MAKING CITIES SMARTER HOW...?: February 2010 Issue

ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON E-GOVERNANCE

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KAILASH VIJAYVARGIYA Minister for IT Government of Madhya Pradesh

www.egovonline.net - Asia’s Leading Portal on e-Governance VOLUME 6

ISSUE 2

ISSN 0973-161X

RS. 75

FEBRUARY 2010

MAKING CITIES

SMARTER HOW...?

REPORT

INTERVIEW

CURTAIN RAISER

Smart City 2010 National Convention on ICT in Urban Governance

Savitur Prasad Secretary-IT Government of NCT of Delhi

13th National Conference on e-Governance

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VOLUME 6 ISSN 0973-161X

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ISSUE 2

FEBRUARY 2010

RNI NO. - UPENG/2008/25234

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COVER INTERVIEW:

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KAILASH VIJAYVARGIYA, MINISTER OF IT, GOVERNMENT OF MADHYA PRADESH

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SAVITUR PRASAD, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF IT, GOVERNMENT OF NCT OF DELHI

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JAIJIT BHATTACHARYA, DIRECTOR, GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, HP INDIA

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VIVEK MALHOTRA, TERRITORY EXECUTIVE, GENERAL BUSINESS, NORTH & EAST, IBM INDIA

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MATHEW THOMAS, VICE PRESIDENT, STRATEGIC INDUSTRIES, SAP INDIA

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MURALIDHARA HONNUR C, GENERAL MANAGER, WIPRO CONSULTING SERVICES

EVENT REPORT:

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SCRIPTING A SMART CITY

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CURTAIN RAISER:

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13th NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON e-GOVERNANCE

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RAJASTHAN: ON THE PATH OF e-REVOLUTION

COVER FEATURE:

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TRACKING SOLUTION FOR INDIAN RAILWAYS

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EDUCATION FOR ALL: ROLE OF ICT

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ENERGY DEMAND FORECASTING

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INDIA

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INTERNATIONAL

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PROCESS FRAMEWORK FOR URBAN e-GOVERNANCE

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BUSINESS

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ENGAGING THE BOTTOM OF THE PYRAMID: IT INDUSTRY PAVES THE WAY

REGULAR FEATURE:

NEWS:

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ASK SAP

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EDITORIAL

Towards Smarter Cities Though functions of the city state had been detailed in Kautilya’s Arthashastra, it is to British rule that we owe the present form of urban local government. The present system of local self-government takes off from the ‘Lord Ripon Resolution’ of 1882 in which municipal authorities were made responsible as units of self-government.

India’s rapid urbanisation clearly indicates an inescapable urban future, having the second highest urban population in the world. Very soon India would be living in cities. Cities are emerging as the engines of economic growth. Simultaneously, rising migration is fueling urban poverty. To make cities more livable, green, integrated and smart, the authorities with the onus of managing the urban planning and development, the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), need to get even more smarter, efficient, proactive and citizen centric. There are some serious challenges, which mar the working of municipalities, and that includes existing manual system of working, lack of transparency and accountability, and high waiting time in availing government services. Despite considerable amount of resources being spent each year both by the central and state governments, universal access to urban services is a distant dream for many citizens, particularly the poor and marginalised. Its high time to shift the focus of urban governance towards long term and integrated planning of cities, and achieving the goal of world class standards.

Also, the political devolution - handing over of functions from the central to local authorities took place to some degree, fiscal and administrative devolution were not actualised in many states. Due to this reason, municipalities and other governance institutions continued to languish in a state of neglect.

While the urban local bodies were given responsibilities, they were not given the financial power to act on these responsibilities.

ICT, although, expedites the service delivery, and being increasingly used for enabling re-engineering and standardisation of business processes, it has got potential to be leveraged for creating social capital.

To synchronise with the changes in the lifestyle, culture and technology, and the subsequent increase in citizen’s demands and expectations from the governments, its high time the public authorities take the challenge, lest the citizen-state bonding loosen further.

Dr. RAVI GUPTA Editor-in-Chief Ravi.Gupta@egovonline.net President: Dr. M P Narayanan | Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Ravi Gupta Editorial Team: Dr. Prachi Shirur, Dr. Rajeshree Dutta Kumar, Shipra Sharma, Divya Chawla, Sheena Joseph, Yukti Pahwa, Sangeeta Ghosh De, Subir Dey, Dinoj Kumar Upadhyay, Pratap Vikram Singh, Gayatri Maheshwary, Saba Firdaus Sales & Marketing Team: Debabrata Ray (Mobile: +91-9899650692), Anaam Sharma, Arpan Dasgupta, Fahimul Haque, Bharat Kumar Jaiswal, Ankur Agarwal, Priya Saxena, Vishal Kumar, Gaurav (sales@elets.in) Subscription & Circulation: Lipika Dutta (Mobile: +91-9871481708), Manoj Kumar, Gunjan Singh (subscription@elets.in) Graphic Design Team: Bishwajeet Kumar Singh, Om Prakash Thakur, Shyam Kishore Web Development Team: Zia Salahuddin, Amit Pal, Sandhya Giri, Anil Kumar IT Team: Mukesh Sharma, Devendra Singh | Events: Vicky Kalra Editorial & Marketing Correspondence: egov - G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA 201301, India, Phone: +91 120 2502181-85, Fax: +91 120 2500060, Email: info@egovonline.net egov is published by Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd in technical collaboration with Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS).

Owner, Publisher, Printer: Ravi Gupta, Printed at Vinayak Print Media, D-320, Sector - 10 Noida, U.P. and published from 710 Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50 Noida, UP Editor: Ravi Gupta

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INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

Citizen in-line Towards Citizen Online www.dit.mp.gov.in

KAILASH VIJAYVARGIYA MINISTER FOR IT, GOVERNMENT OF MADHYA PRADESH (HE ALSO HOLDS POSITION OF MINISTER FOR COMMERCE & INDUSTRIES, EMPLOYMENT, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, PUBLIC UNDERTAKINGS, HORTICULTURE & FOOD PROCESSING, RURAL INDUSTRIES)

“One of the prime reason for digital divide is the nonavailability of computers and the absence or poor quality of bandwidth in the rural areas. Things are changing slowly but the change is slow and excruciating. ”

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“In I the t Government e n e t to o Citizzzen n (G G2C G C) C space p eo one off the m majjor initiativ n a vves haaas b been MP On M nlin n ln ne. Th his on h ne n project r e haaas cchan ngeeed n the h way w yg go oveeern o nmeeentt n interact n r tts w witth tthe citizen. iti e . W Wi h a With bouque o q eet o of o over 75 services e i s th hi iis a one his h stop o shop forr allll th hatt h the th h citi citizen nn need ds ffrom d the h gov g vvern nm men nt. T n Thee portal o a w willl so oon o n haavee services e i ess tth hat h at are a e availabl v l lle tthroug gh thee g counters o n r of o the t district i r ss. A su uitee o u of 4 44 services e i s in nclu n udiiing u g certifi certifica e i caaateees es, lliceeenses and nd soc s ccial i lb beeeneeefi fit scheme c mees w willl bee availabl v ill bllle tthr h oug gh g the h por p rrtalll.”

Please tell us about your State’s IT vision and plan.

The focus of the state is to provide citizen centric services to the citizen; ‘citizen in-line’ to ‘citizen online’ has been the pivot on which our strategy revolves.

We understand that investment in the field of Information Technology (IT) has resulted not only in employment generation but also a spurt in the economic activity of many states. Our vision is to bring in this investment so that we are able to provide job opportunities to the youth of the state. We made our IT policy in the year 2006 and it has seen amendments so as to suite the requirement of the industry.

What have been some of the major e-Governance (G2C, G2B, G2G) initiatives of your state?

In the Government to Citizen (G2C) space one of the major initiatives has been MP Online. This one project has changed the way government interacts with the citizen. With a bouquet of over 75 services this is a one stop shop for all that the citizen needs from the government.

The portal will soon have services that are available through the counters of the districts. A suite of 44 services including certificates, licenses and social benefit schemes will be available through the portal.

We are almost through with making available the land records through the portal with electronically signed certificates. We have a call center that can be accessed through the toll free number 155343; this facility has become very popular and promotes inclusion.

As far as Government to Business (G2B ) initiative is concerned we will soon have an investment promotion portal that will facilitate the businesses to interact with the government, online.

On the Government to Government (G2G ) front, the recent education portal has digitised records of all the employees of the education department, this covers almost 60% of the employee population.

The rest are being taken by the Treasuries Department.

What are the expected IT initiatives in the next three years? What is your USP to project your state as an investment destination for IT? The IT initiatives in the pipeline are

the State Data Center (SDC); we are making the building in the greenfield side with a new building tailor made for the purpose. The State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) and portal is another initiative that we intend to complete in the next financial year. The Treasury, Food and Civil Supplies have also floated their Request for Proposal (RFP). The Women and Child Development Department will also float the RFP soon.

What is your plan to bridge the digital divide in your state? What are some of the challenges in achieving this and how would they be overcome?

One of the prime reason for digital divide is the non-availability of computers and the absence or poor quality of bandwidth in the rural areas. Things are changing slowly but the change is slow and excruciating. We need to provide quality computer labs particularly in the rural schools and train the teachers to impart computer skills to the rural students. The Common Services Center (CSCs) will to an extent fulfill the gap in terms of making the delivery front end being available to the rural population but we need to ensure that the scheme remains financially viable and adequate G2C services are available.

What kind of support do you expect from the Centre for these activities?

The Center must increase allocation to the states in schemes such as ICT@ School. The present allocation results in providing only 10 computers to the schools. This makes the PC to pupil population four students to one computer.

Moreover lower allocation restricts the scheme to hardware procurement.

Where do you see your State in 10 years from now?

10 years from now the state should increase the software exports from the current measly INR 500 Crores to at least INR 20,000 Crores with majority of the IT majors having investment in the State. The government schools will have state of the art labs and IT would be contributing significantly to the economy of the state. \\ Prachi Shirur

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NEWS

INDIA NDIA

INDIA TO SPEND RS 4,500 CRORE ON e-PANCHAYAT

e-Governance Project for Panchayati Raj Institutions (e-Panchayat) will cost India Rs 4,500 crore over three years. This includes providing computing as well as connectivity facilities to all 236,000 panchayats in the country across 31 states and Union Territories. e-Panchayat has the potential to revolutionise panchayats by inducing mass ICT usage which will help in increasing efficiency at all levels. The project will focus on three activities— identification of information and services needs of all stakeholders, process reengineering and preparation of detailed project report (DPR) for Mission Mode Project (MMP).

Identified as one of the mission mode projects under National e-governance Plan (NeGP), e-Panchayat proposes to provide a whole range of IT related services. It includes decentralised database and planning, budgeting and accounting, implementation and monitoring of central and state sector schemes, citizen-centric services, unique codes to Panchayats and Individuals and essential GIS based applications.

e-TICKETING SERVICE LAUNCHED BY MSRTC First e-Ticketing service for the bus travelers in the state of Maharashtra has been launched by Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC).

The service will be offered in partnership with Trimax IT I n f r a s t r u c t u re and Services Limited on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis.

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Bus travelers in Maharashtra will now be able to book their tickets through the MSRTC website within a matter of few minutes. This initiative will give a major boost to the growth of public road transport in the state of Maharashtra and increase the state governments’ revenues.

This service will be available for buses associated with Maharashtra State Road Transport travelling across Maharashtra.

BIHAR SERVICE COMMISSION TO GO HI-TECH The Bihar government has decided to fully computerise the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC).

C o n s e q u e n t l y, thousands of administrative job aspirants will be able to submit their applications without any problem.

Bihar state’s Information Technology (IT) department has already started the process of computerising BPSC completely.

Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) is responsible for conducting all administrative examinations for premier state government services in the state, such as Bihar Administrative Service, Bihar Police Service and Bihar Financial Service.

INDIA’S FIRST LEVEL 3 DATA CENTRE SOON IN KARNATAKA Karnataka will soon have the country’s first level 3 data centre.

The data centre will be used to host government applications and related data, and will have a massive storage capacity of over 90 terabytes to meet the digital storage needs of Karnataka. The state government has already prepared a request for proposal for the project and is awaiting approval from the central government.

A level 3 data centre typically has advanced storage capacity and has

98.98% availability, making it operational almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year.

WEBSITE FOR MISSING CHILDREN TO BE LAUNCHED

BY MP GOVERNMENT The Government of Madhya Pradesh is set to launch a website for missing children in the state. The website being implemented under the state’s Women and Child Development (WCD) department is aimed at enabling authorities identify and track the missing kids.

The Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) will entail integration of all the 18 different schemes for the protection of child rights and security, which would now be implemented by a single department.

The collection of data about missing children and the implementation the various schemes under an integrated ICPS has already been started with the help of National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCCD) and other child rights agencies.

Madhya Pradesh is the sixth state to sign a memorandum of understanding with the central government for the implementation of ICPS.

ORISSA FOR e-REGISTRATION OF LAND RECORDS The state of Orissa has introduced hassle-free eRegistration of sale and purchase of land through a public private partnership.

This move would ensure faster, simpler, accurate system of automation for all the 64 types of deeds in 177 sub-registrar offices as centers. Orissa Computer Application Centre and Industrial Development Corporation joined hands to form an e-Governance Services Ltd to carry out the e-Registration activities in the state. With the system in place, now the public can get the land documents registered within half-an-hour in a computerised environment, can get sale deed instantly and in just a minute, can get encumbrance certificate.

INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

Secure Delhi, not a Distant Dream www.it.delhigovt.nic.in

PRASAD SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF IT, GOVERNMENT OF NCT OF DELHI

“With the ICT interventions, especially the TETRA, on one hand and IP based PTZ cameras on the other, Delhi would be the safest place in the country.”

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Being on position of IT Secretary of Capital City Sate, how do you see the challenges and opportunities in your way?

Delhi gets a huge influx of millions of people commuting daily for work in the Capital, which puts strain on the limited urban infrastructure. We should see that the planing and the development should not be short lived but it should address the future needs of the city- at least for 20 years. In essence, all infrastructure facilities and technology deployed should be linked with the future scenario.

There are about 60 to 70 lakh houses in the Capital. For availing government to citizen (G2C) services, people commute long distances for submitting electricity bill, water bill, property tax etc. This pattern of citizen-government interaction demands more resources, as in, time, energy and fuel and increases costs and stress to the day to day life. To deal with this situation, the basic principle that Delhi government has taken as mandate is that the citizens may not have to come to government instead the government reaches out to the citizens.

Crystalising the principle, the Delhi government has taken initiative to set up citizen facilitation centres popular as Jeevan Centres in citizen’s own locality for availing various government to citizen (G2C) services.

These centres offer 45 types of services which includes utility payments, air and railway tickets, submission of forms for government schools and applications for the ‘Bed and Breakfast’ Scheme (of the Ministry of Tourism). Currently, there are almost 300 centres operational. In near time, 500 centres will be operational and in times to come it would be scaled to 1000 centres.

To make the senior citizens, house wives and other residents computer literate, the government, with the help of Resident Welfare Associations, will be organising mass awareness camps in residential areas.

The objective is to make the given sections of citizenry capable enough of taking advantage of the various [government] programmes, through computers itself. Shortly, 100 to 150 camps will be set up to teach people on how to operate computers, use Internet, do e-mails, and access Delhi government websites.

“The Delhi government has taken mandate that the citizens may not have to come to government, instead, the government reaches out to the citizens.”

Can you tell us about the Geo-Spatial Data Infrastructure project?

Under the Geo-Spatial Data Infrastructure project, entire Delhi has been mapped, three-dimensionally, under the ground (10 meters), over the ground and above the ground, making available the 3D view of Delhi for better decision making. Besides, all government offices will be able to interact and transact their business with the help of this project.

Shortly, it will be made available in public domain as well.

Basic motive of this project is to assist authorities in better planning and maintenance of existing infrastructure.

It aims to map the utility pipelines that have been laid out under the groundincluding water pipelines and sewage pipelines. Many times, the drawings of the underground layout is not available with departments and so in case of emergency or even in normal times of operation, it becomes difficult to zero in on particular area beneath which lies the faulty pipe line.

Please throw some light on areas of ICT applications in hosting of the forthcoming Common Wealth Games 2010 in Delhi.

The Asian Games held in Delhi in the past replaced the black and white television sets to coloured television sets. This time, the Common Wealth Games 2010 will take the security infrastructure of the Capital to the next level. While organising the games, security will be a priority.

Towards this end, secure communication systems (government to government) is one of key infrastructure elements. The Department of IT, Government of NCT of Delhi has endeavoured to establish country’s first Government Radio Network (GNR), providing state of the art Terrestrial Trunked Radio (TETRA) communication system to the government agencies, participating in hosting of Common Wealth Games in Delhi. The GNR project is being implemented by HCL Infosystems and Motorola.

10,000 TETRA handsets will be provided to the participating government

agencies which includes: Common Wealth 2010 Organising Committee, Delhi Police, Transport department, Hospitals, Fire Services, Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) and Disaster Management authority.

We are also deploying Internet Protocol (IP) based Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras for video surveillance that would cover up to 5Kms. There will be 63 cameras in the entire city. Cameras will be commanded by 10 monitoring centres and two control rooms. The cameras will be able to provide real time information on 24x7 basis. In addition, the Delhi Police will be deploying 2000 closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras in the city.

Entire Delhi will be visible from these control rooms - where 10 to 15 monitors would provide view of any part of the city. MTNL would provide 2Mbps leased lines to all the government departments, which will subsequently be scaled to 10Mbps, though having a capacity up to 100Mbps. With these ICT interventions, especially the TETRA, on one hand and IP based PTZ cameras on the other, Delhi would be the safest place in the country.

Can you elaborate on the Service Level Agreements (SLA) proposed by the Delhi Government for departments in providing service delivery.

To ensure citizen centric governance, every department has been mandated to adhere to service level agreements (SLA) issued by the Delhi government to deliver the services in particular time frame.

Any citizen who wants particular service like issuing of driving license, ration cards or certificates, can avail the services in the given time period, failing which accountability parameters have been put in place(for the government personnel). This system is already operational in nine departments and would be operational in all departments

by April this year. \\ Anaam Sharma Pratap Vikram Singh

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EVENT REPORT: SMART CITY 2010

Scripting a Smart City

On the dias-Dr. M P Narayanan, President, Centre for Science, Development & Media Studies; sitting (L-R) Sandeep Bangia, Director Business Development – Government, Oracle, Dr. Ravi Gupta, Editor-in-Chief, egov magazine & Executive Director, Centre for Science, Development & Media Studies, Saugata Roy, Honourable Minister of State for Urban Development , GOI, Vinod C. Menon, Member, National Disaster Management Authority, S R Rao , Additional Secretary, Department of Information Technology, GOI, Niraj Prakash, Director, Public Sector Marketing, Microsoft India

egov, in association with National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) and National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) organised Smart City 2010- the national convention on information and communication technology (ICT) in Urban Governance in the Capital on January 20, 2010. The convention contemplated on issues, challenges and opportunities around planning and building integrated and smart cities in light of technological intervention. Inaugurated by Saugata Roy, Minister of State for Urban Development, Government of India, Smart City 2010 proceeded with the inaugural session which was subsequently followed by three sessions.

The convention brooded upon the need of vision from the top leadership, shifting focus of urban reforms from mere enhancement of service delivery and internal efficiency of urban local

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bodies to a long term and integrated planning of city infrastructure, equitable and inclusive development of urban and as well countryside regions, easy and 24x7 access to government by the citizen through web portals, promoting the participatory form of governance through Web 2.0, need for government process re-engineering before process automation, proactive information disclosure and fixing of accountability.

INAUGURAL SESSION: VISION FOR SMART CITY Delivering the inaugural address, Saugata Roy said, “By 2030, nearly 40% of the Indian population would be urban. Globally, as per the World Bank estimates, half of the global population is already residing in urban areas and in the decades to come, proportion will

rise to whooping 60 percent.” Given the enormous pressure that the shifting population trend would put on cities in days to come, the very issue of urban planning assumes importance and therefore to make cities better planned, more livable, citizen centric, connected and smarter, with a judicious blend of good governance, the use of ICT is paramount, he added.

The minister said the JNNURM- flagship programme under Ministry of Urban Development, was launched in 2005 with the goal of achieving reforms driven, fast track and planned development of identified mission cities.

The reforms has a sound foundation based on corner stones of equity and efficiency. With these guiding principles in mind, the mission attempts to establish an enabling environment for urban transformation through reforms

Saugata Roy Minister of State for Urban Development, GOI

and improvement in systems and processes.

Four years after the launch of mission, “I can confidently say that the mission has triggered the process of enabling environment for the growth of cities by improving urban governance, augmenting civil infrastructure, enhancing effective delivery of services, water supply sewer and drainage system and solid waste management,” Roy further added.

Under JNNURM, national mission mode project (NMMP) on e-Governance in municipalities has also been taken up. It aims at creating economically productive, efficient, productive, equitable and responsive cities in an integrated framework with focus on economic and social infrastructure, basic services to urban poor, urban sector reforms, and strengthening of municipal governments and their functioning. The NMMP envisages covering of all ULBs in 35 selected cities spread over 17 states, having population of 10 lakhs and above. That is category A and B of the JNNURM scheme. e-Governance is one of the mandatory reforms under JNNURM. It is expected to take care of the implementation of the minimum eight basic services stated in the 12th Schedule of 74th Constitutional Amendment.

Apprising about the outcome based approach propagated by the Ministry of Urban Development, which formulates the service level benchmarks for eGovernance in ULBS, Roy opined, “The benchmark defines the measurement of

performance indicator in an unambiguous manner for minimum of eight services. The ULBs are to look at these bench marks in service delivery through e-Governance mode.” He further said that the Ministry is also planning to give awards to cities for their performance. The involvement of private sector in municipal services shall result in improvements in service delivery.

Hence, PPP model could be leveraged for effective implementation and monitoring of the reforms and projects, ensuring the efficient functioning of the government bodies, citizen service delivery and friendly environment for businesses.

Speaking on the characteristics of a smart city, Vinod Chandra Menon, Member, National Disaster Management Authority said studying most of the European cities, the six characteristics of smart cities that can be drawn are smart governance, economy, mobility, environment, people and living.

Highlighting the dichotomy between the vertical growth of cities and lateral expansion of cities with poor service delivery system, Vinod Menon said, “On the one hand, we are a part of global

Vinod C Menon Member, National Disaster Management Authority

process of growth, where you have mega cities, which are vertically growing like Burj Dubai or Burj Khaleefa in Dubai or Petronas Tower in Malaysia. On the other, you have sprawling lateral or horizontal shifting of our cities, along with the old problem in terms of looking at our own levels of public delivery systems in rural areas.”

Raising the issue of anonymity existing in an urban centre, Menon said, “If you would see the millions of people transiting in cities daily for work and the large unorganised sector, you will find that there is large anonymity prevailing in city. With the allocation of Unique Identification Number to each citizen, the issue of wide spread anonymity is being attempted to resolve.”

Articulating the deficits in advanced infrastructure of the country, Menon pointed that its high time that people are offered with Wi-Fi access in public transportations. Intelligent Transportation Systems in urban transportation is another such area. Stating the significance of Web 2.0 tools in governance, he averred, “ICT can enable participatory model of governance. Citizen can send their feedback to authorities and authorities can revert to citizens on the actions further taken.”

Menon proposed that the common services centres (CSC) could be utilised for spreading awareness on various issues like National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme(NREG), National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), H1N1, climate change etc. without much government spending, unlike on television, where placing an advertisement even for 30 seconds would cost millions. “Unfortunately”, he sighed, “there is no content available to CSCs. In this reference, the NeGP presents a huge business model.”

Linking the evolution of cities with good transportation facility and infrastructure, S R Rao, Additional Secretary, Department of IT, Government of India said in first phase the historical cities have been either on rivers or coasts primarily because the socio-economic wealth creation started with interaction and transportation to new places. The second phase of urbanisation came with laying down of rail roads during industrialisation period. Now, the third phase has come with the robust digital infrastructure and connectivity.

Its the next level of infrastructure that would create opportunities for people in living in hinterland to have facilities of urban areas.

Reiterating what former Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam said on providing urban amenities in rural areas, Rao said, “Its an imperative to provide the digital connectivity to the rural areas so that residents may not have to go to

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urban areas for availing government to citizen services.”

Stating the “crude reality” about the infrastructure of the country, Rao opined, “Before we move towards the next level of cities, its important to understand the current level of urbanisation. Its interesting to note that 40 % of the

S R Rao Additional Secretary, Department of Information Technology, GOI

treated water is unaccounted for. 40% of the urban population lives in slum areas.

Mere 50 % of the total garbage produced is scientifically treated. Almost 80% of the electricity consumption is on pumping systems- both on water and sewage.

The turbines and propellents used are age old stuffs.”

Dubbing the state of uniformity in delivery of citizen services by urban local bodies in states as non-encouraging, Rao said, “In Gujarat, for example, where I had opportunity to work in urban development, there are 163 ULBs across the state.

Though the act is same for all of the state, there are 163 types of water connection forms in the state. One of the reasons behind this is that the capacity of civil servant is limited. Secondly, each ULB decides how to deliver a utility to citizen.”

Taking note of the state of affairs in ULBs, the Ministry of Urban Development has taken step for adoption of state level software applications for all ULBs in a state which will insure uniformity and compliance to standards.

Niraj Prakash, Director, Microsoft laid stress on the need for having focus on

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long term planning for making smart cities with world class standards and benchmarks and designing sustainability around these smart cities. Besides, he also emphasised on need for equitable and inclusive growth, so as to develop the rural and hinterland areas of the country and stop the migration of population to handful of mega cities, thereby reducing the pressure on limited infrastructure of the urban centres. Complaining on the state of e-Government in ULBs where information and communication technology (ICT) is being narrowly used for mere generation of certificates and licenses and enhancing internal efficiency, Prakash said although “JNNURM has identified eight areas of citizen services, we need to jump start on long term planning.

IT has a big role to play- in creating visibility in sustainability of resources.” “However, our commissioners severely lack in terms of having visibility that they might have as to what kind of resources availability or depletion they are with. What is the potential energy scenario- seven years down the line. What is the impact of

Sandeep Bangia Director Business Development, Oracle

forth that the role of IT is not just an enabler but a tool which can transform cities in smart cities. Smart city can be defined as a place where businesses feel more comfortable in making it profitable.

A place where state of the art facilities in health, education and security and safety can be provided. The citizen and businesses may get a single view of the government. A place where citizen may have access to information and when it comes to security threat, it may proactively identify and respond in time, to any of the natural or man made disasters.

SESSION: ICT INFRASTRUCTURE AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

Niraj Prakash Director, Public Sector Marketing, Microsoft

climate change? Unfortunately, today the use of IT systems are limited to generating licenses, certificates and enabling accrual based accounting system. The agencies involved in managing the governance of a city numbers between 15 to 20. It means these agencies need to share the IT infrastructure.”

Sandeep Bangia, Director Business Development- Government, Oracle put

Ashis Sanyal Senior Director, DIT, GOI

Chair: Ashis Sanyal, Senior Director, Department of Information and Technology, Government of India Kapil Mohan, Director, Ministry of Power informed about the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (RAPDRP) which seeks to reduce the level of power and monetary loss incurred by the government.

He attributed the unclear picture of the number of consumers in power sector

the electricity and reduce the losses and wastage.

“For the smart/green cities the consumption of the electricity has to be done in a planned way so as to reduce the problem of shortage or the collapse of the grid. To avoid the collapse in the grid, which can bring the daily life to a halt, real time basis intelligent grid is required which would be shifting the load and manage the infrastructure”, Kapil Mohan said.

Ruchin Kumar, Senior Solution Architect, SafeNet pointed to the parallel evolution of the smart cities, and unprecedented proliferation of data and said, “Being an important resource in terms of future planning and legal policies, the protection and the retention of the data is important.” For the security of the data, IT is like an anti-virus, he added.

He cited as example the successful implementation of MCA-21 project by the Ministry of Company Affairs which has made mandatory the electronic filing of the transactions.

Kapil Mohan Director, Ministry of Power, GOI

for the government’s inability to plan the clear distribution of the power supply for the citizens and for the unannounced load shedding, in addition to the poor quality of power.

To resolve the problem of load shedding, Kapil Mohan stressed on the use of ICT in Power sector- digitisation and the distribution grade to set up the basic electricity audit and the accounting system on the electricity grade.

This will be helpful in giving a clear understanding of the consumption pattern on a real time basis.

He explained, with the use of the automatic reader, at regular intervals, the data can be maintained and it can be checked where the electricity is being lost so that the measure of tackling the problem of electricity is taken up and worked upon.

He further discussed the role of smart meters in making the cities smarter.

Terming smart meters as symbiotic tool, he said it benefits both the consumer and the supplier. It helps in managing

Ruchin Kumar Senior Solution Architect, SafeNet

The organisations like Indian Railway have developed e-Procurement portals where the vendors can submit online tender responses using the digital certificates. The e-Procurement projects initiated by many state governments are already successfully running in many southern states and also in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. The only hurdle faced in the implementation of the projects is the management of the authentication solution.

Sanjiv Mital, Chief Executive OfficerDesignate (CEO-Designate), National Institute of Smart Governance (NISG), Government of India dubbed good

Sanjiv Mital CEO-Designate, National Institute for Smart Governance, GOI

governance as more of inclusive, participatory and citizen centric governance. In any e-Governance project there are four major aspects which have to be kept in mind and they are- people, process, technology and resources, he added.

He opined that e-Governance projects require better planning and conceptualisation not only at the state but at the central level too. He pointed that the person at the top should be wholly committed to the work and should have a sense of ownership of the work he/she does. Various e-Governance projects are vendor driven, but still the ownership by the top management is important for the successful running of the project He noted that many times, the e-Governance becomes individualised or individual driven, which should not be the case. The whole organisation needs to be committed in the project.

He emphasised on the co-ordination between the back office and the front office for the successful running of the e-Governance projects.

Referring proactive information disclosure (through web portals), accountable, transparent and open government system as some of key characteristics of an advanced and smart city, Amit Prasad, Director IT, New Delhi

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for the implementation of balanced growth oriented plans, and bridging of the economic divide, ICT has an all pervading role to play. The tardy process of addressing problems from files to files, from man to man – involving physical interactions – is a mater of past.

ICT eliminates the need for physical interaction and standardises the service delivery and work processes. He also emphasised on the need for integrated infrastructure, real time information of G2G and G2 C processes, use of GIS and GPS – in increasing the visibility of the existing resources- and better decision making in urban governance.

Amit Prasad Director IT, NDMC

Municipal Corporation (NDMC) stressed, “Residents should know the people responsible for delivery of particular services.

There should be time frame and a mechanism for further follow up actions, in case the authorities fail to perform.”

For example, NDMC is issuing birth and death certificates, in accordance to the service level agreements (SLA) issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). In case if NDMC fails to deliver this service on time, it has to pay some amount to the citizen as penalty. From the time this system has been put in place, things have improved, considerably.

Tejinder Laschar, Senior Economic Advisor, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India said that

SESSION: EMPOWERMENT AND CAPACITY BUILDING Chair: Manish Mohan, DirectorDepartment of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG)

Mohan said, “The citizen centric services were given importance in the 12th report of the 2nd administrative reform commission, and so the citizen centric services have to be the core of any government, whether at the local level or the state level. What ever steps the government takes, it has to be in the conformity with citizen convenience.”

He informed that in DAPRG, the focus is on developing mechanisms and framework for improving service delivery from the citizens point of view. Talking about a case study on Shimla Municipal Corporation, he noted: If financial help is given to the municipalities and it is not utilised, its primarily because the local governance bodies lack the required capacity.

Most of the times, when the funds are available, it is used in the development of the infrastructure instead of the capacity building. It is important for the governing body to be smart to make the city smarter.

Dr. Sanjeevan Bajaj, CEO, FICCIQuality Forum, said that for the better delivery of the services to the citizens, Sarvotam Model was build up which will help in making things more transparent to the people. With the help of this model, the citizens will get a clear picture and the information and knowledge of the services which will be available to them including the time period of the service delivery. She highlighted that the prior information of the services is important and should be publicly known so that the citizens are able to reap its benefits.

Manish Mohan Director- Department of Administrative, Public Reforms & Grievances, GOI

Tejinder Laschar Senior Economic Advisor, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, GOI

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Manish Mohan explained how the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances is involved in handling the reforms of the urban sector.

He said: The population of India will double in 30 years and to have a proper design of the system and the governance in the times to come, local urbanisation is required. As more and more are coming to live in the cities, it is important to take into consideration the needs, the aspirations and the requirements of all the citizens.

Articulating the need for having citizen centric approach in city governance,

Dr. Sanjeevan Bajaj CEO, FICCI-Quality Forum

Lokesh Sharma, Manager, Oracle India spoke on good governance, which aims at

Lokesh Sharma Sales Manager, Oracle India

“Technology is a good way to enhance the operations, to improve the services, and to deliver higher quality. However, before we move towards smart city, or automate government services, one has to remember the target audience. When we talk about citizen centric approach, its very important that we know the profile of the citizen. If the majority of the citizens are uneducated and if you have sophisticated systems which has applications in English, it wont help the citizen.” Therefore its necessary to deploy the IT solutions in multiple languages so that the people from from different language speaking background may understand and take advantage from it, he added.

V K Dhar, HUDCO Chair Professor, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) brought to notice that NIUA being the

better delivery of services to the citizens.

He said though lot of new ICT projects are being launched in the country but most of them don’t get the start because of the many challenges that have to be faced. He said that its high time when there must be a shift from electronic Government to innovative, integrated and intelligent Government, which will be based on modern IT infrastructure, increased efficiency and transformation of government service delivery to citizen centric delivery.

Pradeep Prappil, Senior Programme Manager, Microsoft India said,

Neelanjana Das Sur Research Fellow, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA)

V K Dhar HUDCO Chair Professor, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA)

Pradeep Parappil Senior Programme Manager Lead, Microsoft India

The experiences and the learnings of the cities are shared with one another. As the knowledge sharing between the cities is the biggest gap, a website has been designed where the best practices have been documented. Interactive sessions between the cities are conducted, so that they can interact and learn from each other.

Neelanjana Das Sur, Research Fellow, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA)

research organisation has found that some cities in the country are successful as smart cities and others are not. There have been many good and innovative approaches which have been taken by people in northern and southern states of which many people in other states are not aware of. He noted that the Ministry of Urban Development has undertaken an initiative called PEARL- Pear Experience Reflective Learning, which is a cross sharing and a learning experience among the different cities.

Initially this initiative was started as a pilot in 65 different cities, now it has gradually spread all over the country.

discussed about the main focus areas of PEARL which are: To act as platform of knowledge sharing, provide information related to urban development, support the output, provide the news and the guidance to the studies. The activities of the programme, which she talked about included documenting the best practices and conducting national or group workshops.

Aparna Das, Senior Technical Expert, GTZ, discussed about the technical support which is provided to the Government of India for managing the data and said that in the planning of the smart city and infrastructure, proper management of the data is needed.

However, the major hurdle is the management of the data itself, because of the non availability of a specific policy, she added.

She further discussed about the preparation of city sanitation plans (CSPs) which is the policy of the National Sanitation Policy. She informed on how GTZ is supporting the Ministry of Urban

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and complementing it with IT and Communications, S Regunathan, Member, National Knowledge Commission said until the process reengineering is done in all the government departments, its very difficult to bring in transparency and citizen centric approach in governance and mere technology deployment and process automation would not solve the issue. He added that the private sector has to come forward and invest in re-designing the processes, since the government on its own has not been encouraging in its implementation.

Commenting on the state of affairs of governance in the Capital city, Regunathan said, “The amount being spent on city of Aparna Das Senior Technical Expert, GTZ

S Regunathan Former Chief Secretary, Govt. of NCT of Delhi & Member- National Knowledge Commission

Speaking on the application of geographical informational system (GIS) in property tax collection, Mukesh Meshram, Vice Chairman, Lucknow Development Authority said, “The measurements of private properties we get from our engineering department, are not precise. Usually, the property measurements are less that their actual size, and so we loose substantial revenue that can be earned through collection of property tax.

To tap the leakages, now we are moving in right direction, and trying to automate the whole process with the application of GIS. The initial results are positive and very soon we will be further scaling the project.”

Delhi by various government agencies, including salary of government servants is not less than Rs. 40,000 Crore. Despite, no one can claim that it is a world class city. One of the prime reason is that we don’t have data. We cannot get this aggregate figure, anywhere. There the IT comes in a big way.”

Professor Ranjit Mitra, Diretor, School of Planning and Architecture said, “The sort of structure of governance that deals with cities, is very desperate. The accountability finds no place anywhere in this existing structure. Things will remain the same till the time an enlightened chief minister or mayor of the city takes the charge and drive down the reforms process. Also, we need to re-look at the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act in a more serious manner.”

Mukesh Meshram Vice-Chairman, Lucknow Development Authority

Development (MoUD) in preparing the CSPs in six cities. She stressed on engaging Delhi in improving the conditions of community toilet complexes (CTCs).

She said it is important to understand the users of these CTCs and their expectations and willingness to participate in planning, design and operation.

SESSION:SUSTAINED URBAN DEVELOPMENT & PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP Chair: Professor Chetan Vaidya, Director, National Institute for Urban Affairs Underlining the issues and challenges

Prof. Chetan Vaidya Director, National Institute of Urban Affairs

in

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development

Prof. Ranjit Mitra Director, School of Planning and Architecture

Anurag Goyal, Director, e-Governance, Department of IT, Government of India said the biggest constraint in moving towards smart cities is the lack of quality

The services will be provided on rental basis by the Motorola and HCL Infosystems. The PPP model should be designed carefully and if it is, the government need not take much of the financial burden.

Speaking on the prospects of proactive information disclosure through web portals, Prasad said, “The IT has got a major role to play in bringing in transparency in to the system. Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), for example,

R K Gaur Managing Director, Indraprastha Power Generation Co. Ltd.

Dr. Erna Surjadi, Regional Advisor Gender, Women and Health, World Health Organisation said, “Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can contribute in making cities healthier and

Anurag Goyal Director, Department of IT, Government of India

infrastructure in the country. Citing some examples, Goyal said, “9% of the industrial output is lost because of power cuts.

Although India has the second largest road network in the world- having 33 lakh kilometers of road- just 2% of these road comprises of national highways.”

He further proposed that the PPP model could be leveraged to create synergy through utilising the ICT expertise of the private sector and the government fund.

The role of the government should shift from executors to regulators and then to facilitators.

Notifying on the preparations for Capital city in light of the Common Wealth Games 2010, Savitur Prasad, Secretary, Department of IT, Government of NCT of Delhi said that considering secure communications system in government to government (G2G) interactions as a key security infrastructure element of advance cities the world over, the Department of IT is endeavoring to provide TErrestrial Trunked RAdio (TETRA) communication system to all the government agencies in the Capital. TETRA communication is one of the most advanced and reliable communication system existing the world over. The deployment includes distribution of 10,000 handsets to government personnel, and 45 Base Stations in the Capital.

Savitur Prasad Secretary, Department of IT, Government of NCT of Delhi

collects house tax from just eight lakh houses in the capital, although we have already digitised records of 45 lakh houses. Similarly, MCD, on papers, has constructed 28 lakh kilometers of road.

However, in reality just 15 lakh kilometers of road has been laid out. With making information available through web portals, the ambiguities can be ironed out.” Moreover, IT gives an opportunity to alter the system of citizen coming to government; to government reaching out to citizens.

R K Gaur, Managing Director, Indraprastha Power Generation Co. Ltd. (IPGCL) enunciated the application of IT in power sector and said, “With deployment of SAP ERP in IPGCL, we are able to utilise our resources to the optimum level. We have increased our generation capacity through following high standards. We are also working on cleaner energy- solar power energy and in the days to come we will be enhancing its capacity.”

Dr. Erna Surjadi Regional Advisor, WHO

smarter through its usage in disseminating information on various issues including water sanitation and gender.

The self help groups (SHG) are working efficiently in community development. However, ICT can equip them better through providing latest information and technical know how of the technologies and processes, in their domain.” \\ egov Team

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Organisers

Co-Organisers

knowledge for change

Department of Information Technology Ministry of Communications & IT Government of India

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www.eINDIA.net.in

Catch The e-Revolution @

4 - 6 August 2010 Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad, India Host State Partner

Country Partner

Supporting Partner

SRI LANKA IT & Communication Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh

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INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

Local Governance: An Important Part of Good Governance www.hp.com

JAIJIT BHATTACHARYA DIRECTOR, GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, HP INDIA

What are your views on e-Government implementation in Urban Local Body (ULB)?

Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) are one of the two institutional structures for local governance, the other being Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). After the 73rd and 74th amendments to the constitution, it has become imperative that local governance structures leverage Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to provide better governance, justifying the greater authority that they have now. In addition, the judicial order to ULBs to adopt double entry mercantile accounting system has further necessitated the adoption of IT for ULB governance since without IT, it would be near impossible to manage the complex mercantile accounting system.

Local governance is an important part of good governance as most citizens are normally affected more by local governance than by the other layers of governance. If we have to improve our quality and effectiveness of governance,

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it is extremely important to quickly implement e-Government in ULBs. This is also important from the national economic perspective since cities and metros generate a significant portion of the GDP and improving governance service in these areas would definitely improve the economic performance of the country. The larger ULBs such as Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), Kalyan Domvile Municipal Corporation (KDMC), Municipal Corporations of Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai have all had major e-Government initiatives. However, many of the 2nd tier municipalities have yet to adopt any e-Government initiative. It is important that all municipalities start adopting e-Government. It would definitely help in standardising applications for municipalities which are created centrally and possibly delivered through a cloud solution. This will reduce the cost of implementation and speed up the delivery.

What are your company’s offerings in the ULB segment?

HP has implemented several municipality solutions globally and in India.

It has deep expertise in conceptualising, developing and delivering municipality solutions. HP also specialises in setting up the entire computing infrastructure for municipalities, including the network, the Data Center and the internal cloud.

In addition, HP has numerous software offerings for municipalities that can help in managing the e-Government infrastructure.

What are your views on the recent move of Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) for state level software across ULBs in a state?

We think that is a very progressive policy. This policy will save considerable

expenditure of the government and would help speed up the roll-out of e-Government in ULBs. It would also create standardised softwares and interfaces that would considerably reduce the cost of maintenance. It would be even more beneficial if the applications can be standardised at a national level. However, we do understand the procedural challenges for such a policy.

The policy can be further strengthened if the ULB applications at the state level are delivered from a state level cloud.

What challenges did you face while implementing e-Governance in ULB? The usual challenges that are faced during ULB implementation are related to data, people and processes.

The quality of data is extremely poor and in some cases non-existent. Given the Utilisation Certificate (UC) based funds disbursal, the accounting records are not robust, thus forcing another layer of initiatives for cleaning up the data and the accounts and in some cases to forcefully close accounting periods that have not been closed for years, if not decades.

This also means putting guesswork data in the system. Then obviously, there is the challenge of the people who are disturbed by the new systems. Change management and training become a significant activity. Since the staff are also busy with their daily work, it becomes all the more challenging to get their time and attention for the change management initiatives.

Finally, there are major process changes that are required for a proper implementation. Given the resistance, the process changes are compromised leading to a system that has short shelf life. This leads to a national waste.

Having mentioned the above issues, we are confident that ULBs in general have reached the maturity level to rapidly start implementing e-Governance. \\ Gayatri Maheshwary

SecureIT 2010 NATIONAL CONVENTION ON ICT IN PUBLIC SAFETY AND SECURITY 4 March 2010 The Claridges, New Delhi

"Public Safety and Security" in the backdrop of terror attacks have increasingly become a major area of concern since the later half of 2008. We believe that integrated ICT can be the most potent retaliation to such attacks and acts of terror, while maintaining and enhancing public security.

Focus Areas:

Target Audience:

• IT in critical infrastructure security • Access control & Identity Solution • Public Safety-use of high speed connectivity • Cyber Security • Pandemic response, among other issues

• Security Experts • Government Agencies • Industry • Academia

Presented by

Produced by knowledge for change

For Participation enquiry, Contact: Pratap Vikram Singh: pratap@egovonline.net, Mobile: +91-9810707585 G-4, sector-39, Noida - 201301 Phone: + 91-120-2502181-85, Fax: +91-120-2500060, www.egovonline.net

INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

Providing Strong Software Foundation to the Government www.ibm.com/in What are your views on the recent move of MoUD for state level software across ULBs in a state?

The move augurs well for the future as we are increasingly seeing powerful changes related to demographics, globalisation, environmental concerns, societal relationships, social stability and technology affect virtually every government, demanding individualised responses suited to each nation, region or locality. These nearly universal drivers will require “perpetual collaboration” that starts with intensified, multi-directional communications, an shared operational and technical standards. At a broader level, as governments evolve into forms that foster perpetual collaboration, public officials can also engage their citizens and collaborators in the implementation of bigger goals for society, such as the elimination of an entire disease and educating all children with a targeted number of years of schooling.

VIVEK MALHOTRA TERRITORY EXECUTIVE - GENERAL BUSINESS, NORTH & EAST, IBM INDIA/SOUTH ASIA

What are your views on e-Government implementation in Urban Local Body (ULB)? e-Governance, irrespective of where it is implemented, is a strategic enabling force ensuring consistent and scalable business value.

It helps government measure growth and success, including its financial health. e-Governance is the way in which the leadership accomplishes the delivery of mission-critical business capability using Information Technology strategy, goals, and objectives. It allows Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to ensure alignment between the goals and objectives of the business and the utilisation of various IT resources to effectively achieve the desired results.

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What are your company’s offerings in the ULB segment?

IBM’s e-Governance framework offers a strong software foundation, government industry-specific extensions, pre-built solution accelerators and implementation patterns for faster deployment at lower risk; provides a roadmap that enables customers to build capabilities over time on their existing environment; leverages an ecosystem of industry Independent Software Vendor (ISVs) and IBM solutions that are built on industry standards and pre-integrated into the framework and finally, also increases the transparency across government entities for more efficient information sharing, service coordination and record keeping.

What challenges did you face while implementing e-Governance in ULB? The mandate to “do more with less” continues. With frenetic change as their predominant driver, leaders and managers in governments of all sizes are charged with balancing growing needs and shrinking resources with the burgeoning demands on—and complexity of—the systems that keep their worlds operating. Having said that, in its 100year history of serving governments, IBM has formed long-term relationships with national, regional and local governments in all regions of the world, resulting in a long list of references.

IBM has a proven track record, with a dedicated focus on clients’ most critical needs, delivering lasting transformative solutions involving the integration of processes, people and systems. IBM has the stability and longevity to help government succeed in moving into the age of a globally integrated and intelligent economy and society. \\ Gayatri Maheshwary

INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

Municipalities: At the forefront of e-Governance www.sap.com government departments and agencies).

As e-Governance matures, local bodies need to look at comprehensive applications that cover citizen services, governance and infrastructure on a fully integrated platform which preferably brings in best practices with the solution.

MATHEW THOMAS VICE PRESIDENT, STRATEGIC INDUSTRIES, SAP INDIA

What are your views on e-Government implementation in Urban Local Body (ULB)?

Extensive efforts are being made by the Government and the local body to cater to the needs of the citizens.

Today the world over Municipal bodies are assigning the public value creation that can extend beyond financial saving and bring in integrity for a wide range of stakeholders, including constituents and citizens.

India is witnessing an urgent demand for a major transition that would facilitate citizen services and improve administrative efficiency to be more transparent and accountable, few such examples is the successful e-Governance project initiated by Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), Aurangabad Municipality etc runs on SAP. Such e-Government implementations have enabled ULB and other public service organizations to respond quickly to changing regulations, manage internal and customer relationships and optimise resources. By bridging organisational boundaries to support information sharing and streamline processes, it increases productivity to enhance service to constituents and customers while slashing costs. Urban Bodies or Municipalities have been at the forefront of e-Governance (compared to other

What are your company’s offerings in the ULB segment?

SAP has vast experience in serving more than 1400 governments in 70 countries worldwide. SAP offers comprehensive set of software, technologies, and services tailored to help government and ULBs transform and improve operations. As market leaders, SAP presently serves 50 customers in public sector including municipal corporations such as MCGM, Bhopal, KDMC and Aurangabad in India.

Comprehensively integrated and readily available (enterprise applications based) ICT solutions for the Urban Local Body are available with some of the world leading software providers. These solutions have proven themselves over time and have been deployed at various levels of government globally. They include central, state and local governments including several city and county councils.

These solutions usually provide for legislative compliance, improved quality of citizen’s life, efficient management operations and transformation of services and payment delivery as their key priorities. The main components of these solutions include integrated applications for outreach, relationship management, case management, grant and fund management, and program execution.

Importantly, these components need to work over an integrated database of beneficiaries using a single view of the beneficiary record. In this context, it is useful to note that the Universal ID project could be built around the concept of master data management (including the management of “below poverty line - BPL” information) that serves as the fundamental basis for leveraging the various components of integrated applications.

SAP for Public Sector helps these government organizations like Urban Local Body respond quickly to changing demands for services, and enable faster, more flexible service delivery at lower costs. SAP for Public Sector draws on best practices SAP has garnered from more than 30 years. It provides governments and organizations with the ability to optimize operational, political and social return on investment, while increasing efficiencies and improving service to taxpayers and constituents.

What challenges did you face while implementing e-Governance in ULB? Today ULBs are upgrading their systems to better platforms. The demand for e-Governance is growing steadily in India. A policy direction by Government to consider enterprise applications and shared services by Local Bodies could significantly improve the quality of urban governance and infrastructure. While working closely with ULB’s, SAP has often faced challenges in terms of managing change with a comprehensive integration and application platform that works with companies existing IT infrastructure. They also had to integrate silos of information across government departments and levels of organisation to assemble and channelise the vast amount of data in any such organisations.

The other major challenge, of course, is the sheer size of the supporting agencies and manpower involved in the ULB sector as well as the number of beneficiaries. Given the need for efficient and transparent delivery through a large chain of institutions, processes and people, it is imperative that government provides for a comprehensive and integrated social services management solution which can provide a common, open-standards based ICT platform to administer, monitor and analyse the various programs. Such systems would be a good supplement or replacement to currently fragmented or archaic systems. \\ Gayatri Maheshwary

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INTERVIEW INTERVIEW

Key Challenge of ULBs in Implementing e-Governance www.wipro.com effectively and efficiently. This would bring transparency and accountability to the ULBs.

MURALIDHARA HONNUR C GENERAL MANAGER, INDUSTRY SERVICES – GOVERNMENT, WIPRO CONSULTING SERVICES

What are your views on e-Government implementation in Urban Local Bodies (ULBs)?

Implementation of e-Governance in ULBs would enormously help the citizens in interacting with ULBs for availing services and help communicating their needs to ULBs. Adoption of e-Governance at ULBs would make them more efficient and citizen friendly.

Citizen Centric Services like property tax, birth and death, building approvals, ward works etc. once re-engineered and automated would help citizens to easily access services and information. It would help ULBs to process and deliver services seamlessly and efficiently through an integrated automated ‘frontend-backend’ platform. The automated functions of ULBs – utility payments, solid waste management, e-Procurement etc would help in addressing the public needs faster and manage its internal work more easily,

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What are your company’s offerings in the ULB segment?

We have a dedicated team of consultants focused to Government Consulting. We have been helping the ULBs to prepare ‘Detailed Project Reports for the implementation of eGovernance in ULBs which covers all the aspects including business process re-engineering, technical solution, cost estimates, capacity building and change management requirement, etc.

We have been providing program/ project management services for the implementation of e-Governance in ULBs. We have developed RFP for the selection of System Development Agency, undertaken Bid Management and supported ULBs in Vendor Selection. We have undertaken monitoring of implementation on behalf of ULB, provided technical and functional recommendations, final testing and approval of application, implemented change management and monitored training program, etc.

We have conceptualised and worked on a completely different model of supporting ULBs through “Service Outsourcing” which would entail complete ownership of vendor to develop, manage, maintain and deliver services to citizen within prescribed SLAs. What are your views on the recent move of MoUD for state level software across ULBs in a state?

We understand that the requirements of all the ULBs in terms of functions and processes are more or less same but at times some requirements to avail the services may vary from one ULB to other.

As a matter of fact suggesting, a uniform software across ULBs will not meet the needs and requirement of ULBs.

In our perspective towards the state level software across all the ULBs in the State would be realistic if it has a common core application with flexibility given to ULBs to add on more features and undertake required customization without hindering with the common application.

We believe that the proposed common application should be scalable enough to cater to ULBs’ specific needs across the states. In terms of management of the implementation, it will surely benefit in standardizing ULBs processes and system and at the same time better handling issues and control at central location could be achieved. Besides, cost, time, resource effciencies. As a suggestion, MoUD should understand the needs of all the ULBs in terms of software and hardware and then probably look at a common frame work for management, monitoring and implementation.

What challenges did you face while implementing e-Governance in ULB? We understand that as a country we are still evolving and setting up e-Governance nuances and standards for adoption and integration of e-Governance with the stated agenda of Good Governance.

The challenges which we have encountered in implementation of e-Governance in ULBs are no different from other e-Governance project. Having said that, we would like to highlight the key challenge of ULBs in implementing e-Governance is “Change Management”.

Different levels at which Change Management is required are political leadership, bureaucracy, department and citizens. We would strongly recommend a high focus on change management augmented by skill and capacity building interventions in ULBs for successful implementation of the e-Governance initiatives. \\ Gayatri Maheshwary

CASE STUDY

Tracking Solution for Indian Railways www.wipro.com

he Indian Railways is one of the largest railway systems in the world under a single management. It runs 11,000 trains every day. Spread across 67 divisions, it covers 104,000 km of rail track, has over 7,000 railway stations and ferries around 17 million passengers daily.

Planning the movement of trains, deciding on precedence and crossings, forecasting train arrivals and providing this information to all the concerned within the system, is a critical element of day-to-day operations for the railways, in order to achieve efficiency, ensure safety, and provide customer satisfaction.

Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS) – an umbrella organisation in-charge of IT projects under the Indian Railways – selected Wipro for designing and deploying the Control Office Application (COA). The project is part of the Indian Railways overall endeavor to use IT applications for improving planning and resource utilisation for Indian Railways.

T

THE CHALLENGE A large network combined with heavy traffic, both passenger and freight with wide variations in running patterns, makes the task of train controlling and operations a very difficult one. Section Controllers who are assigned to control a portion of the network within each divisional control office, used to manually record the movement of trains on a train chart, while constantly keeping track of various parameters needed for efficient planning. The control chart is a time-

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SANDHYA SHAMA RAO

distance graph which is used to control and plan the movement of trains. It is used to ensure that scheduled passenger trains run on their paths, ensure efficient paths for unscheduled freight trains, forecast the movement of trains and provide information on arrivals and departures as per commercial requirements.

A good controller constantly optimises on resources and ensures trains run smoothly through the system, reducing detention of both scheduled and unscheduled trains. With increasing traffic levels, the Section Controllers were often constrained by the need to document every event (ie., train arrival/ departure, track failures, crew change, signal status, fuel status) and yet focus on their primary duty of planning and reporting the movement of trains. The existing system also involved a lot of paper work by support staff who were required to replicate the operational data given in the control chart to various registers.

As a result, the core activity of advance planning and timely reporting of train movements was getting diluted.

Consequently, management also had to make special efforts to obtain the information required for good decisionmaking.

Indian Railways decided to automate the process of controlling train operations to ensure greater efficiency in train operations.

the COA application in Madurai and Trivandrum division control offices as a pilot implementation. The solution was later upgraded with components of the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0, using Visual Studio 2005 with Oracle as Database. The solution is now being rolled out to all 73 control/area offices across India.

COA SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE The COA application constitutes three distinct layers - the presentation layer, the business logic layer and the data access layer. The presentation layer and the business logic layers are authored in C# (C sharp) whereas the data access layer has been built using ADO.NET objects.

The presentation layer components are hosted on windows XP/Vista and the data access layer components are hosted on Windows 2003 Server.

The COA integrates with other CRIS applications like FOIS (Freight Operation Information System) and NTES (National Train Enquiry System) through (Central Application) CAS server.

COA DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS • • • • •

WIPRO’S SOLUTION • Wipro

developed

and

deployed

Three Tier Distributed Architecture High Availability and Scalable system User friendly interface High level of Data Security High Availability to ensure 24 x 7 operations by Controllers (users) Minimum downtime and minimum Response time

•

Scalable in terms of clients / trains without degrading performance

HOW IT WORKS At each of the 73 control offices, a cluster of database and application servers provide an intuitive GUI-based system for train controllers to record the movement of each train on a virtual control chart. The application requires the controllers to enter only the data related to the train operations with ease.

The application then draws the charting of the sectional trains together with advance forecasting, taking into consideration all operational parameters like blocks, caution orders, crossing, precedence, priority, load details, etc.

It also communicates with the adjacent divisions on handover/ takeover details of trains.

Wipro has also integrated COA with existing systems like National Train Enquiry System (NTES) and adjacent divisions.

For the entire project, Wipro undertook end-to-end project management under the guidance of CRIS, including product sale, inventory mobilization, product delivery, site readiness followed by remaining phases of the project like design, development, testing, training, Wipro worked with CRIS to ensure a smooth transition from a 150 year old tradition of manual charting to an automated system involving massive change management.

Currently, Wipro is also in charge of maintaining and supporting the COA application for Indian Railways.

KEY BENEFITS •

•

Updated train position is a feature developed by the train charting software in which the train position is updated on a near real-time basis.

This would also help avoid manual enquiry at information counters in railway stations.

The Control Office Application has unbundled an immense potential in improving forecasting of train arrivals and departures at various stations, improving punctuality of trains and implementing a number of innovative passenger information systems using latest information technology aids.

•

Establishment of faster and better interfaces with the consumers by streamlining processes and enhancing availability of information.

FUTURE PLANS •

•

Integrating COA with Freight Operations Information System (FOIS) to facilitate data exchange for internal reporting Automating data entry using GPS.\\

SANDHYA SHAMA RAO CONTENT MANAGER WIPRO INFOTECH

Dweep Bhoomi Hand-written ROR goes Offline Land Record Computerisation at Ferrargunj Tehsil has been completed based on software devolved by NIC. The Data entry of land records of all the villages of the tehsil is completed and records are prepared in the Form “F” according to the provisions under rule 134 of the Andaman and Nicobar islands land revenue and land reforms rules 1968.

All changes in the Record of Right shall be carried out only through the “Dweep Bhoomi” software with effect from 15th January, 2010. These include various services like mutation. mortgage, sub-division, diversion and acquisition.

Any mutation carried out other than online through “Dweep Bhoomi software on or after 15th January 2010 will not be recognised.

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FEATURE

Education for All: Role of ICT www.sify.com

ducation and literacy is an absolute must for any economy, especially developing and/or near-developed economy. Yes, here we are talking of India. An honest, committed and focused approach to ‘Education for All’ can make greatest difference in addressing issues like unemployment, bridging the urbanrural divide, minimising the need and role of subsidies and exhaustive socioeconomic benefit programmes, and managing in a better manner the ever growing rich-poor gap.

Under ‘Education for All’, the focus needs to be on employable education.

It is essential to provide international and state-of-the-art exposure to people living in rural areas. ‘Education for All’ can help in achieving urbanisation of rural. The theme needs to be employable education and ease of learning the difficult and complex subjects and concepts.

Though it is a dire need of yesteryears, there have been many programmes and schemes by Government of India backed by multi-crores of rupees for the financial support; huge amount of funds are planned, released, and consumed, but ground reality is very different and far from expectations. Reasons are many and unfortunately till date, it [Education for All] is still like a dream.

This has been the slogan for quite a while by entire leadership teams across political parties throughout the country.

However, here is some good news, in recent times even selected industry leaders like Bharti group are catching up with education as a subject matter in their focus areas though in a small and a selected way. Yet another ray of hope, even present government is showing

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lot of focus on education as a subject.

There seems to be tremendous focus on education reforms as government has certainly started talking.

ROLE OF ICT IN EDUCATION Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is one great tool in conceptualising, building and implementing reforms across sectors.

Large corporate houses and some of the sectors (Banking, Aviation, Telecom) have adopted this quite a while back.

Department of Information and Technology (DIT) under Ministry of Communication and Information and Technology (MCIT) has conceptualised and launched innovative Mission Mode Projects (MMP) under National eGovernance Plan (NeGP). The objective of MMP under NeGP is to create an overall framework to facilitate line Ministries and departments to initiate their major ICT-enabled administrative reforms and initiatives (more details available under e-Governance on dit.gov.in). This is an attempt to enhance Government to Citizen (G2C), Government to Business (G2B), Government to Employee (G2E), Government to Government (G2G), Government to Stakeholder (G2S) respectively) experience in terms of enhanced efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, transparency, agility, evolutionary development and gradual adoption. This has a unique built-in mechanism to bring industry players on board right from conceptualisation through execution.

It might be an interesting idea to include ‘Education for All’ as one of the

MMP under NeGP. Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MoHRD) would certainly need to own and drive this; however DIT and/or Planning Commission can be the facilitator. By bringing in under NeGP, it can help MoHRD by providing an institutionalised mechanism from the perspective of conceptualisation of initiatives around a framework, develop thought leadership, develop the solution, manage challenges like sustainenance; possibly one of the biggest advantage is to bring industry on board logically and meaningfully through Public- Private Partnership (PPP) model.

Education is a huge subject with various facet and stakeholders attached to it like primary/ secondary/ higher education, professional education, administrative bodies, schools/ colleges/ institutions, etc. In the current NeGP MMP, there is a small cover for education through initiatives like CSC’s (Common Services Centers); however it requires a very different platform and focus to drive such a Dream. e-Governance (basically ICT) has certain non-functional natural benefits (but very important and critical in success) like replicability, expandability and scalability, availability, repeatability, reaching the masses. One of the biggest feature of ICT is to help in conceptualising the concept/ initiative in evolutionary manner and gradual adoption.

EDUCATION AND ICT – MADE FOR EACH OTHER •

There are series of challenges attached to education in today’s context, some of them can be articulated as

•

Lack of teachers in right quality and quantity at right place anytime, especially challenges in rural areas (reach the un-reach) • Lack of education facilities/ institutions/infrastructure in sync with population spread Maintaining, sustaining, and • enhancing the education standards and quality Need to revisit and revise the syllabi • and contents in line with ever changing times on continuous basis Ever growing commercialisation of • education as a subject matter and opportunities One of the biggest challenges in Education is the content, and the still higher challenge is maintaining and sustaining the content updated especially in today’s ever-changing times.

In education, even sky is not the limit.

Even the bigger challenge in education is the availability of constant consistent and updated multi-lingual content.

Yet another equally bigger challenge in education is practical means and ways of education. This gets further compounded by acute shortage of required/desired education infrastructure and facilities in terms of laboratories, equipments, MIS, and other material.

‘Taare Zameen Par’ and ‘3 Idiots’ are dot on nail. There is a huge message and an eye opener in teaching and learning process. How practical way of teaching can make learning easy and interesting.

How profiling of content in line with the target learner can make the difference?

The contents shall remain same for all, but innovative means of teaching and content articulation can be a single most differentiator.

Truly, in majority of cases, education process lacks this absolutely as all students in a particular class/ session are pretty much treated at par; while that is not the truth. In today’s context across the board, there is practically no concept of profiling the content and/or delivery mechanism of content in line with profile of the target receiver. Profiling may not be possible at individual level to start with, but certainly in selected manner. Even matching the pace of learning with pupil, in a small way, is quite important and critical. Some of the selected kindergarten has started to adopt innovative learning process, but they can be counted on

finger tips and affordability is the key aspect; however the requirement is to institutionalise this across the board, across disciplines (like Mathematics, Science, Social Science, etc ), across standard (primary, secondary, higher, graduation, post-graduation). When the entire world talks about employable education, possibly nurturing the education in desired and right manner tops the priority. e-Governance initiatives in the country too have set of challenges like sustainability and replicating the success, hence it is quite significant to institutionalise such a sensitive initiative.

ICT has a huge role play because of its certain distinctive characteristics for initiative like Education. Some of these can be named as innovative means and ways of teaching (digital content, animation, games and puzzle), virtual labs, extensive online support material for faculty, virtualisation of teaching community, online self assessment, online evaluation, diagnosis and pattern analysis, organisation-wide extensive and comprehensive management tools for people across levels (vertically and horizontally).

Education primarily has three broad components/ dimensions, i.e. content in required and desired template/ format in ever-evolutionary manner, optimal availability of academic infrastructure in line with geographical spread, and selfpaced learning with assessment and selfassessment. One small smart tool can be stakeholder dashboard. Stakeholders are many like parents, students, subject matter teachers, school administration, government administrative authorities, institution management, NGO(s) and other national and worldwide bodies, research community, industry, financing institutions, and others.

In a country like India, it is not viable

and sustainable to create laboratories for people living till last mile in all respect; however virtual laboratories could be an answer to it. Here, education shall include all academic and professional education with exhaustive focus on workmanship related courses like carpenter, plumber, electrician, auto repairer, and the list is huge. Among the biggest advantage of concepts like virtual laboratories could be once done-made for all, content, concept, and articulation be evolutionary in nature, self-paced learning, making exposure to state-of-the-art tools and technology to potential workforce, affordability, managing the shortage of teaching community, sharing the expertise and experience of specialists and experts in selected manner. There is no question of replacing and/or eliminating the physical class room, faculty/ teachers, expert’s experience sharing; but this can be an attempt to manage the huge demandsupply gap in the given scenario.

Having launched, the entire process can become evolutionary for subject like education. Among other characteristics, ICT can help implementing version control in the entire journey process. Once the platform is established, it is quite convenient and efficient to keep adding and enhancing various components in the entire supply-chain. Adding new streams and/or expanding the reach can be achieved relatively effortlessly. ICT has the power to make the entire education and learning scenario interesting and global. This could provide a genuine opportunity to the whole lot of people to pay back to their native place and people irrespective of wherever they are today for whatever the reasons. This is a platform to achieve ‘reach the un-reach (unreachable)’. It is an effort to open dialogue, discussions, and deliberation on ‘role of ICT in Education for ALL’. \\

SUDHIR AGGARWAL

SUDHIR AGGARWAL is Senior Vice President and Head – Government initiatives for Enterprise Division at Sify Technologies Limited. He is responsible for strategic business development in Government and Defense segment. Sudhir Aggarwal joined Sify in January 2008, as Senior Vice President and Head – Government initiatives. He is responsible to particularly focusing in creating very large opportunities in the Government and Defense segments Prior to his tenure at Sify, he held General Manager, Government (Business Development) at Oracle.

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NEWS

INTERNATIONAL NTERNA AT ONA AL

KUWAIT MINISTRY LAUNCHES e-PAYMENT SYSTEM Ministry of Electricity and Water inaugurated the new online bill payment service.

The introduction of the online services, which the ministry began implementing five months ago, were designed to facilitate bill payment and preserve public funds.

The service is the first step in the ministry’s implementation of the ‘e-Government’ program initiated by His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser AlMohammed Al-Sabah.

Customers of all state bodies and government-related private authorities can now pay their bills anytime and anywhere following the introduction of the new service. Automated bill payment equipment is also to be introduced in all Kuwait’s governorate offices to make it easier for citizens to pay their bills.

e-GOVERNMENT INAUGURATED IN SUKKUR BY SINDH MINISTER Sindh Minister for Information Technology (IT) inaugurated the e-Government project in Sukkur on January 25, 2010. e-Government was meant for providing basic facilities to the people. The project would ensure transparency and merit in the recruitment of employees in various departments.

The project would be launched in 22 districts of Sindh and all the departments will be linked for the convenience of the people. The purpose behind the e-Government was to secure documentation of the data of the district government departments.

Such projects would also be initiated at Taluka level. Activities of all the departments would be monitored through

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the project and data regarding finance, domicile and accounts would be secured as well.

SAUDI ARABIA TO ISSUE EXIT, RE-ENTRY VISAS ONLINE Saudi Arabia’s passport department has launched a new online service to enable exit and re-entry visas to facilitate its own citizens and expatriates. Though the department’s website (www.gdp. gov.sa) is in Arabic, there is an option to display forms and instructions on how to complete them in English.

Exit, re-entry visas are issued to Saudi Arabian citizens who wish to leave and then return to the country. An initial one-off registration, however, needs to be completed and delivered to a local passport office. There is also an e-Gate section that offers an electronic card for easy entrance and exit at Saudi airports.

The website also provides short code numbers for local mobile operators. There is also a code for visa cancellation.

After all the conditions are met, an SMS message would be sent to the applicant for verification. Once that is confirmed the visa would be issued can be then printed from the website (sms.evisa. com.sa) by entering the visa number and confirmation number.

LATVIA APPROVES PERSONAL ID CARDS L a t v i a ’s government has given the green light for introducing electronic identification cards for its citizenry, a decision that will ultimately help Latvia embrace the electronic age to a far greater extent.

The cards, or eIDs will not only secure citizens’ identification while traveling abroad or receiving government or municipal services, but also authenticity in the electronic environment. Latvia will be the last of the three Baltic countries to introduce the eID, which first appeared in Estonia several years ago.

ZIMBABWE’S CABINET APPROVES NATIONAL ICT PLAN Zimbabwe’s Cabinet has approved a national information and communication technology (ICT) plan for the country, expected to be launched by the end of this month or in February. The ICT plan, which will be operational till 2015, will be presented to the President Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai before unveiling to the public.

The ICT plan is expected to address issues like licencing, number portability, infrastructure, mobile phone security, digital security, e-governance, e-education and e-health, as well as the overall growth perspectives for the ICT sector. It aims to bridge the technology gap among Zimbabwe and the African neighbours by providing modern technology, becoming a hub of software and hardware development and establishing a consultative body to advise ICT Minister on the available policies.

SPECIAL COURTS TO TACKLE CYBER CRIME IN UAE To synchronise the judicial system with the evolving growth and the diverse impact of Internet, the UAE has determined to open special courts for Internet related crimes, also known as cyber crimes. The development is the result of the ministerial resolution held on January 4 of this year to further the court reforms and combating the looming cyber related threats to government institutions and the private companies.

Dr Hadef Bin Jua’an Al Daheri, Minister of Justice, said that the country has specialist judges with PhDs in the area of cyber crime, IT and related legislations. He said that as technology continues to evolve and cyber criminals become increasingly sophisticated, the UAE must remain focused and be one step ahead.

Power IT 2010 NATIONAL CONVENTION ON ICT IN POWER SECTOR 16 April 2010 The Claridges, New Delhi

India being the 5th largest power producer in the world still faces huge power deficit with peak power deficit of more than 10%. This gap can be managed by the use of technology to achieve reduced distribution losses, planned supply and better power quality i.e, efficient power distribution.

The Focus Areas are: • R-APDRP • Smart Metering, Smart Grids and Energy Data Management • Automatic Data Logging System • Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition System • GIS Mapping of Distribution Network The objective of the convention is to have a dialogue and exchange of ideas amongst decision-makers from the government, public sector units, state electricity boards, regulators, policy makers, industry experts, business leaders, senior executives of power sector.

Presented by

Produced by

knowledge for change

For Participation enquiry, Contact: Gayatri Maheshwary - gayatri@egovonline.net, Mobile: +91-9999292149, www.egovonline.net G-4, sector-39, Noida - 201301, Phone: + 91-120-2502181-85, Fax: +91-120-2500060

CURTAIN RAISER

13th National Conference on e-Governance he XIIIth National Conference on e-Governance 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 Rajasthan. The Conference will be held from 18th -19th February 2010, at Birla Auditorium, Jaipur, Rajasthan, 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.

T

OBJECTIVE The objective of the XIIIth 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.

BACKGROUND Every year the Department of Adminstrative Reforms and Public Grievances organises the annual National e-Governance Conference along with the Department of Information Technology and a State Government.

Senior officers from Government of

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Ramesh Chandra Misra Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances and Department of Pensions and Pensioners’ Welfare, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of India

“The 13th National Conference on e-Governance is an endeavour to introspect as to whether the e-Governance initiatives of the recent times have positively impacted the lives of the citizens and touched that section of the society which hitherto remained uncovered by the public service delivery mechanism.”

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 various 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, Bhubneshwar, Chennai, Kochi, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Goa, and Bhopal.

The theme of the National e-Governance Conference has 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.

THEME OF THE XIIITH e-GOVERNANCE CONFERENCE Theme of the conference is ‘e-Governance from Citizens perspective’.

The conference will explore how use of ICT has transformed governance from the perspective of the beneficiaries of the services. It is an attempt as a reality check to ascertain the outcome of the services rendered and whether it has achieved the intended objectives of transparent, effective, responsive and accountable system of governance.

THE PROGRAMME The conference sessions are: e-Governance from Citizen’s Perspective With huge government spending on technology for improving service delivery and enhancing internal efficiency, there is a great need to assess the landmarks covered so far in achieving citizen centric governance.

Leveraging mobile technology for better service delivery- Financial inclusion through mobile technology

India with a base of 500 million plus mobile subscribers, has huge potential to utilise this affordable, handy and popular platform for enhancing the service delivery.

Public Distribution System (direct access to the citizens through e-Governance) e-Government ensures benefits going right in to the hands of the targeted beneficiaries, increases the visibility in government spending and allocations and puts information in public domain and create an opportunity for social audit.

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.

CATEGORY OF AWARDS • •

Excellence in Government Process Re-engineering Exemplary Horizontal Transfer of ICT-based Best Practice Outstanding Performance in CitizenCentric Service delivery Innovative Usage of Technology in e-Governance Exemplary Usage of ICT by PSUs Best Government Website Sectoral Award (Focus sector for 2009-10: Education)

Focus sector- Education (ICT in education – enhancing quality and reach).

IT and Communications eliminate distances, speedily delivers information and enables access to resources and knowledge, across geographical boundaries.

•

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.

ACHIEVEMENTS

e-GOVERNANCE COMPENDIUM Papers from adminstration, academia and industry are invited on the below mentioned themes. All papers received are evaluated and winning contributors gets published in the Compendium. The themes of this year’s Compendium are: e-Governance from Citizen’s Perspective; Leveraging mobile technology for better service delivery; Financial inclusion through mobile technology; Public Distribution System (direct access to the citizens through e-Governance); Focus sector- Education (ICT in education – enhancing quality and reach).

• • • •

The National Conference on e-Governance has been a very 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). \\ Pratap Vikram Singh Gayatri Maheshwary

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HOST STATE: 13TH NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON e-GOVERNANCE

Rajasthan: On the Path of e-Revolution

The magic of vibrant Rajasthan - its rich heritage, colourful culture, exciting desert safaris, shining sand-dunes, amazing variety lush forests and varied wildlife - makes it a destination nonpareil.

Folklore of heroism and romance resound from the formidable monuments that majestically stand to tell the tale of a bygone era. Under the able leadership of Ashok Gehlot, the state is also poised to embark on the digital opportunuity of the modern age. Various Information and Communmication Technology (ICT) initiatives and innovative schemes which are underway have many promises to keep. Here, the egov team tries to take a look at these initiatives.

IT & ITES POLICY 2007 LAUNCHED

BUDGET ANNOUNCEMENT 2009-2010

It aims at implementing e-Governance and capacity building within Government domain; Promoting investment in IT and ITES sector within State and Skill Development through enhancement of employment opportunities by developing the capability of the youth of the State and making them employable by the industry.

All Government Departments are to earmark 3% of their Plan Budget for e-Governance initiatives. It is 1st such initiative in the Country.

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NATIONAL e-GOVERNANCE PLAN As per the guidelines of Government of India under National e-Governance

The Government of Rajasthan is committed to provide transparent, responsive, efficient and accountable governance to the people of the State through effective use of IT tools for citizen-centric electronic service delivery. Department of Information Technology & Communication has implemented schemes such as e-Mitra in the urban areas and is in the process of implementing schemes such as Common Service Centers, Rajasthan State Wide Area Network, State Data Center, e-SANCHAR, Arogya Online and few other citizen-centric e-Governance Schemes. In order to provide thrust to e-Governance initiatives across all departments and to make it central to the Planning and Monitoring process, the State Government has taken an enabling stride by allowing all departments to utilize upto 3% of their respective Plan Budget, for achieving electronic service delivery on an endto-end basis to the citizens.

Ashok Gehlot Chief Minister Government of Rajasthan

Plan (NeGP), four committees have been constituted by the State Government with an aim to provide impetus and right direction to IT and e-Governance in the State. These are: State e-Governance Council, State Level Apex Committee, Project e-Governance Mission Team and State e-Governance Mission Team.

GOVERNMENT TO CITIZEN e-Mitra: e-Mitra has been implemented in all the Districts across the State.

The project is similar to CSC project implemented in Urban areas under which various services are being provided through Kiosks.

Chief Minister’s Information System (www.cmis.rajasthan.gov.in) facilitates monitoring of CM announcements, budget announcements, projects and various financially aided schemes, Chief Minister’s Schedule, issuing of various sanctions from CM Relief Fund/ BPL schemes etc.

Disaster Management System (http://dmrd.rajasthan.gov.in) is a web enabled integrated system designed and developed to monitor and control various activities being carried out under relief works.

Swasthya Mitra: Telemedicine Network- For extending specialised health care services to far-flung areas of the State, a telemedicine network has been setup by the Government in collaboration with ISRO. It is proposed to establish this facility amongst 6 Medical Colleges and 31 District Hospitals.

Telemedicne centres have already been made operational at 37 places.

Registration & Stamps Department’s ‘Anytime, Anywhere Registry’ for registration of property irrespective of the jurisdiction of sub-registrar office. The project had been implemented in 11 subregistrar offices in Jaipur on pilot basis.

Land Records Computerisation (http://apnakhata.raj.nic.in) Database of Record of Rights (RoR) covering 6.8 million landowners has been completed in all the 241 tehsils. Copies of RoR (Nakal) are being provided to citizens through e-Mitra kiosks and other independent channels.

VAT system automation (www.rajtax. gov.in) implemented at all the 11 zonal headquarters & 56 regular circles for Registration of dealers, maintenance of

revenue collection registers, Facility for epayment and for filing e-returns. Currently, all returns are being filed electronically.

Backend Computerisation: DoIT&C has been given the mandate of funding Back-office Computerisation of different Government Departments since 2005 from DOIT&C’ specific Budget Head of Backend Computerisation. During the Financial Year 2009-10, it has been decided to fund Treasury Computerisation project of finance Department. e-Procurement: (http://eproc. rajasthan.gov.in) To bring about transparency and reduce time constraint in procurement procedures in Government Departments, e-Procurement system has been implemented in select Departments.

Vikas Darpan: A GIS tool for decentralised planning - A GIS based tool for decentralised planning - Vikas Darpan – has been made operational.

This system provides complete maps of the State, 32 Districts, 241 Tehsils and 41,000 villages linking socio-economic profiles and demographic data of Census 2001. Vikas Darpan provides access to the public as well as to State Government departments in a CUG mode.

Digitisation and e-Cataloguing (http://ancientdocuments.rajasthan.gov. in) and (http://ancientcoins.rajasthan. gov.in) Ancient documents, antiques, antique coins are being digitised and e-Catalogued.

Litigation Information, Tracking & Evaluation System (LITES): The application has been developed to assist the Administrative Departments in the State to effectively and economically handle litigation and to streamline systems and procedures to maximize efficiency.

On-line issue of Bonafide Certificate: To facilitate end-to-end e-Service delivery, on-line issue of Bonafide Certificate has been taken up by the Home Department of the State. This involves issue of certificate through kiosks (CSC centers) with Digital Certificate.

IT INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS Video Conferencing: The facility has been provided to the 33 districts of the State. All major departments are utilising the services as per their requirements.

Secretariat Network: State-of-the-art Voice, Data & Video network connecting

about 5000+ users through computers & IP phones. IP Phones to 32 District Collectors have been provided using NIC Network. Under Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) 37 Government buildings in Jaipur are inter-linked using different technologies.

State Data Center (SDC): It is the central repository of all the important data pertaining to State Government domain and has been operational since August 2005. Being extensively used for hosting 154 Web Sites, Several Applications and Data Bases.

The Government of Rajasthan is of the opinion that the Departments, especially those involved in citizencentric service delivery, need to identify the specific areas where service is rendered to the citizens. The Departments need to continuously evolve efficient and effective ways for providing electronic service delivery by carrying-out the required business process re-engineering/ government process re-engineering and automation within their Departments.

The State Government’s resolve in this direction has been amply spelled out in the circulars issued to earmark upto 3% of Plan Budget of Government Departments for e-Governance, identification of at least 2 G2C services to be delivered on end-to-end basis through kiosks and issue of Digitally certified Bonafide Residents through kiosks.

Dr. Jitendra Singh Minister – IT&C Government of Rajasthan

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HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT Capacity Building in Government Domain: It is the intent of the State Government to ensure that all the government employees are trained in the use of IT. The decision has been taken to train employees so as to derive the envisaged benefits from various eGovernance projects. At the initiation of Department of IT&C, training programs are being conducted through private institutes at district level.

IT Infrastructure creation in educational institutes: IT infrastructure in form of 10 computer each has been established in 10 Government Girls Schools and 8 Colleges under Government of India funded infrastructure scheme. Infrastructure to be installed in 2000 more schools (10 computer per school) to be installed in the current financial year.

INITIATIVES UNDER NATIONAL e-GOVERNANCE PLAN (NEGP) State Data Center: With Government of India (GoI) funds of Rs 48 Crores sanctioned under NeGP, a new State Data Centre is currently under construction.

Rajasthan State Wide Area Network: Government of Rajasthan has proposed to set up Rajasthan State Wide Area Network (RajSWAN) to modernise the communication infrastructure with an aim to improve the administrative efficiency and effectiveness. This project aims at creating vertical and horizontal communication network by linking 32 District head-quarters and 241 Tehsil head-quarters with State head-quarter.

Horizontal connectivity would be provided to cover District offices at District head-quarters and Tehsil headquarters.

The network would provide data, voice and video communication facilities and link together District & Tehsil administrative offices, DLOs, PRIs and e-Mitra kiosks, etc.

State Service Delivery Gateway: This project is being done under NeGP. Interim gap report prepared by IL&FS was approved by Government of India and KPMG has been engaged as Consultant for phase 2 i.e formulation of RFP for selecting Implementing Agency

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to operationalise the State Portal and State Service Delivery Gateway. For implementation of State Service Delivery Gateway Agriculture Department, Social Justice & Empowerment Department (Scheduled Caste/tribes/Backward Classed), Medical Health & Family Welfare Service, Horticulture, Rural Development, Employment, Education Department and PHED, have been selected for computerisation.

INNOVATIVE PROJECTS SUGAM: Public Service Delivery application being taken up in collaboration with NIC to provide Single-window system for delivery of government services, Web-enabled Public Grievance Monitoring and Redressal and State-level Call Centre to provide Government services and to function as help desk / centre for applications related to Public Grievances and RTI queries.

Reimbursement for Indira Gandhi Open National University’s courses: With a view to encourage IT skill development in Government sector, Government of Rajasthan has decided to reimburse the fees, as per the guidelines issued by the State Government, to government personnel successfully completing MCA, BCA and Certificate courses in I.T. ‘Knowledge Centers’ for training on IT and soft skills are being set up in Government Colleges in partnership with private sector.

Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Limited (RKCL): RCKL has been set up in the State with an aim to provide IT education in remote rural areas of the State thus bridging the digital divide and providing a solution to the last mile connectivity issue.

Computerised Career Counseling: It is a central gateway to provide information pertaining to various courses, their admission criteria, fees structure, employment opportunities, seat availability etc. available in the State to the State’s rural and urban student population.

Bharat Nirman Rajiv Gandhi Sewa Kendra: In order to provide IT and IT enabled services in the rural areas of the State, the state government has launched a unique scheme which is the

Providing citizen services in a friendly, transparent manner with the help of ICT and with ease of operations is the foremost agenda of the State Government. However, The State Government is also conscious of the fact that the delivery of services to the citizens on an end to end basis requires not only Business Process Engineering but also Government Process Engineering comprising changes in Rules, Acts and Circulars.

The State Government has already started working towards this and has already issued directions to issue circular to issue Bonafide Resident with Digital Certification through kiosks.

Tanmay Kumar Secretary – IT&C Government of Rajasthan

first of its kind anywhere in the country.

The State Government would setup 249 such kendras throughout the state at all the Block Headquarters. These centres would provide Government to Citizen services such as depositing of bills of various types. Bus/train ticket, copies of revenue records (Jamabandi) etc.

Besides these services, these centres would also get linked with EDUSAT and GRAMSAT and provide Knowledge regarding their programmes to the rural population. These centres would impart training in IT and act as a nodal centre for computerization initiatives at the Block level. A model CSC is to be set up at each of the Rajiv Gandhi Sewa Kendra. \\

NEWS

BUSINESS

NPCIL AND L&T FLAG OFF VENTURE FOR SPECIAL STEELS AND ULTRA HEAVY FORGINGS

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), a Government of India Company responsible for design, construction, commissioning and operation of nuclear power plants and Larsen & Toubro (L&T), India’s leading engineering, manufacturing & construction major have laid the foundation stone for their world class steel manufacturing & heavy forging plant.

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and Larsen & Toubro (L&T) had announced the formation of a joint venture company to produce special steels and ultra heavy forgings. The fully integrated facility will help develop India’s capabilities in manufacturing critical components for the nuclear power and other core sector industries.

The state-of-the-art facility will be one of the best of its kind in the world. It will have the capability to produce ingots weighing up to 600 MT each, and a heavy forge shop equipped with a forging press which will be amongst the largest in the world.

The facility will supply finished forgings for nuclear reactors, pressurizers & steam generators, in addition to heavy forgings for critical equipment in the hydrocarbon sector, as well as for thermal power plants and steel plants.

L&T INFOTECH BAGS SI PROJECTS FROM INDIAN RAILWAYS L&T Infotech has won two important turnkey Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) projects for computerising the maintenance of rolling assets of the Indian Railways, after a stiff competition between major IT companies. The endto-end System Integration (SI) projects were conceptualized and tendered by Center for Railway Information System (CRIS), the IT arm of Indian Railways.

Under these projects, L&T Infotech would

be deploying the ERP software and the underlying hardware for automating the maintenance of the two major ‘breadwinner’ rolling assets of the Indian railways, namely, the wagon fleet which carries their freight traffic and diesel locomotives which haul their freight and passenger trains. The execution of these projects will involve creation of two centralised ERP-based applications: the Freight Maintenance Management (FMM) for management of Freight/ Wagon Depots; and Loco-Shed Management System (LMS) for management of Diesel Locomotive sheds.

The projects include installation and commissioning; and multi-year ongoing support of hardware and systems in the implementation. The work involves establishing central data center infrastructure; providing LAN at three sheds; and supply, installation & commissioning of hardware and networking equipment. L&T Infotech will also be installing servers, network equipment, close circuit camera systems, touch screens and RFID-based kiosks for easy user interface for the employees.

VERISIGN WINS BEST IDENTITY MANAGEMENT AWARD FOR SECOND CONSECUTIVE YEAR VeriSign Identity Protection (VIP) Authentication Services has won the Network World Asia 2009 Readers’ Choice Award for Product Excellence in the Identity Management category for the second consecutive year.

With end users helping to pick the 2009 NWA Readers’ Choice Product Excellence Awards winners, this provides other organisations with a solid indication as to leading products available in Asia Pacific More than 485 readers voted for the most responsive and technologically advanced IT vendors selling in the Asian market across more than 26 product categories.

Voting was open on a private Web-based survey site with invitations sent to senior technology directors and IT project heads in end user organisations from Network World Asia’s current readership base.

SAGEM SECURITE WINS 2009 EUROPEAN BORDER SECURITY PRODUCT INNOVATION AWARD

Sagem Securite (Safran group) has won the Frost & Sullivan 2009 European Border Security Product Innovation Award for its automated biometric border control solutions. The company’s modular control gates call on the three biometric technologies recommended by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), namely facial, fingerprint and iris recognition.

The range of MorphoWay solutions offered by Sagem Securite are fully suited to the new generation of electronic passports that have been distributed in Europe since late June 2009, in compliance with recent legislation. These automated control gates ensure the virtually real-time recognition of travelers, and simplify control procedures to speed up passenger flows at borders.

SPANCO BECOMES THE LOWEST BIDDER FOR RAJASTHAN PROJECT

Spanco has emerged as the lowest bidder for setting up a State Data Center (SDC) in Rajasthan and to manage it for a period of five years.

Spanco will be the official implementation agency for the project as it will be responsible for design, site preparation, supply, installation, integration, testing, commissioning and managing the setup for a period of five years.

This is the second SDC engagement for the company. In October last year, it bagged the first SDC deal from the Orissa government.

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FEATURE

Energy Demand Forecasting www.sas.com/india

lectricity is traded in a free market as a commodity, but electricity cannot be stored in warehouses. It must be consumed at the same moment it is produced; otherwise the surplus product is lost. As the Indian energy markets de-regulate; on a 24x7 basis, India needs to maintain the energy equilibrium.

Availability Based Tariff (ABT), the tariff structure recommended by Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, sets the course towards de-regulated power market. The main objective of the recommendations is to introduce a tariff regime that will promote responsibility and accountability in power generation and consumption so that overall quality of power in India is improved. It forms the plan for anticipating power consumption and producing the right amount of electricity, every 15 minutes over a 24-hour period.

ABT is a scientific methodology for bringing rational tariff structure for supply of electricity from generators to the distribution companies apart from the fact that it is a mechanism for enforcing discipline in the grid. It has a system of rewards and penalties seeking to enforce day ahead pre-committed schedules.

The generation tariff under the ABT regime has three components namely the fixed charge; the variable charge; and the unscheduled Inter-change charge (UI Charge). UI charge is payable both by the beneficiary and the generator for the deviations from the schedule, depending upon the prevailing frequency.

The beneficiary is liable to pay in case it is under or over draws power from the grid. In case of the generator the liability comes into effect when it generates more

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or less than the prescribed schedule.

This institutes a commercial mechanism for improving the grid discipline and establishing a frequency regime. There is a paradigm shift from maximum power to maximum reliability.

Under the ABT regime, each distribution utility will need to provide their load requirements for ninety six fifteen-minute intervals on a daily basis.

The beneficiary is expected to stick to this schedule. Failure to conform to the schedule will attract penalty in the form of UI charges. Thus it becomes critical for the distribution companies to have accurate short-term load forecasting systems in place. Once the ABT regime moves to further de-regulation, long term forecasting will also become crucial, as it will lay the basis on which the distribution companies can enter into long term power purchase agreements with the generating utilities.

Any unscheduled deviation from the power generation schedule will incur considerable penalties for the power generation utilities. They will require pro-active management plan through accurate forecasts for ABT optimisation.

Even though the UI charges are payable both by the distribution and the generation companies, it does not mean that load forecasting is not applicable to the transmission companies. They require it to accurately predict the demand in different regions in order to provide enough bandwidth for different transmission lines. Deviations in the demand as a result of climatic conditions, festivals, holidays etc. should be considered by the transmission companies in order to ensure smooth transmission and co-

ordination between the beneficiaries and the generators. Transmission companies also require long term energy demand forecasts as part of their expansion.

Load forecasting is thus vitally important for the energy industry in the deregulated economy, including India. It has many applications including energy purchasing, generation, load switching, contract valuations, and infrastructure development. The ability to accurately predict the volume of demand will bring significant financial rewards to those who do well. However, many companies are constrained by lack of integration, flexibility and functionality in their current demand forecasting systems.

Creating accurate demand forecasts requires high quality of data that is frequently updated. Unfortunately, key data items such as historical metered demand data and weather forecasts are often of poor quality. The statistical software framework should automate the process of data extraction, validation and cleansing, thereby enabling users to concentrate on understanding and exploiting the information contained within the demand forecasts, rather than on their production.

Energy demand is dependent upon a host of factors such as time, climatic conditions, special events, census data, appliance sales data, customer segments as well as economic and end use data. Short-term load forecasting process should consider factors such as time, weather data, and customer segments (Household, Industrial, and Agricultural). The time dimension will include variables such as time of the year, the day of the week, and the hour of the

day. Day of the week is further classified into weekends, weekdays, extended weekends and holidays. The load on different weekdays also can behave differently. For instance, Mondays and Fridays being contiguous to weekends, may have structurally different load patterns than Tuesday through Thursday.

Customer segment and seasonality also play an important role in determining these patterns. Forecasting holidays is always more difficult than non-holidays since of their intermittent occurrence. In case of major holidays such as Diwali, we should consider the same day last year along with prevailing energy demand in arriving at the forecasts for the current year. Weather parameters are the most important factors in short-term load forecasts. Temperature, humidity rainfall and sunlight hours are among the key weather parameters which should be considered for short-term load forecasts.

The medium-and long-term forecasts take into account the historical load, weather data, and census data along with its projections, the number of customers in different categories, appliances in the area, appliance sales data, and demographic profile of the regions among others. Long term forecasts also take into consideration the land-usage patterns and land development plans of the respective regions.

Comprehensive forecasting methodology is suggested on multitechnique (statistical, neural network, rule based) approach to model building.

A number of forecasting methods have been developed. A variety of methods, such as similar day approach, regression models, time series, neural networks, expert systems, and fuzzy logic are used for short-term forecasting. The statistical software framework should generate forecasts by intelligently determining the forecasting models that best fit the historical data. An appropriate model should be generated for each time series being forecasted based on user-defined criteria. For instance, the pattern for 6.15 AM time-series would be completely different from the one at 6.15 PM timeseries. Model parameters should be intelligently optimized to provide the bestfitting model, resulting in more responsive and accurate forecasts. Business drivers and events (regressors) should be automatically selected from any number

“The demand forecasting solution should strive for self learning capability which automates the process of model tuning avoiding the reliance on user’s intervention therefore improving its adaptability to changing energy consumption behavior and evolution. The exercise should also take into consideration the holdout samples so that forecasting models are selected not only by how well they fit the past data, but by how well they are likely to predict the future.”

of supplied regressors. This approach can be applied to produce segmentation of customers, as well as use it to generate forecasts for any period – whether it is daily, hourly or every 15 minutes.

The demand forecasting solution should strive for self learning capability which automates the process of model tuning avoiding the reliance on user’s intervention therefore improving its adaptability to changing energy consumption behavior and evolution.

The exercise should also take into consideration the holdout samples so that forecasting models are selected not only by how well they fit the past data, but by how well they are likely to predict the future. The demand forecasting solution should provide for top-down, middle-out and bottom-up forecast reconciliation to support the hierarchical nature of many forecasting processes, ensuring accuracy at the discom level (macro) and the substation level (micro).

Energy Demand forecasting models work in a dynamic and volatile environment and therefore need to be continually monitored and improved. The

statistical software framework should provide users with the control they need.

No longer will data disappear into a “black box” and mysteriously come out to the other end as a demand forecast.

The development, improvements, and analysis of the appropriate statistical tools will lead to the development of more accurate load, forecasting techniques ideally over a comprehensive statistical software framework.

Present outlook of the rapidly changing power sector in India, necessitate the development and use of more sophisticated and relevant energy forecasting and statistical tools and methods like never before. Energy demand forecasting is becoming an essential tool for energy management, maintenance scheduling and planning decisions in the liberalized energy markets with fluctuating global fuel prices. \\

SUSHIL ANAND SAS INDIA

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FEATURE

Process Framework for Urban e-Governance www.tcs.com

INTRODUCTION The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) launched by Government of India has induced a wave of automation in procedures in government departments.

IT implementation has found a place on agenda of almost every department. One of the key aspects missing in all the work so far is the reach of these initiatives to the common man, who is the customer for the services. The provision of citizen centric service through e-Governance shall lead to involvement of citizens in developmental works in their surrounding as well as the end user satisfaction. In addition, the city administration shall be able to better manage the services with the help of statistics generated and new revenue channel.

NEED FOR IT SOLUTION FOR SERVICES As per Census 2001, the urban areas in India account for 27.8 % of the population. About one-third of urban India (71 million) lives in metropolitan cities. The number of such cities in India has increased from 23 in 1991 to 35 in 2001. Urbanisation is associated with increased incomes, improved health, higher literacy and improved quality of life. In the recent past we have seen rise in urbanisation trends with the onset of shift of Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) to Tier II cities which fall in the list of million plus cities. The city administrations need to step-up the plans to use Information Technology via e-Governance initiatives aiming for the provision of the urban services to

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the growing number of potential urban customers.

STAGES IN e-GOVERNANCE INITIATIVES e-Governance initiatives go through three distinct phases of implementation.

These stages are: 1. Provision of Static Information: This stage is where an urban local body/government department has a website of its own. Citizens can access information, seek procedural details about city services, however they cannot interact with any of the process within Urban Local Body (ULB)/ department 2. Capability for Transactional Services: This stage is where users can carry out transactions online.

3. Creating Online Communities: At this stage, ULB website provides interoperability with various organisations within urban area.

Majority of current e-Governance initiatives fall under the first stage.

ANALYSIS OF EXISTING SOLUTIONS Customer Requirements For a user of urban services in India, there are some basic requirements which are “Critical to Quality” (CTQs) for the service under consideration.

These essentially are the “Voice of Customer” (VOCs). In the context of the current subject where the final aim is to deliver an improved urban service, the improvement measures, need to be based on end user requirements. The

solutions need to be complimentary for the user requirements which come out from such VOCs. Some of the VOCs for the subject under consideration from the customer viewpoint are as follows: No clarity of the setup of Civic • authority (Municipal Corporations) Poor information availability on • initiatives Lack of clarity on procedures • Time consuming processes lead to • ignorance Lack of accountability of officials • Too many agencies and overlap of • work Interdependencies/ document • exchange NEED FOR FRAMEWORK IT implementation in Urban India is happening in bits and pieces. Though IT has found place on the agenda of all the departments, however, an integrated approach to its roll-out and effective sharing of IT infrastructure to economise the initiatives is required. At National Level this has been achieved with agencies like NIC where a centralised data base has been created and information is available through one source. However it still falls in the first category i.e. providing static information.

For effective implementation of e-Governance in Urban Services, it is essential for these initiatives to mature to stage II where in its users can carry out transactions and use the service leading to wide-ranging benefits.

A centralised data repository shall result in faster transactions and reduction of non value added work for the customer of

the service. A single process framework covering all the service providers shall facilitate this. ITIL ® process framework is one such option which has been widely used in IT Service management. An IT solution covering the processes shall aid to bring out the required transparency in compliance of the processes.

PROCESS FRAMEWORK The ITIL ® is a set of best practices intended to facilitate the delivery of high quality Information Technology (IT) services. It defines IT process mechanisms that are required to support businesses processes. The ITIL ® processes aims at achieving high financial quality and value in IT operations. These procedures are supplier-independent and have been developed to provide guidance across the breadth of IT infrastructure, development, and operations.

IT Service Management (ITSM) has derived enormous benefit from ITIL ® best practice approach and follows ITIL ® framework in accordance to the ITIL ® documentation. ITIL ® best practices are drawn from the IT implementations in public and private sectors internationally.

MAPPING URBAN SERVICES TO ITIL ® PROCESS FRAMEWORK. The e-Governance initiatives in the different departments are carried out independent of each other. As such the benefits of the initiatives are not visible to the citizens who are the customers to the service. In addition to this, the city administration has very limited control over it. These processes need to be defined and implemented across the service provider departments in order to bridge the interdependencies and facilitate a smooth work flow. This current challenge is the lack of co-ordination of work within same implementation area resulting in rework, failure of a service.

multiple times. As a result the processes followed result in series of rework loops, duplication of efforts and non value added works. At the same time the optimal use of IT infrastructure is not achieved.

Application of ITIL framework to the provision of urban services shall result in mutual benefits to the providers as well as its users.

to be able to fulfill the same. This shall also call for certain decision making to bring out certain changes to infrastructure / put new infrastructure element etc. For such a solution to be in place there are certain prerequisites listed as under:

IMPLEMENTATION CHALLANGES

•

Following are the challenges that stand out for implementation of such a framework: 1. Infrastructure capacity 2. Compatibility with other IT systems/ databases /platforms 3. Scalability of existing applications 4. Information exchange mechanisms 5. Geo referencing of assets 6. Ability to carry out financial transactions

• • • •

• POTENTIAL SOLUTION IDEAS The intent of e-Governance is to accelerate the current processes by automating the same and making them accessible to the end-user. It shall lead to value enhancement for both process owner department and the customer of the process.

Phase I - Service Requests Fulfillment The ground work for the type of solution described here is reasonably in place with IT implementation across majority of departments providing citizen service. The need of the hour is to bring these services under one single place for user to avail those.

Federated identity management using Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) is a potential quick win solution where in the user’s identity if already created on a central website / service provider, it can be linked with the identity of the same user with other provider based on unique linkage parameter.

IT SOLUTION FRAMEWORK While providing ITIL ® practices the organisations within themselves have different IT applications supported by different teams. In the context of urban services a similar situation exists where in individual service provider is interacting with same set of users independently

BENEFITS

Phase II: Facilitate Integrated Service Provision by all Providers The Phase I solution described facilitates the provision of service requested by a user for a particular department. The next phase is where the user can submit a request which needs co-ordination of multiple service providers

A few important ones are listed below: Information on volume of service requests with break-up by type and nature Cycle time and first level resolution of service requests.

Monitoring of incidents (Complaints) and their resolution cycle time Information on frequency and details of changes to city infrastructure Useful information for capacity planning for infrastructure provision based on land transactions/service requests received Control of building activity in areas where infrastructure capacity is inadequate

The Tertiary Benefits include Online exchange of inter• departmental user specific data to effectively reduce cycle time for service fulfilment.

Initiation of transactions by citizens • shall lead to revenue enhancement for ULB. Optimised IT infrastructure.

• Employment opportunities through • mechanism like agent login.

Reduced paperwork.

• CONCLUSION Successful implementation is a key to realization of benefits of concept like the one proposed which brings in multiple stakeholders on a single forum.

Careful planning, selected piloting and ease of replication of solution is the key success factors. In order to translate the concept to reality one needs to adopt a two phase approach as outlined below. \\

PRAFUL GHARPURE TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES

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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 eGovernance 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. 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

Your daily cup of hot tea with hot e-Government news!

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FEATURE

Engaging the Bottom of the Pyramid: IT Industry Paves the Way NASSCOM FOUNDATION

www.nasscomfoundation.org

NSIH 2009

I

ndia is today one of the six fastest growing economies of the world. The Indian economy has transformed into a vibrant, rapidly growing consumer market, comprising over 300 million strong middle class with increasing purchasing power. However, despite this the majority of our society is unable to

avail of these opportunities. With half a billion people below the poverty line in India alone and over 4 billion worldwide, it is a pressing humanitarian and business imperative to find solutions for this global concern. But why a business concern?

Because businesses do not exist in ivory towers and need to respond to the

ecosystem in which they exist. These issues affect, in varying degrees, the employees, clients, vendors, contractual employees, and the community around a business, and indeed even its own day to day functioning.

NASSCOM Foundation (NF), on behalf of the IT industry, aims to create

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a platform for the IT industry in India to come together with civil society to respond to and work towards serving the needs of underprivileged communities in India. NF is essentially an enabler and a conduit to channelize the resources of the IT industry for nation building.

Towards this end, in February 2010, NF has three important events – NASSCOM Foundation Social Innovation Honors 2010 (9th February 2010), Global CSR Conclave (11th February 2010) and two social media workshops for NGOs and CSR practitioners (12th & 13th February 2010).

The NASSCOM Social Innovation Honours (NSIH) recognize excellence and encourage innovation in social development initiatives. The annual Honors aim, instituted in 2008-09, showcase projects that demonstrate best practices through exemplary use of ICT in areas of social transformation. This Honor is a celebration of innovations that bring about social change and development through the application of cutting-edge technology.

In creating the platform for Social Innovation Honors, NF aims to identify projects where innovation could be in the form of both a process and a result.

In looking at the process, NF aims to understand systems based on transfer and sharing of knowledge across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. For NF, a social innovation can be not only a product, a process, or a technology, but also a principle, an idea, a piece of legislation, a social movement, an intervention, or some combination of

Global CSR Conclave 2009

the above. NF endeavors to recognize organizations that foster these social innovations. We hope this Honor inspires creativity and imagination to bring positive social transformations for ICT in development.

There are five categories in the NSIH and these are: 1. Not For Profit organization: ICT innovation for the community (nonprofit) 2. For profit organization: a. ICT led business model innovation (for profit) b. ICT innovation for the community (CSR/ non-profit) 3. Government: ICT led innovation 4. Multi Stakeholder Partnerships: A

“In creating the platform for Social Innovation Honors, NF aims to identify projects where innovation could be in the form of both a process and a result. In looking at the process, NF aims to understand systems based on transfer and sharing of knowledge across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. For NF, a social innovation can be not only a product, a process, or a technology.”

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project which was initiated by 3 or more stakeholders with the objective of scaling up the idea/ business plan/ project 5. Environmental projects using IT: A program/ project initiated by a registered Indian company which has had a direct positive impact on the climate and/ or conservation of natural resources The initial screening was done by our initial jury comprising Vickram Crishna – Promoter, Radiophony; Pravin Patkar – Director, Prerana and Raja Shekhar Reddy – Founder Director & COO, InnovSource).

Ernst and Young Private Limited are our Process Advisors. The Final Jury comprised Jerry Rao, Narayanan Murthy, Rama Bijapurkar, Saurabh Srivastava and T N Ninan. The results will be declared at the NASSCOM India Leadership Forum 2010 in Mumbai.

“Engaging the Bottom of the Pyramid” (BoP) is the central theme of the Global Corporate Social Responsibility Conclave at the NASSCOM India Leadership Forum 2010 in Mumbai. The word ‘engaging’ refers to not just business opportunities but also technology and human resources and how these can be customised for the poorest of the poor. Information technology, in particular, has a key role to play in this segment especially in healthcare, financial services, education and public services.

However, reaching out to the BoP has to be done with caution as some marketing

choices encourage the poor to consume products that may have negative side effects. Thus the poor are included in the market, but in an undesirable way. It is thus important to educate and empower the BoP customer to make informed choices while buying and also enable her / him to become a producer, not just a passive consumer.

To be held on the 11th of February at Hotel Grand Hyatt, the Global CSR Conclave will cover diverse topics such as the business imperative of reaching the BoP to technology and media for non-profits to corporate volunteerism.

Important Speakers at the Global CSR Conclave 2010 will be leading industry and civil society figures such as Beth Kanter, a Social Media Proponent and noted blogger from the United States, Ganesh Ayyer – MphasiS, Gaurav Mishra - 2020 Social, Jerry Rao - NASSCOM Foundation, Pravin Patkar – Prerana, Seemantini Khot - Suzlon Foundation, Som Mittal – NASSCOM and Vijay Talwar - William J Clinton Foundation.

Social media is transforming how NGOs do their work and their relationships with audiences. Nonprofits that have embraced social media are seeing results. Strategic use of social media is actually helping them to measurably reach new people and bringing added value to missiondriven work. Social media is propelling nonprofit goals to build a movement around a core advocacy issue, improve

Beth Kanter

Global CSR Conclave 2009

customer service or programs, reach new donors, or spread awareness of a nonprofit brand around the world.

NASSCOM Foundation therefore felt the need to organize two social media workshops for NGOs and CSR practitioners in Mumbai on 12th and 13th February. These workshops will address how to think strategically about social media for external communications so your organization can maximize its time

and resources. Participants will learn how to create a social media strategy map that integrates with their overall communications plan and Internet strategy as well as address organizational culture issues that often arise when a new technology is introduced. It will also provide an opportunity to learn how to select tools and explore best practices.

NF has invited Beth Kanter, one of the most renowned names in social media use for non-profits in the West, to run these two workshops in Mumbai. Beth is the author of Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media (http://beth. typepad.com), one of the longest running and most popular blogs for nonprofits and co-author of the fortcoming book, The Networked Nonprofit, to be published by J. Wiley in 2010. She curated NTEN’s “We Are Media: Nonprofit Social Media Starter Kit,” an online community of people from nonprofits who are interested in learning and teaching about how social media strategies and tools can enable nonprofit organizations to create, compile, and distribute their stories and change the world. In 2009, she was named by Fast Company Magazine as one of the most influential women in technology and one of Business Week’s “Voices of Innovation for Social Media.” She is the 2009 Visiting Scholar for Social Media and Nonprofits for the Packard Foundation. \\

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INTERVIEW NEWS

CITIZEN-CENTRIC RURAL e-GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK The Officer’s Response Round (ORR), the phase-III of the project, “Evolving a Citizen-Centric Rural e-Governance Framework, initiated by Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) with Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT-D) was conducted on December 29, 2009.

As the event name indicates, the participants of the process included senior and middle level officers of Government of India, which included Brigadiers of Indian Army, Senior Forestry and Railway officers, Senior IPS officers, Design and Development Officers, Senior Technical Directors, Senior Consultants, Senior Scientists drawn especially from the field of traditional sciences, Joint General Managers, IT-Security and Audit Consultants, officials at Director level from Department of Informationa and Technology (DIT) and National Information Centre (NIC) and so on along with faculty from IIT-D and IIPA. The Chief Guest for the event was N.Vijayaditya, Chief Controller of Controller Authority of India and Guest-of-Honor was Dr. Gulshan Rai, (Director General, STQC) and the event was presided over by B.S.Baswan, Director, IIPA. Prakash Kumar, Director, Internet Business Solutions Bureau, CISCO systems and former Secretary-IT, Governmanet of Delhi.

IN MIDDLE EAST UN e-GOVERNMENT SURVEY, BAHRAIN TAKES THE LEAD Bahrain has been ranked first in the Gulf and wider Middle East in a United Nations e-Government survey. The 2010 UN Global e-Government Readiness Survey placed the Kingdom 13th of 192 countries worldwide in its application of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to provide access and inclusion for its citizens.

Bahrain has climbed 29 places from 42nd in 2008 in the survey, which considers e-Government development in the context of the overall economic and social development of a country.

Bahrain has recognised ICT not just as an important sector in its own right but as an important enabler of continued economic growth, modernisation and competitiveness.

THEME SET FOR 4th e-GOVERNANCE AFRICA FORUM The theme for this year’s e-Governance Africa Forum has been set. The event will be held under the theme “Effective Governance, transparent public services and citizen empowerment through Information and Communication Technologies”. The event, aimed at facilitating and promoting information and communications technology development through knowledge-sharing events, is scheduled for Maputo, Mozambique, from 23 to 25 March, 2010. This also requires the formation of Public Private Peoples Partnerships to be geared towards achieving developmental goals through the application of ICTs to governance (e-Governance/ e-Government), electoral processes (e-Democracy), food and nutrition (e-Agriculture), health delivery (e-Health/telemedicine), learning and capacity development (e-Education) and trade (e-Commerce).

FLIP SIDE by Santulan Chaubey

As I promised... here are the computers..one for each family. Vote for me...this time...and I will provide electricity in five years to run these computers...

egov

FEBRUARY 2010

49

ASK SAP

Integrated eHealth As Vice President of the Public Services group for SAP’s Asia Pacific Division, Adaire Fox-Martin oversees the strategic direction and activities in the area of public services in the health, education and defence sectors across the region and executive relationships with customers and partners. Ms. Fox-Martin is a key member of the SAP leadership team and plays a lead role in delivering SAP’s offering to public sector customers. A respected thought leader, Ms. Fox-Martin continues to be invited at seminars and conferences by the media and analysts to address public services issues ranging from e-Government transformation and reengineering of Government processes to public service policies. She is regularly featured and quoted in numerous publications throughout Asia and Australia. Ms. Fox-Martin has over 20 years of experience in the field of information technology and management.

Effective e-Governance can take Information Technology (IT) to the common man, while helping governments to regulate their services in line with the changing needs of both citizens and stakeholders, as well as develop the economy. Recognising the growing importance of e-Governance we have been bringing you a much needed, regular, interactive platform, where questions on a pre-defined theme are answered

by Adaire Fox-Martin, Head – Industry & Solutions Group, SAP Asia Pacific Japan.

With Information Technology playing an important role in governmental operations, one of the key questions raised in many government organisations is whether to opt for in-house software development or go in for commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software package product(s). This is clearly a fundamental decision with many ramifications and implications. Are custom applications worth the cost and time spent in development, or would it be better to buy? In this issue, Ms. Fox-Martin shares her views on the important subject that government organisations face today - “Build versus Buy.” What is the current trend in IT initiatives being undertaken

by Government Agencies?

Though custom software can meet the specific needs of an organization, customization would involve upfront development costs to write the software, as well as an element of risk.

Moreover, custom software requires some expertise to set up and sometimes to use.

When procuring software, government agencies would look for • The required functionality • A low total cost of ownership (TCO) • Compatibility and integration with other applications • Future roadmap With the advantages of COTS software gaining prominence, there seems to be a growing worldwide trend towards acquiring COTS software.

What are the advantages of COTS software?

• COTS software often works out more economical than developing your own software from scratch as the development cost of an off-the-shelf package is distributed.

• Can be acquired and deployed almost immediately, while custom software takes much longer.

• A packaged software provider’s customer base brings a wealth of knowledge and experience regarding best practices beneficial for utilizing the software; this configuration guidance will enable organizations to accelerate their implementations and generate Return on Investment (ROI) faster.

• By amortizing development and maintenance costs over many organizations, superior solutions can be acquired at a much lower cost.

• COTS software ensures mature technology because it is already in the market for a certain time. Developed by dedicated vendors with an established track record,

• • • • • • •

it is more reliable and gives an assurance that it actually works.

The service provider usually takes care of support and maintenance needs of the organization.

The same COTS software used across many different systems reduces training costs.

The opportunity to include enhancements into the core product is a key value proposition.

COTS software offers more diverse functionalities, which can address an organization’s future needs.

A packaged software provider has a deep understanding of the underlying business model and leading best practices.

Can COTS software work out cost-effective compared to custom software?

In the long run, COTS software is far more cost-effective compared to custom software and has demonstrated better ROI over a period of 5-7 years of implementation.

Further, it enables reduced overall IT costs and a lower TCO.

Where can I get more information about COTS software and how can I engage with the solution provider for evaluating such systems?

Information about implementation of COTS software is available on the websites of solution providers, SAP being one of the prominent ones. Discussions can be had with the solution provider directly or with any major system integrator/ implementation partner of such providers. You can always send your queries and interest to the email provided herein.

SAP AG is a global leader in Enterprise Applications. SAP for Public Sector is helping many public administrations around the world to embrace innovative Government initiatives. More information is available at: http://www.sap.com/industries/ publicsector.

Please write to us your queries on this topic or email at info@egovonline.net \\

Next Month’s Topic: “e-Procurement: The way ahead for Efficient & Effective Sourcing in Government & Public Sector Organizations” 50

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