Egov august 2013

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

august 2013 | VOLUME 09 n ISSUE 08 n ISSN 0973-161X egov.eletsonline.com

Ponnala Lakshmaiah Minister for Information Technology & Communications Government of Andhra Pradesh

Dr Killi Kruparani

N Kiran Kumar Reddy Hon’ble Chief Minister, Andhra Pradesh

J Satyanarayana Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India

P K Mohanty Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh

Sanjay Jaju Secretary, Information Technology & Communications Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh

Dr P V Ramesh Principal Secretary, Finance (R&E), Government of Andhra Pradesh

Mrutyunjay Sahoo Principal Secretary, Energy, Government of Andhra Pradesh

J Raymond Peter Principal Secretary, Social Welfare Government of Andhra Pradesh

P H Kurian Principal Secretary (IT) Government of Kerala

K P Sasidharan Director General (WR) Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India

Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & IT Government of India

e-Governance

Racing Towards Smarter Governance

Celebrating our

th 100 issue

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august 2013

Contents issue 8 second n  volume 09 grid grid name

10 in person

Dr Killi KrupaRani Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology Government of India

14 in person

Ponnala Lakshmaiah

Minister for Information Technology & Communications Government of Andhra Pradesh

16 in person

J Satyanarayana Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India

18 in person

PK Mohanty

Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh

54 in person

Venkat Patnaik

Head - Government Business, NIIT Technologies Ltd

30 in person

Mrutyunjay Sahoo

64

Principal Secretary, Energy Government of Andhra Pradesh

in person

Susanta Majumdar

Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics Department, Government of West Bengal

32 in person

Dr A Vidya Sagar

66

Principal Secretary Tribal Welfare, Government of Andhra Pradesh

in person

Nick Hawkins

Director, Technology Consulting Group at Polycom

34 in person

J Raymond Peter

70

Principal Secretary, Social Welfare, Government of Andhra Pradesh

in person

P H Kurian

Principal Secretary (IT) Government of Kerala

36 in person

R Damodhdar Secretary, Legal Affairs, Government of Andhra Pradesh

44 social inclusion Pucca Houses for all

22

40

in person

in person

Sanjay Jaju

Secretary, Information Technology & Communications Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh

24 in person

Dr P V Ramesh

Principal Secretary, Finance (R&E) Government of Andhra Pradesh

Jayesh Ranjan Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Ltd

46 social inclusion Harnessing ICT for Good Governance

47 nielit: special feature

48 in person

NIELIT opens a new campus in Bihar

Dr Govind

Senior Director, DeitY, and CEO, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI)

52 MSTC: special feature

MSTC ltd

28

50

in person

in person

Auditing Cyber Security

Executive Director, Corporation Bank

Emerging Cyber Threats and Security Issues

S K Joshi

Principal Secretary, Municipal Administration and Urban Development, Government of Andhra Pradesh

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2013

Bibhas Kumar Srivastav

72

The 100th Milestone

I

t all began in 2005 as a mission to bridge the communication gap between the various stakeholders involved with ICT initiatives in governance. These included the government, private sector, civil society and academia. Interestingly, it was also the time when India was largely being perceived by the international community as the land of ‘pilots’ for e-Governance projects. There was an undeniable need to create a platform where these ‘pilots’ could converge to discuss the challenges,scope and best practices with their counterparts and other stakeholders. And hence began the journey for the eGov magazine.

This issue of eGov magazine is the hundredth issue. When the magazine began its journey 99 months ago, e-Governance was in a nascent stage. Today e-Governance has turned into a major revolution. We, at eGov magazine, consider ourselves to be blessed because we got the chance to cover almost every aspect of the developments in e-Governance in our country. This issue of eGov is also a celebration of the 100th month of the magazine’s existence. We have done an extensive coverage of the stakeholders who are engaged in developing new ideas for using ICT for bringing efficiency, accountability and transparency to various citizen and business related initiatives of the government.

We would also like to inform our readers that the 100th issue of eGov will be launched by the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh at the prestigious eINDIA 2013 Summit, being organised on 23-24 July, 2013, at the Hyderabad International convention Centre, Hyderabad, in the presence of many key officials from the Centre and States who are playing a stellar role in implementation of e-Governance initiatives in the Country. If you are there at the eINDIA 2013 summit, then you might already have received your copy of eGov. We look forward to seeing you at eINDIA 2013. After all, it is very essential that all sections of society participate in the discussions on the ways by which the scope of e-Governance can be further improved in the country. While we have scored lot of successes in this area, there exists room for lot of new initiatives to be launched.

We look forward to having you in eINDIA 2013, where you can participate in the vibrant round of discussions with the stakeholders who are engaged in devising new ideas for development of the country. ravi guptA Ravi.Gupta@elets.in

Jan-Feb 2005

March 2005: First issue of e-Gov magazine being released by Dayanidhi Maran, (Then) Minister of IT, Government of India; and Naveen Patnaik, CM of Odisha

May 2009

June 2009: M P Narayanan, President CSDMS; R Chandrashekhar, (Then) Secretary IT, Government of India, launching 50th issue of e-Gov Magazine August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

5

august 2013 issue 8 n volume 09

Partner publications President: Dr M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief: Dr Ravi Gupta Group Editor: Anoop Verma (editorial@elets.in)

Editorial Team governance Assistant Editor: Rachita Jha Research Assistant: Sunil Kumar Correspondent: Nayana Singh education Senior Correspondent: Pragya Gupta, Mohd. Ujaley Correspondent: Rozelle Laha Health Sr. Correspondent: Sharmila Das Sales & Marketing Team North Manager – Marketing: Ragini Shrivastav (+91-8860651650) Sr. Executive Officer – Business Development: Gaurav Srivastava

Consulting Editor: Ashis Sanyal WEB DEVELOPMENT & IT INFRASTRUCTURE Team Lead - Web Development: Ishvinder Singh Executive-IT Infrastructure: Zuber Ahmed Information Management Team Executive – Information Management: Khabirul Islam Finance & Operations Team General Manager – Finance: Ajit Kumar Legal Officer: Ramesh Prasad Verma Sr. Manager – Events: Vicky Kalra Manager – HR: Sangeeta Biswas Associate Manager – Accounts: Anubhav Rana Executive Officer – Accounts: Subhash Chandra Dimri

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Knowledge Exchange

KOVALAM The Leela, Kovalam, Kerala

Design Team Shipra Rathoria: Assistant Art Director Team Lead - Graphic Design: Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Sr. Graphic Designer: Om Prakash Thakur Sr. Web Designer: Shyam Kishore September 2013, Patna, Bihar

Editorial & Marketing Correspondence egov – Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd Stellar IT Park, Office No: 7A/7B, 5th Floor, Annexe Tower, C-25, Sector 62, Noida, Uttar Pradesh - 201309, Phone: +91-120-4812600, Fax: +91-120-4812660, Email: info@egovonline.net egov is published by Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd in technical collaboration with Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS).

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Financial Inclusion & Payment Systems 23-25 October 2013, Eros Hilton, New Delhi

Owner, Publisher, Printer: Ravi Gupta, Printed at Vinayak Print Media, D-320, Sector-10, Noida, U.P. and published from 710 Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50 Noida, UP Editor: Ravi Gupta © All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic and mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage or retrieval system, without publisher’s permission.

November 2013 Chandigarh, Haryana

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7

M e s sag e

Andhra Pradesh is in the forefront in use of Information Technology for improving governance in India. Application of IT in major citizen welfare programmes like Aarogyasri and NREGS has enabled total transparency and accountability in their implementation.

Our unique G2C and G2B service delivery platform “Mee Seva”,is serving as a one stop solution for delivering services anywhere, any time. Mee Seva currently offers 153 citizen centric services through more than 6800 CSCs spread across the state. Mee Seva currently offers services pertaining to 11 departments i.e. Revenue, Registration, Municipalities, Power Distribution, Civil Supplies, Police, UIDAI, Transport, Education, Industries & Commerce and IT&C Departments. Additional 154 services pertaining to 10 departments are being developed and would be offered through Mee Seva in the next 4-5 months. Mee Seva has already completed more than 2 crore transactions since inception.

It gives me immense pleasure to share that the Government of Andhra Pradesh is the partner state for the ninth edition of eINDIA 2013, India’s premier ICT event which is being jointly organised by Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd along with other partners at Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad, India, between 23rd– 24th July, 2013.

I welcome all the delegates, thought leaders and change agents participating in the event. I look forward to their participation in what promises to be an immensely enriching event.

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / November 2012

egov magazine

100 Issue of eGov th

For eGov magazine it has been 100 issues of uninterrupted publishing, month after month, and the spirit remains invincible. With these 100 issues, while the magazine has managed to influence an overwhelming community of national and international experts on e-Governance and it has contributed its mite in building a significant knowledge base on the myriad issues of e-Governance. In this special 100th issue of the magazine, we have done an extensive coverage of the stakeholders who are engaged in developing new ideas for using ICT for bringing efficiency, accountability and transparency to various citizen and business related initiatives of the government.

“It is encouraging that eGov is coming out with its 100th issue. The magazine fills a critical gap in the knowledge decimation area of e-Governance.

Its content serves the purpose of motivating administrators and project managers regarding various projects and their implementation in J Satyanarayana the country. Ideally this task should Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information have been done by DeitY in terms of Technology (DeitY), Ministry of showcasing the success story so that Communications & Information Technology Government of India people feel encouraged to do better work in the area of e-Governance. I would like to compliment the editorial team of eGov for coming out with a magazine that is a vehicle of such positive change�

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

9

In Person

Dr Killi Kruparani

Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & IT Government of India

Empowering

the nation with IT

T

oday India has scored many successes in the field of IT, but there is scope for many more developments. Tell us about your vision for IT industry in the Country?

IT industry has been contributing significantly to India’s growth and helped to put India on world’s technology map.

Today revenues in this sector are over USD 70 billion and are expected to cross 100 billion mark soon. Over the past few years, IT industry’s contribution to GDP has grown to over seven percent and it is also now a major sector on employment supporting nearly three million people directly and nine million people indirectly. I believe that over the next decade, Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) will become the technologies that will determine the overall growth path of any country as they are pervasive and can be leveraged in any sector. Therefore, the vision of our government is to ensure that at least one person in each household is literate so that the issue of digital divide may be addressed effectively, people in even the most rural and remotest part of the country have access to these technologies and that we use these technologies for preserving our culture and heritage. All these are also reflected in Ministry’s one year agenda.

Please provide us with an overview of the steps that Ministry of Communications and Information Technology is taking to promote e-Governance in the country?

As you are aware, DeitY is the secretariat for the government’s flagship initiative on e-Governance - National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). We are also responsible for creation of the critical digital service delivery infrastructure consisting of State Wide Area Network (SWAN), State Data Centre (SDC), State portal and Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) and Common Services Centre (CSC). Along with the hard infrastructure, we are also responsible for soft infrastructure including Capac-

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2013

ity Building, Awareness and Communication and Impact Assessment. In order to promote e-Governance in the country, we are taking several initiatives that encompass all of the above. For example, we have initiated a Rapid Replication Project under which we identify successful projects and applications that can be quickly replicated in multiple states. Such an approach not only enables faster implementation but also prevents re-inventing the wheel thereby saving precious time and resources. We are also tracking the no. of e-Transactions across the country to understand the uptake of these services.

In order to improve the uptake, we must aim at demand generation. Today we are running a CSC focused, van based outreach activity which is attempting to not only strengthen existing linkages between CSCs, service seekers and local government institutions, but is also helping generate demand for e-services as it demonstrates how use of technology enable faster, more efficient, cost effective and transparent delivery of public and private services.

In your view what are the most notable achievements of the ministry when it comes to e-Governance?

I am happy to say that DeitY (Department of Electronics and Information Technology) has been playing the role of an effective catalyst in the e-Governance domain. As part of its primary responsibility, it has ensured that the digital service delivery infrastructure that I mentioned earlier is more or less in place. Equally important is DeitY’s contribution in Technical support by formulation of key Frameworks and Guidelines. Notable amongst these are the Interoperability Framework, Mobile Governance Framework, e-Authentication Framework, Framework for Citizen Engagement and Framework and Guidelines for Use of Social Media by Government Agencies. We have also designed toolkits, including the toolkit for designing RFP. The Integrated Framework document for e-District is another example of DeitY’s attempt in cross pollinating and promoting mutual learning.

“I am happy to say that DeitY (Department of Electronics and Information Technology) has been playing the role of an effective catalyst in the e-Governance domain,” says Dr Killi Kruparani

In Person

Dr Killi Kruparani August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

11

In Person

many government agencies including the Prime Minister’s Office, Planning Commission, Ministry of External Affairs and others making use of such platforms.

What are the ways by which modern IT can be used to awaken a sense of national pride amongst India’s youth? Are any significant steps being taken by the Ministry in this direction?

India since ancient times has been a beacon for civilisations across the world whether it – be in literature, mathematics, sciences or arts. In recent times, ICTs have put India back on the World Knowledge Map. In coming years, creation, use, protection and preservation of knowl-

People who are digitally literate are able to access e-Governance initiatives; the poor sections of the society and those living in the rural areas are unable to take maximum benefits out of e-Governance. What steps are being taken to ensure that all sections of society are able to benefit?

In my mind, challenges associated with effective use of ICT are multifaceted. First hurdle is of course literacy. In our country while we have made significant progress towards enhancing literacy - Indian Population Census 2011 reveals that literacy rate of India has increased from 65 percent to 74 percent. However, female literacy is around 65 percent and literacy in rural areas at about 68 percent it continues to lag behind urban areas. When we couple the problem of literacy with language i.e. 22 official languages with the de-facto currency of ICTs i.e. English, the problem becomes even more complex given the fact that less than 10 percent population of our country speaks English. Next hurdle is digital literacy i.e. ability to use computers and final challenge to my min d is information literacy which is ability to source, categorise and use information. My ministry has taken several steps to address these issues. Foremost, making one person e-Literate in every household is on the very top of our agenda.

Second, acknowledging the fact that most our population does not speak English we are actively creating and promoting the Indian Language Software. Bharat Open Source Software BOSS is an excellent example of this and it is available Free of Cost for anyone wanting to use it. Finally, recognising that people can be transformed over-

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2013

In today’s world social platforms provide a very open

and vocal medium of

government-citizen interface night into digitally savvy individuals, I believe that CSCs will continue to play a very important role in providing assisted access to all types of information and services in rural areas.

These days we are seeing huge surge in the popularity of social networks like Facebook and others. Do you think that such networks can also be used by government departments for promoting social reforms?

edge would determine the growth on countries.

We have so much to showcase and I believe that documenting our folk, cultural, architectural and scientific heritage would further energize our youth. My Ministry is working towards digitisation of Indian Folklore and we believe that this will be a significant step in this direction.

At present the economy is going through a slowdown phase. What step is the government taking to revive the India economy, and especially the IT sector?

Today technologies are evolving at a rapid rate and people across the world are adopting & adapting You may have seen that even when the world these technologies. I believe that it is essential was hit by recession, Indian companies were to that Governments too must keep pace and find an extent protected by the impact of the recesways and means of connecting with their constituencies using whatever means at their disposal. In today’s world social networking platforms provide a very open and vocal medium of government-citizen interface.

In order to promote interactive dialogues between the two, DeitY has evolved enabling Framework and Guidelines for use of social media by government agencies. I am happy to see STPI Seminar at Visakhapatnam

In Person

sion because of the growth in domestic IT sector.

I believe that in the coming years, the Indian domestic market will emerge as an important destination not only for our own companies but also for other multinationals. Another important aspect is our renewed focus on Manufacturing and Electronics sector which may prove to be the second sunrise industry for our country.

The vision of our

In your opinion what kind of experience and sensibilities as an administrator, must a Minister in a country as diverse as India should bring to his job?

dividemaybeaddressedeffectively

government is to ensure that

at least one person in each household is literate so

that the issue of digital

India is a culturally, linguistically and geographically diverse country. In my view, any administrator should be sensitive to this diversity. We are also a very populous country and serving such large number of people is a complex issue.

We cannot apply one size fits all approach to any issue. In addition, while on one hand even today India lives in its villages, on the other the pace of urbanisations is increasing exponentially. Both these scenarios throw up very different types of challenges which need to be addressed. Finally, India is a young country and the aspirations of its youth, their issues and their future needs must be effectively addressed.

After taking over charge of Union Minister of State, what have you done for your State, especially for your constituency, through your Ministry?

On becoming a Minister, I first realized that I had got an opportunity to do something for the betterment of my people, who have reposed faith on me by electing me to Parliament. My Ministry consists of three departments – Postal, Telecom and Electronics & IT. I put in a lot of efforts in bringing a number of projects to Andhra Pradesh including my Parliamentary Constituency, Srikakulam. I would like to mention a few of them – (i) setting up of Automated Mail Processing Centre (AMPC) at Hyderabad for speedy delivery, dispatch & sorting of mails, (ii) launch of Mobile Money Order service in Andhra Pradesh for transferring money instantly from one location to another using mobile network of BSNL; (iii) a pilot project for computerisation/modernisation of all post offices in Srikakulam; (iv) release of postage stamps on Arswali and Srikurmam temples to put Srikakulam on international tourism map; (v) starting of all women post office in

Visit to NIELIT Project in Srinagar

Visakhapatnam focusing on women empowerment; (vi) installation of additional mobile towers in Srikakulam for ensuring that no habitation in the district will be without mobile signal; (vii) starting of a pilot project under National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) at Paravada block of Visakhapatnam for ensuring broadband coverage; (viii) launching of ‘Sanchar Shakti Scheme’ for Mobile VAS and ICT related livelihood skills for Women Self Help Groups; (ix) setting up of National Institute of Electronics and I.T. (NIELIT) Centre in Srikakulam to impart training to the youth and underprivileged category of people in the field of I.T.; (x) starting of Rajiv Gandhi ICT Project for 220 schools in Srikakulam District through ERNET to enhance the capabilities of students by using technologies and applications like e-Learning; (xi) connectivity to 28 higher learning institutions in Andhra Pradesh under National Knowledge Network Project, wherein these institutions will get a bandwidth of one Gbps broadband connectivity at free of cost; (xii) setting up of Electronic Manufacturing Clusters in four places of Andhra Pradesh i.e. one each

in Srikakulam and Visakhapatnam and two in Ranga Reddy district, which will generate lot of direct & indirect employment; (xiii) setting up of IT Investment Region in Hyderabad to attract more investments in IT & ITeS sectors, to generate more employment and to increase the IT exports from the State; (xiv) conduction of National e-Governance Seminar at Srikakulam to spread awareness on e-governance; (xv) one day Workshop for all IT companies at Visakhapatnam to disseminate information like Income Tax exemption for IT exports, SEZs, MAT, Service Tax etc. and to update them about the latest developments in the IT/ITeS sectors. I have taken the initiative for opening of a Rural BPO at Amadalavasa in Srikakulam District, which would create employment to the youth and pivot others to start BPOs in the district.

With the implementation of these projects, I am sure the common people will benefit in a large way. Besides the projects of my Ministry, I am also striving hard to bring in the projects of other Ministries. I am very happy that I am able to contribute for my people and my State in a little way.

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

13

In Person

Ponnala Lakshmaiah

Minister for Information Technology & Communications Government of Andhra Pradesh

GOVERNMENT

IS ONLY A FACILITATOR

A “The government is only a facilitator.

We can create good infrastructure and better business environment across the state, but ultimately it is for the companies to decide where they want to set up their units,” says Ponnala Lakshmaiah. In conversation with Mohd Ujaley

14

ndhra Pradesh has emerged as the leading IT hub of India. Where do you position the state compared to other states?

Andhra Pradesh is not only the IT hub; rather it is also the state which has taken a lot of initiatives directed towards enriching the life of citizens. Our IT Policy and Industrial Development Policy are aimed at social inclusion and inclusive growth for citizens as well as industries. We are the country’s second highest power producer (except for the last year) and our industrial power consumption is also ranked as the second highest, only next to Maharashtra in the country. Our per capita power consumption is almost 28 percent above national average that explains our position in the country.

We are comparatively doing better than other states. In the last nine years, the per capita income has increased three times and also our food production has seen significant growth. As far as Information Technology is concerned, we are at the forefront of various IT & ICT initiatives in the country. Our IT industry crossed the mark of `50,000 crore turnovers last year. Due to the slowdown in international market, there has been a decline in growth nationally, however, we have been able to hold on and are still doing better compared to any other state in the country.

You have ICT Policy 2010-15 to pursue the promotion of IT and IT Industry to all regions of the state, but we don’t see large project or big giants entering Tier-II or Tier-III cities.

Infrastructure development takes time. For example, five years ago Visakhapatnam was not as vibrant as it is today.

The government is only a facilitator, we can create good infrastructure and conducive environment across the state, but it is the companies which need to decide where they want to set up their units. However, I agree, it is our responsibility to pro-

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2013

mote our initiatives across all stakeholders. In our ICT Policy, we have announced to set up incubation centres for SMEs to start their business in Visakhapatnam, Kakinada and Warangal. Now we are planning similar centre in Tirupati and shortly we will come up with one in Karimnagar. The boys from these areas are able to come to Hyderabad for work, but young girls are unable to do so for various reasons. I feel that there is a huge potential, talent and manpower in Tier-II and Tier-III cities. It is only a matter of time that companies will realise the economic viability of these areas.

Last year you got in principle approval of the IT Investment Region (ITIR). How has been the progress on that front?

Very recently, I was in Delhi as some minor issue had come up related to power sector in relation to ITIR. The clarification has been made. I think, very shortly the Cabinet will approve it. ITIR has gone through due process of clearance from 17 ministries, planning commission, secretary committee and now the Cabinet has to approve it. It is a very big project and Andhra Pradesh is the first state to come up with it.

Major projects such as SEZ have not yielded their expected results. Are you worried that ITIR may have similar fate?

Not at all, ITIR is a little different from SEZ. It faced problem due to the slowdown in international market as it is export oriented. Also the Government of India is rethinking on incentives and ways to re-energise SEZs. As a matter of fact, Andhra Pradesh has the largest number of SEZs in the country and we have done relatively better compared to other states.

Mee Seva has come a long way. Now it is being adopted by e-District MMMP projects. Please share some of the challenges of this project?

The challenge is to add more services so that citizens can

In Person

access large number of services on one platform. One of the important elements of Mee Seva is that it provides employment to the youth and semi-skilled people. The more services you add and more kiosks you open, the more employment these will generate. By the end of the year, we would like to see a rise in the number of services, from the present 153 to 300 services. We are also working on Direct Cash Transfer and banking facility in rural areas through Mee Seva. Apart from Governemnt to Citizen (G2C) services, we are also focusing on Government to Business (G2B) services. There are various challenges at micro level, such as identifying the service and then bringing it into our framework and continue evaluating the performance of services under Mee Seva.

Please tell us about some of the major initiatives that you are working on.

Ponnala Lakshmaiah

In the last two years, we have taken few major initiatives and now they are being expanded.

Hyderabad is a major centre for film production and we have a large number of animation, gaming and Visual Effects (VFX) companies. Initially they were not noticed, so we decided to encourage them and came up with a gaming, animation, media and entertainment park with an investment of `240 crore. Most likely we shall lay the foundation next month.

Another initiative is our Hardware Policy. We have proposed hardware cluster in the country.

We plan to start with 1,000 acres of land with three hardware parks. The Government of India will assist in setting up infrastructure for the cluster with financial support of almost `500 crore.

We are also working on getting connectivity to rural areas. We have a massive plan of connecting 25,000 villages via fiber optic broadband connectivity. We have completed the pilot project in Parvada of Visakhapatnam.

Moreover, we are spreading out 4G services to 82 towns and most of the areas in the state will be covered within a year. Already, work has started in Hyderabad, Warangal, Karimnagar, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam.

This is expected to reduce the cost of data transfer and hence can be very easily available to people in rural areas. Once 4G services are available it will lead to improvement in e-Governance.

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

J Satyanarayana

Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India

Transforming India through e-Governance J Satyanarayana

P

lease share with us your thoughts on the achievements in terms of new initiatives and policies which the DeitY has undertaken during the last one year.

The main priority of the department is to ensure that the e-Governance projects get completed in time and start delivering good results for the public. Major initiatives have been taken in two major areas, one is e-Governance and the second is development of electronic manufacturing in the country. Now we have started giving more emphasis to the electronics side, because this is a new sector and it needs a lot of planning and policy level thinking. As a result we have been able to put in the place the New Electronics Policy of 2012, which came into being in October 2012.

We have undertaken large number of initiatives and schemes under the new electronic policy. EMC scheme for the clusters or MSIPS (Modified special incentive) Schemes and the first few results are already flowing.

Please tell us more about the MSIPS scheme.

“Major initiatives have been taken in two major areas, one is e-Governance and the second is development of electronic manufacturing in the country,� says J Satyanarayana

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MSIPS Scheme applications require a total investment of about of `5000 crore. Out of which `961 crore has already been sanctioned.

We are also undertaking a marketing and brand building activity in order to make investors aware of the opportunity that is available in the sector. We have notified 15 products in the electronic sector for compulsory registration for compliance with the standards

In Person

EMC and Safety standards. You see one of the important objectives of the New Electronics Policy of 2012 is to achieve a turnover of about USD 400 Billion by 2020 involving investment of about USD 100 Billion and employment to around 28 million by 2020. This includes achieving a turnover of USD 55 Billion of chip design and embedded software industry, USD 80 Billion of exports in the sector. Moreover, the policy also proposes setting up of over 200 Electronic Manufacturing Clusters.

Another important objective of the policy is to significantly upscale high-end human resource creation to 2500 PhDs annually by 2020 in the sector. We have number of networks, data centers, applications, website etc and our intention is to ensure that all these facilities result in benefit to the citizen.

You have launched a project called e-Taal. What are its benefits? e-Taal is a web portal for dissemination of e-Transactions statistics of National and State level e-Governance Projects, including Mission Mode Projects. It receives transaction statistics from web based applications periodically on near real time basis. e-Taal presents quick analysis of transaction counts in tabular and graphical form to give quick view of transactions done by various e-Governance projects.

The good thing is that now we are about to touch a benefit rate of up to 5.48 to 5.49 percent, as we have placed infrastructural development and enhanced capacity network on top priority. So we are requesting all the ministries and state government to look at the role of NeGP for this perspective and many e-Governance projects.

The e-District project holds lot of promises for the people living in small towns and villages.

What kind of progress is being made under this project? e-District is our flagship project. Last year we launched this project in almost 102 districts in the country. We are also going to add 200 more districts in the near future. We anticipate that once e-District gets stabilised and optimised, the number of citizens getting e-Governance services will be enhanced significantly. We are also trying to create enabling environment to achieve rapid rate of success.

It is a good thing that e-Governance is now turning into m-Governance as majority of the country now has access to mobile devices. What kind of advances are you making in the area of m-Governance?

Recently we have launched e-Gov app store.

Through these apps many essential services have been lined. We plan to add 100 more applications to the app store. We are also analysing futuristic and latest technology like cloud computing which could be started in various government departments. We have launched mobile service gateway in Phase-I where almost 15 crore transactions have already occurred. In order to make e-Governance more inclusive, we have launched Push SMS Transactions, which can be handled from any phone.

There is lot need to be done in some of the states to enhance the IT base. We are committed to develop a robust IT infrastructure throughout the country. We are focusing on various mechanisms like to strengthen the NIC, capacity building and training, provide window opportunity to recruit certain capabilities which are not available in government.

Government of India has also set up an expert committee under Sam Pitroda; the committee has recommended various steps to ensure that mission mode projects actually run in that mode. Also it laid stress on time bound completion of milestones and accountability in implementing all such projects. We are in a process to adopt all such recommendations in various governance projects to enhance our service delivery system. We are hoping to gain more impactful results. We should also be able to assess the impact which this project is

“Once e-District gets stabilised and optimised, the number of citizens getting e-Governance services will be enhanced significantly�

Recently various government departments have adopted cloud computing solutions. Please tell us your views on adopting cloud computing?

creating in various geographical divisions in the country. We are planning to initiate next generation infrastructures with the mission of creating demand in infrastructure.

We are trying to explore cloud computing. We have come with a policy paper on cloud computing in government departments. We have already sanctioned `99 crore for the implementation of the first phase of the policy paper on cloud computing. National Data Centre (Delhi) would be responsible for implementing cloud computing, which will be operational by September 2013. There are lots of opportunities for the utilisation of infrastructure.

What are the objectives that the government is focusing on to implement these projects in near future?

Tell us about some of the key initiatives which Government of India is taking to enhance ICT in the country?

There is also a need to put more thrust on state level Mission Mode Projects (MMP). The progress must be encouraging in this regard.

We are hopeful that various MMPs in health and education would be soon implemented.

There are certain areas which we are thinking to add certain maturities in social justice and development. We are thinking of adding more socially inclusive kind of services in the area of e-Governance. Aadhaar is one of the key parameter. We are also advising government and various departments to link Aadhaar into the NPR. There is a need to have deeper integration of Aadhaar into older and newer projects.

As Aadhaar gets further enhanced with NPR, it will help to create scope for even more services to be provided to the citizens.

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

P K Mohanty

Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh

e-Governance

is Good Governance

W

hat have been key achievements of Andhra Pradesh in implementation of e-Governance?

Andhra Pradesh has been in the forefront of implementation of e-Governance projects in the country. A large number of our initiatives have been replicated not only in India, but also in foreign countries. For example through Mee Seva, we are ensuring efficient, hassle-free, transparent and accountable delivery of government to citizen (G2C) services. Mee Seva has been adopted as a national model of good governance for delivering G2C services. The e-District MMP has been accordingly redesigned. Similarly, other initiatives of Andhra Pradesh, such as Webland (Land Records Management Information System), e-PASS (e-Payment and Application System of Scholarships), Online Recruitment Processing System (ORPS), Comprehensive Financial Management Systems (CFMS), e-Hostel, Rajiv Yuva Kiranalu skills training tracking system, CFST (Citizen Friendly Services of Transport Department), e-Procurement, e-Suvidha (Complete Application for Municipalities), e-Return (Commercial Tax), IPoM (Integrated Poverty Monitoring System designed in the context of tracking the national flagship programme: Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission for Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India), AGRISNET, Online Soil Health Card Generation System, CARD (Computer Aided Administration of Registration Department), Aarogyasri, SRDH ( State Resident Data Hub), e-Cops, AP State Portal, Forest Fire Risk Zonation Mapping, and Jawahar Knowledge Centers have made outstanding contribution towards good governance. Some

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of these initiatives have received national awards.

Our e-Procurement project was listed in the “Top 20 Programs: IBM Innovations in Transforming Government” Awards in the world by the Ash Institute of Harvard University.

We are also implementing AP State Wide Area Network (AP SWAN) which is connecting State Network Centre (SNC) at Secretariat to 23 District Network Centres (DNCs) at respective District Collectorates with eight Mbps Bandwidth and 1,088 Mandal Network Centres (MNCs) are connected to the respective District Headquarters with two Mbps bandwidth each.

This allows us to bring speed, efficiency, reliability and accountability in our functions. AP has also been ranked as leader in e-readiness assessment as per the India e-Readiness Assessment Report. So far we have taken a distinct lead in e-governance initiatives in the country and we are going to continue with it.

Direct Benefit Transfer is a key e-Governance policy of Central Government. How do you see this scheme? What is the status of DBT in Andhra Pradesh?

Direct Benefit Transfer is well-thought out and visionary scheme. The aim of the scheme is to transfer the subsidies directly to the beneficiary account, hence it will bring transparency and will terminate pilferage in distribution apart from eliminating cumbersome bureaucratic procedures. I believe, if we are able to overcome the challenge of 100 percent Aadhaar enrolment and then their linkage to the bank accounts of beneficiaries, DBT can be a game changer and a powerful tool for good governance.

In Andhra Pradesh, we are providing more than 20 key services which are going to the poor people, but at the Government level we don’t have a clear picture for any single village about as to what benefits have gone there. This is because our departments act independently, often in silos.

So the convergence at individual, household and

village levels is critically required. We need a key which connects all these key services going to an individual/household. I believe Aadhaar is the key; once there is convergence/linkage between Aadhaar number, bank account number and service, we can easily identify the real beneficiary of service and plan for outreach accordingly. We want to apply this to every government function or service being delivered. The Chief Minister has been very particular for improving governance through the use of technology. So we are trying to connect all our programmes such as public distribution through ration card, old age pension, widow pension, child care through Anganwadi Centre, health care delivery, education enrolment, girl child protection, employment, skills training, interest-free loan to self-help groups/farmers etc. through Aadhaar number.

As far as Andhra Pradesh is concerned, the state has taken a lead both in Aadhaar enrolment and rollout of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

Out of thirty-four crore Indians who have enrolled for Aadhaar, 7.5 crore, that is around 22 percent, are from Andhra Pradesh. Out of 40 districts which were brought under DBT in first phase, 5 are from Andhra Pradesh. Our aim is to have maximum Aadhaar enrolment and then linking it to various welfare schemes as well as subsidies such as scholarship, pension, LPG subsidy, etc. DBT does have challenges but I feel, our state is fully geared with committed leadership and bureaucracy. Once DBT is fully rolled out, its significant benefits will usher in to be visible.

The Department of Information and Communication Technology, GoAP has a project called Mee Seva to provide faster, easier and transparent mechanism for delivering of various G2C services. How do you look at such initiatives?

Mee Seva is an outstanding initiative. In less than two year of the project, it has shown tre-

In Person

“Andhra Pradesh has been in the forefront of implementation of various e-governance projects and the State believes that e-Governance is a powerful tool to achieve the goal of Good Governance�, says P K Mohanty, Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh. In conversation with Mohd Ujaley

P K Mohanty

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

19

In Person

mendous potential to bring the public service closer to citizen. Although, various departments had already been serving people electronically, an integrated system where large number of government services can be provided from one platform has not only improved the governance, but also eliminated the middlemen. MeeSeva has brought transparency to the public service delivery system. It is helping both citizen and government; for citizens access to various government services is more convenient now as it is available at one place, the people will not have to run around departments to get their work done.

For departments, MeeSeva has increased efficiency level of employees and has allowed them to focus on core-competence.

As far as bringing more services and departments are concerned, that is already taking place.

It was started with 12 services in 2011 and now it provides more than 153 services with more than 2.2 crore transactions cumulatively pertaining to 15 departments and by October 2013, we are planning to offer 331 services covering 28 departments. However, it will be naïve to say that we are not facing any challenges; there are multifold challenges of bringing the department on the board, building the capacity of operators and staffer associated with Mee Seva and also ensuring that SLA is adhere to.

You won the Prime Minister’s Award for best civic services in Visakhapatnam and Hyderabad and it was during your tenure from 1999 to 2001 that Hyderabad got a facelift as it emerged into a vibrant metropolis. What is your vision for the state inclusive growth?

The Prime Minister Award was on the greening and civic improvement in Visakhapatnam and Hyderabad. We did the best greening in the country as far as urban areas are concerned; so our cities were honored with Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra Awards. I was Municipal Commissioner for Visakhapatnam for two years and for Hyderabad for 3 and 1/2 years. During the period I held the post of Municipal Commissioner, Hyderabad, the city got Clean City Award at the national level for four consecutive years. I feel very happy that apart from services, city planning has improved in both Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam. The capital city Hyderabad has emerged as beautiful planned city and is poised to become perhaps the best livable urban agglomeration

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in India. Now we need to improve services, and focus on transit-oriented development, organic linkage between spatial planning, transportation planning, including outer expressway, rails, radial roads, Metro Rail, Bus Rapid Transit, etc., conservation of lakes and water bodies, development of urban forests, rocks, etc. Making Hyderabad as a world class city will be possible if we take people along with us in city planning and development by promoting good governance with partnerships between all stakeholders. And I feel electronics governance can catalyse the march towards good governance. Hyderabad has huge potential to be one of the topmost cities not only in the country, but also globally. Today it has high quality infrastructure, skilled manpower and lot of development activities are happening in an around the city. Very recently an international magazine described Hyderabad as “elegant and blossoming” and rated it third best city in the world to visit.

However, our goal has always been to achieve inclusive growth across the state and that is why we are focusing on agricultural growth, employment generation, poverty reduction, health and education, and reduction in urban-rural dispari-

Towns (UIDSSMT), Basic Service to the Urban Poor (BSUP) and Integrated Housing & Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) has been outstanding. In fact, because of the good leadership and effective use of the funds allocated well within the mission period, AP got extra allocation from the Government of India which is a very rare thing for many states. Most of the large states have lost their allocation, whereas Andhra Pradesh because of the advance planning and prompt action could take more than what was allotted to them under JNNURM initially.

Also, Andhra Pradesh designed the JNNURM tracking system e-tool to monitor the progress of JNNURM (BSUP and IHASDP) nationally.

That system was developed by the Centre for Good Governance in Hyderabad and it became a national tool. In fact, it is the only e-tool for the monitoring of JNNURM which is working successfully across the country.

Andhra Pradesh was one of the first states to leverage Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission funds for planned urban development.

As of 2012, it achieved nine out of 10 reforms required by the mission; Visakhapatnam city

“Andhra Pradesh has always been in the forefront of implementation of various e-Governance projects“ ties. Very recently, we have embarked on a rural inclusive growth project with outlay of `7585 crore - for equitable and inclusive growth in rural areas with the aim to eliminate poverty by 2017. I understand, it is a tough task and we have to work very hard on addressing the various indicators of inclusive growth.

Your work as National Mission Director, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renrewal Mission (JNNURM) has been highly appreciated. Where do you see Andhra Pradesh from the prism of JNNURM? Andhra Pradesh has been a leading state in the implementation of JNNURM. The progress of the state in all the four submissions of JNNURM, that is, Urban Infrastructure & Governance (UIG), Urban Infrastructure Developmental Scheme for Small and Medium

accomplished all eight city level reforms. As Mission Director of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), we tried to achieve the aims and objective of the mission to make distinct improvement in city-wide infrastructure and provision of housing and basic amenities to the poor. JNNURM encouraged reform-driven and fast track planned development of identified cities with focus on efficiency in urban infrastructure and service delivery mechanisms, community participation and accountability of agencies involved.

So far JNNURM has fair share of success and challenges in the implementation of various reforms. Some cities have shown promising results. A good collaboration between people, local bodies and state is needed for the success of any reforms proposed in a programme such as JNNURM. Phase II of JNNURM is going to be worked out by the Government of India soon.

In Person

Sanjay Jaju

Secretary, Information Technology & Communications Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh

Mee Seva

Setting new standards for e-Governance

M

ee Seva has come a long way. Now it is being adopted by e-District MMP project. Please tell us about the key achievements in this project so far.

Before Mee Seva started, Government service delivery systems were manual and opaque. Many citizens will easily be able to recall the difficulties that they faced in accessing government offices, which would often be mired in tedious bureaucratic processes. Quite often, the service delivery took too much time. Instances of overcrowded government offices with unfriendly employees combined with chronic absenteeism, inefficiency in service delivery, long queues, resultant delays and rent seeking, were common. In addition, the focus in administration was more on following procedures and keeping records rather than catering to the needs of citizens. The vision of governance was being lost, and citizens were being treated as the subject rather than the object of development. However, under Mee Seva, things have completely changed. You don’t have to face these hassles now. You just have to go to a Mee Seva centre and request for the service which is being offered through Mee Seva and you will get it there and then without having to run around different offices.

Would you agree that it is essentially the power of IT that has led to the creation of an excellent e-Governance initiative like the Mee Seva?

Sanjay Jaju says, “Mee Seva is self-sustainable and easily replicable. It is now being used as a model of e-Governance in many states”

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Yes that is the case. Earlier the power of IT was primarily under-utilised and most of the departments had ineffective interfaces for service delivery to the citizens. Government employees too were not satisfied as the system induced drudgery. Lack of occupational motivation was affecting overall productivity in every department. With Mee Seva, the efficiency levels of departments have also increased as IT deployment has drastically reduced their avoidable workload and also led to the abandonment of unproductive practices and business process reengineering. You can also measure the achievement of Mee Seva in terms of the wider digital inclusion of the entire population of Andhra Pradesh towards development and growth. With 70,000 transactions every day rising up to 1,00,000 transactions per day in few months, annual savings to the citizens are whopping $ 600 million which the hapless citizens paid for travel, loss of livelihood, brokerage etc. So far, we have been

In Person

able to achieve some of our goals with Mee Seva; however, there is a lot that still needs to be done, in terms of bringing more services under Mee Seva.

We need to keep innovating for developing even better systems for serving our citizen.

Today Mee Seva is being hailed as a great success story in e-Governance. But when Mee Seva got started what was the key motivation?

Mitigation of the travails of the common man in obtaining G2C services was the principal motivating factor for the development of this project. This was led at the top by the Chief Minister who provided the political and administrative support and laid out the vision for the project. The Information Technology and Communications Department played the seminal role in the execution of the project. The entire political leadership in the state was enlightened about the immense potential that Mee Seva would have in benefitting the common man. This vision of helping the common man served as the rallying point. Various state departments also found this to be an effective opportunity for reforming their internal processes and they too joined the bandwagon. Making administration, transparent and accountable, and leading to enhanced citizen welfare and improving the economic productivity of the state is the vision statement for this project.

In your personal experience, how have other departments in the state responded to Mee Seva?

As far as support from other departments is concerned, we have received tremendous support and encouragement. Almost every department in the Government of Andhra Pradesh and that is why from 12 services in 2011 and now we are able to provide more than 150 services pertaining to 15 departments. By October 2013, we are planning to offer 331 services covering 28 departments.

How sustainable is this project when you compare it with some of e-Seva projects of other states?

Mee Seva is self-sustainable project. Basically this project is based on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode wherein Mee Seva Centres are maintained, operated and run by Authorised Agents (AAs) who are appointed and managed by Authorised Service Providers (ASPs). We launched this project with an initial seed investment of `9 Crore, however, the user fee model allows ploughing

back the revenues for maintenance, development and upgrading of services. User charges are fixed considering the profitability for various stake holders involved in the project without unduly burdening the citizen. With `2 crore transactions by now, project has already made more than `70 crores in user fees and recovered the entire initial investment allowing decent returns for all the stakeholders, which are being shared amongst them. More than 20 percent is shared with respective departments (to maintain the databases, necessary infrastructure, capacity building), 15 percent with Director, ESD (to maintain MeeSeva Infrastructure/application maintenance), 10 percent with Authorised Service Providers (Monitoring & Infrastructure) while the majority of 55 percent is shared with the MeeSeva centre which is a cutting edge interface at the local level. This has made the project self-sustainable.

has more to do with global economy. Since there is overall slow growth across major economy, it has impacted us also. However, when you look at IT industry, it is very positive today. It is true that industry is not able to recreate the magic of 25 percent growth that occurred between 2003 and 2008 but it can regain the momentum by focusing on strategic leadership and product innovation. If you look at Andhra Pradesh, we have been on the forefront of encouraging IT industry in the state, our ICT Policy 2010-15 has been created to promote IT investment in the state. We are creating state-of-the-art and affordable ICT infrastructure that provides an enabling “Walk to Work� environment for IT/ ITES units to thrive and grow. We are also heavily focusing on the Start-up companies, SME, SC/ST & Women Entrepreneurs and Tier-II & Tier-III cities.

e-Governance in our

country has moved from

computerisation of government

departments to initiatives

that are essential for good governance Earlier you have mentioned that Mee Seva is being replicated in other states. What are the factors that are enabling rapid replication of Mee Seva?

As far as replicability is concerned, we have achieved both vertical and lateral expansion in the state. Now Mee Seva has been adopted as a National model for delivering G2C services and the e-district MMP has been accordingly redesigned making it ready for replication at pan-India. The Department of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India, has already sanctioned grants to Andhra Pradesh to replicate Mee Seva in five states and convert Mee Seva into components to be placed in the National eGov app store for wider use. Therefore, the project is self-sustainable and highly replicable and both of these are happening simultaneously.

How do you look at overall IT industry, given the fact we have low rate of growth, depreciating rupee and the investor community seems bit less enthusiastic about India?

Whatever you have mentioned is true but that

It is quite evident from your work, the research project you undertook and the presentation you have given on various forums that your focus has been on citizencentric initiatives. What is your sense of various e-Governance initiatives being undertaken in the country? e-Governance in our country has moved from computerisation of government departments to initiatives that are essential for good governance such as focus on citizen centric initiatives, service orientation and transparency.

If you look at National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), it has a holistic view of e-Governance initiatives across the country, collective vision and a shared cause. Today, e-Governance is not a choice; it is a best way for wiping out the inefficiency, corruption, lack of transparency and non-responsiveness in our administration. It has the power to serve the people as per their expectation of hassle-free interaction with government. I feel, a lot of e-Governance activity is taking place in our country but now we have to focus on convergence.

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

Dr P V Ramesh

Principal Secretary, Finance (R&E) Government of Andhra Pradesh

elements of

financial management

Y

ou have served in various departments of the Government of Andhra Pradesh. You have also contributed in various international assignments. How has your experience been in the civil services so far?

I have been immensely fortunate to have joined the civil service. It has given me extraordinary opportunities and diverse assignments which have helped me to bring a degree of improvement to the lives of common people. Such as to improve systems, to build certain institutions, improve services and they certainly make a difference in the quality of lives of people. In my 28 years of journey, I have spent a substantial time outside the country, working with organisations like the United Nations. I have worked across the world. Much of my experience comes from working in very remote and tribal areas for the first 10 years with very disadvantaged people in the naxalite affected regions. Overall, I would say that I am very delighted to have joined the Indian Civil Services.

Dr P V Ramesh “Today the Finance Department has in place a comprehensive financial management system.

Now the effort is being made to integrate all the elements of this system,� says Dr P V Ramesh.

In conversation with Mohd Ujaley

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You come from a medical background and have also served as Health Secretary. Do you think that an understanding of the healthcare domain is necessary to serve people better?

Civil Services are designed to be a general service; we have to manage all types of assignments. However, if you see the type of changes taking place in the society, especially in technology, then you come to the conclusion that we are now living in

In Person

a world that is constantly evolving. There are some sectors that have become highly specialised like health, education and agriculture, etc. Technical expertise in our institutional framework is supposed to come from the specialists who take care of the department. The secretaries are mainly supposed to contribute by way of framing the policies.

However, my perspective is that the greater the domain knowledge, the better it is. The domain knowledge certainly helps. To me, my knowledge as health practitioner and also my work across the world have immensely helped me.

Your department has taken many important e-Governance initiatives. Recently you have started a project to create advanced enterprise solution for transforming the public finance systems. How do you look at comprehensive financial management system?

Today the finance department has in place a comprehensive financial management system.

Now the effort is being made to integrate all the elements of this system. We have automated the treasury management system and the budget

how much he needs to spend and so on. What we hope to achieve with all these initiatives is transparency. The information has to be in public domain so that any citizen can log in and come to know about revenue and expenditure. The citizens should be able to find out what department is spending how much money. Our expectation is to integrate all the processes and the financial management with the human resources. It has a very strong HR management component not just in terms of pay role but also in terms of performance management, service management, promotions, discipline. We are trying to find out the best ways of integrating all of these aspects.

Despite a rise of 135 percent in Andhra Pradesh’s tax revenue in 2011-12, which is more than that of Karnataka at 88 percent, Tamil Nadu at 115.3 percent and Kerala at 123 percent, the state has not been able to effectively boost growth. Why so?

I don’t agree that we have not been able to effectively boost growth. The inflated tax revenue that we got is not by over-burdening the people of the sate with higher tax rate.

There is a strong commitment from the government to make use of Aadhaar for providing better e-Governance services management system to an extent that the expenditure process and accounts generation is fully automatic. These are all bits and pieces; our first effort is to integrate all the elements of financial management. So there will be one single source of truth from budgeting to cash management, to expenditure to the account generation. The second agenda is to integrate all external stakeholders like accountant general, banks and others to bring them at one platform. The third most important thing is to have a realtime management of the state’s finances. So at any given point of time, any officer who is responsible for the management, such as the secretary, manager, director or even a field level functionary, must be able to know what is the budget, how much he has spent,

What we have done is better tax compliance, better administration, and better recovery of taxation. This reduces the leakages. The truth is that it is efficiency that has led to increase in revenue generation for the state.

Andhra Pradesh has been one of the fastest growing states. During last few years the state has grown at the rate of nine percent, which is ahead of the national average. As we know, there is a global slowdown since 2008 and there is a national slowdown since 2010. The overall national slowdown had an impact on us, because we are lot more integrated. Ours is the third biggest economy in our country.

We are the fifth biggest in terms of population. Although we have only seven percent

of India’s population, we contribute 13 percent in the country’s economy. We produce cement and iron and supply it to all parts of the country.

There is no doubt that Andhra Pradesh is performing better than the national average, but its growth rate is not in double digits. Some of the backward states in the country such as Bihar, are able to clock double digit growth? Please share your views on this.

Bihar is a good example, in these states minimal growth in the economy shows off as a big jump as they are really starting from the rock bottom. Look at the United States, their growth of one percent and India growing at 10 percent will lead to approximately the same results. As the USA is a $16 trillion economy and India is only a $2 trillion economy, our growth of 10 percent will only add $200 to our economy, whereas even if the US grows by one percent, it will add a much larger sum. Bihar’s growth must be analysed from a similar perspective. This state is starting from a very low level. The situation in Andhra Pradesh is completely different. We have a fairly large economy, so we need a much larger boost to grow at a higher pace.

The state has created a special budget for farmers. In what ways will a separate budget help the agriculture sector?

Our state is in a bigger league when it comes to integrated agriculture budget. However, I would like to say that it is much more than a budget; it is a strategy and an action plan for kickstarting the integrated agricultural format. The agriculture sector is fragmented into various sections. So the expectation is to bring land reform, land management, and micronutrient management in a single platform. That is the idea that the government is pursuing when it attempts to integrate the agricultural sector. The government has been very sharply focusing on agriculture. The investments that are being made in terms of power subsidy to agriculture is in the tune of six to seven thousand crores, we also have huge investment for irrigational projects. So there is huge emphasis is on creating agriAugust 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

transfers system is yet to be linked to Aadhaar.

But soon we will be able to incorporate Aadhaar into the payment delivery system. We will have 10 districts before the end of this year on DBT system.

How do you look at projects such as Mee Seva, which seek to bring various services of the government under one platform?

It is a phenomenal achievement to provide access to all the citizens to the services that we provide. This is a kind of ‘one-stop’ shop. There is no need to go around ten different offices to meet 100 different people, ask 1,000 different questions. You have access to all possible services under one platform. The way Mee Seva has performed since its inception is phenomenal, now they have expanded for service delivery both horizontally and vertically. I think this system has a big scope.

Andhra Pradesh Urban Infrastructure Fund has been set up, and you were one of the first to leverage Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission funds. How do you see this today?

We have set up Andhra Pradesh Urban Infrastructure Fund. Later, we were the first to leverage Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal

“We aim to integrate all the processes and financial management with effective human resources” culture infrastructure to boost and sustain agriculture, to improve the linkage between research, extension and farm management and to bring the integration from land management to marketing. On the whole I would say that there is enough emphasis being given to the agriculture sector.

Direct Benefit Transfer is one of the key e-Governance initiatives of Central Government. How do you position Andhra Pradesh in the adoption of e-Governance?

We have been on the forefront of rolling out Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) and enrolment

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of Aadhaar. Out of 34 crore Indians who have enrolled themselves for Aadhaar, 7.5 crore happen to be from Andhra Pradesh; and out of 40 districts that were brought under DBT in the first phase, five are from Andhra Pradesh. There is a strong commitment from the government as well as from officials and people to make use of Aadhaar for providing better e-Governance services. We are keenly using Aadhaar as a form of identity, and we are also using the e-linkage from Aadhaar platform to bank for transferring scholarships, pensions and LPG subsidy. This is a continuous process, but we are a step ahead because we have already started transferring funds electronically. Although the payment

Mission funds (JNNURM). JNNURM has a good start in terms of strengthening infrastructure, various citizen services. Most important of whole governance reform that has come across in terms of revenue management, streamlining the staff and having more focussed attention to citizen services. It has been a major transformation for past eight to nine years.

However, because of rapid urbanisation across the country and certainly in Andhra Pradesh, the challenges are much bigger. What is done is certainly significant but what needs to be done is more important. We have taken various initiatives to achieve the desired goals in the space of e-Governance.

In Person

S K Joshi

Principal Secretary, Municipal Administration and Urban Development, Government of Andhra Pradesh

managing irrigation with Information Technology

T

ell us about your experience of being a civil servant?

I have worked for almost 29 years in Indian Administrative Services. I must say that I have had a wonderful experience of me working for the people.

I really enjoyed working in various capacities and for different departments. There are a large number of assignments that I have handled.

Andhra Pradesh has a total irrigated area of 100 lakh acres up to 2003-04. We undertook a project in which 86 medium and large irrigation initiatives were undertaken in the state. This has resulted in the addition of around 100 lakh acres of new irrigated areas. I think I have contributed a lot by being part of such large scale projects for improving the lives of the people.

Nowadays many developed countries have started using Information Technology solutions for efficient execution of their irrigation projects. However, Indian Government is still yet to make a significant use of ICT in irrigation. Tell us about the steps that Andhra Pradesh is taking in this direction?

The fact that Information technology is a very important tool from bringing improvement in every sphere of governance is widely recognised in Andhra Pradesh. Information Technology can be very useful in various irrigation projects. We have already implemented IT in various pilot irrigation projects. I am in favour of maximising the use of Information Technology for the handling of irrigation related projects. We are working trying our best to achieve automation in the system.

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How do you see the irrigation projects in Andhra Pradesh as compared to what we have in other states of the country?

“The fact that IT is a very important tool for bringing improvement in every sphere of governance is widely recognised in Andhra Pradesh,” says S K Joshi. In conversation with Mohd Ujaley

In my opinion the state of Andhra Pradesh is doing very well when it comes to irrigation related projects. We are among the top states of the country in implementation of IT projects.

We have successfully executed several ambitious projects in time. Projects like Nagarjuna Sagar Dam have taken 30 years to get accomplished and are now regarded as great feats of engineering. Nagarjuna Sagar was the earliest in the series of large infrastructure projects initiated for the Green Revolution in India; it also is one of the earliest multi-purpose irrigation and hydro-electric projects in India. Now that we have started deploying Information Technology in the area of irrigation, there is scope for lot of further improvement.

“Mee Seva is one of the most innovative e-Governance projects in the country” What steps is the government taking to create awareness among the farmers regarding IT initiatives?

Our farmers and organisation are very well aware and are always ready to adopt new technologies. But the real challenge for us is to propagate it to each corner of the state. At present, various projects are confined to the pilot areas.

In Indian context, land and water would be the prime resources. Our initiative is to utilise water in environmentally sustainable manner.

How do you look into the initiatives like Mee Seva Projects?

Mee Seva is one the most innovative e-Governance projects in the country. Andhra Pradesh is always the front runner in the use of IT technologies for bringing more efficiency and transparency to governance. I consider it one of the best examples of how ICT can be used to bring seminal improvements in governance and bringing more benefits to the people.

In Person

Mrutyunjay Sahoo

Principal Secretary, Energy Government of Andhra Pradesh

ENERGY SECTOR NEEDS LONG TERM PLANNING “To meet energy demand of today, supply scenario must have been planned nearly eight years back and must have come to an implementation stage at least five years back, energy sector needs long-term planning,” says Mrutyunjay Sahoo

Y

ou carry a rich experience of able administrator, having served the State in various capacities in Finance, Revenue and Urban Development departments; also at national level you had worked as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Power. How different and challenging is the domain of Energy?

The challenging aspect of energy sector in the context of India is to ensure the growth momentum of the economy as we have seen

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that growth rate has picked up from early 90s.

Similarly, there has been dramatic change for all type of energy requirements and more so of power, because power is the main component of the energy sector. There has been huge upsurge in the energy requirement over a period of last two decades. Lot of thing in the society has come to a status of elite to mass items. People expect to have electricity for 24x7, which means interruption and disruption, which used to be earlier, are no longer accepted. Meeting growth requirement along with ensuring quality has become a challenge in Energy Sector. Perhaps, we are in the phase of economic development where we are moving towards the kind of dimensions seen in matured economy.

There has been some mismatch in demand and supply of energy.

When you assumed office, you said ‘strengthening the energy sector is one of your priorities’.

How successful have you been?

I must say during my tenure which is less than a year in energy department. I have not been very successful because energy sector needs long term planning, so today supply scenario must have been planned nearly eight years back and must have come to an implementation stage at least five years back. Now we are in a situation of what was planned and implemented in the past and top of that there is the challenge of uncertainty

In Person

of fuel supply – both in terms of quantity and price volatility – which is causing a huge problem in its predictability and short-term management. However, again we have to lay the foundation today, to things to happen five years down the line. Yes, we have been able to take various steps and do hope that from time to come, may be starting from next year to 2020, the state will have definitely much better time in terms of electricity availability and powerconsumptionfor all the sectors.

average tariff structure than may be it would be possible to add more quantityto the supply basket so the demand which is not otherwise made available can be met with. Also, there are pockets of availability and deficiency of the power. We need to have a robust connectivity and transmission system so that surplus power can address the challenge of regions with deficiency. The creation of national grid which plan to connect South India to the rest of the India will be helpful in better transmission.

roof-top solar units. We want individual families and institutions to come forward to set-up solar plantwhich is very much available in Germany and many other countries. To help and encourage them, we are creatingnet metering arrangement which means they can produce the power and consume the power from the grid only on the net basis and for extra consumption they will be charged. Also, we have started to focus on wind energy, some capacity has come up in last one year and more are expected.

Tell us about the ICT adoptions in energy department?

There has been huge clamp down on industrial consumption.

Please tell us about few major initiatives that you have planned for power production and availability of it to the people.

There seems to be lack of appreciation of energy due to huge subsidy given for the utilisation of power. How best it can be addressed?

The ICT adoption in the power sector is at different level, for example most of the power generator equipmentwhich uses super critical technology for power generation comes with more improved product and performance because of the ICT embedment.Other aspect of ICT is use of SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) in transmission and distribution of electricity.It has given better management control of power flow, monitoring and proper grid stability. In terms of further going down to consumer and distribution level, ICT implementationhas been very dramatic in Andhra Pradesh. We have used ICT for spot billing, now a consumer can go to nearest MeeSeva centre, pay their bills and get other details in no time.

So, at different level ICT interventions have come, but these are at incremental steps because powersector is very old sector in terms of engineering technology. We have to think about our requirements and sophistication, for example in USA and EU people are talking about smart grid but we have to evolve our business to that level of sophistication and maturity where it would be possible to use it in a productive way.

Andhra Pradesh and lot of other states are facing shortage of power, how can we optimally use the power that is available to us?

The most optimal way is a kind of mechanism by which the price of different varieties of power could be pulled together to a much larger common pool to make a huge quantity of marginal power available at higher cost to be part of the system.We do that, but there is always a scope for improvement. For example, someone is only capable of producing power at `10 plus, we are unable to make use of it because of marginal price principal to our cost structure.

If we can move over a period of time to an

There has been clump down on industrial consumption because we are in the shortage of power in Andhra Pradesh. However, over a period of last three months, particularly April onwards, we have been able to take bold initiatives in terms of removing that kind of restrictionon industrial consumption keeping in view the fact that it

That is right, any economic principle would suggest if a product and service is not priced as per its cost to recover in some way or other from the users then there is likelihood of a misuse or lack of appreciation of intriguing value of that product or service – be it kerosene oil, LPG, or electricity. For electricity supply which has to be in subsidies category there could be a justification

“Now we are moving towards an Aadhaar based system in which an individual can be identified and provided benefits” hampers industrial production, employment, and various other good things. We could think of that, when we got the confident that at very short notice we should be in the position to generate our own 500 to 1,000 additional MegaWatt using some of the costliest fuel like NAFTA, and with that kind of readiness being planned as a back-up we could do that. Also, we are seeing the precariousness of different fuel sources, be it gas or shortage of coal. We are of late thinking of further diversifying the fuel sources of our power requirement. So, we have started initiative on solar power and created threeplans. First, for allowing industry to set up their own solar power plant and use our transmission and grid system to transfer the power to their plant from the point where they generate or they could make the third party sale of that power. Second, Government itself has asked to its distribution companies (DISCOMs) to set-up1000MW of solar power plants. Third, we have created a policy to set up

of giving subsidy in terms of social support and promote welfare of poor people. There is no denial that some people need a kind of incentive for making sure that they have minimum consumption available of basicessentials like electricity. However, how to go about it, so that both the goals of welfare and supplier concerns can be addressed? In my opinion, the best way is to use ICT, for example now we are moving towards Aadhaar based system where individual can be identified and targeted. LPG subsidy is already being offered through Aadhaar system to beneficiaries bank account and slowly and steadily all subsidies, even power subsidy will be given through Aadhaar. The major benefit would be that suppliers would not think about subsidy and recipients will plan their consumption in far more rational way. I think it will change the dynamic of power demand and supply and hence optimal use of power will be taken care of in conjunction with welfare goals of the state.

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In Person

Dr A Vidya Sagar

Principal Secretary, Tribal Welfare Government of Andhra Pradesh

redefining the space of financial inclusion

T

ell us about the key achievements that your department has made when it comes to implementation of e-Governance for public benefit?

We are applying e-Governance policy in various projects like post metric scholarship programme in welfare departments. As of now, the scheme has been implemented in almost 12,000 institutions across the state, and today we are having 20,000 courses covering dozens of universities, `6000 crores per annum involving 26 lakh students. The entire system has been placed online to ensure that the people from the grassroots levels are able to understand the system and processes. Over the period of time, transparency improved tremendously.

In your opinion what are the ways by which the Direct Cash Transfer scheme of the government benefit the tribal areas?

is your opinion regarding such projects. Do you feel that it will enhance the level of financial inclusion?

It will defiantly benefit the people but the government should first create an enabling mechanism. Fortunately, Andhra Pradesh is in much better position as compared to other states. We have created online scholarship for the students in the year 2008. We have bank accounts of all the children. We are now in a process of linking Aadhaar with those bank account numbers.

It will enable students to get direct benefit through Direct Cash Transfer Scheme.

Mee Seva has changed the dynamics of financial inclusion in this country. It has led to much needed improvements in the entire system of governance. It has helped citizens to get certificates in specified time framework. I feel that projects like Mee Seva can lead to vast improvements in terms of service delivery.

Instead of each department providing services, there should be a platform like Mee Seva where all the services can be provided in an efficient and seamless way. It will help to bring down the input cost. It will also enhance the delivery mechanism. e-Governance is particularly helpful in creating a positive relationship between the citizens and the government.

There is more transparency and people are able to connect with the government in a more positive manner.

Andhra Pradesh has developed a number of e-Governance initiatives that have even been adopted by other states and even the Central Government. What

Recently Government of Andhra Pradesh announced that it will partially fund the education of ST/SC students selected to study in foreign universities. Are you focusing in grooming them besides just providing them with financial assistance?

This scheme was announced for those students who have been selected by their own efforts.

The aim is to make it easier for students from weaker sections to study abroad. We try to create remedial measures rather than resorting to grooming students. There would be a chaos in selection process if we start grooming people. We provide financial assistance to those students who are selected on their own, but lack the financial wherewithal for paying fees and meeting other expenses. We want to enable the students from weaker sections of society.

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The Gross Enrolment Ratio, especially for students from weaker sections of society, is an area of concern. What steps is the government taking to bring about an improvement in GER?

“e-Governance is particularly helpful in creating a positive relationship between the citizens and the government,� says Dr A Vidya Sagar

We are trying to improve the scope of education right from the primary level. We have 600 ashram schools and 280 residential schools in the tribal areas. The real challenge is to analyse the number of children covered among the total number of children belonging to that age group.

Today we have covered three lakh students out of six lakh. We want to have residential institutions across the state. The dropout level of students in residential schools, as compared to day schools, is very less. Our endeavour is to make residential schools accessible to each and every child in the state.

In Person

J Raymond Peter

Principal Secretary, Social Welfare Government of Andhra Pradesh

e-Governance

for Social Inclusion

A

s a civil servant, you have handled many different departments? What is your experience of using ICT for bringing efficiency and transparency?

I have always been of the opinion that use of Information Technology can lead to better governance. Today Information Technology has brought to us many tools and solutions through which an administration can reduce transaction time and brings greater accountability. e-Governance is now being earnestly implemented in the state and in rest of the country. When I was in the irrigation department, I brought in the concept of monitoring water reservoir through ICT. Our intention was to ensure that we had optimal use of water resources. We have accomplished various pilot projects successfully. During my tenure in Tourism Department, I introduced an online system to reserve resorts, and buy tickets online in order to reduce corruption. We have also started payroll computerisation, inventory management, and hospitality management. All these initiatives have brought tremendous accountability into the system.

Please also provide us with an overview of the various e-Governance initiatives that you have launched in the social welfare department?

Social Welfare department is a very important department as it is tasked with ensuring that there is financial inclusion and on a broader level social inclusion in the state. Currently, we are focussing on the implementation of our scholarship programme. Today in the state of Andhra Pradesh, we provide scholarship to almost 28 lakh students. We have tried to bring lot of accountability into the system. We can track the entire records from the year 2009 with the help of Information Technology.

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“We have made registration mandatory for colleges as we are now keen to ensure that the colleges are accountable to the education system,� says J Raymond Peter. In conversation with Mohd Ujaley

In Person

Recently the e-Pass project received a national award. Tell us about the project? e-Pass is now fully mature product. We are now planning to link Aadhaar to the e-Pass of the students so that the payments can be transferred directly into the bank account of students. We are not just focusing in the automation of system; but we also want to create an overall revolution in the entire education system. I would like to tell you that the Government of Andhra Pradesh is providing financial assistance to the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, Backward Class, Disabled, and Economically Backward Class students studying post matriculation courses on saturation approach to enable them to complete their education. Students need to have an attendance is 75 percent at the end of each quarter.

What other initiatives are you taking to ensure that the education system in the state becomes more socially inclusive?

We have now ushered in the concept of regulation of colleges. There are 34 universities in Andhra Pradesh. We have made registration mandatory for colleges as we are now keen to ensure that the colleges are accountable to the education system.

We have directed universities to completely shift their admission process into an online medium.

It will help in saving lot of time, manpower and finances of the state. We have brought financial discipline in various departments. Finance department can now check online the details of the expenses that are being made. From application to verifications to sanctions all are being handled on our online portal. We are developing completely holistic solutions to bring improvements in our education system. In order to ensure that the system is not being misused, we have

e-Pass - Electronic Payment & Application System of Scholarships Students Eligible l Students who belong to the categories of SC,ST whose annual parental income is Rs. Two Lakhs or below and BC,EBC,Disabled Welfare Students whose parental income is `One lakh or below. l Students whose attendance is 75 percent at the end of each quarter.

Students not Eligible l Students belonging to the categories other than SC, ST, BC, EBC and DW(Disabled). l SC,ST Students whose annual parental income is more than Rs. Two Lakhs and BC,EBC,Disabled Students whose parental income is more than Rupees One lakh. l All Students pursuing the part time courses, online courses. l Students admitted under Sponsored seats, Management Quota seats. l Students drawing the stipend more than the scholarship amount in aggregate per annum. l Students of BC, EBC and DW students studying the Courses offered by open universities, distant mode, category B seats in MBBS, BDS. l EBC students studying Intermediate or equivalent courses

“I have always been of the opinion that use of Information Technology can lead to better governance“ made it mandatory that only one student can have one scholarship at a time.

What is the level of acceptance of Central Government’s Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme in the state of Andhra Pradesh?

In State like Andhra Pradesh, we get less return as compared to our investment. The scheme by Central Government works in areas where 100 percent return is achieved through government schemes. There are various central schemes.

There is a need to segregate the scholarship programme for students by applying to central and state governments separately.

Minorities Welfare The primary objective of the Department of Minorities Welfare is socio economic development and educational advancement of minorities in the State.

The main functions of the Department are as follows: • Introduce schemes to promote accelerated socio economic development of minorities • Introduce educational concessions for students of minority communities • Implement schemes for development of women

and children of minority communities • Provide training and employment opportunities, thereby tackling the problem economic backwardness among minorities • Provide guidance to those in the minority communities wanting to set up entrepreneurial ventures • Introduce a comprehensive scheme for coaching students of minority communities, thereby helping them improve their performance in competitive exams

Mee Seva is one of the most popular e-Governance initiatives taken by the government of Andhra Pradesh. What is your view of the service?

Mee Seva is citizen centric service. It has brought lot of benefits to the common citizens.

Even government departments find it easier to manage their interactions with the common citizens through Mee Seva. But my concern is that there should be a valid domain for the Mee Seva. There must be a department which must verify authentically before issuing digitally signed certificates.

Tell us about some of the key initiatives taken for welfare of weaker sections in the state of Andhra Pradesh?

Andhra Pradesh is the only state in India to have come up with a unique act for STs and SCs. We met all our targets for safeguarding the interests of the weaker sections. We have introduced scholarship schemes in the minority welfare departments; we have initiated e-Hostel, and completely computerised the management of residential schools. We provide training and employment opportunities, with the aim of tackling the problem economic backwardness among minorities.

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in person

R Damodhdar

Secretary, Legal Affairs, Government of Andhra Pradesh

TRANSPARENCY BRINGS HEALTH AND WEALTH TO THE SOCIETY

P

You have worked as a Session Court Judge. Tell us about your experience.

The responsibilities of a Judge and a Secretary of Legal Affairs are totally different. As a Sessions Judge, you dispose civil and criminal cases.

However, a Secretary of Legal Affairs is statutory post where the District Judge is deputed to provide legal advice to the government departments in the state. The Law Department is an advisor to all the departments on legal issues.

Unlike other departments, we do not initiate a programme or scheme. We only advise them within the four corners of the Law, whenever asked by any government department. As far as transformation is concerned, I have enjoyed my responsibility as Session Court Judge and the assignment of Legal Secretary is equally satisfying.

Few prosecutions were withdrawn, related to crime of agitation and demand for bifurcation of the state under Section 321 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. That decision was equally appreciated and criticised by few quarters.

How do you look at it?

That type of reaction is quite natural.Basically it was a policy decision of the Government of Andhra Pradesh which was implemented. It was not a decision of a particular department.The government can implement a policy provided that they do not bypass the law.Whenever, we have been asked for an advice, we strictly follow the provision of the law.

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big corporates are engaging young law graduate from universities.

One thing I have noticed is that there is a big competition among law colleges in the country.

A large number of them are excelling and also assimilating the latest development in law. Today, the real challenge and opportunity are coming from technology. It is growing rapidly and law colleges need to catch up with the latest development.

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2013

There is huge pendency of the case in our courts. How can it be reduced?

“Technology catalyses hassle-free communication, transparency and accountability, and leads to good governance,” says R Damodhdar

How challenging is the task of Legal Affairs Secretary, especially in the light of turmoil in the state due to various issues?

The turmoil outside has nothing to do with our job. We fulfil our responsibility of giving advice to government departments within the four corners of law and there is no question of divergence form law. We are not affected by what is happening outside. We are very much focused on our job.

You are a commerce graduate and later on you did LLM. How do you see legal education in our country today?

A lot of things have changed today. The demand of legal education about 50 years back was quite different from what it is now. I feel legal education in our country has made tremendous progress, but there are few areas where we need to focus on. The scope and opportunities for law graduates have increased in modern time. Private companies and

This is a huge challenge in our country and we are adding up pendency everyday. Our law colleges should churn out good lawyers and they should sincerely focus on arbitration. In arbitration, there is tremendous opportunity given to the society, where matter can be disposed of in no time. If you are able to settle the dispute quickly and in a timely manner, it gives the confidence to the people and business community.

It also increases the confidence of corporates for investment in the country’s economy.

What is your view of the role that Information and Communication Technology can play for improving governance?

ICTs allow hassle-free communication and transparency and both lead to good governance. Transparency gives wealth and health to the society.

Hence, technology is definitely helping the society in getting rid of some of the ailments. For example, we have Mee Seva project which is technologydriven. It directly meets the consumers through kiosks and hence, the middlemen have been wiped out. Technology has helped us to focus on citizencentric service in a systematic way. MeeSeva is one of the examples. There are various other projects and schemes where technology is playing a defining role.

special feature

Cloud Computing

Disaster Recovery on Cloud Fast, Safe and Cost Effective

T

echnology across the globe is changing to offer the best tools for enterprise, government and public sector units to enhance productivity and reduce costs.

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Also, you have to pay only when the disaster strikes and the DR server is actually used.

business data in the correct state upon switch-over.

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Traditional DR models can be expensive to setup and maintain, as they require the entire physical infrastructure at the main site to be replicated at the DR site as it is, which increases the CAPEX twofold. This proposition makes the traditional DR setup an unattractive option as large pools of resources often go unused with the DR site. Client wanted a Secure & Robust DR solution which would suffice their demand for 100 percent Business Continuity & Data Integrity.

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DR on Cloud Cross platform DR offers latest data replication methodology which enables high resource Availability & Disaster Tolerance along with core functionality that supports real time data synchronisation with minimum Overheads & flexibility in resource auto- scaling.

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In Person

Jayesh Ranjan

Vice Chairman & Managing Director Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Ltd

Transforming lives through industrial development

T

“I have come across a number

ell us about your experience of working in the civil services?

of instances in which private industries have made a huge difference to the quality of life in communities. Whenever there is

In the last 20 years or so, I have been very fortunate to hold a number of important assignments, where I have made contributions to the best of my abilities. In the first 12-13 years of my career, I worked in different districts of the State and was involved with a number of very satisfying community oriented projects. I have been in Hyderabad since 2005 and have held two very exciting positions that of Vice Chairman, Hyderabad Urban Development Authority; and Secretary, Tourism. I was able to implement some very significant projects in these two tenures.

The present post of the Managing Director at Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) is no less challenging.

My focus in the last six months has been on highlighting the strengths and advantages of Andhra Pradesh for industrial development.

Across India, Special Economic Zones (SEZ) have not yielded the kind of results that they promised.

Even in Andhra Pradesh, APIIC faces challenges and has had to rope in professionals to market them. In your opinion what steps can be taken to re-energise SEZ projects?

As compared to other States, SEZs have done relatively better in Andhra Pradesh. SEZs in general have not been able to realise their potential mostly because of global recession.

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industrialisation, it leads to all- round development,� says Jayesh Ranjan. In conversation with Mohd Ujaley

Since the SEZ units are export oriented, any downfall in the global demand impacts their functioning. However, as we are coming out of the recession now, there is again good opportunity for the SEZs in Andhra Pradesh to work to their full potential. One advantage is that we have a number of product specific and sector specific SEZs. For instance, we have the largest number of IT SEZs in the entire country. The SEZ players have also

been representing to Government of India to review some of the recent changes in the policy wherein certain economic benefits of being in an SEZ have been withdrawn and it is learnt that certain announcements in this regard are likely to happen shortly. We hope that in the improved economic environment with a supporting policy framework, the SEZs will continue to do well and give a boost to the economy of the State.

In Person

APIIC is now planning to develop industrial clusters and for that you will have to acquire land.

How do you plan to overcome the challenges in land acquisition?

APIIC is in the process of completely changing the paradigm of land acquisition for the creation of industrial land bank. Of late, we have witnessed strong resistance from people to land acquisition in different parts of the country including in Andhra Pradesh. I fully agree that unless a win-win situation is created, it is unfair to take land from the people. All the land acquisitions will be preceded by a strong outreach programme in the new process that we are following now in APIIC. NGOs and other community organisations will be trained to interact with the families whose lands are proposed to be acquired. They will explain the potential benefits of the industrial projects and show to them how the returns from the land can be much more than what they are deriving right now. The outreach team will also understand the concerns of the people regarding their livelihood and other issues and the compensation package will be arrived at in such a way that it will fully meet or even exceed the livelihood concerns. Besides giving monetary compensation, land losers will also be offered other options like a developed plot, share in the industrial company, longterm annuity, etc. All these alternative compensation models have already been practices successfully in other states. We are trying out these alternatives to begin with in two cases of large land acquisitions in Chittoor and Medak Districts where National Investment & Manufacturing Zones are being set up.

You have rich experience of not only studying the issue of People’s Plight, but also working with them for their alleviation, rehabilitation and upliftment.

What is your sense of inclusion of marginalised people in the mainstream - access to banking, education, health services and even inclusion in industry development?

Industrial development has tremendous potential for transforming the livelihoods of people. I have come across a number of initiatives where private industries have made a huge difference to the communities. For

example, the company called Apache Ltd has recruited 7,500 people in their industrial unit to manufacture footwear in Nellore District and the amazing thing is that all 7,500 of them have been given permanent employment, right from day one. Similarly, Krishpantam Port has built over 5,000 houses for the people who were displaced by the Port. Their activity started only after all the houses were built and people were rehabilitated in the housing

you are aware, there is a very urgent need in APIIC to improve its credibility and marketability. This can happen if decisions are taken objectively and with transparency. We have implemented ERP in the organisation in all our wings. We have online plot application system now. Our own website (www.apiic. in) has been strengthened and we have proactively furnished lots of information to bring in greater transparency.

“Engaging with arts, culture and sports gives me an opportunity to balance demands of work with my own personal interests “ colony. Further, they provided jobs to every youth from each of the families. They have also started schools and they sponsor free education for all the children from the displaced families. Such examples show that it is possible to provide enhanced livelihoods through industrial development, provided the industrial unit has that orientation to begin with. APIIC is in the process of compiling all such good practices and guide all the large industries existing in the State to adopt similar practices.

Tell us about the ICT implementations that you are doing within APIIC for improving efficiency and transparency.

APIIC has introduced a number of very significant reforms in the last two to three years which are all based on IT platform. As

Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Ltd. (APIIC) was incorporated on 26th September, 1973 with Authorised Capital of `20.00 crores and paid up capital of `16.33 crores.

Vested with the objective of providing industrial infrastructure through the development of industrial areas, the Corporation has so far developed more than 300 industrial parks spreading over an extent of about 1,21,655 acres(including allotted area).

Your tenure as Secretary, Tourism, was highly appreciated.

One newspaper has lauded you as a civil servant with yen for fine arts. How do you look at Hyderabad in terms of art & culture?

Engaging with arts, culture and sports gives me an opportunity to balance demands of work with my own personal interests.

Hyderabad has become a very important venue for the promotion of arts, culture and sports related events. I consider it important that every person should cultivate some interest or the other that can bring more balance in his life.

You have had a very productive career? Tell us about some of the new things that you would like to do for personal and professional reasons.

I have been fortunate to study in some of the leading Universities in the world like Harvard, LSE, NUS and Birmingham, besides leading Indian institutions like IIM, Calcutta and Delhi University. I find that all these institutions apart from imparting knowledge also serve a great purpose of inspiring the students. One of my long term wish is to become a part of some such institution in which my work experiences and my academic background can be of use to others.

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

41

In Person

Hemal Patel

Founder & MD, Cyberoam Technologies Private Limited

P

evolution of Indian security market “In recent times the network

lease give the overview of Cyberoam and its operations.

Cyberoam Technologies Private Limited (earlier a division of Elitecore Technologies), is now a separate company, led by a strong management team with in-depth experience in the security domain.

Cyberoam Technologies Private Limited has 450+ employees with offices in USA, Middle East & India and its R&D and Global Support Management Centre in India. With thousands of deployments across more than 125 countries, Cyberoam secures global corporations in the manufacturing, healthcare, finance, retail, IT sectors, and more, in addition to educational institutions, public sector and large government organisations.

As a Global player in UTM space, How do you see Indian Security market in coming years?

The Indian security market has evolved better than our expectations. Due to the various security breaches / threats faced by countries as well as individual organisations, the IT fraternity is taking all measures to ensure that their business remains protected. New trends like cloud, virtualisation, BYOD and BYOA are emerging and are readily being accepted by organisations. With this the need for having apt security measures increases tremendously. Slowly but steadily the market for network security solutions is consistently growing at a double digit pace. In the next two years, Cyberoam predicts that network security solutions will occupy a default place in the company’s business / expansion plans. We expect a growth of more than 50 percent in the next two years. Sectors like government, banking, IT will see more consumption of security solutions.

How Cyberoam is evolving as a major IT player in India?

We started with Cyberoam Learning initiative and began providing professional training to

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2013

security market has experienced a lot of evolution,” says Hemal Patel, Founder & MD, Cyberoam Technologies Private Limited. In conversation with Kartik Sharma

create industry-ready network security professionals through the network of authorised training partners. This was aimed at spreading awareness and imparting skills using ‘Cyberoam’ as a platform. People who got trained under this initiative will not end up as qualified network security professionals alone.

We are collaborating with educators, universities and academic institutions to help them meet industry expectations in bridging skills gap in network security manpower. With this Cyberoam is now reaching young career aspirants and college graduates, who will emerge as another group of brand-ambassadors for Cyberoam by fulfilling industry and government needs for protecting information assets.

Recently launched Cyberoam NG series comes to answer the challenges of SME / SMBs and Enterprise Businesses who want to thrive with confidence on super-fast “giga-bit networks” and provide them with gigabit security throughputs and ports.

What are the company’s achievements and plans for the Government sector?

Cyberoam is reaching out to all government entities with more focus than ever before. A strategic alliance recently entered into with

National Informatics Centre Services Inc (NICSI), is aimed at building a stronger presence among government agencies and establishments. Cyberoam is already having a significant presence among PSUs, defense and research institutions, banks and other government owned and controlled establishments. NICSI is the centralised procurement arm of Government of India, Ministry of Communications and IT. The organisation facilitates recommended and trusted IT Products and Services for various government ICT projects. With this pact, Cyberoam shall get to address more number of state and central government requirements pertaining to network and cyber security, thereby increasing its stake and presence within government ecosystem as a trusted network security provider.

We are also tying up with partners who have strong roots in the government to enable more penetration amongst this key industry vertical.

With a separate team in place to cater to the government entities, this year we see this segment contributing more than 10 percent of the total revenue. With clients like Central Railways, BSNL, Gujarat State Petronet Limited, and many more, Cyberoam is confident that the government sector will acknowledge the kind of value our product brings with it being an Indian Brand and welcome us with open arms.

In Person

V Rajanna

President, ITsAP (IT and Industry Association of Andhra Pradesh)

Bringing IT

to tier II cities of initiatives and execute them successfully. The first initiative was to solve some of the issues faced by the industry such power crisis. ITsAP took the lead and initiated a dialogue between power supply board and government of Andhra Pradesh, thus ensured uninterrupted power supply for industry. We have always acted as a catalyst for the growth of IT industry in Andhra Pradesh and with this objective we have taken a number of initiatives. Now we are focusing on tier-II cities such as Warangal, Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Vijaywada and Tirupati so that industry can see what tier-II cities can offer.

because collaboration between industry, academia and government.

You are also on the board of APOnline and MPOnline. How has been your experience working with government of Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh?

Andhra Pradesh has been the pioneer state in the area of e-Governance. If you go to any Mee Seva counter, you can get your birth certificate within 15 minutes if the data is available in the state data centre. Earlier people used to go in the office and stand in queue and it would take three to four days

“Andhra Pradesh has been the pioneer state in the area of e-Governance” “ITsAP is focusing on tier-II cities such as Warangal, Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Vijaywada and Tirupati to develop IT industry in these areas,” says V Rajanna

I

T and Industry Association of Andhra Pradesh (ITsAP) was formed in 1991. What have been key achievements of the organisation so far?

IT and Industry Association of Andhra Pradesh (ITsAP) has strong foundation. In fact, 2012-13 was fantastic for us. We could undertake number

How do you look IT & ITES Industry today in the Andhra Pradesh in the light of slowdown in overall economy of the country?

According to me , Andhra Pradesh has done very well indeed. If you look at 2011-12, exports were `40,000 crore. This represents a growth of 16 percent which is slightly higher than the national average. The state is doing extremely well. The crucial differentiator for the state is infrastructure; for example, it takes only 20 minutes from airport to reach IT sector. We have the longest elevated highway of 11.6 kms in the country and now the metro is coming up. Andhra Pradesh accomodates a good number of talented people.. From past two years Andhra Pradesh has been producing highest number of engineering graduates.

Third reason why Andhra is doing well is

if not 15 days. You can recharge your SIM card; pay your LIC premium, book railway ticket. It is really fantastic. In India getting your birth certificate in 15 minutes is a big thing. The best example is APonline. Today, the success of APonline is being replicated in Maharastra through Mahaonline, MPonline and this is really fantastic.

What is the overall scenario of IT industry right now in the state?

The IT industry of Andhra Pradesh employs 3.2 lakhs in direct employment and another 10 lakhs in indirect employment. While some of the sectors are doing well in terms of employment in the state, you need more companies for manufacturing. The state has huge potential for auto and hardware industry. We can imagine Hyderabad as a country like Taiwan which has witnessed phenomenal progress in IT industry.

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

43

social inclusion

Pucca

Houses for all The Andhra Pradesh State Housing Corporation Ltd (APSHCL) is playing the role of a facilitator in building houses by beneficiaries belonging to Below Poverty Line. Jagadeesh Babu, Chief General Manager, APSHCL, sheds light on the latest initiatives taken by the Corporation

W

hen the Government of Andhra Pradesh took the brave decision of providing pucca houses to the eligible BPL families on saturation concept, the team of APSHCL shouldered the challenge and put forth their united efforts to achieve the targets given by the Government.

It is certainly a hard task to get the houses constructed by the beneficiaries themselves without any middle men from the process of procurement of material to completion of houses. Building a house doesn’t denote mere raising a structure with brick, sand, cement and other materials. It builds dignity for the

OBJECTIVES OF APSHCL • Formulate, promote and execute Housing Schemes for the benefit of people in general and particularly the weaker sections or persons living in rural and urban areas and to those who are affected or likely to be affected by natural calamities such as cyclones and tidal waves.

• Undertake or regulate construction of houses and create or cause to be created other infrastructural facilities for the said housing scheme.

• Take up research and development activities in the field of construction and material management and to associate and collaborate with the Government, individuals, organisations and associations in the field of building construction, land development, environmental improvement and other such

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activities as are useful healthy commodities.

• Mobilise loans from various Financial Institutions for implementation of housing programmes.

• Play the role of facilitator in the construction of houses by providing technical and financial assistance.

• Propagate Cost-Effective and Eco-Friendly Construction (CEEF) materials and technologies in the construction of houses.

• Impart training for skill upgradation through Nirmithi Kendras.

• Encourage production of alternative construction materials.

• Recover loans from beneficiaries in monthly instalments by motivation.

beneficiary by rising his social status and credit worthiness in the society.

The motivation and support extended by the staff of APSHCL created a confidence in the minds of the hopeless to construct their houses and thereby brought their dreams into reality. It is a matter of pride to announce that 1.11 crore beneficiaries were supported by the APSHCL in construction of their houses by the beneficiaries with their participation and additional financial resources. The Andhra Pradesh State Government stands as pioneer in the construction of houses for the weaker sections in the country and perhaps may be in the world.

Maintenance of transparency in implementation of the programme by disseminating the information in website housing.cgg.gov.in and making the payments through individual bank accounts of the beneficiaries are the vital factors for success of the programme. The outlook of the villages has been completely changed as huge number of pucca houses have come up in recent years by replacing the huts and kucha houses. It is not flatter to mention that during the cyclone 2009 in the districts of Mahabubnagar and Kurnool many of the people rescued themselves from the flood by climbing to the roof of the pucca houses constructed under the Weaker Sections Housing Programme.

Construction of pucca house with Individual Sanitary Latrine (ISL) has direct impact on health conditions and safety measures, especially for women and children. When a family is free from illness / diseases, their earnings and savings are improved and they lead happy lives.

Though we have satisfaction that we have done a lot for the needy, still there are more than one million SC/ST beneficiaries who are living in huts and need government support. This challenge will be addressed on priority basis during the current and ensuing years with financial support extended by the Scheduled Caste SubPlan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP).

Of late, we could succeed to get the clearance from the Government to allocate sufficient funds to provide infrastructure in the colonies to expedite the pace of construction and to ensure occupation of the houses without any delay.

With good team spirit, we have been working together for the last three decades and wish the same spirit will be continued for another 20 years and celebrate the Golden Jubilee in the year 2029.

In Person

I Gunalan

Head-SeMT, Andhra Pradesh

consultancy for

e-Governance initiatives “SeMT-AP has played a crucial role in the planning and implementation of various e-Governance initiatives across the state,” says I Gunalan, Head-SeMT, Andhra Pradesh. In conversation with Mohd Ujaley

T

ell us about the contribution that SeMT is making in Andhra Pradesh?

I believe that SeMT in Andhra Pradesh has been able to meet the expectations in terms of Programme Management of all e-Governance initiatives that it was engaged with. Some such e-Governance initiatives include State e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) Services, Capacity Building related to Mee Seva Services, State Resident Data Hub (SRDH) Implementation, Comprehensive Financial Management System (CFMS), Procurement of e-Governance related infrastructure, etc.

SeMT-AP has always endeavoured to bring in the ‘Best Practices’ from the Industry as well as that from National eGovernance Standards such as the NeGP, wherever relevant.

SeMT-AP Consultants have provided significant Programme Management support to e-Governance initiatives which involve co-ordination between multiple State Government Departments as well as Central Government Departments / Organisations such as DeitY, CDAC & UIDAI.

What major initiatives have you taken so far and how has been the response?

SSDG & SRDH are two major e-Governance initiatives where SeMT-AP Consultants were involved in almost all stages – right from RFP, Bid Management through Implementation.

Through SSDG more G2C services from

multiple departments such as Municipal Administration & Urban Development (MA &UD), Police, Transport, Education have been enabled for delivery through “Mee Seva” service delivery platform.

HODs & key officers of these Departments in collaboration with Secretary IT&C Department, have provided the necessary leadership & guidance for SSDG services to be incorporated as a part of “Mee Seva –Integrated Service Delivery” platform.

SRDH has helped Rural Development Department to better implement MNREGA, & Pension Schemes by enabling faster “Seeding” of Aadhaar Numbers in the beneficiary databases.

“Know Your Aadhaar” is one of the unique extended services arising out of SRDH which has enabled many residents who have enrolled to check their Aadhaar status by entering their names. This service is integrated with “Mee Seva” services. “Mee Seva” Capacity Building is another initiative where SeMT-AP has contributed extensively. The numerous Awareness Trainings, and Hands-On Trainings conducted throughout all the Districts of State has been instrumental in increasing the use of “Mee Seva” service delivery platform which is the primary G2C Services delivery platform in the state.

Please tell us something about some of the major future initiatives that SeMT may take in the state?

SeMT is assisting multiple departments such as Irrigation & CAD Department, Women Development and Child Welfare Department, Tribal Welfare Department regarding e-Governance Road Map for the department as well as in planning & procuring the related

infrastructure. All of these are potentially major initiatives. Further SeMT-AP will be providing Program Management Support to Consumer Affairs, Civil Supplies and Public Distribution System – Department, towards implementing to Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) – MMP in the State.

At the Apex level SeMT-AP is contributing towards the initiative, to develop a “Habitation Score Card”, for monitoring key performance indicators for the flagship welfare schemes of the State, at the village level.

What are the major challenges that you see in completing various assignment given to SeMT? SeMT is limited to advisory role hence in order to provide better advice it is necessary to be part of any e-Governance initiative from the planning stage itself or must be privy to all background information, where this is not the case SeMT cannot meet its role based obligations – For e.g. in many Technical Procurement Committees, most often the background information is shared very late and only limited information is shared. With access to more information, SeMTs can provide better service.

SeMT was put in place by DeITY, to provide support to State MMPs primarily and also to extend support to State e-Governance initiatives.

Now SeMTs are focusing more on State e-Governance initiatives, so the priorities have been changed. SeMTs have to strike a fine balance between meeting the new requirements fulfilling their primary obligations.

SeMTs are well placed to provide consultancy for long term e-Governance initiatives, however they are also expected to be available for short term exigencies or routine work. .

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

45

social inclusion

Harnessing

ICT for Good Governance

“On assuming his responsibility as Chief Secretary of the state, Dr P K Mohanty commissioned the ICT & eGov Wing in his office to quintessentially utilise the power of ICT as a driving force,” writes Abhishek Kumar, Nodal Officer &ProgrammeManager, ICT & eGov Wing

T

he Government of Andhra Pradesh is committed towards enriching the governance and welfare efforts for the citizen. The Governmentbelieves that Information and Communication Technology and Electronic Governance (ICT & eGov) are the major instrumentsfor achieving State’s goal. On assuming his responsibility as Chief Secretary of the state, Dr P K Mohanty commissioned the ICT & eGov Wing in his officeto quintessentially utilisethe power of ICT as a driving force for inclusive development.

The quick action is the reflection of the affirmative strategies of enhanced IT utilisation at every possible juncture towards the welfare &growth opportunities for the people of Andhra Pradesh.The important component of the plan majorly revolvesaround envisioning and coordination for State level ICT & eGov road map in conjunction with various government departments anddistrict units.

The ICT & eGov Wing derives its strength from the exclusive mantraof “e-Governance for Good Governance” given by Dr Mohanty. The Mission

statement of the wing is to enable ICT as a driving force anddedicated tool for the convergence of state efforts towards inclusive development.

To carry the vision and mission, a skilled team of professionals with dedicated back ground in IT programmeand eGov project management have been positioned.The intent is to bring in an expertise to engage through a Hub & Spoke model with various government departments, district administrations and government establishments at various levels for converging the stand alone, discrete and autonomous IT

ICT & eGov Wing The objective of ICT & eGov Wing is of envisioning and coordination for state level ICT & eGov road map in conjunction with various government departments and district units.

The agenda of ICT & eGov is as follows: l Innovate and improvise electronic governance initiatives in tracking & managing state, department, district, mandal and village level programmes. l Facilitate resources, skills and capacity building of IT workforce within government at various levels. l Coordinate for enhanced efficiency in implementation, functioning, monitoring and evaluation of citizen-centric initiatives of the state using ICT as a tool. l Create model and a standardised district portal framework to be commonly used by all 23 districts of state. l Craft common eTools like File Tracking System, Grievance Management System etc. which would be uniformly used by all departments, district collectorates, various governmentestablishments in managing their daily administrative and citizen centric affairs. l Establish a two way connect with all departments and districts of the state to enhance the ICT reach &utilization at the last mile.

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applications for aggregated cross utilisation of dividends within the system. Also, innovate and improvise e-Governance applications and their mapping with flagship programmesto track &serve the real intended beneficiaries.

The team is also expected to ensure constant monitoring andtimely evaluation of beneficiary related flagship programmes, schemes etc.at a centralised platform to improve utilisation and transparency in the system.

For quick and sustained action, Chief Secretary advised the various heads of the department of the state and district collector’s to create a dedicated ICT team in their departments with a good domain expertise. The team would act as harbingers of change and growth agents at the field level.

Interestingly, within one week, ten departments of the state andfive districts have come up with the ICT team and the remaining are in the process of setting it up.The idea is that department and district unit ICT teams in consultation with ICT & eGov Wing shall be able to synchronise the agenda of good governance through Technology.

The ICT & eGov Wing is dedicated to bring transformational and sustained efforts towards the creation of ICT as a tool and e-Governance as a mechanism for good governance. A beginning has been made and the road ahead is to be traversed.

nielit

special feature

NIELIT opens a new campus in Bihar On the request of Chief Minister of Bihar, one more extension center of NIELIT was agreed by Minister of Communications and IT, Government of India, subject to condition that five acres of land would be granted free of cost to NIELIT

F

oundation Stone for permanent campus of National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) was laid

by Shri Kapil Sibal, Hon’ble Minister for Communications and IT & Hon’ble Chief Minister, Government of Bihar on 3rd July at Bihta, Patna.

The proposed Centre shall be developed by NIELIT in an area of approximately 15 acres in the land provided by Government of Bihar. Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India, has approved setting up of this centre in Patna with a total project cost

of Rupees 57.30 Crores.

Speaking on the occasion, Managing Director, NIELIT, Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma, informed that upcoming campus in Bihta, Patna, will provide training facilities in Electronics, Communication, Information Technology area in courses rangingfrom basic literacy level up to M Tech Level. The Centre shall run various formal courses like M Tech, MCA, BCA, PGDCA along with non-formal training programmes like NIELIT ‘O’, ‘A’, ‘B’ Level in Software, Hardware and few others to cater to the ever-increasing demands of the industry.

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

47

In Person

Dr Govind

Senior Director, Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications & IT, and CEO, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI)

Indian Registry for Internet Names and Numbers

P

lease provide us with some brief on .IN Registry?

The IN Registry was set up under National Internet exchange of India during January, 2005. NIXI is a Not-for-Profit Company under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act, 1956, with the objective of facilitating improved Internet services in the country.

Under NIXI, the IN Registry functions as an autonomous body with primary responsibility for maintaining the .IN ccTLD and ensuring its operational stability, reliability, and security. It will implement the various elements of the new policy set out by the Government of India and its Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Department of Information Technology.

Government of India has authorised NIXI as the .IN registry. What steps is NIXI taking to ensure the safety of .IN registry? Will some other domains also come under NIXI? • IN domain is one of the world’s most protected top level domains (TLD). Access to .IN domains is performed via a highly redundant, global, Anycast DNS network, which protects against massive distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks.

• IN registry is secured behind a five layer security ring with all critical components fully redundant hardware software and service provision including a completely functional and tested disaster recovery facility • The .IN registry is also one of the few TLDs in the world to have deployed the domain name system security extensions (DNSSEC) technology which guarantees protection to users who click on a web

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“IRINN’s main purpose is the allocation and registration services for IPv4 & IPv6 addresses, Autonomous System or AS numbers and related Whois Database for IP address look-up and reverse DNS delegation,” says Dr Govind

•

•

•

•

site. DNSSEC ensure that they cannot be hijacked maliciously.

This is in fact the first TLD in South Asia to deploy such a high level of cryptographic technology for security at the domain level.

IN registry is also constantly monitored for threats and active measures are taken to mitigate abuse in coordination with CERT IN. In addition to this, there are additional scans and audits performed to ensure there are no known vulnerabilities Also, NIXI is expecting to administer the Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) in the near future. IDNs are the domain names in the native language.

What is the current status of the .IN Registry?

Registration of .IN domain stands at 1.67 million as on January, 2013. Presently, 92 Registrars have been accredited to offer .IN domain name registration worldwide to customers. It has helped in proliferation of web hosting and promotion of Internet usage in the country. Two Data centres have been established in Delhi and Chennai, one acting as the primary and the other as a secondary with a

maximum down time of five minutes. Also, IN Registry is planning to offer the Internationalised Domain Name (IDNs) in the near future. IDNs are the domain names in the native languages.

What is National Internet Registry?

The National Internet Registry is known as Indian Registry for Internet names and Numbers (IRINN). Indian Registry for Internet Names and Numbers (IRINN) provides allocation and registration services of IP addresses and AS numbers, and contributes to the society by providing Internet-related information as a non-profit, affiliation-based organisation, and performing research, education and enlightenment activities.

What is the need of an NIR? To facilitate the allocation of IP resources to large number of small and medium companies within the country. Also the services to be charged in local currency to avoid exchange losses. It will also facilitates local training and development and would be providing local language support to the entities in India.

The Domain Name of India An Internet Country Code Top Level Domain .in India’s gateway to the Internet World Be a part of India’s global IT presence, subscribe to the unique Indian identity, own a .in Domain log on to www.registry.in Over 17 Lacs registrations, and growing!

n

ia d n I

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Be Boo

In Person

Bibhas Kumar Srivastav Executive Director, Corporation Bank

we need to

bank with poor

A

recent report from RBI shows that majority of the people in the country are still unbanked. In such a situation how effective can the financial inclusion initiatives of the Indian banks be? If people don’t have bank accounts, they can’t benefit from these initiatives.

The banks are now taking steps to open the accounts of largest number of people. The Corporation Bank is operating large number of branchless banking units. Currently the total number of branchless banking units stands at 3000. We need to strengthen these units with the support from technology. The ultimate aim is to enable people to avail of banking services at their doorstep.

Why should any farmer or a villager travel 30-40 kms for banking service, he should have access to banking facilities at his doorstep or close to his home. Corporation Bank has now developed a strong focus on the rural and unbanked areas.

We are doing our best to strengthen our business correspondent establishments through proper technology implementations. Wherever required, ATMs are also being erected.

“The poor and the unbanked have to be brought into the financial mainstream of our country.

They must be allowed to contribute to the nation’s economy in a more significant manner,” says Bibhas Kumar Srivastav. In conversation with Mohd Ujaley

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The Direct Benefits Transfer scheme is today being lauded as a major e-Governance initiative that will bring transparency and efficiency in the way government benefits are sent to the beneficiaries. Do you think that DBT will also lead to more financial inclusion?

There is no question that it will be a great achievement if we can have a system that

In Person

allows benefits to flow directly into the bank accounts of the people. However, financial inclusion is something different and DBT is something different. Financial inclusion refers to an overall banking strategy, and DBT is a part of financial inclusion. It is not DBT that will lead to financial inclusion; it is financial inclusion that will lead to DBT. We need to implement financial inclusion in totality, only then we can have the full rollout of Direct Benefits Transfer.

It is obvious that despite all the growth that India’s banking sector has seen, there is lot of work that needs to be done for bringing modern banking closer to the people in rural and far-flung areas. You have done lot of work in Bundelkhand and Uttaranchal regions. Tell us about it.

In Bundelkhand, the main problem is of land and water management. This is not that difficult a problem to resolve, if you can get people to cooperate. There exist many simple solutions that you can put to use. For instance, you can plant trees, erect bandhs and do much else to control and conserve the water. We did take that kind of initiatives and there has been certain amount of improvement. We have also promoted plantation of trees like Guava, Mango and Jamun. Dairy farming is also very important in these areas. We have been promoting this industry. Micro finance is slowly gaining momentum, banks are lending to small industries, and even micro enterprises.

India is a large and diverse country. At times we have a situation where local dialects change every ten kilometres, and even the taste of water changes every 15 kilometres. What is the scope of using ICT in bridging the divide due to geography, language, etc?

The truth is that Information Technology is everyone’s property. It’s not the property of some of the institutions. Today even a rickshaw puller can operate a smartphone, even though he may not be able to afford it. People in this country have come closer to IT. We have become a big consumer of electronics and Information Technology. We, the educated class, like to think that people dwelling

Corporation Bank

Taking new steps in financial inclusion For expanding the coverage under Financial Inclusion,

The Grievance Redressal Officer shall ensure

a pilot project on smart card based business transac-

that the grievances received from the clients /

tions through Business Correspondents (BC) model

members of the public are satisfactorily responded

has been launched through five identified branches.

to promptly, but in any case within 60 days from

Bank has constituted a Grievance Redressal

the date of lodging of the complaint by the com-

Machinery for redressing complaints if any, about

plainant, failing which the complainant may have

services rendered by Business Correspondents. For

the option to approach the Office of the Bank-

this purpose, a Grievance Redressal Officer in each

ing Ombudsman concerned for Redressal of his

Zone has been nominated by the Bank.

grievance/s.

“every villager should have access to banking facilities at his doorstep or close to his home” in the rural areas are averse to new technologies, but that is simply not the case. Take the example of the wheat that was introduced in 1960s. No one had to go to the farmers to say that they have to use these seeds; the farmers adopted the seeds by themselves. My feeling is that people are able to understand the usefulness of any new technology by instinct. Once

Corporation Bank

Empowering the nation with effective banking Started about 108 years ago in 1906, with an initial capital of just `5000, Corporation Bank has recorded `2,84,722 Crore mark in business and even far more, with over 6677 service outlets across the nation, served by committed and dedicated 13,000 plus Corp Bankers. Proof of which is seen in its enviable track record in financial performance. The bank has many reasons to cheer, predominant of them is, being able to participate in nation building by empowering the rural and urban population alike.

Nationalised in 1980, Corporation Bank was the forerunner when it came to evolving and adapting to the financial sector reforms. In 1997, it became the Second Public Sector Bank in the country to enter capital market, the IPO of which was over- subscribed by 13 times. the Bank has many “ firsts “ to its credit - Cash Management Services, Gold Banking, m-Commerce, “ Online “ approvals for Educational loans, 100 percent CBS Compliance and more recently, its poineering efforts to take the technology to the rural masses in remotest villages through low-cost branchless banking - Business Corresponent model.

you have created something that is useful, people will emphasise with it and pick it up.

To answer your question, ICT can bridge the divide, it is already doing so. The mobile technology is playing an effective role in bringing people together.

The bank has to spend a certain amount of money to manage every bank account, so if you have zero balance bank accounts, how will the bank make any profit?

What comes first – the egg or the hen! This can be an endless discussion. And it can also be an endless discussion – what will come first the investments for opening new accounts or the profits! The point is that until we help people by opening zero balance bank accounts for them, they won’t be able to prosper. And if they don’t prosper, they will not put any money with us. It is only when people become rich, that the bank can make money. So it is in the bank’s interest to enable people to become rich. That is the objective of financial inclusion, it is a strategy to enable people to save money and over a period of time attain financial stability. I always say that we have to bank with poor people, who have a lot of business opportunities to offer. The poor and the unbanked have to be brought into the financial mainstream of our country. They must be allowed to contribute to the nation’s economy in a more significant manner.

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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special feature

mstc

225-C, Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Road, Kolkata : 700020 (INDIA) Tel : (+91-33) 2287-0568/2290 1004 FAX: (+-91-33) 2283 1002 / 2281 3089 | Website: www.mstcecommerce.com, www.mstcindia.co.in

M

STC Ltd. is a Mini Ratna Grade-I, Public Sector enterprise under Ministry of steel, Government of India and it was established on 11th day of September, 1964. It has its headquarters at Kolkata with network of offices throughout India. Its e-Commerce Division is ISO 9001:2008 Certified and Systems Department is ISO 27001:2005 certified which ensures Data Security as per IT Act 2000 and its Software Development Division has recently achieved the CMMI – Dev V1.3 (Maturity Level 3). It will be receiving STQC certification shortly from Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India which is mandatory for any e-procurement system. Our e-commerce portal (application software) is entered in the register of Copy Right.

MSTC’s main line of business is e-commerce comprising e-auction-sales and e-procurements.

Selling agency is an activity which has been undertaken

by MSTC for the sale of condemned items, obsolete items, scrap, any surplus stocks, plant & machinery and it is conducted in an electronic mode. Earlier, it was being done in physical mode-physical auctions were conducted. Now it is being done in the electronic mode using MSTC’s e-auction portal where an e-auction

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2013

platform is provided for both buyer and seller to transact the business in a transparent way with all fairness.

MSTC disposes old/used/ waste/ scrap materials on behalf of its principals /sellers on the basis of a bilateral agreement. The principals are PSU’s, government depts. and also some private sectors.

Services are mainly rendered by three modes such as tender/e-auctions/auction.

Uniform, equal, transparent dealings are done by standard operating procedures. e-Sale, basically, is the e-auction of prime products for principals who want to sell their products of large quantity in an electronic mode through MSTC’s portal. We have a unique method of sale for such product of homogenous in nature – “Quantity and Price” sale. The interested purchaser can choose the quantity he wishes to purchase and the price (Equal or more than the Floor Price) at which he wishes to buy. Allocation is made based on set of rules which is electronically programmed. e-Procurement applies user friendly e-Commerce technology to simplify and streamline the purchase process and to integrate the buyers and the suppliers in the business processes. e-Procurement and e-Sales is an internet enabled system which enables MSTC to

S K Tripathi Chairman and Managing Director, MSTC

conduct procurement transactions through internet. MSTC has designed and set up its own e-procurement portal with technical collaboration with IBM. MSTC also has a disaster recovery site at Mumbai.

Area where MSTC is making great headway is ore (iron, chrome and manganese) forest produce, agro products like tea, pulses, timber, tendu leaves auction, human hair, Coal, Lignites, Barytes, Parcel Land, Raw Petro Coke, NPAs, auction.

MSTC also has trade division which largely undertakes import and export of carbon steel melting scrap, finished steel/coal/coke as also other non-traditional items like SKO, Naptha etc. MSTC provides trade finance for procurement of such raw materials in bulk for the industries. Our key principals are PMOs office, Rastrapati Bhawan, Government of Andhra Pradesh, Power Sectors, Oil sectors, BSNL, Nuclear Power Corporation, BHEL, NALCO, HAL etc.

Application and Web servers Databases

File Servers

Laptop/Mobile Handset

Mainframes

SafeNet DataSecure

Data Center

Private Cloud

Internal Cloud

FEDERATION

External Cloud

2009 SC Magazine “Best Buy” 5-Star Rating

w w w. s a f e n e t - i n c . c o m

Network Product Guide’s Best in Tokens

2009 WindowSecurity.com Reader’s Choice 1st Runner Up

In Person

Venkat Patnaik

Head - Government Business, NIIT Technologies Ltd

Good Governance

Through e-Governance “Once the CCTNS project becomes fully functional, it will make it much easier for law enforcement agencies for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of policing,� says Venkat Patnaik. In Conversation with Ankush Kumar

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lease provide us with an overview of the work that NIIT Technologies is doing for the government sector.

What kind of growth is your government business seeing in India?

There has been substantial improvement in the business that we are doing for the Government.

The first major, large ticket complex project that we executed was for Border Security Force (BSF).

We came to the conclusion that Governance in India has a good business potential and we should increase our focus on it. After that the Government Business Unit started focusing more on Government projects. In terms of both, revenues and orders, we are seeing good growth. The thing is that the Government SI projects are generally quite large, full of challenges, complex in nature, strewn with pitfalls and surrounded by several myths. Most of the time one finds that the key stake-holders keep changing, and at times there are other issues that can lead to delays in the execution. We feel people associated with e-Governance projects should be allowed to continue at least for the duration of the project implementation. But overall, we are positive about the e-Governance work that we are doing in the country.

Can you tell us about some specific projects that you are doing for the government? And what are the projects that you are expecting in the future?

You see, in the government there is a system by which the projects are conceived, approved and

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Venkat Patnaik

In Person

awarded. This process has a long gestation cycle.

If a PAN India network project has to come up, it needs to follow the long process ending probably with a cabinet approval and fund allocation. Thereafter, the industry starts reacting..

Similarly e-District projects, Common Service Centres (CSCs), State Data Centre (SDC) can only come up once there is high level clearance from the concerned government ministries.

Currently we are executing CCTNS projects in five states – Tamil Nadu, Odhisa, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Utrakhand. In Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu we are almost on the verge of completion. One thing that is really effecting the completion of the project is the timely development of central application. Once this core application is in place, thereafter a state specific customised version will be developed by respective state SIs and a full-fledged online CCTNS system will become a reality. It is worth mentioning here that some of the states are not depended on the core application that have the advantage of finishing the project must faster. The whole idea behind CCTNS is that the law enforcement agencies in the centre and the states will have access to the nation’s entire repository of data related to crime and criminals in real time. Once the CCTNS project becomes fully functional, it will make it much easier for

NIIT Technologies is a leading IT solutions organisation, servicing customers in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. It offers services in Application Development and Maintenance, Enterprise Solutions including Managed Services and Business Process Outsourcing to enterprise in the Financial Services, Travel & Transportation, Manufacturing/Distribution, and Government sectors. The company’s domain strengths, new approaches to customer experience management robust outsourcing capabilities, and dual-shore delivery model, have made it a preferred IT partner to over 220 clients across 16 countries in these select verticals. With a talent pool of about 8000 professionals, NIIT Technologies follows global standards of software development processes.

enable us to chew what we can. NIIT Technologies USP has always been to deliver projects in time with quality.

Now CCTNS is a national project, but it seems that there is lack of coordination between the centre and the states in matters of its implementation. Do you think there is a need to revamp the whole system?

I would not say that there is lack of coordination. The CCTNS is a very efficiently designed project. The thing is that the CCTNS project policy has been made at the centre level as this project needs to have the access of database from all states in the country. However, the ultimate execution of the project and the ownership of the project is with the states/UTs, as

“We at NIIT Technologies feel ourselves to be privileged for having the chance of serving a force like BSF” law enforcement agencies to do their work. The three fold aim of the project is to enable the police to undertake speedier and more accurate investigation of crime and detection of criminals, cut down on time spent on record keeping; allow real-time access to information for the stake-holders. Secondly, the CCTNS project will also facilitate collection, storage, retrieval, analysis, transfer and sharing of data and information among police stations, districts, state headquarters and other organizations directly or in-directly. Finally, the CCTNS project is expected to ensure that we have an ecosystem where more transparency and accountability makes way in the police force.

We have selected and put a few e-Governance projects on the priority list. This is primarily to

it is they who are required to put the system in place (connect the police stations and upload their crime and criminals related data in real time). I do agree that there is a need to have a system in place through which the central agencies and the states can cooperate in a more efficient manner, so that the projects get executed quickly and efficiently. But on a broader scale this is already happening.

Tell us about your BSF project, to which level has it reached now?

First of all I would like to tell you that we at NIIT Technologies feel ourselves to be privileged for having the chance of serving a force like BSF. Thank you for asking this question as I am excited to speak about this project. The

project named “Intranet Prahari” project essentially is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution for BSF where-in all major processes such as finance, inventory management, operations and personnel information have been automated and integrated to act as a robust and quick decisions support system and for consolidated view of data by higher echelons and for various analyses.

We set up three flavors of data centres.

This includes the main data centre in Delhi, a disaster recovery data centre in Bangalore (in a different seismic zone), and various mini data centre’s at frontier headquarters like Jalandhar, Srinagar, Jammu, Gandhinagar, Jodhpur, Kolkata, Siliguri, Agartala, Tripura, Shilong, Silchar etc for data storage. Further, we provided installation and commissioning of hardware/software at 237 locations (over 4000 laptops/desktops and 2500 printer/ scanners). We also ensured that sufficient cyber security measures have been incorporated to ensure network security and to prevent data loss.

An ecosystem of conducive partnerships was required to execute a project of such large scale spread over across the nation. For “Intranet Prahari” project, we partnered with several OEM’s. who played a crucial role in successful implementation.

Besides partnerships, we had to ensure user satisfaction and acceptance as part of successful implementation. Thus, for effective usage of the project, we executed an extensive training programme for officers and subordinate officers at various levels. Also, around 20,000 personnel were given training on how to use the ERP package for day to day working and internal efficiency and productivity.

This once again proves that executing large scale government project is a clear strength of NIIT Technologies. And the government business of NIIT Technologies has set many milestone with the launch of “Intranet Prahari” after SELO project of CRPF. August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

Vijay Gupta

Founder, Chairman, & CEO, SoftTech Engineers

Journey on the ‘Smart City’ path

P

Since its inception in 1996, we have maintained our focus, the sense of pride and the spirit of entrepreneurship throughout our journey. Hence, our prime focus area is always ‘product development’.

This year we have successfully launched three versions of our construction ERP – OpticonNano, Opticon360 and OpticonGalaxy. One of our upcoming developments is in direction of bridging the gap of creativity and law requirements for architectural drawing. We have been able to successfully introduce our construction products in different geographies of UAE and Africa. Meanwhile, we are looking at tie-up with various market partners and technology leaders to provide larger platform for our products. Recently, we have integrated our Product with one of the world’s leading technology solution provide to develop a complete Smart City Solution. We have embarked on a very positive growth this year and focus to maintain it through the year. We are looking at a growth of more than 40 percent EBIDTA and till now have been quite successful.

What are the prospects of cloud technology in the government sector?

Cloud computing is seen by many as the next wave of information technology for individuals, companies and governments. The abundant supply of information technology capabilities at a low cost offers many enticing opportunities.

We believe that cloud technology being low maintenance and easy-to-use can be a good fit for government sectors, provided it comes with right security measures. Most of our products can be easily migrated on cloud networks and have strong security features.

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“The major change I see

lease tell us about the key focus areas for SoftTech?

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2013

today is that the government leadership team has realised that it is imperative to have e-Governance,” says Vijay Gupta, Founder, Chairman, & CEO, SoftTechEngineers. In conversation with Rachita Jha

What is the scope of smart city and municipal governance projects in India?

We believe in innovation that drives sustainable infrastructural growth and better citizen services. Our solutions AutoDCR and PWIMS stand as strong witness to our support to urbanisation growth. Smart city is the wholesome answer to Indian modernisation. The smart city is a citizen oriented framework that incorporates different systems to deliver the infrastructure of sustainability, security, citizen well-being and economic development. It empowers the leaders with the tools to analyse data for better decisions, anticipate problems to resolve them proactively and coordinate resources to operate effectively.

This calls for a right merger of core city objectives and city domains on the one hand and different applications and technologies that go to support the domains on the other. As is evident, no single technology can enable a smart infrastructure for cities. We have, along with various technology partners, embarked on the ‘Smart City’ path.

One such implementation has already been in use at MIDC through our workflow management system PWIMS in collaboration with database management and business intelligence capabilities of our leading technology partner.

Another exciting initiative where SoftTech participates in Smart City implementation is through our building plan approval system – AutoDCR. This would be a complete solution of visa system for monitoring, approvals and quick decision for various city-wide developments. We have partnered one of the largest technology giant whose intelligent operations solution has already set benchmarks in Smart city initiatives worldwide. This solution would help our cities with geographical information systems, integrating inter-departmental workflows, performance driven evaluations, real time decision-making in addition to others benefits.

Tell us about some of the more interesting technology ideas for the future?

With the advent of ICT, governments world over had a cost effective channel to enable good governance. The major change I see today is that the government leadership team has realised that it is imperative to have e-Governance. This perhaps is the only way to bring transparent and efficient service delivery mechanism to the satisfaction of citizen. So, every technology that exhibits cost effective ways to bring in quick community reforms would be looked upon as an immediate area of investment.

In Person

Debraj Dam

VP – Strategic Business and Partner Alliance, DIGISOL

Making world class IT hardware in India

Y

our company has been in the field of IT for many years. Tell us about your key achievements in the area of e-Governance?

In ours 20-years long history, we have pioneered networking technologies that have empowered citizens and supported the governments. Ever since we set up the very first network-equipment related SMT manufacturing plants in India in 1993, we have been actively shaping the networking markets locally as per the global standards. Our vision is to build “Made in India” IT networking brand and we have come a long way in our sustainability journey and are offering advanced energy-efficient and green technologies for governance programs in India. We combine the best of a direct-touch approach and that of a partner-driven support to deliver optimum service value to government customers. To achieve this, our product engineering team’s work closely with solution architects to design highly scalable and innovative e-Governance solutions to meet today’s dynamic needs of governments.

This is further supplemented by our DIGICARE Technical Assistance Centre (DTAC), and post-sales and on-site supports. Our products and solutions have been deployed by different government agencies in core projects like SWAN, SSA, CCTNS, R-APDRP and other mission mode projects at central as well as state levels.

Tell us about some of the most exciting projects that are coming up in e-Governance that you are looking forward to?

We have a clear vision for providing maximum value to government enterprises on their network infrastructure investments. SDN-based core switches will help e-Governance leaders and

“The greatest need today is for e-Governance decision makers to leverage the differentiated technological and business benefits offered

by Indian brands,” Says Debraj Dam, VP – Strategic Business and Partner Alliance, DIGISOL

their teams to reduce dependency on proprietary OS-based equipment and consequently architect their networks in a more central, flexible and dynamic manner. Projects at both, the center and in states government agencies, including the integrated central government driven MMP projects, under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) like e-office in 29 ministries/departments, postal rural ICT – RSI & Hardware and e-districts, are really the exciting ones form India’s future growth perspective. We bring a robust combination of our localized manufacturing support and our unique technological offerings on the table for these projects.

Dealing with government can at times prove to be a very challenging task for private companies. Tell us about the key challenges that you have faced in designing and implementation of the projects?

The greatest need today is for e-Governance decision makers to leverage the differentiated

technological and business benefits offered by Indian brands. Governments should put in directives and guidelines for different projects to support and benefit from domestic offerings, and empower single-window approvals in this regard. As a key step, policy makers and executing authorities could strategically outline that investments would be based on parameters such as citizen-centric benefits, quicker service response times, robustness of local manufacturing set-up, future-readiness of the solutions and the cost benefits. With India designing and building world-class technologies and processes and with the best-of-breed assembly lines being locally present, we feel that it’s now time that India should exhibit its willingnes - and the mindset - to deploy solutions offered by domestic IT hardware brands by accepting self-declaration methodology as a globally accepted standard.

What kind of business prospects do you see in the area of e-Governance?

In March 2013, we completed 20 years of excellence in the IT networking market. That makes us well positioned to bid for government projects. It is a good thing that the Indian government is now creating level-playing for domestic IT manufacturers through Preferential Market Access policy (PMA) incentive policy.

DIGISOL has taken the lead in launching unique solutions for government enterprise customers, such as smart managed switches to virtual chassis solutions that can stack up to 16 standalone switches to get chassis-class performance. We have SDN-ready cores and data center solutions, with a roadmap for many more new cuttingedge offerings. We are the first and only Indian networking brand to launch Software Define Network (SDN)-ready devices. Our robust ecosystem has helped us to contribute to different e-Governance projects in India through customer guidance, support infrastructure, technological innovations and R&D spends. We will continue to strengthen these best practices.

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

Bharat Khanna

Business Head- Public Safety & Defence, NEC

ICT For safer

G

and smarter city

ive us an overview of the work that NEC is doing in the government sector especially in the domain of e-Governance.

Tell us about the projects that have been completed under safer cities?

NEC has been operating in India for last four decades, but it didn’t have direct operation in India. NEC has implemented services in public safety and telecommunication. As an IT offering we have storage solutions for servers and other communication solution. We have presence in almost all the metro cities and we have a factory in Chennai. In terms of e-Governance initiatives the biggest was the UIDAI program Aadhaar. All the Aadhaar deduplication process

If you look at the trend in India, for safer cities it has been more limited to surveillance and NEC is working towards this concept of safer and smarter cities. It helps to use the available resources and therefore helping people to lead a better life. In India we have implemented a few surveillance cameras, which are a very foundation level of project. We are more into data mining and data information which is not happening, but in talks with the key people

has been successful with the help of NEC. We worked in phase 1 and now we are working in phase two along with HCL.

and I am confident that it will be implemented, because we are a developing nation and today the decision makers are also very much learned and IT enabled. We are speaking to the state governments and we also have been managing the Karnataka State Police for almost seven to eight years now and now this is getting extended to the safer city as well.

Which are the key states that have implemented NEC’s emergency and disaster management solutions? What are the key benefits of the initiative?

Some of the states are in the process of implementing the disaster management solutions like the early warning cyclone, tsunamis etc. Apart from this we have worked some budget plans for the coastal states of the country on the disaster mitigation part. It is still in the evaluation process, so we will learn about the benefits soon.

What are the new projects that you are planning to implement in the e-Governance space?

We are doing a lot of work in the UIDAI space and we are working on the devices which will actually help in the identification of the person with UIDAI authentication process. We are working on those lines and very soon it will be implemented.

What are your plans of expansion in the e-Governance space?

“We are more into data mining and data information which is not happening, but we are in talks with the key people and I am confident that it will be implemented,” says Bharat Khanna, Business Head- Public Safety & Defence, NEC. In Conversation with Sruti Ghosal

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2013

We have a lot of projects happening in different states. The projects are taken up by the centre but later on implemented by the state. We are talking to the different decision makers and rolling out a policy for the implementation of these projects. Because of our global experience and our services in other countries in terms of implementation of citizen centric services, we are in a forefront. And any project coming out of the UIDAI, NEC is one of the market leaders in it.

viewpoint

Bring Your Own Device…BYOD….

Potential e-Gov 3.0?

S

ome of my corporate friends often book their business air tickets from their smartphone and also pay for their official expenses on line through the phone almost on regular basis. They explain to me that they can access their corporate financial system through personal phone and as they do that everything is hunky-dory after that!

With lot of empathy in their eyes and voice they further elaborate to this former government employee that it will be soon order of the day when most of the enterprise business solutions would be accessed by employee’s own mobile device, be it a high-end smartphone, i-Pad or a Tablet and thereafter all the businesses would be carried out as usual by the corporate employee from their personal devices!

This is the recent advent of Bring Your Own Device, BYOD, another outcome of the perennial search by the Corporate CIOs for costeffective technology for enhanced employee productivity. Like many other innovations this has also come out as the necessity for the corporate world. The prime mover was how to connect all the mobile devices personally possessed by the employees with the corporate network and services which could positively impact productivity and cost saving. The process has started already as explained by my corporate fiends and a Gartner CIO survey conducted in 2012 predicted that by 2016 around 80% of corporate employees will be made eligible to use their own equipment with employee data and services hosted in the enterprise system.

We would like to examine and map the possible relevance of this new concept of BYOD in the governance eco-system. This exercise would be definitely useful as government has already decided to establish Mobile Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG) to enable citizen (including its employees of course) to seek and transact on various government services through mobile

devices. It is a fact that today almost 99% of the government employees own a mobile phone.

It is also a fact that use of mobile Internet has been recorded as the fastest growing area in India for the last few months and that day is not too far when the service providers would make mobile Internet service available at an affordable tariff simply due to economy of scale and competition and the entry level handsets would also support it. So there is a great possibility that every government employee can avail now at least some G2E services through personal mobile phone with some back-end technology integration required to provide such services from the government IT infrastructure.

There are of course many issues with deployment of BYOD in government eco-system.

And interestingly these are no different from those being experienced now by the corporate world. In this era of cut-throat competition, to embrace BYOD the first and foremost issue before the corporate CIOs is how to secure and protect the business and employee data.

Strong privacy laws prevalent in the western countries aggravated the situation. Moreover, it would be increasingly difficult to control and standardize the types of devices which an employee is going to use. Therefore ‘one size fits all’ will not work and deployment of BYOD would compulsorily necessitate designing the mobile business applications inter-operable for diverse devices. The model should ensure flexibility for the devices with increased productivity, reduced risks and adjusting access to information, based on the devices, the users’ privileges, their locations and the information they want to access. The BYOD-based services which are already in use through enterprise private cloud in many global companies are, speed dialer for one-click access to conference calls while on-the-move, event registration, instant messaging capabilities, accessing internal wikis, collaborating through social media tools, approving purchasing requests,

software-based telephony using voice over IP technology and so on.

Do we see possibility of mapping the G2E services in a government Ministry or department to the BYOD-based corporate employee services cited above? In fact the work items of ‘personal’ and ‘establishment’ section of any government department would largely corroborate above-mentioned corporate situation.

Before 2006, any DeitY official in Electronics Niketan had to make a round of the relevant section in personal or establishment division, to get any G2E informational service. After the DeitY Intranet was created, all required personal information was made accessible through the individual desktop of every official with a bit of authentication protocol. It would entail some more technology deployment to make such services available on individual’s mobile phone (BYOD) with adequate safeguard to protect interest of both the stakeholders, government and the employee.

Globally there is very little deployment of BYOD concept in government ecosystem.

However, to address the issue of how to improve government employee productivity one can learn from the global corporate leader. In 2010, Intel embarked on BYOD globally, in its offices in 65 countries, covering around 23,500 devices (smart phones 90 percent, tablets 9 percent and PCs 1 percent ),inter-operable applications and service oriented architecture, which enabled every employee to save on average an hour daily, translating into a 38 percent increase in productivity in 2011 and an annual productivity gain of about 5 million hours globally in 2012 alone !

Ashis Sanyal Consulting Editor, egov

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

59

Innovators & Creators

Creating New Segments through Innovation Please give us an overview of Canon and its journey in India?

Incorporated in 1997, Canon India Pvt. Ltd. is a 100 percent subsidiary of Canon Singapore Pte.Ltd. Canon today has offices spread across 10 cities in India with an employee strength of over 1100 people and markets 140 comprehensive ranges of sophisticated and contemporary digital imaging products in the Dr Alok Bharadwaj country.

Sr Vice President, Canon (India) Pvt Ltd It is very interesting to see that Cannon India has witnessed a journey of fifteen years. Canon takes pride in not only bringing quality products to the market but also contributes to minimize environmental burden through effective application of environment technologies.

Which were the segments which were dramatically evolved from nowhere and today are being effectively marketed by Canon India?

It is the technology which creates new segments. Geographical dimension also plays a very prominent role. We first started in four major metro cities of India which accounted for only 20 percent of the population. Today 80 percent of our business unfolds from the rest of the India.

Another dimension is the vertical segment which involves financial institution, IT, manufacturing, healthcare in public sector, and banks. India was earlier a very homogenous market, but today the vertical has progressed phenomenally. Technology plays a very important role. Education is entirely the prime area of focus. I consider it even more important then the healthcare.

India is witnessing a rapid change in technological enhancement. What are your view in the current scenario of Indian IT industry?

In order to be effective, we need to keep changing the structures and revising it. I want that the entire arena of technology investmen must be increased, be it in Indian context or global. More and more technological deployment should happen in our country which will lead to increased citizen accessibility towards the governance. While modernising technology, we also need to modernise our process. We can not use old process while using enhanced technology and moreover the process of procurement must also be reformed. In this context, Canon strives to make products that are environment and people friendly throughout the entire product life cycle.

60 egov / egov.eletsonline.com / August 2013

ICT Solution for Railways Radwin has one of the largest deployments in the world.

Its network is spread across 1500 km of railways and provides WiFi as well as video surveillance.

RADWIN’s solution is powered by state-of- the-art base stations deployed along with the railway and underground tracks that communicate Aman roy Chowdhury with mobile units installed MD, Radwin India onboard trains.

Radwin’s train-to-ground wireless broadband solution goes beyond standard WiFi and incorporates advanced technologies to enhance throughput, coverage and robustness. The solution delivers the highest capacity (50 - 100 Mbps) for trains that travel at speeds of up to 200Km/h.

In the last two years we have developed and launched point to multi-point products which are meant for the vertical market, i.e., surveillance, transportation and mobility. So there are host of applications that are data hungry and today Radwin is regarded as a major vendor for providing a very high capacity base station. The company provides 250 Mbps sector capacity, as per the customer needs.

Managing Security The Indian IT Security industry was focusing mainly on anti-virus solutions. The common perception is that the data security is required for Internet websites. But this is not the only thing which we need to worry for. Two years back we came with Alok Gupta the concept of complete MD, Unistal Systems Pvt Ltd security. Anti-virus, Internet security and total security which are specially meant for internet sites. We launched our product Protegent which is a complete security software specifically for the Government users. From grass root, to quick recovery to data wiping to total security. It protects Internet sites from virus, data loss, unethical use of computer and also provide activity monitoring system.

We also have laptop tracker which give protection from data threat, protect system from dangerous internet sites and unethical activities.

In Person

Mathew Thomas

Vice President, Strategic Industries, SAP

Software solutions for better governance

T

ell us about some of the key governance initiatives which SAP has undertaken in India?

SAP India is the fastest growing subsidiary of SAP AG, the world’s leading provider of business software solutions. SAP has started various governance projects in India. It includes delivery of hardware and software solutions for rural post offices, networking, and core SIP. We are working very closely with Department of Post where in we are providing software solutions for about 1, 55,000 post offices across the country.

We are working with TCS which drives innovations at its SAP Customer Competence Center by building transformational business solutions powered by high speed applications.

We have developed software solutions for various electricity boards in the country.

SAP has designed billing software systems for electricity boards. There are three major areas which are covered by SAP India. It includes citizen centricity, business development and applications for employee data management.

Please brief us on Tree Census System which was developed by SAP for the city of Pune.

Pune is the sixth largest and fastest growing city in India. SAP has developed a mobile platform which captures the key information about the development of trees in Pune. We have completed nearly 80 percent of the entire project.

It has helped Pune Municipal Corporation to analyse the number of trees in the city.

Do you think more government department needs such mobility network?

We are currently focusing on education and healthcare. We are working on various projects

“We empower people and organisations to work together more efficiently and use business insights more effectively to stay ahead of the competition,” says Mathew Thomas. In conversation with Kartik Sharma

for the department of family and healthcare.

We have developed a mobile application to send various information of vaccination programme to Aasha workers through mobile sms.

It effectively saved almost Rs 32 crore annually which was earlier spent to send these information through inland letters.

Our higher education and research solutions help institutions to focus on spending for core areas of education and research. It helps to optimise the available resources. Software designed by SAP helps to find new sources of revenue by reducing reliance on public funding. It improves enrolment and continuity of fee revenue by understanding and focusing on student preferences.

Recently various states governments have distributed free laptops to the students. Do you think it will help in increasing the level of technology in higher education system?

The concept is definitely a good initiative to enhance the quality of technological education.

But according to me, mobile technology is far much more useful. One can imagine that there can be billions of mobiles in a country of 1.25 billion people. It is good to have such exposure but focus should be to enhance remote class-

rooms. The bigger question is about the sustenance mode.

We can take example of our CSR initiative Lakshya Project. It was born out of the desire to help the underprivileged talented section of the country. By the end of the current year, we are planning to touch 100,000 people. We will also distribute laptops and desktops to the respective NGO’s all over the country. Project Lakshya enabled us to set up computer labs in the remotest places in the country. Our primary goal is to bond with the society and help to secure the future of the people.

What are the specific focus areas for SAP? Country’s development is basically dependent on two major areas; education and healthcare.

We also focus on defense, internal and external security. We provide technology solution to the defense forces in the country. We also target urban management of various cities.

Various public sector units (PSU) are also associated with SAP. We are working very closly with some of the leading PSUs like ONGC, BHEL, SAIL, BPCL, GAIL, and IOCL. We empower people and organisations to work together more efficiently and use business insights more effectively to stay ahead of the competition.

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Innovators & Creators

Enhancing Cyber Security

Diwakar Nigam Managing Director and CEO, Newgen India Pvt Ltd

CA is focusing heavily on DevOps this year apart from its continued strong focus on Service Assurance and Security solutions. CA is a leader in the Service Assurance market and its solutions are known to be the best in the industry. CA recently ventured into DevOps with technologies like Service Virtualization and Release Automation, enabling organisations to attain excellence in developmental operations. We believe that with these technologies the whole cycle of development of applications and services can be made much more efficient and this can lead to huge cost savings for every organisation.

Government remains a strong focus for CA and this vertical has Sunil Manglore steadily matured for us. During the MD, CA Technologies early days of Government initiating its ICT interventions through National eGovernance Plan, CA Technologies worked on Government projects by providing solutions for State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and State Data Centers (SDC). The technologies like Service Assurance and Security Solutions helped robust and seamless network and data center operations. Now, as the Government has successfully setup its core infrastructure and is focusing on delivery of public services, CA Technologies has brought forward its latest technology innovations in terms of Service Virtualization, Release Automation, Service Level Management and Security. These are the solutions that will help the Government projects in quick development of applications, seamless roll-out of these applications across all states, measuring all service levels accurately and finally ensuring complete security of public services from various inside/outside threats.

Business Process Management Today, Newgen is a leading innovator in Business Process Management (BPM) and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) with a global footprint of 1000 + installations in over 50 countries. Out of these more than 75 deployments are in Defense, Government Ministries, Departments and PSUs like DSIR, CSIR, Mazagaon Docks Limited, CAG, PNB etc.

Newgen has proudly partnered with the world’s leading Governments, Banks, and Insurance firms, BPO’s, Healthcare Organizations, Telecom Companies & Shared Service Centers to automate their large and mission critical processes.

The company has worked with important Ministries, departments, PSUs, the Judiciary and other government agencies. Some of Newgen’s biggest implementations have been in the government sector, and have paved the way for success in other sectors.

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Quest for Flawless Security FireEye has invented a purpose-built, virtual machine-based security platform that provides real-time threat protection to enterprises and governments worldwide against the next generation of cyber attacks. These highly sophisticated cyber attacks easily circumvent traditional signature-based defenses, such as next-generation firewalls, IPS, anti-virus, and gateways.

The FireEye platform provides real-time, dynamic threat protection without the use of signatures to protect an organization across the primary threat vectors, including Web, email, and files and across the different stages of an attack life cycle.

We are working with various government organisations in the world. We are a part of variRam Sundar Papineni ous critical infra structures in the defense estabRegional Director (India and SAARC), FireEye lishment in the world.

In Person

Pramod Saxena

Chairman & MD, Oxigen Services India Pvt Ltd

Financial Inclusion On Mobile Platform

W

hat is the main focus area for Oxigen? Tell us about the work you are doing in India?

Oxigen was started in July 2004, with a vision to provide telecom services to the masses of India, through a Virtual Network for Payments and Service Distribution. Oxigen started its operations in 2005. The idea of starting Oxygen originated from the new prepaid environment of telecom and large number of telecom users. We wanted to bring the entire process into one platform. The idea of aggregation was to enable the retailer to cut down his investments on payment which he makes to various service providers. It helped in outsourcing the services. We have created various terminals like credit card payment terminal and we have created our own propriety solutions. We were the first company in India to create a mobile wallet called OXICASH bank.

Please tell us about your tie-ups with other organisations?

We have joint venture with a South African company called Blue Label Telecom which is a market leader in distribution of physical and virtual prepaid airtime. They bring to the partnership time and market tested product technology, with a successful track record in competitive markets in South Africa and several other countries. In 2006 Citibank Venture Capital International made investments in the company, to help Oxigen build its footprint. This was followed by Microsoft Corporation, USA, which in 2008, built a strategic business & equity alliance with Oxigen.

Please brief us on OXICASH Wallet?

OxiCash is unique cash based online payment solution which is aimed at customers who use cash to make payments. It is a prepaid stored value vir-

“We aim to Develop and harness technology in order to enable more efficient service delivery in the Mobile and DTH platform,” says Pramod Saxena, Chairman & MD Oxigen. In Conversation with Ankush Kumar

tual wallet where the consumer’s mobile number is the identity. It is unique payment solution developed by Oxigen which is completely secure.

Oxicash can be used on the web as well as from the mobile’s unified payment solution. Central Oxicash data server is maintained in a safe and secure environment with SSL encrypted transaction. It is Non-banked Mobile Wallet that empowers the unbanked masses to instantly transfer money to any bank account and receive money from any bank account holder, 24x7 from OxiCash. We are service provider for airtel money transfers. Our eco system which we have created is providing services beyond the retailer segment.

Tell us about your business model?

Our whole business model is based on value wallet creation. We are the sole company in India to link our wallet system with National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI). Oxigen has Diverse methods of Dispensing it’s Services, which could be suitable across the country to match any retailers needs. Oxigen has multiple options for retailers to conduct their business, using their own PC which has internet connectivity. They can also conduct extra business using the web based tie up’s like Rail/Air tickets, Movie Tickets, and Ecommerce. Retailers also have the option to download a Mobile application to conduct their business.

What steps Oxigen has taken to verify the authentication and identification of users accessing various Oxigen services?

We have undertaken a pilot project for ICICI visa card where we linked the card with Aadhar which is a completely authenticated by the Government of India. Anybody who comes to withdraw money must have to undergo finger biometrics authentication. It ensures the safety in transaction process. We have created a data storage where in were have stored finger biometrics of our customers which is linked with the SBI data storage. Today we accomplish 30 to 40 million transactions every month. These transaction volumes will increase up to 50 million per month. We are expanding at a rate of 2000 retailers every month.

Tell us about the overall revenue growth of company from 2011-12 to 2012-13?

Last year we crossed total annual revenue of `4000 crore and we are hopeful that in the current year we would touch it to `6000 crore. Our growth is 30-40 percent which is really encouraging. We are expecting it grow further in the coming years. Today 50 percent of our total revenue comes from banking and wallet transactions. We are hopeful that it will increase up to 80 percent by the year 2017.

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In Person

Susanta Majumdar

Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics Department, Government of West Bengal

The pro-people agenda of e-Governance “If an administrator is too swayed by technology he won’t be able to deliver to the common man. A balance is essential,” says Susanta Majumdar. In conversation with Nayana Singh

new ICT Incentive Scheme 2012 has provided a number of fiscal incentives to support these strategies. With an eye on electronics hardware sector, we have already identified land at two locations for electronic clusters at Falta and Naihati. Our plan is to set up 26 IT Hubs and Incubation Centres, at least one in each district.

Work is already in progress for setting up such hubs at Siliguri, Asansol, Durgapur, Barjora, Purulia, Kharagpur, Krishnanagar, Bantala and Rajarhat locations.

Your State has taken many new initiatives in e-Governance?

How would you rate the State’s performance in this area of e-Governance?

T

oday IT is considered critical not just for the growth of economy and employment generation, but also for governance. What is your vision for the State’s IT department?

In the new ICT Policy 2012, the vision of the IT department is clear on two aspects of ICT based development in the State. First is to become one of the top three leading states in IT/ITeS and Electronics hardware sector by 2020, which will be driven by our strategies for growth of IT and Electronics hardware industry. Second is to enable West Bengal to transform into a knowledge-driven welfare society with exten-

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sive use of IT and ITeS in Governance and in the daily lives of the people of the State, which will be achieved through our initiatives in the area of e-Governance.

Tell us about the initiatives that your department is taking to bring about growth in the State’s IT industry.

The multi-pronged strategy of the IT & Electronics Department, Government of West Bengal, consists of geographical expansion of IT infrastructure development in Tier-II and Tier-III cities, boosting of local entrepreneurship & MSMEs, developing an eco-system for growth of electronics hardware industry and harnessing existing strengths and talent pool of the state in industry verticals such as Animation & Gaming, Life Sciences, Banking and Finance, and Engineering Design Services. Our

The Chief Minister of West Bengal is very pro-active in this area. I would like to inform you that today all our major procurements are done through an e-Procurement portal run

by NIC. The State has decided to digitise all departmental and records of Collectorates.

It is a web-based Document Management & Archival System. This is already under operation in Darjeeling District Magistrate’s office on a pilot basis. Work is going on for the Home Department. West Bengal’s success in e-Governance in major areas like Land Records, Registration, Commercial Taxes, Panchayat and Rural Development has attracted everybody’s earned attention of all.

Now, Financial Management System of the state is another area where there will be huge progress in a year to come. With the thrust of the NeGP, the Government is taking full advantage of the e-Governance Revolution and the Information Technology & Electronics Department is playing active role in overseeing the implementation. In terms of setting up of core infrastructures, West Bengal has always been one of the leaders.

In Person

Please provide us with an overview of the Common Service Centres that have been opened in West Bengal.

In our state, the Common Service Centres were commissioned since April 2008. SREI Sahaj was appointed as the Service Centre Agency (SCA) as the Private Partner and Panchayat and Rural Development Department (P&RD Dept.) as the State Designated Agency (SDA). Over the years, both the parties have worked closely to make the project a success in the state. The project was commissioned with a target of 6,797 CSCs in the entire state. In terms of number of CSCs, the SDA along with SCA has been able to setup 6,209 CSCs in the entire state of West Bengal which is almost 90 percent of the target set for the state. Hence it can be said that the progress has been reasonably good.

What kind of services is now being provided at the CSCs? What new services will be launched in the future?

Although CSCs are being setup as the front desk for major G2C services of the Government of West Bengal, the VLEs of the CSCs have been able to provide B2C/Utility services to the citizens in the rural areas of the state.

The VLEs have gained confidence among the citizens in providing utility services like payments of electricity bills/ booking of railway tickets/ train ticket booking, mobile top-up etc, which involve cash transactions in the remotest part of the state. Until recently, the G2C services delivered through the CSCs was not very encouraging. However, with the e-District Rollout and other e-Governance projects shall increase the effectiveness of the CSCs in the State.

What kind of response are the CSCs getting from the common citizens of the state?

Frankly speaking, we need to travel miles before we can say that we have been able to create an impact. Let’s wait for the statewise rollout of e-District. Once that is done, the

“All our major procurements are done through an e-procurement portal run by NIC” real benefits of CSCs will become obvious to everyone.

What are the main challenges in the implementation of e-Governance projects?

The biggest challenge in the implementation of e-Governance is the Government Process Reengineering and Change Management without which the desired results will never be achieved. The Departments are very sensitive in approving the GPR. We have been facing this challenge during the implementation of e-District project. Change management is important not only in terms of cultural change but also in terms of changing mode of operations and processes workflow that the automated environment will introduce. The state is also discussing the Electronic Services Delivery Bill that would bring the desired changes in redefining rules and procedures in the Government.

What could be the possible solutions to these challenges?

The government departments should have a

West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited Webel, headquartered in Kolkata, is the nodal agency of the Government of West Bengal for developing Information Technology, Electronics and ITES industries in the State and creating value for the citizens.

Webel facilitates the growth of the industry by a host of measures such as developing infrastructure in the

dedicated Project Monitoring Team (PeMT) as has been stressed in the NeGP. You see, the continuous monitoring of projects on a regular basis is very important. Only this can ensure the success of the projects. Lack of technology experts is a drawback in handling of projects and in the monitoring of the SLAs. Security of data is also a

form of land/buildings for the investors and facilitating processes of clearances that are required to set up business, ensures last mile connectivity, assists the government in all its e-governance projects and brings tangible benefits to citizens in the field of health care and IT education.

major concern in making them available to the general public. Capacity Building is also crucial in overcoming many of these challenges.

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

Though an MMP under NeGP, the progress in Commercial Taxes, Land Records and Registration services have been excellent. In fact, I would say that there are a number of state specific e-Governance projects that have been successful. For instance, there is the e-Governance project that allows location specific SMS service for Disaster Management Department. Our e-Governance project of Employment Bank is a great success. It gets lakhs of hits. Another success area for us is our Hospital Store Management Information System. This system is bringing a lot of efficiency and transparency.

In your opinion what kind of experiences and sensibilities should an IT Secretary bring to his job?

People who are posted as Secretary to a Department are experienced in Public Administration.

Every Department has its own uniqueness, and so has every individual. However, an IT Department one should be willing to learn new things everyday. IT is a highly dynamic and a fastchanging field. The technologies that we consider high-tech today might be regarded as obsolete in a matter of few weeks. But if an administrator is too swayed by technology he won’t be able to deliver to the common man. A balance is essential.

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In Person

Nick Hawkins

Director, Technology Consulting Group, Polycom

Solutions for Video Collaboration devices solution and desktop solutions. The thing is that people these days are looking for a higher level premium experience and that is what Polycom is providing.

Give us an overview of the work that you are doing in the area of e-Governance in India?

“Video collaboration requires sufficient highquality bandwidth, this was a major challenge in the past, but now with the dawn of telecom revolution this problem has been overcome,�

these areas and will continue to expand in the years to come.

What are your views on unified communication for enterprise?

In India, 75 percent solutions in the government sector are being deployed by Polycom.

We are associated with many varied sectors in the government such as tele-justice and DRDO. Polycom solutions are used for effective e-Governance initiatives for connecting government offices across districts, cities and states in India.

The government is looking forward to enhance engagement with its citizens and streamline citizenry services through visual collaboration. We are able to extend a browser based video collaboration interface to enable citizens to have video interaction for core government services.

Unified Communications is making collaborations between companies, their clients and employees smarter, quicker and more efficient.

Collaboration in the new age enterprises is about working on mobile devices and making use of cloud to enable anytime, anywhere access so that the decision making is simplified and time-to market or service is reduced. Advances in consumer technologies such as the proliferation of tablets and other portable smart devices are compelling the organisations to enhance themselves with advanced unified communication capabilities to facilitate the major trend wave of enterprise mobility. Cloud based UC give employees the tools to collaborate and be productive anytime, anywhere.

What do you think are the major challenges in the e-Governance space in India?

Give us an insight into the Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS Platform?

It is obvious that high quality video collaboration requires sufficient high-quality bandwidth, which was a major challenge, but now with the advent of cellular networks and 3G and in the near future 4G cellular data capabilities, this problem all set to be resolved. On the technology front, Scalable Video Coding (SVC) is helping to build a robust network. I think, the things which have been a road block in the past are now being overcome with the infrastructural development across India.

We believe that the standards-based Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS Platform is a major revolution in video collaboration. It enables the enterprises to take the video collaborative experience outside the traditional meeting rooms to deliver it on mobile devices and personal computers. Polycom RealPresence CloudAXIS turns the ability to have that rich media interaction into just a browser based hyperlink. This allows us to break down the final barrier of interoperability that enables any organisation to simplify the communication process. Firstof-its-kind software solution brings contacts from all your presence-based applications into a global directory of participants that you drag and drop into a Polycom business-class video collaboration session, allowing others outside your organisation to securely join the conference via their browser with a single click.

says Nick Hawkins. Director, Technology Consulting Group, Polycom. In conversation with Ankush Kumar

P

lease provide us with an overview of how Polycom Video Conferencing solution is doing in India?

We have seen a significant success and a wide market acceptance of Polycom solutions across India in different market segments. Purely from solution prospective, we are pleased to see that full range of Polycom solution have been adopted. Now we are also seeing significant acceptance of our admissive tele-presence that gives premium video collaboration experience.

Then there is the wider adoption of mobile

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What are your key focus sectors in India?

We are successful in a number of areas in India; our key focus areas in India are healthcare, education and manufacturing. Energy also is among the top focus sectors for Polycom in India. Polycom has been able to carve niche in

In Person

Shashi B Mal

Director and Industry Leader Government, IBM

Smart technologies for smart governance

E

arlier you were serving as Director Solution and Technology Group and now you heading the Government Business at IBM. What was the management strategy behind this shift?

That was almost three years back, in between I was in the cloud business and the growth markets of IBM. So from 2009 to 2012, I was in the growth market handling the cloud business and this year in January 2013 I came to head the industry solution for Government. I have been here for 17 years and we keep on switching to many roles and responsibilities as per the company’s requirement. We are in the Government from pretty long as technology provider from hardware and the software or be it services business. We are now trying to focus on industry solutions for the Government and over a period of time IBM has built a portfolio through lot of software actuations and product acquisitions.

Today we feel like, in other parts of the world as the Governments are becoming more business centric and more people centric giving lot of focus to ICT to deliver their expectations what people have from them. So we have a broad product folio of industry solutions which we think are relevant in the Government space.

Can you tell us about some of the successful projects that you have done in the government sector?

We have done lot of projects with lot of our partners; we have done projects in defense, we have done in ministry of finance, we have done many state level projects, treasury projects, tax projects, passport projects, then lot of ministry of commerce projects. IBM has worked

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“WIBM is now trying to focus on industry solutions for the Government.

Wehave built a portfolio of solutions to serve the needs of various government departments,” says Shashi B Mal, Director and Industry Leader Government. In conversation with Ankush Kumar

with Center for Railway Information System (CRIS) to implemented a Crew Management System (for Indian Railways) to automate the day-to-day management of staffing on board its trains. Delhi International Airport (P) Limited (DIAL) partnered with IBM India to establish a common-use infrastructure in New Delhi’s Passenger Terminal Building 3 that automates its operations and improve customer satisfaction. IBM is partnered with The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) in India to evolve smart grid project. This helped create a cost benefit analysis for smart grid activities as part of the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE).

What kind of work are you doing in the banking sector ?

We are also working with banks on fraud management and security like you gave some cooperative backs where they being small they having all the resources in house to do everything themselves, we have hosted their whole application in our data centers, managed it and run it for them. Microfinance bank Grameen Koota in India uses an open-source banking platform for accurate, near-real-time informa-

tion, enabling it to predict capital requirements; to expand its microloans, insurance accounts and other banking functions; and to grow from 70,000 to 3,50,000 low-income clients.

What are some of your areas which you want to explore in near future?

We are also working on various social programs for instance the Government wants to reduce the subsidy as they are focusing on direct cash transfer. So I think that this is a big initiative and we are trying to see what role and what we can do in this program because we have very strong platform around social program delivery. We have acquired a quorum couple of years back and it is a very strong social delivery platform in many matured geographies. We are at a planning stage we are talking to Government and potential customer for this. In healthcare there is a lot of non-clinical initiatives which are happening like inoculations, mother and child welfare programs, the primary health which is delivered at the lowest district, the Aanganvadi who are integrated to some of those programs so this is one area which we want to look at it very aggressively.

In Person

Puneet Gupta

Sr Vice President - Public Sector, Cisco Systems

e-Governance for serving the people

“Cisco, with its worldwide expertise, can play a seminal role in promoting e-Governance in the country” which happened over the years. Cisco has played a very important role in this in the areas of Income Tax , Customs, National Knowledge Network, defense network, state wide area network, state data centre and all across APDRP projects. We are also working with Ministry of Home in several police modernisation projects. Important areas for us are education, health and cyber security.

“The public procurement process of the Government is very important because it brings transparency in the entire process,” says Puneet Gupta, Sr Vice President - Public Sector, Cisco Systems. In Conversation with Ankush Kumar

W

hat is your view of e-Governance vertical in India? Tell us about the work that Cisco is doing in this area?

The most important thing from Cisco stand point is that we want to align with India’s national agenda.

If we look at it what’s happening in India there is a significant development in Infrastructure. The last twenty years have been the years of transformation and creation of new infrastructure - the whole telecom infrastructure has come up, the whole e-Governance infrastructure has come up, and lot more infrastructure is under construction. So in a way you can also call it a nation building process

Tell us about some of the major projects in the area of e-Governance that Cisco has been involved with in India.

One of the most important areas, which touch the lives of almost all of us, is the area of income tax. The way we file our returns has changed, the way we get our tax refunds has changed. Cisco has done some major work in providing networking solutions to facilitate better systems of tax filing and tax returns. Similarly we have done important work for Ministry of Corporate Affairs. You look at State Wide Area Network (SWAN), which is all about creating infrastructure in the state right at the block level. We have participated in most SWAN projects, and also in the State Data Centre projects. Then there is the APDRP project of Ministry of Power for cutting down on power distribution losses. In this area also we have made valuable contributions.

According to you what are the key challenges that a private concern faces in working with the Government in India?

The public procurement process of the Government is very important. The procurement has to be done in a transparent manner. Today lot of transparency has come in mainly due to the e-Governance systems for procurement. The

challenge also comes for a technology company because over technology is never static, it changes with time, at times the pace of change is very fast.

So in my opinion the biggest challenge is the change management. Then there are the issues regarding capacity building. When e-Governance took off in the country, one of the biggest issues with the government was that the government employees did not have IT experience. Eventually the government did a very good job of taking their executives through the change management process. With such a high number of government officials there are still many who do not have adequate IT knowledge.

Are you also focusing to address the issues of training and capacity building in the government departments?

We have a net academy programme and we do a lot of work around that, we have more than 200 odd net academies with 23000 students. We are also focusing to build up skilled manpower in the government. The government executives who have been used to working now need to get trained in the new ways of doing things. All new government projects face the problem of capacity building.

The government employees need to be educated in the new technologies. As of now e-Governance is only making an impression on a relatively small section of the country’s population. Majority of the population, especially those in rural areas, have not even been touched by the new systems. New infrastructure has to be created to take e-Governance to all parts of the country. We also need to train a new crop of government employees to man these new systems. Cisco, with its worldwide expertise in this area, will play a seminal role in promoting e-Governance in the country.

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In Person

P H Kurian

Principal Secretary (IT) Government of Kerala

IT Revolution in kerala the public has come up with some kind of e-Governance initiative. The e-District project has been rolled out in all the 14 districts of the state. As you may already be knowing, the e-District project has been conceptualised to improve the experience of governance and enhance the efficiencies of the various Departments at the district-level. The idea is to enable seamless service delivery to the citizens in every part of the country. In Kerala the e-District project has led to back-end computerisation on a massive scale, so that there can be delivery of citizen services through Akshaya Centres.

The Government has implemented the pilot e-District project with the vision of making all Government services accessible to the common man in his locality.

What steps have you taken to ensure that all sections of society are equal beneficiaries of the e-District project in Kerala?

“We are very effectively using latest IT technology to bring about improvements in the service delivery to the citizens,” says P H Kurian

K

erala has been taking lot of e-Governance initiatives during the past few years. Please tell us about the successes that have been achieved in this area.

Kerala has always been a pioneer state in the area of e-Governance. Almost every major government department that has to deal with

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We have introduced first-in and first-out system of service delivery in our e-District centres. This kind of system makes it mandatory for an official to clear the first application before he can proceed to the next. Unless the application that has arrived earlier is cleared, the next one cannot be handled. This ensures that all the applications are dealt with in a free and fair manner. We have successfully delivered lakhs of certificates to the citizens of the state through our e-District centres. Many more services are now being added to the e-District platform.

Kerala has also done lot of work in the area of road transport management. Please tell us about it.

We have taken several landmark initiatives in our transport department. The usual services that a citizen needs - registration of vehicle, issuance

of driving license and few others services have been digitised. Today an applicant can avail of a digitally signed driving license in their email ID. They can save it in their mobile phones, and use it as a valid driving licence. They don’t even need to carry a hard copy of their driving licence. We are also planning to digitise our tax payment enforcement system. We will install video cameras, which will be connected to the tax payment database.

The cameras will be able to communicate with the central database in real time and inform the traffic officials about any vehicle that has not paid taxes. So the traffic officials won’t have to stop every vehicle and check their documents. Another achievement that I would like to tell you about is that 25 percent of the houses in Kerala have broadband connections. Also, Kerala is the only state which has almost 100 percent mobile density.

There is no doubt that the Common Service Centres in the country are doing a wonderful job of promoting digital inclusion.

However, concerns have been raised about the viability of CSCs. Tell us about the work that CSCs are doing in Kerala.

In Kerala the CSCs are doing reasonably well. We have developed an entrepreneurial mode of development in the state. Here the Common Service Centres are allowed to provide various services like telephone bill payments, internet surfing for children and much else. The CSCs are also involved in the digitisation of government projects generates.

We are also planning to create a database of Aadhaar registration through our CSC. As of now the number of CSCs in the state is about 2000, this number will soon increase to around 3000. We are also enhancing payment gateway system through our CSCs. We have launched a payment service for university and

In Person

colleges through an application services called “FRIENDS Re-Engineered and Enterprise Enabled Software” (FREES). This centralised web enabled system will help the citizens in paying utility bills, taxes, and other dues at any of the CSCs. The state payment gateway will be up within two months.

Tell us about the initiatives that IT department is taking to enhance IT infrastructure in government projects and schemes?

In Kerala, we have completed 90 percent of Aadhaar enrolment. Our process for developing database for Aadhaar enrolment is about to complete. We want to create a system where payments are Aadhaar enabled. We have launched welfare pension scheme and welfare fund scheme. We are creating a digital data for all such funds. We will introduce Aadhaar enabled payment gateway by the end of this year. The enrolment charges for UIDAI registration is being made through banks.

State IT mission pays money and transfers the money to the CSCs directly through Aadhaar enabled account system. India’s first step in taking ICT to the masses has been rolled-out in Kerala, Akshaya is the state’s first district-wide e-literacy project. It is one of the largest known Internet Protocol (IP) based wireless network in the world.

As a part of Akshaya initiative, at least one person in each of the 65 lakh families in the State will be made IT-literate.

Tell us about the m-Governance initiatives undertaken in Kerala?

The Kerala m-Governance system is integrated to a mobile application which is so designed to include all the services and departments under Kerala Government. The application works in offline mode and standard SMS rates are applicable for accessing the services. The objective of the project is to integrate the advancements in mobile technology with various government departments to create a cost effective, efficient and round the clock government information system.

Citizen can get the information about the status of their application through their mobile devices.

What kind of capacity building are you doing in all the government departments?

We are very effectively using latest IT technology to bring about improvements in the service delivery to the citizens. The employees in various government departments have been

Objectives of CERT-K • To collect and maintain a repository of all System/ Website administrators of Kerala Government Websites/Web applications • To create a suitably qualified and empowered personnel who can further knowledge and expertise in this area to advance the mission.

• Initiate proactive measures to increase awareness and understanding of Information security and computer security issues throughout the community of network users and service providers by disseminating security related information.

• To act as a nodal agency to conduct security audits or assessments of government and constituent IT infrastructure in the state, evolving security policy for the state.

• To act as a central point for monitoring, identifying vulnerabilities and suggesting remedial measures for correcting vulnerabilities in computer and communication systems(websites & e-governance applications) belonging to government and ‘certify’ any e-governance or e-commerce site in the state • Build awareness and conduct education, training, research and development.

• Develop state’s crisis management plan and implement the same in coordination with CERTIn with well laid policies and procedures of data recovery offering the following services to critical infrastructure clients.

Activities of CERT-K • • • •

Vulnerability Reporting Incident Reporting Incident Analysis Vulnerability Assessment of various Kerala Government Websites

• Log analysis • Coordination with CERT-In and HITECH CELL

We have introduced

first-in and first-out system

of service delivery in our e-District centres

trained so that they are able to comfortably do their work in a modern IT environment.

We have made it mandatory for all the departments to use ICT for delivering services to the common people. All the regulatory departments in the state machinery will have to adopt e-Governance in the next three to four years.

level in Kerala and to enhance the security of state government’s communications and information infrastructure through proactive action and effective collaboration.

CERT-K shall also oversee the implementation of crisis management plan of the Government of Kerala.

These days we are having many instances of malicious cyber attacks on government owned online systems. What steps are you taking to ensure that the public data with the government is safe?

How do you view IT industry in Kerala over the next five years?

To ensure cyber security of Kerala the government in the state has set up a Computer Emergency Response Team-Kerala (CERTKerala or CERT-K) in line with CERT India (CERT-IN). The purpose of CERT-K is to coordinate security efforts and incident response for IT security problems on a state

The IT industry in Kerala has been growing at a healthy rate. All the top consultancies in the world refer to Kochi and Trivandram as two of the top IT destinations in. We are starting ICT Academy in the coming months to improve the quality of the IT professionals that are available in the state. Today the state is blessed with more than 50,000 engineer graduates. We have crossed one billion dollar mark in our IT export and this is 70 percent more than the last year. Today 80,000 IT professionals are working in the state of Kerala.

August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

71

Auditing Cyber Security

K P Sasidharan

Director General (WR) Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India

Emerging Cyber

Threats and Security Issues It is difficult to ascertain the origin, identity or motivation of the perpetrators as they can operate with substantial impunity from virtually anywhere

T

he Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India, has recently released the National Cyber Security Policy (NCSP) “for secure computing environment and adequate trust and confidence in electronic transactions.” The Information Technology (IT) infrastructure has, no doubt, emerged as the most critical catalyst for economic growth and prosperity, linking citizens into a virtually seamless fabric of interconnectivity, across physical and logical networks, going far beyond organizational and national boundaries. Good governance is possible only through reliable, secure and effective e-Governance.

The Indian IT sector has provided world-class technology solutions to help ensuring effective service delivery systems and economically viable powerful business solutions to emerging challenges. Realising the importance of IT sector, the Indian government at all levels – at the centre, states and the third tier government structure of Urban Local Bodies and Panchayati Raj Institutions has been adopting IT-enabled initiatives for improving citizen services, citizen identification, public distribution systems, healthcare through telemedicine, remote consultation, mobile clinics and outreaching people imparting education via e-Learning, virtual classrooms and similar innovative e-Solutions and financial service by providing mobile banking and payment gateways.

The government has adopted strategic National e-Governance Programmes (NeGP) and the Unique Identification Development Authority of India (UIDAI) programme with large scale IT backbone interlinking the nation to promote effective IT enabled solutions to

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various governance and service delivery issues.

Considering the increasing internet vulnerabilities, abuse, cyber threats, terrorism, securing wireless and wired security of the computing environment and information systems, ensuring adequate trust and confidence in electronic transactions is a growing challenge world over.

Creation of a reliable cyber information system with adequate security eco-system, in tune with globally networked online environment becomes an inevitable pre-requisite for the modern day governance.

A holistic dynamic and flexible cyber security strategy with constant vigil on updating in pace with emerging threats posed by technological trends is a must to safeguard the information systems and networks of the entire ICT users and service providers covering both government and non-government entities. While protecting the cyber space in the country, there should be a robust cyber security framework capable of addressing effectively the security related issues overa long period.

The Cyber Security Policy is intended for securing the cyber space considering its impact on national security, public safety and economic wellbeing. The cyber security needs are far beyond traditional technological measures like anti-virus, firewalls, placing anti-intrusion devices encompassing dynamic strategy designed to detect, stop and prevent attacks. For this reason, cyber security intelligence forms an integral component of security of cyber space to anticipate attacks and to adopt counter measures.

As stated in the government’s policy statement it is important to have ‘effective correlation of information from multiple sources and realtime monitoring of assets that need protection and at the same time ensuring that adequate expertise and process are in place to deal with

crisis situations.’ The policy should be geared to ensure security to people, process and technology while endeavouring to adopt the best available technological solutions with the help of adequately trained and qualified manpower.

Threats emanate from varied sources, target individuals, businesses, national infrastructures, and governments, posing significant risk for public safety, security of nations and the interconnected international Internet users as a whole. It is difficult to ascertain the origin, identity or motivation of the perpetrators as they can operate with substantial impunity from virtually anywhere. The motives include demonstration of technical know how, theft of money or information or even an extension of state conflict by criminals and potential terrorists or States themselves.

In the context of increasing sophistication and scale of criminal activity, all nations have to co-operate to prevent subversion of ICT supply chain. Inclusion of malicious malware in products and services erodes trust and affect national security. Cooperation among nations, private sector and civil society is indispensable to safeguard networks, computers, data bases, data centers and applications with proper security procedures and technological measures.

NCSP envisages in its scope of action cyber defense taking defensive actions against perpetrators of cyber crime on information systems by those who have political, economic motivation or who damage public safety and economic wellbeing of the society. The cyber defense system will be deploying technological capabilities for real-time protection and prompt incident response, driven by intelligence on the threat, directing, collecting, analysing and disseminating the relevant actionable intelligence information to the stakeholders concerned for

Auditing Cyber Security

“The government needs to integrate competing interests to derive a holistic vision and plan to address the cyber security related issues to develop the policies, processes, people, and technology required to mitigate cyber security-related risks,� says K P Sasidharan

proactive, preventive and protective measures.

The effectiveness lies in ensuring resilience and continuity of operations. Creation of awareness on threats, conducive legal environment for taking appropriate counter measure, effective law enforcement, protection of IT networks and gateways and critical communication and information infrastructure, cyber security emergency response and resolution and crisis management through effective predictive, preventive, protective, response and recovery actions.

Policy, promotion and enabling actions for compliance to international security best practices and conformity assessment product, process, technology and people andincentives for compliance.Indigenous development of suitable security techniques and technology solution oriented research and deployment of secure IT products and processes. Creation of a culture of cyber security for responsible user behaviour and actions; effective cybercrime prevention and prosecution actions; proactive preventive and reactive mitigation actions to reach out and neutralise the sources oftrouble and support for creation of global security eco system, including public-private partnership arrangements, information sharing, bilateral and multi-lateral agreements with overseas CERTs, security agencies and security vendors.

The objectives of NCSP are prevention of cyber-attacks, reducing vulnerability and enhancing the defense capability of critical ICT infrastructure. Minimising damage and recovery in a reasonable time frame time are the key drivers. It is vital significance to identify and classify critical information infrastructure facilities and assets and preparing roadmaps for organisation-wise security policy implementation in line with international security best practices standards and other related guidelines. Security threats and vulnerability assessments are monitored and use of secure products and services, protocols and communications, trusted networks anddigital control systems are to be ensured. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will have to cooperate to secure information flow through their networks and gateways and appropriatelegally enforceable agreements will be set in place to support law enforcement, information security incident handling and crisis management processes on a 24x7 basis.

At national level, CERT-In, DIT will act as a nodal agency and co-ordinate all matters related to information security in the country, August 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Auditing Cyber Security

with clearly defined roles and responsibilities.

Emergency preparedness and crisis management will be strengthened through Mirror Centres, hot/warm/cold sites,communication, redundancy, and disaster recovery plans, test and evaluation of plans. Periodic and random verification of the level of emergency preparedness will be undertaken. Development of comprehensive repair and maintenance policy is essential to minimise falsealarms and increase cyber resource availability to all users efficiently. Along with tactical and strategic analysis of cyber attacks and vulnerability assessments, expanding the Cyber Warning and Information Network to support, it important to have prompt response by the government in coordinating crisis management for cyberspace security.

criminals to steal hundreds of millions of dollars and nation-states and other entities to steal intellectual property and sensitive military information. The government needs to integrate competing interests to derive a holistic vision and plan to address the cyber security related issues to develop the policies, processes, people, and technology required to mitigate cyber security-related risks. Cyber security policy includes strategy, policy, and standards regarding the security of and operations in cyberspace, and encompasses the full range of threat reduction, vulnerability reduction, deterrence, international engagement, incident response, resiliency, and recovery policies and activities, including computer network operations, information assurance, law enforcement, diplomacy, military, and intelligence missions

“Good governance is

only through reliable, secure and effective e-Governance“ NCSP will be giving adequate importance to safeguard important wings of government like Defence, Energy, Finance, Space, Telecommunications, Transport, Public Essential Services and Utilities, Law Enforcement and Security are to be protected from large-scale defacement and semantic attacks on websites, Malicious code attacks, Large scale SPAM attacks, Spoofing, Phishing attacks, Social Engineering, Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed DoS attacks, attacks on DNS, Applications, infrastructure and Routers, Compound attacks and High Energy RF attacks.

Implementation of Information Security Best Practices based on ISO 27001standard, Business Continuity Plan, Disaster Recovery, Security of Information and Network, Security Training and Awareness, Incident Management, Sharing of information pertaining to incidents and conducting mock drills to test the preparedness of Critical Security legal framework and a sound legal framework and effective law enforcement procedures are essential in deterring cyber-crime.

The architecture of the Nation’s digital infrastructure, based largely upon the Internet, is not secure or resilient. Digital infrastructure has been suffering intrusions that have allowed

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as they relate to the security and stability of the global information and communications infrastructure.

A recent technical report on ‘2013 Information Security Breaches Survey ’ conducted by PWC in association with Info-security Europe finds out that security breaches reach highest ever levels in UK businesses with increasing average cost of breaches. Attackers include criminals, hacktivists and competitors leading to multiple failures in people, processes, and technology. Consequently security budgets are increasing. Weaknesses in risk assessment and shortage of skilled manpower to tackle the threats and attacks become one of the key reasons.

In this context, it is important to note ‘The Ten Steps’ the UK government had specified in its guidelines to business on how to protect themselves from cyber security threats. These tens steps are information risk management, user education and awareness, home and mobile working, incident management, managing user privileges, removable media controls, monitoring, secure configuration, malware protection, network security. As technology is rapidly changing, there is a need to have a flexible cyber security policy, assigning adequate priority,

investment, right attitude and security culture with extra care to keep pace with changing environment taking into account notorious malware kits like Blackhole and attacks arising out of Java in browser, vulnerability of passwords, increasing use of smart phones. tablets and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and emerging risks arising out of adoption of cloud computing services.

There should be effective measures to detect incidence of different types of security breaches like infection by viruses and malicious software leading to systems failure and data theft, fraud and corruption; incidents caused by staff and outsiders with impact of breaches on business disruption, total cost of breach including financial loss and damage of reputation and an appropriate contingency plan for disaster management.

A comprehensive IT security should be reducing the attacks by monitoring malware and threats like vulnerabilities, applications and spam; ensuring users are protected irrespective of the place and device they use covering mobile gateway and cloud technologies; looking beyond antivirus signatures to detect risk behaviour and appearance of malicious codes; and constantly training and updating the skills of IT staff to effectively check the increasing new forms of attacks with complete visibility and granular control of the security system.

In order to safeguard the business, it is important to assess the entire landscape of the cyber security, establish a baseline of current cyber security capabilities and identify the general training needs for the workforce.

As part of the Cyber Security Policy, a national nodal agency at apex level known as National Information Board (NIB) with members from relevant departments and agencies will be entrusted with information security and coordination for all strategic, military, government and business security requirements.

There will be National Crisis Management Committee to address major crisis incidents, National Cyber Response Centre, National Information Infrastructure Protection Centre, National Disaster Management Authority, Standardisation, Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) Directorate will have to be in place and effectively manage cyber security related issues to safeguard cyberspace and information communication technology (ICT) devices and networks of the nation as envisaged in the much acclaimed policy statement.

RNI NO - UPENG/2008/25234

UP/GBD - 71/2012-2014