Shirur

New thought waves in the arena of eGovernance are waiting to unfold at the egov India 2007 conference scheduled to take place in New Delhi in a few days. As the organisers, we at CSDMS, believe that the conclave will give a fillip to the debate on many issues pertaining to e-Governance, as it brings together hundreds of national and international delegates, policy makers, practitioners, industry, and government representatives to discourse and articulate their thoughts and ideas.

SR. RESEARCH ASSOCIATE

Vignesh S MARKETING

Gautam Navin mob: +91 9818125257 email: gautam@csdms.in Debabrata Ray mob: +91 9899650692 email: debabrata@elets.in DESIGNED BY

Bishwajeet Kumar Singh WEB

Zia Salahuddin CIRCULATION

Lipika Dutta (+91 9871481708) Manoj Kumar (+91 9210816901)

It is in this backdrop that a special mention needs to be made about the current issue of the magazine. It has a very relevant theme—e-Forms. A number of scholars and practitioners are dissecting this issue in the cover story, making it more palatable and spicing it with their seasoned observations. In fact, there is a big industry behind e-Forms. In the US, it is reported that businesses spend around $15 billion to transfer data from paper-based forms such as loan applications and purchase orders to the computer systems. The huge expenditure notwithstanding, their idea is to do business electronically and become completely hassle-free. However, in India, we have our own bottlenecks though we too admit e-Forms as the backbone of e-Governance. Integrating at least 22 languages in various government documents, notices and eforms is no mean task. Finally, it is a matter of extreme pleasure to announce that we are starting a new section in the magazine “m-Connect” linking the robust mobile telecom sector into the core ambit of e-Governance.

EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE

eGov G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India tel: +91 120 2502181-85 fax: +91 120 2500060

In one of the World Public Sector Reports by the United Nations it is stated that, “developing countries are creating and implementing novel e-Government applications similar to those currently used in developed countries. Still, they face certain challenges that are greater than those faced by developed countries in pursing e-Government.”

email: info@egovonline.net

PRINTED BY

Yashi Media Works Pvt Ltd New Delhi, India

In a developing society or transforming country like ours the pace of e-Governance is now ringing a new synergy with the rising connectivity offered by the swelling ranks of mobile users. With “M Connect”, we are trying to do justice to the role of mobile technologies and its industry in connecting the citizens.

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.

I am sure, the “m-Connect” section will expand and enrich this domain further. It will capture the complete action in the mobile telecom industry and update you all with the latest action, policy matters, news and other information.

egov is published in collaboration with Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. (www.elets.in) © Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies 2007 www.csdms.in

Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in

August 2007

COVER FEATURE

Electronic Forms Enabling Governments to Reorganise Data Collection Activities

http://home.nic.in

“e-Forms may be made available through: Intranet portal, Email, Document Management System, Internet Portal and Extranet Portal. It must be ensured that XML interoperability between multiple vendors’ products and Output data - irrespective of capture mechanism - should comply with XML/ eGovernance Standards to ensure interoperability between systems and avoidance of vendor lock-in”, says M. Moni (moni@nic.in), Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre, Government of India in conversation with egov magazine. What is the role of e-Forms in how government operates its business and communicates with its citizens? e-Forms has a major role to capture data, to serve as an interface to business processes and to bridge the paper-digital divide. The Indian governments (both central and states) have an inventory of more than a million different types of forms used for various transactions meant for improved efficiency and improved citizen services. In India, e-Form technology is still in an infancy stage. All the e-Governance / e-Government Applications (G2G, G2B, G2C, G2E, and G2X) likely utilise e-Form technology, through 100 per cent pixel perfect with localization, which will result in achieving “profound ROI Impact” in due course of time. As a technocrat, I am optimistic. This is achievable and should be achieved to make the G2C component of e-Governance programme successful. What are the benefits of e-Forms as compared to paper forms? Paper Forms • Limited availability • High cost • Manual processing of business process • Static behavior • Poor security • Rigidity • Time delays • Data inaccuracies 6}

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

Duplicate work Difficulty in handling Higher level acceptance by common man Bio-degradable in nature e-Forms Low cost Dynamic behaviour Range of capabilities for security and digital signature Easy integration with business process for further automation Offline usable Less scripting required Sophisticated user interfaces (UI) Document centric

I am of the firm view that more than 50% of the e-Governance complexities can be overcome through the adoption of e-Form technology in India, and we can also achieve a profound Return on Investment (ROI) impact. This requires a complete process re-engineering of government departments and ministries. When the government of India announced the District Information System of National Informatics Centre (DISNIC) programme with the establishment of NIC network (NICNET) during 1985-87 in about 520+ districts, NIC took an earnest effort to computerise first the “information reporting” from districts administrations to state governments, which were about in more than 1000 paper www.egovonline.net

formats. A detailed analysis was undertaken in the state of Kerala and was presented in the five district collectors conference held in 1986-87. This happened when there was no e-Form technology in 1980s. What are the advantages of Meta-data driven e-Forms? e-Form incurs a few disadvantages such as “restrictiveness”, which must be recognised. A custom-coded application can do literally anything that the host programming language allows. This provides maximum flexibility. The declarative “Metadata driven approach of e-Form” means that the capabilities and features of the form are constrained by the Metadata Standard used to define the form, and the extent to which generic software components correctly and completely implement that standard (ref. http://www.fenestra.com/ eforms). “Metadata and data standards” and underlying “Digital Library Science” concepts will promote utilisation of Internet resources in an organised and contextual manner. In e-Governance parlance, “metadata-driven e-Forms” will provide an opportunity to reorganise the government’s data collection activities eliminating redundancy, promoting data sharing, facilitating component sharing architecture, promoting reuse and harmonisation, high degree of inherent consistency across forms, reducing reporting burden and reducing cost. This will lead to “data interoperability” between information systems, which have to be achieved at any cost in government. With this, it is easy to achieve “e-Office” (i.e. “paper-no” office and not “paper-less” office). Please tell us regarding the return on investment (ROI) / financial benefits of e-Forms to the government? Bio-degradable paper is the currency for any form of transactions among governments, business and the people. e-Governance / e-Government programme, as pronounced by Federal as well as provincial governments, aim to promote “delivery of services” at local, regional, national and global levels through the state-of-the-art ICT infrastructure (networks, data centres, capacity building, telecentres) and databases / information systems. e-Forms are increasingly being used as a tool to capture data, serve as an interface to business processes and to bridge the paper-digital divide. I wish to quote the research findings of CAP Ventures Research Study Report. Findings of this Report suggest that e-Form technology provides a profound ROI impact. e-Forms implementation focused on mission-critical transaction documents can lead to the advantages in the form of streamlined processes, increased productivity, citizen satisfaction, tangible cost reductions, reduction in labor costs involved with locating, filling out, archiving, and routing forms for review or approval. ROI can be found in areas of business efficiency, employee productivity, citizen satisfaction, and improved decision making. In your opinion, what is the citizen response to the use, by government, of the electronic forms such as income tax, passport, online registration, etc.? Paper forms are the integral part of modern life and exist in every stage of our life cycle: birth, schooling, examination, ov

August 2007

college, university, job search, purchasing property and, finally death. Every sector has business processes with usage of forms: whether it is administration, education, census and survey, passport, banking, insurance, health, tourism, export, import, manufacturing or transport. The complete workflow is form-based. During initial stages, citizens may be reluctant and wary of using e-Forms, because of lack of confidence, skill and means to use, security and privacy concerns, and so on. But gradually the ease of use, speed of delivery of services, availability and accessibility will certainly draw them to use e-Form technology based services. In G2G and G2B services category, e-Form shall be used mandatory. Charity shall start from home. Let these two service component of e-Governance perfect the use of e-Form technology in a time target manner. e-Forms may be made available through: Intranet portal, Email, Document Management System, Internet Portal and Extranet Portal. It must be ensured that XML interoperability between multiple vendors’ products and output data irrespective of capture mechanism - should comply with

During initial stages, citizens may be reluctant and wary of using e-Forms, because of lack of conﬁdence, skill and means to use, security and privacy concerns, and so on. But gradually the ease of use, speed of delivery of services, availability and accessibility will certainly draw them to use e-Form technology based services. XML/e-Governance standards to ensure interoperability between systems and avoidance of vendor lock-in. As the deputy director general (e-Governance standards) in NIC, I felt the need for “policy guidelines” for implementation of e-Form technology in e-Governance Programme. I conducted a national summit on e-Forms technology in June 2006, which was attended by many vendors and e-Governance programme administrators. As a follow up of this summit, a National Task Force was set up under the chairmanship of Dr. S. C. Gupta, senior technical director, NIC. The Report of the Committee is long overdue. How important is the Integration of e-Forms with other technologies (work flow/ portal / content management)? In one of my articles (co-authored with my colleague, Pratibha Lokhande) published in e-Gov Magazine issue November 2006), I have defined “business process as e-Form + e-Document + workflow + database + web services”. It is very important to integrate e-Forms with other technologies such as workflow, portal, and content management etc., so as to bring in profound ROI impact. Hybrid models may be introduced for seamless switching between modes using paper-based and electronic based forms to increase the comfort level of user. Awareness programs may be carried out to educate the user on e-form technology. 7

ELECTRONIC FORMS

COVER FEATURE

“Identity Access and Management (IAM)” during 2006 and as a follow up, a National Task Force was set up under the chairmanship of Professor Syed Ismail Ahson, department of computer science, Jamia Milia Islamia (A Central University). This Task Force, after having a lot of deliberations with all relevant stakeholders, has submitted its report to the eGovernance standards division of NIC. This IAM Policy will take care of “privacy and security” issues. Details are available at the website http://egovstandards.gov.in. Both the proposed e-Form Policy Guidelines and the IAM policy guidelines shall facilitate the integrity of e-Form, attachment and workflow; and also security and privacy issue (role based access). The Pondicherry University (A central university) is contemplating to establish a Centre for Rural Computing with a aim to facilitate “digital inclusion for rural prosperity” at grassroots level, wherein the research, development and education component of IAM and e-Form technology is likely to be given important role. What are the expected issues (IT / non-IT) around eForms implementation in Government? a.IT Issues

How do we deal with data privacy and security issues? Paper forms are perhaps the most common “front-end” for any business process. Banking and other regulated industries “must comply” with a variety of government regulations, and must be able to produce “reliable audit trails” to demonstrate their “compliance”, and hence records must be “maintained for many years” and those records must be “secure”. Sometimes, these forms cannot be viewed by other people, due to privacy laws or other legal requirements. Now the situation is changing. The Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005 is operational in the country, which facilitates the citizens to demand from the government agencies, the “information from files”. With metadata driven e-Form technology, it will be possible for even government agencies to make “demanded data” in time, online. “Privacy” and “security” issues are very important in case of e-Forms. The country has witnessed some related cases from the “outsourced job” companies in India. It can be made secure through encryption and be authenticated using digital certificates. It will become very difficult to issue digital signatures to all possible users of G2C. But the National eGovernance Plan (NeGP) may facilitate to issue “digital signatures” to approved notaries (e-Notary) at Tehsil / Taluka and other intermeditaries with appropriate authority so as to facilitate to those who do not have digital signatures, especially for G2C domain applications. In this regard, I wish to mention that there is a need for a national policy on “identity access and management (IAM)” for NeGP programme. I conducted a national summit on 8

While giving my views with respect to the Question on advantages of Meta-data driven e-Forms, I talked about “restrictiveness”. This must be recognied. I also expressed my views with respect to “privacy and security issues”. In addition to this, the current “e-Form landscape” faces some technical challenges, as given below: • Incomplete integration with Web browsers resulting in development vendor based “e-Form user agents” and high deployment cost; • Lack of standards-based component stack that pulls together all the individual standards to define how the components should work together: There are many different standards that cover different segments of the eForm problem domain (e.g. XML, XSL-T, XML Schema, XML Web services, Xpath, WebDav, ISO 11179, UBL, SVG, HTML, WSDL, UDDI, XSD, XHTML, SOAP, BPEL, WML, Voice XML, OASIS Open Document, Open XML Document, XFDL, etc) resulting different e-forms solutions providing “only-marginal” interoperability; But there is no mechanism to tell how these individual components of e-Forms should work together. • Security and privacy issues: Lack of an inexpensive and easy-to-manage Security Infrastructure (e.g. PKIs) hampering adoptions of e-Forms that capture sensitive information. Security issues like identity, confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation, accountability need to be addressed; • Legal status of e-Forms : Citizen adoption - Apprehensions of general public to accept this technology without proof of any receipt needs to be addressed; • Business process re-engineering: Manual processes of G2G, G2B, G2C, G2E and G2X need to be reengineered, in order to leverage maximum benefit of e-Form technology; • Digital signature - It becomes very difficult to issue digital signatures to all possible users of G2C. Digital signatures to approved Notaries (e-Notary) at Tehsil / Taluka and www.egovonline.net

COVER FEATURE

ELECTRONIC FORMS

•

• •

other intermediaries with appropriate authority may facilitate to those who do not have digital signatures, especially for G2C domain applications; Accessibility and localisation – To support all level of society, e-Forms should be made available through multiple channels like post offices, common services centres (CSCs), information kiosks, internet cafes and also on multiple devices like mobile phone, computer, hand held devices, laptops, in all possible local languages; Integration with legacy systems - Applications developed using e-Forms should work cohesively with all existing applications; Archival and future accessibility – As information technology field is very dynamic in which only constant is change, the technology tools become obsolete very soon. Road map from technology providers is a must for providing mechanism and support for accessibility of archived documents in future;

b.Non-IT Issues

•

• •

Like any induction of computer based application, introduction of e-Form technology will require organizational structural changes due to process redefinitions, change in public interfaces, workflow automation, etc; Any change in the system is prone to resistance by its people; Capacity building and capability building through human resource development programme for all levels of government employees;

• •

Development of quality training materials with e-Form technology solutions and that too with localisation; Well-documented impact studies on e-Form technology in terms of “people”, “process”, and “knowledge”.

What are the legal acceptance of e-Forms in the Indian scenario? In India, so far, “ICT enablement of judiciary delivery system” has taken place. However, “legal enablement of ICT system” is yet to take pace. “Consumer protection” under the G2C component of e-Governance programme is very essential. IT Act 2000 does not cover this aspect. As the Deputy Director General (e-Governance Standards) in NIC, I have conducted many state level workshops during 2005-06 to formulate views on e-Governance standards for strengthening implementation of NeGP and raised the aspect of “Legal enablement of ICT Systems” in such workshops. Afterwards, I had discussions on this issue with some Hon’ble Judges of High Courts. They have also endorsed the issue. Finally, the Additional Secretary (e-Governance & NeGP), Department of Information Technology supported the idea of having a separate Working Group on this aspect. NIC has set up a Working Group on “Legal Enablement of ICT Systems” under the e-Governance Standards, with Hon’ble Justice Somasekhara (Former Judge of Karnataka and Andhra High Courts) as its Chairman (http://egovstandrds.gov.in). I agree that legal acceptance of ICT System from-end-to-end, is essential for successful implementation of NeGP.

Now Filing Income Tax Return Gets Easy The citizens in India can now to use new IT return forms that are downloadable from the Income Tax Department web site (http://incometaxindia.gov.in/download_all.asp ). This has come to effect from assessment Year 2007-08 and for tax filing for year 2006-07.The forms are numbered ITR1 to ITR8 and if one chooses to file electronically one can use ITR V. This is an e-Governance initiative of the Income Tax Department, Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Its website (http://incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/portal/index. jsp) describes the e-Filing procedure in 10 simple steps, which are as follows:

e-Filing Process -At a glanc e 1. Select appropriate type of Return Form 2. Download Return Preparation Software for selected Return Form. 3. Fill your return offline and generate a XML file. 4. Register and create a user id/password 5. Login and click on relevant form on left panel and select “Submit Return” 6. Browse to select XML file and click on “Upload” button 7. On successful upload acknowledgement details would be displayed. Click on “Print” to generate printout of acknowledgement/ITR-V Form. 10

8. Incase the return is digitally signed, on generation of “Acknowledgement” the Return Filing process gets completed. You may take a printout of the Acknowledgement for your record. 9. Incase the return is not digitally signed, on successful uploading of e-Return, the ITR-V Form would be generated which needs to be printed by the tax payers. This is an acknowledgement cum verification form. The tax payer has to fill-up the verification part and verify the same. A duly verified ITR-V form should be submitted with the local Income Tax Office withing 15 days of filing electronically. This completes the Return filing process for non-digitally signed Returns. 10. For any assistance in filing the paper copy of the return Public Relations Officer of the local Income Tax Office may be contacted. www.egovonline.net

COVER FEATURE

Multilingual Online Tax Collection: A Challenge e-Forms and Localisation eForm and document management is the backbone of eGovernance. In India, the challenge before the eGovernance architecture and advocates of IT for masses has been to integrate at least 22 languages in various government documents, notices and eForms. Income tax, property tax, customs and other tax collection agencies pose the real challenge. The department of Income tax has made good progress in the direction of online governance, but a lot more has to be done. A large team of IT and localization professional including the content creation professional are required to install these mammoth agencies for delivering services to people.

Prof. Hemant Joshi E-FORM THE BASIS OF LOCALIZSD GOVERNANCE

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE INDUSTRY: NEED FOR A BRIDGE

The eForms and Document Management is one of the most crucial element of G2C interaction. The main problem of interface with the citizens is that of the language of eForms (here the reference is not to the languages like HTML, XHTML, XML, etc.) as well as the language of data entry i.e. filling the form or document. The eForms in the Indian context should be available in all Indian languages and there should be a provision to fill these forms in any of those languages in which the citizens are comfortable. The need for localisation standards is felt the most in the area of e-Forms and document management because in the absence of standardised local language fonts and an e-Governance architecture, which is capable of translating various scripts into a single universal script and vice versa, the task of interoperability would be greatly affected. The standardisation of e-Forms and other document management processes is the second important factor in G2C and C2G interactions. Everyone involved in the process of making these e-Governance interactions also knows that the process is cumbersome and involves many stages. In India there are many platforms, many browsers, many fonts that are being used by common people. It further complicates the already complicated procedures of identifying and interpreting the data coming to government agency from people. Then there are problems of keeping these data in a universal standard format from where it could be easily manipulated and sent back to people or retrieved by the agency for its own need.

The government of India has realised that the problem of setting up the standards can not be effectively managed by the governmental agencies alone. Hence, there has been attempts to include the major players in the industries whose technologies have been tried and tested in many other governments and institutions. Hence, the representatives from transnational companies like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, EMC, New Gen, Novell, Honeywell, HP, Red Hat, ILANTUS Technologies, and PwC were incorporated in the task force for eForms, identity management and web accessibility. The public-private partnership could prove to be a fantastic change agent, but the only danger is that the transnational and many private sector companies are basically looking for a market and they are not there for the public service. They might sell their tested products that work fantastically so well in English and Roman scripts and may not be really interested in spending millions of dollars to develop technologies for Indian languages, which could help the citizens to fill the form in their own languages and receive a response from government in their own languages. The easiest way out to launch such a mammoth task would be to make e-Forms and other document management technologies for Hindi as an alternative language as it is also the official language of Government of India. In private sector there have been numerous attempts to localise the products. Microsoft has come up with a Hindi version of Windows apart from integrating Hindi in its Office. Fedora Linux and many other versions of Linux are also integrating Hindi in their operating systems and related applications. Adobe has integrated Hindi in its acrobat

August 2007

COVER FEATURE

MULTILINGUAL ONLINE TAX COLLECTION IS A CHALLENGE

reader that has been till now considered as the best product for sharing information on networks and specially the eForms of various kinds. Adobe, IBM and others have been advocating a three layer document management where the citizen oriented page could be in PDF, HTML or any other document format and the government agency or institution oriented data so obtained from citizen could be in the third layer. IBM has been advocating the use of its workplace form using xForm (XForms is an XML application that represents the next generation of forms for the Web) with service oriented architecture (SOA).

E-FORM AND THE DEPARTMENT OF INCOME TAX

Though it is commendable that the Government of India has in such a short period changed the face of so many government offices of extreme importance to the citizens of India, it must be said that much more has to be done, taking into account the linguistic and cultural profile of our country. e-Form and document management process is a far cry, the presence of various ministries and offices in the web itself has to be in Hindi and other Indian languages (at least those recognised by the VIII schedule of the Indian Constitution) along with the English language. As a case in point, when the author surveyed the web site of the Department of Income tax, it was found that this office has made at least an attempt to make a bilingual site. However, much more has to be done as the information about the Income Tax Ombudsman Guidelines 2006, deputation of officers outside the department of revenue, circulars, all acts like wealth tax, income tax, gift tax, expenditure tax, etc. and many other documents are in English, though there names are found translated in Hindi in the Hindi version of the site. This would explain the general situation of e-Form in the organisation. However, it is of no less significant that things have started to happen in English. There are facilities of filing e-Returns and there are offline packages like Income Tax Returns forms 1 and 2 (ITR1 and 2) to facilitate the tax payer. This offline package has taken adobe acrobat reader 8 as the technology for dissemination and collection of data. The process described by the department for filing the Tax returns by this method has 8 simple steps. One has to register oneself on Income tax portal, login to the portal, download and fill the Form 2F, create XML e-Return file and upload it to Income tax server. One has to finally print the acknowledgement. If one has not signed digitally then he could go to the nearest post office for physical submission of the form. There is no doubt that e-Governance is here to stay, but what one keeps wondering how much time will it take for this e-Governance in its near perfect form to make various services available to the people of India in their own languages. It has been promised time and again in various national and international meetings like the WSIS Summits. In past few years the basic flaw in the e-Governance standards has been that the government is working at different levels of standards. It has also made a separate group for localisation 12

and language standards. In fact in a country like India, the localisation should be the buzz word and all standards must work toward that end. It is only then that we would find IT technologies emerging out of their dependence on English.

LOCALISED e-FORMS: A DISTANT DREAM

In the absence of this integration of localisation at various levels of e-Governance standards, the content is the casuality. The whole process of e-Governance standards has become so technologically oriented that there is no serious thought given to the creation of content in Indian languages. The question in the context of e-Forms is, “Do we have the major e-Forms available in various Indian Languages”? Even if we limit the scope of e-Governance for the time being to the dissemination of information and the circulation of various e-Forms to the masses in their own languages, we need to work on the creation of e-Forms and documents, at least in recognised Indian languages. To make people fill these forms online could be the next stage of our cherished dream. The author’s recent experience of filling the property tax online at the portal of Delhi is that the xForm is working perfectly well there, but the disheartening fact is that the whole portal of Delhi government has no interface for the official language Hindi. Even the information regarding the right to information is available only in English, when Delhi government has three official languages namely Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi. The IT policy of Delhi mentions that the government of Delhi would aim at using “… IT for generating additional employment for the new digital economy. To facilitate localisation of software, so that benefits of IT could percolate not only in English language, but also in Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi.” However, the race seems to be towards bringing the whole government machinery onto net as early as possible. And in this mega project English obviously is the most convenient language.

CONCLUSION

The greatest challenge before IT specialist and the localisation industry in India today is to make available millions of pages of government policy, acts, ordinances and e-Forms in not only in Hindi, the official language of Government of India, but in all the languages listed in the VIII Schedule. It is the only way to empower the people of India and to pave the way for good governance through eGovernance. In such a scenario the devices like e-Form and other document management processes to include Indian language as the necessary ingredient appears to be a very distant dream. Prof. Hemant Joshi (hkjoshi@nic.in) is faculty at Department of Hindi of Jamia Millia Islamia, where he is teaching Journalism. His keen interest in localisation with special interest in Newspaper and other media, he was nominated as a member of working group of localisation and language technology of e-Governance Standards of Department of Information Technology, Government of India.

www.egovonline.net

COVER FEATURE

Innovating for Instant Access to Documents

www.newgen.com

Please tell our readers briefly about Newgen Technologies Software Ltd. Newgen Software Technologies Limited is a market leader in business process management (BPM) and enterprise content management (ECM), with impeccable track record of implementing mission-critical workflow and document imaging solutions. We have global footprints with an installation base of more than 700 customers in over 25 countries. More than 40 of our customers are Global Fortune 500 companies. Having domain expertise in Industry verticals such as Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, BPO, Telecom, e-Governance and Manufacturing, among others, we are known as one of the fastest implementers of BPM solutions in the world. Newgen has over $25 million investment in creating IP in Imaging, Document Management & Workflow technology. Our sales and support offices span across major cities in Asia, North America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Winner of several awards such as “Frost and Sullivan’s Information Communications and Technologies (ICT) 2006 Award” and “Distinguished Application Product Company” by NASSCOM, Newgen Software is an ISO 9001:2000 certified and CMM Level 4 company.

“Over the years, we have worked extensively with the public sector companies to provide them document management, BPM and e-Forms based solutions. We have deployed our solutions for central and state government agencies, PSUs, legal departments, utilities, trasportation, defense, education, company registers, audit agencies and international organisations”, says Punit Jain (punit@ newgensoft.com ) Senior VP Sales & Marketing, Newgen Technologies Softwares Ltd., in conversation with egov magazine.

14 }

Being a leader in the area of document management, what are some of your e-Forms and document management solutions for the public sector? Over years, we have worked extensively with the public sector companies to provide them document management, BPM and e-Forms based solutions. We have deployed our solutions for central and state government agencies, PSUs, legal departments, utilities, trasportation, defense, education, company registers, audit agencies and international organisations. Some of the successful implementations are described below. Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals (GSFC) Ltd. wanted a solution to manage the approvals and proposals generated for management consideration. The prevailing manual process was tedious, cumbersome, and highly complex. Newgen provided an enterprise-wide document management solution with built-in workflow capabilities. Different users in various departments independently send all the proposals and approvals on predefined paths for immediate action. A parallel setup is also maintained to handle any contingency. A parallel setup is also maintained to handle any contingency. The Newgen solution led to 80% reduction in turnaround time and 90% reduction in paper usage. Process simplification and standardisation provided enhanced employee productivity, www.egovonline.net

greater level of transparency, employee accountability and improved disaster management capability. Estate office, Chandigarh (India) needed a solution to efficiently and accurately manage large number of property records so that they could be tracked and made available when needed. The Newgen BPM solution provided automation of both back office and front office processes. These processes were streamlined across departments and employees were trained on the new system. Also, the property details were hosted on the Website of the estate office. The solution provided instant access to the file/ record and property details to the estate office leading to improved employee productivity and accountability. The turnaround time for application processing was reduced from 35 days to 1320 days, resulting in faster reddressal of customer grievances. Making records available at the click of a mouse ensured transparency and reduced fraud. The solution comprised modules for handling multiple processes across various departments. These included: payment module, processing module, customer grievance module, legal module, and miscellaneous module. SEC (Security and Exchange Commission) Philippines needed a solution to allow users to view and print the audited financial statements and other documents of companies registered with the department. iReport Project, which has BPM and DMS as core components is aimed towards realising the holistic goal of bringing transparency, accountability and fairness in companies’ financial reporting. The department deployed Newgen workflow & document management solution on their portal. e-Filed applications were processed at the back-end using Newgen OmniFlowTM. All applications and associated documents are archived and retrieved using OmniDocsTM. The solution efficiently manages the huge number of legacy and new documents, makes them available online and implements process workflows in diffrent departments. Some of the key processes that have been implemented or are being implmented include: • Common licensing procedures for market regulation department • Financial statement / stock and transfer book / membership book processes for company registration and monitoring department • Monitoring financing company process for corporate financing department • Procedure leading to investigation / inspection / surveillance for compliance and enforcement department ov

August 2007

•

Registration of dealer for non-traditional securities and instruments department Newgen Solution provides instant access to these documents, cost containment for storage and management of documents, increased productivity and efficiency, better customer satisfaction and responsiveness, and effective de-risking and control of the process. More importantly, it enables SEC in achieving its aim of increasing tranparency and accountability for companies’ financial reporting. How does your solutions have an edge, as compared to the other market players, in the field? Newgen software has established itself as one of the fastest implementer of BPM and ECM solutions in the world. This helps our clients to quickly go live and in turn help them realise quick return on investment. In addition, we extend extensive and excellelent post-implementation support to our clients either by deploying dedicated personnel or through our vast network of partners and system integrators. In addition, our solutions are based on open standards, support unicode, and seamlessly integration with other enterprise systems and legacy systems. We offer end-to-end solutions and are focussed on providing BPM and DMS solutions to our clients. What is the role of standards and interoperability for e-Forms? e-Form solutions are currently being developed using different technologies and approaches. Therefore, being technology agnostic is the best way to go forward. Moreover, taking the standard approach has the advantages of cutting down on implementation time and cost. e-Forms repository could be used across multiple projects. 15

COVER FEATURE

INNOVATING FOR INSTANT ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS

What in your opinion should be the approach adopted in implementation of e-Forms solutions in the current scenario by the government in India? e-Forms have been in an infancy stage and only now their role is increasingly being recognised in India for effective e-Governance solutions. The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) has taken off in a big way and its final success depends on its sustainability and reaching common citizens. There is a requirement for e-Governance solutions to be multilingual, workflow enabled, hybrid with paper-based mechansim, capable of being re-engineered and able to achieve maximum penetration. e-Forms based on open standards can be one of the mechanisms to achieve these goals. Government of India has established a working group to come up with policies and guidelines for e-Forms. These policies are being framed with the objectives like proper handling of both structured and unstructured content, addressing security and privacy concerns, having an XML base, and ensuring access through multiple devices. Usage of e-Forms in mission mode projects

The mantra for succes is, therefore, improved customer service, effective management of innovative product offerings and continuous enhancement of productivtiy. Banks in India, as well as globally, are increasingly centalising their operations, adopting core banking solutions bringing in standardisation, and rapidly expanding their network with and reusability of e-Forms is essential for achieving ROI and cost advantage in NeGP projects. A monitoring body for institutionalising e-Form implementation methodology should be formed. Establishment of central e-Form repository, reuse of e-Forms and addressing legal aspects would go a long way in doing this. Based on your experience in delivering solutions on projects involving e-Forms, what are some of your key recommendations for the public sector? Some of the key recommendations proposed by Newgen for projects involving e-Forms are: • There has been a widespread use of e-Forms worldover and a good amount of work is being done by government in India and vendors for promoting use of e-Forms. • During project execution, the public agency should see in case there are templates already available and re-use them. • Business processes should be re-engineered and international best practices should be adopted. • Change management aspects should be addressed in the early phases to ensure success of the project. • e-Forms should be as per the recommendations for policies and standards established by Government’s working group. • Hybrid solutions ensuring handling of paper-based 16

forms: The solutions should be able to not just handle electronic forms but also paper-based forms. Newgen document mangaement solution is being adopted by the banking sector, in India (for instance Karnataka Bank) and beyond. Please tell us about your DMS solution and how it enables clients to streamline document-centric business process, leading to better productivity and faster decision making? Banks and financial service organisations are increasingly facing global competition, demanding customers and regulatory compliance issues leading to pressure on margins. The mantra for succes is, therefore, improved customer service, effective management of innovative product offerings and continuous enhancement of productivtiy. Banks in India, as well as globally, are increasingly centalising their operations, adopting core banking solutions bringing in standardisation, and rapidly expanding their network with lean branches. Newgen helps banks achieve these goals through its BPM and ECM suite of products and solutions. Business benefits include faster transactions, leading to better customer service and reduced resource costs. In addition, end-to-end view and control of processes across branches, back office and head office leading to streamlined processes, compliance to regulatory norms, rapid growth with lean branches, organisational agility, enabling outsourcing, maximising ROI from IT investments are other realised benefits. What kind of strategic partnership do you have in implementing mission mode projects under the National e-Governance Plan in India? The focus of NeGP is to ensure public service delivery for long term sustainability and efficiency. This requires public and private organisations to collaborate. Since DMS and workflow are critical components of most NeGP projects, Newgen is closely working with large system Integrators for mission mode projects . Integrated projects like CSCs require higher adoption of public private partnership and unique business models. For such projects, Newgen has created consortiums with public sector banks and private companies. In addition, we continue collaborating and participating in standards-related activities of NeGP. What are some of your future plans for the next five years for providing software solutions for the government? We are working with government agencies in India and developing countries in APAC and EMEA for providing e-Governance solutions. We are closely aligned with the e-Governance initiatives in these regions. We work closley with large system integrators, e-Governance consultants and regulatory authorities. • We will continue providing DMS and workflow components for important e-Governance projects through our partnership with large system integrators. • We will continue participatinmg in standardsdevelopment activities. • We would develop process frameworks for specific e-Governance processes where we have deep domain expertise. www.egovonline.net

COVER FEATURE

Email Based e-Forms Electronic form processing enables organisations to easily collect information through online forms and process the requests in accordance with deﬁned business procedures. The main objective is to ease and speed the collection of data and automate the processing of the information.

Mizaji Lal

lectronic forms are equivalent of paper forms. Basically forms are required to transact the business. The information collection through paper forms is quite cumbersome, very expensive and a slow process. Often information obtained contains several errors. Many a times users are not able to fill the form properly due to lack of knowledge or filling instructions given on the forms are just not sufficient. Further the data entry operator makes the mistake while keying in data and deciphering the hand writing requires skills, which further accumulates the errors. Converting manual process to automated processes using e-Forms has proven to be an effective way to reduce costs and improve productivity of an organisation. Electronic form processing enables organisations to easily collect information through online forms and process the requests in accordance with defined business procedures. The main objective is to ease and speed up the collection of data and automate the processing of the information. Collecting data through forms has been a surprising expense for organisations. The solution requires the suitable IT infrastructure and front-end and back-end software applications. Further it needs the extensive support of IT department to implement the entire life cycle of data processing. The cost associated with programming, forms designing and modifications come out to very high and many a times the process of data collection is to be abandoned. Using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to design and deliver forms had become the obvious solution for many organisations, but programming needed to collect the data creates the bottleneck. The next roadblock to widespread use of e-Forms has been in data processing. Even if organisations are able to design, deliver and collect form data, cleaning and verifying the data is often the most tedious process. Forms are often submitted with outdated or inaccurate information. If the e-Form system does not use business rules to verify the data, then bad data will get into databases and line-ofbusiness systems. This creates expensive data-driven errors. The solution is found in standards-based applications, where organisations design a form, publish as HTML or portable document format (PDF), set-up data collection, and configure business rules, using point and click tools. Since almost every desktop today has a Web browser, HTML is an ideal delivery mechanism and it works the same way in almost every browser. PDF requires Acrobat Reader which has become almost as pervasive as Web browsers. By ov

August 2007

delivering forms using HTML and PDF standards, the forms are accessible to anyone-anywhere around the world. New e-Form products are now available that use open standards to automate the delivery and processing of forms, and have proven to be an effective way to reduce costs and improve productivity for any size organisation. These products open up a new opportunity for organisations to increase the number of processes they automate because they substantially reduce or eliminate cost related with design, distribution, and collection and processing.

INFOPATH 2007

InfoPath is an application part of Microsoft Office for forms design and XML data entry that uses a familiar Office like interface and allows offline data entry, which is not possible with Web-based forms. InfoPath forms can contain custom code to validate data and submit completed forms to backend applications, such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems or enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. However, InfoPath forms designers do not have to write code for many tasks, including validating data formats, automatically expanding forms to include new line items, and submitting completed forms to Web services. InfoPath has been used for forms-based applications inside organisations, particularly for mobile workers who are not online full time and who are familiar with Office. However, adoption has been hampered by the product’s “thick-client” architecture. Every user must have InfoPath installed, even users who only enter data and never design forms. This has made InfoPath more expensive for IT organisations, which must license and deploy the product for every user. It also excludes InfoPath from markets where there is little or no control over the client platform, such as e-Government initiatives that deliver services to citizens using digital forms sent over the Web.

INFOPATH 12

With InfoPath 12, developers will be able to design, code, test, and debug forms within the visual studio development environment. In addition, InfoPath 12 will have a managed object model, a more extensive set of managed application 17

COVER FEATURE

EMAIL BASED E-FORMS

programming interfaces (APIs) for custom code that validates forms input and processes forms. The visual studio designer and improved APIs will make InfoPath more attractive to professional developers accustomed to working in visual studio with the VB.NET and C++ languages. Both inside and outside visual studio, the InfoPath 12 forms designer will include new design options to support the new thin-client architecture. It will enable a designer to create a single form that works both for browser users and for users of the full InfoPath product. These “design-once” forms are ASP.NET Web pages, which the designer deploys to an InfoPath 12 forms server. Once deployed, the Web page automatically detects the type of client and delivers the appropriate type of form (HTML or InfoPath XML) to that client. With InfoPath 12, organisations will also be able to create libraries of forms controls and forms sections that include code to exchange data with specific back-end applications. InfoPath e-mail forms can help streamline the processes that you use to collaborate and share data. That is because you can open, fill out, and submit InfoPath forms from within Office Outlook 2007, without having to open InfoPath. If you receive an InfoPath e-mail form, you can reply to it, forward it, and store it just as you would with any other items in Office Outlook 2007. The full integration of Office Outlook 2007 with Office InfoPath 2007 makes it possible to embed an InfoPath form within an e-mail message, and to send it to people along with a request that they fill in the needed information. Recipient are just needed to reply the message and complet the embedded form. After you have collected the respondent’s answers, you can export the data to MS Office Excel 2007 for analysis, or merge the answers from the form that you distributed into one master form.

or just a read only view. A comment related to the form can be added in the ‘introduction’ field which travels as metadata along with the form. Now it is turn of data collection. The large number of forms received from various employees requires the processing. For collecting the data a new InfoPath form folder can be created. Now create a rule that automatically routes incoming ‘travel request’ forms to this folder. Then pick-up the specific forms type out of the list of all the templates that have been cached on my local machine. For each incoming message, the rule will check if it is an e-mail form of type ‘travel request’ and will route all the matching e-mails to the ‘travel’ folder. When each form is saved into the ‘travel’ folder, the data stored in form folders can be aggregated and exported to excel for further processing and analysis. It is a collection of structured forms that can be very easily processed and extracted the data to report on. By selecting all the forms in the folder and then selecting the ‘export to excel’ option from the toolbar. This option automatically generates a spreadsheet with all the data mapped from the forms into excel. Now we know that e-mail forms can be used to gather ‘travel request” information from various employees of the organisation. e-mail forms could also be used for many similar scenarios within the organisation and outside the organisation. Similarly various government department can make all the forms available to their customers either as email based forms or distribute through server as browser enabled forms which can really simplify the life of customers, enhance the efficiency and productivity of the department and reduce the cost of data collection. The only requirement is that the data needs to be structured.

CONCLUSION CASE STUDY

Browser enabled forms can eliminate the need of form designing software on the client system. The email forms can streamline your day to day work and can certainly increase the office productivity. InfoPath forms have been integrated with Microsoft outlook 2007 email environment. That means forms can now be viewed, edited, saved, and forwarded similar to email messages, meetings, or tasks. This tighter integration makes it really easy to work with forms and to leverage all the structured information they provide without having to leave your familiar Outlook environment. Let us assume that I need to collect the travel details about employees of my organisation. The form template can be designed with InfoPath very easily or alternatively built in “travel request” template can be used for the purpose. Once the template is completed, it is needed to be deployed using the publishing wizard and selecting the option “to a list of e-mail recipients”. It then needs to specify the recipients, add an optional comment, and send out the form. The employees of the organisation receive the forms and can fill out the form by clicking ‘reply’ button. The form opens in Infopath and after filling the completed form, can be sent back to the originator. The employees will have the choice to send an editable extensible markup language (XML) form 18

The developers will be able to create forms that users can fill out either in a browser or with the full InfoPath client. The code for distributing InfoPath forms and processing will reside on a new InfoPath forms server, based on Microsoft’s windows sharepoint services portal and document management platform. Browser data entry will minimise the amount of software installed on each PC and will serve scenarios such as e-Government, where not all users have the full InfoPath client installed. However, the browser version of an InfoPath form will not have all the data entry features of a form displayed in the full InfoPath client. Forms designers will be able to use the InfoPath client application and its scripting development environment as they do today. However, they will also be able to design and debug forms in the visual studio environment by running a plug-in designer based on the InfoPath client. visual studio will probably become the environment of choice for professional developers creating forms that require complex processing on the server. Mizajilal (mizaji@yahoo.com) is working as Scientist-‘E’ at Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (Deemed University), Pune and also have worked as Assistant Director/ System Analyst in the department of Income-tax. His areas of interest are Mobile Computing, Computer Networks, Programming Languages and Web Development.

www.egovonline.net

COVER FEATURE

MCA21 Project www.mca.gov.in

he MCA21 project is the flagship e-Governance initiative of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Government of India. Envisioned to provide anytime and anywhere services to businesses. MCA21 project was the first mission mode e-Governance project implemented in the country. The MCA 21 project was initially launched on pilot basis at Coimbatore on 18th February, 2006 and then at Puducherry, and Ernakullum. The project was launched at Delhi by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India on 18th March, 2006. It became operational at all 20 Registrar of Companies (RoC)

offices by the end of July, 2006. And 48 Registrar Front Offices have been established across India to facilitate filing for the stakeholders. All services of the RoC offices, Regional Directorate offices and Ministry of Corporate Affairs are now available online through the www.mca.gov.in portal. The portal gets an average of 3.5 million hits a day, making it one of the most popular government portals. The e-Filing of all documents, using digital signatures of authorised representatives of the companies was mandated under law with effect from September 16, 2006. The MCA21 has led to automation of processes related to the proactive enforcement and compliance of the legal requirements under the Companies Act, 1956. The project has both the virtual and physical front office. The physical front office is a replacement to the existing RoC counters. The user can avail the following services on MCA21 portal: e-Filing, viewing public document, requesting certified copies, registering investor complaint, tracking transaction status. 20 }

About 3.5 lakh filings have been made till date by about 2 lakh companies, and the Ministry is available to the stakeholders anywhere and anytime on a 24x7 basis. The Ministry has mandated e-Filing for all companies from September 18 onwards with the use of digital signature certificate (DSC) by the authorised signatories of the companies and all filings now are being done with digital signatures of authorised signatories. Once e-Filing has been successfully processed by the MCA21 system, all data is extracted into an MCA corporate database. This database will serve as the base for various analysis and MIS reports for the Ministry — this will be done on a continuous basis. National Institute of Smart Government (NISG) has been entrusted with the responsibility of implementing the MCA21 project. TCS has been selected as the implementation partner for the end-to-end implementation on a build-own-operatetransfer (BOOT) model till 2012. The biggest challenge in implementing the project was e-Filing, which eliminates the physical interface. More than 100 awareness sessions were conducted at approximately 40 cities across India, with one-to-one interaction of the TCS team in collaboration with key stakeholders such as company secretaries, chartered accountants, and cost and works accountants. Initiatives are being taken to revamp the cadre management of Indian Company Law Service (ICLS). A proposal to set up “Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs” has been included in the eleventh five year plan with an estimated outlay of INR 2110 million. The institute would function as a think tank for the ministry of corporate affairs, provide a single window service to various stakeholders including corporate and professionals and take up training and capacity building measures for the ICLS. An accounting and records management project has been undertaken in the official liquidators offices in the four metros to computerise the complete accounts of the companies which are under liquidation in order to enable an effective control over the inventory – cash/bank balance, stock, plant and machinery, land and building, debtors etc. www.egovonline.net

m-Connect

Telecom Network for the Delivery of Extension Services Kisan Call Centre

http://agricoop.nic.in/PolicyIncentives/kisanCallfirst.htm

Deepak Chanduka

isan Call Center has been launched by Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, to provide an easy access point to the farmers, all over the country, and in their local languages. They have been set up by the Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd. (TCIL), a Government of India enterprise. The farmers can call up in Kisan Call Center (KCC) which is accessible by toll free number 1551 and enquire about the various queries/ problems related to the crops, seeds, fertilisers, agriculture commodity prices, pesticides, horticulture, veterinary, etc., free of cost. KCC is operational since January 21, 2004 across the country. Initial contract with TCIL was for 3 years with further renewal option from year to year on mutually agreed terms. This has been renewed for another term so as to expire on 22nd June, 2010. Also fresh request for proposal (RFP) has been issued by TCIL for appointing call centre provider for the next term.

from a given states is forwarded to the call center located in the respective city. The call center has facilities to answer the queries of farmers. During normal office timings, call center operators act as the first level of support. The first level operators preferably would be an agricultural graduate with rural background knowing local language. They posses’ good communication skills and resolve the queries. In case, these operators are unable to answer the queries, caller is referred to DAC experts in a conference call along with the information collected by the Call Center Agent. Beyond office timings, caller records the queries along with his/her personal details. These are processed separately and caller is informed of the answer for his queries. The call center has a front-end with an interactive voice response system for welcome message only for normal working. The call flow diagram is as shown below:

TCIL ROLE

TCIL was appointed by the department of agriculture and cooperation (DAC) to provide consultancy to examine various technological options, modalities, issues, procedures, cost estimates, Implementation and operation of ‘Kisan Call Centers’, to deliver agriculture related information to the farmers in India, on turnkey basis. Initially, 13 centers were proposed in different cities in India covering the entire country.

SCOPE OF WORK OF KCC

• • •

14 call center locations 144 call center seats Available in 3 shifts (6 am to 2:30 pm, 9:30 am to 6 pm and 2 pm to 10 pm) • Generation of MIS report • Handling more then 3000 calls daily • Mis report analysis • Future strategy • Call Flow Mechanism These call centers will be accessible on 4-digit toll free telephone number 1551. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (known as BSNL), a public sector communications company in India, has implemented the numbering plan in its remote and local exchanges all over the country. The calls initiated ov

August 2007

COVER FEATURE

It is also desired to obtain the various MIS reports from the call center so as to optimize the operations of the call centers. In future, TCIL/DAC shall also attempt to develop a Knowledge Management system, which shall be supported by the database build up using the Frequently Asked Questions, other queries and their answers being provided by the Call Center Agents and DAC experts.

KCC Set-up Features Nodes Call Center Seats Languages served Live Answers

Initial Setup 8 84 21 9.30AM – 6.00PM

Current Setup 14 144 22 6.00AM – 10.00PM (All 7 days)

scientists, extension functionaries, farmers and marketing agencies. • Strengthening agriculture information system of ministry of agriculture, by making the knowledge available to farmers at their doorstep, on a toll free telephone number (1551). • Putting the farmers directly in contact with agriculture experts. • Making authentic field data available for agriculture policy decisions. • It will open the employment opportunities for students graduate with a degree in agriculture. KCC - Call Analysis over 3 years of operations

CALL CENTER SET-UP

The broad Schematic Diagram of the Kisan Call Center is given below: ROLE OF PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP

Kisan Call Centre scheme is an example of successful partnership between government i.e ministry of agriculture and private i.e call centre operators, for providing services to public i.e. farmers. Following are the stakeholders of Kisan Call Centre project: • Department of Agriculture, ministry of agriculture • Call centre operator from private • Farmers • TCIL as turnkey consultant

FUTURE PLANS

• •

• BENEFITS TO CITIZENS

• KCC is a new dimension in agriculture extension management, which takes account of, and makes full use of on-going information and communication revolution, by optimally utilising the communication bandwidth to serve the farming community in remotest areas of the country by connecting them to best of the agricultural scientific community. This is an important value multiplier for the existing extension mechanisms, which finds it otherwise difficult (in terms of infrastructure and finances) to reach their desired clientele. This will enable establishment of close linkages and seamless communication mechanism among the key stakeholders in the extension system namely – agricultural

Development of knowledge management system as a decision support system for the agents. One KCC for each state for local flavour and better linguistic support, thereby increasing Call Centre locations from 14 to 32. Increase in the number of seats to provide better service to the farmers. More awareness generation through media and different channels for increased awareness of KCC services.

Deepak Chanduka (chanduka@tcil-india.com) is a B.Tech in Electronics and Telecommunications. Presently he is working as Group General Manager (IT & NW) at TCIL working on IT & Telecom related projects. In eGovernanace arena, he has worked on prestigious projects such as Kisan Call Center & Kisan Knowledge Management System for Ministry of Agriculture, among others.

www.egovonline.net

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CY CMY

Taming Big Brother: The Future of Video Surveillance

Motorola’s wireless making ng ccitytechnology is mak nce a rea reality wide surveillance nisations and many organisations ts power tto are realising its enforce public safety and keep citizens safe.

In the nig nightmare world of George Orwell’s novel 1984, the lead characters rebel against Big Brother who wat watches over everything. However, increasing public safety threats are starting to win over privacy concerns and the b benefits of wide area video surveillance, in providing defence and deterrence, are being well accepted. Wh What is e enabling the flexibility and scalability needed to deploy wide video surveillance is fixed wireless bro broadband technologies, specifically point-to-point (PTP) and point-to-multi-point (PMP). With data rates up to broadban 300 Mbp Mbps and ranges up to 200 km with latency rates as low as 0.6 ms, Motorola’s PTP wireless Ethernet con connects in some of the harshest and most challenging environments including difficult terrain and saltwater spa spans. Thu Thus, PTP represents an effective wireless backhaul solution while PMP can serve the denser last mile net network required for video surveillance.

Virtual Patrol

Safety Drive

With just 3,000 people, the small Italian town of Sergnano installed a video surveillance system supported by Motorola’s Canopy wireless broadband network that allows the town’s two-man police force to control 100 percent of the territory without moving from the control room.

A police department in a large Midwestern US state decided to install Motorola’s PTP fixed wireless broadband as part of a traffic video surveillance system. The primary goal was to save lives as the state contributed the fourth largest number of red light running fatalities per capita in the US.

The fixed wireless broadband network covers 15 to 20 sq. km has effectively eliminated vandalism, improved incident response and provided criminal evidence that has saved Sergnano enough money to pay of the system within 12 months. Using Motorola’s Canopy PMP fixed wireless broadband allowed remote areas without cable links to be connected and saved cost on DSL connectivity, which would have cost Sergnano at least US$135 per month per camera. And because Canopy is IP-based, it works seamlessly with newer digital CCTV systems.

Safe Harbour When the US Coast Guard (USCG) needed to maintain maritime domain awareness 32 km off Miami’s seaport with real-time live data, they chose to deploy a Motorola PTP 400 series fixed wireless Ethernet system to interconnect various cameras, Radar and other surveillance equipment. For more information. please contact us at: Motorola Excellence Centre 415/2 Mehrauli Gurgaon Road Sector 14 Gurgaon Haryana 122001 India Tel: +91-9891413551 Fax: +91-1242301611 http://www.motorola.com/in Email: GDQT48@motorola.com

Composite

Motorola’s PTP technology exceeded USCG’s requirements for minimum data rates of 10Mbps each way, less than 12 ms latency, stability in obstructed, high interference and over-water paths, as well as durability in saltwater conditions. Because the USCG is part of the US military service, the organization also selected Motorola PTP fixed wireless broadband connections as it supports 128-bit FIPS 197 AES encryption, which is a military grade cryptography system.

The city-wide red light enforcement network consists of 70 Motorola PTP 58400 radios supporting 15 cameras at 40 intersections that monitor 60 approaches across the city. With a significant drop in incident numbers resulting from the initial deployment in 2006, the system will be extended to a total of 60 intersections by mid-2007 and 250 by the end-2007.

Safety First with Wireless WANs With greater coverage than physical patrols, the ability to optimise multiple video feeds over a single link at 4 Mbps each, and high resistance to interference compared to other wireless solutions, Motorola’s PTP and PMP fixed wireless wide area networks (WANs) are helping municipalities and security agencies see ROI ins typically less than 12 months. In addition, Motorola solutions can traverse long distances without signal loss, bridge non-line-of-sight (NLoS) or nearline-of-sight (nLoS) environments, and overcome path obstructions. Security firms that want to monitor densely populated sites can also cluster more Motorola radios without increasing interference and remotely manage the radios from the LAN. The Motorola wi4 Fixed Point-to-Point Wireless Ethernet Bridges – PTP 400 and PTP 600 Series – are part of Motorola’s MOTOwi4 portfolio of innovative wireless broadband solutions that create, complement and complete IP networks. Delivering IP coverage to virtually all spaces, the MOTOwi4 portfolio includes Fixed Broadband, WiMAX, Mesh and Broadband-over-Powerline solutions for private and public networks. For more information on Motorola's MOTOwi4 solutions, visit http://www.motorola-promotions.com/motowi4

ADVERTORIAL

Information Superhighway Infrastructure for Rural Areas Kisan Soochna Kendra Kisan Soochna Kendra is a village hub connected to each other with the help of Public Information Booths (PIBs) and is a free information provider from its technology of Talking Websites and call centers. It is an information superhighway infrastructure for rural development initiative. A super-mall to buy and sell services and products on talking websites. It is a live shop 24 hours to cater clients with remotest rural locations. Kisan Soochna Kendra is an initiative of Jaikisan.org, which is a self sustaining organisation for joint agriculture information and knowledge implementation with systematic advanced network, actively engaged in creating employment in rural areas and developing entrepreneurship in Uttarakhand (India) since the year 2000. Under a memorandum of understanding with the government of Uttarakhand (GoUK), Jaikisan.org is establishing Kisan Soochana Kendra (multi purpose business hubs) in the villages of India and by the end of year 2007 entire Uttarakhand would be connected with 3000 Kisan Soochana Kendra’s, fully modernised and computerised till village level. This rural infrastructure project of information technology initiated by GoUK has now expanded to other states like Harayana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orrisa, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Features of Kisan Soochna Kendra: Public information booth with v-sat, projector, printers, camera etc. • Jai kisan vyapaar kendra • Jai kisan khan pan (food) • Jai kisan rest house network • Jai kisan television network • Jai kisan fm radio network • Jai kisan theatre for training and entertainment. Social and Economic Benefits Kisan Soochna Kendra is an IT solution with which connectivity with all the villages can be established in record time. Kisan (Farmers) and Village Gets: • Access to all government schemes for kisan in his native language. • Access to new technologies and products in his native language. • Access to communication and connectivity to agriculture research and development from Indian as well as abroad in his native language. • Access to markets, mandis for sales of its produce. • Sales of crop at better terms and prices. • Sontract farming.

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KISAN SOOCHNA KENDRA IN RIWARI VILLAGE, HARYANA

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New technology crops introduction and training. Jobs to natives and business opportunities to rural entrepreneurs. (every kiosk creates jobs with and business in education, health, trading, banking and technical skills for entire community in the village). Industry enters rural areas because of kiosk connectivity through internet - e-Banking, e-Education and e-Communication. Employment is generated for thousands in technical call centers for kisan in each state and every language of india. Enterprise resource planning of societies and cooperatives. this means more transparency of the operations of government and people participation. Faster availability of information about the organisation.

Sustainability This is a self sustaining infrastructure under the network of Jaikisan. org and any business added to this rural business center has a revenue plan that supports all the partners involved. Typically one Kisan Soochna Kendra reaches a turnover of 10,000 -15,000 in first year and then 25,000 to 30,000 next two years. Kisan Soochna Kendra is a network of 400 plus in last 5 years without any bad loan to any bank which has financed Kisan Soochna Kendra. Being a small scale industry project, this is financed by banks and subsidised by Jaikisan. org as a policy. It is a business identity with service tax, income tax , value added tax etc. It is owned by a partnership of Jaikisan.org and entrepreneur from the local village. This franchise model of Jaikisan. org is widely accepted by the society as profit generator with social benefit. Practically Kisan Soochna Kendra self employs 60 to 600 villagers in business and rural development activities.

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Governments Financial Institutions Companies NGOs & Societies

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Serve you with 150000 properties India Post Kisan Soochna Kendra

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Available Services @t Kisan Soochna Kendra CPhoto Copy

management.

CBroad band Internet Connectivity.

CDigital Photo Studio

CRailways , Airways and Road Transports information and Booking.

CDigital Video Studio and Coverage.

CRural Information Resource Base.

CScanning.

CRural Business Activities Information.

CEmail.

CInternet Surfing and Email.

CCD making

CSurveyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Supports Services.

CDTP operations. CDigital Projection Theater.

CRecord keeping for Projects (Govt.,NGOs,SHGs and Industry)

CLamination.

CMIS , Evaluation, Distribution Center services

CSpiral Binding.

Portal Services

CMoney transaction center.

PFarmers Support

CFax Machine.

PVillage Industry Services

CData Management.

PE- Governance

CInternet surfing.

PJaikisan TV

CE-shopping.

PJaikisan FM Radio Center

CVideo Conferencing.

PJaikisan News PRural Tourism

COnline Health Support.

PDistribution Network

COnline veterinary Support.

PCommodity Exchange

CTransport and courier Services.

PTrainings

CPackaged food.

PRural Business Hub â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Ngos And Shgs

CE banking services.

PRural Office For Societies, Cooperatives And Micro Industry

CJaikisan.org FM radio

PDistance Education

CJaikisan.org News paper

PGlobal Information System

CJaikisan Television network

PFinancial Services

CGovernment Information.

PMicro Finance Network

CInfrastructure for E-Governess.

PMatrimonial

CCitizen Services- Forms and Payments.

PJobs

CTourist Information.

PAgri Clinic

CRural Tourism & Travel

Full Fledged Modern Business Centers With Motivated Staff to establish your reach to remotest areas of the country

PLegal Aid PE- Medicine

Registered Office A 244, Okhla. Industrial Area, New Delhi.India Head Office: 57, Shiva Palace, Rajpur Road, Dehra Dun, Uttaranchal. Tel: +91 135 - 3956677, 94111 93800 website: www.jaikisan.org, e-mail: jkinfo@jaikisan.org

PVet Clinic

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We cultivate dreams to life

Rural infrastructure development project with it initiative

COVER FEATURE

NEWS

m-Connect

SOUTH AFRICANS TO ACCESS BANK ON THEIR MOBILE PHONES WIZZIT, a mobile banking provider, allows South African citizens to check their account balances, transfer funds, purchase airtime, and pay utility bills in their mobile phones.

SMS TO IMPROVE EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES BridgeIT programme is bringing ideas and learning to life for rural children. The programme, part of a unique collaboration that includes the International Youth Foundation, Nokia, Pearson plc, the United Nations Development Programme, and local partners in individual countries, was launched in 2003 in the Philippines under the name text2teach. Through the programme, teachers are able to access an extensive library of science, math, and language videos simply by sending an SMS message via a mobile phone. The message signals a satellite, which delivers digital ﬁles to a video recorder connected to a television in the classroom. The technology allows high quality content to be delivered in remote areas at the cost of a cell phone call.

To create a WIZZIT account, one need only subscribe to the service and deposit funds into their account by going to a bank or post ofﬁce. A WIZZIT account costs roughly one-third less than a traditional bank account. WIZZIT markets its services through a growing team of Wizz Kids, typically unemployed college students who earn a commission through signing people up for the service. Subscribing takes just a few minutes and can be done by punching basic information into a telephone keypad. A recent study of mobile banking among low income individuals in South Africa found that a majority of WIZZIT customers sign up because it is cheaper to use than traditional banking, is also convenient and safe.

Within one year’s time, the programme has demonstrated improvement in academic performance. The positive impact went beyond the classroom, as the project motivated school officials, parents, and community leaders. Over the last two years, text2teach has benefited more than 122,000 5th and 6th grade students, and trained 920 teachers. Steps are now underway to implement the program in Tanzania, where 20,000 rural and urban primary school boys and girls are expected to benefit, along with 1,000 primary school teachers. BridgeIT Tanzania is being carried out through a partnership between the International Youth Foundation, the Tanzanian Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MOEVT), Forum for African Women Educationalists, Nokia, and Pearson plc.

TSF FOR DISASTER RELIEF To meet the communications needs of disaster victims, Telecoms sans Frontieres (TSF), a humanitarian organisation, is able to dispatch telecom experts anywhere in the world within 48 hours of a catastrophe. TSF teams are equipped to set up a telecommunications center at the heart of a disaster or conﬂict. The centers provide UN, NGO, and government responders with reliable voice, Internet, fax, and video connections using satellite, WiFi, and GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) equipment. With this facility, relief workers can assess local needs and coordinate logistics. After the Asian tsunami, for example, TSF immediately deployed its services in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Indonesia to strengthen relief efforts and to offer the possibility to survivors to contact a loved one abroad to give news and to request personalised assistance. TSF teams, staffed largely by volunteers, generally remain in the area for a month until more permanent satellite and other communications are established. Since its founding in 1998, TSF has sent teams to 45 countries on 55 aid missions. Today, TSF is supported by some of the biggest companies of the telecoms industry. The Vodafone Group Foundation has been actively supporting TSF since 2002. 26

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M-PESA- A NEW MOBILE PAYMENT SERVICE M-PESA, an innovative mobile payment solution that enables customers to complete simple financial transactions by mobile phon has been launched by eSafaricom, the leading mobile communications provider in Kenya. Developed by Vodafone, the world’s leading mobile telecommunications group, with the pilot in Kenya operated by Safaricom, M-PESA aims at mobile customers who do not have a bank account, typically because they do not have access to a bank or because they do not have sufficient income to justify a bank account. All they need to do is register at an authorised M-PESA Agent by providing their Safaricom mobile number and their identification card. Once registered, customers can: Put money into their account by depositing cash at a local agent Send money to other mobile phone users by SMS instruction, even if they are not Safaricom subscribers. • Withdraw cash at local a agent • Buy Safaricom airtime for themselves or other subscribers • Only Safaricom subscribers can send M-PESA, but anyone who can receive an sms can receive money by MPESA. Customers do not need to • have a bank account to benefit from M-PESA services. For more details please refer www.vodafone.com/start/media_relations/news/group_press_releases/2007/safaricom_and_vodafone.html

WIKIPEDIA ON MOBILE MobilED audio wiki (http://mobiled.uiah.ﬁ/) has been initiated with the idea of offering Wikipedia’s Encyclopedia content for mobile users.

results of the information seeking and discussions about the themes were then reported back to each students’home/audiocasting groups.

The primary user group are teachers and pupils in schools in places where little access to learning materials. The ﬁrst ﬁeld test of testing the MobilED audio wiki was conducted in one school in South Africa. To access the MobilED audio wiki service, each student group were given a Nokia 3230 smartphone and Nokia Music Stands MD-1 (speaker for the Nokia 3230). The thematic group discussed different aspects of HIV and used the MobilED server with the English Wikipedia content to search information related to their theme. Student groups were free to choose search terms and navigate the system according to their own choice. The content - delivered for them as an audio where a speech synthesiser was reading it - they listen together from a speaker attached to the mobile phone. The

The home groups then discussed the most relevant issues of HIV/AIDS for their own age groups and started to write a script for an audiocast or radio show of their own. The audiocast shows made by the student groups were then made available for the whole school community including all the students, teachers and parents. They were able to listen them with their own mobile phones by sending the group name to the MobilED audio wiki which then made a call back for the sender and played the audio found. For the next year (starting from April 2007) MobilED will focus on three technology streams- text and voice, MMS and data- in terms of development and piloting and take the pedagogical aspects into account when designing lesson plans.

JOBS@MOBILE Kazi560 in Kenya is a job referral service providing job opportunities and access to vital health information through Mobile for Good (M4G), a social franchise. Subscribers to Kazi560, need only to enter the job type they are looking for on their keypad, followed by “on” to receive SMS announcements of openings. The service was commercially launched in 2006, over 60,000 people have secured jobs. Subscribers may also access community news posting and health information related to HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, diabetes, diet, and ﬁtness. The service was established by OneWorld UK, an international organisation dedicated to alleviating poverty through the creative use of ICTs since 1995, Mobile for Good capitalises on the widespread use of mobile phones to improve the lives of people in the developing world. Mobile for Good is expanding the use of mobiles to e-Governance by deploying services at Transport Ministry, ofﬁce of the President, and others. Other low-income communities in Cameroon, Nigeria, Uganda, and Nepal will soon be following the Kenya model.

August 2007

mConnect m-Connect

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Delivering On-Demand Mobile Entertainment Content Over Mobile

www.apalya.com

B. Vamshi Reddy and Shiva Bayyapunedi, Co-Founders and Directors of Apalya Technologies “We enable the TV channel content providers to move on to the mobile platform basically. They are on the traditional media, mobile is a new media, so, we help them to move on to the mobile platform. At the same time, we work with the mobile operators on the integration and taking them to the market”, says B. Vamshi Reddy, Co-Founder and Director, Apalya Technologies in an interview with egov magazine Tell us about the vision and mission of Apalya Technologies Pvt Ltd. Apalya Technologies is the leading provider of services on the Mobile TV platform. Apalya aggregates premium entertainment content from many different content providers, and then optimises the content to be suitable for small screen or mobile viewing. Apalya’s unique technology works on delivering the best possible mobile entertainment experience based on the type of the device and the kind of network being used. Apalya’s roadmap includes producing mobile exclusive 28

programming and personalized entertainment into the hands of a mobile user. Apalya’s Mission is to enable telecom companies and content owners to offer Interactive, collaborative, on demand news and entertainment in an optimised and cost effective way through the Mobile TV platform. What is the strategy and roadmap followed by your company to bring Informative entertainment into the hands of mobile users in an optimised and cost effective way? www.egovonline.net

One of the key things that we are doing is when we talk of entertainment, we are providing services mostly on mobile video platform. Within this space we are beginning lot of video content, which are very costly. If we look at todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world it is expensive to watch any video content on the phone. The way we are bringing this in a cost effective way is, we are partnering strategically with all the operators, to see if we drive adoption just like the Internet adoption happened. There would not be any data usage charges or anything like that, it is more like unlimited usage. The user will pay a flat monthly subscription fee and can view whatever they want. This is how we plan to bring the entertainment in the hands of the user in a cost effective manner. What are the different services provided by Apalya in the field of media and entertainment related services in the mobile space? Right now, we focus mainly on mobile video, that is where our specialty is. Within the video space, we have live TV content as well as on-demand content also. The first product we have is mobile TV, which we have launched with Airtel and Idea (mobile operators), commercially live across all the 12 areas of Idea. We are also talking with other leading operators and will be deploying in the next few months. But our primary product is mobile video, the users will be able to watch live TV which is deferred by 5 to 10 minutes and you can catch upon all your favourite programmes, which you might have missed out on your mobile phone itself. You are partnering with various mobile operators and television channel operators, Could you brief more about how do you work? Basically we are a solution provider. What we do is, we actually provide the technology, the platform, integration and maintenance solution. We enable the TV channel content providers to move on to the mobile platform basically. They are on the traditional media, mobile is a new media, so, we help them to move on to the mobile platform. At the same time, we work with the mobile operators on the integration and taking them to the market. That is how we play an intend role. All the tie-ups we have with all the leading channels and mobile operators within India, are to get the content from them and we process it and make it suitable for the mobile viewing. Please provide an outline of the key trends in India in the mobile broadcast TV sector. Mobile TV broadcasting is little different. Lots of emerging technologies are available in the mobile TV space. Like Doordarshan has DVB-H, which is more on the broadcasting, but our technology is more on unicasting, it does not fall in the broadcasting space, and broadcasting has to go a long way. We are talking about the handsets which are capable to receive the broadcast, then there is a terrestrial broadcast issue. Doordarshan has the rights for terrestrial broadcasting, no one else has the rights. There are lot of issues on that space. So, you cannot view any other channels. The ov

August 2007

devices has to have the antennas and transmitters built-in to the phone. These phones are not in the market and those available in the market are very highly priced. So, mobile TV broadcasting has to go a long way to mark market. The unicasting technology, the solution which we are providing has more interactive and on-demand services. How is the mobile broadcast TV subscription growth in India, as compared to the other countries in Asia and in the West? If you look at the mature market, most of them are 3G and higher and if we look at India, it is only 2.5G. If we look at the typical Indian market, it is not ready for video technology and even data content. But at the same time, people living in metros have already the access and the technology has reached 99 per cent of the people. They are looking for more value added services like watching TV and video-on-demand. I think that we have opportunity, as 3G comes these services will pick up more. Please tell us about some of the barriers to the adoption for mass adoption for mobile broadcast TV in the emerging markets? As I said earlier, the key barriers are: from the telecom side we need much more bandwidth which is either going to be 3G or higher. If you look at the DVB-H per se, the barriers are, the terrestrial rights are with Doordarshan, even if you have the DVB-H, you can not watch other than Doordarshan. The other barrier is pricing of the mobile handsets itself, even though the new mobile sets are coming in, it would take a minimum of 3 to 5 years to reach the mass market and fully adoptable. Where do you see the future of content over mobile platform globally, and what will be the cutting edge technologies that will drive the growth of the industry? I think definitely, mobile video is the one. Everyone knows that mobile video is going to be a big thing. Just the spectrum needs to be opened up and the bandwidth needs to available. From the content standpoint, I think that people are willing to watch content with 3 to 5 minutes of duration on their mobile phone not more than that. I think people would also like to watch, what they want to watch rather than what is being shown to them. So, there is a clear cut difference between the broadcast and on-demand. Here we are basically talking about what are the shows people want to watch and what are the things he wants to capture. So, the content is more around what people demand and user generated and of less duration say around 3 to 5 minutes. What are some of your future plans in the area of content over mobile phones? We pretty much have all the leading channels from the TV standpoint. We are looking at other mobile exclusive contents. Lot of third party content developers are developing mobile exclusive contents and we are planning to bring that kind of content in our platform. We also plan to bring more user generated contents. 29

INDUSTRY FOCUS

Integrating Accessibility, Connectivity, Education and Content Intel Envisioning World Ahead

www.intel.com What are the key initiatives of Intel in the sector of eGovernment in India? Intel has partnered with the government with different eGovernment projects, the most recent being a project with the Pune Municipal Corporation for the commercial rollout of the first phase of the city-wide broadband wireless network. To take the levels of service to citizens to greater heights, the Pune Municipal Corporation took a large step in providing the much-sought-for ubiquitous connectivity that would propel quicker adoption of the e-Governance interfaces of the government and provide instant connectivity to the world through Internet. Economic growth, immediate health care access, rich variety of knowledge, speedier disaster response, hasslefree interactions are the immediate benefits one can realize enriching the quality of life of its citizens. The vision of the PMC is to establish the ubiquitous connectivity infrastructure. The vision of Unwire Pune, therefore, is to enable citizens to enjoy broadband in their homes, offices, schools and public areas whether this is for personal, business or public service usage. Instead of being tied to offices, homes or individual hotspots, people would have fast convenient access to information – and each other – from virtually any corner of their community.

“The Intel World Ahead Programme aims to enhance lives by accelerating access to uncompromised technology for everyone, anywhere in the world. Focused on people in the world’s developing communities, it integrates and extends Intel’s efforts to advance progress in four areas: accessibility, connectivity, education and content. Under this program, Intel has committed US$1 billion over a period of ﬁve years to support the programme, informs John McClure, (john.a.mcclure@intel.com) DirectorMarketing, Intel South Asia in an exclusive interview with egov magazine. 30 }

Please tell us about Intel’s World Ahead Programme? What is the broad aim and vision of the programme? The Intel World Ahead Programme aims to enhance lives by accelerating access to uncompromised technology for everyone, anywhere in the world. Focused on people in the world’s developing communities, it integrates and extends Intel’s efforts to advance progress in four areas: accessibility, connectivity, education and content. Under this program, Intel has committed US$1 billion over a period of five years to support the program, the objectives of which include training an additional 10 million teachers in the use of technology in education, creating the potential to reach another one billion students Intel’s goal is to provide opportunities for people worldwide to participate in today’s global economy through information and communications technologies - supporting substantial www.egovonline.net

progress in connecting the next billion people to a world of opportunity. In collaboration with local and worldwide organisations and companies, we are working to bring people more PCs, tools, and services that are customised for their local needs. The Intel World Ahead Programme integrates and extends Intel’s efforts to drive progress in accessibility, connectivity, education and content. In each area Intel is building upon significant past success while extending efforts in the future and integrating the efforts to multiply their progress. Accessibility: Creating opportunities for widespread ownership and use of PCs through affordability, access and content, including the development of fully featured, affordable PCs tailored to regional needs. Connectivity: Expanding wireless broadband Internet access by cultivating the required ecosystems and encouraging deployment, including the broad promotion of WiMAX trials and deployments. Education: Preparing students for success in the global economy through education programs and resources, including professional development for teachers worldwide. Which are the countries where the World Ahead Programme is being implemented? The World Ahead Programme is focused on the next billion users in developing countries across the globe. These include countries in Asia - China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam, Africa – South Africa, Europe – Russia and in South America – Peru and Brazil. Since the launch of this program last year, how far it has progressed in providing accessibility and connectivity? As a part of a global programme, Intel today has in place 170 World Ahead projects in 60 countries worldwide, collaborating with governments, telcos, schools and universities, multinationals, non-government organisations (NGOs) and others who also are committed to bridging the digital divide. Some successful projects undertaken in the space of accessibility and connectivity since the launch of the program have been: • “Awakening” Empowers Rural India: Designed to provide rural communities in India with greater economic and social opportunities, the “Awakening” initiative supported the spread of rural Internet “kiosks”. Based on the Intel-powered Community PC, access to the benefits of information and communications technologies in villages in India were accelerated. The Intel–powered community PC was developed specially with unique features such as a highly rugged chassis designed to withstand difficult environmental conditions; a customized power supply unit allowing the PC to maintain continuous load power in a power outage; and low power consumption. • Intel-powered Classmate PCs in Malaysian Schools: Intel Malaysia and Malaysia’s Ministry of Education jointly implement the ICT for Education initiative – a major milestone in Malaysia’s goal to become more competitive ov

August 2007

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in today’s knowledge-based global economy. Taking the lead as one of the first countries in Asia Pacific to pilot ICT for Education, the two parties agreed to implement a 1:1 e-learning model, under which each student will have access to a PC and can develop digital skills essential for the modern age. Broadband Internet and Voice over IP (VoIP) in Vietnam: Telecommunications infrastructure in Vietnam’s major cities is developing rapidly, but rural communities continue to lag behind. Cellular phone service is widespread in some areas, but broadband Internet coverage is patchy and fixed phones are not always available. Thanks to WiMAX technology and collaboration between Intel, USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and the Vietnam Data Communication Company (VDC), the remote village of Lao Cai in northern Vietnam has access to broadband Internet – and VoIP – for the first time.

As part of the World Ahead Program, Intel is conducting ‘Jaagruti’ (Awakening) initiative in India to support the spread of Internet ‘kiosks’ in rural villages across India based on the Community PC platform. What response Intel has got from these different stakeholders? The response from different stakeholders has been very positive and encouraging. What are the present challenges India is facing against fast-forwarding e-government implementation? The current challenges that India faces are primarily with conceptualisation and implementation of projects and lack of stakeholder involvement. In addition there is ambiguity around projects and Private Public Partnerships. What is your opinion about National e-Governance Plan of India? Do you think government here is doing enough in bringing more Public-Private partnerships? The Indian government has been working towards enhancing its e-Governance programmes in India with efforts made to improve efficiency and convenience for citizens and users. This is clearly indicated by the commitment of the government to the National e-Governance plan announced by Dayanidhi Maran, Minister for Information Technology in June 2006. This plan – which will cover 26 new projects including programs such as commercial taxes, agriculture, education, pensions, land records etc. – will amount to an expenditure of over US$5 billion Rs 2300 million by both the central and state governments in India, implemented through the privatepublic-partnership (PPP) model. In addition, the recently announced increased 2007-08 budget allocation for e-Governance at the central and state levels in the 2007-08 Union Budget presented by the Finance Minister of India, P Chidambaram, is a clear indication of the country’s commitment to e-Governance. It is encouraging to see the government’s commitment to e-Governance programmes in the country and efforts towards capacity building, ecosystem enabling of relevant hardware, software, besides addressing technology support and connectivity issues. 31

PRODUCT SHOWCASE

Networked Storage Solutions EMC Corporation (http://www.emc.com/) is the world’s leading developer and provider of information infrastructure technology and solutions. It helps organisation of every size around the world. EMC is among the 10 most valuable IT product companies in the world. EMC combines its best-of-breed platforms, software, and services into high-value, low-risk information infrastructure solutions that help organisations maximise the value of their information assets, improve service levels, lower costs, react quickly to change, achieve compliance with regulations, protect information from loss and unauthorised access, and manage and automate more of their overall infrastructure. These solutions integrate networked storage technologies, storage systems, software, and services. Some of EMC’s Mid-Tier Products are as follows: EMC Celerra NS350 and EMC Celerra NS704 -The Celerra NS350 system is a simple, affordable, easy-to-deploy solution for consolidating applications and servers into a single IP storage system. Capable of scaling to 10 terabytes of capacity, the integrated Celerra NS350 supports online upgrades from single to dual Data Mover conﬁgurations. EMC Connectrix DS-4900B Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) switch. With a ﬂexible architecture that supports 1, 2 and 4 gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) technology. The EMC Connectrix DS4900B includes new capabilities for consolidating and simplifying management of SAN environments in large and midsize organisations.

Retrospect gives SMBs a simple but powerful way to protect servers, 24x7 applications, desktops, and notebooks. EMC Storage Administrator for Exchange SMB Edition information management software works with the EMC CLARiiON AX series to simplify management of Microsoft Exchange Server data, provide fast recovery from an Exchange server failure, and make migration to Exchange Server 2003 a straightforward and streamlined process achievable in just a few hours in many cases. EMC RepliStor SMB Edition guards SMB’s vital information against hardware failure or site-wide disaster. The software provides easyto-manage replication of data between two Windows computers locally or remotely across the Internet and maintains a continuously updated copy. EMC VisualSRM SMB Edition helps businesses stay ahead of information growth and rein in costs while meeting storage needs. This storage resource management software presents a consolidated view of a company’s storage and hosts automated policies to manage it. VisualSRM SMB Edition starts at $995. EMC eRoom SMB Edition brings efﬁciency to how employees, partners, and suppliers work together. The collaboration software provides a browser-accessed, highly secure collaborative workspace to share information, manage projects, and deliver higher-quality products and services. EMC CLARiiON Disk Library - Signiﬁcant enhancements to its industry-leading EMC CLARiiON Disk Library family of easy-to-use disk-based backup and recovery solutions. They include a new entry-level CLARiiON DL210 model that is designed for mid-size

EMC CLARiiON AX150 and AX150i networked storage systems for small and medium businesses. It will enable SMBs to consolidate and share storage efﬁciently among multiple computers and capitalize on the advantages of backup to disk. EMC Retrospect 7.5, a signiﬁcant new version of the award winning EMC Retrospect for Windows backup and recovery software. EMC

enterprises and branch ofﬁces, integration of EMC NetWorker 7.3 backup and recovery software for improved media management capabilities. The EMC CLARiiON DL210 can be purchased through Velocity channel and distribution network. CLARiiON Disk Library models with integrated NetWorker 7.3 and virtual tape shredding will be available to customers in late Q2 2006.

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COUNTRY FOCUS: PHILIPPINES

e-COMMUNITY Project e-Governance Case Study from Philippines

www.barangay.net.ph

In pursuance to the e-Governance thrust of the government, a consortium of the leading lights of the ICT industry in Cebu (Philippines), from government, private sector and civil society have joined hands to put up together the eBarangay project which envisions to bring ICT and related services to the level of the masses and set in place viable and cost-effective ICT facilities at the community level.

Roberto A. Cabarrubias

he thrust of the Philippine government, as documented in the National Information Technology Plan for the 21st Century (IT21), is to bring the local communities online through the internet. However, the so-called “digital divide” in terms of access to information and communications technology (ICT) and related services remains woefully prevalent. On the national level, 97 percent of government line agencies have established a presence in the internet, according to the latest National Computer Center (NCC) study. However, the same cannot be said for the 41,944 barangays nationwide as internet readiness and connectivity remain elusive, even dismal. (A barangay also known by its former name, the barrio, is the smallest local government unit in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district or ward. Municipalities and cities are composed of barangays). To realise the vision of addressing the digital divide at the barangay level, a significant initiative was launched in July 2002 which later came to be known as the Barangay.net or e-Barangay project. This project involved the setting up of viable and cost effective ICT facilities or telecenters in the barangays. Eight urban barangays in Cebu City became the subject of e-Barangay modeling and pilot-testing. These were Apas, Basak Pardo, Carreta, Hipodromo, Kamputhaw, Lahug, Luz and Mabolo. The Barangay.net project is an innovative and cost-effective approach to governance and community development using ICT to promote connectivity, access, capacity-building and productivity. Likewise is promotes economic upliftment, popular participation and social cohesion using the barangays as the government’s vanguards in dealing with the citizenry. The project paves the way for the digitisation of simple local government functions and services and brings technology and government to the grassroots, along with the finer tenets of transparency, accountability, and good citizenship. The e-Barangay facilities are envisioned to serve as onestop shop information resource centers in the barangays whose services may range from a calling office, internet ov

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café, computer-processing center, e-mail center, reading and training center, and generally as places for people to interact. Other services of the center: a venue for creating and accessing barangay information including barangay clearances, realestate taxes, etc. and other subject-specific information such as those on health, education, agriculture, environment, rural enterprise development, etc. using state-of-the-art methods of organising, sharing and communicating information and through programmes and applications relevant and useful to the needs of the communities. The project is providing a package that consists of both hardware (computer, printer, webcam, AVR/UPS), telephone lines (broadband voice and data) and software (Windows operating system, community databank, interactive web portal, barangay online applications), and technical assistance (social preparation, training, capability building, project management, monitoring and evaluation). Project sustainability will be addressed by income generated by the facility at the barangays. Revenues could come in the form of e-mail fees, computing services, training fees, increased collection of real property taxes, barangay clearances that will be expected to increase in volume as transactions are expedited following use of the ICT, and other ancillary income-generating activities of the project. For Cebu, the project could not have come at a more auspicious time. Cebu is bustling with excitement and energy as it tries to consolidate its gains as a major player in the ICT arena. From the establishment of the first IT Park in the country, the location of many software and IT-related companies including call centers in the city and the presence of trainable and ICTsavy population, Cebu, through this project, is once more looking to become an ICT hub in the country.

PROJECT FRAMEWORK

The Barangay.net project is in line with the vision of IT21 which stipulates that within the first decade of the 21st century, every Filipino, every organisation, and foreign visitor, shall have online access to government information and services in their homes, in community/municipal centers/barangay 33

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halls, in foreign posts, in public libraries and kiosks, and in government offices. Moreover, Republic Act 8792, otherwise known as the eCommerce law, provides policy framework for the project. The law mandates that by June 2002, all government agencies shall implement Part IV of the e-Commerce Act to facilitate speedy and efficient electronic online transmission, conveyance and the use of electronic data messages or electronic documents among all government departments, agencies, bureaus, offices down to the division level and to the regional and provincial offices as practicable as possible, government-owned and controlled corporations, local government units (LGUs) other public instrumentalities, universities, colleges and other schools, and universal access to the general public. Finally, the Regional Development Council (RDC) of Central Visayas also came out with a resolution supporting the project and enjoining all local government units in Central Visayas to adopt the Barangay.net project and integrate the same in their ICT plans and programmes. Barangay.net is a partnership in e-Governance project. Through a multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder consortium that later came to be established as Barangay.net Cebu Alliance, Inc., it seeks to maximise the strengths and resources of government agencies, non-government organisations, local government units and other partners to bring the agenda of e-Governance forward. The alliance is composed of representatives from government, private sector and civil society. It is a nonstock, non-profit organisation registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Through the alliance, the project hopes to widen the opportunities for networking, complementation, sharing of resources and technical expertise while strengthening multi-stakeholder participation and multisectoral involvement in all levels of project implementation to improve the capacity of the barangays for e-Governance. The alliance is an accredited NGO-member of the Cebu City local development council. The members of the alliance are: office of the PresidentCentral Visayas (OPCV), Cebu city government, department of science and technology (DOST), department of trade and industry (DTI), department of the interior and local government (DILG), national economic and development authority (NEDA), Philippine information agency (PIA), technical education and skills development authority (TESDA), national computer center (NCC), national telecommunications commission (NTC), telecommunications office (TELOF), University of the Philippines-Cebu college (UPCC), association of barangay councils (ABC)-Cebu City, central Visayas information sharing network foundation, Inc. (CVISNET), and the Ayala foundation, Inc., (AFI) which serves as the projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coordinating and facilitating arm.

PROJECT OUTPUTS

1. Barangay telecenters or e-Barangay facilities equipped with internet-ready package. 2. Integrated barangay systems that through user-friendly 34

database features will result in more simplified, streamlined and transparent barangay systems, procedures and processes. 3. Integrated citizen web portal that will promote greater citizen convenience through access to information, programmes and services from government, private sector and civil society organisations. 4. Training and other capability building and social preparation activities that will result in enhanced barangay capacities for sustained e-Governance.

PROJECT IMPACTS

Through information networking, cultural sharing and popular participation, the project fosters a strong sense of community pride, spirit and solidarity. This is especially important at a time of great national torment and divisiveness. The project is a tool for transforming the barangays as active participants in nation building by enabling communities through the wonders of the internet to benefit from lifelong learning and engagement in sustainable livelihood (e.g. agriculture, fisheries, trade and commerce, services, etc.). The project forever alters the ways in which the barangays relate to their constituencies, especially the poor and the ex-cluded, as it provides powerful ways for citizens to demand accountability, responsibility and transparency from government. The Barangay-based e-Citizen web portal promotes greater citizen convenience through access to programmes on distance education, telemedicine or e-health, electronic commerce, assistance to small businesses, barangay justice, business licensing and empowerment of the poor through social mobilisation and literacy programme and access to government information/programmes/services especially those that improve livelihood and skills. Allows the barangays to redefine their roles and become more citizen-focused. This will also promote shifts in current institutional thinking and government prioritisation. With the interfacing features of the applications, governing becomes a two-way street, with both the government and the governed working together to achieve consensus on looking for the best solutions to the problems of poverty or delivery of basic services in their respective communities. This will also enable www.egovonline.net

people to ‘join up’ and link information systems and hence participate in governance more effectively. The project offers customised database and online applications and citizen-centric services that promote barangay-to-barangay (b2b) trade, commerce, industry, tourism, information networking, cultural sharing, active citizenship and resource mobilisation. It reduces the costs while not compromising the quality of public services. The project develops and sets up customised barangay applications that will facilitate simplified, streamlined and transparent barangay systems, procedures and processes for efficient participatory e-Governance. All these are expected to result in improved efficiency in the collection of revenues and mobilisation of local resources that will result in better delivery of basic barangay services and more programmes to support development initiatives in the barangays. This project promotes the value of dialogue as an instrument of national policy. This will promote conflict resolution and consensus building. Political participation can be enhanced with an informed citizenry using ICT resulting in more pro-active participation of citizens in governance. Reverses the tide of rural migration and in the process disperses development in the countryside. This is especially critical as cities begin to groan under the weight of challenges (social, political, economic, etc.) posed by in-migration. Dispersing rural development will ensure job creation and employment generation in the rural areas where poverty is stark. Aside from building and improving barangay capacity for e-Governance, this capability building and training component will make the barangays better equipped to implement the project and sustain its beneﬁts. Critical to this component is putting in place the change management systems. Through these systems, the communities will learn the skills to deal with the changes taking place around them as a result of the project.

The project helps fight and eliminate gridlock in public services provision, as it gives citizens with state-of-theart customer service in a seamless relationship, where handoffs between agencies are invisible. The bureaucracy will be able to serve as facilitating not hindering institution as the barangays become more in touch with the needs of their constituencies. This will help restore people’s trust in government through improved access to its programmes and schemes. The project starts to open new possibilities, as it becomes the information gateway in the barangays where citizens can access services, obtain information, establish their own web presence and influence policy decisions. Eventually, the project will provide citizens with interactive access to a range of services, information and products available in the barangays from public and private sector providers. The project strengthens democratic institutions through the promotion of accountability, responsibility and transparency in government systems, procedures and processes. ov

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The technology becomes a tool to improve livelihood. Either through agriculture, fishery, SMEs, the project seeks to make the technology responsive to strengthen livelihood and enterprise development especially at the level of the barangays. The overriding concern is that through this approach, the communities will be able to help themselves achieve self-reliance and make use of the advances of the information and communication technologies to create sustainable development and convert human knowledge to progress. Increased economic opportunities will reduce poverty, provides employment through online job placements. The use of the technology will be crucial to economic competitiveness. Over the long haul, the project really stimulates the intensive use of the technology at the lowest government level possible, encourages modernisation initiatives within government to digitise and improve the quality of services, encourages citizen involvement and participation in government decision-making and allows the government to develop new ways of interaction with society. Using the new technology and maximising its benefits will result in the enhanced delivery of basic goods and services which will likewise result in the improvement of the people’s quality of life. For the Barangay.net alliance, sustained partnership with various sectors help map out opportunities for more and effective stakeholder participation, better governance and delivery of public works and services; builds relationship capital and trust and through coordination, commitment, cooperation and collaboration becomes a driving force for sustainability; and creates new synergies for sustained mechanisms for progress and prosperity. Partnership reduces costs by sharing resources. Value-added partnership or alliance has a synergetic effect and improve chances of desired results.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

1. To expand and replicate the e-Barangay project in ten (10) additional barangays in Cebu City. 2. To establish community telecenters or e-Barangays in the 10 additional barangays with access to ICT and related services. 3. To develop and set up useful information application systems in the barangays to improve delivery of basic services and stimulate community livelihood, economy and productivity. 4. To create barangay web portal as a forum for enhanced citizen convenience, participation and empowerment. 5. To provide the mindset and capacity for sustained barangay e-Governance through training and other capability building, social preparation and organisational development activities.

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY AND PROCESS INVOLVED

The project will focus on the expansion, replication and 35

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content buildup of the e-Barangay project in the ten additional barangays in Cebu City. As in any community-based project, the Barangay.net project starts and ends at the community. The community is where the policy agenda and stakeholder ownership are defined. How the community sees itself viz a viz the project is central to the issue of sustainability. Intrinsic in all this is the need to create a compelling reason or a buy-in to ensure public acceptance and project support. Social preparation provides this platform and sets the stage for social mobilisation. This process will also help determine community preparedness and e-Readiness and helps the barangay deal with issues of willingness and capacity to pay, community need versus demand for ICT4D, etc. This component more importantly determines the kind of institutional support (from government and private sector) needed to increase prospects for project scalability and replicability. This can be done and secured through project briefing and orientation with community key leaders/stakeholders, preparation of project agreements, and participatory rapid appraisal to gain knowledge of political topography and dynamics. An important output of this activity will be the identification of local champions that will support and push for the agenda of e-Governance at the local level. The next phase will assess the ICT infrastructure of the barangay. This will involve determining the presence and availability of telecom companies (TELCOS), internet service providers (ISPs), vendors, network infrastructure, etc., the project scope and network designs, the type of service or content or application (e.g. e-Governance, distance education, e-health/telemedicine, business applications, job search, agriculture, SMEs, etc.) that will be developed to best respond to the needs of the community. This phase will also explore various sustainable technology options and business solutions as well as discuss cost issues (i.e. cost benefit analysis, business case, technology depreciation/obsolescence) as they relate to project sustainability. Setting up the Barangay.net facility will be the next step. This phase will entail the provision of connectivity/internet/ access as well as the communication links. This component will also involve the procurement of hardware and other peripherals as well as putting together the operation and management structure at the level of the barangay, including support staff requirements, operating and maintenance costs for the facility, personnel competencies, hiring and other administrative policies, etc. In this component, the barangays will choose in their best light the better option in terms of management and operation of the facility. One school of thought maintains that the project will be better sustained if managed and operated by a community association, as opposed to the idea of a barangay running it â&#x20AC;&#x201C; widely perceived to be too willing to make political accommodations to compromise the integrity of the project After setting up the Barangay.net facility as well as the necessary hardware and operational support to get it started, the next step is to develop and put together the content and relevant applications. Content is key to how the project will be received by the barangays and how much of it they are willing to use and support over time. The content can be very 36

detailed and localised and custom-fit to very sector specific categories and applications needed, i.e. age, gender, group, etc. This is also the phase where databases and websites are created including web portal with other interfacing features. Parallel to all these activities, a comprehensive organisational development and management capability building programme is implemented to improve the capability of the programme implementers at the barangay for e-Governance as they work towards building networks and partnerships, enlarging project constituencies and support, setting up coordination/cooperation/collaboration mechanisms and dealing with issues on project ownership, management and institutionalisation. Aside from building and improving barangay capacity for eGovernance, this capability building and training component will make the barangays better equipped to implement the project and sustain its benefits. Critical to this component is putting in place the change management systems. Through these systems, the communities will learn the skills to deal with the changes taking place around them as a result of the project. The knowledge and skills generated and shared through these activities should not only be useful towards capacity building (whether organisational development or financial management/fiscal responsibility, etc.) but should also boil down towards spreading the fruits of empowerment and democracy. The skills should be useful tools in creating an environment conducive to widening the arena for community engagement and people empowerment. To a large extent, sustained efforts to raise public profile and project awareness as it relates to e-Governance will impact on sustainability. People need to be aware of how ICT4D can make a difference in their lives and the positive changes it is creating around their communities to be able to appreciate and embrace the technology. Promoting the project through enhanced advocacy will also help shore up project support and adoption especially in a country where technology diffusion is still widespread. Project advocacy also entails improving the policy environment so that there is a better playing field to replicating the project on a much larger scale. Among the strategies identified to push this component forward include media blitzes, roadshows, briefings, IEC campaigns, etc.

CONCLUSION

It is expected that one year after the implementation of the project, the operations will be sustained by the income from resource mobilisation activities of the barangays using the internet facilities. Additional revenues will be generated by the different services provided by the project such as: Internet, and other computer services. The income from the first year of operations will be used to cover for maintenance and other operating costs for the succeeding years. Roberto A. Cabarrubias (bobcab@barangay.net.ph ), is an incumbent Barangay Chairman (1989 to date). An electrical engineer, Cabarrubias is also the President of Barangay.net Alliance Inc. He has done pioneering initiatives in the promotion of ICT for the grass root level.

www.egovonline.net

STATE FOCUS: TAMIL NADU

Information Kiosks Lessons from Rural Access to Internet Services in Tamil Nadu By placing kiosks in highly trafficked public areas and in remotest areas, the government can achieve the cost-efficiency of electronic services while providing a solution to the supply side of the digital divide problem and convenient access points to different user groups. However, there are significant managerial and policy challenges in these kiosk projects, which often result in project failures and underestimated financial burdens for government agencies. Based on the lessons learned, specific recommendations have been made for policy makers and public IT managers on future

Sandeep Kaur & Dr.N.Mathiyalagan

ndia ranks 44 among 122 countries throughout the world with a network readiness score of 4.06 (The Network Readiness Index 2006-2007 Rankings). According to the UN e-Governance Readiness Report (2005), India ranks 87 with an e-Government Readiness Index score of 0.4001 against a world index of 0.42. According to e-Government Readiness Data (2005), India has a Web Index Measure of 0.58, Infrastructure Index of 0.02 and Human Capital Index of 0.59. India ranks 34 in terms of e-Participation Index of 0.15. A UN study (2003) also points out that countries such as India could benefit from e-Government if literacy and basic infra-structure can be improved. e-Government models that do not support the rural delivery system will not contribute to good governance.

INFORMATION KIOSKS

Information kiosks (Internet kiosks) are being popularised both for delivering government services and for socioeconomic development of rural areas. Delivering relevant knowledge and services in local languages is the promise of village kiosks in India, a technology that is expected to spread to every village by the end of 2007. Kiosk systems, in combination with smart card systems or identification systems, may even perform some highly secured functions, such as verification of personal identity when traveling, application for certificates and other public services, and financial transactions with the government. Started: November 2001 Achievements: The project at its peak established over 80 such kiosks in rural communities in Melur Taluk (Tamil Nadu, India) that work on selfsustainable rural entrepreneurship model. Current Status: The project currently functions in 40 districts throughout the state including nearly 5000 village kiosks in five different states.

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Though Information kiosks provide an easy access to information and services and also bridge the digital gap in society, many such kiosk initiatives have failed to sustain in long-term, thereby, creating significant administrative and financial burdens for governments. Therefore, policymakers and public IT managers should focus on long-term business planning, strategic management, and stakeholder partnership in future kiosk development and similar e-Goverment projects. This article analyses an e-Government initiative called RASI (Rural Access to Internet Services) - a government-private initiative in Tamil Nadu to promote rural development and e-Governance. Though the e-Government services were received with great enthusiasm by rural communities since its inception in November 2001, the project failed to sustain and came to an end by December 2002 while some of the private services sustained. This article, besides assessing the potential of e-Government, identifies the critical factors responsible for its initial successes and subsequent failures for a long-term sustainability of future projects based on the findings of recent studies and also based on the researcher’s telephone interviews with some of the managers of this project.

E-GOVERNMENT THROUGH RASI KIOSKS: AN OVERVIEW

The RASI project aims at the social, economic and political development of rural people by establishing a network of village Internet centers. The original pilot initiative was launched in Melur, a small hamlet in Madurai District of Tamil Nadu in the name of Sustainable Access in Rural India (SARI) in 2001 to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural areas. After its successful implementation, the government of Tamil Nadu scaled up the project as eGovernment service delivery centers throughout the state in the name of RASI. It was planned to cover all the districts in 37

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INFORMATION KIOSKS

Tamil Nadu in a phased manner starting with 10 districts — Madurai, Cuddalore, Coimbatore, Kancheepuram, Theni, Thiruvallur, Erode, Salem, Tirunelveli and Nagapattinam. The RASI project was conceived by developing institutional partnerships with other public and private agencies for delivering its services. The project at its peak established over 80 such kiosks in rural communities in Melur Taluk that work on self-sustainable rural entrepreneurship model. Local entrepreneurs, Dhan Foundation - a community-based NGO, local schools, and other public sector facilities house the computer facilities. ICICI bank provided core financial support to the RASI project along with a private agency n-Logue Communications Pvt. Ltd. A majority of kiosks are locally owned and operated by self-employed entrepreneurs, while some by self-help groups of a local NGO. The Tamil Nadu government proposed to provide a subsidy of up to 50% of investment for setting up another 2000 centers in the state. As of June 2004, 51 RASI kiosks were in operation. The rural Internet revolution covers 68,000 villagers in 40 villages of Melur taluk. In Tamil Nadu, currently, the project covers 155 Village Information Centres run by Dhan Foundation and about 100 Centres by n-Logue Communications. The project currently functions in 40 districts throughout the state including nearly 500 village kiosks in five different States. Tamil Nadu has a 40% penetration of the total number of kiosks around the country followed by Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

OBJECTIVES OF RASI PROJECT

The project has been designed around the following guidelines: • Use a shared platform to deliver a variety of high quality services, allowing Internet access to be financially selfsustaining or profitable while reaching the rural poor. • Help markets to work by networking regions densely and creating a local network effect. • Create and develop new access devices and applications to appropriately serve user needs and account for environmental conditions. • Undertake research on RASI’s impact on the existence of rural information and communication markets • Offer access to schools and health clinics at low or no cost, and help them learn to use it effectively. • Value local champions and entrepreneurs and encourage their leadership; cooperate with residents and existing organisations. • Not to exacerbate existing divides or power inequities. Services Offered through RASI Kiosks on a Fee-forService Basis: • Health services: Online appointment, camp information and registration, online consultancy etc. • Agricultural services: Agricultural information; e-mail; market prices; soil testing etc. • Veterinary services: Online registration for veterinary training; consultancy with veterinary doctor • Communication services: Email, voicemail, photomail, 38

•

• • • • • •

videomail, inter-village postal service, VOIP (voice-overInternet-protocol) services, chat services, net meeting and video conferencing, web browsing and data typesetting and processing e-Government services: Birth and death certificates, income certificate, community (caste) certificate, encumbrance certificate, application for senior pensions, Block Development Office welfare schemes, women’s welfare schemes, market prices, water complaints, download applications, online petitions/grievance redressal with senior district officials and with chief minister’s (CM) cell in the state. e-Business: Classifieds Entertainment: Lottery results online, astrology, games Value Web Services: LIC (Life Insurance) policy status online, rail ticket information, web links, browsing, matrimonials Travel Services: Travel booking for train and buses Education: Model question papers, examination results, career advice, college information, education CDs, literacy programme Jobs: Job postings, resume postings etc.

BENEFITS OF RASI INITIATIVE

Introduction of RASI made the access to government information and services by the villagers much easier. In addition to government services, a host of private services were also provided to rural citizens through these kiosks. This project did not aim at computerising or transforming the back office operations. The procedural changes that occurred in the taluk office was, at the front end, added an electronic mode for receipt of the applications for certain certificates. Once processed electronically, the villagers were notified about the date, time and fee to collect the certificates in person from the concerned offices, resulting in considerable savings in time, money and overcoming difficulties with respect to middlemen. In December 2002, 491 applications were received at the Melur taluk office, 345 at Melur municipality, 15 at Melur Sub-registrar’s office, 36 at block development office and 10 at the Madurai north taluk office. Data related to rural development can be tracked through Internetbased applications. In addition, the kiosks have compiled databases of villages for specific uses and for dissemination of information on health and government announcements using local radio. Overwhelming public response led to scaling up of RASI centers as e-Governance Centers.

RESULTS OF STUDIES

In their study of Kiosks, Kannabiran et al. (Kannabiran G., Xavier, M.J., Enabling e-Governance through Citizen Relationship Management – concept, model and applications, Journal of Services Research, Vol.4-2, 2004, pp-223-240), reported that the Internet kiosk project in Tamil Nadu meant to deliver e-Governance, e-Commerce and e-Banking, is used for offline services such as DTP, telephony, photocopying www.egovonline.net

and Web browsing. In one of the districts, the project (RASI) has deviated from its objectives of delivering essential services such as education, healthcare and tele-administration due to lack of government support, non-scalable technology and lack of motivation among kiosks operators. The study found that 35 out of 60 kiosks surveyed are either closed or nonfunctional. Also, the profile of users changed over a period of time in terms of literacy and nature of employment. As a result the benefits did not reach the target groups. The initial motivation of rural masses to avail of government services was diluted over the two years. According to an operator, the project suffered due to lack of government support which clearly shows that political will is a major determinant in implementing projects. According to both officials and kiosk operators, e-Governance being the primary service expected out of the kiosks, the inability to offer such services has really decreased the level of satisfaction. Rajendra Kumar and Michael L. Best (Kumar, Rajendra, Best, Michael L. Impact and Sustainability of e-Government Services in Developing Countries: Lessons from Tamil Nadu, The Information Society, Vol 22, No. 1, 2006) surveyed 12 kiosk (offering both electronic and traditional methods) and 72 non-kiosk villages (offering only traditional methods) in Melur Taluk, Madurai for six relevant e-Government applications such as birth certificates, death certificates, income certificates, community certificates, petitions of grievance to government officials and old-age pensions from November 2001 to November 2002, and examined local government records. Data was then collected through survey of end-users (citizens) and operators and interviews with the government officials involved in the project in 2003. The study reports that e-Government services through the RASI kiosks had led to an increase in the number of applications for birth certificates and for old age pensions. e-Government services led to savings in time, cost and effort required in obtaining these services. The kiosks had a positive social impact particularly on the disadvantaged section of the community by creating awareness about these services that led to an increase in the number of applications at kiosks. However, the e-Government program was not able to maintain the necessary level of local political and administrative support to ov

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remain institutionally viable. The initial motivation to deliver government services could not last long due to political and institutional sustainability failure. It was found that the taluk office received a large proportion of the total applications through kiosk villages both electronically and traditionally. Despite having a computer, the taluk office was still maintaining hand-written registers of the applications received from these kiosks and there were difficulties in obtaining quick and adequate responses from the taluk office. Collection was still offline and did not eliminate all visits to the taluk/municipal offices. Inadequate training for Government officials to deliver e-Government services electronically and the frequent shifting of those with technical expertise resulted in short-term sustenance of this initiative. RASI witnessed a weakening of support from the local bureaucracy due to lack of institutionalisation and top-down approach to e-Government (support from the lower level officials remained only as long as initial champions were in office). Other reasons being lack of internet connectivity in all government offices, lack of effective public leadership and sustained commitment; lack of proper evaluation and monitoring, especially for services that require coordination between different levels. The local elected representatives were not found to be actively involved in the project. There was a perceived shift in the existing power relationships in the delivery of services due to the presence of kiosks. Kiosk-based e-Government services was opposed by taluk and village level officials for fear of erosion in their authority. Therefore, RASI e-Government project suffered a political and institutional sustainability failure due to people, management, cultural and structural factors, far less being technological, economical, sociocultural and environmental. In yet another study, M. Srihari (A Study of the impact of Information and Communication Technologies on the residents of Melur Taluk in Madurai District, Tamil Nadu. Ph.D thesis, Bharathiar Univerisity, Coimbatore, 2006) analysed the ICT usage patterns among the users of the rural Information kiosks and the nature of socio-economic, political and technological context within which the kiosks operate. Data was collected through a survey and interview during April-May 2005. The study shows that rural women, younger age groups and the unemployed are proactive towards adaptability of information kiosk services. While the higher educational groups utilised â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;e-Governanceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; services to their benefits, the illiterates and the low educational groups have been left behind. This may be a cause for concern that it would further widen the digital divide. However, economic status was not found to be a major barrier to the use of ICT when the services are offered at lower costs. To draw current insights into the effectiveness of RASI kiosks, a telephone interview was scheduled with the officials and members of technical committee at the Melur Taluk from June 27 to June 29, 2007 by the authors of this article. The excerpts of the interview are as follows: The Rural Internet revolution now covers, 68,000 villagers in 40 villages of Melur Taluk, Madurai District. According 39

STATE FOCUS: TAMIL NADU

INFORMATION KIOSKS

to S. Arunmozhi, Block Integrater, Dhan Foundation, as of now, 122 rural internet kiosks are there in the entire state of Tamil Nadu. There are 50 rural Internet kiosks functional in Madurai district. About 70 such kiosks are on the coastal side. On an average, 25 users utilise the value-aided services in a day. These kiosks function from 9 am to 7 pm. The most popular services include video-conferencing and for educational purposes. Kiosks are mostly occupied by the students in the age group of 17 to 22 years. Children below 17 years also use these kiosks for playing computer games and recreational activities. Video-conferencing attracts the noneducated villagers with 5 farmers on an average visiting these kiosks per day. The Kiosk operators are efficient in providing relevant services as demanded by the villagers. Currently, the kiosk operator is responsible for handling all the applications ranging from government forms to applying for loans, birth certificates, death certificates and other services through email for a nominal fee ranging from Rs.50 to Rs.75 depending upon the types of services demanded. According to B. Sarangan, Technical Engineer, n-Logue Communications, Melur, and Mohan, Technical Engineer, n-Logue Communications, Chennai, there are approximately 2000 kiosks run by n-Logue Communications throughout Tamil Nadu, of which only 500 are active kiosks. There are two types of service applications offered through these kiosks: online and offline. Offline services include: eGovernance, computer education, computer-aided adult literacy, content training, content developing and job work. Online services include email, browsing, videoconferencing besides agriculture, medical and other services.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE KIOSK-BASED E-GOVERNMENT PROJECTS

The performance of a kiosk, in financial terms as well as in terms of its reach, is largely dependent on the kiosk operator. Factors determining the success of the kiosk are a rigorous selection procedure and regular training of the kiosk operator, location of the kiosk, affordability and relevance of services. Thus, the value and process change provided by the kiosk operator is a crucial factor determining the popularity of eGovernance services at the kiosk. RASI e-Government project had great initial potential success and obtained strong political support, which is a critical factor in introducing technological innovations in public organisations. Unfortunately, the personal zeal of elected officials and immediate political interests sometimes replaced the interest in implementing these best practices and makes many IT projects vulnerable to managerial challenges and failures. Institutionalising was found to be a very crucial factor in determining e-Governance development. There was absolutely no backend restructuring and email was only used to change the mode of applying for certificates. Thus, e-Governance will work best if the underlying government processes/documents are restructured. The following are the recommendations for policymakers and public IT managers on future kiosk development: Government process engineering before computerisation to 40

drastically reduce the numbers and duration of successive steps required obtaining services. This redesigning of government processes will enable accountability, efficiency, productivity as well as transparency of policies and processes Policymakers and IT managers should evolve a strategic plan with a well-defined purpose and scope for realistic and measurable expectations indicating long-term developmental goals to avoid creating unnecessary financial and administrative burdens. The importance of awareness raising about the accessibility and potential of services being offered by the kiosks as rural ICT-projects are intrinsically concerned with creating demand. As several kiosk projects involve multiple external partners that may have conflicting goals and expectations, it is critical to pay more attention to the management of intergovernmental relationships through effective privateâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;public partnerships to make such initiatives successful in the long run. Public agencies need to find a proper balance between showing visible successes, such as placing kiosks in major public places, and investing in costly and inconspicuous IT infrastructure that is not publicly visible but is critical to the agenciesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; long-term capacity to implement e-Government strategies. Policymakers need to think about performance issues of a kiosk system over a longer time and to pay attention to system sustainability.

CONCLUSION

Internet-kiosk based initiatives promises an easy and equal access in hard-to-reach areas deprived of basic infrastructure and Internet access. The prime motivation of such initiatives is the provision of e-Governance services in rural areas. But the inability to effectively deliver such services has drastically reduced the level of satisfaction among its end-users and created significant administrative and financial burdens for governments. This article shows that causes for kiosk project failures were not technical issues but are political and institutional problems and planning failures. An important reason for the deterioration of the e-Governance services offered by RASI was the continually dwindling support from the bureaucracy. To have greater future success, policymakers and public IT managers should pay close attention to long-term business planning, strategic management, and stakeholder partnership in future kiosk development and similar e-Government projects. Sandeep Kaur (sandeepkaur78@gmail.com), is pursuing Ph.D in the area of e-Governnace from the Department of Communication, PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. Her areas of interest include new media uses and effects, media convergence, ICTapplications in development.

Dr. N.Mathiyalagan is Reader, Department of Communication, PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore,Tamil Nadu.

www.egovonline.net

COMMENTARY

Citizens’ Adoption of e-Government Services Understanding the Driving Factors

http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/government.html

Many countries in the West of Asia have established promising e-Government initiatives with the goal of enhancing the accessibility of government services and information. Governments tend to design and launch online services based on the understanding of what citizens need, surprisingly, without actually measuring what increases citizens’ willingness to adopt web-enabled services. Governments must ﬁrst understand variables that inﬂuence citizens’ adoption of e-Government.

Mohammed Wanous and Samer Ibrahim Mofleh

ational governments worldwide are increasingly launching their e-Government initiatives for different motives in what is called e-Government drivers. e-Government has become a global phenomenon, similar to many other terms that have arisen during the nascent periods of the internet age. The UN report “Benchmarking e-Government: A Global Perspective” (United Nations Division of Public Economics and Public Administration and the American Society for Public Administration, New York, UN/ASPA, 2002) concluded that out of the 190 United Nations (UN) member states, 88.9 percent of their national governments use the Internet in some capacity to deliver information and services for citizens and businesses. More recently the UN “Global e-Government Readiness Survey 2005” assessed more than 50,000 features of e-Government websites of the 191 UN member states. This spread of e-Government around the world has attracted the attention of academic research. Understanding e-Government development and exploring variables that affect e-Government development have become an important research topic. Jordan is a developing, middle-income country, which also has scarce natural resources and is rich with highly educated human resources. As a result, ICT is being seen by the Jordanian king and government as a tool to provide an outstanding chance for the country to become competitive in this area. The aim is for Jordan to become a regional IT centre in the Middle East, particularly among Arab countries. Trying to achieve this goal, e-Government was launched in Jordan in late 2000 with the vision to create a society where electronic government is a major contributor to the economic and social development. The vision of the latest version of the Jordanian e-Government states: “eGovernment in Jordan is dedicated to delivering services ov

August 2007

to people across society, irrespective of location, economic status, education or ICT ability”. With its commitment to a customer-centric approach, e-Government will transform government and contribute to the Kingdom’s economic and social development.

BACKGROUND

serving citizens and achieving better communication is one of the core goals of e-Government. This has been evident in e-Government definitions proposed by international organisations, governments, and researchers. One of the main drivers of e-Government in the developed countries was the response to e-Society needs. Most governments in the industrial and democratic countries understood the importance of establishing citizen-centred strategies. The president of the USA has said that e-Government will “shift power from a handful of leaders in Washington to individual citizens”. The reality of this statement may be confirmed by the actual rate and types of services accessed by the population in the USA, and the propensity of central government to meet that demand. The idea of government declaring itself as a supplier of services adopting a citizen-centred strategy in order to achieve social and economic development goals has recently caught the attention of numerous e-Government researchers who suggest that governments in general, assume that people demand e-Government services. Figure 1 shows the percentage of individuals who used the internet in the European Union (EU) within the previous 3 months of conducting the survey. Figure 2 shows the actual use of the internet by surveyed individuals for obtaining information from public authorities’ websites. 41

CITIZENS’ ADOPTION OF E-GOVERNMENT SERVICES

COMMENTARY

FIGURE 1: CITIZENS NEEDS AND GOVERNMENTS PRIORITY (LEE-KELLEY & KOLSAKER, ‘ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT, AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, 1(2), 2004).

Interesting findings are exposed when comparing Table 1 with Table 2. These tables show that none of the EU-15 countries have a 100% match between potential and actual usage of online governmental information, with some countries having less than 10% of the population accessing e-Government. The scale of this gap is expected to be much larger within developing countries since the supply-side involves variables including what is available, the quality, and usability of the services. Added to this problem is that most governments and services are lacking the ability to address citizens’ true needs and requirements. Research also suggests that governments who pay attention to the demand side of e-Government have succeeded in achieving enormous benefits leading to effective e-Government outputs. Canada for example in the year 2005 was categorised for the fourth year in a row as the most e-Government-enabled country. Table 1: Proposed variables affecting citizens demand on e-Government (Needs)

Variable

Description

Trust in the Internet

Trust level that people have in the internet and its applications.

Trust in government

Trust levels that people have in their public sector agencies.

Compatibility

Degree to which an innovation is seen to be compatible with existing values, beliefs, experiences and needs of adopters.

Awareness

People’s knowledge about e-Government project, and the availability of electronic services online.

Previous experience

Measure people who encountered e- Government services satisfaction and perception on its services.

The most likely reason for this is that Canada’s regular surveys of citizens and businesses attitudes and needs appear to be the most extensive, as per C.G Reddick, in his article ‘A two-stage model for e-Government growth: Theories and empirical evidence for U.S. cities. Government Information Quarterly, 21, 51-64 2004.

RESEARCH MODEL AND HYPOTHESES

Based on a comprehensive review of previous e-Government studies, a list of variables have been selected (as shown in Table 1) to develop a new model which can examine the demand level on e-Government in the Jordanian context and how influential these variables are. The dependent variable Intention to Use (IU) e-Government will determine the demand level on e-Government. Independent variables Trust in the Internet, Trust in Government, capability, compatibility, awareness and previous experience are expected to affect the demand level on e-Government and thus they are considered as citizen needs. The basic hypothesises for this research are presented in Table 2.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Sample

Demographics: 660 Jordanian participants completed the online survey. 85% of respondents are aged between 1835 years old, 72% are males, 84% have at least university education, and 88% were located in the capital Amman or in another country. The findings are compatible with previous eGovernment studies who studied the characteristics of internet and e-Government users. Finding that age, education, income, location, and gender are major elements in determining if a person is an internet user. Capability level: In general, most of the participants are described to be highly connected and skilled internet users. www.egovonline.net

Experience) and one dependent variable (Intention to Use). The basic characteristics of these variables are presented in Table 3. Table 3: Final regression variables Variable IU Trust in the Internet Trust in Government Compatibility Previous Exp.

FIGURE 2: RESEARCH MODEL

86% of respondents have more than 3 years experience in using the internet, 86% are accessing the Web on daily basis

Awareness

# Items 4 3 4 3 3

Mean 3.19 2.6 2.78 2.73 3.51

Stand. Dev. 1.567 1.23 1.31 1.35 1.24

3.83

1.43

Table 2: Research Hypothesises Hypothesis Number

Hypothesis

Construct

Hp1

People with high Trust in the Internet will have more intention to implement e-Government

Trust in Internet

Hp2

People with high Trust in the Internet will have more intention to implement e-Government.

Trust in Government

Hp3

People who are compatible with e-Government will have more intention to use it.

Compatibility

Hp4

People with previous positive Experience With e-Government will have more intention to implement it.

Previous Experience

HP 5

People with more awareness of e-Government will have higher intention to use it

Awareness

and 94% have internet connection either at home or work or both. Respondents internet capability points out that people who were able to complete a simple task of an online questionnaire which in its structure is somehow similar to an e-Government service must have a very high capability level to interact online. In order to achieve the maximum level of efficiency in designing the online survey, most of the variables have been based on similar constructed questionnaires used in previous studies. All items used to measure the six variables intention to use, compatibility, previous experience, awareness, trust in state government, trust in the Internet) are rated on a scale of 1-5. In summary, model and hypotheses testing was conducted with five independent variables (Trust in the Internet, Trust in Government, Capability, Compatibility, Awareness, Previous ov

August 2007

RESULTS : GENERAL INTENTION TO USE OF E-GOVERNMENT IN JORDAN

Results revealed that Jordanian e-Society appears to have a respected demand on informative level of e-Government services. 66% of participants would use Government websites to gather information. However, by the increase of eGovernment service level, citizensâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; intention to use (IU) online services decreases. Only 29% of participants are willing to make payments online for a government service. Findings of survey are in agreement with previous conducted e-Government research in the USA Kampen et al. (Kampen, J., Snijkers, K & Bouckaert G., Public priorities concerning the development of egovernment in Flanders.Social Science Computer Review. 23(1), 136â&#x20AC;&#x201C;139), 2005), who found that the by the increase of the level of service demand will decrease between users. 43

COMMENTARY

CITIZENS’ ADOPTION OF E-GOVERNMENT SERVICES

DISCUSSION

The purpose of this research is to test a model of e-Government adoption in Jordan. Results will be discussed in this section and suggestions will be presented with respect to what can be done to develop citizens IU e-Government. Compatibility: Compatibility proved to be a significant variable affecting IU e-Government. Compatibility is highly associated with the capability of a person to access and use the internet. How could we expect a person who does not have a PC, not connected to the Internet and does not regularly use it to be compatible with e-Government. Compatibility with computers and the Internet is very low amongst the unconnected Jordanian citizens (more than 90% of the population). The problem of compatibility is not only associated with non Internet users within e-Society itself (around 8% of the Jordanian population). Compatibility levels with online payments or providing personal information is low. This is mainly due to the absence of commercial online activities in Jordan. Only 25% of respondents have a credit or debit card, which makes the majority of them lack an online payment mechanism. Informative level of eGovernment services at the moment is the most compatible method with the Jordanian e-Society. Jordan must not rush into e-Government projects before empowering citizens’ connectivity and skills boosting e-Commerce and, most importantly, integrating ICT technologies with citizens’ daily life and working processes eventually leading to the increase of compatibility with e-Government services. An additional important approach to increase compatibility with e-Government is that governments standardise themes and interfaces for all government websites making it easier for citizens to adopt online services. Trust in the Internet: This has a positive relation with the IU e-Government. Results indicates that e-Society in Jordan have very low trust in the Internet. In fact, trust in the Internet has been the least scoring variable. What is alarming of this finding is that it come from experienced internet users. Low levels of trust in the Internet in Jordan is mainly because there are not enough legislations and laws covering online activities. Previous research proved that people who do not use the internet generally have much lower trust levels in it than the people who use it. Digitally divided people have lower trust. The government of Jordan needs to legislate and enable all laws related to online interactions and trade. Government in more advanced stage can set up a secure payment webpage for all government services. Also government must have

a clear privacy and security policy on its websites that will reassure citizens and overcomes their doubts. Trust in Government: Trust in government proved to be a significant variable affecting IU e-Government. Government websites being a new channel for establishing relations between government and people could massively contribute to increasing trust by having adequate and up to date information. Agencies must convey to citizens that government employees have both the desire (benevolence) and ability (competence) to provide citizen-centred information and services designed to meet their needs. Showing budget documents, complaints service, and information of employees responsible for each service will boost transparency and empower trust in government and its websites leading to a more functional and effective e-Government.

CONCLUSION

Although citizens needs seem very obvious to e-Government experts, most governments fail to satisfy citizens’ needs concentrating on the emphasis of access. This prompted discussions on the general lack of e-Government usage primarily focusing on the ‘digital divide’ rather than social or behavioural reasons (peoples needs) that might drive people not to access and use e-Government. The study have identified compatibility with e-Government, trust in Internet and trust in government as significant variables that will increase citizens, demand on e-Government services. The study has also indicated that people in Jordan do not require advanced online services. With most governments around the world concentrating on the process of transformation in order to deliver online services, citizens’ needs and requirements are being neglected. Governments must integrate citizens’ needs to e-Government strategy and the process of service development in order to achieve maximum benefits from the e-Government promises. Dr Mohammed Wanous ( m.wanous@bristol.ac.uk ) is the Director of Professional Studies programme in the Engineering Management Group. He contributes to teaching in general management theory and practice to students in the Faculty of Engineering. Samer Ibrahim Mofleh (Samer.Mofleh@bristol.ac.uk ) is Full time researcher in the Engineering Management Group since February 2005 . Research investigates managerial and social requirements for the implementation of e-Government in the Developing World.

J Satyanarayana, CEO, National Institute for Smart Government Awarded by UN J.Satyanarayana IAS, who earlier served as IT Secretary in Andhra Pradesh Government and is currently the CEO, National Institute for Smart Government NISG received 2007 United Nations Public Service Award in the category of “Improving transparency, accountability and responsiveness in the Public Service” for “e-Procurement Project”. He was awarded during UN Public Service Awards Ceremony held at the United Nations Office in Vienna, Austria on 26 June 2007. Over 1,000 participants, including heads of state, ministers, high-level government officials, international experts, representatives of NGOs and 44

other organizations working in the field of governance from around the world took part in this high-level event. Implemented by the Government of Karnataka (GoK), e-Procurement project aimed primarily to enhance efficiency and introduce transparency in the government procurement activities. The focus of the project is on reforming the tendering process for procurement of goods, services and works in the public sector. In the pilot phase, e-Procurement was implemented in a few government organisations & shall eventually cover all the departments, corporations, municipalities & other local bodies.

www.egovonline.net

HP’s Initiatives for the Government IT infrastructure HP’s world-class Imaging & Printing Solutions boost the cause of e-Governance and shore up large IT infrastructures The acceptance and use of IT in the government segment is increasing exponentially. Many of the agencies, departments and bodies have benefited immensely from large-scale IT deployments. In recent years, the government of India is on a mission to develop e-governance solutions for the extended range of departments, government bodies , agencies and institutions The Government has realized the advantages of bringing key processes online, digitizing voluminous records and documents and adopting e-governance solutions. Technology leader HP is catering to these specific needs and requirements by providing the superior imaging & printing solutions. The information kiosks which the Government of India wants to set up in each of 600,000 villages by the end of 2007, the computerization of land records-one of the earliest initiatives of e-governance in India - and other related application areas will necessitate the deployment of large-scale and varied IT solutions.

service and support infrastructure, affordable pricing that ensures affordability and greater technology penetration and simplicity that ensures ease of use and enhanced productivity. So whether government bodies and organizations want to deploy advanced printing solutions or carry out computerization of key activities or adopt simple document management solutions, realizing the possibilities is now possible because of availability of such world-class imaging and printing solutions from HP. The benefits of IT-based transformation initiated by the Government through a slew of forward-looking citizen-focused projects are finally percolating down to broader segments of the vast population of India.

HP Business Inkjet Printer

HP LaserJet MFP

To be sure, in the latest Budget 2006-2007, the Finance Minister has doubled the allocation for egovernance projects to Rs. 700- plus crore and egovernance expenditure itself has been hiked to Rs. 719 crore. These developments should positively force-fuel the adoption of e-governance in a much bigger way by the state governments. At the State level, documents and their contents are the heart of an organization. The records of lakhs of people in various districts and constituencies provide important pointers to state agencies to formulate relevant developmental, amelioration and progressive programs and related initiatives. Delivering citizen services faster is fast becoming the motto of state government agencies. Empowering citizens forms part of the larger agenda of making their lives easier. HP, Imaging & Printing Group meets the multiple needs of the Government Sector HP the market leader in the imaging and printing segment now offers a wide range of products. These products span across various categories like Inkjets, Laserjets, Scanjet and Designjet printers, all-in-ones, digital imaging devices such as scanners, multi-function devices, associated supplies and accessories. Every year, product additions are done testifying to HP’s constant edge in innovation and the desire to offer the best and the latest solutions to the Government. The quality and reliability of HP’s Imaging and Printing range, robust service and support infrastructure will enable government organizations to enhance efficiency, control cost, increase operational effectiveness and provide a high return on investment. HP's consistent success in the Imaging & Printing space is a function of a sustained strategy that ensures product innovation, a nationwide reach that ensures product availability and robust

benefits of a streamlined workplace. The printing, faxing, copying and scanning capabilities in these devices enable faster, smarter and more productive ways to work. The wide range of HP MFPs gives one simple, reliable ways to manage and protect business documents while keeping operations running smoothly. These MFPs cut costs and increase productivity in the long run. Enhance your Image with HP Colour Laser Printing Solutions Greater focus on image building and brand identity calls for innovation in the dissemination of communication material and services. Government agencies interacting regularly with external agencies and large stakeholder audiences understand the potentialities of projecting a vibrant and enhanced image. Colour printing solution can prove to be a powerful tool to elevate the aesthetics of documents, communication material and other external interfaces. With HP’s Colour Access Control, Government organizations can manage selective access of color printing while keeping costs in control. S t r e a m l i n e Wo r k f l o w s w i t h Document Management Solutions

The need for document management and the availability of relevant document management solutions (DMS) has become paramount in the context of the fast-paced changes in the global HP Colour LaserJet Printer

HP Designjet Printer

Enhanced Imaging & Printing Solutions for Government Leverage New Technologies with Superior HP Business Printing Solutions A large part of efficient document management starts with the right printer technology for your needs. Most businesses, small and large prefer business printing solutions that include Monochrome (B&W) laser printers, business inkjets and large format printers (for specific need)s. The comprehensive HP LaserJet range feature technologies like Instant-On, Colour Access Control and SecureJet that help to maximize productivity and reduce costs. Networked laser printers come with proprietary software for instance HP's Web Jetadmin. This is a web-based management solution for remotely installing, monitoring and trouble¬shooting network connected printers. Deploy HP Multi-Function Printers to increase productivity and reduce costs Depending on the customized needs of a Government set up, one can choose from the vast range of HP MFPs and derive the numerous

economy. Document management will be critical to government organizations and bodies planning a slew of e-governance projects and programs for a variety of reasons. The right document management system will streamline everyday business processes and improve operational efficiencies. HP provides the widest range of reliable and affordable document management scanners to meet the diverse document management needs of every government organization and department and boost productivity and efficiency in the long run. Optimize Costs & Resources with HP’s Balanced Deployment model As a significant amount of time is spent on managing and optimizing IT environment in a government organization, HP’s Balanced Deployment strategy can effectively help to consolidate imaging and printing devices thereby enabling them to save cost to the tune of 23 percent. Balanced deployment strikes an optimal balance between increased productivity, improved user satisfaction, and reduced operating costs. It is a model that helps to optimize Imaging and Printing asset utilization, maximize return on investment, and reduce Total Cost of Ownership.

WHATS ON

8 OCTOBER 2007 Conference “e-Governance: transforming Government to Built Trust and Quality” Vilnius, Lithuania http://www.eurospacegroup.com/eng/pubblicazioni_news. php

6 AUGUST 2007

17-20 SEPTEMBER 2007

IWSLT 2007 - Workshop paper submission, Center for Scientiﬁc and Technological Research (ITC-irst) Trento, Italy

Smart Event ‘07 - Smart University 2007 Sophia Antipolis, France http://www.strategiestm.com/conferences/smartuniv/07/ index.htm

8 - 11 OCTOBER 2007 ICIN 2007 - Emerging Web and Telecom Services: Collision or Coopetition? Bordeaux, France http://www.icin-conference.com/

http://iwslt07.itc.it/menu/workshop.html

07- 11 AUGUST 2007 Conference on Language and Technology (CLT07) University of Peshawar, Bara Gali, Pakistan

18 - 19 SEPTEMBER 2007

09 OCTOBER 2007

Global Biometrics Summit 2007 Brussels, Belgium

eGovINTEROP’07 - eGovernment Interoperability Campus 2007 Paris, France

www.biometricssummit.com

http://www.dcs.edu.pk/clt/

http://www.egovinterop.net/SHWebClass.ASP?WCI=Show Doc&DocID=2736&LangID=1

19 - 21 SEPTEMBER 2007 AUG 18, 2007 - AUG 20, 2007 IMTT - 5th Language & Technology Conference, IMTT Translation & Training Cordoba, Argentina

4th Ministerial eGovernment Conference Lisbon, Portugal http://www.egov2007.gov.pt/

www.imtt.com.ar/2007conference/

24 - 26 OCTOBER 2007 eChallenges e-2007 The Hague, The Netherlands http://www.echallenges.org/e2007/default. asp?page=exhibinfo

19 SEPTEMBER 2007 World e-ID 2007 Sophia Antipolis, France

3 - 5 AUGUST 2007 2nd International Conference on Embedded Systems, Mobile Communication and Computing Bangalore, India

www.strategiestm.com/conferences/we-id/07/index.htm

24 OCTOBER 2007 Challenges e-2007 Conference and Exhibition The Hague, The Netherlands

www.pes.edu/mcnc/icemc2/index.html

http://www.echallenges.org/e2007/

19-21 SEPTEMBER 2007 4th Ministerial eGovernment Conference European eGovernment Awards 2007 Lisbon, Portugal

20 - 22 AUGUST 2007 Government Technology World New Zealand 2007 Wellington, New Zealand

http://www.megovconf-lisbon.gov.pt/

09 NOVEMBER 2007 2nd Annual Data Protection Practical Compliance Conference Dublin, Ireland

http://www.terrapinn.com/2007/gtw_nz

http://www.pdp.ie/

19-21 SEPTEMBER 2007 World e-ID Conference and demos 2007 Sophia Antipolis, France

3-7 SEPTEMBER 2007 6th International EGOV Conference 2007 Regensburg, Germany

http://www.strategiestm.com/conferences/we-id/07/index. htm

http://www.egov-society.org/

27 - 29 NOVEMBER 2007 WIMAX Eastern Europe Eastern Europe http://www.wimax-vision.com/newt/l/wimaxvision/

25-27 SEPTEMBER 2007 3 - 7 SEPTEMBER 2007 The International Conference of the EGOV Society Regensburg, Germany

SECURE 2007 Warsaw, Poland

17 - 20 DECEMBER 2007

http://www.eema.org/static/isse/warsaw.htm

http://www.egov-society.org

4th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Internet Technology Bangalore, India http://www.kiit.org/icdcit2007

3 - 5 OCTOBER 2007 6 - 7 SEPTEMBER 2007 3rd Conference on eServices in European Civil Registration Budapest, Hungary http://194.115.214.218/magnoliaPublic/en.html

46 }

San Sebastian, Spain 9th European Conference for the Advancement of Assistive Technology (AAATE 2007) http://www.fatronik.com/aaate2007/

28 - 30 DECEMBER 2007 Fifth International Conference on e-Governance Hyderabad, India http://www.iceg.net/2007