Egov December 2013

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

dEceMBER 2013 | VOLUME 09 n ISSUE 12 n ISSN 0973-161X

Experience the Future of IT 29th - 30th November 2013

Akhilesh Yadav Chief Minister

eGov Magazine

Government of Uttar Pradesh

egov.eletsonline.com

december 2013

Contents issue 09 n  volume 12 second grid grid name

14 in person

Anil Kumar Gupta Principal Secretary, Home, Confidential & Vigilance Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh

38 in person

Sandeep Salunke

Inspector General of Police (Technical Services) Government of Uttar Pradesh

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42

in person

in person

Jiwesh Nandan

Principal Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics, Mining & Additional Sources of Energy, Government of Uttar Pradesh

Prabhu Narayan Singh Managing Director, Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd

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Inclusive Development Through IT e-Governance in Uttar Pradesh

12 IT Industry

Making Uttar Pradesh the Global Hub of IT Industry

30 Good Governance e-Governance is Good Governance

32 e-Gov in Districts

EASYGAS & KISAN Project in Gonda

40 e-Governance

Jan Suvidha Kendra (JSK)

44 SeMT

20 in person

Amod Kumar (IAS) Honorary Consultant to Chief Minister, Government of Uttar Pradesh

43 in person

Praveen Kumar Deputy General Manager, Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited

Infrastructure for Efficient Service Delivery

48 Financial Inclusion

Better Banking through ATMs

49 24 in person

Alok Kumar

Inspector General of Registration & Stamps (IGRS), Government of Uttar Pradesh

28 in person

G S Naveen Kumar Special Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics, Managing Director, Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited

56 in person

Rahul Agarwal Founder Director, Ideal Insurance Brokers Pvt Ltd

Inclusive Banking

The Roadmap to Financial Deepening

54 Cloud Computing

Value Preposition of Cloud Computing

58 Cloud Computing

56

Mahagov Cloud

in person

Jitender Singh

Founder & CEO, Starfin India Pvt Ltd

further reading Editorial 05

34 in person

S B Singh

Deputy Director General & State Informatics Officer National Informatics Centre, Uttar Pradesh

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60 in person

N N Sinha

Principal Secretary, Information Technology Department, Government of Jharkhand

Guest Editorial

06

CM Message

08

LAPTOP DISTRIBUTION COLlAGE

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NIELIT – Special Feature

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fips COLlAGE

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Uttar Pradesh is geared for large investments in IT

R

ecently the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Shri Akhilesh Yadav, inaugurated a hi-tech police control room in Kanpur. At the inaugural ceremony, while addressing a team of police officials, the Chief Minister directed the police to maintain law and order at all costs and control crime through technological advances. The new high-tech police control room in Kanpur is equipped with global positioning system (GPS), computer-aided design (CAD) and CCTV cameras. It will help in combating crime and handling the law and order situation efficiently.

It should come as great news to all of us that India’s most populous state is now taking significant steps for bringing e-Governance to its key departments. Under private partnership Lokvani Kendras have been set up in rural areas across the entire State. In fact, the State is trying to bring modernity to its society by distributing free laptops to students who have passed class 12th exam from government schools, government aided schools and private secondary. This scheme will serve the purpose of spreading digital literacy across the state and it will eventually have the effect of improving the scope and reach of e-Governance in the state.

Uttar Pradesh is India’s largest and most populous state. It has rich social diversity and hence it is not easy to implement e-Governance in all the departments, which often have to face the pulls and pressures of myriad kinds. But if the State Government is determined then there can be seminal improvements in the state of affairs. With the objective of making the State an ideal destination for Information Technology companies, the State has released a new IT Policy 2012. Much work is also being done for creating new IT Cities in Uttar Pradesh. One of the IT Cities is being planned in the vicinity of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh.

The State Government has a vision for developing IT industry and using Information Communication Technology to deliver efficient and quick services to citizens. In this process numerous projects have been initiated.

However, many challenges will have to be overcome to ensure that Information Technology takes root in the country.

It is with the view of promoting IT industry and e-Governance in Uttar Pradesh that the e-UttarPradesh event is being organised by the Department of IT & Electronics, Government of Uttar Pradesh, in Lucknow on 29-30 November 2013, at Vivanta by Taj. The event will bring together the key stakeholders in government and private IT industry so that we can have a healthy round of deliberations on the best ways of promoting Information Technology in the State. This special issue of eGov magazine must be seen as a precursor to the deliberations that will held at e-UttarPradesh. In creating this issue we have interacted with the key officials of many departments in Uttar Pradesh government and had their views on the Information Technology space.

We hope you will find the special issue of eGov to be informative and interesting. We also look forward to having you at the eUttarPradesh event in Lucknow. ravi guptA Ravi.Gupta@elets.in

Email at subscription@elets.in to get previous issues

September 2013

October 2013

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5

guest editorial

Uttar Pradesh On the forefront of Information Technology

D

uring the last few decades, we have witnessed a significant change in the expectations that people have from Government departments. People today expect faster, better and more transparent services, which in my opinion is a very a good development. A citizenry that is demanding government services helps in keeping the officialdom on its toes and thereby leads to better outcomes for the society as a whole. However, this also leads to increased pressure on the government departments for improving the quality of service delivery. Fortunately today we have access to a range of IT solutions, which make it possible for the Government to bring improvement in the quality of the services that it provides.

The Government of Uttar Pradesh has taken many important steps towards using Information Technology for improving the efficiency and transparency of various departments. The ambit of e-Governance has been expanded to most of the departments that have a substantial public interface. A range of services are being provided to people in rural and urban areas through Internet-enabled Common Service Centres.

The State Government also realises that the vision of e-Governance in Uttar Pradesh can only be realised when there is growth in Information Technology industry in the State. With the objective of enabling the Information Technology industry to grow and flourish, the Government of Uttar Pradesh has developed its new IT Policy 2012.

The State Government intends to encourage investment in IT/ITeS industries and skill enhancement of the youth specializing in IT/ITeS. The idea is to ensure that the citizens of Uttar Pradesh reap the benefits of development. I am glad to point out that today Lucknow is ranked among the top 10 cities among the cities in India for fastest job creation. It has also emerged as a “Science City�, with numerous national level laboratories, premier medical colleges, universities along with engineering and management institutes being located here. Agra also has emerged as preferred investment location by leading industrial houses recently. It has stood apart as premier tourist destination with its world class infrastructure and proximity to IT hubs like Noida and Gurgaon.

I would like to emphasise that Uttar Pradesh has an immense potential to emerge as one of the most economically developed states in the country. The e-UttarPradesh event is recognition of the fact that the State is now encouraging and inviting private investments in knowledge based industries. The current issue of eGov magazine is a special issue on Uttar Pradesh. It has the coverage of the initiatives that are being taken in the area of Information Technology by different departments in the State Government. I hope that you will find this issue of magazine, which has been created by the editorial team of eGov, to be informative and evocative.

Jiwesh Nandan Principal Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics, Mining & Additional Sources of Energy, Government of Uttar Pradesh

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deceber 2013 issue 09 n volume 12

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December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

7

LAL BAHADUR SHASTRI BHAWAN LUCKNOW

AKHILESH YADAV CHIEF MINISTER UTTAR PRADESH

Message Uttar Pradesh is the land of unlimited potential; the economy of the state is second largest in the country. The state has rich heritage, multi-hued culture, and large number of prominent tourist attractions. It accounts for 7.3 percent of the country’s geographical area and is home to 16.5 percent of population. The state has large base of skilled manpower graduating from 700 professional institutions half of which impart engineering and management courses both at graduate and postgraduate level, making it an ideal destination for knowledge-based sectors.

The state has identified its priority sectors which include IT/ITeS, food processing, manufacturing and infrastructure. Other key sectors include sugar, tourism, poultry, solar power, cement, etc.

Currently the state is focusing on development of necessary infrastructure and human capital, proactive engagement with investors and effective policy implementation so as to create an environment in which the IT industry can grow and flourish. Uttar Pradesh government is encouraging and inviting private investments in knowledge based industries.

The availability of numerous technical and manpower centers of excellence makes the state suitable for setting up of IT industry. Presently, the state enjoys a steady flow of investment from many domestic and international IT/ITeS players.

Recently the state rolled out its IT policy “IT vision@UP 20I2,” to further encourage the development of Information Technology sector. The state government believes that IT can serve as a potent vehicle for economic development. The IT policy is aimed at reinforcing the position of Uttar Pradesh as an attractive destination for Information Technology industry. The Government of Uttar Pradesh has plans to promote cities like Lucknow and Agra as next generation IT hubs, through which holistic development of Uttar Pradesh and its people can be facilitated.

It gives me immense pleasure to share that the e-UttarPradesh event is being jointly organized by Department of IT & Electronics, Government of Uttar Pradesh, and Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd, on 29-30 November, 2013.

I welcome all the thought leaders, prominent personalities from IT Industry, and other private players, who possess the necessary technological and social expertise to facilitate change and make society better. Let us all participate in e-UttarPradesh, which is an event that seeks to highlight the fact that for many private business initiatives in India, Uttar Pradesh is the preferred IT/ITES investment destination. The Government of Uttar Pradesh is committed to extend full cooperation and support to all the entrepreneurs and investors.

I warmly welcome all delegates and look ‘forward to their participation in what promises to be an immensely enriching event.

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(Akhilesh Yadav)

Digital Inclusion

Distribution of Free Laptops to Students To empower the students with modern gadgets and to provide equal opportunity, the Uttar Pradesh Government has launched a scheme where free laptops are being distributed to the students who have passed class 12th exam from government schools, government aided schools and private secondary and senior secondary schools.

The scheme was launched in March 2013.

December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Inclusive Development Through IT

e-Governance in Uttar Pradesh Jawed Usmani, Chief Secretary, Government of Uttar Pradesh

T

he progress made by the state of Uttar Pradesh 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 is now making pioneering efforts to improve the quality of governance through various e-Governance initiatives.

In addition to successfully implementing the various Central Government flagship schemes at the state level, the Uttar Pradesh Government has also taken the initiative to conceptualise and launch a number of flagship schemes spanning various areas at State level. Various projects such as State Wide Area Network (SWAN), State Data Centre (SDC), Common Service Centre (CSC), State Portal and various mission mode projects such as e-District, CCTNS (Police), etc., are being implemented in the State. Uttar Pradesh government is effectively using IT to make the administration quick, responsive, transparent, hassle-free and accessible, while reducing the inefficiencies and costs.

Infrastructure for e-Governance The Government is committed to enabling the delivery of Government Services to the citizens at their doorstep in an efficient and transparent manner through the network of Common Service Centres. We are speeding up the computerisation of various government departments that have a significant public interface. The records with the government departments are being digitised to ensure that there is seamless delivery of services through a dedicated delivery network or through the internet.

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Uttar Pradesh: State Introduction v Uttar Pradesh is the rainbow land where the multi-hued Indian Culture has blossomed from times immemorial. Blessed with a variety of geographical land and many cultural diversities, Uttar Pradesh, has been the area of activity of historical heroes like - Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira, Ashoka, Harsha, Akbar and Mahatma Gandhi. Rich and tranquil expanses of meadows, perennial rivers, dense forests and fertile soil of Uttar Pradesh have contributed numerous golden chapters to the annals of Indian History.

Dotted with various holy shrines and pilgrim places, full of joyous festivals, it plays an important role in the politics, education, culture, industry, agriculture and tourism of India. v Garlanded by the Ganga and Yamuna. The two pious rivers of Indian mythology, Uttar Pradesh is surrounded by Bihar in the East, Madhya Pradesh in the South, Rajasthan, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana in the west and Uttaranchal in the north and Nepal touch the northern borders of Uttar Pradesh, it assumes strategic importance for Indian defense. Its area of 2,36,286 sq kms. lies between latitude 24 deg to 31 deg and longitude 77 deg to 84 deg East. Area wise it is the fourth largest State of India. In sheer magnitude it is half of the area of France, three times of Portugal, four times of Ireland, seven times of Switzerland, ten times of Belgium and a little bigger than England.

To provide connectivity of 2 mbps bandwidth, a network of 885 nodes connecting all the Districts, Tehsils and Blocks to the State capital has been established. It acts as a conduit for carrying all the data to and from the government offices and establishments; essentially it serves as an efficient intra-governmental super highway of information. The State of Uttar Pradesh is planning to connect all the departments through this network, as well as increase/upgrade the current bandwidth being provided.

The State Data Centre (SDC) has been established to serve as a centralised reservoir for data, information and services from different departments in the state government. The State Data Centre acts as the shared infrastructure across various departments, it integrates and provides various G2G, G2C and G2B services in an efficient manner. Various applications for different State Government departments, such as Basic

Education, Home/Police, and Commercial Tax etc., have been hosted in the State Data Centre.

Now Uttar Pradesh is planning to make the SDC cloud enabled, which will lead to more efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Enabling easy access to government services Common Services Centres (CSCs) have been envisioned as the frontend delivery points for taking the Government, Private and Social Services (G2C and B2C services) to the rural citizens. We have also established an institution called Lokvani, responsible for delivering e-services to the common people. At present we have 3300 Lokvani Kendras, 15,800 Common Service Centres, and 100 E-suvidha kendras.

More than 26 government services are currently being provided to the citizens through these centres.

Inclusive Development Through IT

Ration Card related services are being provided.

Till date, more than 90 lakh e-Transactions have happened using this application in six e-districts through Jan Seva Kendra/Jan Suvidha Kendra/ Lokvani Kendra. The District e-Governance Society (DeGS) has been constituted in all the Districts to ensure that there is smooth implementation of the programme. Regular training programs are being organised to make all the stakeholders familiar with the new automated system.

These programmes cover various topics related to e-Governance such as e-Governance Project Life Cycle, DPR, RFP Preparation, Use of Digital Signature etc.

Distribution of free laptop scheme In order to enable the growth of IT literacy in the state, under an ambitious scheme laptops are being distributed to the students who have passed class 12th exam from government schools, government aided schools and private secondary and senior secondary schools.

The scheme was launched in March 2013. The configuration of laptop is 14 inch display, 1 GB internal memory, 500 GB hard disk capacity, webcam, 3 hours battery backup and Bluetooth / Wi-Fi. It comprises 3 USB ports, media card reader, a headphone or speaker out port, DVD writer and supports three languages English, Hindi and Urdu. This scheme has gone a long way in bridging the digital divide, because it is leading to a situation where every school in the state has hundreds of laptops and tablets.

Jawed Usmani The state portal went live on 1st August, 2012.

The portal has been developed to provide departmental services and information to the citizens electronically. Within a short period of time, more than 1 crore e-Transactions have happened through this portal.

Uttar Pradesh is one of the early pioneers in the digitisation of land records. Anyone can go and see his or her land records through a computer from any part of the world. The digitisation of land records was completed more than four years ago. The system is completely secure and it is quite popular with the citizens. We have a system, where the land records get updated every week, because of the fact that there are transfers of land due to property transactions, gifts, inheritance, etc. You can also take a printout of the land records. The

Industrial Sector: The Engine of Growth system, as it has been designed, is working flawlessly. In the next phase, we are trying to develop a system where you can get the land records digitally signed. Once this system is in place, a citizen will be able to walk into an authorised centre and take digitally signed land records. Today unsigned copies of land records are available to everyone.

The site from which one can get the land records in Uttar Pradesh is called Bhulekh. It is located at: http://bhulekh.up.nic.in/.

The e-District project is successfully running in six districts of Uttar Pradesh - Ghaziabad, Gautam buddh Nagar, Sultanpur, Raebareilly, Sitapur and Gorakhpur. Under this programme various Government services, including issuance of Caste, Income, Domicile, Handicap, Birth/Death (Rural & Urban) certificates, Revenue Court,

Uttar Pradesh 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 State Government plans to use Information Technology as a vehicle for economic development of Uttar Pradesh. We are working with the aim of having inclusive growth to create a vibrant society with a high quality of life.

The government has developed a new IT policy that will reinforce the position of Uttar Pradesh as an attractive destination for Information Technology companies. The state intends to promote TierII cities like Lucknow and Agra as next generation IT hubs which can facilitate a holistic development of Uttar Pradesh and its people.

December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IT Industry

Making Uttar Pradesh

the Global Hub of IT Industry Due to the landmark initiatives taken by the Government of Uttar Pradesh, the State is now being widely regarded as an attractive destination for IT and ITeS industry

By Alok Ranjan, Infrastructure & Industrial Development Commissioner; Agriculture Production Commissioner Government of Uttar Pradesh

Alok Ranjan

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IT Industry

T

he Government of Uttar Pradesh is focused on developing the necessary infrastructure and human capital that can lead to rapid growth of the IT industry in the State. The process of proactive engagement with investors and the effective policy implementation is leading to the creation of an environment in which IT industry can take root and flourish.

With the idea of facilitating export of electronic software, the State has set up Lucknow SEZ. The State Government is taking many proactive steps to encourage global IT companies to set up their base in the State.

The availability of major centres of excellence, such as IIT, IIIT, and IIM, is also contributing a lot for making Uttar Pradesh an ideal destination for IT companies. The Government of Uttar Pradesh has already started the process for developing and setting standards for the creation of smart, vibrant and sustainable IT cities in the State. Such cities will serve as a highly attractive proposition for global enterprises, skilled manpower and major investors. This will facilitate economic growth and lead to the generation of many new IT related jobs.

The Vision for IT City The IT City that is being planned by the State Government will enjoy the world class ICT infrastructure to provide seamless connectivity for businesses and users. There will be an array of public and private services in a vibrant ecosystem consisting of ICT operators, Service Providers, and end users. The State Government has transferred 100 acres of land to IT Department for setting up IT City Lucknow on the Sultanpur Road. As mentioned, this city has already been declared as SEG by the Government of India.

The Land Use Plan is has been developed with the intention of ensuring that there is efficiency and economy in the management of every aspect of life and business in the IT City. World class systems and technologies will be used to ensure the best possible management of traffic; promotion of safety from fire, flood waters, and other dangers; adequate provision for light and air; optimal distribution of population in affordable housing units; promotion of good civic design and arrangement; efficient expenditure of public

funds; energy conservation; and public utilities for meeting public requirements.

Layout of IT City The Government of Uttar Pradesh is keen to develop Lucknow and Agra as IT hubs and boost the IT/IT Enabled Services (ITeS) and electronics sector in the State. The new IT policy announced by the State Government also enables the private partners to acquire land and develop IT Cities of their own. The private players have the freedom to develop their own infrastructure. The State Government, on the other hand, will give its private partners an assurance of uninterrupted power supply, security, access to airport and will set up a police station and other public utilities like post offices, for which the State Government will lease land to the private partners through a transparent bidding process.

For the first IT City project to come up at Lucknow, the bidding process is on. This IT City will have two zones - the first zone will have the core IT/ITeS activities and the other zone shall be for non-core activities. In this self contained satellite township, the land usage pattern will be in the ratio of 60:40 approximately for processing and non processing area. It is a self-contained satellite township. The processing area will consist only of IT companies, BPO’s, KPO’s, etc. The non processing area will include the whole range of residential facilities, public utility offices and other support centres.

In order to enable the IT City to have seamless world class connectivity, it has been proposed that these areas should be equipped with sophisticated telephone exchanges and optical fibre connectivity. For enterprise communication, there will dedicated earth stations that offer satellite and terrestrial links for voice-data, videoconferencing and connectivity with worldwide customer workstations. Apart from being directly connected with the Shaheed Path and the airport, the IT City will also enjoy a dedicated power supply system to enable the major companies to work without disruption. The estimated cost of the IT City project at Gajaria Farms on Sultanpur Road will be around Rs. 1500 crore.

Once Uttar Pradesh was among the nation’s top three IT exporters, things have once again started moving very fast under the dynamic leadership of the State’s IT savvy Chief Minister, Shri Akhilesh Yadav, who is the main inspiration behind the IT City project that will lead to rapid growth of the IT sector in the State.

December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

Anil Kumar Gupta

Principal Secretary, Home, Confidential & Vigilance Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh

Police Modernisation in Uttar Pradesh

W

hat is your view of the IT infrastructure that is at the disposal of the police forces in Uttar Pradesh today? Why is it that the police is lagging behind in the use of better technologies for combating crime?

To an extent it is true that Uttar Pradesh police is lagging behind when it comes to usage of IT to bring efficiency in their working , but we are now picking up at a really fast pace. We are now close to providing connectivity to all our police stations; this will ensure that our police stations are able to exchange information in real time and thus improve their efficiency. We want to do away completely with the system of using fax, couriers and messengers. The online method of exchanging information is not only timely; it is also more secure and efficient. We are also trying to take advantage of certain schemes that have been launched by the Government of India.

The work on implementing the CCTNS project, which is an e-Governance project of pan India scale, is progressing at a fast pace in Uttar Pradesh. This project will make it possible for the police in the state to have access to relevant and timely information, which is of utmost necessity in the operations of police, particularly in investigation of crime and in tracking and detection of criminals. The idea is also to have access to the data that other departments have. For instance, if the police department has a real time access to the data with the transport department, then we will be able to immediately contact the vehicle owner in case the vehicle meets with an accident. We have just completed the Phase I of the CCTNS project and now we are at the Phase II. I think by the

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year end we should be able to make substantial headway in the direction of modernising our police forces. We might be lagging behind when it comes to the implementation of IT in the police forces, but we are now picking up.

project. It is being done on a continuous basis. In fact, now there is far greater acceptance of IT in the police forces, as it is in every other department.

People are getting used to using IT to bring convenience in executing different tasks.

You began by saying that Uttar Pradesh police department is lagging when it comes to the use of IT systems. Why do you think the State is lagging behind?

What are the ways by which you are using video conferencing and videography to ensure better communication and better law enforcement?

The main problem is that the State has started late when it comes to use of new technology. In my opinion by now all our police stations should have been connected to the Internet, but that is not the case. Now we are working to achieve Internet connectivity for all our police stations. However, you also need to consider the fact that there are many other states in the country where the process of

We have now started using video conferencing for enabling better communication. There is video conferencing facility installed in this building, I can talk to all the police chiefs and collectors in all the 75 districts in the State. The facility is being maintained by NIC. With such a facility being in place, we don’t have to call the officials from different districts to Lucknow,

The work on implementing

the CCTNS project is

progressing at a fast pace

in Uttar Pradesh

connecting the police stations through the Internet has not even been conceived. I would like to set an example for the entire country by making all our police stations equipped with the hardware, software and other tools for seamless connectivity.

If there is good connectivity and the mobile vans are fitted with GPS systems, the response time for the police to reach the venue of any crime becomes very less.

What steps are you taking to ensure that the police personnel are adequately trained in the use of new technologies?

The IT training of the police is part of the CCTNS

unless it is very essential, the normal communications are done by the video conferencing system only. We have effectively used videography on many occasions. This year we used the video cameras very effectively to ensure that there is peace during Muharram in Lucknow.

The thing is that the real criminal elements do not want to be caught on the CCTV cameras, and probably that is one of the reasons why this year the Muharram celebrations passed off peacefully. It is a welcome development that today the courts have started taking cognizance of the photographs, videos, and other kinds of digital evidence. We would like to have security cameras installed in all our major districts.

In Person

Four very modern police control rooms are being set up in Uttar Pradesh. Please tell us about it.

The first of these very modern police control rooms has already been set up in Kanpur. The Chief Minster inaugurated it last month, in October. Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad and Ghazibad were selected for the first phase of the police control room modernisation project of the state police.

The hi-tech police control room in Kanpur, equipped with global positioning system (GPS), computer-aided design (CAD) and CCTV cameras, is the first step towards police modernisation. It will help in combating crime and handling of the law and order situation efficiently. Expert police personnel have been trained for the new system. Equipped with Internet connections to help individuals to contact the police, the control room is fitted with multiple television screens and close circuit TVs. The control rooms keep round-the-clock watch and monitor traffic conditions across the city. Through this system all major roads, streets and localities in Kanpur can be monitored from a single point. Such a control room is expected to be up and running in Lucknow in the next two months.

These days the newspapers are full of stories about crime being committed against women. What kind of initiatives are you taking to prevent the occurrence of such crimes?

“We are now working to ensure that our police forces are equipped with the latest technologies for combating crime and are well versed in the new techniques of investigation,� says Anil Kumar Gupta

In order to control crimes against women we have come up with the 1090 service, which has been inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. It has been a great success; a number of other states are now trying to replicate the scheme. Several features of this service set it apart from other helplines. First, the victim callers are assured of complete anonymity. They get a patient hearing from the women constables who take their calls. Incidentally, these constables are young women, picked from the 2011 batch. Secondly, the victim is required neither to come to the police station to lodge her complaint nor to show up for any hearing. The third innovative feature is the feedback system. The first feedback is taken after 24 hours, the second after a week and the final one is taken after a month. If the victim does not get an abusive or vulgar call for a month, the case is deemed closed.

December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

Jiwesh Nandan

Principal Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics, Mining & Additional Sources of Energy, Government of Uttar Pradesh

Promotion of IT Industry in Uttar Pradesh

T

oday majority of Information Technology companies are based in Southern India. What steps are you taking to make Uttar Pradesh an attractive investment destination for Information Technology companies?

The success that India has achieved in the export of Information Technology Software and related services over the past decade is now being acknowledged globally. Today the nation accounts for 65 percent of the global market in IT off shoring and 46 percent of the ITES market.

The growth of the sector has led to tremendous pay-offs in terms of wealth creation and generation of high quality employment. People in all parts of the country have contributed seminally to the success that the nation has achieved in the IT sector. The Government of Uttar Pradesh is now trying to attract major Information Technology related investments in the State. The state government recognizes that IT Industry can be a big job generator. So if all the software makers, the hardware makers, the BPOs, were to set up their establishments in Uttar Pradesh, it will lead to a big improvement in the employment situation. We are very keen on making that happen.

We have already announced a package of incentives for the IT industry. We are also developing

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an IT City in Lucknow. As you would know, the state has undertaken the major initiative of developing IT parks in Tier III cities. Many prominent IT players are showing interest in setting up their development centres in Uttar Pradesh.

The Government of Uttar Pradesh has recently approved the new IT Policy. What is the vision behind this IT Policy?

The state cabinet of Uttar Pradesh Government in a meeting chaired by the Hon’ble Chief Minister, Shri Akhilesh Yadav, on 17 October 2012, approved the IT Policy 2012. The IT policy 2012 will lead to the development of Lucknow and

Agra as IT hubs. As per the policy, all the IT companies establishing their units in the state would be given 100 per cent exemption from stamp duty and at the same time be provided 5 per cent interest subsidy for the period of five years which will not exceed 100 Crore of Rupees.

What kind of outcomes do you expect from the new IT Policy?

Because of the large pool of well-educated and trained young profession that the state is home to, Uttar Pradesh has immense potential to emerge as one of the most economically developed states in the country. The availability of centres of excellence such as IIT,

Objectives of the New IT Policy r Promoting UP as an attractive investment destination for IT/ITeS companies by providing congenial, industry friendly and proactive climate. r Promote prominent cities/towns in the State as emerging Tier-II and Tier III IT destinations and providing assistance in setting up state of the art infrastructure like IT city, IT Parks etc in the state. r To develop these investment nodes in UP as Intelligent and Smart Cities and creating a portfolio of IT enabled services (public and private) which will make the investment region an intelligent and smart region. r To create world class ICT infrastructure as a platform to provide seamless connectivity for businesses and users, easy to use public and private services in a vibrant ecosystem consisting of ICT operators, Service Providers, Government, Regulators and end users. r Enhancing the quality of talent pool and creation of additional employment opportunities, development of skilled IT manpower in the state for all sections of the society, across all regions, and to leverage IT as a tool for the socio-economic development of the State. r Augmentation of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of Uttar Pradesh.

IN PERSON

utility offices, facilities, commercial area, areas for development of education and healthcare institutions, entertainment areas, etc. Connectivity is very important for IT industry. So the IT City will be equipped with sophisticated telephone exchanges with optical fibre connectivity. We will have strategic alliances with telecom companies for their ISP facilities, there will be large bandwidth options, broadband and Wi-Fi connectivity. For enterprise communication, there will be dedicated earth stations that offer satellite and terrestrial links for voice-data, video-conferencing and connectivity with worldwide customer workstations.

Has the work on development of the IT Cities started?

Jiwesh Nandan, Principal Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics, Mining & Additional Sources of Energy, Government of Uttar Pradesh, sheds light on the new initiatives that are being taken to bring growth to the Information Technology sector in the state

IIIT, and IIM makes Uttar Pradesh an ideal destination for setting up of IT industry. The new IT policy of Uttar Pradesh aims to reinforce the position of the state as an attractive destination for the Information Technology companies of the world. The IT Policy will lead to the creation of a more conducive business environment, so that IT industry can survive and flourish in the state. We intend to promote Tier-II cities like Lucknow and Agra as next generation IT hubs, which can facilitate a holistic development of Uttar Pradesh and its people. We are encouraging and inviting private investments in knowledge based industries. Uttar Pradesh is currently focusing on developing necessary infrastructure, development of human capital, proactive engagement with investors and effective policy implementation, so as to create a better eco-system for the IT industry.

Tell us about the IT Cities that the government is planning to develop in Uttar Pradesh?

The basic idea is to develop and set standards for the coming up of a number of smart, vibrant and sustainable IT cities in Uttar Pradesh. These IT Cities will be highly attractive to global enterprises, and they will be home to skilled manpower and knowledge-based industries. The existence of such IT Cities will facilitate the overall economic and industrial transformation of the state and it will also lead to the promotion of investments within Uttar Pradesh. In normal scheme of things, any IT City will require about 100 to 500 acres of land, which will be used in the ratio of 60:40 approximately as processing and non processing area. It is a self-contained satellite township. The processing area would consist of only IT units like IT companies, BPO’s, KPO’s etc. The non processing area would include residential facilities, public

Some preliminary work is already being done.

In the first phase the IT cities at Lucknow and Agra are going to be built. These cities will have special facilities for Information Technology and Information Technology enabled services.

We are developing these IT Cities on PPP mode.

100 Acre Land for the proposed facility has been identified at Gajaria Farms on Sultanpur Road, connecting Shaheed Path and Airport road. It is not widely known that Uttar Pradesh was once among the top three IT exporting states in the country. With the development of the IT Cities, the state will once again achieve new milestones in the field of Information Technology.

Is it possible for a private sector company to set up an IT City entirely on its own?

The new IT Policy opens doors for the private sector to set up their own IT City. In fact, many private players are showing interest in creating such infrastructure in the state. The government will assume the role of a facilitator, while private players develop IT cities as an economic activity. The private partners can bid for land from the government and lease them out to tenants of their choice. The new policy provides the private players with the freedom of developing their own infrastructure. The state government, on the other hand, will give its private partners an assurance of uninterrupted power supply, security, access to airport and will set up a police station and other public utilities like post offices, for which the private partner will allocate land to the state.

At times it has been found that the common citizens are unable to take full advantage of the development of IT industry in the December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

“Uttar Pradesh is the third largest economy in the country; the State has 35% share in IT exports from north India. Contribution of service sector in the State GDP stands at around 55%. 15% of total workforce engaged in IT industry in the country comes from Uttar Pradesh. These facts offer ample evidence of enormous scope of growth of IT industry in the State. With Delhi-Mumbai and Amritsar-Kolkata Industrial Corridors having a sizable portion in Uttar Pradesh, coupled with proactive approach of the State government to promote IT sector, there is bound to be a comprehensive industrial growth, which in turn will throw open number of avenues for development of Information Technology industry in the State,” says Dr. Surya Pratap Singh, Principal Secretary, Infrastructure & Industrial Development Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh

Incentives for Private

Sector in Uttar Pradesh Fiscal Incentives u Stamp Duty: 100%

exemption of Stamp Duty for IT/ITeS Units. u VAT (Commercial Tax): Interest free loan equivalent to the amount of VAT and Central Sales Tax deposited every year for a period of 10 years.

Other Incentives u Provision for Land at a

rebate of 25% on the prevailing sector rates. u Industrial Promotion

Subsidy equivalent to 50% of the incentives admissible for new units. u Plant and machinery for captive power generation would be deemed to be Information Technology unit and the incentives as enumerated would be made admissible to them.

u Uninterrupted Power

Supply: IT units setup in IT Cities / IT Parks on Independent Feeder shall be provided uninterrupted power supply from State Utility. u Employment generation: 50% of incentive for five years on expenditure on account of contribution towards Employee Provident Fund and Employee State Insurance schemes.

We intend to promote

Tier-II cities like Lucknow and Agra as next generation IT hubs 18

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / December 2013

state, as there is lack of IT literacy in the government, or there is lack of effective collaboration between the IT industry and the education sector. What steps are you doing to bridge such instances of digital divide?

The Government is implementing an IT Literacy Enhancement Programme for its employees to achieve 100% IT literacy in the Government.

A government official is now expected to have a minimum level of defined proficiency which includes word processing, e-mail, data entry, MS Office and Access, etc. Suitable incentive and disincentives have been designed to achieve desired level of proficiency for government servants. Steps are also being taken to provide comprehensive IT training to teachers and to encourage the use of IT in education. As you would know, we have now taken the step of providing free digital devices to the students. This step is proving to be highly popular, and it will go a long way in bridging the digital divide, because it will lead to a situation where every school in the state would have hundreds of laptops and tablets. This I would say is the main strategy that we are using to bridge the digital divide – catch them young and give them the latest gadgets on which they can learn.

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IN PERSON

Amod Kumar (IAS)

Honorary Consultant to Chief Minister Government of Uttar Pradesh

e-Governance

for better services

W

hen you were serving as the DM of Sitapur, you launched some innovative e-Governance initiatives. Please tell us about these projects and the kind of impact they had on the lives of the people.

It was in December 2004, when I was the DM of Sitapur, that we started the Lokvani initiative.

During that time the DM’s office still worked with manual typewriters. I was concerned over the poor functioning of the state apparatus, which was responsible for massive delays in delivery. Bribery was another factor. At that time the Common Service Centre model had not been developed, and I got the idea of starting Lokvani initiative, when I heard of some unsuccessful e-Governance projects that had been launched in nearby states. Lokvani was a very revolutionary concept not only because we were using the online medium to reach out to the people in an area where net penetration was quite low, and also because we planned to charge the citizens a nominal amount when they used the Lokvani system.

We established the society called Lokvani which signed contracts with kiosk owners, registering them as franchisee owners. We came up with improved software to make lodging of complaints easy. The public could come to the Lokvani kendras and place their grievances

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and queries before the government through the web platform. The vendors charged a nominal amount per transaction from each complainant. From these small amounts we covered the cost of the Lokvani cell that had been formed at the district headquarters. At the end of the day, the DM’s office used to resolve the complaints and post the solutions on the same web platform for the public to see the next day. We also placed lot of important information related to government on the Lokvani website, so that people could see it. The scheme was liked by the people and we decided to expand it across the state. The thing is that technology must be used for providing better services and relief to the citizens. We have now made the applications coming on the Tehsil Divas online, so if anyone has an application pending in Telsil Divas, he can check its status by going online. This facility is now available across the state. In case of Tehsil Divas the user also gets an SMS alert when his application is disposed.

an automatic call gets sent to each one of them, and in response to that call, they key in the numbers of the students who have had midday meals and by evening we see the number for the entire state in the website. When we launched the scheme, it was a great risk, as till then we did not have any monitoring system based on IVRS. We also needed to have an efficient system for making calls to more than 150000 teachers within a span of two hours.

We were not quite sure when we launched the scheme, if we would get the accurate data or not. But eventually we were able to make the scheme a success. The system of daily audit through IVRS has reduced instances of principals overstating the number of beneficiaries, while also encouraging principals to expand or adopt the programme for fear of being criticised for inaction. After audits began, the percentage of schools without mid-day meal schemes or not in compliance has dropped to a substantial extent.

You are credited with the launch of many e-Governance schemes.

In 2010 you launched the system of using IVRS to audit the mid-day meal scheme in Uttar Pradesh. Tell us about it.

What kind of model did you use for this IVRS based midday meal audit scheme?

The idea behind the scheme was to get the confirmed figures for the numbers of students who have consumed midday meals. There are about 150000 schools in Uttar Pradesh and by evening we get the confirmed figures of students who have had midday meals in each school. We have the database of the mobile numbers of the teachers and the headmasters,

We finished the project by engaging a private vendor. The entire technological part of the project was outsourced to a private organisation. We did not pay the vendor for the hardware, software, maintenance or the training, we only pay the vendor for the data that he provides us. The vendor was selected by Uttar Pradesh Development Systems Corporation Limited (UPDESCO). I must say that the vendor who bid for the project also took a big risk as this project, at the time of its launch, was

IN PERSON

unproven technologically or managerially, but eventually it has worked very well.

Lot of other things have also been happening in Uttar Pradesh in the area of e-Governance. You have been using Information Technology to bring transparency to the deployment of Home Guards.

Please shed light on this project.

Earlier there used to be lot of complaints and even allegations of corruption in the way the Home Guards were being deployed in the state. So now we have started using IT to automatically decide the system by which the Home Guards have to be deployed. In Uttar Pradesh, Home Guards get deployed by software that has been developed after lot of research. The system works by taking the preferences from the individual Home Guards, we feed the demand, we feed the number of personnel that are available and then the system randomly allocates the Home Guards to different locations.

This has brought lot of efficiency and transparency to the system of deployment. Lot of work is being done in Uttar Pradesh in the area of e-Governance. The State Government is of the view that if services of any government department can be automated, then they should be automated. We have started with the automation in the processes of 8 critical departments. One of these departments is the revenue department; we have found that the services that are mostly required by vast majority of common people are related to the revenue department. Then there are our welfare programmes – women welfare, child welfare, minority welfare and other welfare programmes.

Currently you serve as the Project Director in Manthan. What kind of work are you doing through this organisation? “The vision of e-Governance will be realised when a person does not have to visit any government office from the time of his birth or death; he should be able to conduct his business with the government virtually. In my opinion the physical interaction between the government departments and the citizens is the root cause of all the problems like corruption, favouritism, etc.,� says Amod Kumar

Basically Manthan is running experiments to improve maternal and neonatal health in the state and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The project works closely with the state December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

government and the private sector to increase coverage of evidence-based maternal and newborn health interventions during antenatal care, delivery, the immediate postpartum period, and neonatal period. Under this project we plan collaboratively with the state government and other stakeholders to strengthen maternal and newborn health programs. We are demonstrating and documenting strategies to expand evidence-based maternal and newborn health interventions in two districts, Jhansi and Bahraich. We are also advocating at the district, state, and national levels to promote widespread adoption and scale-up of evidencebased maternal and newborn health interventions and strategies.

The Government of Uttar has also started a mobile application called mSakhi. Please tell us about it.

The mSakhi mobile is a versatile application for supporting the ASHAs in communicating with and caring for their patients. As you would know the mSakhi means mobile friend in Hindi. It is an interactive tutorial that offers several key health messages on prenatal and delivery care, postpartum mother and newborn care, immunization, postpartum family planning, and nutrition using a combination of text messages, audio, and illustrations all contextualized with localized illustrations and dialects. Currently the mSakhi project is in the pilot stage and soon it will be launched across the state. The biggest challenge in healthcare for a state like Uttar Pradesh is lack of human resources, like trained doctors, nurses.

The supply chain management is also an issue.

With modern technology we can try to bridge the gap to a certain extent.

The Government of Uttar Pradesh is now coming up with a system for putting all government orders online. Please tell us about it.

There is a project of this kind in Andhra Pradesh, so our plan is to replicate this project in Uttar Pradesh, if possible, in a better manner.

Once this system is in place in Uttar Pradesh, people will be able to see all government orders online, instead of having to visit the government offices. If a government order is sent to someone, and he has not received it for any reason, he can just go to the government website and download the relevant order. We are

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mSakhi mSakhi is an interactive mobile phone application that provides critical maternal and newborn health information to frontline health workers—accredited social health activists (ASHAs)—and serves as an interpersonal counseling tool to support ASHAs’ interaction with women and communities.

Operations research on mSakhi is being conducted with 90 ASHAs in Bahraich District to test the effectiveness of the application by comparing the knowledge of 45 ASHAs and the adoption of health behaviors by 480 of their beneficiaries in an experimental group and the same number of ASHAs and beneficiaries in a control group.

trying to introduce this measure in small steps, initially a few departments are being put online and after that a few more and so on. An effort is also being made to track the movement of files by using the barcode system. We are also planning to start a public grievance portal that will enable people to post their grievances online.

This will basically be a mechanism to put the person who has a complaint in touch with the

is so much of diversity that has to be taken into account.

Finally, please tell us about your vision for e-Governance.

The vision of e-Governance will be realised when a person should not have to visit any government office from the time of his birth or death, he should be able to conduct his

The biggest challenge in healthcare for a state like

Uttar Pradesh is lack

of human resources, like

trained doctors, nurses person or the department that is in position to find a solution to that problem.

When it comes to promoting IT in governance and in other sectors, what is the biggest obstacle that a state like Uttar Pradesh faces?

When it comes to e-Governance, it is change management that is a big issue. How do you convince people to adopt new ways of doing things through Information Technology?

How do you make people change their attitudes towards new technologies? Everyone has their own views and opinions about how things should be done, and at times it becomes difficult to engineer change through better technologies at a faster pace. It is also a fact that Uttar Pradesh is a geographically large state, there is a very large population and there

business with the government virtually. In my opinion the physical interaction between the government departments and the citizens is the root cause of all the problems like corruption, favouritism, etc. I agree that there are many situations where the physical interaction has to happen, for instance, if you need a driving licence, you need to be present at the time of giving your driving test. If some checking has to happen on the road, it has to happen physically. Even in areas where the person needs to appear physically, there are very good devices for recording these transactions to avoid any chance of malicious action. I am of the view that the interaction between the government departments and the citizens should be either virtual or it should be recorded, only then we can bring substantial improvement in our governance.

IN PERSON

Alok Kumar

Inspector General of Registration & Stamps (IGRS) Government of Uttar Pradesh

Simplifying

transactions through Information Technology

M

any new initiatives have been taken by the Department of Registration & Stamps to make it more convenient for people to get their work done. Please provide us with an overview of the work being done by the department in Uttar Pradesh?

The essential service provided by the Department of Registration & Stamps is to allow the citizens to maintain a record of their transactions, be it sale of property, lease agreement, power of attorney, etc. The record is then stored till eternity so that it can be retrieved if there is any dispute between the parties who are stakeholders in the document. Currently we are registering approximately 30 lakh documents per annum. This means that we are servicing close to two crore of people every year. In a typical transaction there will be a buyer, there will be a seller, there will be two witnesses and there will be the lawyers from either side. On an average, if you assume that there are 6 to 7 people involved in every transaction, then you realise that approximately one crore and eighty lakh people are coming every year to the registration offices located in the state.

Currently we are having 354 offices spread across 75 districts of Uttar Pradesh.

What are the main objectives of the department?

The Department of Registration & Stamps is the one of the major revenue generating departments for the state of Uttar Pradesh. Our main purpose is to facilitate documentation, registra-

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tion and maintaining records of such transaction for eternity. If any document is called to dispute in the court of law then our people will testify whether this document is genuinely registered document or non-registered document. If it is a registered document, then the contents of that will have a legal sanctity, which an unregistered document would not have. So it is our task to provide the necessary evidence to the fact that any XYZ transaction did take place between Parties A and Parties B, in presence of witness C and D. We have the copy of all registered documents in our own archives. At anytime, if the court desires, the same document can be produced to verify the sanctity of the document. The e-Services being launched by the Department of Registration & Stamps will lead to immense benefit to both, the public and the government.

As you said, close to one crore and eighty lakh people come to registration office every year.

This is a massive footfall. Are you taking some e-Governance initiatives to allow people to manage at least some part of the registration work remotely?

There are different aspects of the registration process that people need to follow in case of every property transaction. The first thing is identification of the property that can be bought by someone and sold by someone. Now this is beyond the domain of the department, as it depends of the mutual consent of the buyer and the seller. Once the buyer and the seller reach an agreement, they can start the process of valuing the property. Today the property valuation is generally done on the basis of the rate list decided by the collector. It is important for a layman to be able to know instantly what should be the right value of any given property. Ideally the relevant information should be available on the Internet, but it is not the case as of now. The valuation of the property enables you to know

Common Issues facing the

current systems u Decentralized

operations based on jurisdiction areas u All SROs are islands of information due to local standalone databases u Public information like index registers (property details), Encumbrance certificate, certified copies available only at jurisdictional SRO – No

alternate access

within department

u Unavailability of Market

u Manual Reporting

Value Data leading to loss of revenue to the dept. u Cumbersome process of Stamps Storage & Distribution with chances of pilferage/ forgery of Stamp Papers u Real time sharing of data not possible even

prone to delays and errors u Record rooms completely manual; overflowing and runs risk of being permanently damaged u No provisioning for Digitization & Scanning of documents

IN PERSON

“The presence of a multiplicity of vending agencies ensures that stamps are available easily and the need for cash transactions is eliminated. In eight districts we have already introduced e-stamping, which will soon be extended to all other districts of Uttar Pradesh,� says Alok Kumar

Alok Kumar December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

what kind of stamp duty and registration fees you have to pay. When it comes to stamps you have to go to the treasury or the licensed stamp vendors to procure the stamp paper, on which to record the contours of the transaction, usually through a deed writer, and present it to the sub-registrar for registration. Here you have to pay the registration fees in cash. Your document is registered, scanned and photocopied and the original is returned to you after the registration. Hence there are three processes involved – writing of deeds, which is a specialised task being done by the lawyers and the writers, the obtaining of stamps and the process of registration. We are keen to bring more efficiency into all three processes. To bring transparency and ensure that stamps are available easily, we have started the system of e-stamping in eight districts. Gradually e-stamping will be extended to all other districts. Now the thing is that if you have to pay a stamp duty of let’s say 20 lakh rupees, then you have to carry that much cash with you, which is quite inconvenient and risky.

So we have started the system through which you can simply go to anyone of our authorised bank branches and make the transfer through RTGS. We are also creating sample deeds, in which you only need to fill up the names of the buyer, seller, witnesses and the description of the property. These sample deeds will soon be made available on our website and can be downloaded free from there.

In most property transactions, the buyer would need to inspect the old documents related to the property he is paying for. What steps are you taking to bring transparency in that process?

Before buying a property, you will want to see the transactions that have taken place in the last twelve years to ensure that the property is free of any encumbrance, or it is not mortgaged with any bank or lender. If someone applies for a non-encumbrance certificate on any particular property, he may have to wait too long for getting it, as the manual search process is quite long. So we are developing a system by which the necessary information will become available to the public through an online process. A data centre is being set up, which will be connected to all our offices in the state to facilitate the online search. In future the index register can even be put online, so that you don’t even need to come to the office

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The aim of the Computerisation in the Department of Registration & Stamps u Simplifying the process

of Registration of documents u Speedy return of documents to the public u Speedy issue of Encumbrance Certificates and

Certified copy of the documents u Improvement of efficiency in the department u Accountability and Transparency in the functions of the department

for making a search. We are also starting the system of making digitally certified copies that can be accepted in the court.

If all the sub-registrar offices get interconnected, then can it also lead to the development of a system of anywhere registration?

Yes, that is going to happen eventually. Once the sub-registrar offices get interconnected through use of technology, people can register their property with any sub-registrar in the state. The monopoly of a sub-registrar over any particular jurisdiction will end, as you will then have at least 6 or 7 sub-registrars concurrently having jurisdiction over the same area. Once the backend database is complete, it will be possible for us to launch the system of anywhere registration.

How much time do you think will it take to implement all these new initiatives that you are planning?

We are working at quite a fast pace to implement all these initiatives. The financing of the project is being done partly through National

Benefits of Fully Centralized & Integrated System • Anywhere Registration • Digitally Signed Copies of Documents • Automatic request for mutation (Transfer of Rights) • Land Record Integration • Local Body Integration • Banks Interface • Treasury Integration • High Tech Front offices

u Built-in market value

intelligence u Issue of Encumbrance

Certificates from any Sub-Registrar Office u Registration from any Sub-Registrar Office

Land Records Modernization Programme, and also through funds from the Ministry of Information Technology. So the necessary finances are already in place. In my opinion, the necessary hardware and the software should be in place by May next year. However, the digitisation of the legacy data will take some more time. There is large amount of data that needs to be digitised, so what we will do is that we will start by digitising the data in areas where Internet usage is already high and there is more demand for digital services, and slowly we will move towards digitising data in areas where there is low Internet penetration.

Can you tell us about the main challenges that you are facing in the execution of this large project?

Challenges will be there in whatever you do, but you have to find solution to the challenges that are there and move ahead. In this case, the challenges are there mainly because we have to deal with many stakeholders. The citizen is one stakeholder. The lawyers and the deed writers are another stakeholder, many of them may not like the idea of decentralisation and other reforms, as they are of the opinion that with these steps their livelihood will be threatened. The stamp vendors can feel threatened because they can be of the notion that once e-stamping is in place, they will lose their livelihood. But this is not true, because all they need to do is invest in laptops, printers and Internet connection, for accessing the server for issuing stamps on our behalf. There is a provision in the e-stamping policy that the vendors can become authorised collection centres. As the interests of so many stakeholders are involved, we have to go about implementing all the changes in a slow and gradual manner.

In Person

G S Naveen Kumar

Special Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics Managing Director, Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited

In e-Governance

Citizens are the King

W

hat is your view of using Information Technology for bringing improvement in the quality of services that are being made available to the citizens?

At the end of the day, governance is all about effective service delivery to the citizens. Today e-Governance is being recognised as the best way of governance because it makes it possible for government departments to reach out to the people in a more efficient and transparent manner. Today e-Governance is being used in Uttar Pradesh and rest of the country to develop initiatives that give foremost priority to the users. There is the well-known cliché – customer is king. Similarly in e-Governance, the citizens are the king. The initiatives in e-Governance are designed after keeping basic interests of the citizens, or the aam admi, in the focus. So when you go out to design a new e-Governance project, you should have a thorough knowledge of what the needs of the citizens are. For instance, if I have to issue a caste certificate

“Today e-Governance is being recognised as the best way of governance because it makes it possible for government departments to reach out to the people in a more efficient and transparent manner,” says G S Naveen Kumar

then I have to understand the fact that the person who is supposed to get the caste certificate is the kind, but at present this is not happening. At times, the citizen has to run from pillar to post to get the caste certificate. The change is coming through IT. IT is making it possible for us to devise systems of governance that have citizens at the centre.

Services being provided to the citizens through e-Suvidha Kendras Electricity Bill Payment Service Payment of Water Tax for Jal Sansthan u Payment of House Tax for Nagar Nigam u Payment of House Installments for LDA u Railway Ticketing Service u BSNL Bill Payments/Cellone Services u

u

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Earlier you were serving as the DM in Banda district of Uttar Pradesh. During that time the e-Setu project was launched in the district. Please tell us about it.

At times it has been found that e-Governance projects fail to deliver because of lack of capacity building amongst government officials. So the district administration in Banda decided to set up a computer training centre, under the name e-Setu, for providing free computer training to government employees and officials. Under this innovative project, the provided not only the basic computer education to employees but they also apprised them about the internet facility and its usage in daily life. Several employees, including lekhpal, pradhans, employment volunteers, officials of rural development department, gram panchayat officers, teachers and shiksha mitra, workers and volunteers from children development department and employees of health

In Person

department and farmer volunteers from agriculture department had been selected to undergo the computer training.

How was the training centre for e-Setu set up?

For setting up the training centre we received inputs from the e-Governance Society, the Projector Director, Rural Development and Lokwani and few other government departments.

Project Director, Rural Development, served as the nodal officer of the project. The e-Setu project is serving as a bridge between the government employees and the modern technology. Once the employees get fully trained, they become capable of maintaining transparency in their records. Such programmes are being undertaken in all parts of the state. In essence, e-Setu is a bridge to address delay, time consuming and costly public service delivery using technology or online platform.

One major e-Governance initiative that the Government of Uttar Pradesh has undertaken is the e-Suvidha. What kinds of services are being provided under this initiative?

The e-Suvidha has been developed to serve as a one stop interface for citizens to interact with many different government departments. Instead of commuting from one office to another, the citizen can get all his tasks done through a Single Window Clearances from e-Suvidha Kendras.

The project was started in 2006 in Lucknow on a pilot basis. Today there are 31 such centres in Lucknow, all of which operate from 8 AM to 8 PM on all working days, including Sundays and holidays. Citizens can avail any service from any of the e-Suvidha Service Centres across any counter without any jurisdictional limit. All e-Suvidha Service centres accept all forms forms of payments including credit cards. We also have the system of electronic queues at certain centres to avoid rush.

You are currently serving as the Managing Director of Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited. What is the mandate of this organisation?

Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited is wholly owned undertaking of the Uttar Pradesh Government. The mandate of the corporation is to promote Information Technology and Electronics industries in the State of Uttar

Main objectives of Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited To Promote and develop Information Technology and Electronics industries in the state of Uttar Pradesh u To implement and operate the Projects relating to development of IT and Electronics Industries in Uttar Pradesh as per instructions of the State Government and to establish electronic industrial enterprises etc. To undertake setting up of new electronic industrial units and/ or expansion of existing units in part or in full u To Promote research and development in electronics u To provide support to the entrepreneurs, desirous to set up Information Technology & Electronics industries and to act as an Industrial Management and Financial Consultant for them u To prepare Market Survey Report, Project Profiles, Project Study related to electronic products etc. to support electronic industries in different fields u To provide facilities of Testing, Calibration and Standardization u Development and Training to entrepreneurs and Technical Man power u

Success of e-Governance

is directly linked to the

development of Information

Technology systems that are efficient and lean

Activities of Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited • Software Development, Electronic Data Processing System, Data Communication System, Hardware, Software, Networking, Internet, e-Commerce related business work and activities • Business work in the field of Information Technology and its allied services, such as Value Added Information Technology Services, Software Product, eBusiness etc • e- Governance to meet out the target of ‘Smart State’ of the State Government • To provide I.T. consultancy for successful execution of IT related Projects of different Government Departments • Nodal Agency for e-Procurement • To provide Computer Training to the officers and employees of different Government Departments

Pradesh. Presently the corporation is engaged in procuring and supplying Computer Hardware, Development of Computer Software and providing Computer Training to the employees of different Government Departments, Corporations and Institutions in Uttar Pradesh.

I think you will agree that e-Governance today is mostly about having efficient Government to Citizen (G2C) systems. Do you think we are having enough focus on developing such systems in Uttar Pradesh?

Success of e-Governance is directly linked to the development of IT systems that are efficient and lean. If the IT systems that have been developed are too complicated then they will not be effective. They have to be designed in such a way that even the people who are not conversant with digital technologies are able to access the services. The focus has to be on developing systems that enable common citizens to access the much needed services from the government in an efficient and transparent manner..

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Good Governance

e-Governance is Good Governance Modern day Governments have understood the importance of good governance, but good governance is not possible unless there is efficiency and transparency. Both these qualities – efficiency and transparency – can be had through use of solutions from Information Technology. Essentially Information technology is an enabler, it cannot be the substitute for governance, but its effective usage can result in the achievement of fast, accurate and transparent delivery of Government Services

T

he Department of Information Technology and Electronics, Government of Uttar Pradesh, is the nodal department for the development of Information Technology and implementation of various schemes related to e-Governance in the State. Establishment of Information Technology infrastructure is one of the main thrust areas of the department. The other focal area includes the enabling of electronic delivery of key government services to the citizens in an efficient, effective and hasslefree manner.

Centre for e-Governance The Department of Information Technology & Electronics has established the Centre for e-Governance (CeG) in the premises of Uttar Pradesh Development Systems Corporation Ltd (UPDESCO). The CeG is a registered society that acts as a nodal body for the NeGP and comprises of highly skilled officers of the UPDESCO and a team of professional consultants from various domains including technology, finance, change management and programme management. This team works closely with the System Integrators from the private sector and the National Informatics Centre (NIC) to implement the e-Governance and other IT initiatives in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Looking at the behavioural changes and the increasing expectations of the citizens it is

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Sudhir Kumar, Managing Director, Uttar Pradesh Development Systems Corporation Ltd (UPDESCO), Government of Uttar Pradesh the duty of the Government to take measures to satisfy the needs of the people and to provide services in a timely and efficient manner.

This requirement has been very professionally handled by the CeG in tandem with its associates and working partners. The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of the Government of India is being implemented in the State to fulfil the

objective of bringing the Government services closer to citizen homes.

Infrastructure for effective e-Governance The NeGP envisages creation of certain core and support infrastructure which will provide web enabled services for anytime, anywhere, access.

Good Governance

This includes facilities of State Data Centre (SDC), State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and citizen facing outlets, like Common Service Centres (CSCs), to deliver the services.

It is a pleasure to share that Uttar Pradesh has established a state of the art State Data Centre, which is capable of handling the data of various departments of the state government. This SDC serves as a reservoir for data and services belonging to various arms of the state government. It help in consolidating services, applications and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2G, G2C and G2B services.

The State Data Centre is fully functional and is currently handling data of departments like commercial tax, education, police, etc. It holds a huge database related to the scholarship eligibility of around 41 million students. Apart from this trainee teacher’s recruitment, selection of BTC, assistant teachers recruitment, UP Police recruitment are some other applications that are currently being hosted at the SDC. The department of Police, Forest and Basic education share the SDC on a collocation basis. The usage is expected to increase with the launch of e-District application and many more departments are ready to shift their data to the centre.

The State Wide Area Network has been established to provide connectivity to the Government offices. This is a huge network having its backbone in three major cities of Meerut, Gorakhpur and Lucknow. All the District Head Quarters are connected with this network and the connectivity goes down to the Block level in every district.

The horizontal connectivity is provided to various departments at the district level. There are 885 points of presence in this network. The network has the capabilities of voice, data and video transfer thus saving a lot of time and effort as compared to the physical movement of information. The current capability is of 2MBPS which is expected to be increased to 10 MBPS in the days to come.

Providing services to the citizens The delivery of services requires outlets that are closer to citizen homes. This objective has been taken care by entering into Public Private Partnership with three major corporate bodies through the process of open tender. The state has been divided into seven zones and these companies have been given a mandate to establish one Common Service Centre for every six revenue villages. A total of around 16,000 such centres are functional throughout the state out of the mandated 17,909 centres in total. These

Main Objectives of UPDESCO

t To build up a reservoir of expertise and experience and render aid and advise for a fee or otherwise to different government departments, agencies, institutions and others in the formulation and implementation of development plans, introduction of modern management practices and collection, processing, storage and retrieval of relevant qualitative and quantitative information. t To undertake on its own or in collaboration with or through other Organizations, Agencies, Institutes or individual, exploratory, diagnostic, evaluatory, analytical and analytical and techno-economic studies, pilot Action-Research Projects, and surveys pertaining to various projects, sectors, or areas of development. t To undertake and/or assist the preparation of integrated plans and the monitoring of their implementation. t To organise, install, manage and operate data handling and computation services of any description whatsoever independently or in collaboration with others, which in the opinion of the Company, are likely to assist different government departments, organisations, institutions and others. t To promote the dissemination of ideas and techniques relevant to the accelerated and efficient management.

centres are manned by a local village level entrepreneur who has the required IT skills thus creating a job opportunity at the village level. The role of the CSC is not just limited to delivery of government services; they are also instrumental in delivering value added business services like insurance, telemedicine, financial inclusion, direct transfer of subsidy, election cards and education to the people at large. The list of services is bound to increase as various other initiatives are being undertaken by the department for the services that are in the implementation phase.

The State Services Delivery Gateway which is the portal for providing the government services was inaugurated by the Hon’ble Chief Minister on 1st August, 2012. This portal is currently providing 26 government services to the citizens through the CSC and Lokvani Centres established across the state. The number of applications received online has been more than 10 million till now and the rate of disposal has been astonishing, at around 97 percent. To achieve this success the CeG has undertaken rigorous training and sensitisation efforts of the officers in various departments involved in the delivery of services. The Capacity Building efforts are becoming a regular feature and specialized training in e-Governance domain is being imparted to middle and senior level officers of the government.

Research & Development Besides acting as a nodal body for implemen-

tation of IT and e-Governance initiatives, UPDESCO has also been instrumental in research and development activities in the IT domain. The officers of UPDESCO form the part of e-Mission teams of various departments thus providing them consultancy and expert advice. The projects of departments like Transport, Food and Civil Supplies, Commercial Tax, Urban Local Bodies, Education, Mid Day Meal, Prison and MNREGA are being run with the active participation of UPDESCO. Some other projects include e-Tendering, Voter ID, Computerization of Lucknow University, Bundelkhand University, Polytechnics and ITIs. The e-Classroom project for the Gautam Buddha Technical University has been completed besides e-Learning portal implementation for the technical students.

The future of the country is bright and the level of implementation of IT infrastructure projects is in tandem with the Government vision of making a better future for the citizens.

The e-District project is under implementation across the State. This shall help the better delivery of services to the people at large. The government of Uttar Pradesh is also taking the initiative for creating IT Cities in the state. There is the project for development of Software Technology Parks and there is scheme to distribute free laptops to the students. All these schemes of the government of Uttar Pradesh will lead to the development of new capabilities for bringing inclusive development for the benefit of the people of the state.

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e-Gov e-Gov in in Districts Districts

EASYGAS & KISAN Project in Gonda Dr Roshan Jacob, District Magistrate, Gonda, Uttar Pradesh EASYGAS EASYGAS is a G2C & B2C application designed to bring accessibility and answerability into the company-consumer interface. It arises from the need to build a transparent system for an accurate statement of LPG stock position with the various distribution agencies, and its distribution in the district.

The consumers can now book their LPG cylinders at the Common Service Centres (CSC), in the villages without the need to travel to the office of the agency. The CSC issues a receipt against each such booking, which entitles the customer to get a home delivery of the cylinder on a particular due date facilitated by the agency. This due date is defined by the administration in consultation with the Gas Agencies taking into account all government holidays and other requisitions.

The monitoring mechanism for the district

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administration has been strengthened too, with the generation of pendency reports that reflects the status of cylinders delivered within time and after the due date. Various reports such as customer-wise pendency reports, date-wise delivery and default reports, agency wise delivery/ default reports and CSC delivery report allows the monitoring at stakeholder level and gives an insight to the administration to plug leakages.

KISAN KISAN is a G2C application envisaged as a dynamic interface providing a full spectrum of services to the farmers, right from the sowing of seeds to the sale of crops. The system also provides SMS/Voice SMS based alert service to the subscribed stakeholders.

The registration process is mandatory for all farmers seeking benefits from the project.

The process is simple, a farmer just needs

Dr Roshan Jacob to visit CSC/Lokvani kiosk and fill up the necessary details to get registered. After successful registration, a unique KISAN code is provided to the farmer by the CSC. The information is recorded in the database on a self-declaration basis.

Any farmer wanting to test his farm soil has to approach the nearest CSC with the soil sample. The CSC operator tests the sample with the help of soil testing kit. The values obtained are entered on the portal along with the details of crops for which fertilizer recommendation is sought. The system based on an analytical tool generates the Soil Health Card for the selected crop area with the fertilizer requirements.

Farmers willing to book the fertilizers in advance have to provide a cropping pattern and choice of point-of-purchase to the CSC operator. KISAN software automatically calculates the necessary amount of each type of fertilizer.

Thereafter, the agriculture department allots the fertilizer, subject to availability of stocks.

The software informs the farmer - by means of Voice SMS/Text SMS - of the allotment of stock so that they can collect the same.

e-Gov in Districts

Benefits of EASYGAS and KISAN Impact on CSCs While providing services to the citizens in a user friendly and hassle free manner, the system has also had tremendous impact on making CSC financially viable.

To the CSC owner, the income from these two services has given them a much needed boost and now more and more CSCs are coming up in the district.

Improved efficiency By means of this initiative there was a notable increase in the efficiency and effectiveness of delivery of gas cylinders in EASYGAS and allotment of agriculture inputs, disposal of applications for agriculture equipment subsidy, agriculture loan etc. in KISAN.

Other facilities to framers The farmer can apply for any type of agriculture loan through the CSC. The CSC operator enters all the information in prescribed format. The district coordinator of the concerned bank checks his account at the portal and after a preliminary scrutiny; forwards all the applications to the concerned branch

for verification. Thereafter after verification, he will update application status at portal as having been sanctioned or rejected, and in case of rejection, give reason for the same. The application will be marked as default after 30 days as per RBI guidelines.

Any Farmer wanting to get agriculture equipment subsidy can apply online through

Milestones EASYGAS u Vanishing queues – steep drop in ‘over-the-counter’ booking u Transparent procedure and adequate supply reduce possibility of black marketing and hoarding. System. Alert on multiple bookings prevents diversion of domestic gas by commercial consumers. u Both, the district administration & citizen get accurate information about stock position, supply and deficit of this essential commodity. u Ensures delivery within stipulated time to urban and rural consumers from the preidentified distribution points u Generated employment for more than 260 technical persons KISAN u Empowering farmers with technology. u Bottom-up approach to collect, calculate and aggregate fertilizer/seed requirement with available data of crop pattern and fertility. u Networked supply chain of Co-operative Societies, Fertilizer Dealers, Departments and Farmers. u Ensures that Kisan Credit Card applications are processed within the time and in strict adherence to RBI norms. u Service-specific receipt generated by CSC allows farmers to track their request. u Provides transparent MIS for wheat/paddy procurement and various reports enable effective monitoring by the administration. u In case of natural calamities like floods, droughts etc. relief can be directly transferred into the farmer’s Bank a/c.

Consumer Satisfaction Both the packages offer a single-window solution, located not in a government office but in the friendly neighbourhood CSC, which to the rural consumer is the face of government. The consumer gets detailed information through the IVRS/ SMS/voice call systems in his local language. Number of visits, uncertainty etc. have reduced and the project has helped transform the villages into knowledge hubs that by plugging into global networks bring heightened opportunities/ prosperity to their people.

any CSC without repeated visits to the agriculture department or persuasion/gratification of middle level functionaries. Farmers can track status of their respective application and the district administration/Departments can check the demand & monitor the disbursal system through the portal.

Farmers who want to sell their crop at Government Purchase Centre can now book the date and centre of their choice through any CSC using the Crop Procurement Management System. The farmer just needs to provide the quantity, date of sale & name of purchase centre to CSC. The availability for desired centre and time slot is checked online and informed to the farmer using SMS. Once the time is allotted the purchase centre is bound to purchase the booked quantity on the booked date and update the procurement details which is monitored by the district administration.

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In Person

S B Singh

Deputy Director General & State Informatics Officer National Informatics Centre, Uttar Pradesh

Providing Complete IT based Solutions

N

IC is running a state of the art Network Operations Centre in Lucknow. Please tell us about the work that is being done through this centre.

The NIC Network Operations Centre located at Yojna Bhawan manages multiple IT network of the state government. One of the most important networks is the Sachivalay Campus Area Network (SCAN) that intertwines 10 government buildings over Optical Fibre Cables including Governor House, Assembly House, Chief Minister’s Office and all the secretariat buildings. It has a little over 15000 nodes and provides about 10000 email accounts to facilitate smooth communication among officials of the state government. Along with SCAN, NIC NOC manages National Knowledge Network which is a multi-gigabit pan-India network that enables scientists, researchers and students to work closely.

More than 100 educational institutes in the state like IITs, IIMs, Central & State Universities, Research & Scientific Organizations are already connected to this high speed network offering 10 Gbps and more.

NIC State NOC is also connected to the UP State Wide Area Network which is the backbone network for all e-Governance initiatives of the state providing connectivity right up to the block level through the 885 PoPs (Point of Presence) located in all the districts, tehsils & blocks. The NIC NOC is equipped with the latest security infrastructure and monitors the network traffic 24x7.

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“One of the major strengths of NIC lies in the area of producing quality software at low cost. Since NIC is working at the grass root levels of the development administration, its expertise is not limited only to software engineering but also lies in the area of implementing it in various sectors of the economy,” says S B Singh. In conversation with Kartik Sharma

In Person

You are also having a data centre in Lucknow. What is the capacity of the data centre and what kind of work is being done here?

Spread across 25 hundred sq.ft, the NIC-UP data centre is central hub of e-Governance activities in the state. Built with 102 servers and 60 TB of storage space, the data centre caters to the needs of 80+ state government departments, 200+ government/educational institutions, various central and state government bodies like Election Commission, UGC, CBI etc. The two-tier Data Centre manages, maintains and upgrades data for about 450 databases and 200+ websites pertaining to various departmental projects of the state and central government. The Data Centre also provides value added web services such as web design and development, web hosting, promotion of websites, enhancement of web sites & training. Hosting infrastructure is being provided to a large of e-governance projects for critical e-Governance applications of the state including Land Records, Treasury, eDistrict, e-Procurement, Exam results, online counselling to Admission to various professional courses etc.

Office Automation Being the Information Technology wing of the Government of India, NIC regularly undertakes the job of computerization of Government Departments, Ministries and the Offices of other related organizations. Complete Office Automation is carried out, right from conducting software requirement specification and site preparation to procuring and installing all necessary hardware and customised software. NIC endeavours to provide complete MIS Support to the User organisation and keeps updating the Users on their information requirements from time to time.

It also implements Projects on a turnkey basis, wherein NIC provides the services at no profit (cost plus) , thus ensuring enormous savings to the Users as compared to what would be charged by the commercial hardware and software consultants.

The automation of Government Offices, carried out by NIC over time, has resulted in a substantial transformation of the decision making process from the usual typing-oriented methods, to hi-tech word processing , with concomitant benefits in the form of improved staff productivity , better quality documents and faster dissemination of information. The Office Automation also includes providing electronic mail services to the Users, ideal for achieving a fast pace of communication and lessening the cumbersome postal delays.

These days scholarships in Uttar Pradesh are being disbursed though IT based systems. How do you view this project? ‘e-Scholarship, Uttar Pradesh’ is a first of its kind project in the country to have used IT based

initiative for electronic disbursement of scholarship to around 396 lakh students belonging to the weaker sections of the society in the state.

It is one of the key initiatives of rural e-Governance and pro-poor programmes, which has goes a long way in bringing socioeconomic equality along with educational transformation in totality through transparency in disbursement and speedy transfer of scholarship to the students especially in the rural areas. The project was initiated in 2008 as a project of hope for children, upholding their right-toeducation and over the years it has transformed into a powerful tool for the government and the people to plan and monitor the impact of scholarships on the education system in the state.

The web based solution provides a common platform to various stakeholders of the system and has helped the government in making substantial saving by minimizing frauds and misappropriations.

What kind of technological architecture are you using for the e-Scholarship project?

It is based on the latest centralised processing architecture and ensures 24x7 availability of information through the portal. The project uses the inherent strength of Internet and its excellent outreach and feedback capabilities for ushering in transparency in the system. It has streamlined the distribution of scholarships across the state and helps in timely disbursal of funds with auto-generation of departmentDecember 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

NIC State NOC is also connected to the UP State Wide Area Network which is the backbone network for all e-Governance initiatives of the state wise scholarship demand for each district and school and has considerably reduced the chances of fraudulent schools/ colleges claiming scholarships. New-age banking systems have been integrated & ‘no-frill accounts’ of students with zero balance facility have been provided by the banks as a major step towards financial inclusion, while existing government processes have been simplified and made easier for the students, schools & general public.

The Government of Uttar Pradesh has taken the landmark initiative of providing the necessary certificates to the citizens through the online medium. Please provide us your views on the project.

Till today we have issued around 1.5 Crore digitally signed certificates, which are accepted everywhere. In fact, it is possible for someone who has received a digitally signed certificate to also apply for a manual version of the same certificate. But today most institutions prefer to have the digital certificate, as the digital data is easier to cross check and verify through the Internet.

NIC has been playing a leading role in many e-Governance projects in Uttar Pradesh. Please provide an overview of some of the major projects?

The project running successfully at Regional Transport Office (RTO), Lucknow, is ready to be launched at twenty-five other sites of the state in a phased manner. Except for issuing Driving Licenses, the project has automated all major activities of the Transport Department of Uttar Pradesh, viz., vehicle’s Registration, Permit, Enforcement and Taxation activities.

Automation at the office of State Transport Authority (STA) at the state Transport Depart-

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ment’s headquarters in Lucknow, where interstate & inter-region road permits are issued, as well as computerization at the office of Transport Commissioner, have also been initiated.

NIC has successfully tested in district Etawah, dissemination of land records information through the net. Another pilot project of integrating “Record of Right” and cadastral village map is underway and very soon the farmers can access village maps as well as the related land

records data on the net. Board of Revenue of Uttar Pradesh also has plans to distribute copies of Khatauni (Record of Right) to the farmers through the computers being installed at tehsil headquarters in the state. NIC UP State Unit and its District centres are providing total IT solution for the project. We are also contributing in the Election Management System, Uniform Payroll System, Budget Computerization and many other projects.

www.stpi.in

Head Quarter:- 9th Floor, NDCC-II Building, Jai Singh Road(Opp. Jantar Mantar), New Delhi-110 001Visit us at

Other Centres:- Lucknow, Lucknow Kanpur Kanpur, Allahabad Proposed Centres:- Varanasi and Agra

U.P has always been a proactive state, which has today made it into the most sought after IT destination in the country. In U.P as well as in India, Noida takes the lead as the most preferred IT destination for its year round congenial climate, robust infrastructure, excellent social values, educational institutes of excellence and world class health facility.

STPI in Uttar Pradesh:

•Statutory Services •Data Communication Services •Co-location Services/Value Added Services •Project management & Consultancy Services •Incubation Inc bation Services Ser ices

Service Portfolio:

STPI with its 53 Centres spread across the length and breadth of the country is vigorously engaged in promoting the software export with wide range of services ranging from Statutory Services (STP / EHTP Scheme) to provisioning of Broadband Data communication services and providing plug n play Incubation facility to the Software (IT/ITES) industry.

(Department of IT, Ministry of Communication & IT, Govt. of India)

SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGY PARKS OF INDIA

In Person

Sandeep Salunke

Inspector General of Police (Technical Services) Government of Uttar Pradesh

IT for better

law enforcement

T

he Technical Services Directorate has been founded for taking all the necessary steps for the modernisation of police forces in Uttar Pradesh. Please give us an overview of the work that is being done through the department.

The Technical Services Directorate comprises of Police Motor Transport Workshops, Police Computer Centre and Forensic Science Laboratories, Fingerprint bureau and State Crime Record Bureau. The entire range of technological services that are needed by these five key departments of police is being provided by the Technical Services Directorate. The Founded in 1988, the Technical Services Directorate has made substantial progress in modernisation and systematisation of units under its supervision. Among other things, the Department is also responsible for the development and maintenance of the Uttar Pradesh police website - http://uppolice.gov.in. This is a very different kind of police website, in the sense that it provides a whole range of services and information to the people. The website has many links, every link relates to some part of the organisation.

Hosted on a well secure environment of NIC UP web server, the Uttar Pradesh Police website works as a police public interface, it allows any grieved person to send his complaints through email. The email can be sent directly to the concerned official or to the DIG complaint cell of DGP UP. Citizens can also go to the Press Room section and find the reports of any incident that have been published in the media. The information of various police units its working, address, telephone numbers, information of new events, etc., is available on the portal. All the departments and wings of the Uttar

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A BTech in Computer Science from IIT Delhi, Sandeep Salunke is the man behind the new featurerich website of Uttar Pradesh police

In Person

Pradesh Police can upload their relevant information directly on the portal. The future initiatives include many more information and activities online along with recruitment applications, tender applications, FIR progress reports, etc.

There is also the initiative of mapping all the police stations in UP on the GIS platform. How does this system work?

Today most people have access to smartphones, so the idea behind this project is to enable people to reach the nearest police station, in case of any need, by using the Maps feature in their smartphone. All the police stations in Uttar Pradesh, even those located in remote areas, have been placed on the GIS platform. On the home page of the Uttar Pradesh police website, you will find a feature – “Locate Your Police Station.” It has two drop down lists to help you select the district and the police station is in your vicinity.

Once you have selected your police station, you will be taken to a new page where exact route to the police station is given. This feature can help a person, who is new to any area; locate a police station directly and quickly. You also get the information regarding the police station in charge, his phone number and other details, so that you can also contact them through phone and summon help, if necessary.

You are also using technology to manage the large number of people who are employed in Uttar Pradesh Police.

Another area where we are using technology in a big way has to do with human resource management. The State of Uttar Pradesh is home to a huge force of more than 2.5 lakhs. We have given a unique number to each member of the force.

The moment any person joins the force, they get a unique number. This unique number is linked to their entire data and it continues to be with them for as long as they are in service. Linked to the unique number is an electronic file on which every single piece of information concerning the police official is uploaded on a continuous basis.

This is very helpful in man power management and in taking other important decisions like postings of policemen. We have had inquiries from some neighbouring states who want to replicate the system in their own states. The fact is that now Uttar Pradesh Police is now on the forefront of using new technologies to bring improvement to all areas of its operations.

CCTNS: Benefits to Citizens u

u

u

u u u u

Online registration of complaints (not FIR): Citizens can register their complaints online.

Citizens have to get themselves registered (through Online Portal) and they can log a complaint to any Police Station or higher office.

Track the progress, information by SMS at each stage: Citizens can track the progress of their complaint/ service request through a unique number which will be sent to their mobile set during registration of complaint/ Service request Apply for Verifications: Employee, Domestic Help, Tenant, etc: Citizens have access to certain Service requests like Employee, Domestic Help, Tenant, etc which can be requested online.

Registration: Senior Citizen Senior citizens can get themselves registered at PS since they are most vulnerable to crime.

Missing Persons, Unidentified Dead bodies’ databases will be on the internet Missing persons, Unidentified Dead bodies’ details will be available online to all citizens so that any citizen can view the details though internet.

You have also started a Heinous Crime Monitoring system, which is completely online. Please tell us about it.

The Heinous Crime Monitoring System (HCMS) is the new software that can be accessed through the Uttar Pradesh Police website for online supervision of probe into cases of heinous crimes as well as to analyse the competency of Investigating Officer (IO) in the state. Developed by Uttar Pradesh Development Systems Corporation Limited (UPDESCO), the software called Heinous Crime Monitoring System, stores the details of the investigations of all cases that carry punishment of more than 7 years, like murder and rape. It was old practice that the officers took all heinous cases as ‘Special Report’ (SR) case and made a separate register for it. The investigation into these SR cases were regularly supervised by respective circle officers, additional SPs and even by district police chiefs so necessary guidelines could be given from time to time to the Investigating Officer (IO) for proper and fair probe. The HCMS software not only helps the SPs in districts, DIGs in ranges and IGs in zones, but also the officers sitting in DGP headquarters where earlier there used to be no such record about the progress of cases in distant districts. Instead of calling the SPs, the officers sitting in DGP office can directly see the progress of any case. This also helps in effective redressal of complaints being received in the DGP office about the investigation process.

Who is allowed to access the HCMS software?

The software can be accessed by the SPs, DIGs

and IGs and officers in DGP headquarters who have been given the user name and passwords, either through the web address (URL) or the website of UP police, on any internet connection. The information in the software is updated from the offices of all the SPs using the files of special cases maintained there for all the heinous cases in the district. The SPs’ offices update all the significant details of the case like names of accused persons, name of the complainant, sections under which case has been lodged and gist of the incident.

They also update the progress in the case diary like when police visited the scene of crime, when were the statements of the accused or witnesses recorded along with the gist of their statements.

We can track all the aspects of the investigation.

If there is any delay in conducting the medical examination of the victim, the officers can detect that. We have the data for the cases lodged after March 16, 2012 and currently the software helps in monitoring more than 4,000 murder cases and more than 1,300 rape cases.

How do you see the progress of the CCTNS project in Uttar Pradesh?

Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) aims to connect 15000 Police Stations and Higher offices across India and facilitate collection, storage, retrieval, analysis, transfer and sharing of data and information at the police station and between the police station and the State Headquarters and the Central Police Organizations. In Uttar Pradesh we have completed the Phase I of the project, and currently we are at the Phase II. December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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e-Governance

Jan Suvidha Kendra Raj Shekhar, District Magistrate, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh

T

he JSK is an attempt to provide efficient and responsive platform for handling public grievances. It is based on Service Oriented Architecture and seeks to improve transparency in grievance redressal procedures and increase the efficiency of existing office staff so that people can have access to desired services in a timely manner.

Project for serving the citizens

Applauding the excellent effort made towards e-Governance in the country, District Jhansi has been awarded, “CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Award 2009-2010 Award of Excellence under District category

The Jan Suvidha Kendra (JSK) was first started in Jhansi district of Uttar Pradesh, and since then it has been replicated in many other districts.

The project has led to the creation of a platform

‘ NASSCOM Social Innovation Honours 2010’ from NASSCOM foundation under “ICT led innovation in e-Governance” category in recognition of passion and commitment for e-governance and for aiming for the highest standard of excellence to help bring the government closer to the citizen

The Jan Suvidha Kendra aims to provide services in a professional and citizen friendly environment by: • Saving precious time, cost & labour of people visiting Officers/ office time and again for getting information, lodging complaints & inquiring their status, etc.

• Reducing the response time of the concerned department and increase in their accountability and efficiency • Streamlining the functioning of office using the latest tools available with Information & Communication Technology like SMS and internet • Reduce duplication of efforts, thereby improving the efficiency and productivity of manpower at the office setup • Ensuring constant and effective communication throughout the process of disposal of grievance

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for contact less, quick, responsive, cost-time-labour saving, easily accessible 24X7 service for speedy and qualitative disposal of public grievances. The four most important requirements essential for any e-governance initiative to be successful are Reliability, Replicability, Sustainability and Security. The JSK project fulfils all these four requirements.

Features I. Mobile / basic phone based G2C e-governance initiative for redressing public grievances effectively.

• For bridging the digital divide and communication gap, the most potent, reliable, easily accessible, time-cost-labour effective platform is telephone (Mobile/ Landline).

• This project has effectively used the best features of telephone like call features, SMS based feature, Internet browsing feature, etc., for effective redressal of the grievances of common man.

II. Call recording feature In JSK each and every incoming call and outgoing call is automatically recorded by

e-Governance

the voice logger software, which saves the complete call conversation with telephone number, date, time and file name.

This unique feature is useful for: • Extracting more details regarding the grievance registered at any point of time.

• It also ensures extending warm welcome and positive response by the staff / officers deployed at Jhansi Jan Suvidha Kendra.

• It is very useful for filtering and sorting out, fallacious and false complaints.

III. Round the clock availability of services The services of JSK are available round the clock (24x7x365) so that no aggrieved person goes unattended at any point of time.

IV. Effective use of SMS services JSK has effectively demonstrated the beneficial use of Short Message Services (SMS) feature of mobile telephone for: • Intimating the aggrieved person his/her grievance number and other details • Intimating the concerned department officer regarding details of grievance through SMS for quick and positive response.

• Intimating the aggrieved person regarding disposal details through SMS as soon as the grievance is disposed within the specified time.

• Intimating the concerned officer regarding disposal of the grievance pending with him.

• Intimating the administrative officers of JSK and all the Head of Departments of district every day about total grievance status of district / department.

• When any grievance is shifted from normal pending status to a default status, Internet generated automatic SMS is sent to aggrieved person and officer concerned intimating the present status and to clear the pendency as soon as possible.

V. 100 percent cross verification of disposal details of every grievance Each and every disposal detail is cross verified by the officers and staff deployed at JSK by calling the aggrieved person, intimating him regarding the disposal details and also taking his feedback in this regard, thus ensuring time bound effective and qualitative disposal of grievance. In case of dissatisfaction of the complainant the concerned officer is asked to look into it again accordingly.

VI. Ensuring constant and effective communication Throughout the process of receiving, registering, intimating, monitoring, disposing grievances and cross verification of disposed grievances JSK staff keeps itself personally in touch both with the aggrieved person and concerned officer through active call and SMS VII. Regular monitoring at highest level Pending status, default status of grievances, disposal quality of grievances registered, is being monitored on daily and weekly basis by the Chairman and the Administrators of JSK. The concerned officials talk to the complainants on regular basis by phone.

VIII. Strengthening the Right To Information Act (RTI)2005 The complete data (aggrieved person’s personal detail, contact number, brief summary of grievance, the department/ officer responsible for disposal, disposal details, etc.,) is available on the website of Jan Suvidha Kendra for administrative purposes

Special Feature Radwin

Solutions for enabling delivery of Internet & e-learning to schools in rural India RADWIN, portfolio of point-to-multipoint and point-to-point solutions was chosen by the Education and Research Network (ERNET), part of the Indian Government’s Ministry of Communications & Information Technology.

ERNET sought to establish a wireless network that would drive connectivity to 250 schools in India’s Ajmer & Jaipur districts, enabling e-learning, Internet, intranet and other applications. V-Link Systems was in charge of project design and implementation.

RADWIN 5000 point-to-multipoint and RADWIN 2000 point-to-point solutions deliver over 200 Mbps at long ranges and incorporate advanced technologies such as OFDM, MIMO and a unique air interface to mitigate interference.

The wireless radios deliver high throughput and operate in extreme temperatures, over-water and non line-of-sight (NLOS) conditions. Extremely

simple to install and maintain, RADWIN’s systems are up and running within hours.

According to BB Tiwari, Director of Projects, ERNET India “We wanted to drive connectivity to hundreds of schools. Fiber or copper was one option, but considering the tough terrain we realized wireless was our best choice. After extensive field testing we chose RADWIN systems because they were the only systems that met our rigorous performance standards, beating competitor solutions in terms of price, reliability and technical specifications. With RADWIN’s radios we can realize our mission of spreading connectivity and e-learning to remote areas throughout India.”

“RADWIN’s solutions were the ideal fit for this large-scale project, enabling Ernet to rapidly establish a 100 Mbps backbone network with redundancy. The RADWIN 5000 point-to-multipoint systems deliver 8 Mbps capacity for up to 25 Km

in many locations, exceeding customer expectations. Compact and robust, RADWIN 2000 and RADWIN 5000 systems operate seamlessly in the Ajmer desert area where temperatures reach up to 50 degrees Celsius. Moreover, Ernet can manage all RADWIN links via a single NMS from one location.” said RVK Krishna, V-Link Systems. “We’re proud to have been chosen for this major project,” said Maurice Illouz, GM, RADWIN APAC. “Our solutions enable widespread connectivity to any point, helping to drive Internet and e-learning to areas that have hitherto had no access to communications technology. We are proud to be a part of such a major project and will continue to work with Ernet as they expand to additional locations.”

December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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in person

Prabhu Narayan Singh

Managing Director, Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd

Making Government Services Accessible

B

to Common Man

efore becoming the Managing Director Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam, you served as the District Magistrate of Ghazipur. In this post you played an important role in successful implementation of the State e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway. Tell us about it.

The Government in the Centre and in various States aims to make all government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through the Common Service Centres and thus ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability in the delivery of such services to the common man. The State e-Governance Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) can simplify this task by acting as a standards-based messaging switch and providing

Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam • Functioning started in June, 2003 • Consists of 21 Districts divided into 5 Zones- Agra, Aligarh, Jhansi, Kanpur, Banda for better management.

• Total system capacity was 2369 MVA in 2003-04 which is increased to 6689 MVA in 2012-13.

• In 2003-04 Input Energy was 8447 MUs which increased to 17571 MUs by 2012-13, thereby increase of 108 percent.

• Revenue realized in 2003-04 was `1040 Crores which has gone up to `3399 Crores in 2012-13, substantial increase of 227 percent.

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“In the day when we have access to such advanced Information Technology, there is no reason for people to travel to various government departments and stand in queue for hours for getting the certificates or forms that they need,” says Prabhu Narayan Singh. In conversation with Kartik Sharma

seamless interoperability and exchange of data across various departments. During my tenure as the DM of Ghazipur we successfully implemented the SSDG project. It was a major responsibility over my shoulders to spearhead the campaign for e-Governance. We had to take into account the hardware and the software that had to be in place for successful execution of the project. We were able to complete all the tasks well before the deadline.

What is your view of the e-Governance projects that have been launched in Ghazipur?

While I was serving as District Magistrate, our key objective was to create the system for successfully issuing digitally signed certificates and e-Forms. In the day when we have access to such advanced Information Technology, there is no

reason for people to travel to various government departments and stand in queue for hours for getting the certificates or forms that they need. We now have Sahaj CSC centres in the rural areas and Lokvani in urban areas to provide people online access to various services from the government.

During my tenure as DM, I conducted many meetings with the owners of Lokvani /Sahaj centres to sensitise them and create public awareness in their respective regions. Several awareness campaigns to educate the public about the online services that have become available were also undertaken. To ensure smooth functioning of all the e-Governance initiatives, we ensured that broadband connection was available to all the Tehsils. The officials in the district were provided with laptops and wireless routers. The funds for these materials came from the Lokvani fund.

Tell us about Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam, where you currently serve as Managing Director. What is the mission and vision of the organisation?

Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam is responsible for power distribution in the 21 districts of Uttar Pradesh. DVVNL covers an area of 31,34.95 Sq. Kms. with 4,38,42,782 population. The Discom covers in its jurisdiction the areas of District Agra, Mathura, Mainpuri, Aligarh, Hathras, Etawah, Etah, Farrukhabad, Firozabad, Kanpur City, Kanpur rural, Banda, Jhansi, Kannauj, Auraiya, Jaulan Urai, Hamirpur, Mahoba, Lalitpur, Chitrakoot, Kanshiram Nagar. Our mission and vision is to make Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd. as one of the best managed utility corporations in Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd. and to provide to access electricity to everyone in the zones. I would also like to tell you that today you can pay your electricity bills online in Uttar Pradesh. The link for online bill payment is located at the top of the home page of Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam.

In Person

Depa rtme nt of eIND IT & E IA 20 lectro 13 in nics s Hyde tall a rabad t

ation ing orpor C s s, Min ic ctron tronic c le bad le E a E r h gy & Hyde rades lo P in o r n 3 a 201 Utt Tech ager, INDIA ation l Man form the e a n r t I e a , y , n r ta desh ty Ge Secre r Pra Depu cipal f Utta mar, in r o u P t K , n n ee me dan : Prav overn h Nan rgy, G L to R Jiwes e h n it E f ed, w es o Limit Sourc ional it d d &A

Praveen Kumar

Deputy General Manager, Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited

Promoting IT &

Y

Electronics in Uttar Pradesh ou have been associated with Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited from a long time. How has your experience of working with organization been?

I have had a very positive period at the Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited. I have enjoyed the time that I have spent here, and I think I have been able to make some contributions towards promotion of IT in the state. The Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited is a Company Registered under the Companies Act, 1956. It came into being in 1974. This Corporation is wholly owned undertaking of the Uttar Pradesh Government.

Today we are seeing lot of eagerness from the State Government for promoting IT industry in the State. What contribution can Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited make in this area?

This Corporation was setup with the objective of promoting Information Technology and Electronics industries in the State of Uttar Pradesh. The corporation is presently engaged in procuring and supplying Computer Hardware, development of computer software and in providing Computer Training to the employees of Government Departments/ Corporations/

Institutions through self and empanelled Business Associates. Besides this, the Corporation is also nominated as a Nodal Agency for implementation of various projects and schemes that are devised by the Government from time to time.

Uttar Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited has played a pivotal role in the State Government’s scheme of distributing free laptops. Please tell us about it.

The scheme of distributing free laptop distribution was a great responsibility over the shoulders of Department of IT & Electronics as well to UPLC. We made sure that all the process related to tender goes smooth. We also made sure that the quality of free laptops to be provided to the students was up to the mark. We are happy to say that it has come out as a successful initiative for decreasing the digital divide among the people. We will continue with our efforts Praveen Kumar helping the Government in Deputy General fulfill its agenda of promoting Manager, Uttar digital literacy in the State by Pradesh Electronics Corporation Limited distribution of devices and other means.

December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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SeMT

Infrastructure for Efficient Service Delivery Nagendra Singhal, Head – State e-Governance Mission Team (SeMT), Government of Uttar Pradesh

E

fficient mechanism of service delivery to the citizens from various Government departments is important for sustained economic development.

The emergence of the Information Technology has affected both the role and functions of the Government. While undertaking traditional functions, Government is now also expected to launch initiatives for harnessing the power of Information Technology and driving the change towards better quality of life. Information Technology has been instrumental in changing the way in which the Government operates for ensuring efficient service delivery to the citizens.

Mammoth efforts have been made for the complete development of the State by extensive use of IT within the process of Governance for providing better citizen services and for enhancing efficiency, transparency and accountability of Government departments with the vision of “Make all Government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs to realise the basic needs of the common man�.

Creating new Infrastructure A large number of e-Governance projects are being conceptualised, designed and developed, implemented and maintained in the State. 885 points of presence have been established to provide internet connectivity up to block level.

Now State is planning to upgrade the current bandwidth being provided. State Data Centre (SDC) has been established to work as central reservoir and shared infrastructure for appli-

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Nagendra Singhal

SeMT

Rise of Information Technology in Uttar Pradesh Initiatives from Department of IT & Electronics The Department of Information Technology and Electronics, Government of Uttar Pradesh, is the nodal department for the development of IT as well as the implementation of various e-Governance projects in the State. It is the responsibility of the department to enable electronic delivery of key Government services to the citizens in an efficient, effective, transparent and hassle-free manner. This entails backend automation of departments for digitisation of their records, provision of internet connectivity, creation of IT Infrastructure, etc. Thanks to the initiatives of the Department of Information Technology and Electronics, today Uttar Pradesh is being looked as the state where many effective e-Governance initiatives have been launched.

Role of State e-Governance Mission Team, Uttar Pradesh For providing technical support to the policy and decision-making process and ensuring effectiveness in the overall management of e-Governance implementations, the State e-Governance Mission Team (SeMT) has been formed in the State. There are ten professionals deployed in SeMT from domains such as Finance, Change, Program and Technology Management. This team is providing it’s expertise in the area of Business Process Reengineering (BPR), DPR Preparation, Bid Process Management for various e-Governance Projects such as State Wide Area Network, State Data Centre, CSC, e-District, CCTNS etc.

Ensuring Standardisation, Interoperability, sharing & Linkage with other e-Governance Initiatives With the objective of driving systematic and organised implementation of e-Governance, SeMT is aiming at guiding State departments towards successful implementation of e-Governance initiatives after ensuring standardization and interoperability. SeMT has advised State to consider the option of developing dedicated e-Governance Policy in order to drive the e-Governance efforts in the State more aggressively. It will ensure standardized and seamless implementation of e-governance projects across State, thereby encouraging interoperability, data collaboration, sharing

and linkage with other e-Governance initiative. It shall also lead to standardization of processes and standards. It will advise Departments for usage of Infrastructure created under NeGP at State Level instead of creating their Own Infrastructure. For example, using State Data Centre instead of every department establishing its own data centres.

Capacity Building The changes proposed for implementing e-Governance are likely to be met with a lot of inertia which can’t be overcome by lower and middle level officials working half heartedly to diffuse the technology.

The top level officials have to come in and devise strategies for beating the inertia that plagues many departments. SeMT Team is aggressively working on various capacity building activities such as training, awareness, sensitisation programmes.

In the Year 2012-13, Various training/sensitisation programmes were conducted at the Commissionery and District Level for DMs, ADMs, SDMs, Tehsildars, Lekhpals, BDOs etc. and More than 22000 Government Employees were benefitted from this activity. Apart from this, SeMT in collaboration with NISG conducts STeP training to develop human capacities by imparting training to Senior Officers from State Government. This training aims to familiarize Government Employees with Policy/Regulatory frameworks, RFP Preparation, Government Process Reengineering, Information Security Management in e-Governance project and so on.

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) SeMT is primarily focusing on intensive re-engineering of citizen centric services, redefining the role and functioning of the Departments of State Government. Team is currently working on overhauling the Processes of the Services identified under e-District Project. This exercise is mainly carried out to remove redundancies, optimize resources and rationalization of rules and procedures to bring transparency in working and to enhance efficiency and productivity.

This ultimately brings down the time and cost for process deployment. Through this, Government can also make extensive reuse of processes, patterns, components and design. SeMT is providing it’s expertise to various Departments under State Government and PSUs on BPR.

Today Uttar Pradesh is being looked as the Model State where many effective e-Governance initiatives have been launched cation, services and data from various State Government Departments. For Cloud Enablement of SDC, RFP has been published. 17909 Common Service Centre (CSC) are being established to work as the front end service delivery points for the Government, Business and Social Services to the rural citizens.

Apart from this, State Portal has been launched for achieving interoperability between various e-Governance applications implemented at various levels and geographically dispersed locations. Currently 26 Government Services including Income Certificate, Domicile Certificate, Caste Certificate, Khatauni, etc., are being delivered by using State Portal through CSCs. It has facilitated the citizens by offering better delivery of services in time bound manner and greater convenience.

Popularity of this system is proved by the fact that more than 1 crore applications have been received using State Portal since 01st Aug 2012. e-District Project has already been successfully rolled out in 6 districts, and it is now being rolled out in rest of the 69 Districts. District e-Governance Societies have been established in all the Districts to assist the Implementation Agency in implementation of the Project. This Project aims to deliver high volume citizen centric services through front end delivery channels. Many other Projects are being implemented in the State to reduce digital divide and strengthening Service Delivery in the Government.

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special feature

NIELIT

Promoting IT education in Uttar Pradesh NIELIT Lucknow Centre was inaugurated on October 23, 1996. The institution has been working as a customer-centered IT organisation, its major thrust areas are the following: u Education & Training u Facility Management u Software Development u Total IT Solutions on turnkey basis.

NIELIT Lucknow is equipped with latest servers and machines and is spread across a centrally air-conditioned area of over 12,000 sq ft. The centre has seven fully furnished classrooms, each with a sitting capacity of 40 students. Six classrooms are equipped with multimedia projectors and there are four dedicated laboratories for the students to carry out their practical assignments. A library comprising of more than 2500 books with latest journals and magazines exists for the students to use. The centre also has 4 MBPS leased line.

u

u u

v

v

Achievements •

•

Trained over 12000 students since inception through various IT long terms and short term courses.

Trained over 20000 participants from various government departments to develop basic and specialized IT skills.

Activities Core activities of the Society - Education & Training in the area of Information, Electronics and Communications Technology (IECT) - are different from other educational programmes of similar nature, in scope and quality, in the following aspects:

46

e-governace solutions by way of extending the technical support.The key projects being undertaken are in Transport sector, Health Sector and Rural road sector etc.

u Highly flexible programme

v

with consistent and timely updation of Course Curricula to conform to industry needs, so that the students graduating from the Society should not only find employment but also be sought after by the Industry.

Industry participation in the formulation and running of programmes, particularly for imparting hands-on-experience.

Latest Technology is used in all operations of the Society.

Regular feedback from customer i.e students and Industry.

NIELIT Lucknow has signed an agreement with Financial Development Corporation, Govt of UP to provide training to candidates belonging to SC /ST free of cost.

NIELIT Lucknow has trained 5700 officers of sales tax department, UP in 2012-13 in association with our accredited centers in all over UP. NIELIT Lucknow has trained 700 officers of O/o Director General of Resettlement, Ministry of Defence in the year 2011-12 and 2012-13.

Facility Management Dr Ashwini Kumar Sharma Managing Director, National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT)

v

v v

v

Summer Training v NIELIT Lucknow conducts special batches during summer to impart training to students of B.Tech/BE/ MCA and other regular courses as part of their summer industrial training.

Corporate Training v NIELIT Lucknow has signed

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v

MOU with Cane Department, Uttar Pradesh to provide training at their premises in the area of IECT. NIELIT Lucknow is providing training to the participants of Institute of Financial Management Training Research, UP. Training under Government Sponsored Schemes NIELIT Lucknow is imparting training to Quality Analyst deployed under NPR Project in UP. NIELIT Lucknow is imparting training under GOI’s scheme ‘IT for masses’ to the women and SC/ ST candidates of UP state free of cost. Three diploma courses are conducted: Java, .Net and Multimedia.

NIELIT is providing free training to candidates belonging to SC/ST under Government’s Job Seeker scheme.

The various Departments of Government of Uttar Pradesh signed MoU with NIELIT Lucknow Centre as outsourcing agency to provide technical manpower in the area of IECT to Departments/Corporations of state of Uttar Pradesh. In this project, NIELIT has deployed more than 900 IT professionals of the level of Data Entry Operators, Software Engineers, Computer Operators, Computer Operators (Accounts), Computer Operator (Steno), Database Administrators etc. in all the districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Presence of NIELIT’s Accredited Centers in UP NIELIT has approximately 200 accredited institutes in almost every district of state of Uttar Pradesh. These centres are working as torchbearers in their respective region to scatter the light of knowledge in the area of Information, Electronics and communication technology.

Dr D K Mishra

e-Governace v NIELIT has been playing a key role in supporting state government in imelementing the

Director Incharge National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), Lucknow

Financial Inclusion

Better Banking

through ATMs Puneet Bhirani, Chief Administrative Officer & Head – MphasiS Payment Managed Services SBU

T

oday Financial Inclusion is being seen as an important strategy for changing the economic landscape of the country. Capital formation through credit and financial services is necessary for inclusive and sustainable growth. However, it is a major challenge to provide access to financial services to the citizens residing in the 6 lakh villages across the country. While the ATM industry has grown at an exponential rate year on year in the urban/semi urban areas, rural India lacks ATM penetration as the channel of delivery has not been cost effective.

Last year, Ministry of Finance and a consortium of public sector banks in India entered into contract with multiple Managed Service Providers for installing and managing a total of 63,000 offsite and onsite ATMs across urban and rural India. This is by far one of the largest initiatives adopted by the Indian Government to widen the reach of this facility beyond the Tier I and Tier II cities. ATM deployment has been one of the biggest projects for MphasiS and the team will deploy and manage about 14000 new ATMs in 2 years, which amounts to 25 ATMs per day. As of September 2013, the MphasiS has delivered more than 5000 ATMs. This delivery has been made within a short span of 9 months. Our goal is to roll out these ATMs by 2014.

The strategies for the Project The execution of such a large scale project usually involves the involvement of large workforce working though a system of decentralized operations. The model lacked visibility, transparency and control over the field processes. At MphasiS, our key objective was to challenge the industry practice and run a highly technology-driven and

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Puneet Bhirani

automated operation with a lean workforce by bringing in our expertise in technology, thereby challenging industry practices and setting new standards for delivery excellence.

The focus has been on innovation led approach for creating next practices to increase the deployment efficiency. MphasiS Payment Managed Services team has built a scalable ecosystem by developing unique cloud based work flow tools that have never been witnessed by the Indian ATM industry before. This tool integrates and tracks the entire lifecycle of a site from sourcing to final installation on a realtime basis and is accessible by all key stakeholders, delivering non-linear growth.

Way ahead The major focus going forward should be on getting even more people-centric. We have to enable the end users to get them accustomed with card transactions and avoid the traditional

way of transacting through the branch’s teller.

The initiatives by the ministry and the Banks to actively drive issuance of debit/ credit cards facilities to the masses will be critical for ensuring that the benefits of the investments being made in the expansion of ATM channel are sufficiently availed. The initiatives to shorten the learning curve of accepting ATM as almost a branch, will lead to a shift in the mindset of the masses.

An increase in the density of ATMs in the country is just another way of achieving financial inclusion. With some familiarization and training, there is no reason why the rural populace cannot walk into an ATM kiosk to manage their basic banking related needs. But whether you’re running an ATM or a bank, CIOs need to focus not only on the technology but also on the actual needs of the customers. Now is the time to reap the benefits of newer technologies and infrastructure and to achieve the dream of financial inclusion in the country.

Inclusive Banking

The Roadmap to

Financial Deepening Dr Deepali Pant Joshi, Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India

I

nclusive banking is an issue which concerns most of us; it is one thing that will take the country far ahead. Financial Inclusion is not a new idea; it forms the core of our policy commitments.

It is an increasingly difficult area, very important and very complex. It does not offer any simple solutions in the country where still almost 50 percent of people do not have access to financial products and services.

Financial Inclusion has been defined by the RBI as the process of insuring access to appropriate financial products and services needed by all sections of the society. What is RBI’s approach to financial inclusion? We have followed a planned and structured approach to address the twin issue of demand and supply.

We have framed clear regulations to provide banking services to 6 lakh plus villages and create an enabling environment for banks to do so. Today financial inclusion is driven in mission mode; it is being implemented through a range of strategies ranging from relaxation of regulatory guidelines, provision of new products and supportive measures.

Today we have adopted a bank led model for promoting financial inclusion as we have a strong banking system with wide penetrative outreach.

We are often questioned on this. However, I would like to say that RBI, as an organization, is completely model neutral, as far as financial inclusion is concerned. As banks are directly supervised and regulated by the RBI, we are more comfortable with the bank led model. Also, Banks fall under the deposit insurance credit guarantee scheme and hence the interest of the depositors is protected, at least up to an amount of Rupees one lakh. This ensures the protection of the vulnerable section of the society.

Dr Deepali Pant Joshi, Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India We are furthering Financial Inclusion through a combination of strategies and we want to move very fast in this area. Our Financial Inclusion initiatives are ICT enabled, doorstep banking services are being provided through hand-held devices such as point of sale machines, mobile phones, which work on delivery models developed by banks. Other organisations like mobile companies, cooperates are also allowed to partner with banks for offering services. Some of the banks have also told us that they are working in partnership with telecom companies such as Airtel, Vodafone, Idea , Tata Tele Services, etc., who work as Business Correspondents and leverage upon their retail network to extend banking services. This is going to assume great importance in years to come.

Under the Institutional mechanism put in place for Financial Inclusion, we have the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC). Financial Literacy is a very important adjunct for promoting Financial Inclusion, consumer protection and ultimately financial sta-

bility. RBI has adopted an integrated approach, where efforts towards financial inclusion and financial literacy go hand in hand. In the FSDC, there is a separate committee which is headed by the Deputy Governor, known as the Financial Inclusion Advisory Committee. At the state level, there is the state level banker’s committee and at the district level, there are district level committees and below that are the lead bank offices. India is one of the 34 countries in the world that have adopted a national strategy for financial education, under the ages of the FSDC to address all the demand side issues arising in financial literacy.

The focus of Financial Inclusion is increasing the volume of transaction, especially in the accounts being held in rural areas. 2,68,000 banking outlets have been set up in the rural areas as against the 67,694 bank outlets in March 2010.

7,400 rural bank branches have been opened in the unbanked areas, over the last three years.

Now that we have created access we need to promote usage Banks must going forward innovate to design products and services customized for the needs of the poor borrowers. In order to bring about real financial inclusion, Direct Benefit Transfer scheme has to be leveraged. Aadhaar cards should help to deepen financial inclusion used to the fullest. The banks must focus on creating affordable delivery of financial services, especially to those at the bottom o the pyramid.

Financial Inclusion is the only way to eliminate the vicious cycle of perennial debt and perpetual poverty In the ultimate analysis financial literacy financial inclusion and financial stability form part of a continuum.

The views expressed in the article are the personal views of the author.

Dr Deepali Pant Joshi is Executive Director at Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and can be reached at deepalipantjoshi@rbi.org.in

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fips

FIPS 2013, a landmark conference on Financial Inclusion & Payment Systems took place on 24-25 October, 2013, at Eros Hilton in New Delhi. With a broader approach and explicitly defined sessions and top participants, the FIPS Conference turned out to be a unique opportunity for conducting a healthy round of discussions between the key stakeholders in financial inclusion and payment systems space. In the pages that follow we have presented some glimples of the FIPS 2013.

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L to R: Abizer Diwanji – Partner and National Leader, Financial Services – Ernst & Young; Rakesh Sethi, Executive

IN PERSON fips

Director, Union Bank of India; Mehboob Chowdhury, CEO, Citycell, Bangladesh; Dr C Rangarajan, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, Government of India; M P Narayanan, President, Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd; Ed Brandt, EVP, MD, Government Services and Solutions, MasterCard Worldwide; Dr Ravi Gupta, CEO – Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd

Welcoming the Chief Guest C Rangarajan, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, Government of India at Financial Inclusion & Payments System 2013 event

C Rangarajan, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, Government of India interacting with the media

Delegates attending the sessions at Financial Inclusion & Payments System 2013 event.

December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

51

fips

L to R: Puneet Chopra – Director, Asia – MicroSave; P S Rawat, Executive Director, Canara Bank; S Sundareshan, Mission Director, Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), Government of India; Shubhalakshmi Panse, Chairman & Managing Director, Allahabad Bank; Rakesh Sethi, Executive Director, Union Bank of India; Eric Anklesaria – Partner, Ernst & Young

L to R : Vipin Surelia, Head – Cheque Clearing & ACH, National Payments Corporation of India; A V V Prasad, Addl Commissioner, Rural Development, Govt of Andhra Pradesh; Mehboob Chowdhury, CEO, Citycell, Bangladesh; K.P Saha, Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, Senrysa Technologies Pvt Ltd

L to R: Prakash Kumar, General Manager, SIDBI; Rajiv Gupta, Executive Director, SBI Life Insurance Company; V B Bhagwati, General Manager, Andhra Bank; Anil Kumar Khera, General Manager & Head Delivery – Large Programs, Wipro Infotech; SG Anil Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, IFMR Trust; Shashank M Joshi, Managing Director, Money on Mobile; Anand Bajaj, President & CIO, Yes Bank

L to R : Madan Padaki, Co-Founder/ CEO & Managing Director, Head Held High Services Pvt Ltd; Ashoka Chatterjee, Head-Institutional Finance , Bandhan Financial Services Limited; Meera Sanyal, Chief Executive Officer, RBS India; Rehana Riyawala, Secretary – SEWA; D Venkata Ramana Reddy, State Mission, Coordinator, MEPMA

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fips

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December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Cloud Computing

Value Preposition

of Cloud Computing Renu Budhiraja, Sr Director & HOD State Data Centres, Department of Electronics & IT (DeitY), Government of India

G

overnment of India started the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) in May 2006 with one of the key Strategy around “Centralised initiative decentralised implementation�. This included setting up various Policies, Standards, guidelines and frameworks on one hand and establishing a robust ICT infrastructure to delivery services to the Citizens on the other hand. The core infrastructure pillars included State Wide Area Networks (SWANs), State Data Centres (SDCs), Common Service centres (CSCs) and middleware architecture termed National Service Delivery gateway (NSDG) and its by-product the State Service Delivery Gateways (SSDGs).

Today, with 31 SWANs in place, 21 SDCSs in place, NSDG and many SSDGs in place, it is time to move forward. It is found that while most of the Data centres in place have reached more

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than 50 percent of the total rack space utilisation, the States are still to accommodate many more departments and applications. There is a need to look at optimisation of the servers, storage, licenses, power, cooling and other aspects so as not to be able to accommodate more applications but also to minimise operational expenses.

Is Cloud computing the answer?

Well, Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

Optimum utilisation and reuse of ICT resources Cloud computing as a delivery model is based on pooling of infrastructure resources where a

fairly large number and capacity of resources are pooled together to serve multiple users using a multi-tenant model, with different physical or virtual resources dynamically assigned & reassigned according to user demands. That said, the excess or the released capacity is provided to other users to server their demands leading to better utilization of cloud resources. When implemented, this characteristic of cloud computing would benefit various Government Departments.

For example, when the Income Tax department faces peak load during the end of quarter one every year (which is the time for submission of commercial tax in India), the Department of Education faces maximum load during the end of quarter two every year (which is the time for announcement of board results). With cloud computing capacity released by Income Tax department would be utilized by the Department of Education. This would ensure improved utilisation and de-duplication of licensing cost for operating system, database and middleware.

Such benefits are unlikely to achieve in a traditional non-cloud environment.

Rapid development, deployment and reuse of applications Cloud computing PaaS (Platform-as-a-service) service model offers ecosystem for development and deployment of applications through programming languages, development and test tools, deployment infrastructure such as Domain Name registration, assigning public IP, storage, servers etc. This shall provide departments a single interface, whereby, all development and deployment tools and services are offered, thereby, curtailing application deployment & development efforts and time.

In India, every State is a Country in itself with State specific requirements with respect to a specific application. In the traditional model, we see multiple versions of an application customised to the needs of the States. This not only leads to duplication of development efforts but also huge cost and time taken and subsequent maintenance required. It has been seen through the recent Replication programme by government of India that we are able to save anything from 40 to 60 percent of the cost of development and time being reduced from say 1 year to around 4 months.

Cloud Computing can enable us build multitenant applications which can be developed once and easily configured and run as single or multiple instance for various States from

Cloud Computing

one location on virtualised infrastructure.

The applications can further be published on a eGov Appstore providing a single window for departments looking to avail readymade or core applications for their G2C, G2G or G2B service offerings. This Appstore can be available to all State departments to contribute their applications for utilization across other States and their respective departments. This will isshall also encourage application reuse, in a way, shall greatly augments release of citizen centric and other services.

Agile service delivery Cloud computing automates the process of provisioning of resources and provides self-service provisioning features through a single portal for efficient service delivery. This characteristic of cloud has the potential to eliminate the long ICT procurement cycles currently present in Government departments. In the present (non-cloud) environment, ICT provisioning/ procurement requires various approvals at various level and is predominantly people driven and usually involves long turn-around times.

However, resource provisioning in a cloud based model is process driven and significantly reduces the long ICT procurement cycles resulting in fast and efficient delivery of services and also leading to indirect cost savings.

Scalability and elasticity In a traditional (non-cloud) scenario ICT infrastructure sizing is done keeping in mind the peak demand. This results in infrastructure lying un-used for most of the time in the year, while

Size of IT

2x

Cloud value propositions for Government of India Major benefits of adopting cloud computing by Government include the following: • Optimum utilisation and reuse: Optimum utilisation and re-use of Government’s existing ICT infrastructure and related components • Rapid development, deployment and reuse of applications • Agile service delivery: On demand service delivery eliminating long procurement cycles • Scalability and elasticity: On-demand scalability of infrastructure rather than procuring infrastructure for the peak load • The above would lead to Cost savings on ICT infrastructure and applications leading to better utilisation of ICT investment by Government for providing services to citizens

incurring recurring costs like data centre space, racks, power, cooling, maintenance etc. However, if this approach is not followed chances of IT not being able to support the business needs (and hence affecting delivery of citizen centric services) during a sudden requirement is increased.

For example, the Department of Education may require additional servers to support increased load for its applications only during end of second quarter of every year when board exam results are declared. However, department may not require these servers all through rest of the year. In a traditional non-cloud environment procurement or provisioning of these servers would incur cost extra cost all round the year. However, with the cloud enablement of Government data centres, Government departments/agencies at centre and states will have the capability to scale up or down resources as per their anticipated or sudden loads.

Using the same example as above, during the second quarter of every year the Department of Education can provision extra servers from cloud and can release the same after 1 month (depending on the application load requirements). With Traditional IT has accumlated assets which now must be divested

Traditional IT must acquire and no-board assets and people to meet the rapidly changing demand

Lost Opportunity

Lost Value

1x Cloud solutions scale at near the rate of the business

Time Economic Expansion

Economic Contraction

Business Need Cloud Enabled IT Traditional IT

the pay-per-use pricing model, Department of Education would just additionally have to pay for additional servers just for the time that they utilized those servers. Thus, cloud enables ondemand scalability as per business requirement and reduces cost at the same time.

Cost savings A qualitative analysis can be conducted to understand how cloud computing can help reduce ICT costs for Government owned National and State data centres (e.g. SDCs, NDCs), who are the providers of ICT services.

And also for Government departments/agencies at centre and states, who are the consumers of ICT services.

From a data centre providers perspective, cloud computing brings the benefit of economies of scale to IT operations. Cloud allows data centres to standardize and pool computing resources, resulting in highly efficient operations. At the same time, cloud automates and streamlines various data centre maintenance tasks, offering exceptional agility to various Government departments/agencies at centre and states that are the end-users.

While the major cost components include – server and storage Costs, software and license costs, network, security and AMC charges; the non-major cost components include – power and electricity costs, cooling/ACs costs, manpower costs, O&M costs and retail/physical space. Cloud enablement of Government owned data centres would reduce cost and improve utilisation of existing infrastructure.

Renu Budhiraja Sr Director & HOD State Data Centres, Department of Electronics & IT (DeitY), Government of India

December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

55

In Person

Achieving Financial Independence Please give us an overview of the operations of Ideal Insurance Brokers.

Ideal Insurance Brokers Pvt Ltd is an Insurance Management company providing Insurance Based Risk Solutions to both – individuals and businesses.

Having an “Insurance Broking” license, we can deal with every insurance company and offer entire range of insurance products - Heath, life, Fire, marine, infrastructure, credit, etc. The company is Rahul Agarwal headquartered in Kolkata Founder Director, Ideal Insurance Brokers with a presence in major Pvt Ltd Metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and New Delhi.

What is your strategy for delivering such niche insurance services?

As an IRDA (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India) licensed consultant we have tie ups with all the insurance Companies of India – Public or Private, life or General. We are the leaders in delivering niche and customized insurance services and solutions to the clients. Ideal realised that in the current market scenario clients want products and services provided by professionals with deep expertise in their industries and local markets and should be built around their unique needs. Hence, we manage the clients Insurance Portfolio by providing them expert guidance, customization, cost effective products and help with easy and speedy claims settlement during the time of reimbursements.

Apart from the business activities what steps have you taken to stay connected to the society?

Ideal is a very active Social Citizen. We strongly believe in giving back to the society and have regular activities for the same ranging from Planting Trees, Visiting Old Age Homes, Building Schools, Contributing to Free Hospitals, Blood Donation camps, etc. Recently, we organised one of the largest blood donation camp on the occasion of our 8th Anniversary at all our branches across India. The camp was a huge success and Ideal Insurance managed to collect 700 units of blood in a single day.

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Bringing Financial Inclusion to India What was the idea behind the launch of Starfin India and what prompted you to make a foray into the banking services?

Financial Inclusion has started spreading in India after its success in other parts of the world and we decided to be a part of it. We applied with SBI to become Business Correspondent and got the contract signed in 2011. Aiming to empower this sector and take the new challenges, we have started our full flashed operations in November 2011. As we have a vast experience and network of distributors and channel partner, help us to establish Starfin as one of the top companies in the Financial Inclusion sector.

Jitender Singh Founder & CEO, Starfin India Pvt Ltd

What kind of work is Starfin India doing as ‘Banking Correspondent’ for State Bank of India?

There are two kinds of services under SBI Kiosk business model - the first is CSP under Urban Decongestion of Branches. There is no paper formality for the customers at CSP points, all they need to tell the SBI account number for depositing the cash. They get printed receipts for their transaction. Any person can remit cash up to Rs 10000 per day in one account. They can open no-frill (zero balance account with only one ID Proof). Another service is CSP under FIP. This is special plan to provide banking services to all villages in India. Our main job is to open no-frill accounts of all the villagers and help them to start transactions in these accounts.

What kind of challenges do you face in rural areas and how can these be overcome? Are you doing anything in this regard?

The biggest challenge is to develop the faith within the consumer. We have to educate them about the services, to make them understand that we are a part of banking system. In rural area illiteracy, lack of transportation, internet connectivity, very limited availability of electricity , to appoint a CSP (Customer Service Point) was also a problem, but slightly we have come out these problems and now we have provided banking facility to more than 20,000,00 customers in the country.

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Cloud Computing

Mahagov Cloud Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra

M

ahaGov Cloud is an initiative by Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra to provide Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) Cloud service to various departments in Government of Maharashtra. The MahaGov Cloud is implemented in State Data Centre and is extensively used by departments for website and application hosting. The availability of Government Cloud and ease of provisioning infrastructure has encouraged departments to host their application in State Data Centre.

SDC is envisioned as the ‘Shared, reliable and secure infrastructure services centre for hosting and managing the e-Governance Applications of State and its constituent departments’. SDC is envisaged to establish a robust infrastructure to enable the Government to deliver the services quickly and effectively to its stakeholders.

Continuing to the Shared Service centre, during the implementation of Maharashtra State Data Centre, the state had conceptualized on implementing Virtualization for efficient utilization of the infra in SDC. The objective of this initiative was to reduce datacenter cost drastically while increasing the IT capacity with maximum flexibility.

Potential of cloud computing Government of Maharashtra realized the potential of using Cloud Computing as a medium to provide shared, cost effective, faster, reliable, secure, and agile services to the Government Departments. As a part of State Data Centre set up, state had the required computing resources for enabling the Cloud services for the User Departments. The added advantage Government of Maharashtra had was that the State Data Centre was still under implementation mode wherein necessary upgradations required for enabling cloud services was feasible.

It was envisaged that Government of Maharashtra will use multi-tenanted services, shared

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / December 2013

Storage capacity of 86 TB

Tier 2 Data Centre as per TIA-942 standard APNIC/IRINN IPv4&IPv6 addresses

39 racks hosting capacity

Server Farm spread area 1450 Sq Ft

Cloud computing infrastructure on VMware and MS HyperV

Over 150+ applications in production

Maharashtra State Data Centre

Services Offered Cloud Service

Managed Hosting

Department brings only application/ website

Department brings only application/ website

Virtual instance is provided in cloud Setup

Dedicated servers are provided by MH-SDC

Encourage

Try to avoid

Colocation Service

Department brings application/website & Hardware Rack space, power, cooling, firewall and managed services provided by MH-SDC

Discourage

Challenges Though there is huge benefit of Cloud implementation, following are some of the pending issues with Cloud implementation • Rule based auto scaling of CPU and memory allocated to a Server, without any manual intervention seems to be a challenge • As per licensing policy of Databases all the Physical servers in a DB Cluster should be licensed even though Database may be used on only one Virtual Server. Due to this, a separate Cluster is required to be created for DB having only limited Servers. This leads to limitation of resource sharing between DB Clusters.

• Since the entire Virtual Instance resides in SAN Storage any major failure in the SAN will lead to severe downtime and loss of data.

• To enable a smooth flow of Operations and Management, extensive training programs were conducted for the Data Center Operations Team. It has been envisaged that more detailed training programs would be conducted with the help of Solution providers to the Data Center Operations team as well as application owners on using the cloud services.

and managed by Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra.

Shared resources, infrastructure, software and information will be provided to a range of User

Departments via MSWAN /Internet; this will be supported by new delivery and supply models.

It will be dynamically scalable, agile, and easy to move in and out of the service. MahaGov Cloud

Cloud Computing

Key Learning

Uniqueness

• Study possible Business Models and alignment of the IT Procurement Policies with the Cloud setup.

• Define methods for finance and funding, including the sustainability models.

• Plan the cloud implementation in a phased manner. Start with IaaS and PaaS before jumping to SaaS. • It is of paramount importance to plan the capacity required for all the resources for implementing the cloud solution as per the requirement. Make provision for the number of cores per CPU required, Memory required, what should be the ratio of minimum RAM required per core CPU, Hard Disk capacity required, Storage capacity required, etc.

• Requirements for Network and security needs to be provisioned effectively and efficiently so that each physical server is having enough bandwidth so as to serve the Virtual Machine traffic originating from private/public network as well as the management traffic.

• The licenses required for Operating System and Databases needs to be provisioned according to the licensing policy for deploying cluster which shall ensure the optimum utilization of the licenses procured. If majority of servers are on Windows Server OS then DataCentre edition license for Windows Server may be procured.

• Along with cloud implementation, tape backup software should be configured for backup of VMDK or VHD files so that incremental backup is available for entire Virtual Instance.

• Awareness sessions to departments and consulting firms to be done regularly to ensure acceptance of Cloud for all the projects.

• MahaGov Cloud is the first Government Cloud Setup in India

Benefits Following are some of the major benefits desired out of Cloud implementation:

Lower costs

Agility

• • • • •

Sustainable reduction in the operational costs of ICT across the Departments A significant reduction in Physical Resources Aggregated demand for the reduced numbers of resources.

Reduced Foot print Better control and administrative benefits over the cloud.

•

Cloud computing provides an opportunity for Maharashtra to eliminate hierarchical procurement process.

Time to provision a Server along with OS and Database has reduced Using features of thin provisioning of storage and memory, resources are efficiently utilized and allocated Features like Live Migration has helped to manage planned maintenance without requiring any downtime of the application

• • •

•

Universal resource access

• •

•

The onus of upgrading technology is on the DIT in cloud delivery model who ensures Departments have access to the most up-to-date solutions.

This also reduces the need for personnel dedicated to monitoring and updating of IT applications

•

Applications and documents accessible from anywhere, facilitating group collaboration on documents and projects Server creation and roll out is faster. Time taken to allocate a system to department has been reduced from hours to minutes.

Departments can focus in their core sector and are not required to be IT Experts

Continuous update

Collaboration

Cloud helps in establishing a common platform for all e-Governance initiatives, one that is easily accessible by the citizens and other stakeholders Management and monitoring of Cloud setup is effectively done using the dashboard, alerts and reports generated Backup of VMDK or VHD files leads to quicker restoration of the server whenever required

• •

is not a single entity; but, it is an ongoing and iterative initiative which will enable, the use of a range of cloud services, and changes in the way the State procures and operates ICT, throughout

the Government of Maharashtra.

Implementation

• MahaGov Cloud is the first Government Cloud set up which is running on production environment with high volume of servers and applications.

• MahaGov Cloud is the first in using Hybrid Cloud model with a Private cloud built by BSNL. Proof of Concept for Cloud Burst is in progress.

• Maharashtra SDC is the first State Data Centre in India which has it’s own block of 4 B ASN no. and it’s own block of IPv4 & IPv6 addresses, along with membership in APNIC/IRINN, making it vendor independent.

• For continual sustainability a rate chart for availing the services has been published which is used as a benchmark for the Departments for availing cloud services.

• High Availability & Load Balancing has been ensured at ISP level (NKN/TTML/ MTNL) • Maharashtra State Data Center is the first State Data Center to enable end-to-end IPv6.

providing the complete Cloud Services, GoM initiated the services by implementing IaaS and Paas.

In order to kick start the initiative, a Proof of Concept on virtualization was started in November 2011 by using VMWare and Microsoft Hyper V. The overall capacity for each of the resources was increased to a desirable level which ranged from CPU, RAM, NIC, Licenses, software, etc. For effective operations and management, the Data Center team was provided with necessary trainings.

The benefits of virtualization were achieved after the PoC and soon the next step of moving to complete implementation of Cloud Setup was initiated. The fully operational cloud was commissioned in May 2012. With all the modules of Cloud implemented the stakeholders could realize the value of using shared resources from the State Data Centre. It has surely improved the major constraints of operation with better quality of service, reduced time for infra provisioning and lower cost of hosting.

Rajesh Aggarwal Secretary, Department of Information Technology Government of Maharashtra

Instead of going ahead with a giant leap towards December 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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IN PERSON

N N Sinha

Principal Secretary, Information Technology Department, Government of Jharkhand

Growth and

Development Through Information Technology

H

ow do you see the development of e-Governance initiatives in the state of Jharkhand?

The Government of Jharkhand is committed to use ICT to transform its functioning and create an information society that is citizencentric, inclusive and development oriented.

The idea is to provide services to the common man in a cost-effective, transparent and easily accessible manner. In fact, e-Governance has enhanced the efficiency of entire service delivery process. Today transactional processes like registration and disbursement of subsidies are being done with the help of e-Governance initiatives. We have undertaken various initiatives like Aadhaar based attendance system, Aadhaar based payment of MG-NREGA wages and other payments; the scholarships to deserving students are also linked to Aadhaar, and so are the distribution of old age pensions. We have been able to configure all the branches of post offices in the state through Aadhaar based payment system.

I would also like to tell you that UIDAI has sanctioned funds for deploying 2,800 micro ATMs through which we can make payment to all the post offices in the state. UIDAI has also sanctioned 1,000 ATMs for cooperative banks in order to facilitate payments through Aadhaar linked devices. We are also working towards computerisation of in-house departments like treasuries department and human resource management.

60 egov / egov.eletsonline.com / December 2013

N N Sinha sheds light on the new initiatives that are being taken to bring growth to the Information Technology sector in the state

IN PERSON

Government of Jharkhand has started a landmark project for registration called e-Nibandhan.

What kind of response are you getting for this project?

The e-Nibandhan Software was initially developed to automate the Registration Process in the District Sub-Registrar office at Ranchi.

After its successful implementation in the Ranchi Registration Office, it was decided that we should replicate the system throughout the state. e-Nibandhan is designed to eliminate the maladies affecting the conventional registration system by introducing electronic delivery of all registration services. e-Nibandhan has made it possible to return the original registered document to the persons concerned within a matter of minutes. As soon the process of registration is complete the owner can take his original documents back. It has increased transparency in the system. Now the details of registration, calculation of rates and other details are available freely. So people can be sure that they are paying the correct amount of stamp duty, etc., to the government.

Key Objectives of the IT Policy in Jharkhand • IT policy of the State of Jharkhand will provide guidance to all agencies involved in the goal of overall development of the state using IT as the enabler. Agencies in the state who are likely to use the IT policy are Citizens, various ministries, legislative, IT entrepreneurs, business & professional associations and other stakeholders.

• The State has developed the IT policy keeping in mind the enhanced opportunities that IT will unleash over the next decade. These opportunities will allow corporates to create immense value, provide significant opportunities for talent development and employment, and enhance efficiencies in governance and social service. Therefore, the core objective of the new IT policy is to allow different constituents within the State to leverage this opportunity.

• The aspirations of the State’s IT objectives are comprehensive and aimed towards achieving the vision of the policy. The focus will not be limited only to making the State the most attractive destination for IT investments. In addition, the State will leverage the IT opportunity for upliftment of the quality of life within the State.

What kind of challenges are you facing in capacity building in Information Technology of various government organisations?

erative banks is a huge challenge, as all the files and documents are in the manual mode. We need lot of trained manpower to tackle the task of digitising the legacy data with cooperative banks and other institutions. We are now working towards the creation of large pool of human resource to meet all the challenges that are bound to be there in large scale digitisation projects.

These days computers and smartphones have percolated into every section of society, so the new recruitments that are happening is usually of people who are already quite well trained.

Also now there is no ideological opposition to

The Jharkhand Agency for Promotion of Information Technology (JAP-IT) has been created to promote IT in

Jharkhand is committed to use ICT to transform its functioning and create an information society that is citizen-centric, inclusive and development oriented computers, people have recognised the important role that computers can play in the development of our society. This makes it easier for us to do capacity building in government departments. In some areas we face difficulty.

For instance, the computerisation of coop-

the state. What are the key achievements of JAP-IT? The broad objectives of JAP-IT are to provide IT inputs to Governments Departments, Agencies and to assist them in computerisation and networking. The idea is to co-ordinate with

investors and industry, trade organisations and financial institutions in public and private sector. Today Jharkhand offers immense opportunity for investment in the Information Technology industry, and we are having good response from leading companies. I would say that over the years JAP-IT has been playing a seminal role in disseminating the strides made

by Department of Information Technology, Jharkhand, through participation in various exhibitions, seminars etc. Such endeavours have led to awareness amongst the leading IT players of the country regarding Jharkhand and many of them have been attracted to the state.

Currently JAP-IT is implementing a project for computerisation of Cooperative Banks in Jharkhand. The idea is to bring all branches of Jharkhand State under Core Banking Solution (CBS) System. The e-District project is also being managed by JAP-IT.

How is the e-District project doing in Jharkhand?

Jharkhand was selected as one of the pilot states for the implementation of the e-District project and Ranchi was selected as the pilot district for implementation of the same. The e-District project is designed to enable the people in rural areas to have digitally signed certificates for birth, death, income, residential, castes, etc., through the Common Service Centres (CSC). The project is being implemented by the Jharkhand Agency for Promotion of InformaDecember 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

61

IN PERSON

tion Technology (JAP-IT). On 13th September 2011, we conducted the go-live session for the pilot phase of the e-District project. Five online services - Birth Certificate, Death Certificate, Caste certificate, Income Certificate, Local Residential certificate - have been started in this block till date. Other services like Revenue Courts, Electoral services, Consumer court services can be accessed by external links as provided on the home page of the e-District website: jharkhand.gov.in/e-district.

The Common Service Centres have been envisaged as institutions that will enable all sections of society to access government services through digital means. How is the CSC movement doing in Jharkhand?

Are they having enough response from the public?

Government of Jharkhand plans to set-up more than 4,500 Common Service Centres (CSC) throughout all the panchayats in the State in first phase and more than 800 CSCs in the second phase. All these centres will provide e-Governance services and other value added services to all sections of society. Currently we are facing some connectivity related issues in regard to our CSCs. We are trying to resolve this issue with BSNL. Overall, I would say that the CSCs are doing well in Jharkhand.

We have created several applications that have led to a surge of demand for services from CSCs. These services include the e-Nagrik Services, panchayat banking services, RTGS, and other Aadhaar based services. I would also like to point out that about 26-32 percent of population in the state is tribal and the level of literacy is low. Setting up IT infrastructures and industry in a planned manner is a challenge, but we are hopeful that soon Jharkhand will attract large investments in IT. Strengthening transparency in the entire service delivery system will enhance the quality of services and it will be possible with the help of e-Governance initiatives.

In your opinion how effective is the Direct Benefits Transfer model for disbursement of benefits?

DBT is a very effective tool, as it ensures that the benefits reach the intended beneficiary and is not siphoned off by middle men. It has

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / December 2013

Goals of e-Governance initiatives in Jharkhand

The introduction of e-Governance offers a number of obvious advantages, which are common to all e-Governance applications. From the citizen point of view e-Governance if important due to following reasons: u It empowers the citizen

by providing him the information, allowing him to participate in the debates and exchange of views and opinion by consulting him. u The citizen is represented in the

Government. u It engages a citizen

towards establishing a healthy relationship between him and the Government and he is represented in the Government and feels a part of the decision

making process. u It almost always brings

transparency in the Government process which results in improved public image and credibility to the Government.

JAP-IT is implementing a

project for computerisation

of Cooperative Banks

in Jharkhand changed the entire concept of service delivery system. In Jharkhand we have started using DBT to provide government benefits in certain areas.

Lot of work has been done in computerisation of the treasuries department in Jharkhand. Please tell us about it.

We have taken up the work of computerising and networking in the state treasuries and sub-treasuries. The project seeks to computerise the functioning of all the treasuries and link them together and with Accountant General. This will ensure an extremely efficient system of financial management for the government. It will completely eliminate the possibility of forged withdrawals. It will, in fact, ensure that the GPF accounts of all the Government employees are up-to-date. We have also embarked upon an ambitious project on computerisation and networking of field offices as well as Headquarters of Commercial Taxes Department. It provides an efficient, transparent, responsive and citizen friendly public interface to users of the Department.

It has helped in improving the efficiency and affectivity of taxes of administration. We have initiated some key UIDAI projects in the state.

We have launched a micro-ATM device that can enable beneficiaries of projects like MGNREGA to withdraw money at their doorstep through the BC model. We are of the opinion that such projects will help in connecting rural people with the modern banking system.

What steps are you taking to attract investment in IT sector in the state?

We are working with STPI to create Software Park in Jharkhand. We are also planning to build two units in other parts of the state. We have earmarked setting up of IT Park in Ranchi, the work on which is currently in the progress.

We have also initiated a scheme for providing incentives to private companies to set up their facilities in the state. It will require some time to attract big multi-national companies to come to Jharkhand. We have recently approved the project of setting up of IIIT in the state. We are very hopeful that soon Jharkhand will witness a booming growth in IT sector.

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