egov December 2012

Special issue on

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

december 2012 | VOLUME 08 n ISSUE 12 n ISSN 0973-161X egov.eletsonline.com

13 - 16 December 2012 The City Palace, Udaipur, Rajasthan

ict for good governance & inclusive growth

eGov Magazine

Ashok Gehlot Chief Minister, Rajasthan

IT agility. Your way.

Contents december 2012

grid grid name issue 12second n  volume 08

52 rural connectivity Indu Gupta

State Informatics Officer & Senior Technical Director, National Informatics Centre

54 rpsc

Dr Krishna Kant Pathak

10 Inclusive Growth C K Mathew

Chief Secretary, Government of Rajasthan

Secretary, Rajasthan Public Service commission (RPSC)

36

industrial outlook Sunil Arora

Principal Secretary, Department of Industries, State Enterprises & NRI, Government of Rajasthan

56 interview

Sharat Kaviraj SP State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB), Rajasthan

16 Inclusive development

Shreemat Pandey

Principal Secretary IT&C, & CMO, Government of Rajasthan Secretary, Government of Rajasthan

interview

Naveen Mahajan

39

financial management

interview

Principal Secretary, Finance Department, Government of Rajasthan

Commissioner (Investment & NRIs), Bureau of Investment Promotion (BIP), Rajasthan

40

good governance

interview

Secretary, Department of Information Technology & Communications, Government of Rajasthan

42 interview

Udaipur District Magistrate & Collector

Managing Director, Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Ltd

46 interview

Chairman and Managing Director, Director, Government & Secure Identification Segment, NagraID - Kudelski Groupited

62 public health

Deepak Upreti

Principal Secretary, Medical Health & Family Welfare and Ayurved Department, Government of Rajasthan

64 interview

G N Saxena

Professor, SMS Medical College (Retired)

72 interview

Jaipur Development Commissioner, Jaipur Development Authority, Government of Rajasthan

50

interview

digital economy policies

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / December 2012

Manuel Villamayor

Kuldeep Ranka

34 Managing Director, Rajasthan Medical Services Corporation, Government of Rajasthan

interview

(RKCL)

interview

Dr Samit Sharma

60

Aatul Wadegaonkar

32 Chairman & Managing Director, Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation (RSRTC)

Chairman and Managing Director, Telecommunications Consultants India Limited

Principal Secretary, Higher Education, Government of Rajsthan

interview

Manjit Singh

Vimal Wakhlu

Rajeeva Swarup

28 Vikas Sitaramji Bhale

interview

Siddharth Mahajan

24 Sanjay Malhotra

58

Managing Director, Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO)

20 Dr Govind Sharma

4

38

Dr Jaijit Bhattacharya

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

Bipul Pathak

Commissioner & Secretary, Science & Technology and Information Technology Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

65 eINDIA 2012 report

Inspiring Innovation, Shaping Vision

Successful e-Governance Initiatives in Rajasthan

R

ecently the Rajasthan chief Minister, Shri Ashok Gehlot announced that 10 flagship public initiatives in the State would be linked to the Aadhaar unique identification programme. In a phased manner, Aadhaar will be made compulsory for old-age, widow and differently-abled pension schemes, rural job cards, ration cards, driving license, property registration, water and electricity connections, Indira Awas Yojna and student scholarships.

The state departments have been also been advised by the Chief Minister to spend three percent of their allotted budget on e-Governance. A move is also being made to strengthen the Information Technology department by recruiting additional 750 people. Undoubtedly all this represents a major thrust on e-Governance. These measures will ensure fast delivery of services with transparency and accountability.

The essence of e-Governance can be summarised as serving the citizens of the country through usage of latest solutions from ICT. The manual systems of governance have often been found to be plagued with procedures and delays, over-centralisation, systematic rigidities and poor service quality. Modern technology has the power to act like a panacea to all these ills in governance.

At the core, e-Governance is all about delivering services to the citizens and businesses, and so paramount challenge remains to develop solutions for rapid development, deployment and delivery of services.

The current issue of e-Gov magazine is devoted to shedding light on the various flagship schemes for people that have been launched in the State of Rajasthan. Rajasthan’s response to e-Governance in last few years has been notably good. Full of faith in new IT based solutions for governance, Rajasthan has enacted key enabling policies, facilitated the ecosystem, expended efforts towards sensitisation of backend departments and significantly invested in internal capacity to realise our vision.

In November 2012, we concluded the highly successful eINDIA summit in Hyderabad. In the month of December we will be in Udaipur, where from 13th December 2012 to 16th December 2012, we are having the eGov Knowledge Exchange. Major stakeholders of e-Governance will gather in Udaipur to discuss and deliberate upon new innovations in governance. The event is focussed on sharing knowledge about the e-Governance initiatives that are leading to a paradigm shift in the ways by which the common citizens see their government.

There is now an increasing awareness among citizens about their rights and this has also led to an increase in expectations from the government to perform and deliver. After all, e-Governance is all about transformations and not about translations. As always we look forward to having your feedback. And we also hope to see you at the eGov Knowledge Exchange Forum.

Email at subscription@elets.in to get previous issues

September2012

October2012

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November2012

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

5

december 2012 issue 12 n volume 08

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

Consulting Editor: Ashis Sanyal

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Finance & Operations Team General Manager – Finance: Ajit Kumar Legal Officer: Ramesh Prasad Verma Sr. Manager – Events: Vicky Kalra Associate Manager – HR: Sushma Juyal Associate Manager – Accounts: Anubhav Rana Executive Officer – Accounts: Subhash Chandra Dimri Admin Executive: Gurneet Kaur

Health Sr. Correspondent: Sharmila Das Research Assistant: Shally Makin Sales & Marketing Team Sr. Manager – Sales: Satish Shetti Manager – Marketing: Ragini Shrivastav Manager – Business Development: Abhijeet Ajoynil National Sales Manager – digitalLEARNING: Fahimul Haque Associate Manager - Business Development: Amit Kumar Pundhir Assistant Mamager: Vishukumar Hichkad Assistant Manager-Business Development: Shankar Adaviyar Sr. Executive Officer – Business Development: Gaurav Srivastava Sr. Executive – Business Development: Suman Pokhriyal

Information Technology Team Executive-IT Infrastructure: Zuber Ahmed

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6

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / December 2012

CHIEF MINISTER

Message

RAJSTHAN

The State Government is committed to providing transparent and effective governance to the citizens of the State. The common man is the focus of our programmes and schemes. We have launched a number of flagship schemes in the recent past for the welfare of the common man.

The flagship programmes aim at the development and social security of the common man through schemes like Free Medicine Scheme, Janani- Shishu Suraksha Yojana, Ann Suraksha Yojana, BPL Affordable Housing Scheme, and Rajasthan Guaranteed Delivery of Public Services Act ( RGDPS) – 2011. Under the RGDPS Act, various services of the State Government are to be delivered in a time bound manner to the citizens. Similarly, the Right to Hearing Act 2012 provides a right to hearing to the common man.

We believe that e-Governance is the key to good governance. Keeping this in mind, we have earmarked 3% of the state’s plan budget for IT / e-Governance initiatives. As a result, a number of IT initiatives have been taken. These include computerization of Mines and Geology Department, Rajasthan Public Service Commission, Roadways, Transport Department, Medical and Health Department, e-Sugam for registration and redressal of public grievances, and Finance Department.

We are aware that ICT can only be harnessed if appropriate capacity for technology absorption is built. The ‘supply side’ of e – Governance ecosystem has to become at par with the ‘demand side’. We have taken steps for capacity building of government personnel across the State. The results of this have been heartening. Rajasthan has recently won laurels at the National level for its e- Governance projects like CSC/e-Mitra, IT enablement of the Rajasthan Public Service Commission, delivery of digitally signed certificates and capacity building within the Government domain.

As an e-Governance progressive State, it brings us great pleasure to share that the Government of Rajasthan is the Host Partner to the eGov Knowledge Exchange Forum 2012, which is being held in the historic city of Udaipur. I wish the Forum a resounding success

guest editorial

Evolving e-Governance Systems

O

ver the last few decades, citizens’ expectations from governments have increased, thereby enhancing the pressure on the governments to improve public service. Fortunately, a wonderful combination of modern ICT technologies like cloud computing, 4G networks and smart phones provide a ray of hope. The power of ICT can be realised from the fact that when a 5.9-richter earthquake hit near Richmond, Virginia on August 23rd, 2011, residents in New York City read about the quake on Twitter 30 seconds before they experienced the quake themselves. Governments need to seize this opportunity, which provides the means to not only live up to but also to exceed the expectations of the citizens, who are demanding inclusive and participatory governance, as they are not content with merely passively receiving public services but want to actively participate in policy formulation and decision making.

Various governments around the world and many state governments in our country are expanding the scope and use of e-governance in efficient, hassle free and cost effective delivery of information and public services. The objective of governments, especially in our country, so far has been to provide electronic services to the citizens. We have followed a service-centric approach in our country. The Electronic Delivery of Services Bill, 2012 is further testimony to this approach. Similarly, in Rajasthan, the transparency in Public Procurement Act provides for electronic procurement as a means of public procurement. While this is desirable as this is an important function of governments, it is to be understood that all services need information or data –census, election, ration related, land records or even documents or information presented through websites – and so an information-centric approach is also necessary.

The information-centric approach focuses on data creation and its regular updation in electronic form, without worrying about the final form of presentation – web pages or through the mobile or in printed format. The spotlight is on making available reliable, accurate and up to date data, which is device-agnostic. This will require, where data is unstructured, converting it into structured data with the help of meta data. While preparing, storing, organising and managing data, one must focus on customers’ requirements. I use the word customers because they include not only citizens but also government users – both internal to the department as well as external for inter-department sharing, thereby avoiding duplication of data. This information can then be made available using open and interoperable standards through web APIs for use by various agencies. This approach is useful because it separates the data layer from the final presentation layer. The same data can be used to present it on a desktop, laptop or smart phone. Moreover, the data can made available to a citizen in the form of information or to the software developer for use in application software to deliver citizen-centric services or to another department for inter-departmental use.

Such an approach helps us in providing services—“anywhere, anytime, on any device”.

There have been varying degrees of success in the area of e-governance in our country. Governments which have demonstrated leadership through the will of political leaders, senior officers, CIOs and line staff to support e-governance have succeeded more than others in providing information services electronically to the citizens.

Besides political will, it requires an army of committed IT and e-governance champions, managers and technologists from the public and private sector. Governments need to seriously work on creating this workforce. The Government of Rajasthan has taken a number of steps in this direction. It is the first state to have a created a separate cadre of IT professionals in the Department of Computers in 1989 (later rechristened Department of Information Technology and Communication). We are pioneers, along with Maharashtra, in setting up a company (by the name of Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Ltd.) dedicated to imparting IT literacy and skills to government staff and the citizens. We have also established RajCOMP Info Services Ltd., a company to implement e-governance projects in partnership with government officials and private professionals.

The current issue of the magazine is devoted to shedding light on some of the creations of this dedicated workforce of the Government of Rajasthan in collaboration with DeitY and its constituents including NIC and C-DAC and in partnership with the private sector. Hope you enjoy reading it.

Sanjay Malhotra Secretary, Department of Information Technology & Communication, Government of Rajasthan December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

9

Inclusive Growth

Making Common Man

the Focal Point “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy” C K Mathew, Chief Secretary, Government of Rajasthan

T

he above quoted words of Rabindranath Tagore are the driving force behind various public initiatives launched by the Hon’ble Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot. In order to ensure inclusive development, the common man has been the focal point for all of the numerous schemes launched during the last four years by the Rajasthan government.

Indeed, the progress made by the state in various areas, be it education, health, housing, food, or infrastructure bears testimony to the commitment of the government towards ensuring the upliftment of the poorest of the poor. The government has also made pioneering efforts to improve the quality of governance through various initiatives and landmark legislations such as Rajasthan Guaranteed Delivery of Public Services, Right to Hearing, Rajasthan Transparency in Procurement Act, Rajasthan Enterprises Single window Enabling and Clearance Act, establishment of Sugam counters, etc.

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Flagship Schemes Rajasthan is a forerunner in a large number of the flagship schemes of the central government. More than 112.05 lakh man-days have been generated in the state under the MNREGA scheme between December 2008 to March 2012. The National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) was launched in Banswara, Rajasthan by UPA Chairperson, Smt. Sonia Gandhi. Rajasthan was recognized at pan India level for its outstanding implementation of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in April 2012. The state has stood first in the implementation of National Drinking Water Mission with a score of 75.37 points.

In addition to successfully implementing the various Central Government flagship schemes at the state level, Rajasthan Government has taken the initiative to conceptualize and launch a number of flagship schemes spanning various areas at State level.

Amongst these schemes is the “Mukhyamantri Anna Suraksha Yojna” to provide upto 25 kilograms of wheat every month to 38.83

lakh BPL families at the subsidized rate of Rs. 2 per kilogram. The wheat is distributed between the 22nd- 28th of every month in the presence of government officials through PDS shops to the eligible families. Another hugely popular initiative is the “Mukhyamantri Nishulk Dava Yojana”. Since its launch on October 2, 2011 more than 7.02 crore patients across Government hospitals in Rajasthan have benefited from the free medicines dispensed under the scheme through 14,964 distribution centres.

The rate of institutional births has risen from 71 percent to 81 percent as a result of the “Rajasthan Janani Shishu Suraksha Yojana” whereby all pregnant women and newborn children are provided free treatment in Government hospitals. In the 11 months since it was launched, the scheme has benefited around 7.47 lakh women and 2.21 lakh newborn babies across the state.

“Mukhya Mantri BPL Jeevan Raksha Kosh” has proved to be a boon for those BPL families whose members are suffering from terminal illnesses. Since its inception on January 1, 2009 to

Inclusive Growth

C K Mathew Chief Secretary, Government of Rajasthan

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

11

Inclusive Growth

Launch of e-Office suite under e-Secretariat project on 28 September 2012

August 2012, more than 127.43 lakh terminally ill BPL patients have benefited from the free OPD and IPD services provided the scheme.

Commonly used essential medicines for animals are being provided free of cost in all veterinary hospitals under the “Pashudhan Nishulk Dava Yojana”. More than 6.24 lakh animals have been treated under the scheme till August 2012. The ambitious “Mukhyamantri Gramin BPL Awas Yojana” aims at providing 10 lakh rural BPL families with housing.

More than 2.3 lakh housing units have been constructed under the scheme till date. It is planned to provide 1 lakh urban BPL families with affordable housing under a similar scheme namely the “Mukhyamantri Shahari BPL Awas Yojana”. The “Affordable Housing Policy” has been instated to provide 5 lakh housing units to the financially backward and low income level families through public private partnership. 25 lakh farmers in the state shall benefit from the scheme for “Complete Waiver on Interest on Timely Repayment of Loan”.

In addition to the above schemes, in order to achieve the vision of transparency in Governance, several landmark legislations have been passed by the Government of Rajasthan. Foremost amongst these is the “Rajasthan Guaranteed Delivery of Public Services Act”, whereby citizens are assured of timely and transparent delivery of 153 services

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spanning 18 departments- the largest coverage of services across India. Government officials involved in provision of services covered under the act are liable to pay a fine ranging between `500 to `5,000 in case of non adherence to the stipulated timelines for provision of services under the Act. To further fortify the delivery of services through this act, the “Right to Hearing” has been enacted in the state on August 1, 2012.

Striving for Effective, Accountable and Transparent Governance The Government of Rajasthan has taken several initiatives to improve the quality of governance for the general public. Citizens can now apply for and obtain “Digitally Signed Bonafide, Caste and Solvency Certificates” free of cost at their nearby CSC and eMitra kiosks. The “Rajasthan Special Courts Bill- 2012” with time bound provisions to ensure effective checks on corruption has been passed by the state and has been sent for seeking presidential assent. In order to bring about transparency and accountability in the public procurement processes, it has been mandated that all tenders above value of Rs. 50 lakhs shall be done through e-Procurement under the historical “Rajasthan Transparency in Public Procurement Act- 2012”. The assets of all ministers and bureaucrats have been made public.

The nationwide launch of “Aadhaar” enabled service delivery was done by Honorable Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson, Sonia Gandhi at Dudu, Rajasthan in October, 2012. A total of 10 schemes including MGNREGA, Mukhyamantri BPL Gramin Awas Yojna, Pension scheme, Asha Sehyogini payment and Chief Minister’s Scholarship scheme will be integrated with Adhaar, with the objective of ensuring that the advantage of the government schemes and programmes reaches the genuine beneficiaries To strengthen the Panchayati Raj Institutions in the state, functions and activities of Education; Agriculture; Women and Child Development; Medical and Health as well as Social Justice and Empowerment Department have been brought under the ambit of such institutions at the district level.

The government is also trying to make various public services more easily accessible to the citizens. More and more Government to Citizen (G2C) services are being constantly added to the 5,500 Common Service Centres (CSC) and e-Mitra network. The state is in the process of setting of “Citizen Call Centres (CCCs)” which shall enable citizens to obtain information on various schemes of the government through a single toll free number. “SUGAM” the single point public Grievance Redressal is a portal

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Inclusive Growth

of the Government of Rajasthan which has been developed in order to provide an effective online grievance redressal mechanism for the citizens of Rajasthan. The system has been designed to cater to the redressal of grievances related to all government departments in the state. The “Sugam Single Window” aims at improving the delivery of services related to district/tehsil administration such as Caste certificates, Domicile certificates, Solvency certificate, income certificate, Mutation of Agricultural Land, Arms License renewal, etc. This initiative was awarded the “Public Choice Award” at e-World Forum, 2011.

Spreading the Light of Education Availability of quality education at all levelsschool, higher and technical education- forms the basis for long term human resource development. Government of Rajasthan is steadily building a strong network of educational institutions to ensure knowledge and skill enhancement of the youth of the state. one lakh meritorious students at Senior Secondary level from families whose annual income is upto `1 lakh shall be provided with a monthly scholarship of `5,000 for 5 years or till such time that they continue their higher education. Under the “Rajiv Gandhi Digital Vidhyarthi Yojana”, 10,000 meritorious students of standard X and XII each shall be given laptops. Toppers in the Standard VIII examination of each Government Upper Primary School shall be awarded with special learning laptops.

To provide an impetus to school education, a total of 1,000 primary schools shall be established in 2012- 2013. 600 primary schools shall be upgraded to elementary schools, 198 elementary schools to secondary and 200 secondary schools shall be upgraded to senior secondary level. To reduce the drop out rate amongst girls in school, 1,41,444 cycles were distributed to girls continuing their education after completing standard VIII in government schools.

In order to improve the quality of higher and technical education in the state, 10 new ITI’s and 8 new universities have been announced in the 2012-13 budget. These include the Rajiv Gandhi Tribal University at Udaipur, Matsya University at Alwar, Braj University at Bharatpur, Shekhawati University at Sikar, Physical Education and Sports University at Jhunjhunu, Haridev Joshi Patrakarita and Sanchar University at Jaipur, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar Law University at Jaipur and

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Sardar Patel Police and Security University at Jodhpur. Centrally supported institutions of excellence such as IIT Jodhpur, IIM Udaipur, Central University- Ajmer, and NIFT Jodhpur have also been setup. There are plans to setup a IIIT in Kota under public- private partnership. An AIIMS has been established at Jodhpur which shall start dispensing healthcare services in 2013.

Development of Infrastructure: The backbone of a robust economy Electricity is a necessity required in each and every sphere of life, hence, the state accords top priority to self sufficiency in the energy sector. Towards this objective, 14 projects capable of generating 11,590 MW of energy have been sanctioned by the Government. For the first time, 6 supercritical power plants with 2X660 MW capacity are being setup in the

“Availability of quality education at all levels—school, higher and technical education—forms the basis for long term human resource development”

state. Power generation capacity of the state has increased by 3890 MW during the last 45 months. Clean energy is also an area of focus, with 1498 MW the incremental electricity generation capacity coming from wind power and 60 MW from biomass. Solar energy has been a special area of focus under the Jawahar Lal Nehru National Solar Energy Mission. Out of 978 MW capacity approved by the government through various solar energy generation projects, projects generating 201 MW energy have been already commissioned. A “Solar Park” is being constructed at Bhadla- Jodhpur in partnership with the Clinton Foundation.

20,000 domestic solar energy generating units are planned to be setup.

The road network in any state is the lifeline for citizens as well as businesses. To strengthen the road network in Rajasthan, Work has been

initiated on 16 mega highways spanning 2,631 kilometres. 3,000 kilometres of State highways are also planned to be fortified, out of which work has already been completed on 1,169 kilometres till August 2012. 31,095 villages and dhanis have benefited from the provision of clean drinking water.

In a nationwide first, Government of Rajasthan has contributed 50% funds and land towards the construction of the 176 kilometre long Ratlam- Dungarpur- Banswara railway line. The ambitious “Jaipur Metro” project is well underway. The 12.067 kilometre long east- west corridor is under construction, and a north- south corridor spanning 23.099 kilometres is planned for the next phase. Funds have been sanctioned for the construction of a tunnel at “Ghat ki Ghuni” in Jaipur, which marks the beginning of the landmark Jaipur Ring Road project.

Industrial Sector: The Engine of Growth Rajasthan has traditionally been an agrarian society, and the industrial sector presents a huge opportunity for improving the employment opportunities within the state. The state government has made a number of progressive policies in order to provide a fillip to industrial development. The Rajasthan Enterprises Single Window Enabling and Clearance Act- 2011, which was enacted on April 1, 2011, has simplified the process of investment by industries in the state and has been greatly appreciated by all stakeholders. Rs. 36,000 crores worth of investment projects have already been approved under this act.

Rajasthan has been appreciated by the Honourable Prime Minister for a healthy financial index and implementation of the 11th Five Year Plan. Massive reforms in the taxation procedures of the state have resulted in simplified electronically enabled payments, refunds, registration, statement of accounts etc., providing great relief to the industrial world. The Rajasthan Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy- 2010 has greatly helped the state in wooing industries to invest in the state.

The Government of Rajasthan is constantly working towards not only meeting the immediate needs of the people through affordable food, housing and similar schemes, but is also progressively marching towards a brighter tomorrow by ensuring all round development of the human, natural and economic resources of the state.

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Inclusive Development

Shreemat Pandey

Principal Secretary IT&C, & CMO, Government of Rajasthan

Rajasthan

Good Governance

through e-Governance The key agenda of the Rajasthan Government is to bring about qualitative improvements in governance so as to provide better services to the common man. Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) has been identified as an important strategic tool to bring about improvements in the productivity and performance of the government and to inculcate deeper citizen involvement within the governing process, while taking steps to bridge the prevalent digital divide.

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / December 2012

T

he vision of the state government is: “The Government of Rajasthan would leverage Information & Communication Technology (ICT) not only as a tool for improving governance and employment opportunities, but also more significantly as a means to enhance the quality of life & bridging the socio-economic divide in the state.”

Rajasthan is the first state in the country to have a full-fledged Department of Information Technology, established with the advent of IT sector in the country in 1985-86, with more than 3,000 qualified IT professionals working towards realising the e-Governance vision of the state.

In order to provide thrust to e-Governance initiatives across all departments and to make it central to the planning and monitoring process, the state government has taken an enabling stride by allowing all departments to utilise three percent of their respective Plan Budget, for citizen-centric e-Governance initiatives. It is a first-of-its-kind initiative in the country. Subsequently, it has been made mandatory for departments with citizen interface to roll out at least two citizen services on an end-to-end basis through the CSCs as part of their e-Governance Plan.

The state government’s focus is to use ICT to deliver e-Government that is better equipped to respond to the enhanced aspirations of its people in terms of 24x7 availability of quality government services. The aim is to enable a paradigm shift from the government-centric system to

a citizen-centric system of governance, while improving the level of governance within the government departments.

The ICT infrastructure To transform this vision to reality, the Department of IT&C has put in place the essential ICT infrastructure. We set up a state-of-the-art State Data Centre (SDC) in 2005 from state funds.

This data centre acts as the core of the state-level information infrastructure, which in turn integrates geographically distributed data depositories. Subsequently, the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) funded SDC was also made operational in June 2011 in the new IT building and has been accorded ISO certification.

Similarly, to provide effective administration aimed at facilitating faster decision-making, greater participation and better service delivery to the common man, the Secretariat Local Area Network (SecLAN) was put in place in the year 2005. Currently more than 5,000 nodes are operational within this network. The network has since then been expanded to the Metropolitan Area Network, connecting 43 government buildings to the State Secretariat – the hub of entire administrative activities of the state.

The Rajasthan State Wide Area Network (RSWAN) is in its advanced stages of completion. The network would provide the backbone connectivity to all the vertical and horizontal government locations across the state. With more than 5,000 offices being connected horizontally, the RSWAN is poised to be the largest SWAN in the whole country.

Inclusive Development

Shreemat Pandey, Principal Secretary, IT&C, & CMO, Government of Rajasthan

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Inclusive Development

Common Service Centre (CSC) is yet another infrastructure pillar of e-governance that the state government is building in order to ensure “anytime anywhere” web-enabled delivery of government services. The CSC is the the front end for delivering a range of government services and it is worth noting that we are the pioneers of this project. The Lokmitra Project for urban areas and the Janmitra Project for rural areas – implemented by the state government back in 2002 and then integrated under the brand name of e-Mitra in 2005 – were aimed at creating IT-enabled integrated citizen service delivery system in the form of kiosks. This is where the CSC picked up and was mandated under the NeGP in 2008. As of date, more than 19 lakh transactions are being executed per month through the CSCs in the state.

e-Governance: Citizen at the helm of affairs Connectivity without content is of no use to anybody. Hence, a number of IT initiatives for citizen-centric service delivery are being implemented and more are in the pipeline.

The first and foremost priority of any government is to ensure citizen satisfaction. We have made an effort in this direction by setting up e-SUGAM – a single window system that

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ensures delivery of services related to district/ tehsil administration in such a way that the citizens can effortlessly access the services related to caste certificates, domicile certificates, solvency certificate, income certificate, mutation of agricultural land, arms license renewal, etc.

The project acts as a one-stop shop for government services and has broken down barriers by seamlessly linking these services. Up to November 2012, 43,44,590 applications were received in total, out of which 41,27,982 certificates have been issued.

In order to retain the faith of citizens in the Government functioning, our endeavour is to redress any and all government services related grievances of the common man. For this purpose, we have provided a unique electronic means to the citizens for public grievance registration and redressal through the SUGAM PG Portal – a single-window web-enabled system.

Besides the conventional methods of land, e-mail and telephone calls, citizens now have the convenience of registering and monitoring their grievances through the Internet from their homes or from a centre nearest to their homes. Totally 1,36,701 grievances were received through the portal up to November 2012, out of which 99,180 have been disposed off.

Another significant service having a perennial demand, equally in urban and rural areas, relates to the issuance of various certificates for which the citizens had to visit and re-visit the related departments and authorities earlier. In order to eradicate the problem of long queues, time wastage, travel and cost, an online facility of issuing legally-valid and digitally-signed certificates has been launched. The certificates can be applied for and obtained through Internet from home/single window/kiosk. Currently, the certificates for bonafide resident, caste, income, and solvency are being issued through this facility. The facility is being enhanced to issue other digitally-signed certificates, licenses etc. The popularity and the success of this service can be assessed from the fact that every month approximately 1.5 lakh digitally-signed certificates are being issued.

All of us know that man has always considered agricultural land to be the most valuable asset that any person can possess. In order to facilitate easy and quick transfer of ownership, division and usage of this immovable property – physically and on records – what better way than there be than to digitise the land records of the state? We were amongst the first states to

computerise all land records with major process re-engineering and we have now amended Rajasthan Land Revenue (Land Records) Rules, 1957. The major achievements of this initiative include replacement of manual handwritten Jamabandi by digitally-signed Jamabandi as the only authentic land ownership record, making Record of Rights (RoR) perennial from quadrennial, thus ensuring regular updated of land records. Major changes in the mutation process have been adopted by making it compulsory to record changes in mutation to online Jamabandi.

Niwai tehsil in Tonk district of the state has been taken up on pilot basis to implement provisioning of digitally-signed Jamabandi to its citizen. The same is to be rolled out in all tehsils in a phased manner.

Moreover, many more citizen-centric and back-office related e-Governance projects are being rolled out by several government departments within Rajasthan. For quick rollout of services and rapid implementation of e-Governance projects, we have laid down guidelines under which generic applications like IT-enabled grievance redressal, e-library, e-office, e-procurement, etc, are being developed by the Department of IT&C, and applications addressing the department-specific needs are being developed by the concerned departments themselves.

In order to facilitate better availability of medical and health services to the citizens, we have implemented Arogya Online – a hospital e-enablement system. Under the project, complete IT-implelmentation of SMS Hospital, Jaipur, has been done. The project is also being implemented in 15 district hospitals, six medical colleges and their associated hospitals.

Another project of the Medical & Health Department is Pregnancy Child Tracking & Health Services Management System (PCTS).

Visualising such a system was important which had no precedence anywhere in the country.

The project was put to use in 2008 and has resulted in significant improvement in the delivery of health services. Through service messages on mobiles, citizens, health workers and the government departments are able to connect on an one-to-one basis.

As a means to further help the common man, facilitation of online filling of application forms for vacancies published by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC) has been provided to the aspiring candidates. This has helped in saving time and cost, avoided postal

Inclusive Development

IT Resources Sharing Policy IT infrastructure Services • No government department / organiations to set up own • Data Centre • Wide Area Network • CSC like Kiosk • Call Centre related Software and Services • SMS Gateway • Electronic Payment Gateway • All departments / organisations to enable their application software to provide services through CSC Generic Application Software The following generic applications are available to be used by all departments. They should not develop similar applications at their level.

• e-SUGAM by Administrative Reform for Public Grievance Redressal • IFMS by Finance Department for Financial Management System • LITES by Justice Department for Court Cases Monitoring • Payroll System developed by NIC • Vidhan Sabha Question Monitoring System developed by NIC • e-Library deployed by DoIT&C • e-Office developed by NIC • e-Procurement developed by NIC • Biometric Attendance and Leave Management System by DoIT&C/RISL

delays, made admit cards available online, and has also brought about clarity, efficiency and transparency in the working process at RPSC.

Hassle-free business with government While providing convenience to citizens is the primary mandate, we are also facilitating the government-business communication in a major way.

The state governemnt has put in place a mechanism called Single Window Clearance System (SWCS) – an e-Governance initiative for effective, accountable and transparent process of receiving and responding to investment proposals. It provides a single interface across various departments viz. Bureau of Investment Promotion, Industry, District Industry Centres and other government departments. Further, to strengthen the Single Window System and to give it a statutory status, the state government has introduced a Single Window Act which allows according permis-

sions, invoking and using clearance mechanism within specified time.

For transparency in e-procurement and bidder facilitation, the procurement process within the government departments has been e-enabled and an e-Procurement system has been made mandatory for all departments / autonomous bodies / government undertakings for processing tenders having value of Rs 50 lakh and above through the e-procurement portal of the Rajasthan Government only. In case of PWD, this limit has been reduced to Rs 25 lakh.

Another project called, Rajasthan VAT-IT – an integrated and automated IT system – has been implemented by the Commercial Taxes Department catering to tax payers as well as assesses.

The project enables e-registration, e-payment, electronic filing of returns, provision of electronic C-forms besides other routine transactions.

The Rajasthan State Excise Department (RSED) On-line Project facilitates electronic creation, control, monitoring and administration of all types of liquor licenses, permits for all distilleries, breweries, bonds, contractors, wholesalers, shops, hotels, bars, etc, as well as liquor shops in the state of Rajasthan.

Similarly, the aim of making the Department of Mines and Geology (DMG) It-enabled was to improve the system of record keeping, efficient monitoring and control of the various processes and better information dissemination to the stakeholders through an interactive web portal. The stakeholders of the project include miners, lease holders, prospecting minerals exploration companies, various government departments like the Forest Department, Legal Department, Revenue Department & Ancillary Department.

Better governance within government With a view to improve the quality and level of governance within the government, several initiatives for efficient intra-government communication have also been implemented. The e-Office Application is underway, of which one module – File Tracking & Monitoring System (FTMS) – has already been implemented in a few key departments of the State Secretariat.

The Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) – an e-Governance initiative of the Government of Rajasthan for effective, accountable and transparent Public Finance Management – has been implemented as an umbrella system

covering all modular systems and their integration to ultimately achieve the computerisation of state wide financial transactions and efficient monitoring, including facility for e-payment.

Similarly, an all comprehensive state-wide Human Resource Management System (HRMS) is on the anvil.

Additionally, some departments like Disaster Management & Relief, NREGS, etc, have already implemented their own MIS systems, thus resulting in quick analysis and decision-making.

The State Legislative Assembly is an esteemed institution and the question hour is a vital issue in the proceedings of any State Assembly. Online Answering System (OASYS) – an all-comprehensive online solution, implemented in the state and being used by all the government departments – has helped plug the time delays involved in the delivery and response to questions raised in the Vidhan Sabha. It involves use of digital signatures and SMSes. Again, we are the pioneers to use this system, implemented in 2012, which is now being replicated by other legislative assemblies.

Tapping the potential – developing expertise in e-Governance ICT can only be harnessed if appropriate capacity for technology absorption is built. The supply side of e-Governance ecosystem has to become at par with the demand side. In order to ensure this, we have taken steps for adequate capacity building of government personnel across the state. IT literacy has been made mandatory for entry level selection for ministerial posts in the government sector. Incentives are being provided to government personnel who qualify the IT courses offered by IGNOU and Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Limited, an organisation set up with the aim of facilitating easy, affordable, recognised IT courses to the masses as well as the government personnel. Rajasthan is also one of the major beneficiaries of the central government’s e-Governance Champion Programmes for government officers. Nearly ten officers are being nominated every year since the last three years to various programmes sponsored by the Government of India at T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal, and IIM, Indore.

With the collective vision, commitment, technological, managerial and entrepreneurial skills within the government, Rajasthan is well poised to usher in a new era in e-Governance.

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Financial Management

Integrated

Financial

Management System Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) is an e-Governance initiative of Government of Rajasthan for effective, accountable and transparent Public Finance Management Dr Govind Sharma, Principal Secretary, Finance Department, Government of Rajasthan

W

ith the view of computerising and automating key aspects of budget execution and accounting operations across all the Departments, State government decided to adopt Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS). The system brings transparency in the public finance management. It enables controlled and efficient access to all the financial data of Government, and thereby improves the efficacy of the overall financial system.

Under IFMS, the in major initiatives taken by State Government include Electronic Payment System, e-Government Receipt Accounting System, State Public Procurement Portal, Integrated Human Resource Management system and few others.

A comprehensive web based system The Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) is completely web based; it hasbeen conceptualised to address the shortcomings of earlier offline computerisation pertaining to budget processes and treasury functions. The main objective of IFMS is to achieve computerization of state wide financial transactions and efficient monitoring and facilitate a Single Window interface across various functions.

The major accounting process in Government is the budget process, which includes receipts and expenditure of whole State. The receipts and expenditure are made through treasuries and a periodic account of these is sent to the AG. The basic principle of budgeting is that one cannot incur expenditure more than the funds allotted to it. Before implementation of IFMS all the checks on budget were manual, including budget availability checking at the treasury level, reconciliation of revenue receipts between departments and treasury etc. But since the advent of IFMS, the treasury and in turn Finance Department are having a far more clearer picture of total budget expenditure compared to allotted budget on day-to-day basis.

Today a bill is passed by the system only when sufficient budget is available to the department.

The concerned accountant does not to check the budget from the printed budget volume. Any change in budget allocation by FD is instantly reflected in the system. Similarly information of com-

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plete revenue receipts is also available on this system. After implementation of e-GRAS, this information of revenue receipts is also being available on real time basis.

Today FD is in a better position when it comes to financial planning and revising of budget allocation with respect to the availability and expenditure status that is available on IFMS. So the IFMS is a sum total of activities like planning, estimates preparations, distribution/allocation of Budget, fund management, Treasury functions, e-Government Receipt Accounting System and interfacing with external users like citizens, banks and AG.

Electronic Payments As a paradigm shift in Government payment system, electronic payment has also been introduced. State Government has shifted all payments including salary payments on electronic mode. As per the instructions of Government of India, the State Government of Rajasthan is making e-payments in case of all Government transactions. The payments are being credited in relevant accounts of the beneficiaries through NEFT/EFT by all agency banks.

Financial Management

State Government has initiated the process of e-payment for salary of around 5.50 lakh Government employees. This process has been started from the month of April, 2012. This process is being successfully implemented with the cooperation of 298 bank branches, 39 Treasuries, 221 Sub Treasuries and 7 agency banks - SBBJ, SBI, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Central Bank of India and UCO bank.

In this process text file and control file attached with digital signature generated from Treasury officers are being uploaded on the site of IFMS-Pay Manager. All Banks have provided access on this site through digital signatures. Banks are downloading the files through this site and making payments electronically in the bank accounts of Government employees. Two types of files are being generated - EFT files for core banking solutions and NEFT files for accounts having in other banks.

The system for e-payment of for all Government transactions, which include third party payments, has also been initiated. All Agency Banks have been provided electronic interface with secured access. They can enter in the Finance Department website through digital signatures, and can download e-payment files uploaded by Treasuries for making e-payments through EFT and NEFT mode.

All third parties including service providers have provided access in the IFMS site to view their payment details. Similarly all employees have access to view their salary status.

E-Treasury and e-Government Receipt Accounting System The concept of e-treasury is based on the idea of hassle free tax collection and paperless accounting /reconciliation at a single point for State Government.

The e-treasury aims to provide e-payment facility as well as the e-reconciliation facility for all tax revenue of state Government at single point. The e-treasury gets digitally signed e-scrolls and related e-challans, major head wise on day to day basis or transaction wise as decided by authorised banks and state Government.

One of the core function of e-treasury is to tally the gross monthly e-receipts with the gross amount shown (Head wise) in the DMS of e-receipts sent by •

In Rajasthan all the Government accounting i.e. allocation and expenditure of budget is being done by a web based system.

•

Through the system all the Departments and Treasuries are aware of the budget allotted to the departments and as soon as expenditure is incurred the remaining budget is displayed in a system.

•

System enables the State Government to monitor the expenditure of all departments on real time basis.

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Financial data is being exchanged between Treasury, Banks and Accountant General Office through a system.

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All the employees get their salary credited to their bank accounts on 1st day of every month through a system.

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A taxpayer can deposit tax from anywhere and at anytime.

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All the third party payments are being credited in the bank accounts of vendors/suppliers etc through a system.

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Social security pensioners are getting pension through e-money orders generated by a system.

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All the tender related information is being provided to the bidders and other stakeholders through one system.

The system behind all these initiatives is Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS)

Dr Govind Sharma, Principal Secretary, Finance Department, Government of Rajasthan

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Financial Management

the banks. This reconciled e-account is to be submitted to AG electronically from e-treasury.

The e-treasury functions under the supervision of FD . e-Treasury caters the facility for online e-receipts. Manual payments are being handled by respective treasuries and Sub Treasuries.

The main objective of e-GRAS is to enable taxpayers to make tax payments on an anywhere any time basis. There is the facility of extended timings, and the users also enjoy the benefit of having lot of banks to choose from.

It is also a place where all proper electronic accounting and reconciliation processes can be maintained on real time basis. In the e-payment of taxes there would be no direct customer interaction at bank counter and hence no paper challan from the taxpayer will be required.

The internet banking system captures the challan details for all e-receipts in the prescribed Templates. Since the challan details are being electronically captured, the e-challan data is being provided by bank to the e-treasury for faster remittance of revenues to Government Account.

This would also facilitate reconciliation with the banks/ Department/Treasury because detailed accounting can be done based on the classifications appearing in the e-challans.

AG is also developing systems for accepting e-challans in place of hard copy of challans.

Objectives of IFMS •

Improved treasury system and budget control

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Eliminate redundancies and integrate data to ensure better financial control and information systems

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Improve efficiency and reduce cost of operations

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Improve strategic and day-to-day decision making

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Provide better interface with RBI, Agency Banks and Accountant General

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Debt as well as Grant tracking from various agencies to the State Government

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Provide better interface to external stakeholders: Employees, Pensioners, Tax-payers, Contractors and suppliers

Quick availability of the data/MIS, effective control

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Provide citizens better access to information and increase public accountability

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Allow better cash flow management and budget control

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Ensure that issues related to data and transaction security are properly addressed

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Ensure adequate controls to minimize risk of

e-Procurement (eproc.rajasthan.gov.in): Comprehensive IT enabled procurement system to bring about greater level of transparency in Government procurement.

• Procurement for value more than Rs 50 lakh (Rs 25 for PWD) made mandatory • Published 6417 successful e-Tenders for 56 departments of Rs 23375.30 crore • Trained 2400 Government officials and 1000 bidders

State Public Procurement Portal Another major e-Governance imitative of the State Government is the State Public Procurement Portal. Thisis being developed by IFMS under the provisions laid down in Rajasthan Transparency in Public Procurement Act, 2012. All Departments and their offices, ZilaParishads, PanchayatSamities, Gram Panchayats, Municipal Corporations, Municipalities, Autonomous Bodies and Boards will be covered under this portal.

This portal will be accessible to the public for posting matters relating to public procurement. Later on this Portal will be integrated with e-Procurement Portal. This portal aims to put transparency in the process of public procurement. Every bit of information pertaining to the bidding process will be available in public domain. Decisions pertaining to appeals as per transparency act are also available.

Procurement Portal captures following information •

•

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Pre-qualification documents, bidder registration documents, bidding documents and any amendments, clarifications including those pursuant to pre bid conference and corrigenda thereto.

List of bidders that presented bids including during prequalification or bidder registration as the case may be.

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / December 2012

fraud and malpractices •

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List of prequalified and registered bidders.

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List of bidders excluded under section 25 with reasons.

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Decisions pertaining to appeals

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Details of successful bids, their prices and bidders.

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Particulars of bidders who have been debarred.

Integrated Human Resource Management System (IHRMS) The IHRMS has been planned in such a manner that each employee, pensioner, family pensioner can be allotted a unique ID and account. All relevant demographic, financial and service data and information will be entered, maintained and updated only in this account through a secured system of access control, supervision and maintenance.

In this process a centralised database of employees, pensioners, family pensioners along with a central MIS Data Management System is being set up that can be integrated with a Payroll and Pension Payment system to facilitate error - free and real - time data updates. The IHRMS uses sophisticated methodology for creating its database.

Overcoming Challenges There is no doubt that many challenges lie in the path ofbringing a full-fledged IFMS in the State of Rajasthan. Indeed implementation of financial reforms requires an understanding of the entire financial system. It needs an understanding of the institutional arrangements and how these arrangements are carried out across departments. All these practices need business process reengineering which has taken up on top priority by the Government. Budget Manual and Treasury Rules are being amended accordingly. It is expected that successful implementation of IFMS will bring Rajasthan at a place where Government Financial Accounting will become its recognition and will make it primus inter pares among the States and other States will follow our experience.

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Good Governance

e-Governance

10 Mantras for Success The spectrum of good governance ranges from least governance (deregulation, partnerships, etc.) to citizen-centric governance (service-centricity, efficiency etc.) and finally to participative governance (inclusion, consultation etc). e-Governance is an enabler of good governance as it has the potential to reduce bureaucracy and the power to facilitate citizen participation

By Sanjay Malhotra, Secretary, Department of Information Technology & Communication, Government of Rajasthan

G

overnments across the world are adopting e-Governance. In each department and in each state government, one finds a plethora of IT projects in various stages of implementation – conceptualisation, implementation, deployment and up-gradation to latest technology.

One also finds many abandoned projects. For each successful project, one can count an equal if not higher number of failed IT projects. A survey of e-governance projects by a Professor in Development Informatics in the University of Manchester in developing and transition economies revealed that as many as 85 percent e-Governance projects are either partial failures for not having attained all the intended goals, or total failures- having been abandoned soon after implementation.

The common reasons for such failures include lack of internal ownership, absence of vision or strategy, poor project management, inadequate technological infrastructure, unwillingness to adopt IT enabled governance techniques and obstacles in transitioning legacy government data to a computerized format.

Traditional governance systems are usually not

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amenable to computerization, and insufficient business process reengineering is also cited as a major reason for the failure of e-governance projects. I present here some ideas for enhancing the success rate of e-Governance projects.

Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast Keeping it simple by taking baby steps is more likely to succeed. In other words, evolutionary ideas are likelier to succeed than revolutionary leaps. This is because of limited capacity of the government on the technological and human front. Therefore, e-Governance projects should build carefully and sustainably on the existing ICT usage base.

Instead of directly trying to implement large scale process re-engineering and backend computerisation, the stages of e-governance should be kept in mind. In the first phase, e-Governance merely means a simple presence on the web which provides the public with relevant Government to Citizen (G2C) and Government to Business (G2B) information. In the second phase, the interaction between government and the public (G2C & G2B) is stimulated with various applications. People can ask questions via e-mail, use search engines, and download

forms and documents, saving time and money.

In phase three, complete transactions should be enabled so that they may be conducted without the citizen having to visit a government office.

Examples of such services are filing tax returns, extending/renewal of licenses, online application for visa and passports, online voting and e-procurement applications. Phase three is made complex because of security and personalisation issues, such as the necessity of digital (electronic) signatures to enable legal transfer of services. It is also the phase which requires maximum process reengineering and change management within the government functioning. The fourth phase is when all information systems are integrated and the public can get G2C & G2B services at a single virtual counter.

One single point of contact for all services spanning all departments which is accessible from the citizen’s home is the ultimate goal.

As we set out on our path of e-governance, we need to remember that we should commence our projects from simple provision of information online, and slowly work our way towards the long term vision of a unified platform for e-delivery of services, for we must walk before we can run.

Good Governance

Avoid Big Bang Waterfall Method Requirements for regular run of the mill projects in the IT industry are usually captured to the last detail in various project documents such as functional requirement study, requirement traceability matrix, high level design, system requirement study, low level design etc which are duly vetted by the client. These requirements are then communicated by business analysts to the software development team so that they may translate the requirement into software, working peacefully in their zones of comfort. Once the development is completed, the client checks the software against the earlier documented requirements and acceptance testing is done. The project is thus rolled out as in a smooth waterfall model, without much change in requirements from one stage to the next.

On the other hand, adopting the waterfall method for e-governance applications runs the risk of failure since this method is not capable to cater to the change in requirements and priorities, which is the rule rather than exception in the government setup. Government departments typically perform multiple functions involving complex processes. New tasks, schemes and projects are added ever so often. For many functions, there are no documented standard procedures and processes. For others, the actual practice varies from one office to another even within the same department. Such continually evolving and non-standardised processes compound the problem of capturing and freezing the requirements for software development in a single cycle. Information/ requirements which were relevant at the time of initial study by the software development team may become redundant by the time the product is readied for user acceptance by the concerned department. This would cause initiation of another cycle of study, documentation, development and testing, causing a hiatus in the project rollout. By the time the next version of software is presented, the department officials may have lost interest or even more likely, priorities may have changed, especially with a new boss at the helm of affairs who would be keen to put his stamp on the project. This leads to an endless loop of requirement study and subsequent development- a sure recipe of failure.

Therefore, adopting the traditional waterfall method for software development within the e-Governance domain is likely to be time con-

Sanjay Malhotra, Secretary, Department of Information Technology & Communication, Government of Rajasthan

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Good Governance

suming, especially if application software is to be developed de novo or even if there is a commercial off the shelf product readily available.

Adopt Agile Instead of taking years to completely automate all the processes of a department or an activity using the traditional waterfall software development life cycle, an agile methodology is more likely to succeed.

Agile software development is an interactive process that allows small development teams to develop software in a collaborative environment that is responsive to business change. Development is done in short iterations, each iteration adding incremental functionality to the software. This methodology involves prototyping - the use of a working model of the final system, which users can see, comment on, and have revised before the final version is produced. This ensures that the design matches real user needs. It also provides the flexibility to quickly react to changes in the environment. From the government officials’ perspective, however, it needs greater involvement, commitment and focus on the working product.

The e-mitra application software for the Common Service Centres and the LITES project (MIS for the Pending Government Court Cases) are examples of successful of e-governance implementations in Rajasthan following the agile methodology.

Government procurement framework, however, does not facilitate adoption of agile methodology, since it is typically based fixed cost models. Rajasthan, as also some other states have found a way out for building software using agile methodology by getting work done on man-month rates, discovered through open bidding processes.

It is suggested that even in cases where traditional waterfall methodology is used, software can be built incrementally in stages.

A related methodology is prototyping - the use of a working model of the final system, which users can see, comment on, and have revised before the final version is produced.

Another recommended practice is piloting implementing the e-government system on a small scale at a single site or office; learning and improving the system; and only then rolling out on a large scale to all sites. Adoption of these methods has been shown to increase the chances of project success.

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Launch of Sugam & Digitally Signed Bonafide Certificate by Hon’ble Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Shri Ashok Gehlot, and Hon’ble Union Minister, V Narayanasamy

Internal Ownership and External Facilitation Are Both Necessary Because of their very nature, e-Governance projects need external facilitation and encouragement.

In fact, an e-Governance project may not even be conceived without external support and encouragement. However, without ownership within the department for whom the e-Governance project is being implemented, e-governance initiatives may never be successful. Not only should the strategic and critical components be decided by the internal users but they should take complete ownership of the project. Any project, IT or nonIT, is doomed for disaster if totally outsourced.

While the role of vendors in triggering the conceptualisation of a project should be welcomed, it should not so happen that the government department loses control and the project is totally vendor driven. Private companies can definitely play the part of subject matter experts and update government functionaries with the latest technological developments and trends in e-Governance across other states thereby aiding them in conceptualizing and implementing IT projects. However, at the end of the day, it is the responsibility of the concerned government department to freeze requirements and specifications in keeping with their needs rather than in line with the features of COTS software.

It may be noted that the Government Department of Information Technology or e-governance Societies and companies, which most of the States have established, in this sense, are also outsiders

and cannot totally take over the role of the end user government department, when they are asked to implement a project. The requirements of the departments are best understood only by internal department users, and so, a project executed independently by the state IT Company, Society or Department for another government department without involvement and ownership by the client department is also likely to fail.

The role of the State IT departments is to encourage and facilitate e-governance and act as a change driver; establish the IT infrastructure including the data centre, network and the CSCs for use by other government departments; build generic and application software for use by multiple departments; act as the technology consultant to government departments and build standards and meta data.

Top-down Approaches Are Likely to Result in Failure After long drawn out consultations with senior officers of all involved government departments, we in Rajasthan built software for application for and delivery of various certificates – bona fide residence, caste, income, solvency, etc. Government orders were issued by the departments providing legal sanctity to these certificates. The objective was to make available at the doorsteps of villagers digitally signed certificates through the CSCs so as to reduce the time and money involved in travelling to the tehsil office. The application was launched with great fanfare by

Good Governance

the Hon’ble Chief Minister. It was expected that this citizen centric scheme would be demand driven as it would save not only money and time but also provide hassle free services to the citizens. However, the scheme did not take off as expected even after a couple of months despite training and publicity.

A quick evaluation revealed that it had increased the burden of the sanctioning officers (the Tehsildars) as the process of affixing digital signatures was very slow and cumbersome. The application software was then improved to be more user friendly for Tehsildars and computerized issuance of digitally signed certificates quickly gained popularity, amongst both citizens and department officials.

An important lesson was learnt in the process. The first attempt at the project - which took a top-down approach - was a failure.

The second attempt ensured that the lower and middle level users were involved with the project. Their ideas were incorporated into the design, and the process of involvement also helped develop their commitment. Involvement of the lowest level of functionaries right from the beginning is essential for gaining the support of the users.

The Project Must Answer “What’s in it For Me?” for all Key Stakeholders Key stakeholders - officers, employees, operators, users, citizens, etc - must support an e-governance initiative. To garner stakeholder support in any project, it must prove advantageous to that stakeholder. Many e-governance projects fail as the employees feel that their job is threatened or their position undermined.

While allaying such fears, the application software should offer benefits like reducing filing hassles or repetitive work. Benefit to the citizens, especially, must be kept uppermost in mind while conceptualizing e-Governance projects. If a project offers no or little utility to citizens, it is likely to die a natural death.

In other words, the e-governance project must provide each stakeholder with at least some positive answer to the question: “What’s does this project have in it for me?”

Project Management Skills are Critical for Success It is well documented that e-governance projects have cost and time overruns. Very often, major risks and issues in the project are not

addressed in a timely fashion. The end product is often not in line with the user requirements. Such phenomena point to poor project management.

It needs to be understood that project management is different from general management, especially so in the e-Governance arena. If a manager is managing his department well, it is not necessary that he will be a good project manager.

Use of project management software is recommended. Since knowledge of project management tools is limited in the government, option to use the project management software of consultants and system integrators should be explored.

Sustained Leadership is a Prerequisite Yeates, D. & Cadle, J. (1996) in their book Project Management for Information Systems differentiate between managers and leaders as follows – “The difference between leadership and management was once summed up in the following way by someone looking out of our office window in Covent Garden in central London: ‘Imagine there’s a sudden power failure in the London underground rail system. The system halts and all the lights go out. In the central control room someone is marshalling resources, implementing the standby facilities, rescheduling the trains, calling the emergency services. That’s management. Someone else is walking along the darkened platform with a torch bringing a trainload of people to safety.

That’s leadership.’” e-Governance projects are complex; involve multiple stakeholders, many times interdepartmental; and entail reengineering age-old governmental procedures and change management. They need effective managers as well as inspirational leaders.

Effective leadership is needed to ensure a strong focus while directing, pushing or encouraging the government officials in the implementation of e-governance projects.

Moreover, the leadership has to be sustained as these projects are long term. Frequent change in government functionaries puts e-Governance projects in jeopardy. e-Bhumi and Aadhaar based PDS system of Andhra Pradesh are but a couple of examples which have succeeded due to sustained and effective leadership.

L1 Based Selection May Prove To Be Penny Wise Pound Foolish Much work has already been done across India in e-Governance. Wherever possible, don’t reinvent the wheel. Implementing a readymade, tried and tested solution with minor customization saves effort, time and money.

Rajasthan was able to quickly and successfully rollout e-Procurement because she used the readymade GePNIC solution developed by National Informatics Centre.

If ready-made software is not available and its development is indeed to be outsourced, one needs to think twice before choosing the L1 or Least Cost Based Selection (LCBS) methodology for selecting the software development company. This mechanism may be suited for procuring standardized items likely computer hardware, licenses for generic computer software etc.

However, it is not likely to yield the desired application software required for complex e-governance projects. Software is an intellectual property, which cannot be developed by a vendor selected on cost considerations alone. The quality of the software will depend on the quality of the software development professionals and the development and testing processes used by the vendor. A Combined Cost and Quality Selection method is, thus, highly desirable.

Moreover, the technical scoring criterion needs to be appropriately designed. A criterion giving high weight to the size, experience and repute of a company may not suffice. The quality of the whole project team, the development methodology and the testing strategy and tools should also be scrutinized while evaluating the proposals.

Success entails 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration E-governance projects are not technology projects as much as they are governance projects.

Indeed, the ‘e’ in e-Governance is only a small element. Getting the ‘governance’ right is the harder task as the road from project conceptualisation to implementation involves a multitude of tasks and activities including procurement, stakeholder management, process re-engineering, change management, training and capacity building, etc. This requires sheer hard work and perseverance, motivated by a strong desire to serve the public and an unwavering commitment to improve governance.

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Awards

Recognition to the State of Rajasthan The results of Rajasthan government’s efforts in e-Governance space have been heartening. The State has won many laurels at the national level for its e-Governance projects and for its capacity building activities S.N Project

Award Deptt.

1.

Arogya online Manthan Award 2012 2.

State category, for ‘Award of Appreciation’ at CSI

Capacity Building Nihilent e-Governance Award 3.

District category ‘Award of Appreciation’ at CSI

Nihilent e-Governance Award 4.

“End-to-end Delivery of eINDIA Award 2012

Digitally Signed Certificates”

under “CSC Initiative” category 5.

“RPSC Online Portal” under eINDIA Award 2012

“Government to Citizen” category 6.

End-to-end Delivery of Digitally Signed Skoch Digital Inclusion award –

Certificate Service under CSC Project Top 100 ICT projects – 2012 7.

Apnakhata Project e-WORLD Award 8.

Online Answering Information System (OASYS) National e-Governance Silver Award

9.

Child Tracking & Health Services Management National e-Governance Silver Award

System (PCTS) 10. Bharat Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendra MIS Portal SKOCH Digital Inclusion Award-2012

YEAR – 2011 11.

Apna Khata SKOCH Digital Inclusion Award 12. Rural Governance Initiative Best Public Choice Award

13. District Category CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Awards 14. Automatic Milk Collection System with Society e World Forum Award – 2011

Accounting and Management Software

YEAR – 2010 15. Pregnancy, Child Tracking & Health Services eINDIA 2010

Management System”

YEAR – 2009 16. RUIS Project Geo Spatial Excellence Award by Map

World Forum 17. e-Sanchar Project Best IT Implementations Award under

the category of Maximum Social

Impact by PC Quest 18. District Category CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Awards 19. ‘Pay Manager’ e Rajasthan Public Choice award 20. e-Gram A Reality Check Manthan Award South Asia

YEAR – 2008 21. BPL Census PCQUEST BEST IT Implementation award

YEAR – 2007 22. LITES Software Appreciation certificate under the

category of Innovative Projects in

National e-Governance conference 23. CSC /eMitra Project Bronze medal at the 10th National

e-Governance Conference

YEAR – 2006 24. ‘Aarakshi’- eFIR application Model e-Governance application in the

9th National e-Governance Conference 25. Treasury Computerization Project TCS- Oracle e-Governance Excellence

Awards for IT and Revenue efficiency

YEAR – 2005 26. ‘Any Where Registry’ Project Bronze Medal under the category of

Best Practices in the National e-Governance

Seminar in 2005

YEAR – 2004 27. Society Accounting Management System s/W for DSIR National R&D Award 2004

Dairy sector for Milk Accounting & Stock entry

30

Implementing Agency

YEAR – 2012

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / December 2012

Medical & Health DoIT&C

CDAC/RISL DoIT&C

Jhalawar District

Jhalawar

DoIT&C

RPSC DoIT&C

DoIT&C

RISL DoIT&C

Revenue State Legislative Assembly Rajasthan Medical & Health

NIC NIC

Panchayati Raj

REIL

Panchayati Raj Rural Development & Panchayati Raj Pali District REIL

NIC NIC NIC REIL

Medical & Health

NIC

NIC

DLB

DoIT&C

DoIT&C

DoIT&C

Jodhpur Finance Planning

NIC NIC NIC

Panchayati Raj & Rural Dev.

NIC

Justice Department

DoIT&C

DoIT&C

DoIT&C

Police Department

DoIT&C

Treasury & Accounts

NIC

Registration & Stamps

DoIT&C

REIL

REIL

In Person

Manjit Singh

Chairman & Managing Director, Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation (RSRTC)

Enhancing

mobility through ICT

R

SRTC has been around for many decades. Tell us about the scale of the operations of the organisation. What is your vision for the organisation?

Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation came into being in 1964, so this is its 48th year of operations.

The corporation has been established under the Road Transport Act 1950 with the objective of providing economic, adequate, punctual and efficient services to the travelling public in the state. Currently, 4,500 buses across 46 depots are plying more than 16 lakh kilometres and carrying more than 9 lakh passengers per day.

Our vision is to provide high quality services in a consistent manner. We are endeavouring to keep improving the services for the satisfaction of the passengers. Today RSRTC is providing connectivity not only within the state, but also to States and Union Territories like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharastra, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu-Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh. Best possible services are being provided to the remotest areas of Rajasthan.

The size of the operations being handled by RSRTC must be really large. It must be a challenge to manage it. What kind of management strategies are you using?

“Considering the size of operation and controlling area, RSRTC has envisaged an ambitious e-Governance programme,� says Manjit Singh, Chairman & Managing Director, Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation (RSRTC)

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Considering the size of operation and controlling area, RSRTC has envisaged an ambitious e-Governance programme. We have an Integrated Transport Management System (ITMS), which is very effective in enhancing the workings of Depot/Zonal/HO. RSRTC has already executed Electronic Ticket Issuing Machine (ETIM) module of ITMS in all depots. We

In Person

have also introduced a large number of modules for bringing efficiency and transparency in our operations.

Passenger Amenities

What are the main objectives of ITMS? As I said earlier, the main objective is to bring efficiency and transparency to our operations.

We are trying to modernise the existing passenger ticketing and seat reservation system.

We are providing facility of “Anyplace to Anyplace” advance booking at all booking centres which means tickets can be booked anywhere, any place for forward & return journeys during schedule reservation timings. The passengers have the convenience of having the information related to Expected Time of Arrival & Departure of Buses. The idea is to provide maximum benefits to the citizens and to the RSRTC. We are trying to serve the passengers not only through IT initiatives, but also by keeping in mind that the buses are clean and there is punctuality of services. Passengers have the right to accident-free services.

What are the different methods through which passengers can book their tickets for RSRTC operated buses?

Online booking is one method. Passengers can book their tickets directly through the Internet.

So there is no need to stand and wait in long queues. There is 365X24X7 availability to the commuters. Consumers can even book tickets through Mobile Application. We will start issuing RFID passes from 15 January, 2013. It will provide passengers the independence from the hassle of day to day transactions. They can pay once and then keep using the system over a period of time. Then there is the system called ePurse, which can be used for a fast, easy and convenient journey. There are easy recharge options for ePurse, which can be used for pay-

•

At all the bus stations seven days advance reservation of tickets facility is available free of charge.

•

For Passengers of Jaipur City, through 40 Kiosks online ticketing facility for Air conditioned, Deluxe, Semi-Deluxe and Express busses is available on additional payment of `10/- as service charges.

•

Facility to book six seats in each service through telephone is also available for passengers boarding at jaipur.

•

Other than CBS Jaipur on line booking facility is available free of cost at RSRTC

ment at parking bay, toll collection and rendering of various merchant options.

Along with advantages to the passengers, the IT initiatives must also be leading to gains to the RSRTC. Tell us about the commercial advantages that are being accrued.

The IT systems like ETIM-ORS Integration have the impact of minimising and eliminating revenue leakages. It saves manpower cost and lowers maintenance costs. Through RFID Pass System and ePurse, we plan to develop additional revenue streams. We also have diesel monitoring systems which can lead to reduction/elimination of fuel pilferage and other losses. There is vast reduction in costs associated with non optimal passenger load. Our Transportation ERP solution has improved profitability through funds, cash and investment management. Human resource management has been optimised. There is overall reduction in manpower and support costs.

The modules

executed by RSRTC under ITMS •

State-Wide Online Reservation System (ORS)

•

Integration of Existing Electronic Ticket Issuing Machine (ETIM) with ORS

•

Online Management Information System (MIS)

•

Vehicle Scheduling and Dispatch System

•

Vehicle Tracking and Passenger Information System

•

Accounts Computerisation through TALLY

countries at Narayan Singh Circle and Ghat Gate, Jaipur.

•

For Member of Parliament, Legislative Assembly, ladies and handicapped people RSRTC has reserved special quota seat in each service.

•

At 27 major Bus Stands like Jaipur, Ajmer, Jodhpur, Kota Bikaner Udaipur, Delhi, Ahmedabad etc. Computerised Reservation along with return ticket facility is available.

•

Holders of Return tickets are allowed 10 percent concession in fare for travelling in RSRTC Busses.

Many cities are now coming up with the concept of Common Mobility Card. Are you having any such plans?

The RFID Smart Cards will play the role of Common Mobility Cards. In the initial phase RFID Smart Card’s e-Purse shall be utilised for Concessional Travellers. Senior citizens, MLAs, MPs, media persons, monthly pass holders and other categories of people come in the category of Concessional Travellers.

Commuter shall be carrying this Smart Card to render the services of that particular organisation only. Progressively, the concept shall be made generic; e-Purse shall be transformed into Common Mobility Card (CMC). In the CMC various corporations and merchants shall be incorporated and thus their respective services shall be rendered by the Common Man carrying CMC. The system will facilitate cashless transactions and the facility can be used in buses and at railway stations.

The web portal being operated by RSRTC seems quite interesting.

What are the main advantages being offered by this portal?

The web portal of RSRTC is at - http://rsrtc. rajasthan.gov.in. Citizens can log in to find out details of the bus list, the kiosks lists and other facts. We are also developing a system that will allow the web-based services to be used for keeping track of the time schedule of the buses.

In all the bus stands and at booking stations RSRTC provides inquiry facility from where passengers can obtain service details.

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

33

In Person

Dr Samit Sharma

Managing Director, Rajasthan Medical Services Corporation, Government of Rajasthan

A freeway to ‘Healthy’ Rajasthan

G

ive us an overview of the work that is being done by Rajasthan Medical Services Corporation in the State of Rajasthan.

The Rajasthan Medical Services Corporation (RMSC) has been created to implement the Chief Minister’s scheme of providing free medicines to all patients under “Mukhya Mantri Nishulk Dawa Yojana”. The scheme was launched by the Government of Rajasthan on October 2, 2011 and it has been implemented in all 33 districts of the state. e-Aushadhi was implemented to provide a complete supply chain management solution for the drugs under the scheme. It provides drug management service to various district drug warehouses (DDWs) of Rajasthan, medical colleges, hospitals, community health centres (CHCs), primary health centres (PHCs), and drug distribution centres (DDCs) from where drugs are issued to patients, the final consumers in the chain.

What is the main idea behind the creation of Rajasthan Medical Services Corporation?

RMSC has been created by the Government of Rajasthan with the idea of making healthcare affordable, especially for the poor. Currently drug prices are very high and healthcare is not affordable. About 40 percent of the admitted patients have to either borrow money or sell their assets to undergo treatment. Twenty three percent of the sick never go to a doctor or hospital because they are not having money to spend on healthcare. This is a grave situation, one that leads to thousands of deaths every day. This is a real tragedy.

However, this is a preventable tragedy. The situation can be improved through an organisation like RMSC, which provides most commonly used essential drugs free-of-cost to all patients who visit government hospitals.

In your opinion, what are the major achievements of the scheme?

After starting this scheme, the number of patients has increased tremendously. Currently we are able to provide drugs to 2,30,000 patients a day, which is a huge number. Out of this, 80,000 patients have been added after starting this scheme. These are not just patients from Rajasthan. Patients are also coming from bordering states of Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and Gujarat who don’t have access to some specific drugs in their respective states.

The central ides of the scheme is that no patient in need should be deprived of essential drugs.

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“When it comes to basic healthcare we have removed the distinction between BPL and non-BPL patients. Earlier only BPL patients were entitled to free drugs. Now we are saying that any human being is eligible to get free drugs,” says Dr Samit Sharma

In Person

How did you expand the scope of the scheme over the years?

Initially we started with 200 drugs, which subsequently increased to 400. Now the Chief Minister has announced that the number shall further be increased to 500-600. We have already started working on that.

Quality healthcare is not only about availability of drugs, but also about doctors. What can be done to ensure that people in all parts of the state have access to good doctors?

In my opinion there are four components of healthcare – infrastructure, healthcare manpower, drugs and investigations. In Rajasthan, the infrastructure is well developed and in most places good infrastructure is already in place. As for the health manpower, at PHC and CHC levels, the infrastructure is currently under-utilised, as number of patients is not adequate despite the fact that these places have qualified doctors and wellequipped staff. For instance, in a PHC the average number of staff was 10 and the average number of patients visiting the PHC per day was also 10. It is the district hospitals and medical college hospitals that have always been over-burdened. So the state government has started a new drive to recruit doctors. Recently, we recruited over 500 doctors.

Recruitment of more nursing staff and pharmacists is on the way. So far we have inducted 1,400 pharmacists after the inception of this scheme.

This scheme must be having some focus on rural areas, especially for patients belonging to Below Poverty Level (BPL) families. So how are you managing that?

Our sub-centres are essentially meant to serve the rural population. One sub-centre is meant to serve a rural population of about 3,000 people. PHCs are also meant to serve the rural population with one PHC serving about 30,000 people, and most CHCs are located in rural

e-Aushadhi Scalability of the Application • This software is capable of being extended not only to district level but also at state or national level • This software tracks drugs from procurement stage till patients consuming the medicines • Further it can also be enhanced to the level of monitoring consumption record of individual patients

The team behind e-Aushadhi

e-Aushadhi Technical Specification •

•

• •

Application Server: IBM Websphere 8.0.0.4 64 Bit (2 servers) that support beyond 3 GB heap size Database Server: Oracle 11g R2 64 bit along with standby database server using Oracle data guard Load Balancing: Phyiscal load balancer is used for managing the load H/w Used: IBM X3650 M4 with 16 GB RAM for Application servers and Dell PowerEdge 410 for primary database server with 12 GB RAM

areas too. Most of the drug distribution centres are located in rural areas only.

RMSC must be involved in procurement and distribution of large amount of drugs. What methodologies are being used to manage such large quantities?

The complete procurement and supplies management is handled by the headquarter office in Jaipur. We have 34 DDWs, one in each district and two for Jaipur. The warehouses are incorporated with technologies to store the drugs at the right temperature. The drugs are divided into three categories. The first category comprises drugs that are highly temperature-sensitive. They are stored in walk-in coolers (WICs), which are huge cold storage places. the second category comprises drugs which need to be stored in “cool places,” where we maintain a certain temperature by airconditioning. The third category of drugs belongs to those that can be stored at room temperature.

From these drug warehouses, the drugs are issued

to the sub-stores of various government hospitals.

Essentially these sub-stores are the exclusive drug stores for each hospital. From these sub-stores, drugs are finally issued to the free DDCs. Currently we have 14,500 DDCs. The supply chain has been developed keeping in mind that the entire population of Rajasthan should have access to essential drugs in all government institutions.

If all CHCs, PHCs and DDCs are located in rural areas, then what about the BPL patients living in urban areas?

As I already pointed out, when it comes to basic healthcare we have removed the distinction between BPL and non-BPL patients. Earlier only BPL patients were entitled to free drugs.

Now we are saying that any human being is eligible to get free drugs. He need not show any ration card, voter ID card or any other identity proof. He need not necessarily be a domicile of Rajasthan to avail the facility.

Talking about the free drugs that have been made available across all government hospitals, how did you come up with the list of drugs?

The list of drugs that we are providing for free to everyone is based on the guidelines of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM).

We also have a state-level technical advisory committee comprising doctors, vice-chancellors, principals, superintendents, and subject experts. This committee has studied the WHO list and NLEM list and also the disease pattern prevalent in Rajasthan. All these considerations have been deliberated upon to come up with this list of essential drugs.

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

35

Industrial Outlook

Developing IT & ITeS Sectors in Rajasthan

Sunil Arora, Principal Secretary, Department of Industries, State Enterprises & NRI, Government of Rajasthan

T

he IT & ITeS sectors have the potential to provide large scale employment to educated and skilled youths. Rajasthan is a late starter in this field in comparison to Southern states, but now this sector has started gaining momentum for growth. The State Government and RIICO have taken numerous initiatives to promote and develop this sector by way of creating infrastructure in terms of IT Parks, Earth Stations and Optical Fibre based Networks. The availability of skilled and trained

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manpower is also contributing to the growth of the IT & ITeS sectors.

North India’s largest integrated IT Park, the Mahindra World City, Jaipur, is spread across nearly 3,000 acres. RIICO has developed two IT Parks in Jaipur – at Sitapura and Ramchandra Pura. IT Parks have also been established at Jodhpur, Udaipur and Kota. All plots have been allotted in these parks. To promote entrepreneurship, an Incubation Centre has been set up at Sitapura IT Park where ready-to-move and plug-and-play facilities are available on rent to entrepreneurs and companies interested in setting up IT units.

In association with the Software Technology Parks of India, RIICO has established STP Centres at Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Bhiwadi.

The last one is under development. These centres will provide high-speed data communication facilities and regulation of the STP Scheme. The state government is encouraging the setting up of SEZs in the IT sector. The IT SEZ by Mahindra has companies like Infosys, Infosys BPO, Deutsche Bank, EXL Services, Nucleus Software and Systweek.

With a view to promote and develop the IT sector, the Rajasthan Government has formulated the Rajasthan Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy in 2010. IT & ITeS are the thrust areas for development under the Rajasthan Industrial and Investment Promotion Policy – 2010. This policy is aimed at giving thrust to the IT/ITeS sectors including Electronic Hardware. The policy also aims to develop a Knowledge City catering to education, entertainment, health, recreation, research and information technology sectors.

Another important scheme to promote the BPO and KPO sectors in the State is the BPO & KPO Scheme – 2011. Under this scheme the State government is providing major incentives like a capital investment subsidy of up to 50 percent of capital cost subject to a maximum of Rs. 20 lakhs. It also has the provision to provide financial support to subsidise 50 percent of the training cost of each trainee. The IT and ITeS Policy, 2007 also provides various concessions and benefits to entrepreneurs in these sectors.

As Rajasthan invests more and more in human resource development, it is poised to attract huge investments in all sectors, especially in IT and other technology sectors. This will lead to the generation of new employment opportunities and many other benefits for all the citizens of the state and the rest of India.

Major Initiatives & Incentives In Rajasthan Under ‘It & Ites Policy 2007’ 1. Departments to earmark 3 percent of their outlays for IT 2. List of Statutes and laws expanded where self-certification has been permitted 3. Inspection by Labour Department waived 4. Various exemptions under Labour law regarding time of opening and closing, female workers etc 5. IT and ITES declared as public utility services 6. FAR conditions relaxed in urban/industrial areas 7. Permission for soft ware units in residential areas 8. 50 percent exemption in stamp duty for IT/ITES units 9. 7-year exemption on electricity duty 10. Captive power plants set up for IT exempted from ED 11. LT Industry tariff for power instead of commercial tariff (From Rs. 4.90 per unit to Rs. 4.01 per unit) 12. First mover advantage for IT SMEs: upto Rs 25 lakhs @ Rs. 10,000 per employee in case of direct employment of 50 persons in IT and 100 in ITES 13. Special package of Rs.10,000 per person employed for Mega projects in ITES. 14. Concessions in cost of land: i. Agricultural land in rural area: 25 percent rebate ii. Land in urban area: 30 percent to 50 percent rebate linked to investment iii. In RIICO area: 60 percent rebate ( max Rs 25 lakhs) 15. RIPS 2003 and its successor fully applicable for IT & ITES units

Special Scheme

Rajasthan Incentive Scheme for BPO Centres and KPO Centres, 2011 A scheme has been launched to encourage private players to set up BPO centres / KPO centres to take ITES industry into the hinterland of the state.

The scheme provides for various fiscal benefits like capital investment subsidy of 50% of capital cost up to Rs. 20 lakh per eligible BPO / KPO centre for development of training infrastructure / facilities in the State except the areas falling under the Urban Agglomeration limits of Jaipur.

Financial support to subsidize the operational cost of training of 50% of such cost of each trainee not exceeding Rs. 10000/- per trainee in case of BPO centre and Rs. 12500 in case of KPO centre. In case of expansion, such financial support will be applicable only in respect of the increased number of trainees over and above the highest number of trainees in the preceding three years

In Person

Naveen Mahajan

Managing Director, Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO)

RAJASTHAN

RISES AS AN INVESTMENT

DESTINATION that RIICO has achieved is primarily due to the vision of the state’s political leadership. We have a unique single window clearance system. The law is implemented in a clear and transparent manner.

How big a role has Rajasthan Industrial & Investment Promotion Policy (RIIPP) played in the State’s development?

“Rajasthan is now one of India’s major industrial hubs; it is a preferred investment destination. This success has been achieved primarily because the state government has taken several proactive measures to develop better infrastructure in the state,” says Naveen Mahajan, Managing Director, Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO)

R

ajasthan is now stepping into the industrial limelight.

What are the key reasons behind the state’s economic success?

Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO has managed to create a huge industrial infrastructure across the state in record time. We are managing 323 industrial areas. Our endeavour is to manage infrastructure in a professional way. The success

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The RIIPP, 2010, is indicative of the new investment climate in the state. The Rajasthan Investment Promotion Scheme (RIPS), 2010, supplements the larger RIIPP with a package of financial incentives.

Formulated on the basis of extensive consultation and inputs from trade and industry, the new scheme has given a fillip to industrialisation in the state. The state has a large pool of trained, Englishspeaking professionals. Over 50,000 engineers graduate from 122 engineering colleges every year.

What is the status of industrialisation in Rajasthan?

Most of the world’s top companies today have a presence in Rajasthan. These include Lafarge, Saint Gobain, Infosys, Deutsche Bank, Daikin, Mitsubishi and Mahindra & Mahindra. The presence is not limited to any particular sector, but across varied sectors including manufacturing, services, IT, solar, wind and biomass power generation, exploration, textiles, etc. Our auto zone in Bhiwadi will soon have a full-fledged assembly line for Honda cars.

These examples can, of course, be multiplied. And things will only get better in the years to come.

What should be done to ensure that the people at grassroots levels benefit from all these development projects?

Special care is being taken to ensure that the fruit of this development percolates down

to the people of the state. That is the vision of the Hon’ble Chief Minister. RIICO has taken special incentives for investors in industriallybackward districts to ensure balanced regional development. Investors can avail of concessions if they commence production in regions such as Karauli, Sawai Madhopur, Dholpur, Baran, Pratapgarh, Banswara and Sirohi. RIICO’s land acquisition policy is based on ensuring fair compensation to farmers so that they have a stake in industrial development. Special concessions are also given to women and physically handicapped individuals seeking to set up industries in the state.

How is RIICO gearing up to play a more proactive role in Rajasthan’s industrialisation?

Automation of various processes of RIICO is our topmost priority. We have already launched pilot projects at our Unit Offices at Neemrana and Sitapura. This will help streamline functioning and bring in efficiency, transparency and accountability in RIICO’s operations. Take, for instance, the existing business processes which are manual. They will be re-engineered into key fields such as land acquisition, allotment, plot accounting, information system and management system.

A Financial Accounting System will track budgeting, including daily books and ledgers, trial balance, the balance sheet, profit and loss accounts, budget estimates, budgetary control, variance analysis and improve the overall Fund Management System. A Term Loan Accounting System will include appraisal, sanction and disbursement, follow-up and monitoring of recovery, etc. A Civil Project Management System will help track development and maintenance works.

In Person

Siddharth Mahajan

Commissioner (Investment & NRIs), Bureau of Investment Promotion (BIP), Rajasthan

POOLING IN

INVESTORS ACROSS DIFFERENT SECTORS single window clearances in Rajasthan. BIP also plays a significant role in developing investment policies for the State. Our mission is to support investors that are exploring investment opportunities in Rajasthan. Services are focused on investments above INR 10 crore. We have a multidisciplinary team with sector-specific expertise, which allows us to provide prospective investors with value added advice and information.

Give us some idea of the kind of investments that BIP has facilitated in Rajasthan.

“Since its inception, BIP has contributed to the economic growth of the state by facilitating investments in many sectors such as Solar & Wind power generation, IT/ITeS services, Engineering & Auto services, etc.,”

Since its inception, BIP has facilitated investments in many sectors like solar & wind power generation, IT/ITeS services, engineering & auto services, agro, food processing, mineral based industries, textile, tourism, gems & jewellery, cement industry, steel-plant, hotelsresorts, hospitals, educational & technical institutes, etc. BIP is also involved in establishment of big brands in the state, thus contributing to the industrial and economic growth of the state.

Act is aimed at ensuring smooth, simplified and hassle-free procedure for setting up industries and fructifying investment in the state.

What are the main attractions for investors in Rajasthan?

What are the key sectors in which investors are putting their money in the state?

The state’s key areas of strength include mineralbased industries, textile, tourism, solar & wind power generation, engineering & auto, agro / food processing and gems & jewellery. Rajasthan enjoys a distinct advantage in these sectors.

It is also the leading producer of cement and metals such as copper, zinc and lead, and is the largest producer of marble and stones in the country. Besides this, responsive administrative support, rapid industrialisation and employment generation, and easy access to major ports on the west coast, northern, central and western markets in the country are the main attractions for investors in Rajasthan.

says Siddharth Mahajan in conversation with Nayana Singh

G

ive us an overview of your plans to bring more investments to Rajasthan. What is your vision for the Bureau of Investment Promotion?

The Bureau of Investment Promotion (BIP) is the agency in charge of investment promotion and

Tell us about the Single Window Mechanism through which BIP can receive permit/license related applications.

The Rajasthan Enterprises Single Window Enabling and Clearance Act became effective in the state from December 27, 2010, to provide accelerated and time-bound grant of various licenses, permissions and approvals and to enable an alternative single window clearance mechanism to be triggered in case of failure of competent authorities to act in time.

The objective was to create an investor-friendly environment in the state. This is an online single-point interface between investors and various government departments/agencies. The

Is BIP taking any special step to ensure that large projects don’t get held up?

Introduction of the Single Window Mechanism, RIIPP, RIPS-2010 are some of the key steps taken by the state government to improve the investment climate in the state and to provide investors a hassle-free investing experience. BIP has always been actively involved in coordinating between investor and other government departments for facilitating speedy clearances.

At the same time, BIP has also taken up rationalisation and simplification of government regulation and procedures partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) - the Knowledge Partners for the state.

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

39

In Person

Rajeeva Swarup Principal Secretary, Higher Education, government of Rajsthan

New Universities in the Making

“We place great emphasis on computer education. However, the penetration of technology in government-owned institutions will take time, hence we are encouraging private sector to take up more such projects,” says Rajeeva Swarup in conversation with Nayana Singh

G

ive us an overview of the schemes that the Government of Rajasthan has launched to bring about improvements in the education sector.

Our Government is one of the most proactive ones in the field of higher education. Premier

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institutes of higher education have been opened in the state in the last four years, which include IIM at Udaipur, IIT at Jodhpur and AIIMS at Jodhpur. IIIT has been sanctioned at Kota. This year the state government has come up with seven new state-funded universities. Three new regional universities—at Bharatpur, Alwar and Sikar respectively—have been carved out within the jurisdictional area of what was formerly under the Rajasthan University. In addition to this, we have set up four specialised universities, one of which will be dedicated to teaching Law at Jaipur, one for Police and Security related at Jodhpur, one for Tribal Affairs at Udaipur, and one for Journalism and Mass Communications at Jaipur. Another one on Sports is in process. The number of universities within Rajasthan will go up to 23.

We also encourage the private sector to set up private universities in the state and are hoping to make the state an educational hub. They have set up a total of 33 private universities in Rajasthan, which is quite an impressive number; more are in the pipeline.

Apart from setting up of new universities what other steps have been taken up by the state government to improve the education scenario?

To encourage the private sector for opening colleges in remote areas, a scheme has been announced for providing finacial assistance for opening colleges in tehsil headquarters where either no college exists or only one college exists. For the students, the Chief Minister has announced distribution of laptops to the toppers of various courses in the state-funded universities. The CM has also announced financial assistance of `500 to `100,000 to poor students. The amount will be granted to them for five years. We are planning to set up English speaking labs in all colleges over a period of three years. We place great emphasis on computer education. However,

the penetration of technology in governmentowned institutions will take time; hence we are encouraging private sector to take up more such projects.

Students often complain of not being adequately trained for jobs right after graduating from colleges. So how are you addressing this issue?

We are providing the additional support of career counselling to college students. We understand the importance of having fluent communicative ability in English language in the present times. Therefore, to help students develop this skill, we have introduced English labs. The Rajasthan Mission on Skill and Livelihood has adopted ambitious projects for the purpose of skill development among students.

What initiatives have come from the state government to eliminate gender discrimination, especially in higher education?

We have exempted fees for girls who are keen on pursuing their studies. This benefit is being given to female students’ right from school level and is extended up to higher education level.

Girls’ colleges have also been opened.

How do you envision the educational progress of the state some years from now?

Today in Rajasthan we are having a below par performance in gross enrolment ratio. We are making many new endeavours to ensure that we catch up very shortly with the rest of the nation. It will be a great achievement, considering the fact that Rajasthan is an educationally backward state. Thereafter, given the amount of investment we are doing in the Higher Education space, we hope to reach progressive heights in the country.

In Person

Aatul Wadegaonkar

Managing Director, Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Ltd (RKCL)

Promoting Digital Literacy in Rajasthan

“RKCL is just not a business entity; it is a movement for the good of the people�, says Dr Aatul Wadegaonkar

G

ive us an overview of the work being done by Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Limited.

What is your vision for the organisation?

Our basic mission is to bridge digital divide, bring the common people closer to ethos and opportunities of knowledge society and knowledge-led economy and with a view to bring the real fruits of IT to the masses for survival, development and empowerment. Currently, we are providing quality vocational computer-related education to the masses. The education is being provided in a blended learning mode, in a very structured and evidence-based environment.

In our current batch around 1.5 lakh learners are taking their training in our computer literacy course RS-CIT. The system of learning has been developed in such a way that it is possible for us to online monitor learning progression of each learner. This helps us to ensure that each learner is able to acquire the necessary skills. Our vision is to create a digitally-literate Rajasthan.

You spoke about monitoring the learning progression of each learner to find out the quality of learning that they are doing. What kind of monitoring is there? What aspects of education are being monitored?

All aspects of learning are being monitored. It is not just the marks that we are focussing on; we are also keen to identify the actual skills that the learner is picking up. In simulated e-Learning environment, the

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learner performs various differential and integral skill related assignments, the details of which get uploaded. Similarly learners are enabled to create society useful and productive outputs during their course of learning and a portfolio of what output they created is also uploaded.

Is the main objective of the kind of learning being offered by RKCL to make the learners job ready?

We are into developing courses that are connected with survival skills.

For instance, computer literacy, financial literacy, English language proficiency courses, unless you learn it you are not going to survive in the modern competitive environment. It has nothing to do with direct employment but improving your employability skills. Wherever you want to get employed, even as a clerk, you must acquire these skills.

Tell us about the minimum qualification that is required for enrolling for the courses offered by the Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation?

The only qualification required is a strong desire to learn. Anyone can take this course, right from a 6 year-old child to an 80-year-old senior citizen.

If an 80-year-old grandfather wants to connect with his granddaughter living in the USA, he has to be digitally literate. He must know how to read and write mails, chat, and use Skype and Facebook etc. The courses that we offer cover all kinds of needs of different categories of learners.

We conduct Rajasthan State Certificate Course in Information Technology (RS-CIT) which covers MS Office, Internet and Windows. We have Digital Saheli course, which is a course for the empowerment of rural women. It is focussed on teaching women the art of using computers and

In Person

RKCL Milestones • Incorporated on April 25, 2008 • Business Operations commenced on January 12, 2009 • RS-CIT course (regular) launched on 12th January 2009 • 3 years of self-sustaining, wealthcreating and ever growing operations with social accountability

the Internet in their day-to-day life. RKCL is also offering courses on DTP and Tally. We also feel that a person should be financially literate.

So we have a course called Personal Finance Management. Such courses make you a better qualified citizen. Our aim is to make Rajasthan financially and digitally literate.

Many private players like Aptech and NIIT are also providing similar courses in all parts of the country. How is Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Limited doing it differently?

Aatul Wadegaonkar Managing Director, Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Ltd (RKCL)

Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Limited is a Public Limited Company established in Rajasthan as a joint venture of Government of Rajasthan; Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL), Pune; University of Rajasthan, Jaipur; Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur; Vardhaman Mahaveer Open University, Kota; Rajcomp Info Services Ltd. and Centre for e-Governance.

Today RKCL has a franchise network of 2,000 centres across the state. No one else has such a huge network. We want to deliver hi-tech high touch education to the masses. All other players have a district-level presence, whereas our presence is up to the block level. The fee structure for our courses is also very low; it varies between `2,300 to `3,000. Our courses are evidencebased and our e-Learning framework is designed to ensure implementation of high-tech with human touch; appreciation to imitation then from imitation to emulation; from emulation to self-expression; from self-expression to selfconfidence and from self-confidence to selfesteem approach to ensure guaranteed learning.

All other frameworks lack on this front and are instructor driven , where learner are taught and it is assumed that essential skills are imparted.

What kind of response are you getting from students?

The response has been tremendous so far. We have trained more than five lakh learners in December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

43

In Person

just four years. Last year, we trained about 1,32,000 people and this year, we have already trained more than 3,00,000 people. We are expecting the numbers to cross 4,50,000 by the end of this financial year.

IT Literacy RKCL launched a state-wide IT Literacy drive in the form of Rajasthan State Certificate in Information Technology Programme - RS-CIT in January 2009

How many of these have got scholarships?

Eighty percent of the students pay for the course and the remaining twenty percent students’ fee is either subsidised or paid by Government.

We have a digital divide in all the states of the country. The digital divide is especially palpable in the rural areas, which are lagging behind the urban areas. Are you planning to have more knowledge centres in the rural areas?

RKCL launched a state-wide IT Literacy drive in the form of Rajasthan State Certificate in Information Technology Programme RS-CIT in January 2009.

This programme is implemented across the state through a private-public-partnership (PPP) network of about 2000 IT Gyan Kendras (ITGKs). This has emerged as the single largest network of the IT Training Centers in the whole of North India. Our policy is to

extend our reach up to block level. On this front State Government is also helping us by providing office space in Bharat Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Kendra and sponsoring various programmes.

The Government programmes are being implemented at places that are less financially viable. However, the good thing is that most of our centres are becoming financially viable.

Many students tend to join computer literacy classes just to improve their employability.

Have you done some research to find out if the students from RKCL were having better job prospects?

9,000 youths in the state got direct employment while 15,000 youths in the state got indirect job opportunities in this network at their own native places. However, as I said earlier, our focus is to bridge digital divide,

Unique Equity Profile The Government of Rajasthan (GoR), three Universities in the state, community institutions, IT and non-IT bodies, etc. are among the initial major equity holders of RKCL. A detailed stakeholder break up is given below for reference:

% Shareholding 5%

Govt. of Rajasthan

5%

30%

10%

MKCL, Pune VMOU, Kota

10%

RU, Jaipur 10%

MPUAT, Udaipur 30%

Centre of e-Governance RajComp InfoServices Ltd

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / December 2012

bring the common people closer to ethos and opportunities of knowledge society so that they are better equipped to survive in the modern digital world.

What steps are you taking to promote the Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation so that more students come to know about it?

We release newspaper advertisements every month. We have a franchise network and district offices in every district. All these centers are being run by private entrepreneurs they also locally propagate the brand RKCL. We also go to schools and colleges to spread awareness about our courses among students.

We also regularly organise awareness camps about our courses.

Running company like RKCL must be fraught with challenges.

Tell us about main challenges that you have faced in the past few years?

Challenges are obvious in a network of people.

We have 2,000 centres, 33 district offices and 10 programme support agencies and our total staff is 15 only. We are able to manage our sprawling network with such limited staff by making use of cutting edge technology. Ours is one of the few companies of the state where every transaction is online. This culture of online transactions has been implemented in record time in our network. This shows that the people of Rajasthan are very open to adopting new technology, if it is presented in the right manner. I would also say that creating the right type of learning environment at each center and making center understand that we are just not a business entity; but a movement for the good of the people is the biggest challenge.

What kind of vision is required from a person to be a managing director of RKCL? Since RKCL is a network for masses, the Managing Director should be completely connected with the ground realities. We have to be in touch with the network. We to have regularly travel across the state meet centers to communicate vision and mission of the company, share the best learning and business practices with them.

In Person

Kuldeep Ranka

Jaipur Development Commissioner, Jaipur Development Authority, Government of Rajasthan

Creating new Infrastructure in Pink City

T

he Jaipur Development Authority is involved in conducting many infrastructure projects. What is your vision for development of the city?

As an organisation, the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) is committed to working for the benefit of the citizens of Jaipur. With planned implementation of development schemes, we are consistently striving to create better facilities in the city. In our work we are helped by the fact that Jaipur is one of the most well-planned cities of its times and planned development has always been central to its ideology. The Government of Rajasthan brought JDA into existence with a vision of fulfilling the growing needs of a large city in wake of the increasing population. The plan was also to give Jaipur a planned look that is compatible and comparable to any metropolitan city of repute. JDA has the powers to speed up the development and progressive growth of the entire city. We are focussed on improving the looks of the city.

Attempting to create new infrastructure in a densely populated city like Jaipur must be a difficult task. So what kind of strategies are you using to ensure that the construction takes place in an efficient and time bound manner? “Jaipur Development Authority has been time and again proving itself as a pioneer of development; we are focussed on creating a state-of-the-art city of substance�

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JDA using major scientific and hi-tech strategies to ensure time-bound construction and development of Jaipur. We are taking major initiatives to construct new flyovers, bridges, parking places. The development of commercial projects and residential schemes, etc., is taking place at a fast pace

In Person

due to the usage of latest construction technologies. We are also facilitating the development of basic amenities like community centres, parks and ring roads. Lot of efforts are being made to facilitate the development of modern systems for transportation.

Going further on the theme of modern systems for transportation, can you tell us something about the Jaipur Metro that is being planned?

The Jaipur Metro is being planned at an estimated cost of around `9,732 crores. It will be of around 35 kilometres. We expect that the Jaipur Metro Phase-1 will be operational by July, 2013.

According to the promises and commitments of the Rajasthan Government, JDA has been time and again proving itself as a pioneer of development, creating a state-of-the-art city of substance.

We firmly believe in bridging the gap and reaching out to its citizens and to provide them with quick and hassle-free service.

A lot of IT and e-Governance initiatives have been taken by Jaipur Development Authority.

What is the main focus of these initiatives?

As you are aware, the Jaipur Development Authority has vast responsibilities. Major challenges are thrown by the growing urbanisation. All these problems can only be resolved by the incorporation of modern technologies. Quick and effective delivery of services is the focus of the IT initiatives at JDA. The dynamic contents of CCC (Citizen Care Centre) application status, Lottery results, RTI status are online and are established on JDA server through live IP. We have developed lots of web-based applications to streamline and bring transparency into a number of areas of our operations.

We have a call centre where people can register their complaints through toll-free numbers. We are also having a very effective help desk. Our applications make it easier for the citizens to fill applications. Basically we are focussed on speedy and timely disposal of citizen’s applications. Helping citizens to get their application filled in timely manner leads to timely disposal and is in the best interests of everyone. We have installed touch-screen kiosks to provide information in a speedy and efficient manner.

You also have a computerised asset management system.

Please tell us about it.

We have a Centralised Resource Management System (CPRMS). Under this project, centralized database of schemes and approximately 3 Lakh individual properties has been created along with scanning of important documents property records have been created. The information is made available to public through JDA official website. I would also like to tell you about the Computerised Cash Collection System & Preparation of RCR. All the receipt of JDA is recorded under this system with effect from August 2010. There is auto confirmation of the receipt through online banking. The receipt of amount through net banking, Credit Cards, Debit Cards and mobile banking has been established through an efficiently developed payment gateway.

How is IT proving to be effective in monitoring your ongoing projects?

We have the Project Monitoring Information System (PMIS) for Engineering Works.

The software helps authorities in monitoring the condition of roads and helps in curbing corrupt practices during their laying. Nearly 7,000 kilometres of road fall under the JDA. As per the norms, a road constructed should be repaired after every four years. However, it is sometimes difficult for the authority to keep a check on the status of every road. With the help of the new software, the authorities will not only be able to know of the status of each road, they can also keep a record of the due date of maintenance.

The cost of urban infrastructure is quite high; most people are unable to fulfil their dreams of owning a property. What steps can JDA take to have a reduction in the cost of urban infrastructure?

The cost of urban infrastructure, because of its superior quality, is bound to be somewhat high. In order to create a proper and affordable housing for the common man, we have launched the Affordable Housing Scheme. We are undertaking large scale construction under this scheme so that affordable houses can be made available to larger groups of people.

Such housing is cross-subsidised by the gov-

ernment, the builders who get their projects cleared have to reserve a part of their houses for the poor. Through affordable houses we also hope to put a stop on the proliferation of slums. We are also creating rental housing to serve as transit accommodation for migrants to urban areas. Right to adequate housing is a basic human right as shelter is a basic human need. Provision of adequate housing is emerging as a major thrust area for Government of India as well as the State Governments.

Government of Rajasthan accords a very high priority to this task. Vertical development also has the effect of reducing the costs, as there is limited construction area that is available.

Ultimately the city has no alternative except to grow upwards.

Land acquisition is an area of concern. So how are you dealing with this problem?

One of the major areas of concern is the conversion of land from agricultural to non-agricultural. We are using file tracking system to find out where the files are pending. The system tells us if the work is being done within the timeline or not. We are also using IT applications to monitor the rights given to the citizens, under the Right to Services act, and other regulations that have been created by the Government.

A lot of transparency and efficiency has been brought into our operations, and the main beneficiary of this are the citizens who have to conduct business with the JDA.

What kind of impact is the vertical growth going to have on the ambience of Jaipur? I mean, till few years ago we used to call Jaipur a “Pink City,” but now it is like any other metropolis. What can be done to retain the charm of Jaipur, while also facilitating growth?

Jaipur is one of the most well-planned cities in history. It was established by the then Maharaja, Sawai Jai Singh in the year 1927.

The graceful architecture of the City that runs across in pink colour has earned Jaipur the title of “The Pink City”. For the good of the citizens, who live in modern day Jaipur we have to facilitate growth, but we are also focussed in retaining the charm of the city. The creation of the new infrastructure is being planned in such a way that it does not hamper the traditional nature of the city.

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

47

2, Kanakpura Industrial Area, Sirsi Road, Jaipur‐302 012 (Raj.) EPABX Tel: +91‐141‐2470062, 2470363 Fax: +91‐141‐2470139 E‐mail: reilit@reiljp.com Website: www.reiljp.com

RAJASTHAN ELECTRONICS & INSTRUMENTS LIMITED (An ISO 9001:2000 “Mini Ratna” Public Sector Enterprise)

Automatic Milk Collection Unit

Security Surveillance System→

Shaping Rural India through Electronics, Energy, IT & Communication ....

IVRS

Cattle Identification

E-Ticketing

Smart Attendance System

Raw Milk Reception Dock

viewpoint

High time to frame a Digital Content Policy With the current level of general and e-literacy, existence of 22 languages, explosion of mobile phone subscriber base, steady growth of Internet users etc, the immediate requirement of such a content policy cannot be overstated.

I

f we take a quick look in the areas of ICT infrastructure readiness in the country it is evident that we have covered significant ground since the last decade. The large G2G middleware network SWANs started functioning across the country barring 2 or 3 States/UTs, backend storage infrastructure like SDCs are functioning in 18-20 States, front-end access points like CSCs are operational in rural India in around 80,000 Panchayat villages. NKN, to connect 1800 Knowledge Institutions of the country, is proliferating slowly but steadily. National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project, to connect 2,50,000 Village Panchayats through OFC, has started with an ambitious timeline of completion by 2013-14.

The State Service Delivery Gateways (SSDG) are getting established in the States/UTs. Pilot implementations of Mobile Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG) in two places are underway. In the private sector there is a continuous upgradation and expansion of telecom infrastructure adopting emerging technologies wherever feasible. With the passage of few more months we would definitely see a clear picture about the ICT-enabled e-government infrastructure which would be used by the citizens, to meet the needs of various government and private services.

Now we need a good number of services applications and wide variety of other digital content which would ride and use the multitude of ICT infrastructure. The moot question is whether we presently have any comprehensive, well defined and supportive policy environment which would not only excite content and application developers to meet the immediate need of the citizens and the government but also would pave the way for future innovations. Arguably, we do not have any specific government content policy now which would address this situation. Whatever we encounter in

this context is very limited reactive phenomena of government clarifications on some issues related to content on social media, objectionable content in Internet et el. The otherwise un-structured content eco-system is currently sporadic, fragmented and without support of any conducive and desirably incentivized policy environment created by government, which can excite the new actors to come to the arena of content and application creation.

It appears both public and private sector are not having any inclination to nurture innovation in this area. Current players are also devoid of sustainable business models, due to apathy of telecom carrier agencies. Soft arm-twisting of the content or application developers by the Telecom Service Providers is not very uncommon. Interestingly the recently announced Telecom Policy, which has tinge of some e-governance aspects, also does not prescribe any content creation mechanism.

By virtue of having different States with varied culture, language and other social variants, we have a unique and intense issue of localization of content across the country. Replication of any useful content created in one state in to other states would immediately pose a challenge of language conversion. The overwhelming size of pending work in this area becomes evident when we notice that out of half-a-million Websites existing in the country, only around 25,000 Websites are in any one of the 22 vernacular languages!

Rest of the Websites is in English language while recent Census revealed that around 5% people only in this country understands and speaks that language! If one counts only basic activities of creation and translation of plain content in the country, then the quantum of untapped work would be mind boggling : 70% of 26 million MSMEs in the country did not create any digital content or Website as on date ; there is no website or content for most of the Parliament and Assembly constituencies ; there are only 500 Panchayat websites exist ( that too created by a non-profit NGO under a miniscule PoC category isolated project ) out of around 2,45,000 Panchayats in the country ; more

than 85,000 PHCs did not produce any healthrelated digital content so far as they have no website; 1.8 million Anganwadi workers’ experience and knowledge could generate digital content for 100.000 Anganwadi websites which are nonexistent today and the list would be far-ending !

And we have to remember that all these content have to be created in possibly 22 languages!

The policy makers in all relevant government departments and specially in the umbrella departments in the central government, like DeitY, Finance, DARPG etc, who could be instrumental in framing up pan-India Content Policy, therefore should put their minds together, to evolve an appropriate digital content eco-system creation policy for the country. With the current level of general and e-literacy, existence of 22 languages, explosion of mobile phone subscriber base, steady growth of Internet users etc, the immediate requirement of such a content policy cannot be overstated. With the fact that India bears the mark of an oral society, a well-framed and incentivized policy would also help the adventurous software developers to try innovative experiments with the content and applications, which can be role model for replications by other countries.

And for the resources required for implementation of such policy, why can we not indulge in somewhat out-of-box innovative thinking? In addition to creating a mass of physical labour wagers under the MGNREG Scheme why can’t we spend a portion of this fund to create an army of rural-based content developers, who would be creating trillion bytes of digital content in local languages, related to the social sector services suitable for rural India? Dear Sirs…please think over it.

Ashis Sanyal Consulting Editor, egov

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

49

Digital Economy Policies

An Initiative of Centre for Digital Economy Policy

Technological Sovereignty Dr Jaijit Bhattacharya, President, Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research; Director, South Asia, Hewlett Packard

S

overeignty is one of the cornerstones for ensuring the security of the country and ensures that India as a nation can stand up to pressures from other nations. Sovereignty is critical to ensure our economic independence.

As India moves into occupying the space of an IT superpower, the ability of the ICT industry to provide the requisite technologies reliably to the military, needs to be significantly enhanced. The issue is compounded with the fact that India has a feeble presence at the high stake tables of IT standards. IT standards have become one of the preferred tools of developed economies to extract undue economic benefit from emerging economies. Given that India, as of now, appears to have limited presence presence at the global forums on international IT standards, we appear to be abdicating our responsibility to secure our IT industry as well as IT usage. This situation has very deep implications on our defence preparedness.

The Strategic Implications With the lack of control over the technological layers, defense institutions will be challenged to protect the nation from Cyberwarfare.

More importantly, military hardware itself could be subject to intrusions and control by adversaries, thanks to the increased “intelligence” of the equipment.

Given that tactical thrusts on the ground need to be backed up with complex supply chain which are increasingly dependent on critical information infrastructure such as Railways Signaling, telecommunications network etc, the entire Military strategy could be threatened by compromising the critical information infrastructure which has non-authenticated ICT components.

With the same “ICT intrusions”, the Financial Infrastructure of the country can be brought

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down, impacting the ability of the military to sustain a conventional warfare.

The impact on Network Centric Warfare is also obvious.

Thus it is imperative that we move towards an ICT & Electronics and Cyber (ICT&CE) ecosystem profile which provides greater control over the ICT layers to the military strategists.

The Tactical Implications The tactical implication of lack of Technological Sovereignty on ICT is even more severe.

The saying that “but for a nail, the war was lost” holds absolutely true for role of ICT in tactical engagements.

Compromising the supply-chain, command and control systems, financial systems, Operational Control systems will have devastating tactical implications, arising out of not having control over the ICT layers.

Industrial Ecosystem A military can be as strong as the industrial ecosystem that backs it up.

In the modern warfare, ICT industrial ecosystem plays a critical role to ensure continuous supply of the latest ICT tools to support defense preparedness.

It is quite questionable whether India’s ICT Industrial Ecosystem has the wherewithal to provide uncompromised ICT tools to the military. This issues needs to be addressed through systematic policymaking and through carefully crafted institutional mechanisms.

Way Forward India is growing as an economy and as an IT superpower. However, from a defense preparedness perspective, one is suspect of the layers of ICT&EC going into the ecosystem and the purposes for which these layers are actually operating.

India has limited sovereignty over these layers of ICT&EC that are going into defense preparedness. It is imperative to address this lacuna. India has the potential to develop the

Threats to a state* Abetment External Internal Origin Internal Origin External Abetment External Abetment

Internal Origin External Abetment

Internal Origin External Abetment

Internal Internal External * Source: Kautilya (Indian Army Doctrine)

Origin

critical technologies and provide the technological sovereignty required to have credible defense preparedness.

One of the policies that may be leveraged to develop Technological Sovereignty is the defence offset clause. Under the current procurement norms, India has a policy for 30% offset on defence procurement. This creates an immense opportunity for domestic manufacturers and service providers. More importantly, this also creates an opportunity for developing domestic IPR to take benefit of the 30% defence offset policy. However, in order to do so, it is critical to identify the roadblocks that prevent domestic manufacturers from tapping this enormous market, which also includes a fickle tax regime that prevents having a long-term view of the market. It would also involve identification of institutional mechanisms to facilitate partnerships of global military ICT providers with domestics manufacturers to enable the procurement process The first step in this process would be the identification of institutional mechanisms to facilitate domestic entrepreneurship.

However, such a step would require conceptualization of facilitating policies and institutional mechanisms to accelerate the process of Technological Sovereignty in ICT&EC for Strategic purposes.

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

“Leading the Implementation of e-Governance Projects in Rajasthan as State Designated Agency for NeGP Projects�

Major Projects LITES ArogyaOnline (HMIS) e-Classroom Police, ATS & ACB Computerisation Social Justice, Labour & Employment Department Computerisation Social Media Optimisation for Tourism Krishi Mandi Computerisation (RIMMS) RPSC Computerisation RHB & JDA Computerisation Portal for RGDPS Act Citizen Contact Centre (CCC) Digitisation of State Archives Computerisation of Education Department CM Information System (CMIS)

Providing IT services since 1989 IT Consultancy System Integration IT Procurement Training and Capacity Building Facility Management Services (FMS)

Rural Connectivity

Rural Connectivity Rural Connectivity (GPNIC) has been designed, developed and implemented in 10 Gram Panchayats in Srinagar Block of Ajmer District as a proof of concept (POC) Indu Gupta, State Informatics Officer & Senior Technical Director, National Informatics Centre

I

ndia is a vast country and traditionally an agrarian economy with varied degree of financial and food security.

Government allows huge volume of funds to flow through various schemes to people in urban as well as rural areas. Panchayat is the ultimate nodal point for delivering the services and benefits generated out of these schemes. Continuous efforts over past many years have strengthened the service delivery modal to rural citizens in India. Nevertheless much is to be done overpowering the limitations and shortfalls in services delivery, awareness, involvements of various servicing agencies and of course poor connectivity of Panchayats.

Connecting India Rural Connectivity (GPNIC) has been designed, developed and implemented in 10 Gram Panchayats in Srinagar Block of Ajmer District as a proof of concept (POC). “It was taken up under guidance and direction of the high level team headed by Dr Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister on PIII in a very short span of time.� The project services right at the grass root level i.e. Gram Panchayat which is within the comfortable reach of every

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Indu Gupta rural citizen. It has been developed to facilitate Panchayat office by providing various online services. This project aims to reduce gap between urban and rural areas and shall help to reach the unreached through the electronic network.

It will also serve the served/under-served by building up the capacity of the Panchayat

for prompt and responsive service delivery.

Pilot Gram Panchayats have been strengthened by providing necessary equipments and manpower. Initially Education and Healthcare services have been taken on priority. Last mile connectivity to schools is planned on wireless.

Telemedicine services have been started with the District hospitals as experts.

Rural Connectivity

Benefits to Citizens Citizens are largely benefited by the copies of their land records. They are happy to get computerised copies of their Birth & Death certificates. These vital statistics also recorded for the various reporting purpose and usage of Panchayat. Telemedicine service is attracting rural people. They get consultation of specialized doctors via conference from Panchayat itself. Now student takes assistance of Internet in their studies, they view educational videos on YouTube and get results of their examinations. Youth take the help of Internet to search vacancies and applying online jobs with the help of IT-Manager deployed in the Panchayat.

Now residents of these Gram Panchayats are aware about the happenings in the world, they celebrate Obama victory, they register their grievances, they know about latest Mandi prices and the list goes on. Technology is going to change their lives.

“GPNIC will bring people in rural India closer to the rest of the world. When we talk of global village in cyber space then actual village today is mostly excluded. GPNIC will open up huge opportunity to reach out to rural India”

•

•

•

Project Outcome • • • • • • • • •

High Speed Fiber Internet Connectivity to Gram Panchayat.

Fiber connectivity extension to Schools through wireless technology.

Delivery of e-services to citizen’s.

ICT enabled Panchayat Office.

ICT enabled education in schools.

Citizen’s Health care through Telemedicine.

Capacity Building.

Monitoring up to grass root level.

Establishment of IT infrastructure including Video Conferencing facility.

•

•

Citizen e-Services available Web based software, GPNIC (http://gpnic.raj. nic.in) developed by NIC to effectively deliver the e-services from Gram Panchayat to the rural citizens.

• Land Record Management - Land holders are being benefited by getting the

•

copies of their Land Records from Panchayat office.

Birth and Death Registration – Panchayats are now issuing Computerised copies of Birth & Death certificate.

Immunisation & Ante Natal Care (ANC) Schedule - Facility created for generating ANC & Immunisation schedule online.

Online Public Grievances Registration – Facility has been provided to citizens for registering their complaint online and also track status of their complaint through state portal for removal of public grievances.

Gram Panchayat’s Websites– Web portal (http://panchayat.raj.nic.in) consisting of all 10 Pilot Gram Panchayat websites has been developed and useful information hosted.

Counseling for Professional Courses, Results and online applications are useful for the students. They are also downloading/filling online application forms and getting details of academic/competitive examinations like universities, Patwari, Banks, Gram Sewak, RAS examinations etc. Students are largely benefited by getting their school results easily from Panchayat office.

Mandi Rates for Agriculture Produces– Farmers are getting updates of the latest rates of their agriculture produces in the nearby mandis with the help

• •

•

•

•

•

of AGMARKNET. Court Cases Status– Citizens are getting online cause list of high courts.

Training & Capacity Building– Basic computer training is being imparted to students of the Government Schools and Citizens. Government servants posted at Panchayats like Gram Sewaks and Gram Rozgar Sahayak are also getting trained in computers and email usages.

Individual Beneficiary Schemes– Details of various schemes, their application forms, eligibility criteria etc are made available to citizens. The audio mode is also enabled so that physically disabled and illiterate can also benefit with these details.

Telemedicine Services– Telemedicine Services have been started successfully from Gram Panchayats with the assistance of ANM, to improve the healthcare services in rural areas. Satellite Hospital and Janana Hospital (gynecological consultation) of Ajmer acts as an expert hospitals to provide the specialised healthcare services.

Necessary equipments like ECG, BP meter and Gulucometer provided to Panchayat.

Online BPL/APL Status– Online BPL and APL lists are made available to citizens through the Gram Panchayat office.

Status of MGNREGA– Information like Job Card status, caste wise registration, demand for work, families completed 100 days employment, work status etc. can now accessed from Gram Panchayat.

Locations Covered Pilot Gram Panchayats in Srinagar Block GP in Tehsil Ajmer

Makadwali, Chachiawas, Aradka, Babaicha

GP in Tehsil Nasirabad

Badlia, Srinagar, Kanpura, Tihari, Ramsar, Sanod

Expert Hospitals

Other Facilities •

•

Janana Hospital, Ajmer & Satellite Hospital, Ajmer

Pilot Schools 20 Government Schools (2 Schools in each Panchayat)

•

E-mail accounts of Pilot Panchayats on NIC server being used for their day to day communication.

NIC Desktop Video Conferencing facility at Pilot Gram Panchayats for monitoring purpose.

Facility of Basic Phone & IP-TV on fiber provided to Gram Panchayats.

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

53

RPSC

Single Window Online Application System from RPSC Established in 1949, Rajasthan Public Service commission (RPSC) is the 7th oldest public service commission in India Dr Krishna Kant Pathak, Secretary, Rajasthan Public Service commission (RPSC)

S

ince its formation Rajasthan Public Service commission (http:// rpsc.rajasthan.gov. in) has selected over 2,00,000 candidates for different posts by conducting almost 1000 exams and 5000 interviews of 1,00,00,00 candidates. The PSCs have been established in India to function as constitutional bodies, which can recruit eligible candidates for various civil services and posts in a free and fare manner.

Rajasthan Public Service commission has a unique position among other PSCs, since it has been given the additional responsibility of also devising the selection process for those posts.

This additional responsibility leads a huge workload, as it is imperative for the RPSC to fill up all these posts in an efficient, transparent and expeditious manner.

Online initiatives The RPSC has launched its online application portal (https://www.rpsconline.rajasthan.gov. in) in 2011 to find a resolution to the myriad challenges that are there in the manual application process. This online application is unique in the sense that it is the Only Online Applica-

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Dr Krishna Kant Pathak

tion System of India, which features a “Single Window Online Application” process. The candidates do not have to fill any additional form for Bank Challan and go to bank for its deposition.

The candidates can use the e-mitra kiosks/ CSCs for fee deposition and online form submission. The e-mitra kiosks/CSCs also provide the facility of providing print-outs of admit cards, mark sheets, results etc. Candidates are informed through SMS throughout the exam process through the software that is

owned by RPSC, hence there are no charges levied on the students.

As it is difficult to remember different Application IDs or Receipt Numbers, RPSC has introduced the ‘Mobile Number wise’ searching facility. This facility is especially useful in case the application ID is not recalled. To make the candidates fully aware of the nitty-gritty’s of the overall process, the RPSC provides Detailed Instruction Manuals in different modes and formats.

The make it even easier for candidates to apply for jobs, RPSC plans to integrate the online system with IVR/e-Sanchar system.

This new project is expected to get completed by 2013. A mobile based application is also in pipeline, which will ensure one time registration. There will be no need of filling up new form for every new examination, a candidate will only deposit exam fee and he will be automatically renewed for new examination.

Advantages to candidates At the time when the online initiative was first launched, more than 100 posts were pending for advertisement and 150 for examinations.

Though the OMR (Optical Mark Reader) based Application Forms were also a good

RPSC

option to save manpower and time, the selling and distributing of these forms was a cumbersome task. Even scanning of these forms in RPSC office used to take months, which led to further delays in the overall exam process.

The launch of the online system has enabled RPSC to clear the backlog of pending requisitions and set an expeditious process for further recruitments. While launching the project, RPSC was very clear in its vision that the candidates must be able to apply from anywhere in India. As there were lot of candidates, who may not be aware of this system, prior to launch there was an effective advertisement campaign.

Hard copies of information brochure had also been circulated, and FAQs were placed on the website. The FAQs page shows the step-by-step process of online registration in a PPT format.

Managing fee deposition In the manual process the fees used to be included in the price of application form, so the candidate did not have to go to bank or anywhere else for fee deposition. Most candidates were using the system of Bank Challans.

However, the bank challans cannot be used in the online mode as it prevents the system from being a fully online. A challan is not digital, it is made manually like a draft or a cheque. Also, in case of a challan there is likelihood of lot of account reconciliation related issues remaining at the end of application process.

To make the system fully online, RPSC decided to use the e-Mitra/CSC centres, which are already depositing bills for telephone, electricity or water supply. A siteto-site integration was made to avoid any Account Reconciliation related issue. Such site-to-site integration could not have happened with banks. Candidates can deposit

CapacityBuilding and Organisational Sustainability • New Process is leading to a digital age. The candidate or staff of RPSC, are forced to become computer literate • More than Rs 24 core Revenue has been generated in year 2011-12. This is highest in the history of RPSC. The money that was being spent

in distributing, receiving and scanning application forms and delivering admit cards, is now being saved • Employment generation for more than 3500 e-Mitra/CSC centre holders • Substantial decrease in legal cases

Scalability of the Online Project • During the year 2011-2012 a number of 17.52 Lac applications were received online • First Single Window System where candidates are also informed through e-mail and SMS on different stages of application and examination • The RPSC online portal design is so easy that any user who is not acquaint with computers can also feel comfortable with the system • The FAQs section is self-explanatory and it makes it easier for candidates to understand the step-by-step process.

• Candidates were also allowed to verify their details and indulge in activities like downloading admit cards.

Unique features of Online Application System • Single window system at more than 2000 centres through e-Mitra Centre (Urban Area) and Common Service Centre (CSC) in rural area.

• Totally own software of RPSC and computerised examination

process.

• e-mail and SMS integration system for acknowledgement of application, admit card, result and other information’s • Mobile nowise searching facility

• Picture configuration tool • Detailed instructions in different modes and formats PDF, PPS & Paper format • Upgradable to mobile based application (to be executed soon)

• No manual application form is now required. This reduces paper consumption for over 20 lakh application forms • Examination calendar has become more efficient with the online system

the fee online by using payment gateway mechanism of e-Mitra State Portal.

Since e-Mitra/CSC centres were confined to Rajasthan itself, the candidates from outside the state have to use payment gateway mechanism to deposit the examination fee. They also have the option of visiting any CSC/e-Mitra Centre in Rajasthan for depositing their fees.

The State of Rajasthan is covered by more than 3500 CSC/e-Mitra Centres, which is almost 10 times more than number of branches of any scheduled bank.

Presently more than 3,500 kiosks in rural area and around 850 kiosks in urban area are working in the State. More than 20 lakh candidates have applied through this on-line application system till now.

Greater security and accountability RPSC Online portal takes pride in efficient and secure management of end-to-end transactions. The online system is designed to keep track of each step of the transactions. The overall status is visible at every stage. Various modes of delivery are also ensured by email and SMS. Candidates can take print outs of their application, and they can also opt for having a PDF receipt from the portal.

Latest technology is being used to improve the performance and security of the RPSC online portal. The application has been developed in Java with Oracle database at back end.

There is 128 SSL based security mechanism. As the system is fully integrated with payment gateway, it eliminates chances of misappropriation.

The State data Centre is used as server, which gave maximum capacity without any additional cost. It has all security measures.

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

55

In Person

Sharat Kaviraj

SP (State Crime Records Bureau) SCRB, Rajasthan

Improving Law & Order

With Technology

A

fter going through the Rajasthan police web portal we can only come to the realisation that this is a very vibrant web portal. In your opinion, what are the best features of this portal?

“Without the deployment of latest solutions from technology there cannot be any good governance in the country, which is home to more than 125 crore people,� says Sharat Kaviraj in conversation with Nayana Singh

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This web portal is unique in many respects, as it is capable of providing information on every person working in the field. You can even look for information on a constable in this website. We have made the whole portal dynamic so that everyone can update their data and it is accessible to all. As far as the common man is concerned, the first thing he sees is that he can go down to the beat level. We also upload the website with details on absconders, criminals who have been prosecuted; their names and addresses have been uploaded on the portal. This enables the common man to keep track of all the absconders. Citizens can provide the police information on criminal elements. This has led to a phenomenal rise in the number of arrests being made. Such cooperation from the general public is a historic achievement for

In Person

us. We have made a provision for Community Liaisoning Group (CLG). Their numbers are also very large; the total number of CLG members is more than one lakh. We have put their details on our website. From the perspective of the citizen, the last mile policing is done at the community level by CLG members and at the police level by the beat constable. And both the ends are available on the portal.

What are the ways by which the Rajasthan police website acts as a gateway for day-to-day policing?

All the police stations in the state log on to the portal every day. They have to update basic information such as information on FIRs registered, etc. Hence, the website is also acting as an information gathering and reporting tool within the department. We have also identified anti-social elements; the list is very large, as it comprises of more than 60,000 people.

The entire database of such criminals is avail-

the portal, we start getting enquiry calls from citizens. This shows that response has been very positive. Within department also the response has been positive. In fact, I would say that the portal has prepared the police for the upcoming CCTNS Project, which is going to be a network project. Capacity building for the project has been done by this portal.

The Delhi traffic police already has a page on Facebook that has been well received by the public.

So talking about the social media, do you think it is the apt place for the presence of the police?

I see no reason why we should not be present on any new forum where common citizens tend to congregate. In such forums good amount of discussion on policing related issues can be conducted. I strongly feel that ultimately good policing cannot happen without community participation. Having presence on social media is a welcome idea. We are currently trying to

“In terms of hits and the statistics of State Data Centre, our portal

is one of the busiest in Rajasthan” able on the website. Such a large database of criminal elements is not available in the web format anywhere else in the country. Then we have the CDR Analysis tool. This means that for the common IO, some basic things can be analysed. There is also the accident related data, whereby we use Google Maps to plot all the accident sites. Now we are also going for mobile based SMS services. Under this the citizen needs to send an SMS to the server and he will get mobile number of the officer he needs to speak to. Hence, this portal has many unique things.

What sort of feedback is the portal receiving from the citizens?

If you see in terms of hits and the statistics of State Data Centre, our portal is one of the busiest in Rajasthan today. The number of hits had crossed 16 lakh (the last time I checked). And it’s not just the police who are regularly logging in. There is regular participation from citizens.

If there is even a slight change in the features of

devise mechanisms to enhance our presence in the social media.

Many analysts are of the opinion that there continues to exist a strong element of digital divide in the country. Do you think that this digital divide will make it impossible for certain sections of the population to take advantage of the online initiatives that the police is taking?

I feel very strongly that this notion of digital divide as far as citizen services are concerned is not really true for the country. If you take a look at the people who have made Aadhaar cards, you’ll find that it is mostly the poor people who have done so. If you see the portal called Sugam (http://sugamrpg.raj. nic.in/), where online grievances can be registered, you will find that maximum grievances have been registered for the police department. When people become aware that there is a method by which we can approach the services of the government without being exploited, then their understanding

of services becomes much higher. Moreover, these days we have the system of CSCs, where people can get their online forms filled.

In the developed countries, high-end technology, such as biometric solutions and the GPS are available for tracking criminals. Where do we stand, vis-à-vis the developed countries?

We also capture fingerprints of criminals, but right now there is a major gap between the potential that biometric solutions offer and what we are putting to use. There exists a huge potential for us to upgrade our systems to take further advantage of new technologies.

Rajasthan is one state where law and order is not out of hand, but very much under control. What is your vision of improving the system further?

One large project that’s coming up at national level is CCTNS, which will act as a gamechanger. So far, it is very difficult to ascertain the criminal record of any one person because the data is not centralised. Once the CCTNS is in place, all police stations will get connected at the national level and there shall be sharing of data. Once you have a base like that, you can build many layers of finer details, and do a lot of things with that database. This will be a large initiative for not just states like Rajasthan where perceived problems are less, but throughout the country. The second thing is that there is a gap in the essential systems for policing, as we don’t have a database, and there is no common standards by which you can track people. All these changes are basically systemic in nature.

But now the gaps are being addressed. We have Aadhaar card, PAN cards and a lot of e-Governance initiatives in different areas. Such systems are leading to the creation of a database of citizens, anyone who commits crime, will get caught due to such systems.

Do you believe that technology is an integral part of good governance?

I strongly believe that without the deployment of latest solutions from technology there cannot be any good governance in a country, which is home to more than 125 crore people. So we are full-time working on technology.

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

57

In Person

e-network

Vimal Wakhlu

Chairman and Managing Director, Telecommunications Consultants India Limited

towering over Vimal Wakhlu, Chairman & Managing Director of Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) has gained a large following for not only the role played in the Public Sector but also in e-Networking for tele-education, tele-medicine – a subject of no small concern today to locals and foreigners alike. We often refer to the good ICT and network progress here on these pages, so we thought it was about time we get to hear from Vimal Wakhlu about PAN Africa e-Network project and even more

T

elecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) was formed 35 years back with the objective to operate in international markets, taking technology and expertise in the field of telecom and IT to other developing nations. Till about six to seven years back our main focus was on telecom sector and the wireline communication, in particular. But with the advent of wireless communication, the wireline communication business went down, and that was the time we ventured into wireless communication by entering into new collaborations.

We were one of the first operators to get license in Rajasthan. We are operating Cellular Telephone Services in Rajasthan through Bharati Hexacom Ltd, a joint venture promoted by TCIL and Bharti Televentures Ltd , New Delhi.

At the same time, we also started focusing on e-Networks and were awarded this major Rs 542 crore PAN Africa e-Networks project from the Ministry of External Affairs for Teleeducation , Tele-medicine services and VVIP connectivity. The PAN Africa e-Network was conceived by Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, who had offered this network to all the 53 nations of the African Union. The project is completely funded by the Government of India.

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India to Africa are: Amity University, Noida; IGNOU, New Delhi; BITS, Pilani; University of Delhi; and University of Madras.

Tele-Medicine Service and Continued Medical Education (CME) is being provided from 12 Super Specialty Hospitals in India.

For Tele-education, five Regional leading University Centers in Africa, and for Tele-medicine five Regional Super Specialty Hospitals in Africa are playing the same role as their Indian counterparts. After completion of five years in July 2014, these five hospitals and five universities of Africa are going to play a major role in the same way as 12 Super Specialty Hospitals and five Universities of India.

Vimal Wakhlu

Connecting countries through e-Networking At present, 48 countries are a part of this project. While it is fully implemented in 47 countries, the project in South Sudan, a recent entrant is on the anvil. TCIL has established the Network with a Data Centre in TCIL Bhawan, New Delhi which acts as a gateway to the Hub Station in Dakar for connectivity of Indian institutions with the African side.

The five Indian Universities from where tele-education services are being privided from

Tele-medicine & Tele-education The need based tele-medicine consultations are regularly being conducted from Super Specialty hospitals in India to the African countries.

Moreover, regular Continued Medical Education (CME) sessions are being held from the 12 Indian Super Specialty Hospitals. We organise interactions between Indian doctors and the doctors from different African countries. On an average, 50-60 doctors attend the sessions and there are 72 such session in a month.

I would like to mention about the case of a 14-year-old child in Senegal, who had brain tumor and had been suggested surgery abroad.

In Person

e-network

However, the case was taken up through telemedicine consultation with Fortis Hospital in India. A surgery was conducted with the doctors from Fortis Hospital on line. The surgery was successful and the child survived. I am sure in future there will be many more such stories to share on the achievements of the project.

As part of the tele-education services from India, more than 9,960 students from Africa have been enrolled in five different top-ranking universities in India in various disciplines.

With the objective of sharing experiences of eminent personalities, we invited Dr A P J Abdul Kalam for a special lecture from the Pan African Studios of TCIL Bhawan on Empowering 3 Billion , and received an overwhelming response from Africa. As many as 1,800 people attended the session and some 83 questions were answered. Questions usually are taken directly, during the online lecture.

Moving Ahead Apart from Africa, we have also done some work in SAARC nations. All the SAARC Nations are supposed to be a part of the SAARC e-Network Project, which has not yet been made possible due to some challenges. However, we have implemented this in Afghanistan, Nepal and Bhutan. These are linked to IGNOU for education and to Sanjay Gandhi PGI Lucknow and PGI ,Chandigarh for Continued Medical Education and Tele-medicine facility. ASEAN and Eurasia e- Networks are also on the anvil.

Number of African Union member states that have associated with TCIL on e-Network Programme Western Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea,Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo Eastern Africa: Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda Southern Africa: Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe Central Africa: Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, DRC, Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe Northern Africa: Egypt, Mauritania and Libya

INDIA IGNOU, New Delhi

University of Madras, Chennal

BITS Pilani

data centre Delhi

Dr Balabhai Nanavati Hospital Mumbai

hub Station

Sri Ramachandra MCRI Chennai AIIMS New Delhi

Fortis Hospital Noida

AFRICA

RASCOM Satellite

AMITY University Delhi Noida University

Back-bone Link

IPLC

mpls Landing Station India

Landing Station Arfica (Dakar, senegal)

5 Regional Super Specialty Hospitals

5 Regional University Centres

Escorts,hirc New Delhi

53 Learning Centres

Narayana, Hrudayalaya Bengaluru

53 Patient-End Hospitals

Moolchand The Medicity New Delhi

sgpgims Apollo Lucknow Hospital Chennai

Amrita imsrc Kochi

HealthCare Global Hospital Bengaluru

Care Hospital Hyderabad

53 VVIP Nodes

architecture of pan-african e-network As we understand that the future lies with rural India, TCIL is associated with the Government of India’s plans of extending optical fiber to about 2,50,000 villages with panchayats as a first step,called National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) Project of the Department of Telecom, Government of India. TCIL is establishing the PMO (Program Management Office) on the lines of modern Project Management principles .

This connectivity, wherein each village gets about 100Mbps of BW, would ensure all the applications including e-Education, e-Health, e-Governance, m-banking, e-Commerce extend to the rural India.

Numbers pose a big challenge as we cannot provide the type of health services to 1.2 billion people like the ones available in the UK and other developed nations. The Tele-medicine program, as we understand is a workable alternative for the areas where infrastructure poses a challenge. It has got full potential to meet the healthcare needs in about 6,37,000 villages in India. Having a doctor in each village may be a mandate, and need of the hour, but looking at it from the doctor’s perspective, it becomes difficult to expect their presence in the villages for a long time, where they are deprived of quality needs for their family. In the absence of electricity, good schools and colleges for their children, etc, it becomes all the more difficult to create the desired motivation for the doctors.

I would like to share the instance of Odisha where one such which is at the pilot stage, is likely to contribute significantly towards success of the healthcare sector. Odisha is experimenting with

an arrangement under PPP (Public Private Partnership) model whereby a 10+2 qualified person from the same village is trained as a paramedic on the use of medical equipments, and is provided with a compact medical kit which includes ECG machine, BP Monitor, Gluco-meter etc; a laptop and mobile phone.

The villagers can dial toll-free number in case of medical emergencies. The paramedic person visits the patient in response, opens his laptop and establishes link with the call centre in a major town.

Through this a link is established with the doctor.

The doctor suggests medical tests that need to be conducted. Once the test are conducted by the paramedic, they get displayed on the screen before the doctor, and based on that the doctor suggests further line of action and medication. In case the doctor needs help, he can take the specialist on the line , and they can jointly decide on the line of treatment. In case they feel that it is an emergency, and the patient can not be treated remotely, knowing the GPS location of the paramedic, ambulance can be arranged from the nearest hospital. This network would ensure reasonable health services, without the need for full conventional infrastructure. With the advantages of technology, I feel, there is a lot of potential in these health services which we can be provide in a developing nation like India. e-Education is another area which I feel has a lot of potential. The government has taken some good initiatives including through the establishment of National Skill Development Corporation We can create a big resource pool of young people, using e-education.

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

59

In Person

Manuel Villamayor

Director, Government & Secure Identification Segment, NagraID - Kudelski Group

Contactless e-Service ID Display Card Is the Future

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agraID has been a leader in display card manufacturing. How did it begin?

Estalished in 1976, NagraID is part of the Kudelski group. Headquartered in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, NagraID has vast experience in micro-electronics and over 20 years of experience in secure contactless technologies. Our unique display card platform solution, also known as the ‘e-Service ID’ display card platform is helping the government, banks, and private industries. For this, we have re-invented the smartcard to provide security, convergence and convenience to citizens, employees and consumers, anywhere, anytime with existing devices and infrastructures by using a standard landline phone, police or military radio, mobile, smartphone and personal computers or tablets.

Tell us about yourself?

“Today, with the increased mobility, diverse population, internal threats, and technology advancements, the issues of identity and service delivery have become complex. To solve these challenges, NagraID has developed a variety of smart identity solutions,” says Manuel Villamayor

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With more than 15 years of experience, I have interacted with governments, security partners, card manufacturers and system integrators to implement secure identification and authentication. I was directly

In Person

ensure a secured identity and access to financial inclusion for creating a strong middle class population in India.

Do you think that the emerging issues of privacy and civil liberties may cause instability in the market?

We need to consider the fact that today 50 percent of worldwide population is under 30 years and these digital natives are pushing the world to move fast towards the age of networking. People have started interacting on the social media, like facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and everybody is looking forward to security, convergence, and convenience. They want to access e-Services everywhere, anytime… from office,

involved on the first 25 electronic passport deployments across the globe.

“e-Service ID provides secure

How do you make your company the leader in ID?

system to access multiple services”

We provide a universal smartcard platform that can be used easily by every citizen across the world, as their ‘e-Service ID card.’ The platform provides secured identification and authentication system to access multiple service on an anywhere and anytime basis. The access can be achieved without smartcard readers, biometric scanners or point of sale terminal readers.

What kind of benefits does NagraID bring to people who live and work in a globalised world?

First, we allow people to have an identity. This means they exist, have a nationality and become a citizen of the world. Our e-Service ID Display Card Platform helps citizens to interact with the e-World in a secure and convenient way.

Armed with NagraID Display Card Platform, citizens have the freedom to use any kind of standard devices as a carrier to do transactions or payments.

In what way has the ID industry changed during your time here?

Well, lot of things happened and helped us to be where we are today, moving from a product approach to a solutions approach company.

For many years, the industry was focused on improving the security and providing electronic ID documents using different technologies like contact or contactless. This required dedicated

identification and authentication

home, on the move, etc. So it is clear that people are actually opening up and using social media to interact beyond the issues of privacy and civil liberties.

smartcard readers to allow the smartcards to function. Today, everybody is convinced on the security part, but governments around the world have challenged the industry. They don’t want to invest in developing, maintaining and upgrading the smartcard infrastructures. This also requires capacity building of employees and also mass education to the citizens. Hence, the governments are looking at solutions like, e-Service ID display card platform. The platform can work using the existing devices and infrastructures, which is compatible with the future generations of devices.

Like the case of smartphones few years back, convergence has also started for smartcards.

This allows a citizen to use their ID for getting various services using existing devices and infrastructures, and this will be the trend in the next five years.

How does NagraID see India’s technology growth trajectory?

What is the major challenge NagraID has taken?

Today, we are in a global market. As an international organisation, we are contributing to Indian companies and industry by sharing our technical know-how and expertise on the latest technologies and solutions. Our motto is to ensure that Indian citizens and consumers have the same rights, opportunities, and access in a secured and easy way to all kinds of services across the country. This new model will ensure that India will have a quantum shift in this domain. The exponential growth of the middle class population will fuel the demand for our new display cards, which

One of the major challenges that we have taken is to re-invent our company, from a smartcard manufacturer to a technology and solutions provider company, one that addresses the digital and secure ID Market covering government, corporate and banking world.

What will happen in the area of citizen IDs in the next five years?

How do you envision the future of NagraID? Our future strategies revolve around becoming a trusted partner for digital security and secure ID solutions. We wish to develop systems of international standards.

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Public Health

Arogya Online Pahla Sukh Nirogi Kaya– this maxim underlines the value of health in our lives. Rajasthan government is committed to bring “arogya” closer to the reach of its people Deepak Upreti, Principal Secretary, Medical Health & Family Welfare and Ayurved Department, Government of Rajasthan

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rogya Online is a landmark initiative taken up by the state government to automate hospital records and ensure better patient care. Arogya Online makes transition of paper based clinical record keeping to electronic means much easier.

A Unique System developed by C-DAC “Arogya Online” is a modular Hospital Information Management System (HIMS) for facilitating highest level of operational efficiency in hospitals. The system is designed to handle complex tasks right from investigation and billing to bed management, admission discharge, transfer procedures, pharmacy management and related activities.

With a network of computers for gathering, processing and retrieving patient information, Arogya Online aims to connect people, data and processes on a single platform.

The e-health initiative has improved hospital administration by streamlining workflow operations. With electronic management of health information, waiting time at the hospitals

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Deepak Upreti

Public Health

Core Modules PHASE 1

Back Office Module PHASE 2

Misc Module PHASE 3

Emergency Registration

Stores Management System

RTI

OPD Registration

Procurement & Purchase

Health Portal

Out Patient Management

Central Sterile Services

File Tracking System

In Patient Management

Personnel Information System

Library Mgt. System

Enquiry

Finance Management System

User Management

Bio Med. Waste/House Keeping

Investigation

Transport

Billing

Linen/Laundry

Blood Bank

Bio-Medical Engg. Dept. (BMED)

Patient Medical Record

Administrative Module

Operation Theatre

Appointment Management

Pharmacy Store

Roster Management

(e-Aushadhi) Diet Kitchen

gets drastically reduced. Operational flexibility, efficiency and information exchange becomes a click of the mouse away.

Arogya Online is a single point solution for optimising productivity and reducing manpower costs. It not only creates a platform for information exchange, it also facilitates end to end supply chain management. It remarkably streamlines resource utilisation and management across hospital departments.

Key Modules Arogya Online is a modular system developed

by C-DAC. It has many different modules, whose implementation is being carried out in different three different phases. The details of the phase wise implementation of the various modules are listed as under:

Implementation in SMS Hospital Arogya Online has been implemented in Sawai Man Singh Hospital (SMS). Here all the core clinical and other modules have been made operational. The website (www. medicaleducation.rajasthan.gov.in) has been widely accepted and acclaimed. It enjoys a large daily traffic.

The system on an average manages about 5500-6000 outdoor patients on daily basis and approximately 15,000 daily investigations. Till date more than 40 lakh patients have been reg-

istered; a total 83 lakh investigations have been covered. All the financial transactions in the hospital are being done through the system, the total collection being in the range of Rs. 4.50 to Rs. 5.00 lakhs on daily basis.

The integrated solution manages hospital’s Central Lab, OPD, IPD, OT’s, Drug Store and Blood Bank. It also covers the treatment modalities offered by more than 44 clinical and non clinical departments as well as more than 70 wards and over 2500 beds.

The Central Lab of the hospital is now connected with internal software that facilitates fast and accurate data on patient’s medical test reports. It also prevents the chances of any errors, since the reports directly go from the machines (like EU400 and immulite2000) installed in lab to the main system’s database.

The system of free medicine distribution has also been integrated with Drug Warehouse module (e-aushadhi) used by Rajasthan Medical Services Corporation under Arogya Online.

Blood Banks are almost the lifeline of a hospital. With automation, updated information about total daily blood or component stock, total blood requisitions and information regarding donors is now available in blood banks.

Benefits to Hospital Staff & Patients Any kind of automation at the hospitals

relieves patients of the trouble of carrying their medical record. The highly advanced information system enables practitioners to access patient history uploaded on a secured network.

Planning of budget and assessment of costs and resources is also more transparent thanks to actual statistics available online. Patient care has definitely improved following computerization and the e-library has further enhanced the SMS medical college library.

Long queues at registration and admission counters, central lab, outdoors, report collection centres in hospitals will now be a thing of the past. With computerisation, the first and foremost benefit has been gross reduction of waiting time for patients.

It has been possible due to automation facility in virtually all the important wings at the Dhanwantri OPD block of SMS hospital be it the OPD or, admission, billing, sample collection or free medicine distribution to BPL patients.

While the patients can access their reports online at www.medicaleducation.rajasthan.gov. in, the investigation report of admitted patients and bed management is also available in the ward’s computer. The new initiative has led to seminal improvements in the operation of blood banks.

Replication of Arogya Online The SMS Hospital, Jaipur is the model for HIMS; this automation has been also extended to about 15 district hospitals as well with more than 27 lac registrations through the system till date.

These include Government Hospitals at Sriganganagar, Kanwatia Hospital Jaipur, Alwar, Bhilwara, Beawar, Bangar Hospital Pali, Banswara, Sikar, Barmer, Dungarpur, Baran and Dholpur.

‘Arogya Online’ is now being customised and replicated across all medical colleges. The successful model will be replicated at Dr. S.N. Medical College, Jodhpur, RNT Medical College, Udaipur, JLN Medical College Ajmer, S.P. Medical College, Bikaner and Govt. Medical College, Kota along with attached hospitals of SMS Medical College, Jaipur.

The e-health initiative is proving a boon to patients, doctors and hospital administration alike. With safer, more efficient and quality health care ensured by Arogya online, the road to recovery may not be very far.

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In Person

G N Saxena

Professor, SMS Medical College (Retired)

STRENGTHENING

TELEMEDICNE NETWORK IN RAJASTHAN medicine was established in Rajasthan with the help of ISRO, which provided us with satellite connectivity and the required bandwidth and the state government provided the required infrastructure for the project. Education is a key component of telemedicine, which acted as a platform for knowledge exchange. Topics were assigned to various districts for discussions and demands for discussions on specific topics were also placed from the districts. These discussions brought in a lot of solutions during times of crisis and epidemics, when the state was affected by bird flu and swine flu.

“As people grew more familiar with computerised processes, we started increasing the amount of work being done by computers in our hospitals,” says G N Saxena, Professor, SMS Medical College (Retired), in a conversation with Nayana Singh

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elemedicine as a technology has been introduced in Rajasthan for quite some time.

How has it benefitted the people of the state?

We brought in telemedicine in the state of Rajasthan six years ago. It started in the form of a pilot project in one district which was linked to Jaipur. Within a few months, other districts within the state were connected to district hospitals. Thereafter, district hospitals were connected to medical colleges, and all medical colleges were connected to each other. Tele-

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How was the computerisation of hospitals completed and to what extent did it benefit the people?

The operations at hospitals started becoming computerised almost five years ago. Huge number of patients pay visit to the government hospitals on a regular basis. So initially the administrative workings of hospitals such as registration of patients, data collection, and investigative facility – all began to be computerised. As people grew more familiar with computerised processes, we started increasing the amount of work being done by computers.

We started digitally storing patients’ demography, history, etc. Maximum benefit of this new method was felt by the patients as they could now see their reports online. They could access the information from anywhere and did not have to travel for long distances for the same.

A lot of technology is being constantly incorporated in the medical world. So how do you ensure that the syllabus at medical colleges is getting updated accordingly?

The curriculum taught to medical students are constantly being updated. Moreover, the website contains a lot of information -- both for the graduate course as well as for the post graduate

course. Most of the students are computersavvy and therefore, can catch up with the developments quite rapidly. We are also establishing e-libraries in all the six medical colleges throughout the state. So now, a lecture which is being delivered at Jaipur can be accessed from Kota, Bikaner, Jodhpur or any other part of the state. We are planning it in such a way that it can be used both in the form of direct communication and also in the form of a store and forward form of communication.

Even though a lot of progress is being witnessed in the field of medicine, malpractices such as female infanticide still persist in the state. Please highlight the initiatives that have been adopted to address the alarming issue?

Education is the only medium which we can change mindset of people. Developments in the fields of telemedicine, computerisation, along with several other progresses are acting as stepping stones towards transformation of the society. The state government, through the electronic media, has made sincere efforts to reach out to even the most distant villages and educate the folks about such social evils.

Can you share your experience regarding any particular project which distinctly stands out in your mind which has brought remarkable benefits to people?

The online reporting of investigations has been a great success. No other state government has been able to put up investigative reports online.

Also, the biometric identification of donors have drastically reduced the number of professional blood donors. In our country, people still believe that donating blood will make them weak. The biometric way of identifying donors has been a major success.

Inspiring Innovation Shaping Vision The recently held eINDIA 2012 at Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC), Hyderabad, witnessed key decision makers & experts, administrators & policy makers, leaders & stakeholders, service providers & IT-telecom vendors, consulting firms, ICT entrepreneurs & development agencies – all converging on one platform

L to R: Dr Ravi Gupta, CEO, Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd and Convener of eINDIA 2012; M Samuel, IAS Chief Commissioner of Land Administration (CCLA); Dr Raghuveera Reddy N, Minister of Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation, Government of Andhra Pradesh; Sri Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Minister for IT & Communication, Government of Andhra Pradesh; Sri N Kiran Kuma Reddy, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh; Sanjay Jaju, IAS, Secretary, IT & Communication, Government of Andhra Pradesh; Dr (Smt) Killi Kruparani, Minister of State for Communication & IT, Government of India; and J Satyanarayana, IAS, Secretary, Department of Electronics & IT, Government of India; releasing the three special issues of egov Magazine, eHEALTH and digitalLEARNING during the inaugural session of eINDIA 2012

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uring the closing days of 2012, India set for itself a visionary agenda for the next decade. It was a statement of what the country believed was possible for it to achieve, provided all its available resources- human, organizational, technological and financial- were mobilized. This agenda was enunciated with the

recently held eINDIA 2012 conference, which explored a range of interesting opportunities for India to pursue, highlighed critical issues for the country to address and tabled crucial discussion points for government and private bodies for future action. eINDIA 2012, the 8th edition of India’s largest ICT event, was convened on 15-16 November, 2012 at Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Andhra Pradesh, India.

The event was hosted by the Dept of IT, Govt of Andhra Pradesh in association with Elets Technomedia and was supported by Ministry of Communication & IT, Ministry of Commerce & Industries, Ministry of Urban Development, Dept of Science & Technology, Govt of India, UIDAI, UNESCO, Directorate General of Employment & Training (DGET), and other key government agencies and state governments including Govt of Kerala,

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Odisha, Jammu & Kashmir, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh.

The event was presented by leading ICT magazines ‘eGov’, ‘Digital Learning’, & ‘eHealth’. eINDIA2012 comprised of 3 parallel thematic track conferences, namely—Governance Summit, Education Summit, and Health Summit.

eINDIA Governance Summit 2012 There have been several countries that have made enormous progress in the arena of ICT awareness, knowledge, and skill. Some have completely outpaced others on particular areas and have become global leaders. ICT still has much more in stock to rule the roost.

Many new market segments and new domains will probably see a big growth in times to come. A leading position in these new growth areas is crucial, if India wants to play in the first league of productivity and progress, combined with a strong policy system. eINDIA Governance Summit 2012 was just another attempt and approach of exploring all those opportunities leading India towards an emerging Governance.

The Governance Summit was held concurrently to the Education and Health Summits of eINDIA 2012. The Summit focused not only on the key issues and challenges but also innovations in the egovernance space.

Inauguration ‘Technology is of no use unless it comes to the reach and affordability of the common man,’ said Sri N Kiran Kumar Reddy, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and Hon’ble chief guest, during the inauguration of the eighth edition of eINDIA 2012. The inauguration was also graced with the presence of Dr Killi Kruparani, Minister of State for Communication & IT, Government of India; Dr Raghuveera Reddy N, Minister of Revenue, Relief and Rehabilitation, Government of Andhra Pradesh; and Sri Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Minister for IT & Communication, Government of Andhra Pradesh, as Guests of Honour.

Besides, M Samuel, IAS, Chief Commissioner of Land Administration and Special Chief Secretary, Hyderabad; J Satyanarayana, IAS, Secretary, Government of India; Sanjay Jaju, IAS, Secretary, IT & Communication, Government of Andhra Pradesh & eINDIA Programme Chair; Dr M P Narayanan, President, Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd; and Ravi

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Gupta, CEO, Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd and Convener of eINDIA 2012, were among the other dignitaries present at the eINDIA 2012 inaugural session.

Strategic deliberations & discussions Around 400 eminent speakers who provided their views across the spread of around 60 sessions based on a wide range of pertinent topics around the domains of Governance, Education & health in relation to Information & Communication Technology. Marked by eminent speakers from the government, academia and industry, the keynote and technical sessions of the conference had a series of interesting deliberations on multitude of issues, relating to present challenges and opportunities of e-Government in India, as well as abroad. The eGovernance summit witnessed eight sessions in the two days. The topics of panel discussions ranged from e-Governance in India; ICT Deployment in Public Safety & Security; Smart Cities; ICT in Energy & Transportation; Aadhaar based Service Delivery; From eSeva to Mee Seva: State Leadership Summit; ICT Usage by Public Sector Units; and ICT Usage in Financial Inclusion.

Among the key speakers were J Satyanarayana, Secretary, Ministry of Communications & IT, Govt of India; Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, IT, Andhra Pradesh; R S Sharma, Director General & Mission Director, UIDAI; Rajesh Agarwal, Secretary, IT, Maharashtra; Bipul Pathak, Secretary, IT, J&K; Madhusudan Padhi, Secretary, IT, Odisha; Dr P V Ramesh, Principal Secretary, Department of Finance, Andhra Pradesh; V V V Satyanarayana, General Manager, Financial Inclusion Department, NABARD, Mumbai; and P H Kurian, Secretary, IT, Kerala.

The achievements and benefits of Mee Seva and Aadhaar were the most emphasised points in the discussion panels.

From eSeva to Mee Seva Andhra Pradesh was celebrating the successful completion of one year of its flagship programme ‘Mee Seva’ at the sidelines of eIINDIA. Mee Seva is intended to deliver various G2C services, pertaining to revenue, registration, municipality, employment, education, police, education, social welfare and more. To mark this anniversary celebration, eINDIA 2012 organized a special session on ‘Mee Seva’ on 15 November 2012 observed as a Conclave

attended by the Secretaries for Information & Technology from different states.

Conceived and launched by the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Sri N Kiran Kumar Reddy in Chittoor district on 4th November, 2011, the Mee Seva Initiative of the state government was one of the key highlights of the event. With more than 6,000 Mee Seva counters operational across the state, rendering 45 Government to Citizen (G2C) services, the Chief Minister announced that efforts are on towards delivering 100 such services by March 31st, 2013. “The impact of Mee Seva initiative is such that it has helped in saving Rs 6,000 crore of the common man,” said Sri Reddy.

The Institute of Public Enterprises, Hyderabad, and the Digital Empowerment Foundation, New Delhi, were assigned to evaluate customer satisfaction of Mee Seva. Reports prepared by both the institutes were released during the event.

Along with the report, Mee Seva Awards were also given during the event. “Today we are honouring the stakeholders who have done tremendous job in bringing Mee Seva from nowhere to where we are today, with 45 services clocking more than 70,000 transactions on a daily basis. Today we have touched 7 million transactions under Mee Seva,” said Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, IT, Andhra Pradesh.

eindia Expo The conference also served as an exhibition host of some of the latest e-solutions, services, initiatives and case studies from across India and beyond. Exhibitors from professional service providers, IT vendors, telecom venders, satellite providers, consulting firms, and government agencies participated in the exhibition. The eINDIA Expo, which was organised at the same venue along with the seminal tracks, witnessed 110 exhibitors from across the country and received an overwhelming response by the attendees.

Dept of Electronics & IT, Govt of India, Aadhar, APTS, Govt of Kerala, Govt of Odisha, Govt of Madhya Pradesh, Govt of Maharashtra,m GHMC- Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, Hitachi, MASTEK, SAMSUNG, etc are a few to name in the list of exhibitors.

The eINDIA Expo witnessed some cutting edge developments in the ICT sector and inventive marketing solutions from across the country.

J Satyanarayana, Secretary, Ministry of Communications & IT, Govt of India In real sense, there is more than merely replacing a letter when we talk about ‘from eSeva to Mee Seva’. It is about making statutory services plausible to be delivered in a non-governmental environment or kiosks.

Now with the advent of digital signatures, certificates can be given anytime, anywhere by anybody. This makes a paradigm shift from what we were doing in the past to what is being done now.

Vimal Wakhlu, CMD, TCIL 65 percent population of India is below poverty line. Such challenges can be met by some important IT initiatives. Initiatives like the National Fibre Optic Network wherein over 2,50,000 villages under Gram Panchayat Level are being connected on Optical Fibre Network. This is bound to improve the tele-density, broadband connectivity to rural areas for uses like education, health, e-Governance, mobile banking and local employment generation.

Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, IT, Andhra Pradesh

Madhusudan Padhi, Secretary, IT, Odisha

Mee Seva is a convergence of all the NeGP initiatives and has revamped many moribund processes. One important aspect of Mee Seva has been the central pooling of all records. It’s not being used as a reactive mechanism but as a proactive mechanism. Aadhar is a game changer in terms of bringing in reforms in service delivery of various welfare programmes by the government and in bringing unique identity to individuals who do not have one.

With the Public Service Delivery being operational, the urgency for undertaking ICT implementation by different departments will be realized more and services in more number shall be included. However, IT Secretaries are just the facilitators. It is the leadership in each individual department who have to take initiatives for e-Governance projects

Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary, IT, Maharashtra If you just use UID to de-duplicate the databases, potential savings shall be of `1 lakh crore per annum. This amount translates to depositing `1500 per month in the bank accounts of almost 10 crore BPL families in the country.

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R S Sharma, Director General & Mission Director, UIDAI We have leapfrogged from a situation where many people didn’t have an ID to a situation where everyody will have an online, electronic, transportable, portable identity which can be authenticated anywhere.

We have done 25 crore enrollments and 21.5 crore Aadhaar generation thus far, and we are planning that by the end of 2014 we would have done about 600 billion Aadhaars.

Ashank Desai CMD, Mastek Ltd

Dr P V Ramesh, Principal Secretary, Department of Finance, Andhra Pradesh

P H Kurian, Principal Secretary (IT), Government of Kerala

When we come to events like eINDIA, we hear a lot of success stories. Each of the states have done some interesting projects in e-Governance, such as Mee Seva in Andhra Pradesh. We need to consolidate these projects and see how these can be moved across the country. I don’t see that happening as much as we would like to see.

Almost 38 percent of the banking sector services are located in the rural areas now. But only 40 percent of the population in the country has savings account. There is massive potential for the financial sector to expand its reach and IT has a big role to play in this.

Kerala ranks number 4th in Aadhaar enrollment, after AP, Maharashtra and Karnataka. In terms of the quality of enrollment in terms of biometrics, Kerala ranks number one in the country.

Although we are a late starter, but in short span we have been able to grab number 4th position, which is commendable.

Harpreet Singh, Commissioner, Food and Civil Supplies, Andhra Pradesh In Aadhaar enrollments, Andhra Pradesh is number 1 in the country and we are ahead of other states. But the work does not stop at enrollments.

The next step is to assess how to leverage this database to deliver benefits and services to the people.

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eindia 2012

Anniversary Celebrations

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eindia 2012

Anniversary Celebrations

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Project: MeeSeva | Organisation: CMS Computers Ltd | Category: CSC Initiative (Jury Choice)

Project: End-to-end Delivery of Digitally Signed Certificates | Organisation: Dept of IT & Communication, Government of Rajasthan | Category: CSC Initiative (Public Choice)

Project: e-Parwana | Organisation: Commissionerate of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Govt of Maharashtra | Category: Government to Business (Jury Choice)

Project: Aadhaar Enabled Public Distribution System | Organisation: Civil Supplies Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh | Category: Government to Citizen (Jury Choice)

Project: RPSC Online Portal | Organisation: Rajasthan Public Service Commission | Category: Government to Citizen (Public Choice)

Project: Electronic Voting System | Organisation: Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts | Category: Government to Government (Jury Choice)

Project: Missing and Found Persons Tracking | Organisation: Women, Children, Disabled & Senior Citizen Dept and CID-Police Department | Category: Government to Government (Public Choice)

Project: Public Grievances Redressel System | Organisation: Municipal Reforms Cell, Directorate of Municipal Administration | Category: ICT-enabled Urban Governance (Jury Choice)

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eindia 2012

The eINDIA Governance Awards were given under seven categories, namely: CSC Initiative, Government to Business (G2B) Initiative, Government to Citizen (G2C) Initiative, Government to Government (G2G) Initiative, ICT-enabled Urban Governance, Mobile Technology, Value Added Services, ICT Initiative in Andhra Pradesh. Besides these Best Government to Business (Public Choice) was awarded to Mineral Movement Administration, Karnataka Forest Department for its project, Forest Produce Tracking System, and Best Government to Citizen (Special Mention Award) went to Aarogyasri Health Care Trust for its project, Rajiv Aarogyasri Health Insurance Scheme.

Project: Forbes Technosys: e-Stamping & e-Franking Solutions | Organisation: Bihar Society for Computerisation of Registration Offices (BISCORE) | Category: ICTenabled Urban Governance (Public Choice)

Project: Mobile Banking Solution | Organisation: Spanco Ltd | Category: Best Mobile Technology (Jury Choice)

Project: Housing Online Monitoring e-Governance System (HOMES) | Organisation: Centre for Good Governance | Category: Mobile Technology (Public Choice)

Project: *139# | Organisation: Spice Digital Ltd | Category: Value Added Services (Jury Choice)

Project: MTNL PC Protection - An Antivirus Solution Powered by F-Secure | Organisation: Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, Delhi | Category: Value Added Services (Public Choice )

Project: Chief Commissioner of Land Administration | Organisation: Webland System | Category: ICT Initiative in Andhra Pradesh (Jury Choice)

Project: Andhra Pradesh Municipal Accounts and Audit Reforms Project (APMARP) | Organisation: Municipal Administration & Urban Development Dept, Govt of Andhra Pradesh | Category: ICT Initiative in Andhra Pradesh (Public Choice)

Organisation: Govt of Kerala | Category: ICT for D Pioneer State (Special Mention)

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In Person

Bipul Pathak

Commissioner & Secretary, Science & Technology and Information Technology Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

Bringing

e-Governance to J & K “The e-District project that we are launching in Jammu & Kashmir, proposes to deliver around 50 services online at the district level and its subordinate offices,�

Bipul Pathak, Commissioner & Secretary, Science & Technology and Information Technology Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

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he central government as well as most state governments in the country have been taking major initiatives for the implementation of e-Governance policies. What steps have been taken by the State of Jammu & Kashmir in this direction? Tell us about the major e-Governance initiatives that have been taken by your department. e-Governance is one of the key focus areas for the government in Jammu & Kashmir. While it is true that we have been behind many other states when it comes to deployment of ICT infrastructure, we have been taking many new steps to strengthen our infrastructure.

There were a few flip-flops in the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) tendering process. But now we have finalised the tendering process and we hope that in the next six to eight months, SWAN will be up and running up to an extent of 70 percent. This SWAN project will provide a major boost to connectivity in Jammu & Kashmir. Also, three data centres are now about to be ready. All this represents a major boost to the e-Governance infrastructure in the state. Then there is the State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) project, for which we have been developing a number of applications. There has already been a soft launch of five or six applications. We are now waiting for the feedback, which will enable us to further fine tune the nature of the applications. The full-fledged launch of all these services could happen by the final days of December.

These services will be test case for us to check our preparedness in terms of e-Governance and G2C delivery. We are in the process of launching e-District project for which we have already got approval from the Government of India. We are now going ahead with formation of district level infrastructure and e-Governance societies.

The e-District Project could lead to lot of benefits flowing down directly to the people in the rural areas. Please provide us with the complete details of the project. According to you what are the key features of the project?

You see, the e-District is all about delivery of e-Services to the citizens at district and rural levels. Many states around the country have

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launched their version of the e-District project, and lot of good is being done from such projects. The e-District project that we are launching in Jammu & Kashmir, proposes to deliver around 50 services online at the district level and its subordinate offices.

Through automation of workflow, back-end digitisation, integration and process design, e-District will ensure online delivery of citizen services at the district level.

With such interesting e-Governance projects in the pipeline, an obvious question that arises is about the level of broadband penetration in the state.

After all, no e-Governance project can be successful unless there is deep broadband penetration. What is the status of broadband penetration in J&K? The level of broadband penetration is limited in certain mountainous areas of the state. But otherwise the penetration of optical fibre is pretty good at block levels across the state. There are a few blocks where optical fibre is not available. But under the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) plan, every panchayat is to be connected and our SWAN will be connected to block level headquarters at state headquarter. Once the SWAN is functional, our immediate challenge will be over. Once the NOFN comes to the panchayat level, it will be an additional redundancy available to us.

These days many citizens in the country have started using their mobile phones to access e-Governance services. In many ways, e-Governance is transforming into m-Governance. What is the situation of mobile connectivity in J&K? Is it as easy for citizens in J&K to own mobile phones as it is in other parts of the country?

For the security reasons, proper documentation is needed in J&K for availing prepaid mobile services. However, the system for getting post-paid connections is quite simple. In my opinion, the mobile phone penetration is very high in the state. Seamless connection is available through multiple private telecom operators. BSNL is also there. I do not find any reason why connectivity should be a problem. Though cases

In Person

Bipul Pathak Commissioner & Secretary, Science & Technology and Information Technology Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

December 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

73

In Person

JaKeGA The Jammu and Kashmir e-Governance Agency (JaKeGA) was formed under the Information Technology Department, Government of Jammu and Kashmir to function as an intrinsic arm of the Government with a mandate to drive e-Governance in the State. With the members of Board of Governors, the Jammu and Kashmir e-Governance Agency has been registered under the Jammu and Kashmir Societies Registration Act-1998 for the Registration of Literary, Scientific and Charitable Societies.

The primary objective of the Jammu & Kashmir e-Governance Agency (JaKeGA) is to design, deliver and administer E-Governance projects by providing the necessary administrative, financial, legal and technical framework in the State of Jammu & Kashmir. JaKeGA will also facilitate establishment of e-service centres throughout the State through suitable public-private partnerships to ensure that the public gets the desired information and e-services literally at their doorsteps.

of call drops and other such issues are rampant, but they are service delivery issues of telecom operators, rather than connectivity issue.

What is the vision for the IT industry in J&K by 2020?

Many states in South India have made deep strides in the field of IT. IT is leading to the creation of many new jobs. What steps are being taken to make J&K a good investment destination for IT companies?

We understand that we are not Bengaluru or Hyderabad, and we don’t have the advantages that those regions possess. So we are trying to focus on certain key areas where we have competitive advantage. We have a huge talent pool of human resources available. There is no dearth of young people who can turn out to be world class professionals in IT. The state government’s vision is to come up with policies that will lead to rapid development of IT industry in the state. We are motivated by the idea of giving boost to the local IT industry. In J&K, tourism is the biggest industry, and we are taking necessary steps to ensure that our tourism industry is updated with latest technologies that can lead to saving of costs and bring efficiency.

JaKeGA is handling following Projects • State Wide Area Network ( SWAN) @ Tender Stage • State Data Centre(SDC) @ Implementation Stage • e-District @ DPR ,RFP Stage • e-Treasury @ Implementation Stage • SSDG @ Implementation Stage • CSC @ Rollout Stage • e-PDS @ Digitization Stage • CPIS @ RFP for Digitization Stage • WiFi @ Implementation Stage

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / December 2012

Our vision is that by 2020, the IT industry in J&K should be able to get itself engaged in electronic and hardware manufacturing in the Jammu area, and high-end semiconductor manufacturing in the Kashmir valley. For climatic reasons, the valley is more suitable for high-end semiconductor manufacturing.

The IT secretaries in different states are taking many different initiatives for improving ITC usage in various state departments. They are acting as change agents in leveraging operational efficiencies of different departments. What kind of sensibility and attitude should an IT secretary bring along, in order to make maximum contribution of ITC initiatives in state departments?

First of all, as an IT Secretary, one has to be well informed of the latest technological issues. We also need to be informed of the needs of the other departments. The structure of the IT department in J&K is very lean and thin. We are not a heavily bureaucratised kind of department, this helps in many ways.

Speaking of my own team at J&K, I would say that in the department we understand that we are only the enablers. We need to take initiatives while keeping in mind the needs of the other departments. However, we can only provide the platform and the technology; we can’t enforce them to adopt certain technologies. But ultimately it is the other departments that have to implement them. And there lies the real challenge. We are trying our level best

to bring that kind of skill for implementing the technologies in various departments. The government has allocated one to three percent of plan fund for every department to implement IT project in their respective departments.

That shows the intent of the J&K government that IT is the way to go.

The phenomenon of digital divide is a major cause of worry in the country. How do you ensure that rural people have training to access e-Governance applications?

I think this is a great fallacy in the minds of urban people that rural people do not understand technology. It is possible that in some cases, they may not understand technology as it is, but they do know about the practical applications of technology. I think digital divide is much lesser in J&K, as compared to other states of the country. Because of high mobile phone penetration, there virtually does not exist any digital divide. People are using Smartphones to access e-Governance services. The thing is that technologies are now-a-days highly user-friendly.

The Common Service Centres are providing good degree of online services to people in rural areas. Tell us about the kind of services that are being provided by CSCs in the state’s rural areas.

The CSC is a strategic cornerstone of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). It offers web-enabled e-governance services in rural areas, including application forms, certificates, and utility payments such as electricity, telephone and water bills. The CSC movement in J&K has proven to be quite successful. In rural areas, we are providing all kinds of online documentation and payment related services through the CSCs. The payments are routed through the J&K Bank. However, in urban areas the CSCs have not been able to penetrate.

We are now trying to take the CSC movement forward by having more outlets in rural and urban areas.

Also, I would like to tell you that the State IT Department, in collaboration with the NIC Unit of J&K, plans to establish videoconferencing in all major government offices of the state.

As a step towards this, the facility of videoconferencing is being established in the office of the District Development Commissioners in all districts in the state.

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