Towards Effi cient Integrated Citizen Services: February 2008 Issue

ov THE E-GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE FOR ASIA & THE MIDDLE EAST

IT Leader’s Forum

Towards Efficient Integrated Citizen Services

t n e m n r e v o e -G

Join us in the Deliberations on India's March Towards Transforming Public Sector Delivery

INDIA

2008 29 - 31 July Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

Contact Gautam Navin +91-9818125257 egov@eINDIA.net.in

www.eINDIA.net.in

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w w w . e g o v o n l i n e . n e t | volume 4 | issue 2 | february 2008

COVER FEATURE

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e-Health and Public Sector: Reforms in India Dr Tarun Seem, Director, National Rural Health Mission

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ICT has Potential to ‘Re-invigorate Democracy’

Interview: Suresh Pachouri, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances

STATE FOCUS: HARYANA

and Pensions

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On Way to e-Governed Haryana

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Ushering IT Revolution in Haryana Interview: Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Hon’ble Chief Minister,

Government of Haryana

CEO SPEAK

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A leap Forward to e-Readiness Interview: V S Kundu, Managing Director, Haryana State Electronics Development

Corporation Ltd.

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Curtain Raiser: XIth National e-Governance Conference

Lekha Kumar, Director (e-Governance), Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances of India

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Providing Solutions for Local Needs Interview: Krishan Dhawan, Managing Director, Oracle India

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

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Acer Adopts Strategy of Freshest Technology First

Interview: W S Mukund, Managing Director, Acer India

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Delivering Unified Security Architecture Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu, Country Sales Manager, Check Point, India

and SAARC Region

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Citizen Centric Service Delivery Sandeep Bangia, Director for Government, Education and Healthcare,

Oracle Corporation

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TULIP IT in Haryana

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Award Winners: XIth National e-Governance Conference

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Intellectual Capital Needs: Actual Investing N K Sinha, Joint Secretary, Bureau of Distance Learning and Scholarships,

Government of India

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Compendium Best Papers: XIth National e-Governance Conference Impacting Agriculture N K Das, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture

55 EVENT DIARY

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egov Knowledge Exchange Series I IT Applications in Municipalities

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February 2008

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ov volume 4 | issue 2 | february 2008 PRESIDENT

Dr. M P Narayanan EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Ravi Gupta GROUP DIRECTORS

Maneesh Prasad Sanjay Kumar SR. SUB EDITOR

Prachi Shirur RESEARCH ASSISTANT

Neha Sabharwal, Shilpa Sahay MARKETING

Gautam Navin mobile: +91 9818125257 email: gautam@csdms.in Debabrata Ray mobile: +91 9899650692 email: debabrata@csdms.in SR. GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Bishwajeet Kumar Singh GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Om Prakash Thakur Chandrakesh Bihari Lal (James) WEB MAINTAINANCE

Zia Salahuddin Amit Pal Santosh Kumar Singh SUBSCRIPTIONS & CIRCULATION

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

eGov G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India tel: +91 120 2502181-85 fax: +91 120 2500060 email: info@egovonline.net

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EDITORIAL Can e-Governance Help Improve Public Service Delivery?

Good governance can be achieved only by improving the delivery of services.

Governments today are under increasing pressure to deliver a range of servicesfrom ration cards, motor licenses and land records to health, education and municipal services- in a manner that is timely, efficient, economical, equitable and transparent. The recently released India-specific, World Bank’s Development Policy Review, has concluded that the strong economic growth in India has bypassed large sections of the society and there is an urgent need to ensure that its fruits are shared by all sections of the populace. On a number of socio-economic parameters the country has done well. Yet nearly a quarter of India’s citizens still live below the poverty line. Thus, there is a need to focus on the delivery of core services- such as health care, education, power and water supply- to all citizens.

In this direction, e-Governance comes as an excellent tool for government to respond to the increasing demand from citizens and business communities and to accelerate the pace of development. Technology reduces direct interface between functionaries and the public. However, there needs to be systematic displacement of discretion in administrative applications to induce hassle-free systems. IT and governance cannot take-off in isolation without commensurate administrative reforms and process re-engineering. There is also a need to identify the areas where there can be possibilities for convergence of services.

In this context, there is a need to make the best use of the initiatives such as the common service centres for integrated delivery of various government and private services to citizens.

It is in this backdrop that the XIth National e-Governance Conference is being organised which is closely looking into the issues of public service delivery, multi-channel delivery strategies, public-private participation, change management and related aspects. The conference is being organised jointly by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Government of India, Department of Information Technology, Government of India and Department of Information Technology, Government of Haryana. It is our pleasure for this magazine to be the media partner of this national level e-Governance event which is held annually to create awareness and generate debate and deliberations on issues and challenges related to e-Governance initiatives in the country.

Yashi Media Works Pvt Ltd New Delhi, India egov does not neccesarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in the magazine are those of the contributors. egov is not responsible or

We are also happy to announce the eINDIA 2008, which is the largest ICT for Development event in the country with seven tracks, around 3,000 meters of exhibition area and approximately four thousand people attending the event.

We are committed to take the e-Governance in India to the next level and we look forward to your continued support to our endeavours in this direction!

accountable for any loss incurred, directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided. egov is published & marketed in collaboration with Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. (www.elets.in) © Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies 2008 www.csdms.in

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Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in

www.egovonline.net

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ov egov is a monthly magazine providing a much needed platform to the voices of various stakeholders in the arena of e-Government, apart from being a repository of valuable information and meaningful discussion on issues of e-Governance in general, and eGovernment in particular -both to the specialist and the generalist.

Contributions to egov magazine should be in the form of articles, case studies, book reviews, event reports and news related to e-Government projects and initiatives, which are of immense value for practitioners, professionals, corporates and academicians.

We would like the contributors to follow these guidelines, while submitting their material for publication.

ARTICLES / CASE STUDIES should not exceed

2500 words. For book reviews and event report, the word limit is 800.

AN ABSTRACT of the article/case study not exceeding 200 words should be submitted along with the article/case study.

ALL ARTICLES / CASE STUDIES should provide proper references. Authors should give in writing stating that the work is new and has not been published in any form so far.

BOOK REVIEWS should include details of the book like the title, name of the author(s), publisher, year of publication, price and number of pages and also send the cover photograph of the book in JPEG/TIFF (resolution 300 dpi). Book reviews of books on e-Governance related themes, published from

year 2002 onwards, are preferable. In case of website, provide the URL. THE MANUSCRIPTS should be typed in a standard printable font (Times New Roman 12 font size, titles in bold) and submitted either through mail or post.

RELEVANT FIGURES of adequate quality (300 dpi) should be submitted in JPEG/ TIFF format.

A BRIEF BIO-DATA and passport size photograph(s) of the author(s) must be enclosed.

ALL CONTRIBUTIONS ARE SUBJECT TO APPROVAL BY THE PUBLISHER.

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

EDITORIAL CALENDAR 2008 MONTH

SOLUTION FOCUS

APPLICATION FOCUS

MARCH 2008

RFID AND BIOMETRICS

DEFENCE

APRIL 2008

MOBILITY

TRANSPORT/SHIPPING

MAY 2008

SECURITY

RAILWAYS

In Box The Anniversary Issue (January 08’) has been well done! Keep up the good work!

Tanmoy Chakrabart, Vice President & Head, Global Government Industry Group, TCS

The Third Anniversary Edition looks great. I feel honoured to be part of the published authors! The online newsletter looks great, I like the user interface a lot, as well as the links to the government portals in all of India’s states.

Very impressive! As everybody is looking at India for the ITES example and practices to emulate, an analysis of the ITES trend, sector, players, and impact on employment, income and growth will be very good exposure in my view. This could be a series..

Keep up the good work and congratulations for the 3rd Anniversary. I hope this will be a very successful year for the team and all its members’ families.

Samia Melhem, Senior Operations Officer, Policy Division (CITPO), Chair, e-Development Thematic Group, Global Information and Communication Technology, The World Bank Group

Product looks great!

Sabita Saha, MARCOM Manager ( REL Marketing ), Dell, Bangalore India

Thank you for publishing my contribution. Looks great!

Nagy K. Hanna, Senior International Development Strategy Consultant

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ICT has Potential to ‘Re-invigorate Democracy’ “Many transactions take place between governments and the citizens and business which include receipt of revenue, enforcement of regulations, delivery of products (licenses, passports etc.), provision of grants and benefits and procurement of goods and services. ICT can play an important role in decreasing the transaction costs and improving efficiency and transparency of government service provisions”, Suresh Pachouri, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, says this and more in an interview in egov magazine

The Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (MoP) has taken several initiatives to make administration more accountable and citizen centric.

How, in your opinion, Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) can fulfill you ministry’s goals in an efficient manner?

The mandate of MoP in context of administrative reforms is to act as a facilitator, in consultation with central ministries/ departments, states/union territories, administrations, organisations and individuals, to improve government functioning through administrative reforms in the spheres of restructuring the government, process improvement, organisation and methods and grievance handling. We consider ICT to be a very important tool in this endeavour and can support the operation of the different facets of government.

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ICT helps in improving the internal operation of the government– this includes setting up workflow management systems, facilitating electronic communication, institutionalising decision support systems and improving access to knowledge databases. The e–Office project for automating work flows being piloted by my ministry is an effort in this direction.

Government is probably the biggest collector, processor and custodian of information of any sector of society. This information has commercial interest since it can pertain to corporate rights, responsibilities or regulations and also of societal interest.

The role of government as information provider thererfore, becomes critical and ICT provides the wherewithal for timely, widespread and cost-effective dissemintation of information to citizens and business. www.egovonline.net

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Many transactions take place between governments and the citizens and business which include receipt of revenue, enforcement of regulations, delivery of products (licenses, passports etc.), provision of grants and benefits and procurement of goods and services. ICT can play an important role in decreasing the transaction costs and improving efficiency and transparency of government service provisions.

ICT has the potential of reinforcing the democratic instituions. Providing access to information databases, relevant research, notes, parliamentary committee proceedings etc, in a user friendly manner, electronically, to the elected representatives can potentially improve the quality of scrutiny and debate of policy and bills in the Parliament.

Another potential consequence of greater use of ICT within legislatures would be to stimulate the growth of communities of interest among members, facilitated by on-line discussion forums and dedicated websites, etc. As digital penetration increases, the elected members can keep in touch with their constituency from a central location. Many proponents of ICT view its potential to ‘re-invigorate democracy’ by facilitating greater public participation in the democratic process, as being the most important new development of government in the ‘information age’.

However ICT does not work in vaccum and other supporting infrastructures like process re-engineering of government, setting up of standards, digital penetration and bridging the digital divide are critical for ICT to succeed in making government more citizen centric and accountable.

As the formulator of policy and the watch dog of the government in ensuring that certain accepted standards and norms are followed in governance issues, your ministry has recently issued certain guidelines for information seekers under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. Could you please elaborate upon some of the major guidelines?

As a nodal Ministry in the government dealing with the implementation of the RTI Act 2005, we have been receiving a number of references from the general public on the various issues pertaining to seeking information from public authorities. In this context it was thought appropriate that detailed guidelines be issued elaborating certain provisions of the Act which are pertinent for the information seekers.

Such guidlines were issued in November 2007 and elucidate the method of making application for seeking information from the public authorities under the Central Government, the procedure for preparing appeals and the steps for filing complaints in the matter and other related issues. It is expected that these guidlines will enable smooth exercise of the Right to Information (RTI) as enshrined in the RTI Act. How is Right to Information Act helping the cause of accountability in government administration? How is your ministry using the RTI in the context of e-Governance?

The Right to Information is based on the premise that information is the property of the people and reinforces the fundamental right of speech and expression by making information at the disposal of the people. The Act goes a ov

February 2008

long way in putting together a comprehensive mechanism for citizens to secure information under the government’s control and thereby, promotes ‘transparency and accountability in the working of every public authority’. Hon’ble Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh has described the Right to Information (RTI) Act as a means to fight corruption and inefficiency in the government at various levels.

The effectiveness of the Right to Information Act will depend substantially on how prepared the central and state governments are in implementing it – in both letter and spirit.

Issues which have come to the fore from our experiance in the implementation of the Act include the procedural and capacity aspects of the government agencies to respond to the demand for information. Ministry of Personnel is in the process of commissioning a study on ‘Understanding the Key Issues and Constraints in Implementing the RTI Act’. The outcome of this review is expected to be two fold.

First, identifying the main problem areas and suggesting actions to be taken vis-à-vis governmental structure, systems, processes, and people which can help strengthen the delivery system.

Secondly, understanding the extent of awareness and familiarity with the Act amongst the citizens.

Information technology will be a key tool in ensuring that citizens have access to relevant information that they seek.

Computersation of records and use of Internet are specified in the Act. A dedicated portal on Right to Information has already been setup. Central government ministries are providing voluntary disclosure of information through their websites. It is realised that accessing information through archived physical records is tedious and time consuming and eventually digitisation of government records will have to be considered to aid retrieval of information.

ICT has the potential of reinforcing the democratic instituions. Providing access to information databases, relevant research, notes, parliamentary committee proceedings etc, in a user friendly manner, electronically, to the elected representatives can potentially improve the quality of scrutiny and debate of policy and bills in the Parliament.

Do you think ICT has a role wider than just the means to improve the delivery of government services? How can ICT be leveraged to reach the rural masses in the remote corners of the country?

While not being a panacea for all development problems, ICT can be a powerful enabler of development goals because its unique characteristics dramatically improve communication and the exchange of information to strengthen and create new economic and social networks. ICT fosters dissemination of information and knowledge by separating content from physical location even allowing remote communities to become integrated to national and global networks. ICT’s 11

COVER FEATURE

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power to store, retrieve, sort, filter, distribute and share information seamlessly can lead to substantial efficiency gains in production, distribution and markets. ICT facilitates disintermediation, as it makes it possible for users to acquire products and services directly from the original provider, reducing the need for intermediaries. The increase in efficiency and subsequent reduction of costs brought about

by ICT is leading to the creation of new products, services and distribution channels within traditional industries, as well as innovative business models and whole new industries. Indian experience indicates that ICT can be effectively leveraged for provisioning health services, increasing reach of education, providing economic opportunities, promoting empowerment and participation etc., which has direct impact on achieving the national development goals.

Given the low digital penetration in rural areas leveraging ICT to reach the rural masses would require a creative approach. The e-Panchayat initiative of Ministry of Panchayati Raj and the proposed setting up of Common Service Centres in rural areas under the Natinal e-Governance Plan (NeGP) are some of the intiatives proposed for bringing benefits of ICT to the rural masses, as envisaged in NeGP. Does your Ministry support any pilot project to showcase the ICT for improved administration in any part of India?

How do you plan to upscale these pilots?

The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, MoP, has the mandate to identify, incubate, document and disseminate the best practices on reforms in public service delivery and would also include those where ICT has been used. In pursuance of this mandate, under the DFID (UK Department for International Development) funded capacity building for poverty reduction being implemented

by DARPG, MoP, an initiative on modelling best practices has been initiated.

An analysis of the last one decade of successful innovative experiences in public administration and governance reveals a number of practices and experiments, some of which have substantial ICT inputs such as Bhoomi, Khazane in Karnataka, e-Sewa, e-Procurement and Health call centres in Andhra Pradesh etc. However, there has been marginal effort at systematically developing these or other successful experiences into replicable models so that such reform can be undertaken in more states to eventually become a pervasive practice.

Absence of such models has also been a constraint for some of the states to even attempt replication. It is for this reason that the department is now seeking to play a more proactive and pioneering role of piloting select best practices across the country. More importantly, the endeavour is to develop a methodology or protocol for developing replicable models from successful reform experiences.

Ministry of Personnel is implementing the ‘Capacity Building for Poverty Reduction Programme’. How does this programme fit into the overall mandate of your ministry? Is there any ICT component in it?

Capacity Building for Poverty Reduction (CBPR) Programme is funded by DFID and is being implemented by the Department 12

of Administrative Reforms, Ministry of Personnel. The basic premise of the programme is to intiate reforms in public administration, which had direct impact on improving basic service delivery. It is expected that improvement of basic services provisioned by the state agencies will improve access and quality of such services to the poor. The initiatives under the program are designed to enhance the control/influence of the citizens/client over the service (creating pressure) and strengthen the organisations and processes related to service delivery (improving the service delivery entity).

Many innovative projects are being implemented under the CBPR programme, including setting up of a fund for piloting innovative ideas from the states for innovations in public service delivery.

Under the CBPR programme the Governance Knowledge Center portal is being upgraded in collaboration with the Center for Law and Governance, Jawahar Lal Nehru University. Further a number of innvovative projects have been suggested by the state governments including piloting of smart cards for NREGA beneficiaries in Tamil Nadu, virtual classroom for competitive exams in Meghalaya etc.

What are the specific ICT initiatives taken up by your Ministry?

A Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System, a web-based complaint registration and tracking software has been introduced in the ministries and departments of the Central Government. The software allows the citizens to lodge grievances online and get immediate acknowledgement, scanning of manual grievances, routing of grievances directly to the concerned department/ministry and online tracking of the status of the grievance. Training of public grievance officers of ministries/departments is going on.

A pensioner’s portal has been designed and made operational to provide updated information on pension issues and to monitor grievances redressal at central level in department of pension and pensioners welfare, at central ministries/department level and at pensioners’associations level.The pensioners’ portal aims to put in place a single window facilitation mechanism through a specially designed website; to engage Pensioners’ Associations in implementation and continuing operation of the mechanism with limited government inputs and to charge department of pensions with responsibility of centrally monitoring of mechanism for timely sanction of pension/gratuity and effective redressal of grievances.

As mentioned, the Governance Knowledge Centre portal has been setup, which acts as a repository of reform related knowledge and best practices in governance. The GKC is presently being upgraded in collaboration with the Centre for Law and Governance, Jawahar Lal Nehru University, Delhi.

Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances is implementing the e-Office initiative, which is an attempt to improve the operational efficiency of central government offices by shifting to a less paper officer. It is being piloted at four different locations in which frameworks and toolkits for successful implementaiton of e-Office environment would be developed for a larger roll out later. www.egovonline.net

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Ushering IT Revolution in Haryana

“To promote e-Governance and improve delivery of citizen services using ICT state government has taken several initiatives, such as setting up of the State Wide Area Network and establishing Citizen Service Centers in more than 1100 villages.

Besides this, government has directed all departments to prepare their IT plans with particular emphasis on automation of citizen services�, says Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Hon’ble Chief Minister, Government of Haryana in an exclusive interview with egov magazine 14 }

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What are some of your major priorities for the year 2008 for making the State of Haryana into an IT driven economy?

Haryana government has a grand vision of transforming Haryana into an IT driven economy and state. Through this vision the state is to usher an IT revolution to transform the economy of the state by giving impetus to all areas of development. Information Technology has been identified as a key thrust area in the State Policy. The state government has made earnest efforts to attract investment in the IT sector.

These include setting up of IT parks, cyber cities and Special Economic Zones (SEZ). The state has a target of attracting INR. 20,00,000 million of investment in different sectors, out of which substantial investment is likely to be in the IT sector alone. Software and IT enabled services constitute a major part of the exports from Haryana. Out of the total exports of INR 300,000 million from the state of Haryana in year 2006-07, INR 140,000 million is from software and IT enabled services alone. This amount was a meager INR. 8,900 million only in year 1999-2000. To promote e-Governance and improve delivery of citizen services using ICT state government has taken several initiatives, such as setting up of the State Wide Area Network and establishing Citizen Service Centers at more than 1100 villages. Besides this, government has directed all departments to prepare their IT plans with particular emphasis on automation of citizen services. State government has also attached very high importance to the development of Human resources with varying degree of IT skills to meet the projected requirements of Industry.

This will help citizens of Haryana to get better employment opportunities. To summarise, the major priorities of the state government for the year 2008 are e-Governance at all levels, extensive percolation of IT literacy, to attract massive investment in IT sector to generate substantial employment opportunities and improvement of delivery public services through IT. How do you rate the current public service delivery in the State of Haryana? Where do you think IT can play a role to help improve this scenario?

Even though Haryana has always had an efficient system of delivery of public services, there is room for improvement.

We are striving hard to make it more efficient and transparent with an over all objective of delivery of public services to the citizen at any time anywhere. In my opinion IT has to play a crucial role in realising this objective. To take advantage of IT in the delivery of public services, all government departments, boards and corporations have been asked to carry out necessary process re-engineering in order to simplify government procedures to make them suitable for delivery of public services through IT. Your State aims at an extensive percolation of IT literacy and education to realise its IT Vision. What are the steps being taken to achieve this goal?

State government attaches very high importance to percolation of IT literacy and IT education. It will not be possible to achieve our IT vision without IT educated manpower, both technical and non-technical. Government has initiated several ov

February 2008

steps in this direction: a) IT has been made part of the curriculum at school and college level. All schools and colleges have been provided necessary infrastructure for IT education. IT courses have been introduced in all polytechnics, colleges, ITIs and vocational education. b) EDUSAT (the first Indian satellite built exclusively for serving the educational sector) is being used comprehensively to provide expert lectures to the students across the state. c) State government has launched the Free Computer Education Programme in all the Government Senior Secondary Schools of the state. With effect from academic session 2008-09, the government is launching a comprehensive computer education programme in 205 selected Government Senior Secondary Schools where focused IT education will be imparted to the students so as to provide them with a skill set, which will enable them to obtain employment at basic level in the ITES/BPO industries. d) Every selected school will be provided with a computer lab with at least 25 computers under the scheme. e) A proposal for imparting IT training to women and Schedule Casts/Schedule Tribes (SC/STs) has been sent to Government of India for approval. f) The state government is creating conducive environment for setting up of new engineering colleges in both public and private sector. Due to this policy the number of engineering colleges in the state have increased by more than 50% by the year 2007. g) We are also organising various seminars for the government employees to create awareness in the IT sector. h) The state government is implementing an IT Literacy Plan for government employees to achieve 100% IT literacy in the state. IT literacy programme has a minimum level of defined proficiency, which includes word processing, e-mail, data entry and Internet access etc. Suitable incentive/disincentives have be designed to achieve the desired level of proficiency. i) Under IT Literacy Programme, 25 IT Training Labs have been set up. Accordingly, the IT department is conducting regular basic IT Training for all government employees at the above said IT Training Labs. This training is meant for improving the skills of government employees so that they can make use of services implemented using computers for smooth functioning of their organisation. More than 23,000 government employees have been trained in the state.

What are the different initiatives being taken to promote IT investments in the state? What are the business opportunities for the private sector to join hands with the government departments in Haryana in fulfilling its goal of becoming public-centered, efficient and cost-effective government.

To promote IT investment in the State of Haryana, the government has taken several initiatives: (a) Haryana Government has formulated an investor friendly 15

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We are striving hard to make it more efficient and transparent with an over all objective of delivery of public services to the citizen at any time anywhere. In my opinion IT has to play a crucial role in realising this objective. To take advantage of IT in the delivery of public services, all government departments, boards and corporations have been asked to carry out necessary process re-engineering.

IT Policy. This policy provides considerable flexibility for setting up Technology Parks and IT Corridors. The objective of the policy is also to promote the convergence of Information Technology with frontier technology like nano technology, mobile computing and robotics.

For capturing the new investment and for facilitating the Industry, an IT Park as SEZ has is being set up at Panchkula. The state government is issuing licenses for setting up of Technology Parks. Thirty seven such projects have been approved in principle, which would provide employment opportunities for nearly 160,000 professionals. (b) Today, Gurgaon has become the hub of the corporate world in India. The state government is setting HiTech Habitat Centre/IIT complex for IT, ITES and BPO companies in the electronic city, Gurgaon in which world-class facilities will be provided. (c) Besides Gurgaon, there is also a proposal to develop other areas in the National Capital Regions, like KundliManesar-Palwal Express Highway, Gurgaon Manesar and Faridabad as satellites of Mega-IT Hub. (d) Government has also launched an industry portal as a single window to facilitate prospective investors and industrialist for setting up their units in Haryana.

Haryana’s village, Hansdehar, is the first in the country to have its own website for people to get all information about this village. The government of Haryana is committed to enabling Internet based transaction services at the Common Services Centres or e-Disha centres. How positive are you regarding this initiative of the government reaching at the door-steps of its citizens in the rural areas.

I am confident that through the e-Disha Ekal Seva Kendras that are being set up under Public Private Partnership at more than 1100 villages, we shall be able to provide multiple government services to the citizens in the rural areas by the end of the current year. We are working on G2C service enablement for maximum number of various government departments. These departments have been asked to simplify their processes and carry out required administrative reengineering and back-end computerisation so that the citizen can avail their services through e-Disha Ekal Seva Kendras in rural areas.

Business to Citizens (B2C) services like computer training, e-Ticketing, mobile recharges, job placement services, Internet surfing, DTP etc. are already being provided run through these centres. G2C services like bus passes, electricity bill collection, issuance of Nakal (land record), issuance of 16

certificates like scheduled castes/backward castes/income/ domicile/birth/death and issuance of new ration card are being delivered through these centres.

Your State Government has decided to create a miniknowledge city at Hissar district, and has set up four State Level Technical Institutes to help youth find ample job opportunities within Haryana. What is being done towards encouraging girls students to take up technical training to equal their male counterparts? Do you think reserving seats for girls students in technical institutes and in government jobs will be one of the ways to resolve the issue of gender imbalance in your state since with women becoming economically independent, this would lead to a drop in female infanticide?

The State Government’s action plan is not limited to reserving seats for providing financial incentives to women. Reserving seats for girls in Technical Institutions and government jobs may help women in improving their lot to some extent but it will not altogether improve gender imbalance. We are determined to remove gender imbalance. One such step is to create a positive atmosphere for over all increase in female employment with equal wages at all levels.

Training of women for self-employment as well as for employment in industries has been taken up on a priority basis by the government. Out of total 82 government institutes, 31 institutes are running exclusively for women, while there is a facility of co-education in the remaining institutes. 25% of seats have been reserved for women candidates in all Industrial Training Institutes in the state. No tuition fee is charged from the women trainees in all these government institutes. As a result girls are coming into newer areas such as engineering trades. The Government of Haryana had celebrated the year of the girl child by providing computers to 222 Goverment Girls Senior Secondary Schools for IT education and Computer Enabled Education. This reflects this spirit of my Government.

What are some of your major plans in the coming years to provide good governance to all citizens of Haryana.

The state has ambitious plans to provide good governance of citizens in Haryana. We have prepared an e-Governance road map for the State of Haryana. We are earnestly working to implement this road map. We are also working on creations of citizen’s services delivery databases for all departments/ boards and corporations. All departments have been directed to create their websites and provide Right to Information Act related information through their websites. This will bring transparency in government functioning under the watchful eyes of its alert citizens. For better management of the law and order situation in the state, the state government has already established Police Wide Area Network and applications are being developed for better public-police interaction.

To bring transparency in its procurement and purchases the state government is implementing an e-Procurement system. The government is also working on the concept of e-Districts where all activities of district administrations shall be computerised. Pilots of e-District project are planned at Rohtak and Jind districts. www.egovonline.net

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e-Governance Scenario in Haryana

A Leap Forward to e-Readiness “To facilitate the users/citizens in the rural areas, steps are being taken to immediately start escorting services through CSCs for delivery of various services being given by district administration or line departments from the district headquarters, so that the villagers could avoid the harassment of traveling to district headquarters several times for services like getting an income certificate, caste certificate, domicile certificate and so forth”, informs V S Kundu, Managing Director, Haryana State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd., and Special Secretary, IT, Government of Haryana, to egov magazine.

What is the approach adopted in implementing the State Mission Mode Project (MMP) ? What is the progress of their implementation?

Haryana Government has worked out a standard approach for implementation of Mission Mode Projects, which includes a framework of system study and its approval, preparation of IT plan and its approval, implementation of IT plan and its periodic review. For system study and IT plan preparation, the state has adopted a two-pronged approach.

It is using services of the local unit of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) as well as of a panel of empanelled vendors.

NIC and Haryana State Electronics Development Corporation 18 }

Ltd. or HARTRON (state government’s undertaking designated as nodal agency for IT services) have been associated as technical expert in the framework of evaluation and approval. We have identified the following projects as Mission Mode Projects: land records, property registration, commercial taxes, treasuries, nagarpalika (municipality), panchayats, agriculture, transport, employment exchanges and police. The additional MMPs under consideration are health, education, social welfare, food and civil supplies at the state level.

We have made substantial progress in implementation of all above mentioned mission mode projects. A brief detail of these projects is given below:

Property Registration: (HARIS) Haryana Registration Information System. Implemented at 100% Tehsils and sub-Tehsils in the state.

An increase of upto 40% has been recorded in revenue collection after the implementation of the project.

Land Records: (HALRIS) A complete workflow based unique system in the country, which integrates property registration and land records components. The system is being implemented at all Tehsils. The system facilitates availability of the Recordof-Right (Jamabandi Nakal) through public interface counters.

Road Transport: (Driving License Issuance System and Vehicle Registration www.egovonline.net

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System) The Transport Regulatory functions (Driving License/Vehicle Registration, permits issuance) has been implemented on self-sustainable model at more than 33 locations. Project implementation approach was studied by the Department of IT, Government of India, consultants at Kaithal for replication across other states as a Grants-in-Aid Scheme.

Treasuries: (OTIS) On-line Treasuries Information System: A workflow based product has been implemented in 100% treasuries and sub-treasuries and provided a linkage to the multiple treasury bank branches, dealing with government transactions.

Gram Panchayats: e-GramVikasNetThe below poverty line Census Survey has been computerised in all districts.

We have implemented web based rural software and hosted website of rural development department.

Commercial Taxes: (VATMaCS) Value Added Tax Monitoring and Collection System. Implemented at all districts. Around 0.15 million dealers at 21 locations. Significant increase of tax collection after VAT implementation (from and annual average of 15% to 22%). Haryana is the first state to implement VAT system.

Municipalities: (HACIS) House Tax Assessment and Collection Information System. Implemented for 100% municipalities. More than 0.10 million properties database for all 76 municipalities. Increase in tax collection from 30 million to more than INR 500 million just in one year. Now the state government has abolished the house tax collection.

Agriculture: (Agriculture Marketing Network) Mandies Information System implemented at all 108 Mandies, 25 sub-centers and head office. An SMS based interaction with farmers introduced and a website of agriculture department has been launched.

Police: The police network is established in the state. Nine application software packages developed and implemented. The dynamic web portal for G2C service developed and integrated on police website.

Pensions: (HaPPIS) Haryana Pensions Processing and Information System. HaPPIS has more than 1.4 million social welfare pensioners details. ov

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The project brought about transparency in pension disbursement. e-Health.Net: Comprehensive Computerisation of Health Department. A suite of health packages has been developed and implemented in all civil surgeon’s offices in Haryana.

Employment: E m p l o y m e n t Exchange Registration and Vacancy Booking System. We have developed this as a workflow based software, which is being implemented at five district employment exchanges. The web portal http://haryanajobs.nic.in has been launched for the benefit of unemployed youth.

How would you rate your state’s progress towards making it an eReady state?

The state measures success of eGovernance projects on the following parameters: i) Extent of service roll out ii) Service availability and time frame iii) End user/citizen response and satisfaction iv) Creation of government databases and the ready availability of information and reports v) Savings in terms of reduced overall expenditure (i.e. lower total cost of ownership) or good Return on Investment (RoI) in terms of social benefits, convenience to general public, improved efficiency, employee satisfaction, creation of records and information.

While considering the overall progress of different e-Governance projects, the state has made a big leap forward towards e-Readiness.

The state has improved its ranking in the country by six positions from fifteenth to ninth position in the last two years as per the eReadiness Assessment Report of year 2005 released by Department of Information Technology, Government of India. The state has formulated its e-Governance roadmap and capacity building roadmap. The state is in the category of ‘level one’ States in implementation of the core infrastructure projects of State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and Common Service Centres (CSCs).

What are the business opportunities for the private sector in implementing the various e-Governance project running in your state?

The private sector has to play a very big role in implementation of e-Governance projects. The state has been consistently exploring Public Private Partnership (PPP) model for implementation of various e-Governance projects. The state is very keen to associate private sector in the delivery of Government to Citizen (G2C) services to citizens at any time and any where. We would like to outsource activities related to software development, project implementation and the roll out of front-end of service delivery activities. As a result, private sector has opportunities to associate itself in a big way at a different level in implementing e-Governance projects.

What are the services that are being delivered/planned to be delivered through Common Service Centres ( CSCs)? What are the steps being taken for a better user experience (e.g. loaction, etc.)?

Services presently being delivered through CSCs : • Computer education • e-Ticketing • Mobile-recharges • Education consultancy services • Internet surfing • Desk top publishing • Retail management • Banking and other financial services (tie ups in process) • Insurance products (tie ups in process) Following is the list of various G2C services being planned to be delivered through the Common Services Centers (CSCs).

Mostly CSCs have been setup at prominent places like Panchyat Bhawan, Patwarkhana (revenue collector’s office) etc., so that these are conveniently accessible to most of the users/villagers.

Signboards, pamphlets in the local language are displayed and distributed in the villages for awareness of general public.

In district headquarters and urban areas, CSCs will have facilities like help-desk visitor lounge, toilets etc. for 19

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DEPARTMENT

SERVICES

DHBVNL/UHBVNL

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DC/ADC/SDM Office

Issuance of • Domicile Certificate • Income Certificate • SC/ST/OBC Certificate • Handicapped Certificate • Senior Citizen Certificate • Marriage Certificate

Land Records

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Nakal Service Deed Writing Encumbrance Certificate

Food and Civil supplies

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Ration Cards

Social Justice and Empowerment

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Receipt of Application for Social Beneficiary Schemes Disbursement of Pension

DC/ADC Office/ DRDAs

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BPL [Below Poverty Line] Card

BSNL

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BSNL Bills, Phone Cards

PWD Public Health Department

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Water Bills Sewerage Charges

Excise and Taxation Department

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Payment of Taxes

Urban Development Department

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House/Property Tax Fire tax

Transport Department (Roadways)

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Issuance of Bus Passes Long Distance Bus Tickets

Transport Department (Regulatory)

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Driving License – New/Renewal Vehicle Registration Certificates- New/Transfer

IT Department

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IT Returns Filing

Agriculture

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Agri Consultancy

Education

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Admission Process Examination results

Employment

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Registration Job Opportunities

Municipal Committees/Health Department

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Birth Certificate Death Certificate

Police Department

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Tenant Registration Servant Registration Challans

Registration and Stamps

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Sale of Stamps, Market Value Assistance

Regional Passport Office

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Collection of Passport Applications (RPO) (Fresh and Renewal)

Grievance Department/RTI

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Online Grievances System

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Electricity Bills Out Standing Bill Statement

the convenience of the users. As far as possible, youth from nearby areas have been employed as operators for CSCs. This has not only provided employment to local youth but will also help in better interaction with the users/villagers.

To facilitate the users/citizens in the rural areas, steps are being taken to immediately start escorting services through CSCs for delivery of various services being given by district administration or line departments from the district headquarters, so that the villagers could avoid the harassment of traveling to district headquarters several times for services like getting an income certificate, caste certificate, domicile certificate and so forth.

Please share with us the capacity building programmes being planned/ implemented in your state?

Haryana State has prepared capacity building road map. The capacity building road map for 24 departments was prepared after detailed study and discussion with the senior officers of the state, heads of departments and the Financial Commissioner.

The Government of Haryana has has the institutional structure as per the guidelines of the Government of India like the State Level Steering Committee – IT PRISM, chaired by the Chief Secretary. This is the highest powered committee with respect to eGovernance and is working as State eGovernance Mission Team as per GoI guidelines. The HARTRON and local NIC units are engaged in promoting and accelerating the pace of e-Governance in Haryana by offering its expertise both in infrastructure development, eGovernance consultancy i.e. preparation of request for proposal, IT plan, tender document for outsourcing etc.

It has been decided by the State Level Steering Committee– IT PRISM to take up the preparation of detailed project report (DPR) of all the 10 MMPs (Mission Mode Projects) and the cost will be borne through the funds released for NeGP (National eGovernance Plan) by the Government of India. The state has already outsourced the preparation of DPR for Excise and Taxation Department, Urban Local Bodies Department and the Panchayat Department. www.egovonline.net

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What are the evaluation and monitoring techniques you are adopting to monitor the progress and to assess whether the proposed benefits are being delivered to the citizens?

Service Delivery Centres have been directed to maintain a log of all services delivered. We have planned to audit these logs to determine time taken in delivery of various services and based on audit reports, take appropriate steps to remove bottlenecks and cut on service delivery time shall be taken.

We have also planned to use services of state statistical department to carry out usage and satisfaction level survey for various citizen services from citizen service centres. We are also planning to take on the spot feedback from citizens availing citizen services electronically.

At the same time, we have the online system for registration and redressal of citizen grievances.

What are your state’s key achievements in implementing eGovernance projects?

Hayana has made remarkable achievements in implementation of various e-Governance projects. These projects have been implemented with a focus on delivery of public services.

These projects have been studied by GOI and other teams from time to time.

These have been highly appreciated by these teams. Some of the projects have been selected for replication across other states as a Grant-in-Aid Scheme.

These also have also won top awards, citations at various forums and conferences.

Property Registration: Implemented at 100% tehsils and sub-tehsils in the state. An increase of upto 40% has been recorded in revenue collection after the implementation of the project.

Helped in reduction of corruption and detection of frauds. Also adopted by number of other states. One of the most successful self-sustainable model in the country.

Land Records: The system is being implemented at all tehsils and being further extended to 7 more tehsils. This system facilitates availability of Recordof-Right (Jamabandi Nakal) through public interface counters. ov

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Road Transport: The transport regulatory functions (Driving License, Vehicle Registration, Permits issuance) are being implemented on selfsustainable model at more than 33 locations. This project has helped in bringing transparency in service delivery, increase in revenue collection and reduce delivery time.

Treasuries: The treasuries has been implemented in 100% treasuries and sub-treasuries and provided a linkage to the multiple treasury bank branches, dealing with government transactions.

It has helped in better management of the State’s revenues.

Commercial Taxes: Implemented at all districts with around INR 0.15 million dealers at 21 locations. A significant increase of tax collection after VAT implementation (from and annual average of 15% to 22%).

Municipalities Project: Implemented for 100% municipalities. There are more than 0.1 million property databases for all 76 municipalities. An increase in tax collection from INR 30 million to more than INR 500 million just in one year.

It has brought about transparency in tax computation.

Pensions: HaPPIS has more than 14 lakh pensioners details. The project has brought about transparency in pension disbursement.

Employment: E m p l o y m e n t Exchange Registration and Vacancy Booking System has been developed as a workflow based software. It is being implemented at pilot district employment exchanges. e-Finance.Net: Workflow based annual budget preparation and release monitoring system, comprising of 10 documents, implemented in a networked environment. A saving of 650 pages/set of budget documents has been achieved by redesigning of the budget formats resulting in a total saving of more that 0.5 million printed pages. Published on CD and web portal.

Standard Suite of G2G Packages: The suite of applications like payroll, Court cases, meetings monitoring, postal monitoring called the Centralised File Movement and Tracking Information (CefMaTIS), is in implementation across the state.

GISH: All district maps with village boundaries have been digitised as

per the Survey of India toposheets.

Web enabled GIS of Haryana has been developed and launched on web portal.

SWAN: State Wide Area Network has been established and all districts and block Headquarters have been linked to SNMC at Chandigarh.

More then 300 offices have been provided horizontal connectivity through SWAN. CSC: Haryana State has selected state centre agencies for operationalisation of more then 1200 CSCs. The village-level entrepreneurs have also been selected to run CSCs at rural areas and franchisees to run CSC at urban centres. These centres are offering several B2C and a few G2C services.

What are some of the challenges that you are facing in implementing the e-Governance projects? How are they being overcome?

The biggest challenge is the requirement of a paradigm shift in attitude and mind set of government functionaries at various levels. The focus should shift from officials at the top most level holding the powers to authenticate and deliver services to the person sitting at the single-window for delivery of various government services at the door step of the citizens. The Common Services Center scheme of the Government of India under NeGP is the first step in that direction.

Due to language problems, many decision making people at various government agencies have resorted to the easier route of not using Indian languages at all in their e-Governance projects. Some have adopted even simpler solution of not using any computerisation at all.

Motivation of line departments for conducting government process reengineering and processes change management is another challenge. The IT department is arranging meetings of sectoral heads, at the level of Chief Minister to spearhead the e-Governance initiatives.

Capacity building at various levels in the government would enable them to adopt to the change management processes that would be required once the changes in the governance system are put in place.

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11th National e-Governance Conference

Forum for Knowledge Sharing

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XIth National e-Governance Conference

Curtain Raiser Lekha Kumar INTRODUCTION

The XIth National e-Governance Conference is being organised jointly by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Government of India, Department of Information Technology, Government of India and Department of Information Technology, Government of Haryana. The Conference will be held from 7th -8th February 2008, at Panchukula, Haryana, India. The forum of this annual Conference is utilised to create awareness and generate debate and deliberations on issues and challenges related to e-Governance initiatives in the country.

OBJECTIVES

The objective of the XIth National Conference on e-Governance is to recognise and promote excellence in implementation of e-Governance, upgrading the standard and quality of administration, particularly in social and public services. The conference aims to provide a knowledge-sharing platform for policy makers, practioners, industry leaders and academicians to deliberate and develop an actionable strategy for bringing in transparency and good governance.

evolved over a period of time. Previously, the Conference used to be focussed on broad themes, but gradually the themes have now come to focus on a few sectors.

BACKGROUND

Every year the Department of Adminstrative Reforms and Public Grievances organises the Annual National eGovernance Conference along with the Department of Information Technology and a State Government. Senior officers from Government of India, secretaries from states and union territories of India, government decisionmakers, academicians, technical experts, non-government organisations (NGOs), public sector executives and service providers participate and interact, exchange opinions, discuss issues, problems and also analyse various solutions, frameworks and necessary action plan for firming up the road map for e-Governance.

At each conference, the attempt is to have a new state partner.

These conferences thus provide a forum to showcase vairous e-Governance initiatives taken by various state governments, industries as well as to familiarise the government sector with the latest technologies and techniques being adopted across the different governments. The various states where the National e-Governance Conference have been held till date are: Hyderabad (twice), Bhubneshwar, Chennai, Kochi, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Goa and Bhopal.

The theme of the National e-Governance Conference has ov

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THEME OF THE XITH E-GOVERNANCE CONFERENCE

The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Integrated Citizen Services – Issues and Challenges’. The sectors chosen for discussions and deliberations this year are: Health; Education and Agriculture.

THE PROGRAMME

The chief guest for the XIth e-Governance Conference is A Raja, Hon’ble Union Minister of Communication and Information Technology. The inaugural session of the Conference will be presided over by HE A R Kidwai, Governer, Haryana State.

The eminent speakers at the inaugural and plenary sessions of the Conference are: Suresh Pachouri, Union Minister for State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Pawan Bansal, Union Minister for State for Finance, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Chief Minister, Haryana, Adesh Pratap Singh Kairon, IT Minister, Punjab, Subas Pani, Secretary, Planning Commision, Jainder Singh, Secretary Department of Information Technology, Rajni Razdan, Secretary, 23

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Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Naresh Dayal, Secretary, Ministry of Health, R P Agarwal, Secretary, Higher Education and N K Sinha, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development.

The Plenary Sessions of the Conference are: Citizen-Centric Governance; Integrated Citizen Services; Enabling Integrated Service Delivery; Enhanced Developmental Impact through ICT: Focus on Spreading Education, Improving Access and Delivery and Empowering the Farmer. The sessions will be chaired by the secretary of the various ministries and departments.

The panelists include the key decision makers from the government across various sectors such as National Informatics Centre (NIC) and Education and Research Network (ERNET), National Institute of Smart Government (NISG), to name a few; corporate heads, technical experts, academicians and NGOs.

E-GOVERNANCE COMPENDIUM

Papers from adminstration, academia and industry are invited on the themes are to be discussed in the plenary sessions during the conference. All papers received are evaluated and winning contributors gets published in the Compendium and it gets the exclusive audience with the Chief Guest along with the Conference speakers. There is also an award for the best paper, which is invited for presentation at one of the plenary sessions. The themes of this year’s Compendium are: Enabling Environment for Implementation of e-Governance; Integrated Delivery of e-Services; e-Governance and Development; eGovernance and Health; e-Governance and Education and e-Governance and Rural Sector.

The winner of this year’s best paper award is Joan Macalla from Cisco for her paper on International Experiences on Integrated Delivery of e-Services.

NATIONAL AWARDS FOR E-GOVERNANCE

The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Government of India presents National Awards for e-Governance every year, to recognise and promote excellence in implementation of e-Governance initiatives.

The category of awards for the Conference include: Excellence in government process re-engineering; exemplary horizontal transfer of ICT-based best practice; Outstanding performance in citizen-centric service delivery; Innovative technology usage in e-Goverance; Exemplary usage of ICT by public-sector units; Best government website; Sectoral Award (Focus Sector for 2007-08- Agriculture Sector); Special Award to recognise achievements in areas not covered in any of the above specified award categories. Gold, silver and bronze icon are awarded in each category.

ACHIEVEMENTS

useful event as it has led to very concrete recommendations/ outputs. The concept of e-Governance plan at the national level emerged out of the deliberations of this conference as it was felt that there is a lot of duplication of efforts, so why not have a common infrastructure and a common philosophy.

Similarly the National Institute of Smart Government was an output of these conference, as it was felt that the competency of the private sector needs to be utilised by the government.

Thus, these conferences have proved to be a platform for e-Governance initiatives and their percolation among the masses in terms of Government to Government (G2G), Government to Citizens (G2C) and Government to Business (G2B).

Lekha Kumar is an Indian Revenue Service Officer, 1987 batch. She has held various positions in the Income Tax Department in various capacities including human resource development, internal process reforms, and change management issues. She has also handled line functions in the IT Department including assessments of taxes etc.

Presently Lekha is Director (e-Gov) in the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Ministry of Personnel, Government of India.

The National Conference on e-Governance has been a very 24

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11th National Conference on e-Governance

National Award for e-Governance: Winners AWARD CATEGORY: EXCELLENCE IN GOVERNMENT PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING

Gold Award Winner MCA21, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India The Ministry of Company Affairs (MCA), Ministry of Finance, Government of India has undertaken a major initiative to modernise and computerise its operations. It envisions to provide anytime and anywhere services to businesses. The basic functions of the MCA are registration of companies, receipt of the statutory returns filed by the companies and issue of copies of the records needed by them. The MCA21 project seeks to provide online services in the above areas with certainty and speed.

It is a pioneering programme, being the first Mission Mode e-Governance project undertaken in the country. This programme builds on the Government of India’s vision to introduce a Service Oriented Approach in the design and delivery of government services, establish a healthy business eco-system and make the country globally competitive.

Silver Award Winner VAT Information System, Finance Department, Government of Gujarat

AWARD CATEGORY: EXEMPLARY HORIZONTAL TRANSFER OF ICT-BASED BEST PRACTICES

Gold Award Winner Integrated Workflow System for Paperless Admissions, Government of Haryana/ National Informatics Centre The objective of the project is create paperless registration, submission of application, and downloading of admit cards for entrance examinations and online counseling for centralised seat allotment (process re-engineering to make the system citizen centric and easily transferable) using ICT Driven, Low cost Internet based system with 100% transparency, and zero ov

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human interference in processing of applications, results, seat allotment and deliverables and hence breaking barriers of boundary, time and psychology for effective use of ICT by rural students and parents at par with their counter parts in urban areas for admissions in All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approved courses run by the institutions across the state.

Silver Award Winner ELECON, Chief Electoral Officer, Bihar/NIC The Election Confidential-ELECON software developed and implemented by NIC Bihar has been in use during the elections since 1991 and gone through a number of changes, incorporating the latest guidelines of the Election Commission of India from time to time. It has been designed as a software tool, takes less time to implement and takes care of almost all election related activities at various stages.

Bronze Award Winner VATsoft-VAT processing System, Commercial Taxes Department, Government of Karnataka/NIC

AWARD CATEGORY: OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE IN CITIZENCENTRIC SERVICE DELIVERY

Gold Award Winner Internet Ticketing Project, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) is a public sector company set up and fully owned by the Ministry of Railways.

The Internet Rail Ticketing programme for India is being handled by the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC). On August 3, 2002 the facility for Internet ticketing was launched for public.

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IRCTC delivers tickets in 212 cities of India. IRCTC also provides the facility to book e-Ticket i.e., just book your ticket and take print out and travel with your photo ID. Through www.irctc.co.in the tickets for rail journeys can be booked on the Internet by any user.

Silver Award Winners Nemmadi, e-Governance Secretariate, Government of Karnataka ‘Nemmadi telecenter’ project was initiated by the Karnataka government in September 2006 to bridge the digital divide in rural Karnataka. The Nemmadi project has been initiated in the State of Karnataka to bring administration closer to the common man: • To establish friendly, affordable citizen interface with the Government • To have single window information services • To provide cost effective and at the same time improving the quality of service • To contribute to saving in time and money for citizens, and • To prevent citizens from falling prey to middlemen. e-Filing of Income Tax Return, Directorate of Income Tax (System), Government of India The Government of India chalked out a National e-Governance Action Plan for the implementation of various e-Governance initiatives for tax payers, 24 hours a day, so that a tax payer can fulfill his daily tax obligation without wasting time and without visiting Income Tax offices. The Income Tax Department launched the electronic furnishing of return of income scheme, 2004. under this scheme eligible assesses can file their returns of income electronically through persons authorised to act as e-Return intermediaries.

Starting from July 2005, taxpayers assessed at any one of the 60 stations on the Tax information Network have been able to avail the facility of e-Filing their returns either through approved e-Return intermediaries or directly (subject to fulfilling eligibility criteria for individual taxpayers) under ‘digital signatures’.

Bronze Award Winner City Civic Centre, Surat Municipal Corporation, Gujarat

AWARD CATEGORY: INNOVATIVE USAGE OF TECHNOLOGY IN E-GOVERNANCE

Gold Award Winner Tele-Bhugtan, Collectorate, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh “The challenge was to provide solution which is providing hassle free, easy to use, and round the clock services that too at the finger tips of consumers. Besides being low on initial cost the technology has to be proven, easy to maintain and 26

omnipresent. This is the background with which we worked to evolve the concept of putting IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System) to guide the customer to follow certain steps to complete the transaction. Bills can be paid by ‘Direct Debit’ of customers account in a convenient manner that long queues and delays in fund transfer can almost be eliminated.

This would obviate the need for issuing and handling paper instruments like cheques etc. and thereby facilitating improved citizen services. This system allows payments of utility bills by making a call to the IVRS Server using a telephone or a cell phone. As the IVRS would be operational 24x7 the bills can be paid 24 hours from any location.”

Sanjay Dubey, District Magistrate, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh

Silver Award Winner Tsunami Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, Andaman and Nicobar Administration

Bronze Icon Award Winner Web Based Project Management System, Karnataka State Police Housing Corporation

AWARD CATEGORY: EXEMPLARY USAGE IF ICT BY PSUS

Gold Award Winner Electronic Procurement System, SAIL, Rourkela Steel Plant, Orissa Rourkela Steel Plant (SAIL-RSP) is for implementation of Electronic Procurement System (EPS). It seeks to transform and reengineer the entire gamut of procurement activities and empower buyer and sellers by leveraging the benefits of Information and Communication Technology.

EPS is an on-line Internet enabled system of issue of tenders enquiries, submitting quotations, evaluating and viewing comparative bid statements, purchase orders, receipt details and payment information in order to move towards paperless transaction and for increased level of transparency.

The key value proposition of the project is to build an electronic interface with our suppliers by ensuring all documents receipt by them, facilitate them to submit errorfree electronic quotations, sharing transaction information and releasing them from their locational limits to SAIL-RSP. In addition, EPS ensures removal of errors on account of duplication of data entry, provides audit trails and significantly reduces the ordering cycle lead-time thereby increasing the efficiency of the buying personnel.

It has addressed the following key issues related to public buying: www.egovonline.net

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Transparency Wider Participation Reducing Human Interface for Enhanced Ethical Public Buying Instant Un-restricted Information Flow Reduction in overall Cost Incurred in Procurement Activities

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Silver Award Winner Reverse e-Auction for Transportation Contract, Visakhapatnam Steel Plant

Bronze Award Winners In House Development of Web Based Inspection Call Management System, Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd. Business Continuity for SAP, Indian Oil Corporation

Special Mention Application for education and Communication of Children Affected with Crebral Palsy-Webel Mediatronics Limited, West Bengal

AWARD CATEGORY: BEST GOVERNMENT WEBSITE

Gold Icon Award Winner

AWARD CATEGORY: SPECIAL SECTORAL AWARD-FOCUS SECTOR: AGRICULTURE

Gold Icon Award Winner GrapeNet, Agriculture and Food Product Export Development Authority, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India The web-based GrapeNet software provides traceability regarding the grapes exported from India to European Union (EU). The software was developed by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority, an apex government agency and was launched in June 2007. The software helps in raising the confidence of importers by enabling monitoring of pesticide residue and by achieving product standardisation and thus boost grape exports to EU. The software works on the regulations of tracing back to the origin of the produce in the reverse order from shelf to farm at the click of a mouse at one’s computer. By clicking the phytosanitary number or Agmark number one can reach directly to the certificate issuing authorities thereafter, one can reach at the inspection reports to laboratory analysis, certificate of residue analysis and the pack house details, which are available in detail instantly.

The software is designed to reach at the root of any grape export transaction.

Silver Award Winner Soochana-Se-Samadan, Indian Society of AgriBusiness Professional, Delhi

Government of Tamil Nadu

Mustard Procurement Management System, District Administration, Rohtak, Haryana

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Bronze Award Winner Silver Award Winner Chandigarh Administration www.chandigarh. gov.in

Bronze Award Winner Department of Rural Development, Government of Andhra Pradesh,

Online Paddy Procurement, Department of Food, Chhattisagarh (http://cg.nic.in/dcppdsmis) “The project involves computerisation of 1532 purchase centers, 50 MARKFED storage centers, 70 CGSCSC CMR receiving centers, 35 FCI receiving centers all the 16 food controllers’ office at district collectorate, all the District Marketing Offices of MarkFed, all the District Managers Offices of CGSCSC and head quarters of MARKFED and CGSCSC. Complete system design, development has been done by National Informatics Centre (NIC), Chhattisgarh Unit with the help of hired staff.”

Alok Shukla, Collector, Raipur, Chattisgarh

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Intellectual Capital Needs Actual Investing How do you see deploying new technologies for ensuring quality distance education?

ICT is an empowering tool and everyone should use it. In the current scenario most of the institutes have their own website, some are bringing up their e-Content on the website as well.

We are looking forward to bringing in more participation of people on the ICT path of knowledge exchange.

What are the Government initiatives and how do they contribute to the e-Readiness of the system?

The government strategy and approach for ICT in education are based on the four components: first, generate e-Content, second, provide affordable connectivity, third is access to the resources, and digital literacy, which is a key enabling factor in success of any ICT initiative.

Each of the above will have sub-classification, for example, e-Content will have components of pedagogy, designing, standardisation, validation, peer groups certification, testing, etc. The cost of connectivity is a very important issue to be addressed. If it becomes too costly, no one will be motivated to log on to the available resources. Then there are concerns of standardisations, certification and testing of available content to create quality benchmarks. All these issues are important and need to be tackled.

How do you strategise to address all these issues and challenges?

We have to go through state governments, organisations, NGOs, and schools. Self help groups can increase digital literacy. The e-Learning modules can be developed and easily followed by any learner with basic navigation skills. This concept needs to be spread across the country and one of the strategies is to bring in more awareness on digital literacy.

What are the key highlights and vision of the Higher Education Policy, distance education, in particular?

ICT will not only enable distance education, it will also enable the overall education structure of school and higher education including the distance education, and so we refer our initiative as ‘ICT for Education’ in India. The way you acquire knowledge is immaterial, whether by conventional or distance means. In our future strategy, we have been talking about the convergence between the two.

Online education is coming in a big way into the country.

Don’t you think we need proper guidelines for this mode of learning?

There cannot be a regulator on Internet. There are many sites and let the people decide what they want to use for e-Learning.

We as a government institution are putting our content free of cost for every learner through Sakshat. The content provided 28 }

N K Sinha Joint Secretary

Bureau of Distance Learning and Scholorships, Government of India

Standardisation of content is our challenge. It has to be in the Wiki kind of approach. Leave it on the web in a tentative format, and let all the experts do the value addition till it is stabilised.

The community of intellectuals should take up the responsibility by the government agency has to be benchmarked and has to be quality assured. Hence a peer group as a committee will decide the quality of the content, through vigorous standards.

Standardisation of content is our challenge. It has to be in the Wiki kind of approach. Leave it on the web in a tentative format, and let all the experts do the value addition till it is stabilised. The community of intellectuals should own up the responsibility.

What is your vision for ‘Sakshat’?

The Sakshat portal will host all the content that will get generated and disseminated. This would be the one place to connect any village in any school or college, to an expert in a field and add to Sakshat content. They can send us their knowledge or innovations and we will validate and standardise the content and disseminate to all. Localised knowledge can hence be funneled to a central database and the teachers can also benefit from the information exchange and from other initiatives.

We don’t need IT-savvy teachers; what we are looking towards is sharing and building knowledge from the remotest of areas. Teachers should be empowered to share their innovations, research and experiences on a knowledge platform.

What are the 11th Plan development objectives, in relation to technology-mediated education, and the budget outlay to meet the plan requirements?

INR 5,000 crore has been outlaid for 11th plan for ICTenabled education. This is a small investment; the actual investment is the intellectual capital getting invested. The entire country should get together, join the bandwagon and contribute intellectually, only then things will improve. www.egovonline.net

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Opportunities for Digital India

Parallel Tracks 29-31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

Organisers

Co-Organisers

knowledge for change

Supporting Partners

www.eINDIA.net.in

Beyond the mainstream...

Key Speakers 2007 Adrian Hall Director of Mobile Learning Steljes Ltd., UK

Kuldeep Nagi Asst. Director, e-Learning Assumption University Thailand

Asha Swarup Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Government of India

Astrid Dufborg Executive Director, Global eSchools and Communities Initiatives (GeSCI), Dublin Ireland

K.S. Lasith Gunawardena Lecturer, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka

Dr. Basheerahmed Shadrach Sr. Programme Officer telecentre.org/IDRC India

Buckley Dan Principal Consultant, Cambridge Education England, UK

Michael Clarke Head ICT4D, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada

Isabel Guerrero Country Director – India World Bank

Cho Cheung Moon Director, Global Cooperation and Planning Team, Korea Agency for Digital Opportunity and Promotion (KADO) Korea

Mike Erlin Regional Vice President Blackboard, UK

Jainder Singh Secretary, Department of IT Ministry of Communications and Information Technology Government of India

Chris Thatcher Director, SE Asia Educational Development, Cambridge Education, Thailand

Nancy Knowlton CEO, SMART Technologies Canada

J Satyanarayanan CEO, National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) India

Gerolf Weigel Head - ICT4D, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Berne Switzerland

Shammema Parveen Knowledge Officer, Edutech Middle East

Dr. Maxine Olson UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative (India Head)

Harsha Liyanage Managing Director- Fusion Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka

Dr. Subarna Shakya Executive Director, National Information Technology Center, Ministry of Environment, Science & Technology, Govt. of Nepal

S Khuntia Joint Secretary, Department of Secondary Education and Literacy, Ministry of HRD Government of India

K.M.Taj-Biul Hasan Producer (TV & Radio) Media Centre, Bangladesh Open University, Bangladesh

Dr. Youn-Min Park Manager, KADO Korea

Dr. William Dar Director General, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Topics (ICRISAT), India

eINDIA2008: Introduction Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) announces and invites you to join the premier ICT4D (Information and Communication Technology for Development) event - ‘eINDIA2008’.

The event aims to examine the myriad challenges, which appear in integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to different spheres of life, to share and work together, to analyze and assess, as well as to work towards realising a technology enabled knowledge society.

The eINDIA2007 Conference and Exhibition attracted more than 1200 participants from around 50 countries representing all continents, making it India’s largest ICT4D conference.

Programme Advisory Board Chair

eINDIA2008 (http://www.eINDIA.net.in), fourth annual ICT4D forum in India will be convened at New Delhi, India from 29th to 31st July 2008. The three day forum aims to render active conferencing, networking and showcasing, while organising six seminal tracks- egov INDIA, Digital Learning INDIA, Telecentre Forum INDIA, eHealth INDIA, mServe INDIA, eAgriculture INDIA, and the i4d film festival As an international event, apart from the general public and the media, the eINDIA2008 Conference and Exhibition expects to bring together

Co-Chair

R Chandrashekhar

S Khuntia

Additional Secretary, DIT, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India

Joint Secretary, Department of Secondary Education and Literacy, Ministry of HRD, Government of India

discuss and exchange knowledge and ideas that will shape the future of global ICT development.

The Conference offers a perfect platform for establishing and fostering high level networking contacts with leading representatives of the world’s ICT sector on both governmental and business levels.

Conference Objectives The conference aims to: •

The Venue: Pragati Maidan

eINDIA2007 featured the work of more than 300 speakers, addressing all forms of technology-enhanced knowledge needs, including a rich mix of themes, topics and a variety of session formats.

2000 high level representatives of the ICT industry, government, civil society, academia, and the private sector, from all across the globe to share the best practices and digital opportunities for development, to

•

• •

Provide a collaborative forum to participants to share knowledge and ideas, enabling them to develop cross-sectoral contacts and partnerships, as well as to enhance their knowledge, expertise, and abilities; Give a reference framework for describing impact, and looking at approaches and methods currently used in the ICT4D sector, and their suitability; Highlight barriers of ICT integration in India and for other countries, and identify gaps in current research; Synthesise the main results of experience sharing and the progress made in recent years to provide a baseline for discussion with policy makers, and community of practitioners.

Exhibition

Organiser

The programme will feature an Exhibition and Demonstration area, where leading international ICT4D players, manufacturers, suppliers and service providers shall present their latest products and services.

Participants will evaluate the exhibition as a critical meeting point for professional interaction within the conference.

C e n t r e f o r S c i e n c e, D e v e l o p m e n t a n d M e d i a S t u d i e s (www.csdms.in) is a leading Asian non-governmental institution engaged in advocacy, research and community building in eGovernment, ICT for Development, and knowledge management issues, through capacity building and media initiatives.

Lead Speak The potential of IT to stimulate the development of different sectors of the domestic economy in India is enormous. It can dramatically reduce the cost of communications, improve access to technology and marketing capabilities for the rural poor, eliminate intermediary exploitation in the production and distribution chains, increase government accountability, and stimulate democratic participation.

Thiru A. Raja, Hon’ble Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Government of India

e-Governance is never going to be really effective, unless it is also tied in very closely with the right to information. On the other hand, RTI is not going to be very successful and in fact, it could be doomed to be a failure, if it is not tied with the concept of e-Governance.

Wajahat Habibullah, Chief Information Commissioner, Government of India

The rural communities of India, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, have similar issues and challenges and require similar assistance. Thus we could collaborate to provide the solutions that they require in a more efficient manner. More minds working on it’ will certainly create more superior applications for other areas.

Dato Dr. Halim Man, Secretary General, Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications, Malaysia

We are now looking towards creating a National ICT policy in School Education. During the coming years we have the formidable task of providing literacy to more than 300 million people.

Champak Chatterjee, Secretary, Department of Secondary Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India

It is the right time for implementing e-Governance effectively and a better way, for instance, explosion in IT and IT-enabled services, explosion of service providers and manpower, mobile telephony, ICT services in the economy and market, explosion of ICT4D and e-Government initiatives... An enabling environment has been created for e-Governance in India.

R. Chandrashekhar, Additional Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India

We are such a huge country, the number of farm holding is so large that ICTs offer an opportunity to meet the information gap. ICTs need to be harnessed in a much more significant manner than we have done so far.

A K Agarwal, Joint Secretary (IT), Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India

egov INDIA2008, the fourth in its series is an important track in the annual eINDIA event. The conference is the platform for convening of all stakeholders, policy-makers, practitioners, industry leaders, academicians and architects of e-Government projects - to discuss the achievements, challenges, and the progress made towards achieving the goals of e-Governance. In India, we are witnessing that some states are far ahead in e-Governance, while some have just begun their journey. egov INDIA2008 will fulfill the need to create a common ground for equitable governance provision, which facilitates a process of overall development of the country. Along with Exhibition, it will be a forum to showcase best practices, innovative technologies and ICT solutions. The conference will provide an opportunity to meet face to face with hundreds of potential customers in the fastest growing economy of Asia.

KEY SPEAKERS 2007 egov INDIA 2008 WILL FOCUS ON: • • • • • • • • •

Government Process Re-engineering for Good Governance Administrative and Policy Reforms needed for e-Governance in India Challenges in implementation of National e-Governance Plan Security and legal issues Open Source for sustainable e-Governance Mission Mode Projects and the progress made Emerging Technologies and their use by the government to deliver services Lessons from successful and failed Projects International Best Practices

Who should attend • • • • • • • • • • •

Heads of e-Government CIOs & CTOs IT Directors and Managers Heads of Information and Communication Public Administrators IT Project Directors Integration and Development Managers Technical Architects ICT Services Directors Strategic Planners Information Systems Managers

Delegate Profile The conference will have multi-stakeholder participation involving governments, industry associations, civil society organisations and research and academic institutions. This includes • ICT verticals: CEO’s, CIO’s, CTOs • Key officers and departmental heads from Ministry of IT, Industries & Commerce, Public Administration, Human Resource Development, Urban Development, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj • State Governments – IT secretaries and departmental heads • Senior representatives from International Agencies • NGO Practitioners • Professional and research institutes • Embassy representatives • Enterprise Public Sector Units • Local Industries • International and national media

Wajahat Habibullah Chief Information Commissioner, Central Information Commission, Government of India

R Chandrashekhar Additional Secretary, DIT, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India

B K Sinha Additional Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India

Rohit Kumar Country Head, Public Sector, Microsoft India

Satish Kaushal Country Manager- Government, IBM India

Anirudh Prabhakaran Chief Operating Officer, South Asia, 3i-Infotech

Prakash Kumar Joint Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India

Y S Malik Joint Secretary, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India

EXHIBITION FLOOR PLAN Cafeteria 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 Cafeteria 18 sqm 9 sqm 9 sqm 9 sqm 9 sqm 9 sqm 9 sqm 9 sqm 9 sqm 9 sqm 21 sqm

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Registration: www.eINDIA.net.in/register

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Important Timelines

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Call for papers:Open now Submission of Abstracts:28th Feb Notice of Selection:20th March Submission of Final Paper: 15th April Online Registration: Up till 30th June 2007 Exhibition Booking: Up till 15th June 2007

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Designmate

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Cambridge University Press

Delegate Registration Fee

Abstract Submission: www.eINDIA.net.in/abstract

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Contact e-gov Gautam Navin +91-9818125257 Email: egov@eINDIA.net.in

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Important Links

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Digital Learning Siddharth Verma +91-9811561645 Email: DL@eINDIA.net.in

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mServe Siddharth Verma +91-9811561645 Email: mserve@eINDIA.net.in

10 15 sqm Globus Infocom Ltd.

Globus Infocom Ltd.

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mimio

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eAgriculture Gautam Navin +91-9818125257 Email: eAgriculture@eINDIA.net.in Indian Telecentre Forum Vignesh S +91-9999654458 Email: ITF@eINDIA.net.in

Metalearn

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eHealth Dipanjan Banerjee +91-9968251626 Email: eHealth@eINDIA.net.in

54 sqm

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i4d Film Festival Sulakshana Bhattacharya +91-9811925253 Email: filmfest@eINDIA.net.in

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11th National Conference on e-Governance

Compendium Best Papers Enabling Environment for e-Governance A Suggested Model for e-Government Project Assessment Piyush Gupta, National Institute of Smart Government, Hyderabad

Abstract: Electronic Governance (e-Governance) has received a tremendous interest world over.

Significant amount of money is being put into making e-Governance a reality. A number of Projects are being taken up at various levels, it therefore becomes important to make reasonable means of assessment to see whether the projects have achieved or are going to achieve their planned goals. Proper assessment o f these projects gives us crucial learning on the kind of changes needed to be done to make them successful. This paper is based on the research work being done by the author. The paper addresses the key issues and challenges in assessing e-Gov projects and proposes a model for project assessment. The proposed model approach and focus is on the value it derives for the various stakeholders. One of the components of this model has been piloted in one of the assessment studies at the National level in India.

Emerging e-Government Challenges: Past Imperfect, Present Tense but Future Promising Dr .Dinesh Chandra Misra, Indian Administrative Services (Retired)

Abstract: This paper overviews the e-government scenario as it obtains at the end of 2007 and identifies sixteen emerging egovernment challenges which can help policy makers in e-Government policy formulation and implementation highlighting the central position of efficient public service delivery and certain e-Government developments like global and national league tables, information explosion, knowledge utilisation, technology forecasts, management information systems (MIS’s), e-Government project monitoring, wiki technology, semantic web, artificial intelligence (AI), legal enablement of governmentto-government (G2G) and government-to-citizen (G2C) e-governments, public policy and e-Government and concludes that e-government’s past has been imperfect and its present is also tense but its future continues to be very promising.

Integrated Delivery of e-Services Integrated Delivery of e-Services - Lessons Learned from International Experience Joan McCalla, Distinguished Fellow, Internet Business Solutions Group, Cisco Systems Inc.

WINNER OF THE BEST PAPER AWARD FOR THE YEAR 2007-2008

Abstract: Governments around the world are harnessing the potential of network based technologies to improve convenience and speed of service delivery to their citizens and businesses as well as to increase overall efficiency and effectiveness of government. Based on almost 30 years of public service experience, most recently as the chief strategist with the government of Ontario, Canada with responsibility for leading the government’s successful e-Government strategy, and now as a member of the global public sector team with Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group, this paper presents practical lessons learned by the author on how to plan, manage, and deliver a successful integrated service strategy. After a brief section to identify the challenges, the paper suggests multiple parallel solutions for consideration and discussion of the conference attendees.

Public-Private Participation in Public Service Delivery in Kerala- The Akshaya Experience S N Mukhopadhyaya, COO, Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd., New Delhi

Abstract: This paper intends to explore the unique PPP model adopted by Akshaya project implemented in the State of Kerala for delivery of integrated e-Services. Akshaya centres in Kerala has primarily leveraged on the development focus of the local body institutions for bringing ICT to the root level. This paper delves into the organisational framework of the Akshaya centres and the background under which a PPP model at the panchayat level for e-Services is put in place. ov

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COVER FEATURE

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e-Governance and Development Computerisation for Process Reforms in Public Works Department, Assam Diganta Goswami, Assistant Engineer, PWD and Nodal Officer, Chief Engineer, PWD (Roads), Chandmari and Rameesh Kailasam, Director, Oracle India e-Governance Center of Excellence, Gurgaon

Abstract: Good roads, bridges and building infrastructure is a critical input for the growth of a state’s socio-economy, not only for Assam but the entire North Eastern region in India or the World for that matter. The Public Works Department (PWD) in the state of Assam is engaged with the task of construction and maintenance of roads, bridges and buildings infrastructure. Assam has the potential to be among the better states in the country by virtue of being the gateway to north-east India in addition to possessing the potential to be the business hub of South Asia from China to Indonesia and Singapore because of the land route it offers. A quantum jump in the functioning system of PWD Assam is inevitable to gear itself up to deliver the goods. The Assam PWD Computerisation Project (APCP) is a project designed against the backdrop and is being implemented to revitalise the department through business process reengineering and workflow based systems. This paper shares the process of Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) ERP implementation (Oracle and Primavera) in a complex government department like PWD and how our learning can be applied to other departments.

Role of e-Governance in Development Prinima Gupta and Jyoti Pruthi, Dr B.B Bansal, Manav Rachna College of Engineering, Faridabad.

Abstract: India is facing a large number of challenges that are typical of developing countries. New information and communication technologies can make a significant contribution to the achievement of good governance goals. e-Governance can make governance more efficient and more effective, and bring other benefits too. The Indian government has for the past three decades widely acknowledged that expanded use of ICT in the public and private sector can offer important benefits such as improved planning and monitoring mechanisms, cost savings and more effective administration and delivery of certain public services. Today, wide range of e-governance projects are being implemented in different parts of the country including projects aimed at reaching areas and people that had traditionally not been connected to the outside world. The paper outlines the application of e-Government framework and the potential role of e-Government in the development of India. It is not only concerned with the way e-Government model can be adapted by India, but also clearly explains its potential impact to the society’s life, business sector and economy as a whole.

e-Governance and Rural Sector Methodology to Establish a Traceability Matrix using ICT for e-Governance in Rural Development Indu Gupta, Scientist, Prashant Kr.Mitta, Scientist, Sunita Jain, Vikas Aggarwal, National Informatics Centre, Rajasthan

Abstract: In this paper a methodology has been suggested to map the scheme and beneficiary through the ICT, which has been implemented in the state of Rajasthan by the State Rural Development Department. In the proposed methodology, the focus would be on enforcing uniform identifiers for location, scheme and citizens.

e-Governance Aiding Rural Development Anupama Sharma and Piyush Pant, Institute of Rural Management, Anand, Gujarat

Abstract: Agriculture sector has been under scrutiny over ages in India but due to lack of production scheduling and lesser use of information technology small- and marginal farmers have faced tough times. Agriculture management needs integrated agriculture development practices which facilitates production inputs, credit facilities, microclimate mapping, marketing and monitoring that can ration to decrease information asymmetry by using ICT to solve the vagaries. Initial database using GIS, including demographic, socio-economic, and bio-geo-physical factors of a particular village, needs to be prepared and accordingly production scheduling being done at sub-district or block level so as to produce as per agro-climatic conditions of the area. It will help to reduce the glut in market and lead to decrease of huge losses of farmers as ICT will help in networking between various knowledge systems in agriculture eventually aiding in rural development.

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e-Governance and Education e-Admissions: Online Entrance Test and Online Counseling in Technical Courses in Haryana Ajit M. Sharan, (Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary to Government of Haryana), Vineet Kumar, Joint Director, (HSCS), Anita Singhrova, Lecturer, IST Murthal, Amita, Directorate of Technology Education Department, Susheel Kumar, Technical Director, NIC

Abstract: The pace of technological advancement has increased many folds. To keep pace with the changing times the Haryana Government and the Directorate of Technical Education, Haryana started Online Off Campus web based counseling (for admission in various technical courses in Haryana) from the session 2006-07 onwards. Prior to this the counseling was manual. The entrance test for Pharmacy, Hotel Management and catering Technology, Masters of Computer Application, Lateral Entry to Engineering and Pharmacy was also made online from the session 2007-08. National Informatics Centre (NIC) was entrusted to accomplish the challenging task of online counseling and online entrance test. This paper highlights the issues in manual counseling and draws the comparison with online counseling. The success of new counseling method is indicative with proportionately large number of registrations and admissions. Further, the new approach has increased the transparency in admission procedure and e-Readiness in technical institutes in the state of Haryana, manpower wise as well as infrastructure wise and the state has taken a lead in the country by introducing online off campus Counseling for admissions to all under-graduate/post-graduate/diploma courses and online entrance test in the purview of technical education.

e-Governance and Education using ICT Sambhu Nath Mukhopadhyay, Chief Operating Officer, Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Limited, New Delhi

Abstract: This paper reviews the functionality of ICT enabled multi-channel mode of delivering education and content using different frameworks under e-Governance perspective. It discusses the social impact of digital intrusion in the education field. The paper also highlights the best practices and also analyses and concentrates mostly on the rural and not so advanced sectors.

e-Governance and Health Telemedicine in Health care: A Multidimensional Perspective Gyan Prakash, Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Abstract: Governments in developing countries are hard-pressed to achieve equitable outcomes in health care through efficient utilisation of resources, while simultaneously assuring quality of care. This paper highlights the role of telemedicine – the delivery of health care across geographically dispersed locations using ICTs for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases, research, evaluation, and training – as an alternative way of increasing the reach of tertiary health care and achieving the triple goals of equity, efficiency and quality. Prioritisation of telemedicine, appropriate technology, quality standards, public-private partnerships, and international cooperation, can contribute towards harnessing the potential of telemedicine to achieve improvements in health.

Mobile Nomadic Healthcare in Rural Areas Monideepa Roy and Nandini Mukherjee, Department of Computer Science Jadavpur University, Kolkata

Abstract: This paper suggests a mobile medical framework by using JINI in resource constrained devices, which could possibly aid in bridging the large gap in disbursement of proper medical treatment faster and more efficiently, to the large chunk rural and remote areas of developing countries. Here the mobile devices can overcome restrictions of space to function as service providers as well as service clients. ov

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NeGP-Agriculture

Impacting Agriculture The National Agriculture Policy lays emphasis on the use of Information Technology for achieving a more rapid development of Agriculture in India. In pursuance thereof, the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC) has taken up an initiative to prepare National e-Governance Plan in Agriculture (NeGP-A) with a view to promote focused and integrated implementation of e-Governance activities in Agriculture. N K Das, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture speaks to egov magazine about the various ICT programmes being implemented under the aegis of the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation.

What are the various initiatives taken by the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC) towards eGovernance in Agriculture?

To promote e-Governance in Agriculture at Centre and to provide support to States/UTs for the same, the DAC has implemented a Central Sector Scheme, ‘Strengthening/ Promoting Agricultural Information System’, during the 10th Plan with a budgetary provision of INR 1,000 million. This scheme is continuing during the XI Plan also and has the following components:i) Development of Agricultural Informatics and Communication; 38 }

ii) Strengthening of IT Apparatus in Agriculture & Cooperation in States & Union Territories (AGRISNET); iii) Strengthening of IT and Information network at DAC Headquarters and its field Offices and the Directorates; iv) Agricultural Resources Information Systems (AgRIS); v) Kisan Call Centres In addition to the above, the department has launched a Mission Mode Project (MMP) under the National eGovernance Plan in Agriculture (NeGP-A). Phase-I has already been completed and the approach for Phase-II has recently been finalised for implementation.

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the right kind but also at the appropriate times.

All these initiatives are aimed at providing the farmers guidance and support to take the right decision of what and when to sow, when to seed and at what price.

What are the broad objectives of the Agriculture MMP (Mission Mode Project) component under the NeGP? Broadly, the objectives are to build on and integrate the already existing initiatives, focusing on the delivery of quality services to various stakeholders, bringing together various departments on to a common robust standards-based platform and creating a market oriented value-chain for the farmer.

At the end of Phase-I, the various services provided by the government have been identified in consultation with the states and they have been prioritised in to 23 core services. Some similar services have been consolidated to arrive at a final list of 18 consolidated services that would be addressed during Phase-II. These identified services include Information to farmers on seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, crop diseases, government schemes, soil recommendations, crop management, weather, & marketing of agriculture produce.

How will these schemes have a substantial and positive impact on the production and marketing capabilities of the farmers and the other stakeholders?

Agriculture like any other sector of the economy is increasingly knowledge based. Farmers need access to information on better and latest technologies, package of practices, reliable sources of inputs and other services, market information and even weather forecast. He requires information not only of

There are issues of localisation and content?

How do you propose to overcome these barriers?

Content will be provided by the Centre as in the DACNET initiative, and also at the state level. It will be the responsibility of the state level bodies to take care of issues of localisation and language. It is expected that the states will take care to provide the services in the local language. At the national level, the issue of languages can be dealt with in a phased manner.

Also, it is my opinion that static content is not very useful. Real time content is needed. The institutional arrangements to supply real time content need to be established.

There is a need for all assisting institutions to evolve methods of feeding information and knowledge into the system. There is also a need to take care that the back-end mechanisms are evolved enough to make this programme a success.

With the given scenario of increasing telephone reach and mobile connectivity, how is the Kisan Call Center (KCC) looked as a new approach of reaching the farmers?

What has been the experience till now?

The KCC initiative aims to provide information to the farming community through toll-free telephone lines (No. 1551). It is being implemented by the Extension Division of this Department. The scheme was launched on 21st January, 2004. The entire country is covered under the scheme. We already have large and literate farmers actively participating in the programme, whereas young, small farmers and women farmers need to be motivated to use KCC more frequently.

The facility is being publicised among the farmers through the medium of television and radio (Doordarshan and All India Radio) programmes and also through direct publicity campaign in the field so that the maximum number of farmers can avail the benefit of this service.

APW President crosses INR 1000 million in Sales APW President Systems, the pioneer in enclosure systems (which play a vital role in telecom, IT and electronics infrastructure), has crossed INR 1000 million in sales revenue this month, marking an important milestone. To mark the historic occasion the company presented mementos to some of its most valued customers.

APW President has established a tradition of trust. A company with Indian roots, founded and grown by a team of Indian technocrats, it has gathered skills in the cabinets and electronic enclosures business over more than 25 years, supplying world class modular enclosures to hundreds of ov

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demanding customers. The customer list includes virtually every prestigious name in Indian business. “With the support of our loyal customers we have built an enviable position in our market segment. Many of our customers have trusted us and given us repeat business over decades, and this has inspired us to grow to the present level,� said E.A. Elias, Managing Director, APW President Systems.

APW President has pioneered India’s modular enclosure industry, ushering in the benefits of standardization by adopting international specifications and practices.

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e-Health and Public Sector Reforms in India Dr Tarun Seem, Director, National Rural Health Mission

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ndia has achieved multifaceted socio-economic progress since Independence. There is however, globally, a shift in the Government’s approach in favour of universalisation and entitlements. This is where India has much to catch up.

The health indicators in India have shown a steady improvement over the years.

Source: Economic Survey 2005-06

HEALTH SECTOR REFORM IN INDIA

Health sector reform involves fundamental change in policy and institutional arrangements. All aspects of the sector from manpower to infrastructure to logistics to monitoring to participation of stakeholders are subject matter of this process. Health sector reforms have come centre stage since 1980s essentially from frustration of the citizens in receiving any semblance of health care from the public system. By 1990s the process had taken concrete shape.

In India, the health sector reforms broadly cover the following areas : • Reorganisation and restructuring of existing government health care system • Involving Community in health service delivery and provision • Health Management Information System • Quality of care Health sector reform is not new to the policy maker in India.

Since middle of the Tenth Five year Plan (2004 -05 onwards) however, the process has taken on unprecedented urgency.

Health sector reform is now one of the flag ship agendas of the Government of India.

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NATIONAL RURAL HEALTH MISSION

Health care is now one of the thrust areas for the Government of India. The Government mandates an increase in expenditure in health sector, with main focus on Primary Health Care from current level of 0.9% of GDP to 2-3% of GDP over the next five years. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) which is the main vehicle for giving effect to the above mandate was launched in April 2005.

NRHM is an overarching umbrella initiative which subsumes the existing programmes of Health and Family Welfare and seeks to be the omnibus vehicle for sector wide reform in India.

NRHM has the following vision:• Implemented throughout the country with special focus on 18 states with weak public health indicators and / or weak infrastructure.

• Improve availability of and access to quality health care especially in rural areas for poor and vulnerable sections of the population.

• Build synergy between health and determinants of good health like nutrition, sanitation, hygiene and safe drinking water.

• Mainstream Indian Systems of Medicine in public health system.

• Increase the absorptive capacity of health delivery system to enable it to handle increased allocations.

• Decentralise the planning process to the community.

The NRHM also revisits the Community Health Worker (CHW) strategy in India after 1982 when the support of VHG scheme was transferred to the states effectively bringing it to

Chart 1: Integration of IT interventions, Source: www.ehealthonline.org

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However, this change over to digital way of thinking in the health sector has rather high initial costs. The licensing terms and conditions, bilateral and interconnection agreements, non-existence of regulations, security and trade issues are serious bottlenecks which need to be addressed.

India is the ideal setting for telemedicine assisted health care. We already have a strong fiber backbone and indigenous satellite communication technology with large trained manpower in this sector. Various state governments, departments of the Government of India, private institutions and NGOs have been running a number of e-Health projects over recent past with successful outcome. In this scenario, a country level e-Health plan is long due to steer e-Health. th The enhanced allocations for e-Health over the XI Plan can be used for the following major activities to accelerate and expand the reach of the architectural correction in the health system which is envisaged under the NRHM: Training, Education & Capacity Building

Chart2: ICT Chart with actors of NRHM, Source: www.ehealthonline.org

an abrupt end. The CHWs reappear in public health in India in the form of the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA).

NRHM raises enormous demands on the training and capacity building infrastructure. e-Enabling the training infrastructure assists in optimal utilisation of the capacities.

A tele training centre is accordingly envisaged at the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW).

The Medical Colleges can be networked with the district hospitals and nursing institutions for CME and in service trainings.

KNOWLEDGE AS TOOL OF GOVERNANCE

Governments are by nature information intensive organisations. Rapid and sweeping technological advances over the last few years have radically redefined the abilities of Government to hold information. The empowerment of hitherto unsung stakeholders in the information transactions has created new framework for information management.

Health sector has most to benefit from governance processes in which Information and Communication Technology plays a significant role.

e-HEALTH IN INDIA

e-Health offers some ready products for accelerating the health sector reforms in India. The shortage of infrastructure, manpower and services in health sector in India is mainly attributable to the large gap in overall development between rural and urban areas. This gap levies substantial disincentive on health manpower for working in rural areas. e-Health offers a good option wherein a significant proportion of patients in remote locations can be successfully managed locally with advice/ guidance from specialists in cities, without having to travel far. This allows linking patients in remote areas to urban standard services without delinking urban service providers from their mileu. The arrangement offers easier, cost effective consultation, prescription mechanism and allows a referral chain. e-Enabling also improves depth, range and refresh rate for disease surveillance and response. ov

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Union Budget 2007-08: Allocation for National Rural Health Mission has been stepped up from Rs 8207 crore to Rs 9947 crore.

Source: www.moneycontrol.com Monitoring

The lack of a functional MIS at various levels has been a critical shortcoming in the health sector in India.

Much of this problem can be conclusively solved using IT solutions. Under NRHM, monitoring and evaluation, using ICT tools is planned so as to create smart data corridors which are usable by both the planners and the implmentors.

GIS Resource Mapping

The preparation of District Health plans under NRHM presuppose the availability of updated information regarding the health sector resources. This includes the location of health facilities (both public and private sector), medical investigation centres and labs, training centres, trained manpower. The geo spatial mapping capacities in the country offer a major tool for addressing this critical issue. Many states including Gujarat, Rajasthan, Orissa etc. have made good progress in this area. Under NRHM this activity is proposed to be undertaken for a country wide roll out.

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Service Delivery

Several ICT enabled service delivery initiatives in the areas of cancer network, ophthalmology services, disease surveillance are already in operation in many states. These are proposed to be scaled up and supported by the Govt of India. A formal protocol for tele consultations and a regular tele health helpline is also proposed.

The networking of all major hospitals with the district hospitals, CHCs and PHCs would substantially enhance the reach and range of services available to the citizens from the public system. The large number of mobile medical units can also be e-Enabled so as to expand the range of services which can be made available through them.

Other Activities

The large number of e-Health initiatives are already operating in the country (either under the state government patronage or in a private institution). These are proposed to be evaluated and examined for support under the Government of India e-Health efforts.

The scaled up shift over to digital method of thinking in the development sector would however need to be a cautious transition. There are several obvious pitfalls in digitalization of governance and public sector service delivery. The most important being, accentuation of the existing analogue divide with an additional digital divide. Furthermore, the acceptability of e-Health as a viable initiative would need to be developed amongst the service providers. A study of

existing telemedicine initiatives has pointed out that e-Health sessions are most likely to be cancelled (primarily) due to non availability of the doctor at the remote or the expert end for conducting the session.

It would therefore be necessary to create a strong sense of motivation among doctors and design e-Health programmes on basis of felt needs. There would also be need for regular monitoring, follow ups and independent evaluations of the initiatives. The contours of ownership of e-Health initiatives in respective division, state or institutions would need to be clarified. It would also be necessary to set up e-Literate management structures to support the day to day requirements of e-Health initiatives in public health setup.

IT enabling of health sector can take on a life, logic and legitimacy of its own. In this process, the real issues of health delivery and other health sector necessities would have to be prevented from becoming subordinate to the technology.

The digitalisation of public health delivery system would therefore need to be patient centered rather than technology centered. Never the less, the public health system in India can no longer afford to delay a large scale shift to e-Health.

Clearly, the NRHM has created the right environment for this transition.

Dr. Tarun Seem Director, NRHM Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (Personal views of the author, article does not reflect government policy)

C-DAC Releases Five New Products at Elitex 2008 Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) announced the release of five new products at the Electronics and Information Technology Exposition (ELITEX) ’2008 organised by the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi during January 17-18, 2008. The five products, namely Cyber Investigation and Analysis Tools for Network Forensics, KYN - Know Your Network, Anuman- Real Time Weather System, Black Box and BOSS Server Version, were released by Dr Shakeel Ahmad, Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology at the inaugural session of ELITEX 2008. Nikhil Kumar, Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology delivered the keynote address. Dr Ahmad also visited the C-DAC stall and evinced keen interest in the displayed products and solutions.

In tune with this year’s theme for ELITEX 2008 – “Securing Indian Cyber Space”, C-DAC’s newly released product Know Your Network (KYN) is an open-source based integrated platform exclusively for Network Monitoring and Measurement for diagnosing network health. KYN provides monitoring mechanisms for verification of QoS, network performance, diagnosis by analysing various network parameters such as link statistics, interface details, latency, delay, packet loss, jitter, bandwidth utilisation, application data rates etc. KYN also provides measurement mechanisms 42

both using active and passive measurement strategies. KYN provides visualization model of various established public domain network tools such as MRTG, H323Beacon, Iperf etc.

KYN integrates C-DAC’s Network Traffic Analyser to identify intrusions based on network traffic behavioral detection.

Increasing incidents of cyber crimes and the need for equipping law enforcement agencies with the best tools for checking this menace has led C-DAC towards the development of Cyber Forensics Tools. C-DAC has already released CyberCheck Suite – disk forensics tools for acquisition and analysis of digital evidence. Over 100 licenses of this product have been distributed to various agencies across India. Now C-DAC has come up with tools for aiding network forensics and forensics of devices like Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) and smart phones. The former product termed ‘NetForce’ was released today by the Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Communications and IT. This comprises of NetworkSessionAnalyzer for analyzing and reconstructing network packets, CyberInvestigator for forensics analysis of various kinds of logs and EmailTracer for identifying the sender of e-mail. C-DAC has also come out with a package called ‘DeviceAnalyst’, which has tools for acquiring and analysing digital evidence from PDAs and smart phones. With these set of tools, C-DAC is confident that law enforce agencies would be better equipped to tackle cyber crimes. www.egovonline.net

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On Way to e-Governed Haryana INTRODUCTION

The state of Haryana is located in the northern part of India.

Chandigarh is the capital of the state, which is administered as a union territory and is also the capital of Punjab. With a total geographical area of 44,212 sq. kms, Haryana has emerged as one of India’s most industrialised states. The city of Gurgaon is emerging as a major hub for the information technology and automobile industry.

The state’s e-Governance vision statement is ‘to achieve efficiency, transparency and accountability in governance by providing ICT enabled access and opportunities for all, anywhere, anytime’.

The state has taken various steps in order to realise this vision.

IT POLICY

The Government of Haryana forumulated its IT policy in the year 2000. The IT Vision of the state of Haryana, which is to transform Haryana into an IT driven economy, is sought to be realised by achieving the following objectives: 1. Upgrading the standard and quality of administration, particularly in social and public services sector through a process of modernisation and rationalisation of the administrative set up, 2. Providing public centred, efficient and cost-effective government, 3. Extensive percolation of IT literacy and education in the state, 4. Promoting investments in IT industry, 5. Encouraging private sector initiative in IT related infrastructure and services, 6. Increasing the share of IT in State Gross Domestic Product, 7. Generating IT related employment opportunities, and 8. Enhancing earning capacity of the residents thereby ensuring a better quality of life.

The State IT department facilitates the other departments of the Haryana Government. The National Informatics Centre, the Haryana State Centre (NIC-HRSC) and Haryana State Electronics Development Corporation (HARTRON) assist in technical aspects. A well defined system for the systematic approval of the departmental IT action plan has been put in place through various high power committees which include state level IT steering committee (IT-PRISM), state technical committee, society for IT initiative fund for e-Governance initiatives at state level, district IT society in each district. Till date 104 IT plans/project proposals of various departments/ organisations have been approved by IT-PRISM, covering almost all major departments/ organisations. ov

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Map of Haryana E-GOVERNANCE PROJECTS IN HARYANA

The Haryana State e-Governance projects have already received 12 prestigious national awards. During January 2005 - May 2007, a number of e-Governance projects, including most of the state sector Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) of NeGP have been initiated and implemented successfully.

Some of the important MMPs implemented in the state of Haryana are: On-Line Treasuries Information System (OTIS) is an integrated workflow automation system. OTIS facilitates role based dynamic menus and security and automation of treasury functions like payments, receipts, pensions, bank scroll, voucher preparation.OTIS has received Microsoft e-Governance excellence award 2006.

Haryana Registration Information System (HARIS) facilitates registration of properties and land. The salient features of HARIS include deed writing, capturing storing of photos, security checks, collector rates, registration fee information, biometric and statistical reports. It is being implemented on a self-sustaining model at all 67 Tehsils and 45 Sub-Tehsils covering 100% locations.

Haryana Land Records Information System (HALRIS) is a complete Integrated workflow automation system of land record components. HALRIS provides a single window interface for deed writing, registration, mutation and copy of 43

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Record-of-Right (ROR). It has been implemented in all 20 districts of the state. To bring greater transparency and to ensure hassle free services, the HARIS has been integrated with HALRIS. e-Panchayat: The panchayats (administrative unit at villages) level works monitoring and information system has been implemented under e-Panchayats initiatives as a web enabled village information system. An exclusive website of the department has been launched. Panchayat information is being uploaded on to National Panchayats portal.

Value Added Tax Management, Assessment, Collection System (VATMACS) include modules like VAT return processing, dealers registration, fact sheet compilation, statutory forms inventory, road side checking. The VATMACS is being implemented at all 21 Deputy Excise and Taxation Commissioner offices.

The House Tax Assessment and Collection Information System (HACIS) has been implemented for all municipalities as per state’s latest house tax policy. Significant increase in tax collection has been recorded. The birth and death and other certificates issuing system for district headquarter level municipalities are being issued through e-Disha.

Computerised Driving License and Registration Certificate of Vehicles are being implemented at a number of Sub-divisional Magistrates offices. For this, the national software systems namely Sarathi and Vahan have been adopted as a standard across the state. Significant increase in revenue collection has been recorded.

Complete Computerisation of Haryana Roadways: In order to implement this project successfully the modules implemented are total work-flow, traffic and route management, inventory management, vehicle monitoring systems, purchase orders module, service books records with auditing of leaves and increments. A pilot project is running in Chandigarh Roadways Depot.

AgMarkNet: All 108 Mandies (wholesale marketplace) and 25 sub-centers of agriculture marketing board have been provided with computing and Internet facilities and training

Strategic Framework for e-Governance • •

• • • • •

All organisations are required to prepare their IT plans, before embarking upon ICT initiatives.

Till date the IT- PRISM (State level IT Steering Committee) has approved 104 IT plans / project proposals – Work Started on all projects SWAN implementation started, by 31st October, 2007 Common Service Centre (e-Disha Ekal Sewa Kendra) – Started implementation of the scheme e-Governance and capacity building road maps prepared Each department can spend upto 5% of its budget for ICT initiatives Secretariat for information technology is in place as a consortium of State IT department, Secretariat branch, NIC-HRSC, Society for IT initiative fund for e-Governance, District IT Societies and Hartron Source:www.egovonline.net/articles/article-details.asp?articleid=1289&typ=FOCUS

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to publish prices of agriculture commodities on daily basis.

Other projects such as AgRIS, Agrisnet, national horticulture mission are also being implemented.

Police G2G Suite: A suite of software packages has been developed and implemented for facilitating police functioning. Dynamic police web portal with citizen interface has been launched.

Employment Exchanges: Internet based employment exchange registration information system initiated in Panchkula, Ambala, Faridabad, Kurukshetra, Gurgaon districts. e-District Project has been introduced in the state. The comprehensive network (LAN), a modern IT training lab, district level e-Disha centers in each district mini secretariat, a suite of office automation software packages, revenue courts computerisation system (RECORD), arm licenses, public grievances redressal, development projects’ monitoring.

All major functions of revenue administration in a network environment have been planned to be integrated.

State Sector Additional Mission Mode Projects under NeGP

e-Health.Net: This has helped in greater availability of medicines to the patients in government health institutes and Doctor’s in rural dispensaries. e-Health.Net received National Silver Icon Award along with Health Care Foundation at 8th National e-Governance conference.

On-line off-campus Counseling Project for all engineering admissions during 2006 has been successfully implemented the Haryana Government. Haryana is first state to implement such a system in India.

Haryana School Education Board: All major functions of school education board, Bhiwani, have been automated, administrative reforms were carried out and all results, admit cards, provisional certificates are published on web.

This project has received National Gold Icon Award at 8th National e-Governance conference.

Haryana Pensions Processing and Information System (HAPPIS) for more than 1.2 million pensioners. The system is helping in timely disbursement of pension to old age and other pensioners every month. HAPPIS received National Silver Icon Award at 6th National e-Governance conference. e-Food.Net: Web enabled food procurement and storage monitoring system. The procurement and storage of food grains is being monitored through e-Food.Net system at all District Food and Supplies Controllers (DFSCs). The project had received “Merit Citation” National Award at 7th National e-Governance conference.

IMPACT-Haryana: The integrated monitoring of PWD Building and Roads (B&R) activities is a web based monitoring system, which has been developed and implemented across the state for more than 4500 works of PWD. The roads programme (Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana) is being implemented at all 21 offices of B&R. REFERENCES http://www.egovonline.net/articles/article-details.asp?articleid=1289&typ=FOCUS http://haryana.gov.in/policies/it_policy.htm http://haryanait.nic.in/New%20htmls/egov.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haryana

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CEO SPEAK

Oracle Strengthens Focus on Government

Providing Solutions for Local Needs

Oracle offers governments robust, integrated information architecture comprising both technology and applications, which is based on open standards. As Indian governments start to use Oracle database, middleware and applications, we think the new features in our software can greatly help Indian governments, tells Krishan Dhawan, Managing Director, Oracle India, in an interview with egov magazine.

There are a lot of initiatives of Oracle in ICT education, innovations in the area of the use of ICT in health care, in establishing e-Governance Centres of Excellence, and so on. What is the picture that your company has?

Oracle software and solutions are helping central, state and local governments streamline revenue generation and management, citizen services delivery and increase internal productivity. We had set up an e-Governance Centre of Excellence in 2003. Recently we have also set up an Asia Research and Development (R & D) centre in Gurgaon.

These centres are helping create interesting concepts that government can look at to meet the specific needs of India.

These centres are also helping government, our partners and businesses create a roadmap for adoption of technology in a manner that is most beneficial to the people of India. ov

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Which of the Oracle e-Government services find maximum demand in the public sector?

There has been an increase in government shared services initiatives as governments seek to optimise back office operations, assure best-practice standards across multiple agencies and rationalise platforms – a trend we see increasing in the future.

Tax and revenue agencies are at the forefront of adopting IT. Also government departments dealing with citizens are looking for better ways of improving citizen services. The other area where we will see increased interest in deploying IT is in automating the government accounting system. Local government bodies have shown a lot of interest in adopting IT to enable transition from a single entry accounting system to the double entry accounting system.

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The central, state and local governments in India and across the world use Oracle solutions in several areas including: • Creation of Citizen Data Hubs • Putting Together Integrated Government Treasury Management Systems • Creating an Information Architecture for Municipalities and Panchayats • Creating an Integrated Land and Agriculture System • Creating an Integrated Infrastructure Management System • Putting in Place Centralised and Integrated Systems for Utilities Including Power and Water Management • Handling Operations in Public Works Department Including Public Works Project Management • Integrated Solutions for Learning and Education for All Levels i.e. K-12 and Higher Education • Hospital Management and Integrated Healthcare Systems What are the key factors that public sector should bear in mind while implementing e-Government solutions? e-Governance does not mean just putting PCs and servers and deploying some software, it is about using information technology to bring transparency, accuracy and speed into the system, which ultimately will benefit the common man.

The implementation of IT should increase the efficiencies of the various government departments and help the citizens at large by way of effective information management. Its about incorporating best practices and domain knowledge to create a system that not only makes the internal operations of a government department more efficient but also helps the department to connect better with other government departments and provide a holistic response to the citizen in a timely and efficient manner.

What are the challenges that Oracle faces in implementing its solutions in the public sector, especially in developing countries like Asia?

Government projects are typically large with far reaching consequences and high citizen impact. The challenges that we face in the government sector are similar to what we face in large sized deployments in the private sector.

Change management, longer decision making processes and technology acceptance by end users are some of the issues that need to be addressed in any large deployment of IT. Can you tell us some of your success stories?

Oracle has over 100 live deployments in central, state and local governments in India. Some of the well known projects include: e-Seva and rural e-Seva in Andhra Pradesh, local government projects in Uttaranchal, Assam PWD, North East VAT, Income Tax and Excise Department projects, treasury automation projects across several states including Rajasthan, municipality automation projects in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, West Bengal and Maharashtra among others.

Oracle has recently been named the leading Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) vendor in India 46

and Asia Pacific. What has led to Oracle’s continued leadership in database innovation?

Over the past thirty years Oracle has delivered virtually every noteworthy innovation that exists today in the area of database and information management. Through consistent innovation, Oracle has enabled a fundamental change in

The implementation of IT should increase the efficiencies of the various government departments and help the citizens at large by way of effective information management. e-Governance is about incorporating best practices and domain knowledge to create a system that not only makes the internal operations of a government department more efficient but also helps the department to connect better with other government departments. the cost of hardware infrastructure by supporting dynamic scalability even on the lowest cost servers, utilising all assets to their fullest capacity and even adding new and unique capabilities – such as Flashback, Data Guard, XML DB, Application Express, and Oracle RAC which continue to change the very notion of what database software should provide.

Oracle Database 11g innovations in areas such as information consolidation, performance and scalability, quality of service, and of course change management continue the Oracle drive toward a low-cost and agile information infrastructure. We are sure these innovations will help our customers in the government space even more.

What is your future strategy or plan to have more initiatives in the public domain?

We work with over 2000 governments across the world.

Oracle offers governments robust, integrated information architecture comprising both technology and applications, which is based on open standards. As Indian governments start to use Oracle database, middleware and applications, we are think the new features in our software can greatly help Indian governments. For example, our enhanced CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and Supply Chain suite of products have several new features that can help governments in their interaction with citizens as well in their procurement processes. Our new database – Oracle Database 11g – now offers greater scalability and security, two features that are extremely important to governments.

We have strengthened our focus on Government with a stronger team that works closely with the e-Government Centre of Excellence, the Asia R & D centre at Gurgaon and our global development centres in Bangalore, Delhi and NOIDA to bring innovative solutions to meet local needs. www.egovonline.net

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EVENT DIARY

egov Knowledge Exchange Series I

IT Applications in

Municipalities egov has always believed that the constant exchange of ideas and knowledge is imperative for a more aware citizenry and a more proactive government. In alignment to this belief, egov launched its first Annual Knowledge Exchange Series as a part of its commitment to create more public awareness, discussions and debates on critical issues relating to e-Governance and e-Government.

Held at the Grand Intercontinental Hotel, New Delhi on 8 January, 2008, this inaugural event served as a platform for learning and sharing for more than 50 delegates from public sector, private sector, media, academia and international organisations.

The seminar started with a welcome note by Ravi Gupta, Chief Editor, egov, in which he informed that the motive behind such an event was to create public awareness through regular debates as well as to try and expand boundaries, create repository of ideas and solutions and add value to the process. He also thanked Krishnaperdash Aswanth Kumar, Chief Financial Officer and City Treasurer, City of Durban, for accepting the invitation to share his experiences from Durban.

Ravi Gupta also spoke about using web 2.0 technology for effective information dissemination through the egov portal.

Krishnaperdash Aswanth Kumar, Chief Financial Officer and City Treasurer, City of Durban, South Africa talking about the role of IT in managing municipalities

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He announced that egov will hold many such similar events in the future on a regular basis, within and outside India, as it has been doing in the past. He also talked about the next big conference and exhibition, eIndia2008 and the progress of egov over the last three years.

After the welcome address, SP Singh, Senior Director, Department of IT, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India, gave an overview of the National e-Governance Plan of the Government of India and the Mission Mode Projects being implemented under the NeGP. He thanked egov Knowledge Exchange Series for providing a platform to share the best practices, experiences, expertise, common strategies and methodologies.

This was followed by an introduction to the city of Durban by the Deputy Mayor of the city of Durban, Lomie Naidoo, who spoke about the infrastructure, the innovative fibre optic connectivity adopted by Durban, and the connection with India, including its partnership with Ramco Systems, a private sector software and service provider.

After this was an insightful presentation by Krishnaperdash Aswanth Kumar, Chief Financial Officer and City Treasurer, city of Durban, South Africa on the role of IT in managing municipalities. Krishnaperdash gave a detailed account of the municipality reforms in Durban. He said that the vision of the local government was to follow a ‘people’s first’ policy in order to provide world class services to the citizens and make the services accessible and available to all with a focus on the underprivileged sections of the society. The elimination of backlog infrastructure, providing basic services and provisions such as housing, water and sanitation, employment, and lack of capacity to deliver especially by the smaller municipalities were some of the challenges he mentioned.

The proposed solution requirements that he suggested were - a holistic approach to harness the potential of IT, seamless integration of inter and intra departmental processes, IT enabled and Batho pele complaint departmental processes, elimination of wastage by time capturing and validation of information at source. He also emphasised on the fact that any programme to be successful needs a strong policy and political leadership for the reforms to be implement strongly. According to him, operational efficiency, employee satisfaction, cost saving and innovation were the objectives to be kept in mind.

Krishnaperdash also spoke of the collaborative development and delivery between the municipalities and the partner organisations. While talking about the collaborative 47

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Participants of the first egov Knowledge Exchange Series

development and delivery, he spoke of partnerships from India. He said that the key element for the strategy was to own Internet Protocol (IP) rights and make them globally available at nominal rates.

He spoke of the broadband strategy and the revolutionisation of service delivery. Talking about the solution map he informed that global best practices had been adopted by Durban and they have best collection rates.

Concluding his presentation, Ashwanth Kumar spoke of the solution benefits that were expected to be provided to the citizens like services at the citizen’s doorsteps with broadband, eliminating wastage of citizen’s productive time and general opportunities for employment and self employment etc.

The presentation was followed by a very interactive question and answer round. Some of the key issus that were raised were: the strategies to instigate political willingness for resource mobilisation, queries on the extent of paperlessness and on electronic voting, data integration at local level, sustainability factors for service delivery models and so on.

During the discussions, queries on financial management and accounting standards adopted by the city of Durban were answered by Chris Nagooroo, the city’s Head of Expenditure.

The seminar closed with a thank you note by SP Singh, where he also informed about the differences and similarities between e-Governance implementation in municipalities in India and the city of Durban.

Join us in the Deliberations on India’s March Towards Transforming Public Sector Delivery

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www.eINDIA.net.in/egov For further information contact: Gautam Navin (Mob: +91-9818125257 email: gautam@csdms.in)

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Acer Adopts Strategy of Freshest Technology First W S Mukund, Managing Director, Acer India

“It is our intention to successfully partner with various governments and government agencies to bring technology closer to the common man. From that perspective we will focus on customising our offerings to suit key project needs, align ourselves with strategic partner organisations who also address this space to offer robust and cost effective solutions in response to project needs...� , tells W S Mukund, Managing Director, Acer India, in conversation with egov magazine

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Your company’s motto is ‘empowering people’, a goal which can be realised if people have access to technology.

How is Acer India making computer technology easier to use and more affordable to everyone in this country?

Adhering to our philosophy of ‘caring through innovation’, Acer has equipped the range of products with a suite of customer friendly and intuitive interfaces called ‘Empowering Technology’ that give users fast and easy access to the cutting-edge hardware and software solutions. Fulfilling Acer’s mission of breaking the barriers between people and technology, the customer-centric ‘Empowering Technology’ suite brings the latest innovations in intuitive form, allowing

Every industry must go through the cycle of change. When the mobile revolution started in India in the mid nineties, it was restricted to an elite crowd.

Slowly the market opened up as prices came down on the strength of increasing volumes and lower usage charges among the service providers. Today India is one of the largest markets for mobiles in the world. I believe the same would be the case for PCs

customers to easily experience all the benefits of an Acer system. The ‘Empowering Technology’ streamlines access to frequently-used functions and settings, allowing the user to enhance their computing experience in an easy to use format designed for the layman. With just the click of a button, the Empowering Key launches an intuitive three step process that makes it simpler than ever to complete common tasks and change configurations.

Acer has been one of the pioneers in this industry in terms of its work in the government projects space. We have successfully executed a very large number of e-Governance projects in various states like Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Jharkhand, Punjab, Kerala to name just a few. Most of these projects have involved execution across vast geographies under tight deadlines and Acer has delivered on its promises each time.

We have also partnered with key System Integration (SI) partners to address this space in a big way which has helped us as a brand to take technology to the remotest corners of this country.

This is backed by an extremely robust service support programme for our customers. We have enabled toll free Helpline for both consumer desktops and notebooks.

Currently we have Acer service providers located in over 175 cities in India and over 75 Acer Notebook Customer Service Centers. We also have a unique unmatched assurance within the warranty period to provide complete peace of mind to the customer. In some cases for specific government projects we have even supported it with dedicated call centers to address customer issues. Apart from this, in the regular 50

course of business if a customer needs any additional help or information on ‘how to obtain repair services’, they could contact any of our Professional Service Providers. Customers may also request information on how to obtain repair service or the location of the nearest Acer Authorised Service Provider by writing or calling. The warranty includes International Travellers Warranty within the first year. These are just some of the initiatives which have propelled Acer as one of the top PC brands in the country and a key player in the government projects space from an IT hardware perspective.

Acer’s products involve mobile and desktop PCs, servers and storage, LCD monitors and high-definition TVs, projectors, and handheld/navigational devices. What competitive edge do your IT solutions have over other vendors?

Our entire strategy revolves around having the latest products with the ‘freshest’ technology in the market first.

We are paranoid about being the first to market. This is Acer’s strategy across the globe. To achieve these objectives we have built up our entire go-to-market approach on a 100% indirect model which focuses on leveraging the competencies of the channel to address our key focus segments of Home, Small Office and Home Office (Soho) Via Retail, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Server Message Block (SMB), Value added Reseller (VAR), Corporations/Government/Education (specialised partners). This is what makes us stand apart from our competitors.

Acer’s advantage has been a combination of many factors: • Fresh technology in the market at all times • The first to always come out with products launched on the latest platforms (Centrino, santa rosa, tablet PC etc) • Most interesting form factors on its products (like on the DTs with the ultra small form factor DT which is just 3 ltrs in size where competitions 10 and 30 ltr boxes) • The best prices in the market for the specs offered (best in price performance) • Key brand associations (Hrithik Roshan-Indian Actor, Ferrari, F C Barcelona, Yamaha Racing) which help in connecting with the consumer.

• Technological innovations which are made to make it easier for people to leverage technology for personal productivity gains.

How do you view the growth of mobile phones and its easy accessibility to people compared to the PCs? What, in your opinion, can be done to increase the PC penetration in India?

Every industry must go through the cycle of change. When the mobile revolution started in India in the mid nineties, it was restricted to an elite crowd. Slowly the market opened up as prices came down on the strength of increasing volumes and lower usage charges among the service providers. Today India is one of the largest markets for mobiles in the world. I believe the same would be the case for PCs. Today penetration levels are less than 5%. I look at it very positively because the potential to expand and grow in this market is mind boggling.

By 2010, India will be one of the largest markets for PCs in www.egovonline.net

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the world. There are many factors that will influence the PC penetration growth in India. These include • Simplification of duty and tax structures by the government.

• Government initiatives in the field of education and e-Governance.

• Growth of easy financing solutions.

• Retail – both large format and IT specialty stores – the expansion of these will help bring the PC into the realm for a larger target audience.

• Finally prices coming down on the strength of massive volumes that need to be supported by both the hardware and software players Could you elaborate on Acer’s initiative of ‘making mobile computing more affordable’ and a response to the demand for low cost and efficient notebooks.

Please tell us more about this initiative.

Acer in India has been a pioneer in opening up the notebook to the common man in India by consistently focussing on making technology affordable to the common man. The company was the first to break the sub 60k, 50k, 40k and 30k price barrier in India and continues its tradition of offering the best value for money product in the market by breaking the 20k price point and opening up the notebook to a completely new target customer.

We have been following the market closely and have evaluated the requirements of the Indian consumer before tailoring such a product. The Acer celeron offering has all the specifications required to improve productivity of people working on the move and encourages them to graduate to Notebooks from desktops. Acer is the first MNC to offer a fully loaded machine at this price point. With the latest low cost offering, we have once again broken all barriers without compromising on features (very important), a first in the industry.

Acer is also in the storage and servers space. The Government of India under its National e-Governance Plan, envisages setting up State Data Centres- repository of state data and information. How is Acer set to optimise this opportunity to fulfil the huge storage and server requirements of the government?

On e- Governance solution projects we normally go through our SI partners who procure the complete range of hardware required for the project from us. As far as servers and storage products are concerned we offer the entire X86 range of Intel servers with both tower and rack optimised versions.

We also have a tie up with Hitachi Data systems on the storage solutions front and offer Acer - Hitachi co-branded storage solutions which cater to the requirements of the e-Governance projects. (Acer Servers are tested for the complete compatibility with these co-branded storage boxes).

Our strength is in offering the latest technology based on feature rich products at affordable prices. When positioning our product, the SI partner get the complete advantage of feature/ technology and price. We will actively participate in ov

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the above mentioned requirements with our entire range of enterprise products.

What are your plans to expand your market further in India?

From a government projects perspective, we are actively looking at participating in all key projects that are coming up. It is our intention to successfully partner with various governments and government agencies to bring technology closer to the common man. From that perspective we will focus on customising our offerings to suit key project needs, align ourselves with strategic partner organisations who also address this space to offer robust and cost effective solutions in response to project needs and last but not the least keep

working on providing the highest levels of customer service on these projects.

From a technology point of view in the coming year, Acer will continue to focus on innovations in technology across all the product categories. Looking at the notebooks segment, Acer will continue to focus on leading the market in terms of product technology, screens, Optical Disk Drives (ODDs), Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) and others. In the consumer line it will focus on a lot of multi-media oriented innovations; and in the commercial line on productivity, ruggedness and security; fully equipped with features like one touch manageability keys, magnesium alloy casing and finger print recognition.

Some of our key plans for the coming year can be summarised as under: • Offer superior design products with unmatched functionality • Focus on industry leading price performance.

• Best channel arrangement to reach all targeted segments • Building appropriate brand associations/ promotions to increase brand equity.

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Check Point

Delivering UniďŹ ed Security Architecture

Because a cyber attack on a public sector organisation has the potential to have a much broader impact, security must become an integral component of network architecture of a public sector organisation�, says Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu, Country Sales Manager, Check Point, India and SAARC Region, in an interview with egov magazine 52 }

How important, in your opinion, is network and information security for the public sector? What is the vision and mandate of Check Point security solutions for the government?

The Internet revolution has enabled a transformation in the way public sector organisation functions. Remote locations and mobile personnel are now able to connect to the distributed information resources they need, and provide their services with much higher level of efficiencies. Along with the benefits that this revolution brings threat of cyber attacks, which have a potential to do more damage than it was ever possible. Because a cyber attack on a public sector organisation has the potential to have a much broader impact, security must become an integral component of network architecture of a public sector organisation.

Public sector organisations are invariably geographically dispersed and require a centrally managed and responsive policy-based security solution. We envisage a solution that can balance the needs of headquarters locations and branch or divisional offices, while still providing the best possible security - protecting networks, systems, applications and users across all intranet, extranet and Internet communications.

Check Point’s solutions deliver on those requirements, enabling public sector organisations to ensure secure network resources availability for all users. The solutions from Check Point Software Technologies cover all aspects of security including perimeter security, end point security, data security and secure VPN communications, with a centralised management and reporting framework.

Check Point NGX: The Most Trusted Unified Security Architecture. Check Point is the only company to deliver comprehensive protection against both application and network attacks integrated into Check Point security gateways.

Enabling unified security architecture for perimeter, internal web and endpoint security, NGX (next generation) defends against new attacks and variations as they appear. Worms like blaster are stopped before they affect NGX-protected networks. Having intelligent security architecture built in, provides greater flexibility in decision-making and positively impacts the range of possible responses to a government network attack.

Simplified Management of Distributed Agencies: Check Point makes it easy for government organisations to centrally manage security while delegating authority to distributed agency locations. This hierarchical management capability ensures that headquarters security staff is able to rapidly respond to emerging information security conditions and, www.egovonline.net

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if necessary, supersede the security policy of the locally managed locations.

Mobility and Flexibility: Check Point’s universal VPN (Virtual Private Network) solutions offer a wide range of options for government agencies to connect throughout the country or worldwide. With its integrated VPN client and centrally managed personal firewall, remote government employees can access data and resources securely.

With solutions for all office sizes, from single person to organisational headquarters, Check Point’s VPN technologies enable governments to leverage the Internet with secure communications.

Government Certified and Approved: Check Point government certified solutions are recognised worldwide for providing the strongest security and market-leading technology. Our solutions meet and exceed the stringent requirements established by government standards, government approval processes and security industry tests, including Common Criteria and Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS). Check Point meets the needs of sensitive and classified networks with EAL4 certified solutions for firewall, VPN, IDS, IPS, management, secure logging, and endpoint security.

Interoperability: Check Point’s OPSEC (Open Platform for Security) is the industry’s open, multi-vendor security framework. With over 350 Check Point certified OPSEC partners, government customers are guaranteed the broadest choice of best-of-breed integrated applications and deployment platforms for complete security solutions.

How would you rate the awareness level regarding importance of security in IT use among government and businesses? How big is the security market in India?

There has been a significant increase in awareness and consciousness for need of information security, however we have a long way to go especially in the public sector which is now increasing it’s dependence on IT for enabling business. Best practices in good governance, regulatory compliances, and insistence by internal customers have contributed to the growth. Reactive measures to specific adverse incidents have also been a reason behind the upward moving growth curve. But in India and other SAARC countries budget for security is still not a priority. Even though companies have surged ahead in IT enabling yet there is a dearth of awareness of the risk being undertaken without enough proper security presence. Big government organisations are slowly opening up to the idea of safe IT environment and Multi-National Companies are slowly but steadily coming to ure security solution companies like Check Point for their security needs. The Asia- Pacific network security market grew by 8.4% in 2006 on a year to year basis. Infrastructure expansion and economic liberalisation in the rising economies of India and China was one of the key drivers of this growth.

According to a survey by Frost and Sullivan, the Indian Network Security market recorded $95.5 million in 2006.

Last year registered growth across all technology segments with firewall IPSec VPN being the major contributor followed

by IDS/IPS solutions and SSL/VPN solutions. The market is ov

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expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 17.6% during the period 2006-2013. The network security market for government was estimated to be at around $13 million in 2007.

What are some of the key security solutions that Check Point offers for the government sector?

Check Point is widely recognised as the leader in securing the Internet, and has become the de-facto standard for both governments and industry. Check Point, with its market leading Firewall and VPN solutions, provides a broad choice of solutions for securing an organisation’s presence on the Internet, providing remote and mobile workers secure access to resources and securing internal LAN communications.

Check Point makes it easy for distributed government organisations to centrally manage security, and even to retain central control while delegating some authority to remote organisations or departments. This hierarchical management capability ensures that headquarters security staff is able to rapidly respond to emerging information security conditions and, if necessary, supersede the security policy of the locally managed locations. Check Point’s Security Management Architecture (SMART) provides security managers tools that are key for efficiently administering VPNs and security in government environments, including administrator security, management efficiency and continuity of operations.

Endpoints, or devices accessing a network – whether this is by remote workers in another office, partners in another company, or even desktop PCs inside the network – need to be protected from malware, hackers, and security threats.

Legitimate government personnel are more mobile than ever traveling in and out of the network with their laptops and PDA’s. Check Point Integrity is the only endpoint security solution from a major security vendor to achieve Common Criteria EAL 4 certification, validating it as the most trustworthy and certified protection against threats to mission critical government networks. Check Point Integrity secures and protects communications within government agencies, and is appropriate for large agencies and critical infrastructure protection monitored by agency/sector-specific Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs). Also, Integrity can be administered using the same NGX management platform used with other Check Point security solutions, letting administrators develop, configure and deploy coordinated security policies from a single console.

What are your company’s competitive advantages in network and security solutions, in view of other such players in the market?

Check Point is synonymous with technical innovation. It started with Stateful Inspection, which was invented and patented by Check Point and is now the foundation for much of today’s network security technology. And we have continued to innovate in key technology areas, such as malicious code protection, security acceleration, and cooperative enforcement. We currently hold five United States patents with more than 25 US patents pending, and additional patent applications pending worldwide. Over one 53

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third of Check Point employees worldwide are in research and development (R&D). In 2006 alone we spend $62 million in R&D. Strong focus on R&D has resulted in Check Point leading the market through its pure dedication to product innovation and seamless product integration.

Through its NGX platform, Check Point delivers a unified security architecture for a broad range of security solutions to protect business communications and resources for corporate networks and applications, remote employees, branch offices and partner extranets. The company also offers market leading data security solutions through the Pointsec product line, protecting and encrypting sensitive corporate information stored on PCs and other mobile computing devices. Check Point’s award-winning ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite and additional consumer security solutions protects millions of consumer PCs from hackers, spyware and data theft.

A unified security approach is essential to ensure that various security challenges and exposure to various threats are minimised by increasing security posture, operation efficiency of security functions, minimised impact of business and reducing total cost of ownership for providing more comprehensive security solutions for the business needs.

What are your suggestions to the government officials planning and implementing the e-Government projects and programmes in terms of security risk management?

The security requirement is a dynamic phenomena and not a static one. The security management is no longer technology oriented but management oriented for effective implementation as well as, ascertaining information and systems as an asset of the organisation. The information assurance involves people, processes and technology.

The information assurance is of risk management. It has to be customised for every sector based on various requirements which are static and dynamic and depending upon the risk and challenges faced in conducting, managing and transacting businesses within the country and across the globe.

A unified security approach is essential to ensure that various security challenges and exposure to various threats are minimised by increasing security posture, operation efficiency of security functions, minimised impact of business and reducing total cost of ownership for providing more comprehensive security solutions for the business needs.

Today’s hackers can circumvent access control policies and are now directly targeting applications. What are Checkpoint’s solutions to address this shift in attack methodology?

Most firewalls provide effective access control, yet many are not designed to detect and thwart attacks at the application 54

level. Today’s hackers can circumvent access control policies and are now directly targeting applications. In order to address this shift in attack methodology, firewalls must also provide comprehensive security on multiple-levels, protecting against both network and application attacks, while providing robust access control to IT resources.

Check Point’s Application Intelligence offers a set of advanced capabilities providing valuable attack forensics through its rich log data and distributed logging infrastructure.

Check Point Application Intelligence enables government customers to configure, enforce and update network and application attack defenses. Application Intelligence provides capabilities to addresses the following four defense strategies, Validate Compliance to Standards: Firewalls must be able to determine whether communications adhere to relevant protocol standards. Violation of standards may be indicative of malicious traffic. Any traffic not adhering to strict protocol or application standards must be closely scrutinised before it is permitted into the network, otherwise business-critical applications may be put at risk.

Validate Expected Usage of Protocols (Protocol Anomaly Detection): Testing for protocol compliance is important, but of equal importance is the capability to determine whether data within protocols adheres to expected usage. In other words, even if a communication stream complies with a protocol standard, the way in which the protocol is being used may be incongruous with what is expected.

Limit Applications’ Ability to Carry Malicious Data: Even if application-layer communications adhere to protocols, they may still carry data that can potentially harm the system. Therefore, a security gateway must provide mechanisms to limit or control an application’s ability to introduce potentially dangerous data or commands into the internal network.

Control Application-Layer Operations: Not only can application-layer communications introduce malicious data to a network, the application itself might perform unauthorised operations. A network security solution must have the ability to identify and control such operations by performing ‘access control’ and ‘legitimate usage’ checks. This level of security requires the capability to distinguish, at a granular level, application operations.

What future plans does Check Point has for increasing its government IT security market share in SAARC and other countries in the globe?

Check Point always had a strong focus on government sector across the globe and is one of the most widely accepted network and data security solution in the market. In India almost all major government and defense establishment are already using our solutions.

In 2008 we will work closely with the government to ensure that IT infrastructure of the government remain secure. We would also be looking at conducting seminars targeting the government and public sectors to sensitise them on the latest security threats and their solution. www.egovonline.net

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INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Making Life Easier for Common Man

Citizen Centric Service Delivery Sandeep Bangia

Governments are evolving to become more customer-oriented in the delivery of their services. Rising citizen expectations of government and the ongoing demand for greater efficiency have increased the urgency of this transformation. The move towards customer centric service in the private sector has provided citizens with a set of comparative expectations.

People are seeking simpler ways of dealing with government and increased responsiveness to their individual needs and concerns.

The introduction of the Right to Information Act has led to a higher level of critical scrutiny of government programmes by the public. This factor raises risk and increases the need for the government to keep pace with citizen expectations.

Despite a clear goal to improve the levels of services delivered by governments, this cannot be achieved at the expense of overall productivity. The pressure to realise continuous gains in efficiency is a permanent feature of modern government, and so raising the levels of service in this climate requires innovation.

Citizen centric service delivery offers huge opportunities to reduce cost or similarly achieve better outcomes with the same resources. Technology acts as a catalyst for enabling citizen centric service delivery. The following section describes key technology capabilities, which enable citizen centric transformation in government. The key capabilities are: 1. Citizen Data Integration 2. Citizen Interaction Management 3. Citizen Outreach 4. Government Insight

CITIZEN DATA INTEGRATION

For a business to be centered on its customers, a fundamental prerequisite is the availability of complete, accurate and fully integrated customer data. Similarly for a government it is equally important to know who the citizen is, what are the key attributes that define him, and how he expects to interact with various agencies for the delivery of benefits and welfare schemes.

Forward-looking governments are working to create an informative, authenticated and secure Citizen Data Master.

The State Government in India is creating a unified view of a citizen across various departments and plans to consolidate ov

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this information in a Citizen Data Hub. Information on citizens can be taken from existing departmental systems or directly captured using household surveys. Such information can be used to determine the eligibility of citizens for various welfare schemes being planned by the government.

By drawing together a complete set of citizen data, Citizen Data Integration enables increased efficiency, reduced error, lower level of fraud and faster, higher quality decisions – leading to better outcomes and a superior citizen experience.

CITIZEN INTERACTION MANAGEMENT

A mature and widely adopted citizen interaction management strategy is a core component of citizen centric service delivery.

Citizen interaction management coordinates interactions across the many often-siloed communication channels available to the citizens, such as contact centres, the Internet and face-to-face contact.

New York City created a Citizen Response Center as a single authoritative source for all citizen inquiries. Over 14 pages of phone numbers were replaced with a single point of contact for 8 million residents. New York needed a system to increase productivity and quality of service by quickly and effectively answering enquiries, routing requests to the appropriate department, and clarifying responsibilities and inter-department coordination.

The consolidation of call centers was to be the a first step in the transformation process. The overall IT solution would help make city government easier to navigate and ultimately create a powerful tool to help manage ‘quality of life’ issues that confront citizens daily. One of the things that make New York’s solution unique is that it uses sophisticated datamining techniques that enable city administrators to gain fresh insight in real-time into the challenges that confront the city. What are the hot button issues that are generating the most complaints from the citizens? Which neighbourhoods are suffering from the highest rates of vandalism? Which departments are doing the best job of responding to citizen needs? The solution also makes it possible to monitor and analyse trends in order to address the specific causes.

The increased focus on achieving measurable outcomes for citizens creates the need for agencies to have sophisticated Case management capabilities. Case management enables government agencies to plan their services and communications 55

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with citizens around case goals and then to track and manage the interactions and transactions over time against those goals.

Establishing an enterprise wide case management platform enables an organisation to provide consistency of service over time and across all of its staff and organisational boundaries.

It also fundamentally changes the focus of interactions and transactions from individual service activities to a more planned set of citizen outcomes.

Further, a common case management framework provides a basis for government to coordinate citizen service delivery across a multi-agency portfolio or potentially across the whole of government.

Citizen interaction strategies aim to leverage the knowledge an agency gains from its citizen interactions, enabling communication and service delivery to become better targeted and more personalised, and even to inform future policy.

CITIZEN OUTREACH

In today’s increasingly competitive environment, government agencies need to be more knowledgeable about the citizens they serve than ever before. Using the principles of targeted marketing government agencies can interact with their constituents on the nature of programmes being planned.

They can also communicate the effectiveness with which services are being delivered.

Governments plan welfare programmes for a target constituency. Citizen outreach systems provide improved segmentation and campaign targeting to identify target populations, design and execute outreach campaigns, and increase programme awareness.

In an outreach campaign, a regional government located in the northern region of Spain, with a population of approximately 1.1 million used its new Citizens Service Bureau to offer free breast cancer testing for its female citizens. Implementing a Citizen Relationship Management (CRM) system that offered multichannel e-Government services to its public and managed relationships with citizens, the health department was able to capture, measure, and analyse individual health status. Based on the information acquired, the government was able to offer women within a certain age interval free testing through its multi-channel communication system. This example demonstrates how CRM uses information from citizen enquiries, allowing agencies to initiate proactive campaigns to provide improved local services.

GOVERNMENT INSIGHT

Measuring service performance and increasing accountability for government services is crucial in the drive toward eGovernment transformation. Government insight or analytics 56

solutions provide a complete view of operations, empowering government officials to identify and analyse specific department performance and service delivery.

Once service levels are established for public services there is a pressure on the system to improve the processes and achieve outcomes that adhere to the service levels. Analytics solution aligned to the government business processes and outcomes provide visibility into agency operations and programmes that help government officials identify and target areas for improvement.

The health department of a regional government in Southern Europe implemented an integrated call centre that manages relationships between the public healthcare system, citizens, healthcare providers, and partners. Its new system now offers the capability to collate and analyse information on enquiries for an insight into the evolution of requests, call activity patterns, the percentage of calls belonging to a particular area such as clinical appointments, how many patients requested a second medical opinion, or how long each request took to process. Most importantly, the department is able to assess what percentages of calls are being successfully resolved. These analytics allow the health department to assess performance levels across its 13 hospitals and 50 primary care centres to ensure it is delivering a high level of service to the 15 million inhabitants of the region.

CONCLUSION

A more demanding public with the need to communicate along a variety of channels and fierce competition from the private sector would mean government agencies must make efficiency their top priority. It has become vital to deploy systems that empower government workers to follow processes and deliver the high levels of service expected.

A combination of flexible, easy-to-use technology, effective processes and productive staff will allow this aim to be realised.

Sandeep Bangia is Director for Government, Education and Healthcare at Oracle Corporation. Sandeep oversees business development, executive relationships with customers and partners, and delivery of IT solutions to national and local governments; intelligence; higher education; and healthcare. Since joining Oracle Sandeep has held continuously expanding roles to assist organizations overcome complex business issues through the use of technology and enterprise application solutions.

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INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Tulip IT in Haryana The Haryana State Wide Area Network is scheduled to be inaugurated on February 5, 2008. This will make it the first SWAN in India. Tulip IT is one of India’s largest Data Telecom Service Provider and has been a pioneer in eGovernance services. The company was selected as the BOOT operator for the Network and has setup the entire network in partnership with the state implementing agency.

HARYANA SWAN (HSWAN): ADHAAR

The Government of Haryana (GoH) has laid a strong emphasis on building state -wide IT infrastructure to improve delivery of public service. The state’s objective is to provide infrastructure for long-term growth and it seeks to create the right governance mechanism in order to achieve its goals. The network aims to create an integrated service delivery platform for citizen-centric and business-centric services. The GoH in this regard has taken strides on the path of e-Governance and has managed to be the first state with a fully implemented State Wide Area Network. Tulip IT Services Ltd. which chosen to implement the project and has successfully done so.

Tulip has implemented HSWAN as a total IP Network, based on open standards for Voice, Data, Images and Video traffic, on a three level vertical structure comprising of: First level: SHQ and various departments at Chandigarh.

Second level: DHQs and various departments at each district HQ Third level :127 Blocks/sub-divisions/ tehsils/ subtehsils, in addition horizontal connectivity spread across ov

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280 offices of various departments have also been provided.

The implementation of the Haryana SWAN, the contract for which was awarded to Tulip IT Services Ltd is now successfully delivering the required services. Haryana State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd (HARTRON) is the government body that owns the entire implementation process of SWAN. The contracts was awarded on a BOOT (Build, Own, Operate, Transfer) model for five years whereby Tulip IT Services Ltd will implement the entire network, own and operate the same for a period of five years.

Designing and implementing ADHAAR with SHQ, Chandigarh and all 20 DHQs, Haryana Bhawan, New Delhi, are connected through MPLS cloud of the service provider.

All the horizontal connectivity of offices at Chandigarh and at various DHQs are terminated in State Network Management Centre (SNMC) at a New Secretariat, Chandigarh and District Network Management Centre (DNMC) at each DHQs respectively.

Tulip is also responsible for the monitoring and management of the entire network, which is being done through a centralised Network Management System (NPS) and enterprise management system at SNMC in New Secretariat, Sector 17, Chandigarh, Haryana.

The network has end to end secure communication through VPN and supports seamless transformation and integration of protocols based on open standards as well as open NMS support for monitoring, configuring and measurement of the network resources.

Some Salient Features a) A Network Backbone spanning 20 districts, Haryana Bhawan , New Delhi, Haryana Civil Secretariat, Chandigarh and 127 blocks/sub-divisions/ tehsils/ sub-tehsils, powering various government and citizen service applications. b) Integrated Voice and Messaging Infrastructure for various government departments/users up to the block level. c) 22 locations video conferencing platform enabling the senior officials and department of the state to have district level meetings. d) Round the clock Helpdesk and ‘Knock’ Services for operations and maintenance. e) End to End IT Infrastructure Management spanning all devices, processes and people.

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