eGov August 2012

ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON E-governance ` 75 / US $10 / ISSN 0973-161X

August 2012 | VOLUME 08

Anil Srivastava Chairman & Managing Director Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd & Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation

e-Governance

n ISSUE 08 n ISSN 0973-161X

in Pawan Hans p14

Intelligent Transportation Systems e-Parliament p11

Business

Continuity Planning p58

Sanjay Bandopadhyaya Joint Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Government of India

Hari Ranjan Rao Secretary to Chief Minister and Department of Information Technology, Government of Madhya Pradesh

Dr Mahesh Chandra Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC)

Praveen Sood Additional Director General of Police, Police Computers Wing, and Commissioner for Traffic & Road Safety, Karnataka

Satendra Garg Joint Commissioner, Delhi Traffic Police

Prof Shivanand Swamy Professor and Associate Director, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology University (CEPT), Ahmedabad

egov.eletsonline.com

Contents august 2012

second grid grid name issue 08 n volume 08

12 | cover story

Sustainable Public Transportation through ICT The modern Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are extremely versatile and can be applied to a vast number of transportation infrastructure of highways, streets, bridges, tunnels, railways, port and airport infrastructure, as well as to a growing number of vehicles, including cars, buses, trucks and trains, as well as aircraft and waterborne vessels

24

interview Dr Mahesh Chandra

interview Praveen Sood

On NIC solutions for bringing efficiency to transportation sector

On traffic management in urban areas

28

43

interview Sanjay Bandopadhyaya On using RFID for vehicle identification & toll collection

29

interview Prof Shivanand Swamy On designing of BRTS project in Gujarat

32

interview Nandkishor Desai

interview Dr Ashish Verma On sustainable transportation networks

46

interview Rajeev Mehrotra On development of world class infrastructure

50

interview Hari Ranjan Rao

On growth sectors for transport solutions providers

On bringing e-Governance to Madhya Pradesh

36

54

interview Dr Mukesh Aghi On Steria’s myriad solutions for better transportation

4

38

egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

interview Suman Bose On the large play that Siemens has in India

11 Case Study

IT Knocks Singapore Parliament’s Door

14

pawan hansTransportation Pawan Hans on the Path of e-Governance

18 dgca-Transportation

Bringing e-Governance to India’s Civil Aviation Sector

20 rfid-Transportation Exploring Radio Frequency Identification Technology

40 Indian Railways-Transportation Information Systems in Indian Railways

44

traffic managementTransportation Facebook Page of Delhi Traffic Police

57 viewpoint

Netizen 2.0……Emergence of Aggressive Young Online Community

61 Leader Speak

There Are Huge Business Opportunities In India

58 Business Continuity Planning Ensuring Business Continuity in Government

further reading Editorial 05 news 10

Making Transport Infrastructure Pro-Poor

F

or democratic governance of a country, ICT-enabled transport infrastructure is of critical importance. Multi-modal mass transit systems-metro rail, BRTS, mono-rail and so on- that make use of cutting edge ICT for driving efficiency in operations and promoting integration with other means of transportations, have come up in number of locations. There is also the move to make all toll stations in the highways and urban centres enabled with RFID based vehicle tracking and payment systems. Once such toll collection systems are in place, the congestion, that we currently see at toll plazas, could become a thing of past. Vehicles will be able to pay the toll charges while they continue to be in motion.

In fact, a key Mission Mode Project included in the NeGP (National e-Governance Plan) envisages the creation of unified data schema, which can be used by States and Union Territories to computerise their respective transport offices. Lot of work in this field has already been done. Majority of the RTOs (Road Transport Offices) and STOs (State Transport Offices) are now seamlessly interconnected and are in a position to seamlessly provide all kinds transport related services, pertaining to driving licence, registration of vehicles, etc. to the citizens of the country.

This issue of eGov magazine specially focuses on transportation sector. We have endeavoured to shed light on the important role that ICT applications are playing in the transportation space. Lot of private investment is also flowing into the transport eco-system. Government has started a number of Public Private Partnerships programmes to ensure a speedy and effective implementation of key transportation related projects. The scope of this area as you will find out after reading the pages, is huge. We have interacted with the key officials in Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, NIC (National Institute of Informatics), Traffic Police Departments, Delhi Metro, CRIS, RITES and few others.

There is also the discussions on several technologies like RFID that are playing an important role in management of transportation related issues, like toll collection, cargo handling, etc. We carry interviews and write-ups from several executives from top corporations, to discover their views on India’s transportation sector and its influence on the economy in general. Plus there are the usual sets of features, which provide an insight into the important developments in the e-Governance space in the country.

Let me also remind you that the eINDIA 2012, is scheduled to happen in November 2012, at Hyderabad’s International Convention Centre. We hope to see you at this venue, which is all set to be a gathering of some of the most important government officials, captains of private industry and thought leaders, who are perennially contributing their share of might in furthering the agenda of e-Governance in the country.

We sincerely hope that you will enjoy this issue of eGov magazine.

ravi guptA Ravi.Gupta@elets.in

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August 2012 issue 08 n volume 08

President: Dr M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief: Dr Ravi Gupta Consulting Editor: Ashis Sanyal

Editorial Team Group Editor: Anoop Verma (editorial@elets.in) governance Manager – Partnerships & Alliances: Manjushree Reddy Assistant Editor: Rachita Jha Research Assistant: Sunil Kumar education Sr. Research Analyst: Sheena Joseph Senior Correspondent: Pragya Gupta Research Assistant: Mansi Bansal Health Product Manager: Divya Chawla Principal Correspondent: Dhirendra Pratap Singh Research Assistant: Shally Makin

Partner publications

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www.egovonline.net | www.digitalLEARNING.in | www.ehealthonline.org Write in your reactions to eGov news, interviews, features and articles. You can either comment on the individual webpage of a story, or drop us a mail: editorial@elets.in

6

egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

twitter Dr Manmohan Singh@ PMOIndia Clarity on taxation matters is key to investor confidence - More details :http://pmindia.gov.in/press-details. php?nodeid=1476 …

Narendra Modi@ narendramodi Gujarat has become a hot investment destination for the perfectionist Japan!

Sharing a detailed note on the Japan visit http://nm4.in/OmiQxq Shashi Tharoor@ ShashiTharoor World Hepatitis Day march in Thiruvananthapuram. Hepatitis kills a lakh of Indians every year. 42million are infected. Awareness is crucial Dpt for TransportVerified@ transportgovuk For the latest #travel updates during the Games follow @GAOTG #London2012#Olympics Oleg Petrov@oleg2030 Singapore creates new information and communications ministryhttp:// www.futuregov.asia/articles/2012/ aug/01/singapore-create-new-ministryinformation-and-comm…

Ravi Saxena@ravisaxena53 Every house needs internet.

Connectivity should be a fundamental right . http://yfrog.com/ocb5xrlj Bill Gates@BillGates Global effort in fight against AIDS has saved millions, but we can do more. Why I’m committed: http://b-gat. es/O0WqSd #IAC2012 #imALLin eGov Magazine@egovonline e-Governance can reduce corruption, says Meghalaya governor#elets http://tinyurl.com/cgnaut9 twitter.com/egovonline

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egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

INbox Comments received on egov.eletsonline.com

www.facebook.com/egovonline

www.twitter.com/egovonline

M G Warrier- commented on The Microfinance Route to Financial Inclusion.

During the last decade we have come a long way in promoting microfinance concepts in India.

The impact at ground level is impressive. The allegiance to commercial banks and ‘private industry’, of the individuals and groups which associated with microfinance ignored the presence of a massive infrastructure and manpower which was readily available in cooperative societies in India. Even NABRD, which was mandated to take care of the cooperative institutions, went with the creamy layer of NBFCs and SHGs which was in a position to accept technology fast and make ‘margins’. Even now, it is not too late to revive the cooperatives which are dying due to political interference and bad management.

Email: mgwarrier@rediffmail.com Marc-Alexis Remond- commented on Connecting all the panchayats in the country.

High definition video conferencing and streaming technologies enable governments to engage, listen, interact and educate stakeholders, enterprises and the public. By putting video at the heart of their ICT strategy, governments can provide more personalised services through lifelike interactions with citizens and businesses, as well as on-demand access across locations, devices, media, and channels.

Governments worldwide are today evaluating the deployment of video-enabled kiosks, some in the form of video clients on desktop computers or video application phones for those who are not computer-literate, and tele-presence kiosks in public institutions such as citizen services centres in larger cities and community centres in rural areas. Through the deployment of such technology, it won’t be long before we hear about local governments offering visual collaboration across a breadth of services including

tele-education, tele-health, tele-consultation, tele-counselling, tele-trade, or tele-justice at community and citizen service centres.

Email: marc-alexis.remond@polycom.com\ Manmohan Harsh- commented on Social, financial and digital inclusion through e-Governance .

Certainly, the Change Management and Capacity Building followed by GPR prior to the introduction of IT holds the key as far as the success of any e-Governance Project/Initiative is concerned. Vigorous CMCB exercise can pave the way for success or laid the foundation for it. Without CMCB the replacement of legacy systems with ICT can’t be adjudged as the right Idea for any e-Gov initiative. Rajasthan Government, in past few years have taken major steps forward in CMCB. Email: manmohanharsh@gmail.com Rajesh Prasad- commented on One lakh Common Service Centres coming soon: Pilot.

CSCs being set up in States is a good model and can work wonders if the missing link, connectivity is ensured. Instead of relying on BSNL only, let us work out a comprehensive and viable model incorporating all available means. All therest will automatically follow as a lot of G2C, G2G and B2C content is already available. VLEs can viably do therest as it ensures livelihood. Just brindge the gap.

Email: rajeshprsd@gmail.com Satya Narayan Shah- commented on GIS solutions enable better monitoring of large projects Very useful article. I have circulated to all the members of my Department i.e. Department of Roads (Government of Nepal). It executes all the highway construction projects. Thanks a lot Padhi.

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news & updates

Urban Development world bank

World Bank Group to focus on using ICT for greater development impact The World Bank Group released its ambitious new strategy of helping developing countries to use ICT to transform the delivery of basic services, drive innovations and productivity gains, and improve competitiveness. The new strategy for 2012-2015 is built on the Bank Group’s experience in working with client countries on ICT sector reforms, infrastructure development, and electronic government. The World Bank, IFC, and MIGA will work together to assist countries in unlocking the opportunities offered by ICT.

e-governance

Registering a complaint about civic problems has become easier now. Citizens can register their complaints online through Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF) website. One can log in to the website and register their complaints.

The problems may not be related to the BBMP. Any complaints, related to Bangalore city can be lodged.

Rural Development

98,000 Common Services Centres have been set up: Sachin Pilot The government has said that about 98,000 Common Service Centres (CSCs) that provide e-Governance services to the public have already been set up in the country and the target of one lakh centres will be met soon. Part of the National e-Gov-

Civic Problems can be Registered on BMTF Website

ernance Plan (NeGP), CSCs aim to provide

e-Governance services, education and health services on a massive scale. It will offer webenabled e-Governance services in rural areas, including application forms, certificates, and utility payments such as electricity, telephone and water bills.

NABARD grants `692 cr for TN Rural Infra Development The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has sanctioned Rs 691.60 crore to Tamil Nadu under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund for the current financial year. The fund is meant to be used for creating infrastructure facilities including warehouses and cold storages, dug out ponds, fish landing centres, irrigation facilities and roads for rural connectivity.

RTI

IT Firms line up to Support Govt’s Proposed RTI Project Leading IT-based companies have queued up to bid for a government’s proposed state-of-the-art call centre, which is aimed at providing greater access to a host of services under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Officials in the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said that many private firms have expressed interest in the proposal.

As per the proposal, the selected agency will set up, operate and maintain an RTI call centre to facilitate voice calls, SMS and Inter-Voice Response System managed calls.

10

egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

financial inclusion

Poor Women will Receive Mobile Feeds on Their Financial Info Poor women in Andhra Pradesh could soon get access to their financial transactions on mobile.

About 90 lakh women members of self help Groups (SHGs) in Andhra Pradesh can look forward to this facility, thanks to a mobile book-keeping project being launched by the State Government. The initiative will promote financial literacy among the members and also ensure transparency.

More importantly, it will help the Government in village-wise grading

of different groups on financial parameters.

From a member’s point of view, mobile bookkeeping is advisable as the possibility of cheating and being cheated is less.

Measures have also been taken to guard against defaults as SMS alerts will be sent on everything, including meeting schedules, payment dates and defaults.

Case Study

Case Study

IT Knocks Singapore Parliament’s Door NIIT Technologies successfully rolls out an innovative Content Management System for Singapore Parliament

T

he use of information and communication technology can help improve representation, transparency, accountability, openness, and effectiveness in the complex parliamentary environment. Realising the potential of IT, Singapore Government has adopted Content management system from NIIT Technologies to modernise parliamentary processes.

NIIT Technologies Ltd has implemented an automated Content Management and Delivery system at Singapore Parliament. So the Singapore Parliament has become the first ever in Asia to implement Content Management and Delivery system. The recording system enables the recording and archiving of parliament proceedings. It also brings sophisticated publishing capabilities in-house for Singapore Parliament. It provides useful features at a touch of a button like, fast batch pagination with manual control and produce high quality content under tight timelines.

“It is an honour to be chosen by Singapore Parliament to implement a solution that enhances their efficiency. NIIT Technologies has successfully brought this solution tailored specially for them and has taken a step ahead in its journey to bring value to its customer. This implementation strengthens our position as one stop IT solution provider” Arvind Mehrotra, President, Asia- Pacific, NIIT Technologies Ltd

Before the solution was implemented, the Singapore government used to face the challenge of delays in transcribing the reports. This resulted in missing the KPI deadlines for the reporters.

The unstructured formatting of reports lead to extensive reworks and there were many steps to be carried out before the reports were published for various agencies. All these challenges were overcome by the solution provided by NIIT.

Objective One of Parliament Secretariat’s corporate objectives is to provide accessibility to the transcribed

Key Benefits of the project • Enable Hansard publishing to be brought

• Outputs in 2, 3 and 4 column format

in-house

• Automates production of printed and

• Automates production

electronic tables of contents and indexes

• Structured Formatting

• Collates content to produce bound volumes

• Delivers output in PDF, HTML and XML at the

• Streamlines production ensures publication

touch of a button

with tight timescales

• Provides fast batch pagination with manual

• Provide better quality source content to 3rd

control

parties

official proceedings in Parliament. The verbatim reports are recorded by a team of Official Reports Department (ORD) officers and published as the official record of proceedings known as the Singapore Parliament Reports (SPRs) or “Hansard”.

Scope of work One of Parliament Secretariat’s corporate objectives is to provide accessibility to the transcribed official proceedings in Parliament. To facilitate easy access and search features to Singapore Parliament Reports (SPRs) and other reports by MPs, the Secretariat, Government agencies, the legal community and members of the public.

The System support the SPRs production processes – report preparation, capturing, editing, formatting, and generation of indexes for the Bound Volume of Official Reports to retrieval of reports by the public, MPs, Secretariat, Government agencies and LawNet users. To better manage the transcription of reports of Parliament Sittings with faster turnaround.

The System captures the SPRs and its appendices from 1955 till to-date, the Standing Orders, Select Committee Reports and vernacular speeches, and provides a good search engine to accurately zoom in to the relevant text or passages of text.

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

11

COVER STORY

Transportation

Sustainable Public Transportation through ICT Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), which represent the next step in the evolution of the entire transportation system, include latest in computer, electronic, communication and safety systems. The modern ITS systems are extremely versatile and can be applied to a vast number of transportation infrastructure of highways, streets, bridges, tunnels, railways, port and airport infrastructure, as well as to a growing number of vehicles, including cars, buses, trucks and trains, as well as aircraft and waterborne vessels 12

egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

Transportation

M

obility underpins the modern lifestyle. The need for mobility can only be satisfied by the transport of goods and people in a seamless, efficient and timely manner. Effective transportation systems are essential to the prosperity of any nation; it has a significant impact on economic growth, social development and the environment. Congestion and delays have monetary impact on individuals and businesses.

Governments and private entities are investing ever greater sums in improving Information ICT infrastructure for transportation. The ICT applications for transportation are commonly known as Intelligent Transport Systems and Services (ITS). It is being widely recognised that ITS can play a major role in delivering safe, efficient, sustainable and seamless transport of goods and people. Use of cutting edge solutions from ICT makes it possible for us to deliver up-to-the-minute advice based on up-to-theminute data/information.

Strategic importance There also exists an immense amount of strategic importance in the ITS solutions. The technologies can be used for passenger and freight transport, and can provide the means of improving service quality, safety and management of transport systems. The state of the art technologies are also being incorporated by car and truck manufacturers, transport operators and logistics providers who intend to derive competitive advantage.

COVER STORY

Around the world, the Intelligent Transport Systems are reaching a high degree of maturity The next stage of development in ITS would primarily be influenced by: •

Greater integration between systems and modes

•

Open and common standards, and a shared framework

•

Service Oriented Architecture

•

Increased customer services

•

Real-time information sharing and responsiveness

•

Demonstrable value for money

Seamless connectivity

Multimodal journeys

Through ITS, passengers can remain seamlessly connected with the local mass transportation facilities. They have access to real-time information about metro or bus arrival times and system delays, and can also access alternative travel itineraries. Based on an individual’s current location, an ITS system can suggest several options, calculating both the time it would take for the individual to reach the bus stop, and when the bus would actually arrive. The user can then make a decision whether he or she will be able to make it to the stop in time to catch the bus. The possibilities are limitless.

There is also the push to develop systems for multimodal passenger journeys, through the usage of ITS, which can provide invaluable assistance in overcoming issues like lack of information and bringing ease to the process of booking and payments. A single ticket can enable the user to access many different modes of public transportation.

Such smart charging removes congestion and saves time for the passenger and the transport authorities. Inter-modality is widely regarded as being of fundamental importance for developing competitive alternatives to road transport.

Automated systems

Congestion currently costs our businesses huge sums of money. ITS can be of help in keeping traffic moving, especially when densities get high in zones prone to congestion or accidents. For example, a combination of sensor networks and wireless communication between road infrastructure and vehicles can turn dangerous junctions into intelligent intersections that monitor and automatically manage traffic. With real-time traffic information being delivered to control centres, operators can actively manage traffic c and keep it moving.

In India initiatives are being taken to implement RFID based vehicle identification and toll collection systems at all the toll plazas. Such systems will make the congestion that we currently have at toll centres a thing of the past. Many such initiatives are in the pipeline to kick-start the development of a common framework that leads to improved customer services, reduced operational costs and increased revenues.

Managing congestion

Green Transportation ITS through its capacity to remove congestion and encourage more and more people to start using public transportation is essential for effective and lasting environmental management. After all, the transition to cleaner transportation fuels is a profound and difficult undertaking, but the world has already transitioned to ICT infrastructure. So it is far easier to implement solutions from ITS to improve the green aspect of our transportation systems. There are compelling air quality, health, environmental, and energy security reasons for us to make the transition to ITS. August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

13

pawan hans

Transportation

Pawan Hans On the Path of

e-Governance

“Good governance is not possible without the incorporation of latest technology solutions for communication. At Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd we are fully focused on implementing the latest ICT technologies,� says Anil Srivastava, Chairman & Managing Director, Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd; & Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation

14

egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

Transportation

pawan hans

O

ne of Asia’s largest helicopter companies, Pawan Hans Helicopter Ltd offers a wide range of services to its clients through its fleet of 45 helicopters. The IT systems at Pawan Hans are fully geared to facilitate efficient and transparent operations. During the last few years, the organisation has implemented various applications like iISP (Integrated Information System), e-Tendering, e-ticking for passenger services, Video Conferencing, VoIP (Voice over internet Telephony), and much else.

The state of the art technologies deployed at Pawan Hans have enabled employees to access mission critical information in efficient and seamless manner. The ICT environment facilitates easy and quick access to services, computing resources, online learning materials/ training manuals and other centralised applications. The techn logical systems that are in place also empower the employees to continuously upgrade their skills and bring about diverse improvements in their working environment.

iISP- Integrated Information System for Pawan Hans An in-house ERP (Enterprise Resource planning) system, the iISP package is fully capable of streamlining and systemising the flow of informa-

Anil Srivastava, Chairman & Managing Director, Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd; & Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation tion through the various departments at Pawan Hans. iISP leads to improvement in efficiency and it facilitates timely availability of information

The four modules in iISP are Flight Distribution Scheduling System

inspections to be executed as per DGCA norms.

(Fdss) –Scheduling/Rostering of pilots after

The system also maintains the History of the

automated verification of Licence, Medical and

activities done on the aircraft.

for better decision making at the level of different employees from top to the bottom.

Website & Intranet systems There is a provision for online submission of forms, feedback, applications, and recent news about Pawan Hans. Tenders can be uploaded online and there is facility for auto deletion of expired tenders. The Intranet portal leads to uniform distribution of information among all the employees in the organisation, and it plays a crucial role in increasing the productivity of the enterprise.

Training requirements to updating of manifest

Material Management System (Mms) – This

e-Ticketing

after flying which helps in maintaining Regula-

module linked with the CHMS module for receiv-

tory guidelines i.e. FTL/FDTL of Pilots and Billing

ing of items (serviceable/unserviceable) and

to customers .

sending to respective shops or outside agency

Component Health Monitoring System

for repairs. In general controlling the inventory

(Chms) – For effective deployment of helicop-

of the region

Through e-ticketing, tickets can be booked online through the web. Customers don’t have to run here and there for booking, or cancellation of their tickets. This system leads to cost saving, reduced manpower, and instant delivery.

ters, the CHMS system caters to maintaining and

Finance And Accounting System (Fas) – This

monitoring the life of helicopter components/

system caters to maintaining of Cash/Bank details,

IP surveillance system (CCTV)

engine/aircraft vide the Journey Log book

Sales/Purchase, Payroll and preparing the Balance

being updated daily. The system ensures timely

Sheet/Profit and Loss statement and much else.

At Pawan Hans we have deployed Internet protocol cameras, or IP cameras, which, unlike the analogue closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras, can send and receive data via a comAugust 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

15

pawan hans

Transportation

puter network and the Internet. This is a much better system for surveillance. Two kinds of IP cameras have been deployed. These are: • Centralised IP cameras, which require a central Network Video Recorder (NVR) to handle the recording, video and alarm management. • Decentralised IP cameras, which do not require a central Network Video Recorder (NVR), as the cameras have recording functionality built-in and can thus record directly to digital storage media, such as flash drives, hard disk drives or network attached storage.

Data Centre / Disaster management The Data Centre provides a reliable and secure system for hosting and managing various integrated applications belonging to different departments. As a result of the data centre, services get delivered quickly and there is better management.

The Data Centre is equipped with high-end Blade Servers, SAN storage, dedicated Internet Bandwidth, WAN connectivity in redundant mode, Unified Communication (IP-Telephony) with Complete Power Redundancy and Integrated Network Management System to Monitor the Data Centre health and connectivity.

Integrated LAN/WAN Pawan Hans has designed a highly scalable and redundant LAN/WAN. The Network Architecture for Local Area Network consists of Fibre Backbone Connectivity with 1Gbps between the Core and the Distribution switches.

Unified Communication The Unified communication system provides users with VOIP (Voice over Internet Tele-

Multiparty Conferencing

Multipa Confer rty encing Unit Corporate office, Noida

Guwahati Base

Western Region, Mumbai

Northern Region, New Delhi

phony) phones which make use of various voice compression techniques to provide crystal clear voice signals. The unified communication gateway is also connected with voice mail boxes to collect the voice messages for users when they are not available at their desk. The voice messages can be replayed and stored. All the offices at Corporate and Regional and even Bases at National level are connected through IP telephony in Pawan Hans.

VHF communication Pawan Hans uses VHF communication systems to enable seamless connectivity between ground and aircraft in remote areas, where mobile connectivity is not reliable.

The well-Balanced and Young

Fleet of 45 Helicopters at Pawan Hans Helicopters ltd Includes:

16

1

Dauphin SA-365N

18

2

Dauphin AS365N3

17

3

Bell 206 L4

3

4

Bell 407

4

5 MI-172

1

6 AS 350 B3

2

egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

Video conferencing The usage of cutting edge video conferencing systems is facilitating easier and faster communication between employees and management teams located different locations in the country.

Such systems lead to reduced operating costs, as employees do not have to travel in order to have face to face interactions.

***

I am pleased to add that on the whole Pawan Hans has constantly been on the forefront of taking new initiatives in Information Technology.

The organisation is focussed on using Information Technology for improving efficiency and decision making ability at the level of different employees from top to bottom. Our efforts are majorly focussed on enhancing the level of communication within the organisation and also with customer in order to meet short and long term organisational objectives.

Pawan Hans has computerised all its regional offices and bases/detachments across the nation on iISP (Integrated Information System). With this high level of computerisation the entire business of Pawan Hans is now getting routed through its Centralised iISP system. This is proving to be a highly efficient Decision Support Tool, as it enables respective departments of the organisation to discharge their duties and responsibilities in a seamlessly effective and transparent manner.

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dgca

Transportation

Bringing e-Governance to

India’s Civil

Aviation Sector “With the objective of bringing about transparency and efficiency in its operational areas, DGCA is implementing a host of cutting edge solutions from ICT,” says Anil Srivastava, Chairman & Managing Director, Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd; & Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation

A

regulatory body in the field of Civil Aviation, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) deals primarily with Air Safety issues. It is responsible for regulation of air transport services to/from/within India and also for enforcement of civil air regulations, air safety and airworthiness standards. It also interfaces with all the regulatory wings of diverse International Civil Aviation Organisations.

The DGCA comes under the Ministry of Civil Aviation and it through its policies and guidelines it maintains control over stakeholders to ensure that there is compliance to safety standards and an efficient air travel is ensured in India. With the aim of enhancing its productivity, quality of service, and effectiveness, the DGCA is introducing automation across the enterprise.

eGCA: e-Governance for civil aviation The eGCA project has been envisioned to

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empower DGCA with new technological solutions that lead to an improvement in its effectiveness as an organisation so that the following objectives are achieved: • Enhanced service delivery: The idea is to provide seamless and efficient online and technology based services to various stakeholders with speed and certainty.

• Speedy back office processing: There has to be an automation of the processes such as application, verification, approval, issue, audit and support.

• Greater coordination through crossfunctional integration and cross-entity interfacing: This will lead to creation of a central and secure electronic repository of all records.

• Effective surveillance & enforcement: Generate MIS reports/historical track record and analysis.

• Single data entry/retrieval source: Integration of various directorate functions and the presence of a central repository will ensure that there is a single point of entry

•

•

•

•

for data. Once data is created it will be a single view of various touch points trying to access that data.

Ease of data access: With a digitised environment and an automated workflow it will be very easy to access data.

Intra-Directorate functions the IT enablement and process re-engineering will speed up the execution of functions within the directorate.

Automatic generation of Management Information System (MIS) reports: Critical statistics and data, which are necessary for the smooth functioning of the DGCA, will be available through an automated process.

Interface with regional and subregional offices: The DGCA HQ at New Delhi will be connected with the regional and sub-regional offices and there will be seamless system for communication and sharing of information.

The functional scope of eGCA The eGCA solution adheres to the relevant

Transportation

e-Governance standards, as stipulated by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India (http://egovstandards.gov.in/). Wherever necessary, there is integration with other government solutions through a system of integration with National e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (NSDG) and the State e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG).

For mobile based service delivery there is integration with Mobile Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG). In cases where an integration with external agencies/third parties is required, the authentication is carried out in adherence to National e-Authentication Framework issued

by DeitY, Government of India.

It has been estimated that the DGCA has close to 100 services, however, on closer analysis these 100 services can be grouped into four broad categories. These four broad categories of services are: • Establishment & Administration • Licensing/Permits/Cancellation • Audits/Surveillance • Finance The criterion used for coming up with this broad grouping of services relies mainly on the fact that services with similar administrative workflow can be grouped together. For instance, registration, certification, permits, approvals and licensing processes have a similar workflow and hence they can be grouped under a bucket of

services called ‘Licensing/Permits/Cancellation’.

Similarly all the HR/Establishment related functions are being grouped under the ‘Establishment & Administration’ category, while the finance related tasks come under the ‘Finance’ category.

Solution for Infrastructure The core infrastructure consists of a Data Centre and Disaster Recovery (DR) site in a co-located model. The eGCA application soft-

Project UDAAN It was way back in 1990s, that the examination

Data Centre at Hyderabad with Apache Tomcat

system of DGCA was computerised by making

as web server. This was implemented for the Pilot

use of the Sybase platform. In 2000-2001, the

Exam conducted by DGCA in October 2011 session.

system was redesigned to enable it to work in local

The most important element of project UDAAN

environment of Examination Office running on

consists of an effective migration of data from

the Microsoft platform of Visual Basic 6.0 and SQL

old database to new one. The implementation of

Server 2000. Finally in the year 2008-09, DGCA

the system has improved the transparency of the

desired to switch over to web-based examination

whole process of conducting examinations. There

system of online application and online payment

is no manual intervention, right from application

of fee and declaration of results. The NIC Team

to declaration of results.

at DGCA undertook the development of new web

ware, portal and other components shall reside in the Data Centre with backup at the DR site and shall be connected with HQ in New Delhi, ROs, SROs, through an Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology based network.

Internet access shall be provided to the DGCA and other external users through the Internet gateway at the hosting services provider.

Internet users at DGCA offices will be accessing Internet via the Data Centre. Also envisaged in the eGCA project is the setting up of end-user infrastructure, consisting of computers, printers, LAN and cabling, and other terminal equipment), which are to be installed in various DGCA offices across the country. A state of the art video conferencing facility is also coming up at the DGCA HQ and five RQs for enabling effective and timely communication.

With the objective of providing the delivery of public services in a fast, effective, transparent and efficient manner, DGCA is making maximum usage of latest Information technology. The comprehensive coverage of eGCA across all the Directorate functions, Services, Regional/Sub-Regional Offices will ensure that all the critical functions of the DGCA are IT enabled.

The three modules of UDAAN Application are

application, which was in tune with on the require-

as follows:

ments of DGCA.

• Pre-exam processing (L1),

The current application for examination system

dgca

• The examination (OMR and Online)

is based on Java and MS SQL SERVER 2005 and

• Post exam processing (L3) along with the data

is hosted at http://udaan.nic.in in the National

migration.

the author is Chairman & Managing Director, Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd; & Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

19

rfid

Transportation

Exploring

Radio Frequency

Identification Technology RFID is demonstrating huge versatility in terms of its ability to bring efficiency to the transportation sector Nayana Singh, Elets News Network (ENN)

R

adio-frequency identification (RFID), a technology which was unveiled at the time of the Second World War, has captured attention of many across the world. The introduction of industry led global RFID standard has resulted in an increased acceptance of this technology across several industries globally. The fact that RFID technology is in sync with present day business needs such as fast operations, tightened security, and effective management, makes it an apt technology for adoption.

Transportation, a sector on which the Government of India is planning heavy investments, provides wide scope for the implementation of RFID. The technology enables data to be transmitted from a micro silicon chip at very high speed and without the need for line of sight (applicable for barcode technology).

Thus, RFID is an established data-carrying and automatic identification technology used throughout industry.

How does it work?

Data relating to an item is stored on an RFID tag, which remains attached to the item. The tag is a data carrier in itself. A barcode carries data in a visible symbol and is read by a barcode scanner using optical or infrared wavelengths.

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An RFID tag carries data programmed into a small computer chip and operates at a wide range of radio frequencies.

The tag is activated by radio waves emitted from an RFID reader. The reader communicates wirelessly with the tag across what is known as the air-interface. Once activated, the tag sends data stored in its memory relating to the item back to the reader. This data can then be used within and between organisations and trading partners in a secure manner via the EPC global Network.

RFID technology can be can be used in vehicle identification. Various transportation companies are using tags on vehicles to locate them when they arrive at the sites.

RFID in transportation Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY) has its focus on the R&D areas of RFID and is engaged in providing RFID based techno solutions to the Indian industries. With this objective, the ambitious “National RFID Program” project was initiated in April, 2007. The program was implemented jointly by IIT, Kanpur, C-DAC, Noida and SAMEER, Mumbai.

As discussed above, RDIF technology can cause a tremendous impetus to the transportation sector. Subsequent to a recommendation

by a committee chaired by Nandan Nilenkani, the Ministry of Road Transportation and Highways, has decided that all the toll plazas in the country will be equipped with RFID solutions.

Railways, being a key element of transportation deserve special attention. The railway board has approved the enclosure of pilot project for using RFID technology for the automatic identification of wagons. The pilot project is to be implemented on the Waltier – Kirandul (KK) line of East Cost Railway. Almost 1000 wagons are to be tagged and trackside readers are to be placed at various locations, along with handled readers at major yards and loading uploading points as parts of the pilot. On the successful completion of the project, it is planned that the system will be expanded to tag all the wagons, and place readers at all major station yards.

RDIF technology is also being used by the government bodies in India to promote e-Governance in various sectors and localities.

Recently, the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation in Kerala has been sponsored by the government to fund an RFID initiative connecting the company to all nearby households in the city. In order to understand the full scope of RFID technologies, we interacted with a host of solution providers, who have given us their valuable inputs on the various issues that lie at the core of the RFID industry.

Transportation

Secure and Efficient Solutions from RFID “We have developed certain specialised solutions for valuable dossier tracking and storage especially for defence and government sector,” says Divyakant Gupta, MD, IDCUBE Identification Systems Pvt Ltd

IDCUBE is into using RFID technology for physical access control, Secured credential management, Cashless payments, Ticketing, Asset Authentication & Tracking in various verticals such as corporate office, pharmaceutical industry, Oil and gas industry, Residential apartments, toll plazas, food courts, parking lots etc.

Divyakant Gupta The company’s primary focus MD, IDCUBE Identification from last 3 years has been on Systems Pvt Ltd providing RFID based vehicle tracking solutions. IDCUBE’s patent pending ASSA tag is a tamper proof, clone proof and rugged tag. If someone tries to remove the ASSA tag from a vehicle, it becomes non functional and cannot be used on some other vehicle. The IDCUBE’s VAM solution based on ASSA tag is used to centrally manage Vehicle credentials and network of checkpoints to identify the vehicle and operate boom barriers, bollards etc. IDCUBE has more than 50 installations across INDIA on VAM platform. To further strengthen the security, CCTV and video analytics has been integrated in the VAM platform.

rfid

High-end Solutions for Automation “Infronics is a recognised leader in delivering high end solutions and products using cutting edge technologies such as, RFID, Smart Cards, Biometrics and Mobile Solutions,” says M Chandrashekar, CEO, Infronics Systems Ltd

The solutions being provided by Infronics solutions include: Automatic Vehicle Identification & Tracking: Vehicles are automatically identified at entry and exit points of a facility. The solution provides vehicle access control and also tracking the vehicles within the facility depending on M Chandrashekar the need.

CEO, Infronics Systems Ltd Parking Management: This solution is useful for large facilities, like gated communities, IT parks and resorts, where users can be issued RFID/contact-less smart-cards for accessing parking facilities. It facilitates dynamic and efficient utilisation of parking spaces.

Asset & Personnel Tracking: Our Asset Tracking solution utilizes both RFID as well as RTLS (Real Time Location System) tags to track and trace assets as well personnel within a facility.

Personal Identification & Access Control: Our Time & Attendance and Access Control System combines RFID, Biometrics and Mobile technologies offering a combined solution for diverse domains.

Smart Document: Smart Document is an innovative solution for universities which can issue tamper proof certificates to their students.

The certificate is embedded with a tamper-evident RFID chip which contains the students’ details and digitally encrypted signature of the certificate issuing authority. This safeguards the integrity of educational institute and also the authenticity of certificate holder. The outcome is a tamper proof certificate with student information stored on the RFID chip apart from regular content printed on the hardcopy.

Rfid Technologies for Better Governance “RFID technology is readily available for the entire world to adopt”, says Rajeev Nair, MD Stallion Systems & Solutions Pvt Ltd, & President AIDC

Since the last three years, the Government of India has started spending large sums of money in upgrading the technologies systems for governance. e-Governance is the new mantra.

Lot of money is being spent on up-gradation of public transport infrastructure. RFID also has a prominent role to play in vehicle tracking, wagon management.

So we are witnessing a move towards having RFID based toll plazas, where the toll charges get deducted automatically while the vehicle is in motion. There is also the move to incorporate RFID in railway and defense establishments.

Some cities are also implementing waste management through RFID.

Rajeev Nair MD Stallion Systems & Solutions Pvt Ltd, & President AIDC

Another area where RFID applications can be useful are the libraries. Most libraries are being converted into electronic ones. Areas that were earlier using Barcode technology, are now switching over to RFID. Even a lot of schools and colleges are migrating to RFID from barcode technology.

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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rfid

Transportation

A Global Standard for Rfid “There is a great potential for the government to use RFID technology for delivering Business-to-Government (B2G) and Government-to-Consumer (G2C) services,” says Ravi Mathur, CEO, GS1 India, in conversation with Nayana Singh Please elaborate on the role of GS1 in standards used in RFID technology?

GS1 has developed open, global and interoperable RFID standards, termed as EPC (Electronic Product Code) standards, which facilitate seamless implementation of RFID technology in the Supply Chain across multiple trading partners. These standards facilitate reading of RFID tags of different hardware suppliers which manufacture tags using EPC Gen2 standards. It makes use of the EPC data structure, which comprises a unique identifier of the physical object with its serial number using EPC standards. EPC standards also enable seamless data capture and query on status of physical objects in the supply chain across disparate IT business applications of trading partners with granular information related to the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘when’ of the RFID tagged object/consignment.

In what ways can EPC/RFID benefit the transportation and cargo movement sectors?

RFID brings transparency in logistics sector by ensuring real-time visibility of the flow of goods between trading partners and logistics providers. But it is required to put unified standards in place for the use of RFID, in different sectors and in different countries. Only then it will be possible to utilise the potential of this key technology. Use of EPC standards can ensure the same. With EPC/RFID identified systems real-world objects can be connected to related information, or product data. This is especially useful in optimising processes,

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such as tracking the routes of an object in delivery. Ecological efficiency is often a welcome by-product of process efficiency.

Many companies are working to achieve “supply chain visibility” using EPC/RFID to cut their costs.

That same “supply chain visibility” is important for cutting emissions and using energy more efficiently as it is for saving money.

Give us some examples of EPC/RFID applications being used in transportation and logistics sector?

GS1 EPC has globally completed the first phase of its Transportation and Logistics Industry Action Group RFID pilot programme.

The pilot tracked in real time, the location of cargo containers shipped from Hong Kong to Japan. Phase one of the pilot assessed the use of both passive and active EPC tags for sea shipment of cartons and containers.

The pilot addressed specific business needs of the partners, such as matching tagged products with purchase orders. This multiindustry, multi-stakeholder initiative extensively tested EPC global standards developed in response to specific user requirements.

Through the use of the EPC Information Services (EPCIS) standard in particular, true visibility at critical junctions throughout the global supply chain has been achieved. Worldwide, EPC/RFID standards are extensively in use by T & L sector. In Taiwan, it is being used as a tool to fight smuggling in certain ports. EPC/RFID turns out to be an important time and money saver at Customs, so much that the system was generalised

Ravi Mathur, CEO, GS1 India in every international port of the region and is expected to become global. In Sweden, the Swedish Transport Administration (STA) uses EPC/RFID standards along with European standard for transport in the rail sector for identifying and tracking rolling stocks throughout Europe and for optimising the filling of railway container vessels of Sweden and Norway containers. There are many more examples available in our global website at http:// www.gs1.org/transportlogistics/ implementation.

What are the challenges industries faces in RFID adoption in India?

Indian Industry does not currently appreciate the potential of RFID, its many applications, benefits in enhancing efficiency, speed and accuracy of business operations. This is because several business processes still remain manual with attendant delays, errors and reworks, costs of which have not been captured and tabulated by Indian companies.

Implementation, solution architecting and system integration expertise is also lacking which inhibits proper understanding of RFID technology, global standards and potential business applications.

What would you recommend at the policy-making level so that there is more acceptance/ awareness of RFID in India?

Import duties/taxes on hardware like RFID tags and readers should be minimised. Due to its wide potential for benefitting the Indian economy, the government should come up with specific measures for promoting indigenous research in this area.

Government is a potential user of RFID technology for delivering Business-to-Government (B2G) and Government-to-Consumers (G2C) services with speed, accuracy and higher efficiency. It should therefore act as role model in implementing RFID technology using global EPC standards to create business cases for adoption

by Industry across sectors.

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In Person

Transportation

Dr Mahesh Chandra

Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC)

Solutions for secure and efficient transport system

Informatics Centre. This is a Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). The RTOs in the country are responsible for issuance of Driving Licence, registration of motor vehicles and also for providing other kinds of services to the citizens. Before the National Transport Project came into being, the RTOs had been working mostly in isolation and there existed disconnect between RTOs in different parts of the country. This led to misuse of the system, as it was possible for someone to submit different kinds of data at different RTOs. That is why it was decided that we must do away with the manual processes at the RTOs, in order to have uniformity and standardisation in the processes for various services being provided throughout the country. Provisions were made in the Central Motor Vehicles Rules 1989 for issuance of smart card based Driving Licence and Registration Certificate. After that the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways decided to develop the standardised software in consultation with NIC. This software has been made available to all the RTOs in the country.

Tell us about the beneficial aspects of the software that NIC has developed?

Dr Mahesh Chandra, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC), talks about the innovative solutions that NIC has developed for bringing efficiency and transparency to the management of transport related infrastructure and services in the country

T

ell us about the work that National Informatics Centre (NIC) is doing for the computerisation of RTOs in the country.

The National Transport Project, which envisages interlinking of about 975 RTOs/DTOs across the country, has been conceived

by Ministry of Road Transport & Highways. The project has been implemented across the country by the Ministry in consultation with National

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The software has been customised to suit the needs of different states. The aim of the National Transport Project was to computerise all the RTOs and facilitate standardisation in their operations. So we now have computerised systems for issuing of Driving Licence and Registration Certificate, we also have enablement for smart cards and the National Register.

The software has already been successfully rolled out in 33 States/Union Territories. As of now more than 97 percent of the RTOs are computerised. In majority of the States and Union Territories, Smart Cards are being implemented. With the incorporation of a robust technological architecture, the project has reached the stage where it has the capability for preventive maintenance, high availability and scalability.

Tell us about the Vahan and Sarathi solutions developed

by NIC. Vahan is a one stop solution for vehicle registration (RC). It is a highly flexible and comprehensive system and it brings immense amount of efficiency and transparency into the burdensome activity of vehicle registration. Through this software solution routine tasks like Vehicle Registration, Fitness, Taxes, Permits & Enforcement that are performed at every RTO get fully computerised. Sarathi is the other one stop solution for Driving Licences (DL).

Through this solution there is computerisation in the issuance of new driv-

Transportation

ing licences, learning licences, duplicate licences, renewal of old driving license, change of address of licence holders. The Sarathi solution also facilities traffic management tasks like revocation of DL, notifications, disqualification of DL, and cancellation of DL. A range of Sarathi related services can be accessed on the website at https://sarathi. nic.in. The details of Vahan can be found on the website at https://vahan.nic.in.

Tell us about the uniform design of smart card based RC and DL? It was envisaged that the look and feel of smart card should be uniform across the Country and for this purpose the data content of visual Inspection Zone (VIZ) of smart card based DL & RC has been designed by National Institute of Designing (NID) after consultation with NIC, various State Transport Departments and Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH).

Dr. C.P. Joshi, Hon’ble Union Minister (RT&H), MoRTH has unveiled the SCOSTA compliant unified visual design of smart card based DLs/ RCs to be used by all the States/UTs. The draft gazette notification for adoption of unified design of smart card based DLs/RCs by all the States/UTs are being published by MoRTH.

What are the alternate service delivery channels?

The vision of the transport project is “To Make all RTO related Services accessible to the common man, through common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency & reliability of such services at affordable costs to realise the basic needs of the common man”.

To fulfil the vision of transport project, various alternate service delivery channels like schools, colleges, CSCs, internet, mobile, etc. are being implemented. Various informational services like DL information, vehicle registration information, information about tax validity, fitness validity, National Permit validity are available through SMS. Various types of information like expiry of tax validity, fitness validity are being sent to the applicant, if their mobile numbers are available in the database.

Are DLs being delivered to the applicant at their doorstep?

Yes, our vision is to provide every service at the citizen’s doorstep. All Driving Licences, either fresh or renewed, are being delivered to the applicant’s residential address through courier/ India post. The motive of doing this is to cross

In Person

VAHAN Services 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Vehicle Registration New Vehicle Registration Renewal of Registration Transfer of Ownership Change of Address etc.

Permit 1. Issue of National & Interstate Permit

2. Renewal of Permit Taxes 1. State-wise tax calculation & Payment Fitness 2. Issue of Fitness Certificate

verification of applicant’s residential address as well as to control forgery.

Tell us about the National Register (NR) project.

The National Register is an ambitious project that envisages the creation of a central database of all the vehicles and all the driving licences in the country. The National Register is based on the State Registers (SR) and is located in NIC Data Centre at Hyderabad. The system is developed in such a way that information regarding any vehicle

3. Renewal of Fitness Certificate Enforcement 1. Issue of Challan 2. Settlement of Penalty Amount

2011, the NR and SR related web services were unveiled to the public. It can be accessed at: http:// parivahan.nic.in/.

What are the parameters based on which stakeholders can view the information on different vehicles?

The details of Registered Vehicles can be viewed on the basis of Registration Number, Chassis Number, Engine Number, Body Type, Fuel Type, and Colour. It can also be viewed on basis of the

“in national registry the details of registered vehicles can be seen by sending an SMS” or DL can be accessed by all the states and RTOs for quick verification. This will weed out multiple driving licences across states. Earlier errant drivers had been evading prosecution as they possessed multiple DL, now that kind of activity can be curbed. A police man on duty anywhere in the country can use his registered mobile phone to send an SMS and check up the antecedents of any vehicle or DL. With its massive search capabilities, the National Register is now evolving into a worldclass business intelligence system. It can provide information based on SMS and it also facilitates integration with banks for financial services, web based applications. It can also be integrated with UIDAI database, and with smart card based applications. In times to come, the range of services that are being provided through the National Register are only going to increase. States like Bihar have already started using NR to provide information to citizens under the Right to Services act. In July

Name of the Manufacturer, Make or Model, etc.

Ordinary citizens can also use the system to search for their own vehicles by providing full registration number and last five digits of chassis number.

What kind of solution is NIC using to facilitate transport related data transfers from one RTO to other?

There has been a phenomenal growth in the data traffic due to the integration of all the isolated RTOs and other stakeholders. To manage all the data we have come up with a robust solution based on Oracle Data Integrator (ODI). The ODI enables data extraction from a multitude of sources. The extracted data gets suitably transformed as per the business process and consolidated into the State Registry and National Registry. The architecture of NIC Data Centre at Hyderabad has been designed August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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In Person

Transportation

Is access to NR/SR available to other stakeholders?

View from RTO Kargil

for high availability, reliability and scalability.

Also the SR-NR are connected through high availability NIC Network (NICNET). High availability network supports the real time data replication from SR to NR.

What is the procedure for getting National Permit, if transporter is not equipped with internet banking?

An agreement with SBI has been signed for online transfer of fees as well as collection of cash for NP authorisation. Transporter may access the National Permit System i.e. https://vahan.nic. in/npermit/ and may select the payment mode either by cash or internet banking. In case of payment by cash, the transporter will get a printout of automatically filled Challan generated through NP System and may deposit the cash to any branch of SBI. SBI will hand-over the stamped copy of receipt to the transporter. Then SBI needs to upload the confirmation of cash received by SBI in maximum T+1 days and once SBI upload the same transporter may get their NP.

What is new National Permit System?

New National Permit System was conceived in accordance with the Central Motor Vehicle (amendment) Rules, 1989, notified in May 2010. It envisages the automation of the grant of National Permit for goods vehicle. New National Permit System was developed by NIC and has been made operational since September 2010. The website of National Permit System is located at https:// vahan.nic.in/npermit/. Here there are resources for online issuance of National Permit for Goods

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SARATHI A comprehensive system for all the activities related to issuance of Driving License by RTOs, Sarathi is based on 3-tier architecture as well as platform & database independent software, customised to cater to the needs of individual States.

Services to be delivered through Sarathi include: • Driving License • Conductor’s License • Driving School License • Fees

Vehicle. National Permit System is also integrated with SBI payment gateway for online payment of fees against issuance of National Permit. This system is integrated with SMS Gateway for providing SMS based services like, NP validity information, authenticity of the permit etc.

Enforcement agencies may also verify the authenticity of national permit through SMS. This system provides anytime-anywhere basis services to all transporters, citizen at large, departments, and enforcement agencies etc. This project caters the needs of urban as well as rural public and eases the functionality of the department itself. This system has brought efficiency to the complete process of issuance of National Permit for goods vehicle and has enhanced the face image of department in eyes of their stakeholders and citizen. With the implementation of the National Permit System, the Transport Department is able to provide services like Issuance/renewal/transfer/cancellation of National Permit on the same day.

Yes. Access to NR/SR has been provided to all other States/UTs Transport Department, State Crime Record Bureau (SCRB)/ National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), Police Department, Mumbai ATS, and other enforcement agencies through National Transport Portal. For this purpose user id and password has been created for all the above-mentioned department and they may view the information related to vehicle and driving licence, after login into the system i.e. https://vahan.nic.in and https://sarathi.nic. in . Similarly access to Insurance Companies, Bankers, SIAM and Research Institution etc. are also being provided. It is being planned to integrate the insurance data available with IRDA with NR-a Centralized Database of RCs & DLs, so that insurance related data may be updated at NR and may be shared with enforcement agencies for compliance of State Motor Vehicle Rules/Central Motor Vehicle Rules.

Tell us about UP Check post System?

As per State Motor Vehicle Taxation Rules any commercial vehicle (either passenger or goods) which desires to come in Uttar Pradesh (for a limited period) from other states has to deposit the tax. It was being collected at tax collection counters established at border by Department of Transport. The vehicles keep on entering in the state day and night and this requires UP transport Department to open its tax collection counters 24x7. It was quite in-secure to have government money (in cash) transaction at border locations during night. Department of Transport took an initiative to automate the tax collection process.

To cater this requirement a web based On Line Tax Collection software solution (https://vahan. up.nic.in/upcheckpost) has been developed by NIC. Through this software the transporter/travel agent (other state’s vehicle owner) can deposit OnLine Tax using the Internet Banking facility. The software calculates the Tax amount based on the parameters of vehicle. Once the payment is made through internet banking a receipt is generated, which can be printed by user and kept for record purpose. For checking the authenticity of receipt, the transport department officials/enforcement agencies can see the payment details of vehicle through the above said system. Information of any tax payment is also send through SMS to the applicant’s mobile and authenticity of the transaction/ receipt etc. may also be verified through SMS.

RFID

Transportation

Sanjay Bandopadhyaya

Joint Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Government of India

Electronic Toll

Collection through RFID to implement electronic toll collection across all the national highways in the country. As there are large numbers of competing technologies for toll collection, the ministry had requested Shri Nandan Nilenkani to chair a committee that could find out the best possible technology for India. In year 2010, the committee gave a recommendation and the ministry accepted and implemented that recommendation that the toll collections will be RFID based. The protocols for the same are available on the website.

There is lot of congestion at some tolling stations. Will RFID based solutions help in solving this problem?

“The government of India has embarked upon an ambitious plan for adopting Electronic Toll Collection systems across the National Highway network,” says Sanjay Bandopadhyaya, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Government of India

P

lease tell us about the initiatives taken by the Ministry of Road Transportation and Highways to make transportation services citizen centric and friendly.

In order to improve the services, we have increased e-Governance inputs in the ministry.

The portal has been improved to a large extent.

All kinds of necessary information are being uploaded on the website on a timely basis. Specifically if you look at the toll collection mechanism in the country, we have taken the decision

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Unfortunately tolling is now associated with delays at collection points and congestion.

The delays negatively impact the operational efficiency of the improved network and thus in many ways neutralise the benefits of the improvement of highway infrastructure. Therefore it has been decided to adopt Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system based on RFID across India’s National Highway network. RFID will enable toll to be collected electronically while the vehicle is in motion. One essential requirement for smooth functioning of ETC is that the integrated solution should be able to work seamlessly throughout the country. In advanced countries, the prevailing systems, and legacy systems reduce the design options. But India does not face the baggage of legacy systems. We can easily go ahead with the seamless implementation of RFID based solutions at our toll plazas.

When will RFID be implemented at Gurgaon or Noida toll plazas?

Those were earlier projects, but after 2010 the technology was immediately notified and the projects that were executed after that time were told to be on RFID technologies. The older projects have to gradually migrate to RFID based technologies.

But as they are older projects, there are investment

related concerns and there are also the legacy issues. So they will take some time to migrate to RFID based systems, but there is no doubt that finally all the toll systems in the country will have to be unified. So the older projects too will have to start using RFID eventually. We are currently in the process of implementing RFID toll systems in two pilot projects in Delhi to Parmanoo. This is on NH1 and NH5. Four concessionaires with their toll plazas are implementing the system. A central clearing house is also being created, based on systems developed by ICICI bank.

Will the central clearing house be covering all the toll stations in the country?

Presently these are pilot projects. So pilot projects will have pilot clearing houses. We have simultaneously entrusted the job to NHAI and they have called for an Expression of Interest for the pan India clearing house system. A pilot project, that is currently ongoing, is between Mumbai and Baroda; this will eventually be taken up to Ahmadabad. The concessionaires are IRB and L&T; Union Bank is providing the clearing house facility. The third pilot project will come up between Chennai and Bangalore.

When all these pilot projects have started functioning smoothly, the collection will start going into a central clearing house.

Tell us about your plans to manage traffic in large urban centres through a centralised traffic management system?

Authorities around the world are implementing ICT solutions to manage their traffic, because it reduces accidents, leads to better traffic management. The efficiency of the normal traffic is improved and in emergency conditions ICT can lead to better ways of coping. We are mainly deploying ICT solutions in the urban areas where the traffic density is higher and the road density is also higher.

Transportation

BRTS

Prof Shivanand Swamy

Professor and Associate Director, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology University (CEPT), Ahmedabad

Effective system

for urban transportation its kind in India, there was absolute buy-in for the concept from administrative and political system within state and Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). One of the major success factors is that the AMC took full ownership of the project and ensured that all the stakeholders were working for offering state-of-art transit system to the citizens in the city. Ahmedabad BRTS has helped in transforming urban landscape around BRTS corridor besides offering comfort and speed of travel.

Is the BRTS project going to be replicated in other parts of the state?

Prof Shivanand Swamy, Professor and Associate Director, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology University (CEPT), Ahmedabad, talks about the highly successful BRTS (Bus Rapid Transit System) project that has been implemented in Ahmedabad

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What kind of ICT solutions are being deployed to ensure better management of traffic in the BRTS corridor? ell us about your experience of designing the BRTS Ahmedabad.

It has been an amazing experience to design Ahmedabad BRTS project. The project was conceptualised with the objective of redesigning the city’s structure and existing transport systems in order to make public transportation more accessible, efficient, environment friendly while reducing the length and duration of travel as well as people’s dependence on automobiles and I guess Ahmedabad BRTS has been able to deliver all the above very efficiently. While being first of

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Ahmedabad BRTS design has been successfully operating for few years now and the design and management process has been well accepted and appreciated nationally and internationally. We are currently designing similar systems in Surat, Hubli-Dharwad, Indore and Vadodara. Transit system design is an ever evolving system and with every new system, we are bringing in better ways of design and management processes.

Janmarg has deployed state of art Intelligent Transit Management System. ITMS automates functions like electronic fare collection, automated vehicle location system, passenger information system, vehicle scheduling and despatch, incident management system and depot management system. Ahmedabad BRT is the first bus based transit system in India to have implemented off-board fare collection system.

Janmarg has implemented level boarding system similar to what you experience in metro systems and we have installed the most innovative electronic docking system using RFID technique.

The system offers fine granularity of applications for operations management and hence we are

able to offer service assurance to our commuters in Ahmedabad. Janmarg operates at 2 minutes frequency in peak hours and 10 minutes frequency in off-peak hours. This has been made possible through fine blend of automation, which a result of implementation of ITMS.

In your view what will be the long term social and environmental impact of the BRTS systems?

The Ahmedabad BRTS has brought a range of social, economic and environmental benefits to the residents of the city. The system contributes extensively to reducing travel time, the cost of travel, and the need to use private vehicles for everyday commuting. This is evident in the consistent increase in ridership. It has resulted in enhanced revenue generation, quality of life, and improved economic opportunities for the people who can now easily travel to far-flung parts of the city. The fares are quite affordable. The Janmarg carries about 1.2 lakh passengers every day. For its contribution to the creation of an efficient and sustainable and environment friendly public transport system, the Ahmedabad BRTS was awarded the Best Sustainable Transport Award, 2010 and was adjudged the Best Mass Rapid Transit System by the Government of India, 2009.

What other innovations are you planning in the urban transportation space?

We are continuously working towards designing systems that are most suitable for meeting the transportation related needs of any city or town. We are currently designing BRTS system for Surat and Hubli-dharwad and we have introduced a concept of express BRT, which will again be first of its kind in India. You can see several innovations in the design, one of them being the square-about, instead of the normal round-about. A square-about provides much higher vehicle holding capacity and it also reduces wait-time for the vehicles.

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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Delhi Metro

Transportation

Anuj Dayal

Chief Public Relations Officer, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd

“Delhi Metro assigns

great importance to conservation of environment” includes connectivity to Greater Noida. However, the issue of expansion of Metro within Noida is the prerogative of the Uttar Pradesh government.

The Delhi Metro has claimed carbon credits worth crores of rupees. Tell us about your views on environment friendly methods of mass transportation?

Anuj Dayal, Chief Public Relations Officer, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, spoke to Dhirendra Pratap Singh on issues related to Delhi Metro

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ell us about your plans for expansion in the capital? When will the Metro reach places like Greater Noida?

Under the next phase of Metro expansion in the National Capital Region, DMRC is constructing another 140 kilometres of Metro lines spread across four different corridors. Metro corridors are being constructed to connect many areas of the city along Ring Road, Outer Ring Road and Old Delhi. Metro will also reach the satellite city of Faridabad in Haryana for the first time. Connectivity between South Delhi and Noida has also been approved.

There are a few more proposals of expanding the Metro network inside Noida which also

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Any modern day mass transport system must be fuel efficient. The Delhi Metro assigns great importance to conservation of environment.

Ten trees are planted for each tree that has to be cut down for construction work. Delhi Metro is the only railway project in the world to earn carbon credits for its projects. All upcoming projects for mass transportation have to ensure that they use non-polluting fuel for operation and take care of other related aspects such as compensatory forestation.

carrying capacity. Orders for 212 additional coaches have been placed to convert some of the six-coach trains into eight-coach trains. By the year 2015, all the trains operational on Lines 2 (Jahangirpuri – HUDA City Centre) and 3/4 (Dwarka – NOIDA City Centre/Vaishali) will be of six or eight coaches. With the objective of decongesting Rajiv Chowk, the Mandi House Metro station is being converted into an interchange station with direct connectivity between Line 6 (Kashmere Gate - Faridabad) and Line 3 (Dwarka - NOIDA).

Tell us about the technological solutions that you are using to ensure smooth operations of the Delhi Metro..

Delhi Metro is determined to make use of latest technologies for bringing efficiency to its operations. In the upcoming phase, we are planning to use signalling technology called the ‘Communication Based Train Control (CBTC),’ which will further bring down the frequency of trains to about 90 seconds. This will help us in running more trains and catering to an even larger number of people.

During peak hours, Metro trains get really crowded.

In order to deal with the increase in the number of commuters, Delhi Metro has already converted 100 of its four-coach trains into sixcoach ones. This has tremendously boosted its

The smart card system that Delhi Metro has introduced has become very popular with the citizens of the city. Is the Delhi Metro planning to have a system where commuters can use their debit or credit cards to pay for their commute?

Delhi Metro has long term plans to introduce a mechanism through which it would be possible to recharge smart cards online as well as from ATMs. Currently, DMRC is working on the finalisation of the technology which will be used for this facility.

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Transportation

Nandkishor Desai

Group Head - Business Development & Strategy, Trimax IT Infrastructure & Services Ltd

“Today every

Transport Undertaking is prospecting for new technologies�

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any intelligent technologies are being deployed in the transportation sector. Please tell us about the benefits that can be had from such technologies.

Indian states have started deploying intelligent solutions for managing all kinds of transportation related issues.

Any intelligent transport system has many components and can be useful in a number of scenarios. The State Transport Undertakings (STUs) are looking for technologies that can help them manage the burden that the commuters face every day. The STUs are aware of the advantages of going electronic, and they usually begin with adoption of component technologies in the overall basket of intelligent transportation technologies (ITS).

The e-ticketing solutions have become quite popular, as they can arrest revenue leakage and are easy to use. The entire data of daily transactions can be obtained by the click of a button.

Tell us more about your e-ticketing solutions.

Nandkishor Desai, Group Head - Business Development & Strategy, Trimax IT Infrastructure & Services Ltd, shares his views on the implementation of several ICT solutions for transportation in India

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The e-ticketing solutions usually come with either the hand-held machine or an online web-based system. A combination of both is also available. We also have RFID applications, which can facilitate cashless transactions.

We have issued more than one million RFID-based bus passes as of today; this gives the commuter and ticketissuer the flexibility of choosing destinations, routes and

Transportation

modes of transport according to his convenience. We have also developed Vehicle Tracking System (VTS) and Passenger Information System, which provide information on stoppages and route-details through display boards and speakers within the vehicles. The main goal of any STU in adopting a technology is to bring down the cost of operation and improving the efficiency of the unit. The major cost centre for any STU is mainly the fuel consumption and salary. We have also introduced a Fuel Management Solution that can store all the data regarding fuel stock on a central server.

Tell us about your transportation solutions that have been deployed in Maharashtra?

In Maharashtra we are playing a major role in transportation space. We are working with the Maharashtra State Road Transportation Corporation (MSRTC) for implementation of online reservation system and the deployment of 28500 electronic ticket issuing machines (ETIM). We are also participating in the development of software, supply servers, establishment of connectivity across 248 depots and 324 ORS centres. We are part of the plan to set up a data centre at Mumbai and a disaster recovery site at Pune. Our solutions are being used by MSRTC to manage 60 lakh passengers per day in 18,500 buses. We are also having a role in training of more than 35,000 conductors, and we have IT resources spread across the entire state. The overall budget was of nearly `200 crores over 6 years and we are generating more than `150 crore tickets per annum. On an annual basis, `4200 crore in revenues have got generated through the ETIM and ORS systems with 100 percent accuracy.

What about deployment in other states?

We are also having a successful association with Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation (RSRTC) where we started with the integration of existing ETIMs of RSRTC with ORS and procurement of GPRS module in existing ETIMs. We have also done designing, development, testing and implementation of the web based online reservation system (ORS), vehicle scheduling and online MIS. We have won mandate to implement integrated transport solutions for Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST), which is the largest city transport body in India with 40 lakh

passengers travelling each day, Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT) among other city corporations.

Tell us about the benefits of investing in ITS. What new innovations can we expect from Trimax?

The overall benefits that State Transport Undertaking can accrue from ITS adoption include commuter convenience and arresting of revenue leakages. These systems can also enable ordinary commuters to choose the most viable travel option after taking into consideration factors like cost, route and time of travel. Such

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instances of deployment of cloud based services as SaaS, IaaS and PaaS models. The data centre is an infrastructure that may pose variety of challenges if owned and managed by the transport authorities themselves. However, they can now avail the same services and applications and maybe some more on a secured cloud platform.

Telecom networks have made connectivity and accessibility easy and with no infrastructure of the data centre to manage STUs will be saving a lot on capex and will also see cost reduction as a result of the same. Management and maintenance of DC, back-up and firewalls all are managed at our end and this brings down the cost for the user in a big way.

“Our solutions are being used by MSRTC to manage 60 lakh passengers per day in 18,500 buses� information is easily available today for airlines and trains; however, the surface transportation sector is plagued by lack of information. Things will change in the surface transportation space, once intelligent solutions get deployed. We are also in the process of developing modular ERP modules for the transport authority to choose from. We can have systems like integrated ETIM-online reservation system, e-pure with automatic fare collection and common mobility card, VTS, MIS, Fuel Management system, Passenger Announcement System (PAS) and PIS. In addition, we are also developing business intelligence and analytics for the management as a dashboard. Today we are generating more than hundred MIS reports for the STUs and these are becoming difficult to manage. We have taken a step forward to bring-in analytical data of overall performance, scope of improvements, load factors on routes, utilisation of routes, traffic congestion details, etc. We should be ready with launch soon; this will be the next phase of expansion in terms of technology delivery platforms.

Tell us about the cloud platform as medium of application and delivery of services for the transport sector?

In times to come we will have much higher

Tell us more about your growth plans and key focus areas for the coming years.

The government of India is very pro-active and has envisioned the use of technology in the transport sector for a long time. They have a number of progressive and encouraging schemes and policies to support technology adoption across all spheres of transportation in India. Technology is ever evolving. Our technology solutions have become quite popular in the surface transport sector. In times to come we are planning a focus on other modes of transportation, including railways, shipping and airlines. Applications like VTS and PIS systems and even ERP can be applied across all modes of transport. We are launching ERP and business analytics over cloud in the near future. Overseas market is also our focus area. As far as non-transport sectors are concerned, we are known for our data centre facilities; we have currently installations in Bangalore and a new data centre will be inaugurated very soon in Airoli, Navi Mumbai.

This will give lot of boost to our cloud based services for Enterprise and Small and Medium Business (SMBs). We have also entered into an exclusive partnership with BSNL for offering managed network services on SLA basis to the customers.

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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special feature

NIIT Technologies

Banking made easy The banking sector faces numerous challenges - there is widespread globalisation, intensifying competition, strident regulation and heightened expectations from the clients.

The realisation is dawning on most banks that their legacy software is simply incapable of addressing the vagaries of the modern market. Advanced solutions are needed to help banks surpass customer outlook, maximise efficiency and cut down operation expenditure, while enhancing customer retention, in the modern environment.

Core Banking Solutions have been developed to provide an all-inclusive platform for service-oriented computing and productively accomplishing high transaction volumes and users, decreasing response time, and delivering impeccable execution. Majority of the banks today are using Core Banking Systems, which serve as the backbone for all their products and services.

Initiatives from NIIT Technologies Technology has become a crucial value differentiator in banks

Rishi Kapoor (extreme right), Practice Lead for BankingEasy Product, moderating the panel discussion on “CBS on Cloud”

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and hence companies like NIIT Technologies are coming up with innovative solutions to enable various banks to become more agile and proactive. The Core Banking Solutions, being developed

by NIIT Technologies, are capable of helping banks effectively manage myriad challenges like meeting regulatory requirements, evaluating outsourcing propositions, tapping new markets, and growing in size and scale.

One key product being offered by NIIT Technologies Ltd. is “BankingEasy”, which is a powerful, and feature packed banking solution built on the ASP model. It is a comprehensive suite of technology, infrastructure and services.

BankingEasy is a highly advanced, state-of-the-art system that provides reliability, flexibility and rapid response to market pressures. Using online, real-time transaction processing technology along with the

latest in relational database techniques, BankingEasy provides a stable, resilient yet flexible core banking facility. It can be scaled from the smallest organisations to the largest depending on the performance required.

BankingEasy will fulfil most of the application needs with highly modular ‘building block’ design, incremental capacity, open system architecture, excellent reporting, smooth, efficient conversion and special system security. It represents the very latest in software technology.

Key Benefits of AssureEasy

Key benefits of BankingEasy

• Cloud Based Offering so ‘You pay as you use’ • 80 percent of Enterprise Wide Risks are captured for Banking Industry • OPEX model versus CAPEX Model • Solution Delivery in a month time • Increases corporate governance of a financial institution • Reputational risk is minimised and that becomes a competitive advantage • Operational efficiency is improved because of increased accountability of processes • Basis of strategic decisions becomes more objective leading to greater success

• Minimal cost of ownership • Best-in-breed solution • Focus on core competencies & strategic objectives • Pricing/segmentation on the basis of relationship value • Better risk & asset management • Reduced ‘Time-to-Market’ for new products • Reduced reconciliation overhead • Reduction in transaction costs • Speedier reporting facilities • Better organisational communication

egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

NIIT Technologies

special feature

Core Banking Solutions from NIIT Technologies Rajeev Saxena, Vice President & Business Head, Cloud Computing Business, India, Asia Pacific & Middle East Regions, NIIT Technologies Ltd, sheds light on the cutting edge applications that the company has developed for efficient and secure banking

Tell us about the solutions that NIIT Technologies has developed for the banking and financial space.

NIIT Technologies offers a large suite of products in banking, finance and risk management.

BankingEasy is a Core Banking Solution (CBS) delivered on the cloud model on pay as you use model. The CBS application is a proven, time tested and fully function for cooperative banks. Based on open source software, this web-enabled application enables online real time transactions. The application is fully secure, sturdy and highly efficient in operations. It performs the function of a NPA engine, RBI reporting module, and delivers on a host of other areas that are critical for banks in the Cooperative sector, be it Urban or State/ District level.

Then there is “AssureEasy” solution from NIIT Technologies’ that is cloud based, and it provides best-of-breed risk management solutions for Operational Risk, Technology Risk and Compliance Management. Supported by the company’s ondemand GRC Platform, AssureEasy offers highly configurable and flexible deployment options that deliver fast time-tomarket and low total cost of ownership advantages.

What are the ways by which solutions from NIIT Technologies help in managing risk and complying with BFS regulations?

BankingEasy has 450 canned reports that adhere to the standards and compliance reporting as per the RBI. AssureEasy has compliance management module which helps a customer to comply with regulations like BASEL II. AssureEasy has Enterprise risk management module to manage operational risks. The product has inbuilt templates comprising of 500 odd Key Risk Indicators. This is an out of box solution that can enable a bank to implement a risk management solution in no time.

Tell us about the ways by which your solutions add to the efficiency of the banking and finance industry.

BankingEasy essentially takes away the burden of maintaining in-house IT hardware and software assets. Banks can now efficiently manage the increased transaction volume that comes with a growing customer base. Integration with 24/7 delivery channels such as ATM, Net and Mobile banking, and RTGS leads to further enhancement of the anytime banking concept.

Our solution provides more than 450 canned reports, as well as a Report Writer Tool to generate reports as per banks’ specific needs. The MIS reports so generated help the top management as an effective risk management and a strategic decision making tool. With our SMS Banking feature, it is now easier to take any new product or service to the general masses. Banks can focus on expanding the coverage to under-served markets in rural and semi-urban areas.

AssureEasy risk management framework is highly effective in mitigating risks and bringing efficiency to services offered by the bank. The need for an efficient risk management framework is paramount in order to factor in internal and external risks.

Have you developed any solutions that are especially suitable for providing financial services in rural areas?

BankingEasy is targeted specifically for Cooperative Banks including UCB’s / DCCB’s.

The agricultural module provides entire gamut of banking products and schemes for loans, deposits, withdrawals and subsidy management are tailored for the rural sector. Our CBS empowers banks to define products through its flexible product definition capability.

The trade finance module is integrated seamlessly with the core banking solution to give an end-to-end perspective to the trade finance needs of the rural sector. The module supports multi-currency processing of trade products such as bank guarantees, inland bills and remittances.

Agricultural loans for Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) and Kisan Credit Cards are some of the key features.

Elaborate workflows for loan creation, sanction/rejection and disbursement are provided.

Extensive master information can be captured at multiple levels - PACS, taluka, village, land, crop and farmer. In addition, there are schemes to meet the credit needs of dairy, handlooms, sugar and such other affiliated cooperatives.

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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in person

Transportation

Dr Mukesh Aghi CEO, Steria (India) Ltd

Solutions

for efficient urban

transportation

French highways to taxis at Heathrow airport, the company provides ubiquitous solutions. Steria is improving the lives of over 4.5 million Singapore residents and the productivity of the city’s businesses through streamlined and customer-friendly bus transport system, smooth traffic management, and an efficient taxi dispatch system.

What kind of services are you planning to provide in India?

As the vehicle population in India grows, local, state and national governments are being overwhelmed with vehicle data and security obligations.

Steria and its partner Neology, has developed a unique set of affordable, reliable and highly secure RFID vehicle solutions to meet the needs of governments and corporate fleets. These include: ownership and current registration data that can be stored in RFID windshield tags; non-stop electronic toll payments; Pollution-under-control management systems and traffic flow analysis. Today Steria is helping airports, traffic and fleet managers in India, to bridge the demand-supply gap anytime, anywhere.

“With an average of 20 kilometres of new roads being built in India every day, improving the country’s road transport infrastructure is a key priority for the Government,” says Dr Mukesh Aghi, CEO, Steria (India) Ltd

G

ive us an overview of the role that Steria is playing in the transportation space.

For over 40 years Steria, Europe’s leading provider of IT-enabled business services, has been providing technology driven solutions to airports, MRTS systems, city traffic managers and fleet operators. The company’s solutions touch the lives of millions in cities like Singapore, London and Paris. From 70 percent of

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The roads in India’s urban areas are terribly congested. What kind of solutions is Steria coming up with to deal with urban congestion?

There are a number of solutions that can be used for easing traffic congestion. Steria’s intelligent Traffic Expert solution offers the ability to acquire real-time traffic information and to enforce speed control, ramp metering and traffic regulation. Modular and scalable, Traffic Expert supports safer, smoother travel with traffic information and management, in-vehicle telematics services and tunnel control and management solutions. We also design and implement car park management and control systems with Steria Parking Expert providing data in real-time.

Tell us about your Passenger Information systems.

With the right information accessible when and where it is needed, it is possible to keep traffic flowing and provide a smooth passenger journey through airports and cities and across rail networks. With extensive experience in delivering solutions for providing multi-modal transport information (public transport, taxis, private operators), Steria is helping to improve transport efficiency across UK and Europe.

Transportation

What are the main features of your ManagAirport solution?

Our ManagAirport® solution is a rich information resource. It provides airports with a comprehensive picture of their infrastructure utilisation and acts as a decision support tool, thus enhancing the quality of service to passengers. It is designed to manage resources (runways, conveyors, luggage, etc.) in line with flight plans, provide information for passengers and partners and control the quality of airport services information management. Steria offers an end-to-end portfolio of airport management systems. Steria’s solutions have been tested over time at world’s leading airports like Charles D’Gaulle, in Paris, and Heathrow in London.

Your SIRIUS system solution for the Ile de France highways network is considered to be the most important road traffic system in France.

Steria’s SIRIUS system solution for the Ile de France highways network is the most important road traffic system in France. In a long-term collaboration, the first version of SIRIUS was implemented by Steria in 1989. Today, SIRIUS II is the biggest road traffic management system in Europe. With a return on investment (ROI) of just one year, it is designed to control and improve traffic flow and safety during rush hours. SIRIUS also keeps road users informed on traffic conditions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The system incorporates automatic data collection from 6,150 in-pavement electromagnetic loops that pass data for processing and onward distribution via variable message signs, radio or the internet.

Are you developing such solutions for India?

With an average of 20 kilometres of new roads being built in India every day, improving the country’s road transport infrastructure is a key priority for the Government. There is already an acceptance of the need for intelligent transport system. We are leveraging secure RFID based solutions to enable faster, smoother and a smarter traffic management system in partnership with Neology to bring about efficiency and reliability in this area - bearing in mind the various needs of the Indian customers.

Tell us about your solutions for traveller security.

With more and more people wanting to travel, safeguarding them on their journeys, whether

locally or across borders, is a huge operational challenge. And as the global population grows, there will be increasing pressure on our transport infrastructure. Safeguarding travellers, whether they are driving themselves or through rail, road or airways is critical. Steria provides solutions that address these concerns. Our systems enable better surveillance and control and provide the information needed for effective emergency and crisis management. They include the control and supervision of air traffic, video surveillance for road networks, passenger screening and the regulation and monitoring of heavy goods on roads. We provide user control systems, such as speed radar, access control, ticketing and biometrics systems that can restrict access to authorised personnel or smooth the flow of passengers through busy transport networks. In Germany our infrastructure monitoring solution for air traffic controller Deutsche Flugsicherung (DFS) controls radar sites, air traffic control systems,

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parks for the SMTC (Toulouse joint public transport union). This fully digital solution includes features such as Ticket management, Multimedia data processing, and complete equipment supervision from Entry-exit barriers to message broadcasting systems and information dashboards.

Tell us about your solutions for e-ticketing, e-payment and other solutions.

Reducing the environmental impact of travel such as CO² emissions and noise pollution is a key requirement in a sector that is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases. Steria is working with a number of clients to help them deliver their strategies for greener, more sustainable transport and promoting green behaviour amongst travellers. Our e-payment and e-ticketing cut the need for paper tickets, making it easier to travel with a single e-ticket for several means of transport. We are also

“Steria’s SIRIUS solution for Ile de France highways network is the most important road traffic system in France” networks and applications in the airport towers and control centres. In Singapore the Land Transport Authority uses a Steria solution for maintenance and electronic data management to ensure high levels of passenger safety and service.

contributing towards the building of greener airports, rail stations and other infrastructures for public use.

Parking poses as a huge problem in many of our urban centres.

What kind of solutions has Steria developed for these areas?

Steria provides efficiency and reliability in electronic tolling solutions, bearing in mind the need for security and high quality, necessary for maximum business benefits. We provide cutting edge, interoperable and scalable solutions for all the e-tolling demands. Our package comes with customised application software, RFID tags, readers, antennas and writer trays. Toll operators can also select a customised package that matches their needs. Steria also provides complete outsourcing capabilities on the e-tolling projects by managing key technology elements such as clearing house integration, reporting, data feeds and a host of other IT applications. Our solutions integrate with inductive loops, barriers, cameras and lane controllers. Some inherent benefits and features of our solution are tamper resistant tags for higher security, read range in all conditions, electronic authentication and ISO 18000 6C compliant amongst others.

In case of parking management, we have the Parking Expert, which is an efficient car park management solution covering all operations, from access control to information for town, railway station and airport car-park users, with a high focus on quality and security. The solution gathers car park data in real-time and generates data flows to feed business applications such as ERP, CRM and BI. It includes full-scale integration with existing information systems (towns, stations, airports, etc.) and a complete set of functions (equipment monitoring, equipment control, customer management, billing, user/ operator information). In France, Parking Expert formed the basis of a management and control system developed for seven park-and-ride car

What kind of solutions do you have for toll management?

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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In Person

Transportation

Praveen Sood

Additional Director General of Police, Police Computers Wing, and Commissioner for Traffic & Road Safety, Karnataka

Traffic

management through ICT

B

angalore is known as India’s IT city, the city is also known for its traffic jams. Tell us about the experiences that you had as a police commissioner in Bangalore.

From 2008 to 2011, I was the Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic).

It is during this period that technology supported traffic management was adopted in Bangalore for the first time in the country. It has been a very valuable experience for me. Our achievements have been recognised all over India. More and more cities, namely Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Calcutta are trying to replicate our success story, in terms of setting up traffic management centres, connecting signals, setting up cameras. For the purpose of monitoring the traffic, we had installed more than 100 CCTV cameras at every junction. The cameras would capture the rule violators and would send the reports to our traffic management centre in real time. The tickets were created and sent the notices to people, who could pay their fines by visiting anyone of our centres. Through our work, we helped to integrate the whole system. All the 330 signals of the city and cameras placed in the various corners were connected to the traffic management centre. Thus, if our people present at the centres located any problem, they could intervene in real time and alter the signal timings accordingly for smoothening out traffic movement. With our efforts, we created a state-of-art traffic management system.

In your opinion what kind of features should an intelligent transportation system have?

“The need of the hour is not just e-Governance, we also need connected governance,” Praveen Sood, Additional Director General of Police, Police Computers Wing, and Commissioner for Traffic & Road Safety, Karnataka, in conversation with Nayana Singh

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Firstly, a good transportation system should have the capacity to get information in real time. By placing cameras at various parts of the city, the traffic management centres can get updated information in real time. Secondly, with such information, the system should have the capability of intervening in situations and making alterations if required. The third stage consists of dissemination of information. In case of unexpected situations such as accidents or processions, people have to be advised so as to avoid chaos. For this purpose, we have installed electronic boards called Variable Message Boards. Enforcement is a key feature of an ideal traffic enforcement system. A quick search on the internet will reveal that Bangalore is the only city in the country to have a paperless traffic enforcement system. The traffic cops in Bangalore city carry Blackberries instead of Chalan books. So once the offence is registered, the

Transportation

data base gets updated in real time and produces a Bluetooth generated printed receipt. The system proved to be highly successful. It helped us to plug all the leakages in the system. Till 2007, `18 crore fine for traffic violation was collected from Bangalore city. In 2008, when Blackberry began to be used, the fine amount soared up to `29 Crores. In 2009, it became `39 crores and in 2010 it further went up to `49 crores. By 2011, the amount stood at whooping `55-60 Crore.

So you would consider this system worthy enough of being replicated in the whole of Karantaka.

The success of this system has inspired made us implement it in the entire state. As a result, we have been able to fix all the leakages in the traffic management system. There are no misappropriations, people are confident that the fines they are paying is reaching the government, and the data base is created and updated regularly. Therefore, in case we have to catch hold of repeat offenders, we can easily locate them. An important feature of our successful traffic management system consists of interfacing with the public. Keeping in mind the fact that traffic affects the life of everyone, we went on Facebook and created a vibrant website, which was updated 10 times in a day. We also created SMS services where people could enrol their mobile numbers and get real time SMS alerts free of cost. The efforts have enabled us to organise the system and also make it disciplined. Statistics reveal that the number of accidents met within the state has gone down steadily over the years.

That serves our purpose. Our objective behind introducing technology in the traffic management service is not to collect more money as fines, but to make the roads safe for people.

Tell us about the responsibilities that you are shouldering at present.

At present I am the Additional Director General of Police, Computer wing, and also the Commissioner for Traffic and Road Safety for the whole state. In my present capacity, I am implementing many new initiatives in various towns and cities in Karnataka. We have extended surveillance cameras to six districts including Ballari, Gulbarga, Hubidarwarg, Mangalore, Shimoga and Belegaon.

The use of Blackberry by traffic cops has been extended to the whole state. Right now, my mandate is to extend all the good practices to the semi urban areas so as to bring more discipline in the system. In the police computer wing, I am working

In Person

on a mission mode project of the Govt. of India, Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS). I am also working on projects to ensure timely service delivery to citizens. As a police department, we have added twelve services and we will be adding more services in time to come. This will be possible only if all operations go digital.

police verification is conducted in case of issuing passports. We are involved in a very ambitious project with the Ministry of External Affairs. We are trying to cut down the delays in services. We have figured out that delays can be cut down by doing away with so many levels whitch exist in the system.

In your opinion how important a role do modern ICT solutions play in traffic management in densely crowded urban areas?

How do you look back on at the experience of serving as Additional Commissioner of Police, Traffic Bangalore City?

Traffic is a complicated issuse. In India, the number of vehicles will keep increasing. Bangalore has four million vehicles for eight million people.

Delhi has got six million vehicles for 12 million people. We cannot go on adding manpower indefinitely. Manpower requires investments on

My message to people will be to establish the networks in the first place. Investing in equipments won’t serve the purpose, if the networks are not in place. The need of the hour is not just e-Governance, we also need to establish connected governance. Our aim should be to connect prison

“use of technology in service delivery is the only way to eradicate corruption” recurrent basis. So the solution is to migrate to technology. ICT is the real solution whether it is traffic management or it is delivery of services.

However, technology is not a substitute for infrastructure. Technology can fix all the leakages in the system. But eradication of corruption requires honest people in the system. Standardisation of number plates can be a great method to cut down on corruption.

What kind of investment has been made in the traffic modernisation project?

Judging by our past experience, we have invested rupees four to five crore which has brought `50 crore profits to the government. Our work has taught us valuable lessons. We have learnt that technology pays for itself, technology brings objectivity and transparency, citizens get ready to pay fines if the services available are technology backed, the level of trust on policemen increases.

In my opinion, the use of technology in service delivery is the only way to eradicate corruption.

We are trying our best to create multiple online systems for interface between the police and public so that they can access services from home or office, and make payments at various service centres. Our next project will lead to further streamlining of the process by which

on one side and courts on another side and if we can connect these two ends, the working of the department can improve in a great way. From my experience, I have learnt we must get the connectivity right, embark on pilot projects and then they can be easily replicated with the help of technology. Taking to projects with long gestation periods do not help as they do not contribute to any amount of learning and officers fail to complete the projects within their tenure of one, two, or three years. Implementing pilot projects are quite a difficult job. When we started, it took us one year to fix the first 40 cameras. The second 40 cameras were fixed in the next eight months and the next 80 cameras got fixed in three months.

Some cities in the world are going in for a centralised traffic management system, which use a dense network of CCTV cameras beaming video images directly to the central control room. Should Indian cities have similar systems?

We have done similar things in Bangalore.

Instead of beams, we have used BSNL Leased lines. In future we can use 3G and 4G technologies. But at the moment these leased lines are the best solution.

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

39

Indian Railways

Transportation

Information

Systems in Indian

Railways S S Mathur, GM - Corporate Coordination, Cris (Centre for Railway Information Systems), talks about the role that CRIS is playing in bringing the benefits of IT to the Indian Railways

I

n the early 1970s, the idea of tracking freight consignments through the use of computerised tracking applications known as TOPS (Total Operating System) gained widespread popularity. Railroads in USA were the first to use such systems and their use spread to UK and Canada as well. In an audacious move, Indian Railways planned the use of a similar system for itself.

After years of research, a system known as TRACS prevalent on the Canadian Railways was found to be compatible with IR’s needs. The system planned for Indian Railways was called FOIS (Freight Operations Information System).

In 1986, an autonomous organisation known as the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) was created by the Indian Railways for execution of the FOIS project. This organisation slowly took on the role of the IT arm of the Indian Railways. Recently CRIS celebrated 25 years of its existence.

Enhancing the ticketing experience With the turn of the century came a rush of IT project implementations. The first major project launched came in the year 2000; it was the Internet Querying system for PRS (Passenger Reservation System). Passengers could check their PNR

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egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

IT Architecture of Indian Railways

status on the PRS website. The site continues to be extremely popular with railway passengers.

In 2002, the Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) was developed in a record time of 8 months and installed in the Delhi area on 15th August. Prior to the implementation of UTS, unreserved tickets were in the form of small purpose-built cards, specially printed for each origin-destination pair of stations. Disbursing

these tickets was a mammoth exercise, requiring mundane and wasteful effort just to keep the tickets in stock. Passengers faced crowded and chaotic ticket windows, last-minute ticketing glitches, and opaque ticket refund rules.

The UTS has eliminated all these bottlenecks by having a centralised database of tickets, which can be bought in advance from any ticket window. The introduction of ATVMs (Automatic Ticket Vend-

Transportation

Indian Railways

ing Machines) and smart cards has made ticketing even simpler for Mumbai’s suburban passengers.

Accounting of the money received from remote rural stations, which used to take months, is carried out by running regular end-of-day routines.

UTS now runs at more than 5500 stations across the country. It accounts for more than 95% of all unreserved tickets sold.

In a related development, in July 2011, CRIS provided automatic flap-type gates for the Kolkata Metro along with in-house ticketing software to take over from the aging turnstiles.

Managing Train Operations The FOIS system manages the operations of all freight trains in the Railways. Similarly, the movement and operation of passenger trains is managed by the Integrated Coaching Management System (ICMS). This system collects online information from 220 major yards in the country and provides Railway managers with updated information on passenger train consists, locomotive availability, and maintenance schedules. ICMS was envisaged in 2003 and implementation was completed in 2008.

Two systems that have changed the way the Railways function internally are the Control Office Application (COA) and the Crew Management System (CMS). COA assists each train controller (Section Controller in Railway parlance), located in the Divisional Control Offices, to manage short-term train movements. Section Controllers prepare their Control Charts on the COA terminal automatically

Train punctuality position in ICMS

through the COA program. This frees them up to plan train movements more effectively, leading to more throughputs in each section. The COA provides the controllers with an intuitive interface similar to the manual chart, with which they are fully familiar. Ultimately, the train position will get automatically populated in the chart by transmitting GPS location data from the train locomotive directly into the COA database.

COA also provides spin off benefits to the passengers. COA’s train movement data and Jan 05 Sep 08 E-payment pilot started Jan 08 RFID pilot started e-payment rollout started

Jul -86 - May-96 FOIS version 1 (TRACS)

Jan-97 - Dec-99 FOIS v2 Dev

Jan-00 - Dec-02 RMS rollout

Dec-02 - Jul-06 TMS rollout ph 1

Jun-00 PRS query website launched

Mr-09 - Jan-11 TMS rollout ph 2

Jun-08 Handheld teminals pilot started

Apr-02 NTES website launched Jun-93 - Mar-97 Mar- 97 - Sep-99 PRS v2 (Concert) Concert Development Implementaion

Dec-01 - Aug-02 Jan-02 - Aug-02 Development of UTS Aug-02 UTS launched

Jun-05 PRS Data Warehouse launched

Apr-09 - Jan-11 Development of IR Portal

Oct-07 Aug-03 Feb-06 - Dec-07 UTS ATVMs launched IRCTC e-ticketing COA launched Pilot implementaion

Mar-04 - Feb-06 Control Office Application development

Dec-0 - Oct-09 COA roll-out

Dec-06 Crew Mgt Pilot starts

Dec-08 Crew Mgt Ph 1 roll-out complete

Aug-08 Crew Mgt roll-out starts

Progress of computerisation in IR since 1986

movement forecasts are picked up by the National Train Enquiry System (NTES) to provide train position to passengers through the NTES website and the 139 call-centre.

The Crew Management System, on the other hand, benefits running staff (Train Drivers or Loco Pilots, Assistant Loco Pilots, and Guards) by rationalising their working hours, informing them via SMS about impending duty rosters, and providing them with simple kiosk-based sign-on and sign-off facilities. Mileage allowances to compensate for their movement outside their home station are also automatically calculated by this system.

COA was developed in 2005 and remained on trial up to 2007. Thereafter it was implemented in all 70 Divisional Control offices by 2010. CMS also was developed by CRIS during this period and implementation in 340 crew lobbies (all but the smallest ones) was completed by 2011. Scheduling of passenger trains remains an arcane art in railways worldwide. A large number of factors need to be optimised in order to prepare a workable yet efficient train schedule. Apart from passenger trains, freight trains have also to be provided line capacity to maximise freight throughput.

CRIS is in the process of developing the necessary algorithms and programs to enable the design of optimised and stable train schedules, which maximise efficiency in the Railway system. Preliminary work on this system is already over and the first version of the “SatAugust 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

41

Indian Railways

Transportation

sang” (Software aided Train Scheduling and Network Governance) is about to be rolled out.

Material and asset management systems Indian Railways buys materials worth well over `15,000 crore annually to maintain its assets consisting of more than 7000 stations, 112,000 track Km of permanent way (30 percent of it with overhead electrification equipment), 9000 locomotives, 2,25,000 freight wagons, and 45,000 passenger coaches. Managing the material is a gigantic task. Material management systems comprising procurement and inventory control functions have been established in all Railway units.

However, it is planned to centralise the Material Management systems.

This onerous task has been awarded to CRIS for implementation, and is targeted for completion in the next 3 years. In the meantime, a fully automated and secure e-procurement system had been put in place centrally by CRIS in 2008.

This system has already been used for finalisation of more than 3 lakh tenders, and more than 14000 vendors are enrolled in it. The entire application is PKI enabled and completely secure.

Two systems that have changed the way the Railways function internally are the Control Office Application (COA) and the Crew Management System (CMS)

Railway assets are spread out across the country. It becomes easy to manage them effectively if geo-spatial data about the assets is maintained in a central repository. This aspect has been recently addressed with the initiation of a project for preparation of a geospatial database and GIS map to cover all of the Railways’ fixed and moving assets.

IT systems in Indian Railway’s Production Units have evolved over the years. A landmark

was reached in March 2012 when a comprehensive SAP-based ERP system was implemented in the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) after 24 months of design and development effort.

The system provides an integrated view of the organisation for all levels of managers and staff.

Conclusion Indian Railways has used Information Technology to improve the experience of passengers and freight customers. Increasingly, IT applications are being developed to address internal efficiency and effectiveness. Indian Railways now finds itself in an age in which rapid assimilation of IT in all walks of life opens up greater opportunities. The recent acceleration in development and deployment of IT systems is evidence of Indian Railway’s commitment to the common citizen of India.

the author is GM - Corporate Coordination, Cris (Centre for Railway Information Systems)

redBus 19,000+ bus services every day from over 800+ bus operators in 22 states. The solution that redBus uses is called BOSS (www.boss.travel).

BOSS is a market leader in the space with 600+ operators using it across the country.

Phanindra Sama

CEO of redBus spoke to eGov mregarding his company which sells tickets on the net for long distances buses What kind of online ticketing solutions is redBus providing? redBus is India’s largest bus ticketing company, it reaches out to consumers in multiple channels – web, mobile, phone booking, retail outlets etc. The organisation manages over

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egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

ers book bus tickets on our site, they get a SMS from us. This SMS acts as a ticket and customers can show it to board the bus.

How long has it taken for you to reach a total of one crore rides?

What kind of ICT tools are you using to keep security system intact in payment gateway?

It took us roughly about 5.5 years since inception to reach the milestone of one crore riders.

We use state of the art tools to maintain transaction security. We are operating a “Verisign Secured” website. We have 128 bit encryption which makes transactions on our site very safe. We take the issue of a customer’s privacy very seriously, and we are keen to ensure that nobody can steal customer’s payment details.

What kind of new initiatives are you thinking of at the moment?

Tell us about the m-ticket facility which you have introduced?

How is redBus making money?

We sell tens of thousands of seats every day.

One fine day the realisation dawned that we were wasting a whole lot of paper in printing these thickets. To save paper, we convinced bus operators to accept m-tickets – when custom-

We are planning to introduce the features that will allow our passengers to view the pictures of the original bus. This is the most requested feature from our customers. We’ll implement this in a few months.

The bus operator pays a commission fee for every ticket we sell. Hence customer gets the ticket at the same price, there is zero transaction fees to customer; but bus operator pays a small fee in the form of commission for the ticket.

Transportation

Mobility Solutions

Dr Ashish Verma

Assistant Professor (Dept. of Civil Engg.) and Associate Faculty [Centre for infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation, and Urban Planning (CiSTUP)] Bangalore

Bringing efficient

public transportation to India tive rider turns into a choice rider, public transport becomes the less-preferred mode. One of the important requirements is a well-networked public transportation system with time-bound schedules, reliable services, comfort, competitive travel times and affordable prices. These features will reduce the cost of travel by public transport (PT) modes and will make them attractive and will thus bring about a shift from individual modes to public transport. Many Indian cities are now introducing multi-modal mass transit systems (metro rail, BRTS, mono-rail etc.) which need good integration to be able to effectively serve the overall mobility needs of the city.

Dr Ashish Verma, Assistant Professor (Dept. of Civil Engg.) and Associate Faculty [Centre for infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation, and Urban Planning (CiSTUP)] Bangalore, spoke to Dhirendra Pratap Singh on various issues that lie at the core of public transportation in India

P

lease share with us your thoughts on the state of public transportation in India.

Currently people in the country, especially the poor sections in urban areas, are forced to travel in very bad conditions. An affordable public transport with a desired minimum level of service would always attract ridership in Indian cities; however, majority of public transport riders in Indian cities are captive riders. As soon as the cap-

43

Tell us about the technological solutions that the government is using to ensure smooth operations of the transport.

Technologies under Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) provide promising opportunities for smooth operations of traffic. However, presently the level of introduction of ITS and its use is still in nascent stage in India. Also, many of these technologies have been developed for Western countries, where the conditions are completely different from what we have in Indian conditions.

So lot of customisation for Indian conditions is required for making ITS technologies effective in domestic conditions. There exist many anomalies and complexities of Indian traffic system. Heterogeneous mix, no lane discipline, exponential growth of vehicles, bad roads, poor geometrics, conflicting movements of pedestrians and vehicles on the road, problems with the driver licensing system, poor traffic law enforcement etc., are few factors that add to this complexity. While some of these could be improved by policy interventions and other measures from government and local bodies, the traffic conditions in India today is as such beyond the level of control by simple traffic management measures or human abilities and the use of technology is all the more important to manage traffic in India today.

In your opinion what are the main hurdles in deployment of ITS systems n India?

One of the important input requirements for any ITS related traffic management is the dynamic and continuous assessment of real traffic situation in different parts of the city network, which is still the biggest hurdle in the success of ITS in India.

Considering the complexities of Indian traffic described in the above paragraph, it is still very difficult to capture the state of traffic using any sensor based or other mechanism, and it is still a large area of research. Without an accurate assessment of traffic, which is the basic input to any ITS solution on traffic management, the effectiveness of these ITS technologies is doubtful. The second big hurdle is the lack of effective and reliable communication network for citywide traffic management using ITS. The ITS technologies on traffic management have to rely heavily on communication channels on the flow of real time data to the control centres, but the reliability and un-interrupted availability of communication networks is still a challenge in India. To give an example, at Traffic Management Centre (TMC) in Bangalore almost half of the junctions where PTZ cameras are installed for traffic management purpose remains un-connected at any given time.

What kind of systems should public transport systems incorporate to gain popularity with the masses?

Seamless travel across multi-modal public transport system is an essential requirement to make public transport attractive for people to use it.

One of the important ways to make travel seamless is integrated ticketing where once the person buys a ticket, he or she should be able to travel seamlessly across all modes of public transport without having to buy ticket again while transferring in between. Smart Card system is a technology based solution to do this and is certainly going to be popular because of its utility.

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

43

traffic management

Transportation

Facebook Page of Delhi Traffic Police Satyendra Garg, Joint Commissioner, Delhi Traffic Police, talks about the department’s initiative for making use of the popular social networking site, Facebook, for reaching out to the people in the city

I

f there is one thing that has made huge difference in the way Delhi Traffic Police functions, it is the Facebook page which was created in April, 2010, and entire credit for that goes to Shri Ajay Chadha who was then Special CP Traffic.

The Facebook page had been conceived as an efficient tool for facilitating two way communications between the police department and the road users. As road conditions change frequently in the course of the day due to all sorts of reasons, it was felt that there was the need of constantly updating the road users. The traffic can become stuck due to breakdown of vehicles, which is something that is very frequent in the city, and also due to snap demonstrations that suddenly sprout up to disrupt the flow of traffic.

The idea was to provide people with a system for reporting back on problems like nonfunctioning of traffic lights, traffic congestion, conditions of roads and other things which tend to influence or hinder the movement of vehicles in the city. An online system can also enable the traffic police to send out messages on planned arrangements like political rallies, and all kinds of events which are likely to have a bearing on traffic situation. Recently we had the Commonwealth Games. Such sporting events keep happening from time to time and at times they lead to traffic bottlenecks.

Commitment to transparency The Facebook has quickly developed into an efficient system of two-way communications that also helps to check the performance of traffic police and its officials. The Facebook page has started serving the role of a watchdog that

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egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

tionaries, who might not have enough experience. A government department should avoid having presence on popular social network like Facebook, until the department has managed to address all the logistical and transparency related issues.

Tremendous feedback from public

Satyendra Garg, Joint Commissioner of Police, Delhi Traffic Police tells the Delhi Traffic Police about the myriad issues that plague its style of functioning. It also provides inputs on the shortcomings in the traffic police personnel.

The Facebook initiative of the Delhi Traffic Department is a huge success because certain key prerequisites have been kept in mind while launching the project. The prerequisites are: total commitment to transparent working, willingness to change, capacity to take criticism despite best efforts and keeping public interest uppermost in mind. Of course, it has to be ensured that senior officers are able to exert enough influence on the management of the social network. The management cannot be left wholly into the hands of lower level func-

There was a huge response to our Facebook page both amongst the road users and media. There were appreciative write-ups by national media and there was huge response from common citizens. The normal issues that citizens face started getting highlighted and even resolved in this online system. Even international media like New York Times took not of this page in a rather longish article, published in June 2010.

Apart from the purpose for which the page was started that is two way communications this page soon empowered the general road user in traffic rule enforcement. We got tremendous feedback on issues like traffic congestion, non-functioning of traffic lights, road conditions, presence or otherwise of traffic police staff, breakdown of vehicles, water-logging on roads, engineering faults in roads. We also had inputs from road users on lots of other issues related to departments like transport, municipal corporations, NDMC, DDA and PWD. In some cases, the work of these departments was having an impact on the traffic movement.

The biggest advantage of this page was that it made the common man feel empowered. He started recording violations by other road users.

This included issues like defective number plates, triple riding, not wearing of helmets, refusal and overcharging by TSRs, unauthorised plying of

Transportation

traffic management

tractors, violations by Gramin Sewa Vehicles, violations by policemen, including traffic policemen, violations by powerful people like bureaucrats, politicians, judges, rich people and other senior functionaries which had become a norm.

Ordinarily these violations would go unchecked as a lower level traffic functionary would not interfere in wrongdoings of powerful as there was always a change of being accused of misbehaviour and other wrongdoings.

Prosecuting the powerful We started taking action against the most powerful for their violations. We also informed the people of the action being taken. The details of the defaulters and the prosecution details including fines and court challans were made public.

This was hugely appreciated by people who had been under the impression that there was no way to check the wrong doings of powerful people.

I am happy to say that Facebook has became a medium of prosecuting the powerful denizens of the city. Any number of sitting ministers, elected representatives including members of Parliament, members of Legislative assemblies both from Delhi and outside, senior bureaucrats, police officers, judicial officers have been prosecuted on basis of evidence posted on Facebook page.

There was also a case when police officials, including Delhi Traffic officials were taken to task for their wrong actions. The action taken was communicated to people on Facebook page and got reported in media, both print and visual.

This made a huge difference as powerful in Delhi started fearing that the common man could post evidence of their traffic violation on Facebook,

The Facebook page had been conceived as an efficient tool for facilitating two way communications between the police department and the road users

and have them prosecuted. Till now we have issued more than 25,000 challans based on photographs and videos uploaded on our Facebook page. Apart from prosecutions, the Facebook

Mission of Delhi Traffic Police • Prevent and reduce accidents.

conditions such as prompt first aid to accident

• Effective enforcement of traffic regulations.

victims.

• Inculcate a sense of discipline amongst road

• Develop the human resources of traffic police.

users and educate the public including school

• Assist and advice various agencies in coordi-

children on road safety.

nated development of infrastructure for smooth

• Ensure smooth and secure traffic movement

and safe flow of traffic.

for special occasions and VIP duties with mini-

• Ensure protection of the environment and take

mum inconvenience to public.

appropriate steps for prevention of noise and air

• Develop a sense of responsiveness and sensi-

pollution.

tivity to the needs of the public.

• Encourage participation and involvement of

• Render assistance to public in various stressful

public in traffic management.

page has also built the credibility of Delhi Traffic Police as an agency that can implement rules in an impartial way against any and everybody.

Our Facebook page has become a catalyst in many ways. Virtually every city traffic police has started a social networking page for traffic matters. The list of these cities include Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and even smaller cities like Chandigarh, Faridabad and Gurgaon. Other government departments have also hopped aboard the social networking bandwagon with varying degrees of success. Success of this initiative has depended on the basic factors like transparency, willingness to change, ability to take criticism and desire to improve things.

We have connected to more than 1, 20,000 people through this medium and have got many ideas for improvement of traffic management. Of course, we have had our share of criticism, many a times the criticism seems quite unjustified. But overall it has been a wonderful instrument for change and improvement in day to day running of traffic administration in the city.

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

45

in person

Transportation

Rajeev Mehrotra

Managing Director and Director Finance, RITES Ltd

creating world-class

infrastructure international consultants in rail sector. Since the early eighties, RITES has been expanding its activities and gradually entered other sub sectors of planning and development namely urban transport, urban development, structural engineering, architecture, highways, airports, ports and harbours, inland water transport, ropeways, pipelines and project management. RITES is a leading consultant with operational experience in over 60 countries in Africa, Middle East, South East Asia and Latin America.

The services offered by RITES include: total traffic system studies for integrated planning in transport sector (for Rail, Road, Air and Water), feasibility studies, pre-construction surveys and geo-tech investigations for new rail links.

What are the initiatives that RITES is taking to bring improvement in the nation’s transportation infrastructure?

Rajeev Mehrotra, Managing Director and Director Finance, RITES Ltd, in conversation with Nayana Singh, provides a comprehensive overview of the engineering, consultancy and project management services in the transport infrastructure sector that RITES Ltd is providing

T

Tell us about the consultancy role that RITES is playing for Airport infrastructure space. ell us about the work that RITES has been doing.

RITES has 600 on-going projects in India besides having more than 30 projects overseas. The organisation was set up in 1974 as a parastatal organisation under the Ministry of Railways. RITES has It established itself as one of the leading

46

RITES has played a significant role in improving in the nation’s infrastructure. RITES has worked on several infrastructure related initiatives under the Five Year Plan. RITES has played a pivotal role in conducting the Total Transportation System study for horizon 2025. This is a landmark national study in transport sector comprising all four major modes of mechanized transport - Railways, Highways, Airways and Costal shipping. RITES has been providing Project Management Consultancy services in the Metro Rail Projects like the Delhi Metro and the Bangalore Metro. Technical Consultancy Services for preparation of DPR for three Metro corridors in Kolkata: (i) Baranagar-Barackpore corridor (ii) Joka BBD Bagh corridor (iii) New Garia - Airport corridor.

egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

RITES, Airport Division, undertakes consultancy services for development of Airports from Concept to Commissioning, including air traffic surveys, site selection, air side / city side planning, techno-economic feasibility studies, detailed engineering designs for airfield pavements / access systems / terminal buildings / ATC towers / technical blocks / drainage / security / allied facilities, design of airfield lighting systems / navigation / communication aids, bid process management, Project Management, Construction Supervision and Quality Control. The areas

Transportation

of services also include Environmental impact assessment studies, topographical surveys and geo-technical investigations. RITES, Airports Division also is equipped with highly qualified engineers, and it has state of the art capabilities for Non-destructive pavement evaluation using Heavy Weight Deflectometer.

What kind of impact have the initiatives from RITES had on the development of better highways in the country?

RITES provides comprehensive road transport consultancy services covering all aspects of conceptual and detailed design, construction, supervision, operation and maintenance of highways, expressways, feeder/rural roads, bridges/viaducts and tunnels, maintenance planning / management of road network, strategic planning for improvement / upgrading of road systems. Significant investment towards National highways, State highways and rural roads is being considered. RITES is planning to engage with developers to obtain consultancy business and explore options for long term arrangements with some large developers.

RITES is also interested in taking up the contract management work in the upcoming PPP projects leveraging its vast experience in field of Highways. RITES has been playing a major role in attainment of plan goals and targets for modernising highways, expressways through Public Private Participation.

Can you name some of the prestigious highway projects that RITES is associated with?

RITES has provided Project Advisory Consul-

Major Airport Projects

completed by RITES in the recent years

•

Techno-Economic Feasibility study for revival of Airports Authority of India owned 32 nonoperational airports for operation of ATR class of aircraft

•

Relocation of Tsabong and Hukuntsi Airports, Botswana

•

Consultancy Services for Construction of 2nd Runway (code F) for operations of Airbus 380 Aircraft at Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam (SSR) International Airport, Mauritius

tant Services to Yamuna Expressway: it is the longest Access-Controlled six lane (extendable to eight lanes) Concrete Pavement Expressway in India. This 165 km Expressway project, connecting Greater Noida with Agra has been developed on Public-Private-Partnership model. RITES is also providing consultancy services for 6-lane bypass on NH-8 from Gurgaon to Jaipur.

Tell us about the role that RITES is playing in Bridge and Tunnel engineering.

Comprehensive wide ranging services from concept to commissioning are being provided in the field of new as well as rehabilitation of existing rail, road and rail cum road bridges across major rivers and gorges, rail over bridges, rail under bridges including viaduct and rail and road tunnels. The major activities undertaken include: assessment of project need, sitting of location, including remote sensing study and land use, topography survey, hydraulic

Services offered by RITES in Highway sector are:

•

in person

Detailed Engineering Design and project preparation

•

Advisory/Technical Assistance

•

Network improvement studies

•

Proof Checking of Design & review of design and tender documentation

•

Procurement of works, pre-qualification and selection of contractors

•

Techno-economic Feasibility Study

•

•

Traffic Safety Measures

Construction supervision and Project management

•

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

•

Pavement evaluation & design

•

PMC / Construction Supervision

•

Maintenance Planning & Management

•

Quality Assurance

•

Up-gradation of existing airport at Francistown, Botswana for operations of Boeing-737 class of aircraft

•

Project Management Consultancy for construction of Aircraft Hangar at IGI Airport, New Delhi

•

Expansion and strengthening of Runway and Up-gradation of Associated Operational Infrastructure and Terminal Facilities at Naini-Saini Airport, Pithoragarh

design parameters, hydraulic model studies for design of protection and river training works, geological / geotechnical investigations, preliminary / detailed structural design and proof checking including project scheduling, construction planning, tendering along with designers/ construction supervision.

Throw some light on the tunnel projects that RITES is associated with.

RITES has conducted the feasibility study and detailed project report for Rohtang Highway Tunnel (8.9 km long). It has also conducted detailed engineering studies for Jawahar highway tunnel, which comprises of tw tubes, 2.5 km long.

There has been detailed design consultancy and construction supervision in Pir Panjal tunnel, which is 10.96 km long). There are many other projects that RITES has handled.

What are the main challenges that are being faced in creation of better transportation infrastructure in the country?

What are the solutions to these challenges?

Acquisition of land for development of infrastructure is a major challenge. It is quite difficult to come up with mutually acceptable answers for addressing concerns of all the stakeholders.

There is also resource crunch, which is mainly caused by lack of adequate resources for funds.

There are also the issues related to sustainable development and environment protection. Law and order is also an issue. The working condition in the North-Eastern and the naxalite affected states is a problem.

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

47

Urban Infrastructure

Transportation

Smart Tickets

A Proven Solution For Modern Transportation “More than fifty major municipalities worldwide use smart cards and smart tickets for mass transit solutions,” says Merlin Lucas, Head - Chipcard & Security Division, Infineon Technologies India Pvt Ltd

W

ith growing usage of smart ticketing technology the transport agencies will be able to improve the quality of services and bring more convenience to the customers. Investments in the infrastructure will increase globally over the next few years. More efficient services will result in higher usage, increasing revenue and there will be need for fewer subsidies from governments.

Different schemes – different requirements Public transport systems are very diverse. Different regional specifics, different level of integration and different standards are causing the need for adaptable solutions. In general we may cluster the following levels of product requirements, when it comes to smart tickets: • The low end market is focused on the Limited Use ticket application and uses designs made up from a small capacity memory IC directly attached to a printed or etched antenna, which is laminated inside a paper ticket.

• The medium market has tailored solutions for schemes with different tariff zones, micro payment, and various merchant services. The ticket is typically a plastic card with a 3 year life time, utilizing a secure

48

egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

memory IC in a module and wired antenna • The high end market addresses multiapplications like transport, city services and payments, it often requires a smart card controller and wired antenna in a personalised plastic card.

It is worth mentioning that the different transport schemes are using and may use products of all three levels after starting within one level.

The most prominent success story for Limited Use Tickets is the Moscow Metro project where the rollout started in 2005. Last year several million tickets with a low end memory compatible to ISO 14443 were consumed as either single ride tickets or up to 16 ride tickets.

Further rollouts in Russian cities like St. Petersburg are planned.

In the medium segment most projects have used the well known Mifare technology. However, most projects are in the process of upgrading to other technologies due to security reasons.

High end market transport cards often require multi-application designs. These designs need extra security to protect the different issuers and the user’s data.

Most transport agencies around the world today realise the advantages of open standards for transport applications, such as the CIPURSE™ security standard provided by the OSPT Alliance. This helps the transport agencies to have multi sourcing options thereby substantially reducing cost. Taking a cue, most emerging transit applications today work on open standards and specifications.

What are the Challenges?

New systems or existing systems which consider an upgrade to a new technology should use the chance to choose a more secure and open system, which is ready for the future. It is important for all transport agencies to have the choice of a broad portfolio of products from tickets using low end contactless memories IC up to multi-application cards with a certified microcontroller IC. The system should be based on one security concept; tailored security is advisable especially in cost sensitive markets. The systems should be based on international and open standards to avoid higher than necessary costs due to hidden and discriminatory license fees or single supplier situations. The product of choice has to balance the best performance, security, and price ratio.

Overall the challenge will be for the different parts of the supply chain to work closely and understand the changing strategic aims of the transport operators. There is the need to supply “future proof ” electronic ticket solutions to meet the needs of stakeholders in the public transport industry. The OSPT Alliance was founded to build such a platform and to establish an ecosystem of transport operators, technology suppliers, consultants and integrators, mobile product and service providers.

the author is Head - Chipcard & Security Division, Infineon Technologies India Pvt Ltd

Financial Inclusion

Banking on Inclusion “It is important for financial institutions to leverage technology so that effective delivery mechanisms can be developed� Vikas Aggarwal, Director - Management Consulting, KPMG

W

ith almost half the country unbanked and only 9 percent of the population having credit accounts with the banks, the need for focused efforts towards financial inclusion is being increasingly felt in the government circles. Though many governments across the globe face this challenge, in view of the huge and widely prevalent economic disparities, financial inclusion becomes a key imperative to usher in inclusive growth.

While the Government and the RBI are playing a proactive role in furthering the cause with some of the initiatives already underway, the real challenge is to find a viable or low cost delivery model and penetrate deep into the rural segment. It is important for financial institutions to leverage technology as much as possible to construct effective delivery mechanisms.

Though majority of efforts are concentrated to address the supply side in designing the services suitable to the citizens needs, there is a definite need to concentrate on the demand side by imparting financial awareness/literacy which would help in preventing discrimination of low and marginalized income groups.

While the supply side can be addressed through financial institutions, the demand side needs involvement of stakeholders from the larger ecosystem.

In India, financial inclusion at present is largely confined to providing bare minimum services such as no frills account. However, internationally it has been viewed in a much broader perspective with access to wide range of financial services, financial security and cov-

Identifying Finanacial Inclusion According to RBI, Financial

ent manner by regulated

ability of banking services

Inclusion is the process of

mainstream institutional

cannot be offered by

ensuring access to appropri-

players. It is in this context

MFIs/NBFCs/NGOs. But,

ate financial products

that I would like to point that

yes, they have an immense

and services needed by

MFIs/NBFCs/NGOs on their

and extremely important

all sections of the society

own would not be able to

role to play in furthering

in general and vulnerable

bring about financial inclu-

financial inclusion in the

groups such as weaker sec-

sion as the range of financial

sense that they bring people

tions and low income groups

products and services which

and communities into the

in particular, at an affordable

we consider as the bare

fold of the formal financial

cost in a fair and transpar-

minimum to qualify as avail-

system.

erage of an individual sometimes regarded as indicators of financial inclusion.

Conventional banking models of brick, mortar and men cannot reach out to more than six lakh villages owing to the humongous cost.

Adoption of end to end Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) solution alone can make any such a model feasible and viable.

Had it not been for the development of cost effective ICT, financial inclusion would have remained a distant dream for us.

In the fast moving environment, spending time to visit the bank branches for effecting banking transactions has considerably come down. Alternatively, channels such as ATM, Internet, mobile banking services are picking up steadily apart from the existing bank branches services. Further, unmanned e-banking lounges are going to occupy a predominant place in future banking scenario.

Apart from the obvious challenges like illiteracy, lack of bank branches in rural areas etc., lack of statutory documents required by banks and with many banks still evaluating low margins and high volumes proposition, the road for this mammoth task is not with-

out roadblocks. The consequences may vary depending on the nature and extent of financial exclusion. It may range from higher incidence of crime, exploitation of the low income groups by the money lenders to significant delay in remittances.

With the proportion of adults having a bank account being significantly low and with India recording one of the highest number for households excluded from banking, an enabling public policy mandating participation from key institutions coupled with awareness campaign amongst citizens and a collaborative approach (for visible mass scale implementation) are the key imperatives. Effective monitoring of financial activity, transaction volumes and trends in new accounts is equally important to gauge the quality and actual impact of the envisaged inclusion.

the author is Director - Management Consulting, KPMG

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

49

In Person

Hari Ranjan Rao

Secretary to Chief Minister and Department of Information Technology, Government of Madhya Pradesh

Encouraging

entrepreneurship at

village and panchayat levels

T

ell us about your plans for bringing growth to the IT sector in Madhya Pradesh.

My vision for the State’s IT Department is to ensure friendly, transparent, and responsive government for all sections of the society. It is our mandate to develop and strengthen IT capacities at all levels for overall growth of the society at large and also for providing the government with the information infrastructure in terms of a state wide network backbone, data processing and storage capacities, electronic service delivery framework, policies and guidelines for project implementations, supporting key statutory acts and policies such as Lok Sewa Guarantee Act and so on. As far as growth of state’s IT industry is concerned, we are bringing in policy reforms and taking up initiatives at all levels, right from encouraging entrepreneurship at village and panchayat levels, to attracting global investments and inviting top companies in IT to set-up their facilities in Madhya Pradesh. We are proud to announce that big firms like TCS, Infosys and likes have already chosen Madhya Pradesh as their next base and are rapidly planning development of their facilities in Madhya Pradesh. We are developing educational institutions such as Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management (IIITM). Knowledge management frameworks such as NKN are coming up to provide high quality IT resources to the state’s IT industry.

“Our Common Service Centres (CSCs) are a major achievement, as they allow farmers to register for wheat procurement under minimum support price,” says Hari Ranjan Rao, Secretary to Chief Minister and Department of Information Technology, Government of Madhya Pradesh

50

egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

Madhya Pradesh has taken many new initiatives in e-Governance. How would you rate the state’s response to e-Governance?

Madhya Pradesh is in the forefront when it comes to

In Person

taking e-Governance to the masses. Madhya Pradesh has experimented with Gyandoot project and won acclaim worldwide by initiating right steps for bridging the digital divide. We are the first state to complete the full cycle of Specialised Training Programmes on e-Governance to our officers. We are also aggressively pushing for NOFN project. Our Call Centre called “Tele Samadhan” is a milestone, as it allows us to aggressively push for completion or implementation of multiple e-Governance initiatives, like SWAN, SDC, SSDG, e-District, various State MMPs and so on. The thrust for e-Governance is evident from the path breaking Lok Sewa Guarantee Act of Madhya Pradesh.

According to you what are the main e-Governance projects in Madhya Pradesh that have been immensely successful and have the potential to be replicated?

MPOnline is certainly one of the immensely successful projects in Madhya Pradesh. Computerisation of Commercial Tax Department was implemented in Madhya Pradesh almost ten years back and today it is one of the most successful applications benefitting lakhs of tax payers, who can now file their returns online.

Computerisation of Treasuries is also a successful e-Governance project. Another successful e-Governance is “e-Tendering”. So far 67 Departments/agencies have already completely switched to e-tendering. Using this portal, tendering worth `35,17,814 lakhs have been completed in last five years.

Our Common Services Centres (CSCs) are a major achievement, as they allow farmers to register for wheat procurement under minimum support price. Within a period of three months, more than 10 lakh farmers across the State have registered with us, and we have their mobile numbers and bank account details.

During the wheat procurement season, in the months of March, April and May, these 10 lakh farmers get intimated in advance through SMS about the exact time when they can arrive in local procurement centres. The payments are made directly in their bank accounts. This unprecedented success in wheat procurement has led the State Government to replicate this model for Kharif crops also. Madhya Pradesh has the distinction of being the State with highest usage of Video Conferencing facility for government departments. We are now embarking on many more ambitious programs

such as e-Panchayat, Samagra Samajik Suraksha Karyakram for implementation of various social benefits schemes state-wide. The Health MMP is also going ahead.

In the implementation of e-Governance projects what kind of challenges do you face?

Main challenges we face are related to network connectivity up to the village level, skilled manpower across all levels within state, capacity building and change management. The solution to these challenges lies in planning, awareness and communication. Policy reforms and having dedicated IT cadre for the state are also important. We are building the infrastructure within the state in terms of SWAN, SDC and SSDG. We are also carrying out capacity build-

of registrars for a faster rollout. Integration of UIDAI under Food & Civil Supplies Department has been of help in weeding out bogus ration cards in many districts. This by itself indicates the immense potential UIDAI has in terms of effective delivery of citizen services. Government of Madhya Pradesh is committed to integrating UIDAI (Aadhaar number) to all social security related schemes.

In your opinion how can we tackle the menace of malicious content that is being placed on the Internet? Should there be a tighter regulation of the Internet?

Internet is a symbol of freedom of speech and expression. Regular scanning and auditing for

“Madhya Pradesh is in forefront

when it comes to taking e-Governance to the masses” ing by augmenting the staff strength at district/ block and tehsil levels. At the same time we are creating a training infrastructure across all levels to deal with capacity building and change management issues.

What steps do you think should be taken to ensure that the best practices are implemented while hosting of important state government sites?

I feel the security related aspects, guidelines and standards must be given due diligence while designing important government sites. There is a mechanism in place for all government sites to be audited and certified for security by eligible agencies. Madhya Pradesh Agency for Promotion of Information Technology (MAP_ IT), a think tank for IT and e-Governance in Madhya Pradesh, is creating a Cyber Security Cell to provide long term perspective on cyber security issues.

Please shed light on the progress of UIDAI scheme in your state.

In Madhya Pradesh Food and Civil Supplies Department is the nodal registrar for enrolling citizen under UIDAI. However, now the Government is taking a decision to increase the number

security and safety of government websites will prevent the threats from percolating into government systems. For public at large, regular awareness on issues related to online behaviour and advisory from government (IT departments) can be helpful. Institutional mechanisms such as CERT-IN can also be used in states for constant monitoring and spreading of mass awareness on these issues.

In your opinion what kind of sensibilities as an administrator must an IT secretary bring to his job?

Sensitivity towards common man, appreciation for power of IT as a tool for masses is a prerequisite. The person has to keep pace with the latest trends in technology. To be able to lead in a domain such as IT, the IT secretary should be capable of picking up the role of a project manager. The major thrust of an IT secretary’s jobs entails management of government projects that have some kind of private partnerships.

Once has to deal with consultants and vendors.

So the incumbent in this position must be thorough with nitty-gritty’s of contracts/RFPs. Business acumen for developing the right business models and negotiation skills are also key to success in this job.

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

51

Data Centre

State Data Centre for e-Governance “The configuration of ICT infrastructure in the State Data Centre is now at its final stage. The SDC is expected to Go-Live from July-August, 2012,� says Hari Ranjan Rao, Secretary to Chief Minister and Department of Information Technology, Government of Madhya Pradesh

U

nder the National e-Governance Plan, State Data Centre (SDC) has been identified as one of the core infrastructure components. SDC is a critical infrastructure needed for consolidation and hosting of applications that are essential for the delivery of e-Governance services. SDC-MP will

52

egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

be integrated with the other two core infrastructure components i.e., State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and Common Services Centres (CSC), thereby enabling the services to Government agencies, Citizens and Businesses.

The Department of Information Technology, Government of Madhya Pradesh, under the National e-Governance Plan, appointed MP State Electronics Development Corporation as

the nodal agency for implementation of the project and HCL Info-system Ltd has been identified as the DCO for SDC-MP. PwC is the consultant for the project. MPSEDC and NIC shall jointly monitor and manage this project.

State of the art Data Centre The state-of-the-art building has been created in Bhopal. The building has ground plus two

Data Centre

List of Services Being Offered to all Departments by SDC Infrastructure Services: i. Rack Space: The DCO shall give the Rack space and the basic Data Centre Infrastructure services (power, cooling, physical security, etc) to the concerned Departments hosting their applications at the Data Centre. The physical space in the server farm area is fully equipped with power, cooling, fire prevention, CCTV coverage, access control etc. ii. Conference Room: A limited seating space has been provisioned for the department experts and this seating space is not dedicated to any department but can be utilized on need basis. iii. Staging Facility: The staging area facility includes a seating space and a server which would be available for use for installation of equipments/testing/configurations etc before they actually get hosted in the live environment. iv. Connectivity to SWAN and Internet: The State Data Centre is connected to SWAN SHQ through dedicated, high available link through which the departmental applications can leverage the SWAN for connectivity purposes. Similarly high bandwidth common, secure, high available internet connectivity has been provisioned. v. Facility Management: The DCO shall provide Facility Management Services for the entire physical infrastructure present at the SDC. A building management system (BMS) has been procured for this purpose. vi. Shared Storage: A centralised storage with management and flexible, secure configuration shall be available. Depending upon the requirement of the department and as agreed with the SIA/Composite team, the same can be leveraged. vii. Shared Compute Infrastructure: To cater to the needs of applications hosting at the State Data Centre an initial computing infrastructure consisting of Applications, Web and Database servers with different flavours of software/OS, has been provisioned in the SDC which

floors with a total constructed area of 52,000 sq. ft, each floor will have approximately 17,000 sq. ft of space. The SDC-MP is on the first floor of the building. The building is designed for the load bearing capacity of 1000 kg per sq. meter, ideally suited for Data Centre requirements.

The building will be supplied electrical power

can be leveraged in shared manner, to meet needs of several state e-Governance applications.

Managed Services: i. Managed Security Services: The SDC is designed for an end-to-end security blanket to protect applications, services, data and the infrastructure from malicious attacks or theft from external as well as Internal hackers. The various components provisioned under the SDC scheme to meet this objective are:

• Firewall

• IPS (Intrusion Protection System)

• HIDS (Host Intrusion Detection System)

• Antivirus The user departments are going to avail this service. The scheme also has the provision to provide required licenses for HIDS and Anti-Virus.

But for that, the User Department has to get in touch with the SIA-MPSEDC to get the availability of the same. However, in case the user department needs any specific security component to further fortify the security, they shall be allowed to do so, at their own behest. ii. Backup Services: The SDC is equipped with shared storage and associated backup infrastructure which shall be backed up as per the backup policy of the State Data Centre. The department may leverage the backup server infrastructure for backup related tasks. iii. Vendor Management: The DCO may be required to provide vendor management support to the departments who seek this service. It must be noted that the user departments would not like to avail any services which overlaps with their existing service contract and lead to multiple ownerships. However, in case the departments require this service then as per the severity level / escalation mechanism agreed with the user department the DCO shall provide vendor management services. iv. Storage configuration and management: The services to the department related to

from two different grids to ensure uninterrupted power supply and connectivity from four different sources including NKN. The entry will be monitored by access control system with physical security in place to prevent unauthorized intrusion into the building. The building will also have green building features.

storage space management, configuration, and enhancement shall be available. v. Helpdesk Services: The help desk service will serve as a single point of contact for all ICT related incidents and service requests.

The service will provide a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) and also resolution of incidents. This can be leveraged by the departments IT team/vendors/Sis for any remote support, assistance in associated hosted infrastructure. vi. Common IT Support Services: This would include the common support services including patch management, antivirus management, updates etc. vii. Monitoring: An Enterprise Management System (EMS) has been procured for performance and health monitoring of the systems. Therefore, depending upon the mutual agreement with the user department, the DCO can offer end to end monitoring of the infrastructure and provide alerts / information as per the escalation mechanism mutually agreed. At present, EMS licenses for the IT Infrastructure provisioned for the SDC scheme have been considered. Further, in case the User Department needs to get the services of EMS monitoring the SIA can provision the same based on its requirements, under intimation to the Composite Team for support. viii. Disaster Recovery: It has been identified that NIC shall facilitate the DR Site for data replication and recovery for the SDC. 4 National Data Centres (NDC) shall cater to the DR requirements of 8 SDCs. Initial storage and server requirements expected by the SDCs for the same have been provisioned as part of an SDC Enhancement initiative of DeitY. ix. Directory Services: Directory servers available in SDC can be available on shared basis for departmental needs. It shall include Domain management, Group management, User management, Implementation of policies and standards etc.

the author is Secretary to Chief Minister and Department of Information Technology, Government of Madhya Pradesh

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

53

in person

Suman Bose

Managing Director – India, Siemens Industry Software (India) Pvt Ltd, Industry Sector

Driving

efficiency through automation

T

ell us about your plans for the Indian market.

What is the next milestone for Siemens as far as the Indian operations are concerned?

There is of course a very large play of Siemens in India.

The company has been in India for over 100 years. We at Siemens India, think of ourselves as an Indian company with German roots, rather than as a multinational operating out of India. We are divided into four sectors – we have software, we have healthcare, there is infrastructure and cities, and we have energy. Each one of these divisions has multiple different divisions for focussing onto some niche areas of business. Overall, Siemens has a very large operation in India. We have a large technology centre in Bangalore where we are doing some cutting edge R&D. In fact, most of the groups within Siemens have their own R&D centres. Siemens also operates a software development centre in Poona. In fact, Siemens has come a long way from having product development in India to products being developed in India. The overall view of Siemens in India is very bullish, despite the global recession that we are witnessing. The story for India remains robust.

“We at Siemens India, think of ourselves as an Indian company with German roots, rather than as a multinational operating out of India,” Suman Bose, Managing Director – India, Siemens Industry Software (India) Pvt Ltd, Industry Sector

54

egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

What are the areas where Siemens is primarily focussed on for investing for better growth in India?

We are investing in many different areas. But one area where we think there is going to be large amount of growth

in person

is the field of automation. The automation solutions that we are offering are fully geared to take out massive inefficiencies from the system, which has to happen in every manual process.

It also brings larger economic opportunities.

For instance, we have seen village chaupals to become efficient. Similarly through automation you can identify and remove myriad inefficiencies, leading to a better managed organisation.

There is increased amount of transparency, and lowering of costs. This by itself triggers a new set of economic factors and provides impetus to a new kind of growth. We believe that system automation is one of the biggest economic opportunities in India. Another sector where we are focussed on is education. Today India has a very large young population. Unfortunately a large chunk of this young population is unemployable. Even if they have the education, they lack the skills. We believe that development of solutions that lead to actual skill development is a great opportunity for Siemens and we are taking lot of initiatives in this sector.

What would be the most profitable sector for Siemens in India?

For Siemens profits get calculated over a period of a lifecycle. We are not the kind of company, which sells a product today and then packs its bags and leaves. We prefer to develop relationships with our customers that can last ten years and beyond. There are customers who have been with us for more than twenty five years.

The longer the lifecycle of a particular product or solution, the longer we can stay associated with the customer. That is how we look at profitability. For instance, there are the aerospace solutions, most of which would have lifecycle of 25 to 30 years. Defence solutions also have similarly long lifecycles. We have huge presence globally in this space. There are also the automotive programs, which too have really large lifecycles. Then there are areas like shipbuilding, energy, etc.

Any new areas where you are planning to enter?

There is lot of action happening in areas like pharmaceuticals, healthcare, retail, apparel.

These are also the areas where people have started adopting Siemens solutions globally. So we believe that in India also we have huge potential to expand into these areas. As the country becomes richer, there is going to be tremendous growth in pharmaceuticals, healthcare, retail

advantage automation Siemens PLM Software, a

Open: A open-by-design

Flexible: The innovation

business unit of the Siemens

architecture protects PLM

platform is extremely flexible,

Industry Automation

investments while facilitating

enabling organisations to

Division, is a leading global

interoperability with other

deal with ongoing change

provider of product lifecycle

best-of-breed systems.

and increasingly complex

management (PLM) software

Scalable: The highly scalable

product lifecycles.

and services with nearly six

and robust technology

Proven: The solutions have

million licensed seats and

enables organisations to

been proven time and again

56,000 customers worldwide.

seamlessly expand their

in the real-world marketplace.

Four unique advantages of

implementations from 1,000

The average tenure of the top

Siemens PLM Software are

to 10,000 to 50,000 seats.

100 customers is 18 years.

as follows:

and apparel based on domestic consumption.

We are also keen to provide solutions to the government. If there is a road being laid, then we have the solutions to provide better programme management. There are many areas of governance, where Siemens solutions can lead to more efficiency and transparency.

Tell us about the core areas in which your division, Siemens PLM is providing solutions globally and in India.

Siemens PLM Software currently provides out-of-the-box industry-specific solutions

vate entities to innovate more, innovate faster and optimise their operational resources.

Can you tell us about the defence related solutions that Siemens is providing globally and in India?

Globally Siemens has a huge presence in defence sector. Siemens PLM Software tailors its industry-leading product lifecycle management (PLM) capabilities to deliver a full range of IDE (integrated digital environment) capabilities that support the entire defence acquisition management framework. These capabilities enable defence services and agencies to achieve

“through automation you can

remove inefficiencies, leading to better managed organisation� for a wide variety of industries, including aerospace and defence; automotive and transportation; consumer products; government, education and services; high tech and electronics; machinery and industrial products; life sciences; energy and utilities. These solutions typically leverage a robust PLM innovation platform capable of addressing multiple aspects of the product lifecycle. Siemens PLM Software offers the broadest scalable portfolio of software solutions on the market today for both large enterprises and mid-market companies. By providing a digital environment for collaboration across different organisations, these solutions help the government and pri-

all kinds of mission critical objectives. Siemens IDEs facilitate systems engineering by enabling programme teams to understand the defence acquisition management framework from a holistic perspective. The end result is optimised programme that balances multiple mission considerations, including systems cost, performance, manufacturability, safety, disposability, standards based compliance, usability, maintainability and total quality. There is a lot that Siemens IDEs can do, including improving of supply chain performance by managing inventory requirements derived from configuration changes and establishing feedback loops between suppliers and service teams.

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

55

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viewpoint

Netizen 2.0……

Emergence of Aggressive Young Online Community

M

y second son insisted to open his account in a private bank arguing that the website of the bank is very user-friendly, easy to navigate and the bank collects the chaques from home.

Niece of my friend always uses Facebook to interact with her friends in Bengali language using English scripts. One of my young friends jokingly boasted other day that he is trying for a Guinness Record by doing all financial transactions consistently for last one year without using any currency note! Any sensitive news item put in social media, whether on sports, politics, social issue or Bollywood, evokes hundreds of comment within hours. All these trivial examples indicate the emergence of a new social fabric among the younger generation of our society which Mr Nandan Nilekani termed as the new demographic order looming large over the country and insisted that India is going to reap very high dividends in coming decades from this scenario.

What is this young India like? Two unprecedented revolutions, Internet and mobile, are shaping a generation which may be termed as AM (After Mobile) whereas the previous generation is BM (Before Mobile). Members of this AM generation have no or minimum time for the second screen (Television, the first screen being Cinema), enjoy films in the third screen (computer screen) and communicate with each other in video mode through the fourth screen (mobile screen). They are very comfortable with various gadgets but seldom go through the operating manuals of those gadgets. They want to utilize their time by blogging, sending e-mails, surfing net for information, easily chatting with hundreds of international friends whom they may not meet in their life time. The

Ashis Sanyal, Consulting Editor, egov

films in their computer hard disk are downloaded illegally through torrent, mobile ring tones are latest hit numbers getting changed every fortnight, their purchases are mostly effected by through PayPal, eBay, Amazon, Flipkart, Bagittoday, HomeShop18, their personal photos are shared in Flickr and Picasa, travel and personal videos are uploaded in YouTube, they chat only through the Chatbox, they talk to close friends through Skype, they exchange mobile instant messages to avoid high mobile bill and they sell their perceived (!) unnecessary items through OLX, Quikr and so on.

We are currently observing such paradigm shift in the social behavior of the younger generation in the country. Most of these impatient citizens have taken Internet and mobile as granted, for they belong to that time when service providers are awfully busy to create newer value added services riding on 2G and 3G technology for this segment of society, while 4G technology knocking at the door, mobile Internet usage is increasing slowly but in a definitive

way and communication bandwidth cost is also coming down steadily. The users of Facebook, created by Zuckerberg, when he was also 20+, had grown, since inception year of 2004 to 2008 at 100 Mn and exploded to 900 Mn+ in May 2012, with 50% of them using it on mobile devices. Since 2003, when Tim O’Reilly firmed up Web 2.0, Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, Orkut, Wikipedia, Blogs, Wikis, Napster etc. followed without which it now appears that the younger generation would not survive a single day!

Relation between the members of Netizen 2.0 group and government is rather interesting.

They prefer to interact with government only online, for paying taxes, utility bills, submitting returns, booking tickets, grievance redressal, everything. They believe Government can do everything better by introducing ‘government online’ but they seriously doubt government’s intention to do so. For any little or no provocation they create soft and hard pressure on government by effectively using new media, through social networking, online campaign, online voting, sms campaign and what not.

Some forward-looking departments also responded by opening Facebook account to accommodate vox populi, Delhi Police, MEA, DeitY, NHAI, PSUs and so on, Delhi Police being the super hit one !

Power of the Voice and Web Communication Network was perhaps first demonstrated in this country more than a decade back when Lord Ganesh started sipping milk in some temple here and within few hours the act was repeated in thousands of places around the globe! Lots of water has since flown through Ganga, Yamuna, and Brahmaputra. Now we are multiplying an aggressive, low attention span but high reflex, boredom-prone but wide interest span AM generation, who perhaps do not know what they want but, for sure, they want it today, if not Yesterday!

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

57

Business Continuity Planning

Ensuring Business

Continuity in Government “Continuity planning is a government organisation’s need to ensure that essential functions can continue during and after a disaster. This includes the prevention of mission critical service interruptions, and the ability to re-establish full functionality as quickly as possible,” says Ashish Dhawan, Country Director, India and South Asia, Juniper Networks

T

he concept of business continuity is based on the identification of all business functions within an organisation, and the assignment of a level of importance to each business function. Business continuity planning ensures that all personnel in an organisation understand which business functions are the most important to the business.

However, business continuity is not something implemented at the time of a disaster; it requires planning and should include all activities that need to be performed daily to maintain service, consistency, and recoverability.

It’s about Proactively Being Prepared A key component for helping government agencies plan for potential emergencies is taking continuity planning seriously and adopting a proactive approach. Once disaster strikes, an organisation’s ability to respond quickly and effectively may be critical in protecting its staff, citizens, and reputation. While many businesses have business continuity plans to deal with disruptions, in today’s world it is imperative that these plans be expanded for local, regional, or global situations.

The following stages outline a simple yet comprehensive approach for building a continuity plan.

• Steering Committee—Continuity planning begins with the establishment of a

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steering committee, whose members are responsible for identifying the key functions and activities that will have the highest priority, both during and after a disaster.

• Planning Stage—The planning component of a continuity plan involves the evaluation, selection, and installation of (1) an emergency communications system that can handle the needs of remote “emergency” workers, and (2) an alternate facility for critical servers and systems. This component also includes setting up a plan for protection and availability of vital records during any disaster.

• Execution Stage—The next part of a continuity plan is formation of an execution team that will test the emergency communications systems and the cutover from a primary to an alternate facility.

• Ongoing Testing, Training, and Review—Following all of these steps, it is important to have ongoing testing, training, and review of the continuity plan to insure that the plan works, all personnel stay trained in proper procedures, and the plan keeps up with new directives and technology advances.

Business Continuity Challenges Planning for a disruption to business services from typical network outages and server crashes is a full-time job by itself. When preparing contingency plans for a major disaster or emergency, the planning effort is magnified

tenfold, and network managers are presented with unique challenges.

1. Maintaining Productivity by Enabling Access to Applications and Information from Anywhere at Any Time and on Any Device. Pandemics, like the H1N1 virus, can impact a business by requiring a company to limit social interaction between employees, partners, and customers to isolate further spread of the virus. This makes a compelling case for the wider adoption of remote access, as employees are quarantined or required to work from home for an extended period of time.

2. Sustaining Partnerships with Real-Time Access to Applications and Services While Knowing that Your Resources Are Secured and Protected. VPNs effectively addressed the requirements for cost-effective, fixed, site-to-site network connectivity; however, they were, in many ways, still too expensive for mobile users, while for business partners or customers, they were extremely difficult to deploy. It is in this environment that SSL VPNs were introduced, providing remote/ mobile users, business partners, and customers an easy, secure way of accessing corporate resources through the Internet without the need to pre-install a client.

3. Continuing to Deliver Exceptional Service to Customers and Partners with Online Collaboration. If a pandemic disaster forces social distance between people, multiple

Business Continuity Planning

means of conferencing will be required to help facilitate collaboration.

4. Balancing Risk and Scalability with Cost and Ease of Deployment. Network managers of government agencies and departments are constantly balancing between ease of deployment and high levels of security with their remote access solutions.

Secure Remote Access – What are the Issues?

IPsec solutions have resulted in end user frustration from only being able to access resources from a device with client software, and the high deployment and support costs associated with maintaining that software. The security concern has proven particularly vexing given the increasing sophistication and frequency of cyber attacks against information systems. These issues have contributed to a status quo regarding remote access in the government that is now beginning to change in earnest. Many of the government agencies that have already implemented clientbased IPsec VPN technology for teleworkers are experiencing a multitude of problems with their current solution: • Inflexible Access—Client-based IPsec VPN cannot reliably extend access to a variety of remote workers such as teleworkers, mobile employees, contractors and vendors/partners.

• Incomplete Security—Client-based IPsec VPN cannot provide a widespread and secure environment to a variety of endpoint devices, both managed (i.e., corporate smartphone) and unmanaged (i.e., home PC).

• High Cost—Client-based IPsec VPNs cannot provide this connectivity with costeffective installation, setup, maintenance, and support costs.

SSL VPN The term SSL VPN is used to refer to a new and fast-growing product category comprising a variety of technologies. Working backwards, the term “VPN” or virtual private network is the practice of using a public network like the Internet to transmit private data. Prior to 2001, most VPNs were based on some type of network layer transport such as IP Security (IPsec), or other methods like Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) and Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP).

SSL VPNs use a different methodology to transport private data across the public Internet. Rather than forcing the end user to install and configure a

field office

Internet Kiosk

internet

internet

Mobile Users

HQ remote office

Business Partners

Telecommuters IPsec VPN Site to Site Connectivity

SSL VPN Remote User Connectivity

Remote Access and SSL VPN

complicated client on his or her system, SSL VPN uses SSL/HTTPS—available without additional software deployment on all standard Web browsers—as a secure transport mechanism. Rather than using the older IPsec network layer “tunnel” technology, SSL VPN connections happen via a Web connection at the application layer.

SSL VPN technology continues to advance with enhancements that allow a variety of access types for client/server applications and network layer connections that are still enabled via SSL. Another feature in SSL VPNs is the provisioning of additional endpoint security, where dynamic endpoint security checks can be done before a session is actually initiated as a means of ensuring that each endpoint is in compliance with corporate security policies.

Remote Access and SSL VPN Part of the remote access problem across government agencies in general is the fact that many users and network managers are struggling to decide which technology should be deployed where.

Where do IPsec VPNs and the newer SSL VPNs fit into network policies, and which problems can each technology best address? This question can be answered by looking at the usage scenarios themselves. The fact is that IPsec and SSL are not mutually exclusive technologies. They can—and in fact, often are—deployed in the same enterprise.

On the left side of Figure 1, we see a typical IPsec VPN, where administrators who need to achieve site-to-site connectivity for field and remote offices will be well served by IPsec VPN offerings.

On the right side of Figure 1, we see a typical SSL VPN. Here, administrators who need to allow teleworkers, mobile employees, contractors, offshore employees, business partners, or customers access to certain corporate resources will be well served by SSL VPNs. SSL VPNs are designed to address the needs of diverse audiences that need secure access to

administrator-specified corporate resources from any location. SSL VPNs also allow administrators to change both the access methods and resources allowed as user circumstances change.

SSL VPNs can also be configured to check endpoint security compliance to either provision resources accordingly or to provide the end user with the means to remediate.

Survivable Remote Field Offices Remote field offices are particularly susceptible to natural disasters and acts of terrorism. These sites typically have terrestrial fibre or copper WAN access connectivity. When redundant WAN access is provided to the remote field, this backup access is typically provided over terrestrial copper or fibre access as well. Frequently, the primary and backup WAN cabling travel a common path and enter the building at the same point of entry. This configuration makes both the primary and backup access susceptible to a common threat. Given that wireless communications do not follow a common path into remote field offices the way terrestrial WANs do, wireless can offer a very viable option to traditional WAN backup connectivity.

In conclusion, government businesses can be prepared for emergency situations by taking a proactive approach to their business continuity planning. A comprehensive plan can provide a range of scenarios ahead of time, with clear processes and responsibilities defined in detail. A critical component of the overall business continuity plan is a secure remote access plan to ensure that remote or isolated workers can continue their work during and after a disaster strikes.

the author is Country Director, India and South Asia at Juniper Networks

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

59

Digital Economy Policies

An Initiative of Centre for Digital Economy Policy

Encouraging IT Manufacturing in India Dr Jaijit Bhattacharya, President, Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research; Director, South Asia, Hewlett Packard

T

he current market for IT hardware and electronics in India is USD 36 billion per annum. This is expected to grow to USD 400 billion by 2020. As of now there is insignificant value add domestically for the IT hardware and electronics sold in India.

As one of the policy measures to mitigate the above issue, Ministry of Communication and information Technology, Government of India has therefore recently come out with Preferential Market Access (PMA) notification. The Preferential Market Access policy provides for at least 30% of government IT market for domestically manufactured equipment as long as the equipment matches L1 (i.e. the least price bid for the tender) and Q1 (i.e. the best quality offered by any other entity for the tender).

As per the PMA, products will be considered as domestically manufactured if they have at least 25 percent local value add. To implement PMA, the government has to construct detailed guideline and processes by which one can track the percentage of local value add for each kind of equipment. For example, if the equipment is a computer, then the government would need to validate how many components of the computer are domestically manufactured. In addition the government would need to define what constitutes a domestically manufactured component.

For example, if the hard disk is imported into India and locally only casing is added to the hard disk, would this be considered to be a domestically manufactured component?

Clearly, such processes would be cumbersome for the manufacturer to comply with and cumbersome for the government to monitor. Therefore the proposed rules will lead to significantly increased compliance costs and significantly

60 egov / www.egovonline.net / August 2012

increased interference by lower levels of the government machinery as it would provide them with discretionary powers. The above process would also divert the attention of the manufacturer from manufacturing better product at lower cost to focusing on accounting procedures to prove larger domestic value add.

The above regime would also lead to extremely complex processes to be adopted for allocating general expenses and common expenses such as sales and marketing, accounting, guest house expenses, ERP costs etc to each SKU manufactured. Such allocations will also get challenged by procuring agencies, leading to higher costs of litigation. The industry will get retarded as the industry will loathe moving to newer products since, for each new product, the entire process of demonstrating percentage of local content will have to be done from scratch. Even currently, government procurement, especially through DGS&D, inhibits newer products from being introduced as the rate contracts are for a year and does not factor in obsolescence and introduction of better products at same or lower prices. This is inimical to an industry where products get obsolete within three months.

Moreover radically new products will have radically different architectures which will make it even more difficult for the innovators to prove the levels of domestic production to the government procuring agencies. The PMA policy also needs to be strengthened to ensure that it is able to accommodate radical innovations. The monitoring of PMA becomes more complex when one has to factor in and value domestic innovation and IPR as there is no watertight market based price discovery mechanism.

MSME’s are the backbone of innovation.

MSME’s already face significant challenges for manufacturing which is compounded by manufacturing inspections and compliances which hold them back from innovation. It would be extremely challenging for MSME’s to face addi-

tional burden of having to prove domestic value add for their innovative products.

Therefore, to promote innovation in domestic manufacturing the Government of India should consider updating its procurement processes to ensure that government can procure innovative products and thus promote innovation in domestic manufacturing. In addition, the government should consider funding ICT manufacturing research and development, adopt pro-manufacturing tax rates and labour laws, and establish ICT manufacturing educational programs, and otherwise incentivize investment in the ICT manufacturing sector on a non-discriminatory basis. The government may also consider adopting labour laws that are specific to IT and electronic manufacturing industry to ensure an uninterrupted manufacturing environment.

Specifically for the Greenfield and Brownfield clusters proposed to be developed under the Triad of IT policies should have all clearances and approvals a priori so that potential manufacturers need not face the hassle of running from pillar to post to get clearances. In addition, these clusters should be declared as “Inspector-raj-free” zones.

It is indeed a challenge to rapidly increase domestic content in electronic goods. Domestic Content can be increased in a phased manner with the development of component industry. A combination of good infrastructure, favourable tax regime, appropriate labour laws, conducive policies, capital at globally competitive costs, availability of skilled manpower and a proactive implementation of the manufacturing policy roadmap would go a long way in speeding up domestic manufacturing of IT hardware and electronics.

the author is President, Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research; Director, South Asia, Hewlett Packard

Leader Speak

“There Are

Huge Business

Opportunities In India” “The Indian government should concentrate on framing policies that will make the market truly competitive,” says Gary Roberts, Executive Vice President, EMEA, Pitney Bowes Software

P

itney Bowes is the world’s leading provider of integrated mail and document management systems, services and solutions. The company has an annual turnover of above US $5.6 billion, and it has 36,000 employees who deliver services and solutions to over 2 million customers worldwide. The company is world leader in the supply of postage meters (or franking machines), electronic postage scales, folding and inserting systems, mail openers, high-end computer output mailing systems, package tracking systems and customer communication management software.

Why India?

The Indian market has reached a stage where competition poses a better way, as compared to regulation, for fostering growth in the economy.

The Indian government should concentrate on framing policies that will make the market truly competitive. The regulations should be focused on defining the general rules for maintaining order in the market economy and ensuring a healthy respect for the social factors and for the environment. The Indian market represents a huge opportunity for global companies like Pitney Bowes.

Our Product and Services Pitney Bowes Software Solutions bring accuracy, personalisation and integrity to each mail piece and ensure that the right information or material is delivered to the right person at

the right time. Location intelligence software from Pitney Bowes layers demographic and economic information over addresses to help organisations make better decisions while reaching out to customers.

MapInfo Professional is a powerful Microsoft Windows based mapping and geographic analysis application. Geocoding accurately determines location by linking longitude and latitude coordinates with street address data. Designed to easily visualise the relationships between data and geography, MapInfo Professional helps business analysts, planners, GIS professionals and even non-GIS users to gain new insights into their markets, through the sharing of information-rich maps and graphs.

Investment growth in India is related to the growth of the economy. India has one of the fastest growing retail markets in the world. The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a powerful tool and is gathering momentum in the mining industry. Of particular interest is the GIS capability to integrate communications across departments and mining sites. GIS technology must constantly evolve to meet the changing needs of the mining industry.

Our GIS solutions are also effective in thwarting the spread of Malaria. The distribution of Mosquitoes is largely dependent upon the spatial distribution of their larval breeding sites, their flight range and the spatial distribution of their preferred hosts. These are all heterogeneous in space and time. GIS may be used to map and analyse the spatial distribution of mosquitoes and to assess the ecological factors that contribute to observed distributions.

Pitney Bowes in Education Pitney Bowes is committed to investing in the communities in which the company operates.

We believe such investment is most effective when it is aligned with the organisation’s corporate mission of helping customers grow through access to better solutions for communication. We have a rather philanthropic focus on literacy and education.

Through the Pitney Bowes Foundation and corporate contributions, we provide grants and matching gifts to worthy causes. At least 70 percent of the funding supports local literacy and education programmes, with the remainder becoming available to support other priority community needs. Local Community Leadership Teams driven by Pitney Bowes employee volunteers do the philanthropic work. Each team receives a budget, which they allocate in support of local community organisations.

Our Instructor-led online courses provide all the benefits of face-to-face classroom training combined with the convenience of learning from your desktop. Instructor-led online courses emphasise practical applications of the products through the use of hands-on experience. Our classes are held in an interactive environment. It facilitates learning at your location so that there is zero cost of travel.

the author is Executive Vice President, EMEA, Pitney Bowes Software

August 2012 / www.egovonline.net / egov

61

Index of People and Organisations

www.facebook.com/egovonline www.twitter.com/egovonline

Featured in this issue...

Index of People A • Anil Srivastava, Chairman & Managing Director, Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd; & Joint Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation.............................................18 • Anuj Dayal,Chief Public Relations Officer, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd.........................................30 • Arvind Mehrotra, President, Asia- Pacific, NIIT Technologies Ltd..............................................................11 • Ashish Dhawan, Country Director,India and South Asia, Juniper Networks......................................58

D • Divyakant Gupta, MD, IDCUBE Identification Systems Pvt Ltd................................................................21 • Dr Ashish Verma, Assistant Professor (Dept.of Civil Engg.) and Associate Faculty (CiSTUP)..........43 • Dr Jaijit Bhattacharya, President, Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research; Director, South Asia, Hewlett Packard...............................................................60 • Dr Mahesh Chandra, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre........................................24 • Dr Mukesh Aghi, CEO, Steria (India) Ltd.............36 • Dr C.P. Joshi, Hon’ble Union Minister, Road Transport & Highways...................................................25

Finance, RITES Ltd.........................................................46 • Rajeev Nair, MD, Stallion Systems & Solutions Pvt Ltd, & President AIDC..................................................21 • Rajeev Saxena, Vice President & Business Head, Cloud Computing Business, India, Asia Pacific & Middle East Regions, NIIT Technologies Ltd..........35 • Ravi Mathur, CEO, GS1 India..................................22

S • S S Mathur, GM - Corporate Coordination, CRIS (Centre for Railway Information Systems)...............40 • Sanjay Bandopadhyaya, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways,Government of India... 28 • Satyendra Garg, Joint Commissioner, Delhi Traffic Police..................................................................................44 • Suman Bose, Managing Director – India, Siemens Industry Software (India) Pvt Ltd, Industry Sector.54

V • Vikas Aggarwal, Director - Management Consulting, KPMG.........................................................49

Index of Organisations B

• Gary Roberts, Executive Vice President,EMEA, Pitney Bowes Software...................................................61

• Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF)...... 10 • BRICCKS.................................................................... 27 • Brihanmumbai Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST).................................................... 33

H

C

• Hari Ranjan Rao, Secretary to Chief Minister and Department of Information Technology, Government of Madhya Pradesh................................50

• Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology University (CEPT)................................. 29 • Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS ).40 • Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation, and Urban Planning (CiSTUP)... 43 • CERT-IN..................................................................... 53 • CISCO............................................................................2

G

M • M Chandrashekar,CEO, Infronics Systems Ltd...21 • Merlin Lucas, Head - Chipcard & Security Division, Infineon Technologies India Pvt Ltd........48

D N • Nandkishor Desai, Group Head - Business Development & Strategy, Trimax IT Infrastructure & Services Ltd.......................................................................32

P • Phanindra Sama, CEO, redBus.................................42 • Praveen Sood, Additional Director General of Police, Police Computers Wing, and Commissioner for Traffic & Road Safety, Karnataka..........................38 • Prof Shivanand Swamy, Professor and Associate Director, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology University (CEPT), Ahmedabad..........29

R • Rajeev Mehrotra, Managing Director and Director

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egov / www.egovonline.new / August 2012

• Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd........................ 30 • Delhi Traffic Police.................................................... 44 • Department of Information Technology, Government of Madhya Pradesh.............................. 50 • Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). 19

E • Epson ..............................................................................7

I • IDCUBE Identification Systems Pvt Ltd.............. 21 • Infineon Technologies India Pvt Ltd..................... 48 • Infronics Systems Ltd............................................... 21

J • Juniper Networks...................................................... 64

K • KPMG.......................................................................... 49

M • Maharashtra State Road Transportation Corporation (MSRTC)................................................ 33 • Ministry of Civil Aviation....................................... 18 • Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Government of India................................................... 28 • MP State Electronics Development Corporation.... 50

N • National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).......................................... 10 • National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB)............. 26 • National Informatics Centre................................... 24 • Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport (NMMT)... 33 • NIIT Technologies Ltd............................................. 11

P • Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd................................... 18 • Pitney Bowes Software............................................. 61

R • Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation(RSRTC).................................................. 33 • RBI................................................................................ 49 • redBus.......................................................................... 42 • RITES Ltd.................................................................... 46

S • Siemens Industry Software (India) Pvt Ltd, Industry Sector.............................................................. 54 • Stallion Systems & Solutions Pvt Ltd.................... 21 • State Crime Record Bureau (SCRB)...................... 26 • Steria (India) Ltd........................................................ 36

T • Trend Micro...................................................................9 • Trimax IT Infrastructure & Services Ltd.............. 32

U • UIDAI.......................................................................... 53

G • GS1 India.................................................................... 22

H • Hewlett Packard......................................................... 60 • HID.............................................................................. 23

W • World Bank Group.................................................... 10

Z • Zebra Technologies................................................... 17

8th

RNI NO. - UPENG/2008/25234

UP/GBD - 71/2012-2014

Þ Inbound Response Management Priya Sharma v:1800 209 3062 f:022 66765553

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