The 2011 agenda - January 2011 by eGov Magazine - Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd

th 6 anniversary special issue

ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON E-GOVERNMENT

january 2011 > ` 75/VOLUME 07 n ISSUE 01 n ISSN 0973-161X www.egovonline.net

the 2011

agenda

How information and communication technologies can shape governance in India

Contents january 2011

second grid grid name issue 01 n volume 07

opinion Inclusive community technology? Inclusive community tech to deliver benefits to right people

tech trend Govt will ride the cloud wagon

12 | interview

Dr Krishnaswami Kasturirangan Member, Planning Commission and National Innovation Council

opinion Back to Back- End Basics! Got should pull its focus off the ‘access’ piece

tech trend Tech is a Healthcare booster Biggest benefits of tech are in precision surgery and e-Health provisioning

opinion Developing World’s IT Maker

Models like Saas will gain momentum to meet expectations

Cloud computing can save governments huge infra investments

state update kerala Universal and affordable access, a must for bridging the digital divide

tech trend The three G2C Delivery Essentials

tech trend It’s time for a beta All the e-Governance cogs have been put up, testing phase not far

Interview Debraj Dam

New-generation networks promise to Old installations to be revamped this make e-Gov a reality year to support new apps

Advocating Brand India

Key differentiators will remain guiding customers for best-fit solutions

gov talk Nirupama Rao

India has an opportunity to do e-Governance right

We are encouraging departments to own and implement the projects

Let tech take backstage

ICTs adoption will pick up in 2011 with new arrivals

interview sam pitroda

gov talk Sanjiv Mital

tech trend Green mandate will firm up

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

state date Andhra Pradesh

tech trend Trend, set, grow

tech trend A green revolution is coming With IT solutions we could soon be seeing onset of smart utilities

State Update Karnataka RTI project will be fully operational in Karnataka from April 2011

further reading Editorial cisco feature log off

05 52 58

editorial

New year, new hope!

n India, 2010 was marked by scams, corruption charges in organising the Commonwealth Games, 2G spectrum scam allocation, and the Adarsh Housing Society scam, which are all examples of failed governance. But the contrast to this darkness, kick started with Nitish Kumar, who won a second term in Bihar, illustrating that providing corruption-free governance pays for governments. The Internet and information and communication technology (ICT) holds the promise to good governance as their use leads to transparency, accountability and a corruption-free governance. The need of the hour is to employ these techniques creatively in unique Indian situations to make inclusive policies efficient and effective. This is what has also been stressed upon by ICT leaders, some of whom we have tried to cover in this Anniversary Special issue of eGov magazine. Inter alia, Unique Identification Programme (UID), a big leap towards improving citizen state interface, has been unanimously endorsed by these thought leaders. As one of them have rightly remarked that the UID programme would lead to tracking and monitoring of social benefits being consumed by a citizen, a family, a community, a state or a country and thus, leakages can be identified or course corrections be applied in time. ICT can also help in promoting democracy by increasing public participation in governance, creating new opportunities to broaden public awareness about democratic issues and by establishing new opportunities for interaction. With greater public participation in governance, governments will have increasing pressure to provide accountable and equitable governance. For this to happen, the focus of e-Governance has to progress further from the present task of completion of back-end computerisation of government offices to creating efficiencies and openness in government, so that the government and the public resources could be equitably accessed by all. With the advent of the New Year, a new hope for making positive changes, that would raise the hope for efficient and transparent governance, with ICT acting as an enabler. I wish all our readers a very happy 2011 and hope to get your continued support. ravi guptA Ravi.Gupta@egovonline.net

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Broadband for rural connectivity This in reference to the interview of R Chandrashekhar, Secretary, Department of Telecom and Chairman, Telecom Commission. The idea of connecting the Gram Panchayats for e-Governance, telemedicine, tele-education, financial inclusion, gaming and entertainment by broadband connectivity is really commendable. Also the fact that with an increase of 10 percent broadband connection there will be a per capita GDP growth of 1.4percent is incredible. A country’s development lies in its overall development. 70 percent of India being rural needs greater attention as compared to the urban areas. The idea of using area connectivity in place of point-to-point and enabling its use by all the Government institutions is surely going to work. Ajay Kumar Prasad, Bihar

Moldova leads

Events

This is in reference to the interview of Stela Mocan published in the December issue of egov. The Moldova’s experience of progress in the the United Nations e-Government Survey 2010 from its earlier position. The Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011 by the World Economic Forum ranks Moldova 89th globally (out of 139 countries) in terms of technological readiness, and 123rd in terms of innovation and sophistication. Its a good case study for India, since the progress made by the country in this area has been slow.

Vicky Kalra

S Shauryal, Noida

Editorial & Marketing

egov is a pioneer

Correspondence

Please refer to report titled ‘face2face is the way to open government’ published in December 2010 issue of egov. It was heartening to know that the social media is being leveraged for various developmental and governance related tasks. Though social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Linked In have been very well proven their worth with individuals and businesses, but it was equally fascinating to know that various government agencies like Ministry of External Affairs and Delhi Traffic Police are also using social media as Government 2.0 tools thereby inculcating more transparency and openness in the opaque government system.

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

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egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

Sachin Bharadwaj, New Delhi

Smart city – A dream! The cover story on smart city presents a very positive picture of changing scenario of urban

development and planning. In a ideal smart city, the article says, the businesses run quite efficiently and at a lesser cost, which overall leads to greater productivity. It also points out towards the application of ICT in city administration, which lowers costs and enhances the government-tocitizen service delivery. However, India still has a long way to go, given the fact that the state of public infrastructure- the transport, health, education, economy and trade facilities- still remains to be poor. Policies like JNNURM have not been able to address the much complicated issues of the sprawling urbanisation and concretaisation. Increased technology usage and focus on urban planning could be the way out. Kuntal Chatterji, Kolkata

CWG portrayed our technological brilliance This is in reference to the article named “The network’s spectacular show” in your December edition. I would like to say that the way this article has been written and the way the beautiful facet of CWG 2010 was portrayed in it thoroughly matches with my thought as I had covered the entire event while interning with The Doordarshan. Not only CWG 2010 saw the first worldwide deployment of inline video monitoring for uncompressed high-definition video but also witnessed a fine interplay of data, voice, video and mobility, with professional broadcast and enterprise conferencing that thrilled audiences across the globe in ways like never before. Debapriya Mondal, IIMC, New Delhi

gov talk

Nirupama Rao Foreign Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, Govt of India

Advocating Brand India By listening and by engaging, public diplomacy voices stand better chances of being heard and social media can help much

ublic diplomacy relies as much on the spoken word as the written word, and therefore it very much depends on the clarity of presentation, and the ability to persuade, influence and mould opinions in a manner that is not propaganda but rather presents the case for any given aspect of foreign policy in a clear, cogent, factual and communicative manner. We live in a communications environment and if our policies are to be well understood, we will have to interact in a real time and virtually on a constant basis with the media and audiences, both at home and abroad. Public diplomacy is also a process of reinvention for many of us as bureaucrats, because of the value it places on communication skills. The need to feel the popular pulse and the requirements of innovation, using the latest information and communication technologies, of moving beyond precedent-driven approaches, requires us to think out-of-the-box, be alert to countering negative information and stereotypes, and also to be ever-vigilant of information vacuums that will be filled by our adversaries.

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Getting heard is not easy It goes without saying that the contours of public diplomacy are being constantly expanded. As our foreign policy interests and strategic perspectives become more sharply honed, as our global presence becomes much more visible, as India’s re-emergence grasps the world’s attention, and as our economy becomes one of the international frontrunners in terms of its accelerated growth rate, India’s voice must be heard in multiple situations and before diverse audiences. The task to fulfil this will be that of its diplomats who must be ever active in the tasks of advocating and explaining the Indian ‘brand’ as it were, because this is a compelling narrative surrounding the world’s largest democracy that must be heard. Of course, the challenge we face today is because there is a plethora of voices outside the government that speak on foreign policy. It necessarily follows that we are not heard so easily. Our message may just not get through. The way to address this is to provide higher definition to the debate by presenting the government’s case as clearly and factually as possible, being quick to correct misrepresentation, bridging gaps in infor-

mation, and by understanding that by hesitating to speak we only compound the lack of understanding of a particular policy in the public domain. It is important to pay attention to feedback, and to engage with a broad spectrum of audiences. By listening and by engaging, we stand a better chance of being heard. Public diplomacy, we all know, is no abstract term—it is a real world phenomenon, and, it overlaps with our cultural diplomacy, our outreach to academic institutions, the promotional work that our chambers of business and industry engage in to promote Brand India, and the works of the ministries of Information and Broadcasting, Culture, and Tourism. The projection of India’s soft power is very much a part of the processes of public diplomacy, and so is the use of social media including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This is because we also need to understand the demographics of the audiences we address—the idiom must be tailored to cater also to the language that the younger sections of our population speak.

World should know how India contributes The promotion and projection of India is furthered by our Public Diplomacy

Domestication of foreign policy is vital for creating a more informed discourse on foreign policy issues within our own country

From a village classroom to a virtual education experience Raghavendra Rao, a post-graduate teacher from Andhra Pradesh, had a vision of bringing biology lessons to life. He dreamed of imparting quality education to his students at the residential Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya school for rural RAGHAVENDRA RAO

children. Using simple multimedia tools that he learnt during

Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya | Kiltampalem, Andhra Pradesh

his training with Project Shiksha, he now makes videos that help bring the wonders of the local flora and fauna into

THE ONLINE Raghavendra Rao inspires students to CLASSROOM: learn more with lessons powered by:

the classroom. Raoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s learning experience with Project Shiksha has extended the

Interactive presentations with videos embedded in Microsoft Office PowerPoint

borders of his classroom to the entire learning community. His

Videos, podcasts and multimedia-rich content made with Movie Maker

delve into the world of biology and access learning resources

An online library of documents, reports and reference material created with Microsoft Office Word Rich graphics with Paint and Microsoft Frontpage

brainchild www.biology24x7.in is now a means for students to like reference materials, question papers and discuss ideas. Even visually challenged and physically challenged students who cannot come to school, now learn through podcasts and the interactive virtual classroom. The result - answers for curious minds, a livelier classroom and education for all!

ENABLING INDIA This story is one of the many steps on the road to enabling India. Partnering with 12 state governments, Project Shiksha has helped train over 5,12,000 teachers in IT skills, who have impacted over 25 million students so far. To know more about Microsoft's initiatives, visit www.microsoft.com/india/msindia

gov talk

Division through our publications, documentary films and selections of popular and classical music that can be used by our diplomatic missions to project India. We are also increasingly aware of the need to emphasise our image as a country that embraces diversity, with its secular ethos, and vibrant democracy, as also our determination to resist terrorism and militancy, and the forces that threaten our sovereignty and territorial integrity. In this connection, our public diplomacy efforts must focus on the composite nature of our culture, our inter-religious harmony, and our emphasis on inclusive, integrative growth, especially when it comes to outreach in our neighbourhood, in Southeast Asia, in the Gulf countries and in Africa. We see the need for audiences abroad particularly to be made more aware of our technical and economic cooperation programmes and our grant assistance and concessional lines of credit (LoCs) to a number of countries. The revival of an irrigation project that has doubled Senegal’s rice output and made the country self sufficient in rice for the first time in a generation; a power transmission project that is helping take surplus electricity from Cote d’Ivoire to Mali; a regional centre for excellence in IT that Ghana has established, and an entire IT park that Mauritius has....and dozens of other similar examples speak of our partnerships in development cooperation. We currently extend LoCs of over USD 10 billion to countries in Africa and elsewhere but they hardly find a mention in either the Indian or the international media. Similarly, the excellent development work that we have done for the people of Afghanistan under constant threat from terrorist forces needs to be explained to the world. We have traditionally tended to adopt a fairly conservative approach towards publicising our own work and this, almost by default, leaves the field open for negative stories of which there is never a dearth. From a public diplomacy standpoint, I think it is vital that we start building credible and engaging narratives about the positive work that we do. These would not only provide global audiences with a perspective of the geographical spread and impact of

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

With Facebook or Twitter, idioms must be tailored to cater also to the language that the younger sections of our population speak

That is why soft power, 24/7 media, Web 2.0 tools and the role of corporates in public diplomacy are so useful and relevant

our development partnerships but also bring from our own public and Parliament an appreciation of our activities. Yet another aspect on which public diplomacy needs to focus is crisis management in extraordinary situations—getting the government’s message out and addressing public opinion directly with the purpose of informing, reassuring and enabling sober and wellreasoned responses that are bereft of rumour and speculation. I also wish to focus on what I call the domestication of foreign policy and this is where public diplomacy, public affairs and public relations cross-fertilise each other. One of the key initiatives that we have taken in recent months focuses on creating a more informed discourse on foreign policy issues within our own country. We recognise that many of these issues are increasingly intertwined with domestic agendas, and as a democracy, we cannot avoid the responsibility of communicating our position more effectively to key segments of public opinion. Since its start in February, our MEA Distinguished Lecture Series on India’s Foreign Policy has touched 24 different university campuses, virtually all of them outside Delhi. The topics for the lectures are selected by the universities and the lectures are delivered by retired ambassadors with domain knowledge of the particular topic. The lively interactive sessions that accompany these lectures, the presence of local media and the participation of civil society have made this program an important component of our public diplomacy efforts.

Multimodal communication is needed A related program that has a strong domestic focus pertains to the seminars, conferences and workshops on foreign policy themes that we support and organise. Our conferences on Indo-Nepal relations in Patna and Varanasi and on India’s Look East policy in Shillong and Guwahati are examples of our conscious endeavour to take foreign policy discussions to places where they also resonate as issues that concern local populations and opinion makers. The success of these initiatives clearly depends on the active participation and support of a range of other organisations that often have a better understanding of specific sectors and issues. We are fortunate in having partnerships with business chambers, think tanks, academic institutions, cultural organisations, members of the Indian diaspora and others with whom we collaborate in pursuit of our public diplomacy objectives. I would be the first to acknowledge that these are no more than initial steps in a process that is bound to get increasingly complex as new media and communications technologies take us into uncharted territories. There is much that we must do to put in place a framework for strategic communications and for developing a lucid, encompassing vision of Brand India that goes even beyond the brilliantly successful Incredible India campaign. That is why soft power, 24/7 media, Web 2.0 tools and the role of corporates in public diplomacy are so useful and relevant.

ininperson person

We are seeing if the departments of Atomic Energy and Space and DRDO could pool in their knowledge to create solutions that have societal applications

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

in person

Dr. Krishnaswami Kasturirangan Member, Planning Commission and National Innovation Council

“Interoperability

constraints are propelling creation of a national GIS system”

hat are the specific initiatives that have been taken under your leadership and how you are guiding and driving the program at the Planning Commission?

areas of high-power broadcasting systems and also innovative use of microwave frequency for remote sensing. These are some of the advanced technologies but are very well tuned to development at the grassroot level.

Dr. Krishnaswami

Could you elaborate one the role of science and technology in health domain?

National Innovation

Science and technology, environments and forest, climate change and agriculture research are the broader areas that come under the subjects that I am supposed to handle. In science and technology, I am closely associated with space in particular. We have recently completed mid-plan review of the various projects and programs under the 11th Five-year plan to look at how we have fared and also to identify what are the things we are supposed to do in the remaining two years. The programs under various scientific departments like Department of Science and Technology (DST), CSIR, Department of Biotechnology, Department of Space, Department of Atomic Energy and Ministry of Earth Sciences have been progressing at different levels, based on certain targets that have been set. DST has also looked into the issues pertaining to water. That is a very important area. The Supreme Court has charged the DST to look at identifying solutions for providing safe drinking water for different locations in the country. This is just an example of what they have been doing. In space of course, ISRO has been doing major work. There are major milestones in strengthening our communication programs with satellite-based systems. We are also working on navigational satellites,

In case of health, for example, what we are trying to do is what ISRO did with respect to telemedicine. You don’t have many specialist doctors in rural areas whereas you have doctors in urban areas like Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, which have super specialty hospitals. If you have to transport every patient from rural areas to the city to get specialist medical attention, it will be a huge task and probably impossible. These are the considerations that prompted us to see whether we can install equipments like electrocardiogram or chest X-rays, blood samplings and monitor everything. You format it and send it via satellite to urban hospitals which have set up these telemedicine centres where specialist doctors will come and sit in front of the monitor and can clearly look at the electro-cardiogram report of the patient from thousands of kilometres away. So you can see the enormous potential of ICT in the context of healthcare system in the country. Nearly 300,000 patients in the recent past have been treated in this way. Today, more than 300-320 rural hospitals have been connected to 30-40 specialty or super specialty hospitals in urban centres like Pratap Reddy’s Apollo Hospitals, Ramachandra Hospital in Chennai, Mata Anandmayi Hospitals

Kasturirangan is a Member of Planning Commission and of the recently constituted Council. For over nine years since 2003, Dr. Kasturirangan steered the Indian Space program as Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). He has been conferred with the Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan, and the Award of ‘Officer of the Legion d’honneur’ by the President of the French Republic. In an interview with Sheena Joseph and Pratap Vikram Singh of eGov, Dr. Kasturirangan speaks about the country’s progress in science and technology and its application for development at the grassroots level.

January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

in person

or AIIMS in Delhi and Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute in Lucknow.

The National Innovation Council has got the task of promoting innovations for grassroot people’s needs. What is it’s roadmap? What we have decided at the National Innovation Council is to take care of the sets of technologies that have been developed by space and atomic energy departments for their own requirements. Then ultimately we can see if we can map them, and suitably tune and adopt them for applications

security. If you look at the productivity of the land, it is 1.7-2 tonnes per hectare which is not anywhere near the global productivity of four tonnes per hectare. My viewpoint has always been that by improving the productivity to world standards we can still meet the average food standard in the coming decades. Our land is highly degraded. So we need to really replenish the land and there are methods by which we can regain the land. One of the key requirements is to classify the land, look at the soil and its salinity and alkalinity to create a satellite database.

“To increase science and

technology inputs to industrial growth as well as to deal with the market forces will be a focus area ahead” that could be of interest to social areas. One classic example is of creating small water purifying systems. The membranes normally used for filtering have been developed by atomic energy people. The adoption of these technologies is still nowhere near what their potential is. National Innovation Council has formed three scientific consortiums. We will bring them together and they will exchange their experiences to build applications for rural or social development or in areas like healthcare and education. This is a new look that has been developed. But it has not been organised in a manner that is both sustainable and can make an impact. So that is where National Innovation Council’s relationship with other scientific departments is going to make a difference. Three departments—Atomic Energy, Space and DRDO—have already set up an HQ that is called Innovation Directorate. Our ultimate mission is to see whether we can even create an institute where all the three could pool in their knowledge and then try to create solutions that find inroads into societal applications or health applications.

There have been concerns about the leakages in the PDS system and about money going into wrong hands. How technology could help in ensuring food security? There are multiple layers of the solution for food

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

Then there is the issue of water. Water management is in very poor state. We need to use better systems of sprinkler irrigation and drip irrigation. So we need to have better ground water charging structures, and then finally use drip irrigation or sprinkler irrigation that can be optimal. Also, we need to provide the right nutrients, like sulphur and phosphorous, into the agricultural plants as well as into the soil. The second part is about storage and transmission. The logistics are extremely poor. We need to have a good storage, as in the recent years grains produced have been eaten away by rodents. There is a very poor storage system. Then next one is transmission. Here you need to have a good information, tracking and inspection system. I would say you put GPS receiver, track every vehicle where it loads into and stops, do periodic checks at some points with respect to the availability whether the right amounts of grains are really taken in or not. There are technologies which can be used for locating the position of transport system at a particular point whether it is taking the right road and whether it is stopping only at approved points. All that can be programmed. Then of course is the delivery system. I hope that with UIDAI system method of distribution would become much more transparent and more open in terms of people who are eligible will get it. And these are all simple solutions. I

have not said anything which is difficult for the country to undertake and implement.

There have been talks about having a nationwide GIS platform that will help in laying down infrastructure and development. How significant would such a platform be? It’s a very important area. Over the years, GIS has come to be used for different applications, whether it is about getting land use pattern or the current status in forestry. Spatial data is much better than tabular data, as looking at a picture is much better than looking at a set of numbers. It is easy to comprehend for decision support. There are several layers and dimensions in which GIS becomes applicable, but they are all related to ensuring that first you organise the database both in the form of imageries as well as in form of numbers, process them and depict them in terms of intelligible spatial domain information. Then, if you want to model it, try to bring in multiple elements of data and try to look at the relationship between the multiple layers of information, which will ultimately give you a solution for a particular decision. For example, whether I can put an oil refinery in a given location, whether I can put up an urban development sprawl in a particular area and whether there is enough groundwater or is the slope right or will the dischargeable water mix up with groundwater and how do I isolate the two. So we need to have the spatial database and that is where GIS will come into the picture. It has been practiced by various groups. But it’s been done in isolation. If you want to look at it from a regional perspective you need to combine multiple GIS outputs to take a decision. So we need better formatting, better standardisation and seamless means of looking at a particular data or information. Today, if I want to look at the land use pattern data of Delhi with some local adjacent data with Haryana I cannot do it because I need to bring them to a common forum. So these kinds of constraints are propelling the creation of a national GIS system and hopefully we will start it under the Planning Commission. The initial preparatory work is in progress and this will lead to a project under Planning Commission. This is not to replace the existing activities but to bring in better coordination, better synergy and to standardise the system so that the country can benefit from the total information that is available and is to be created.

opinion

inclusive growth

Ashank Desai Founder, Mastek Ltd.

Inclusive community technology? To deliver the benefits of social welfare schemes to the right people in a timely manner, ICT must be fully exploited

ndia is ranked 119th among 169 countries on Human Development Index (HDI) in the 2010 Human Development Report (HDR) by UNDP. On one hand, while the country has had good economic growth, it has done poorly in terms of human development. The report also states that poverty rates in eight Indian states are similar to 26 of the poorest countries in Africa. Such starkly contrasting disparity is alarming for the nation, especially when it is being considered to be an emerging super power in the world. Consequently, plenty of focussed and targeted programmes and schemes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGs), Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and Micro Credit Scheme for Self Help Groups (SHGs) have been initiated, broadly described as affirmative or inclusive policies by the central and state governments. The Government of India, in its budget, increased spending on the social sector which was 37 percent of the total plan outlay in 2010-11. While

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

the governmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seriousness about its intention to deliver the services to citizens cannot be denied, the pertinent questions are: Are the right services and benefits being delivered to the right people and in the time frame promised, especially in the social sector, a focus area of inclusive development? Are these initiatives producing the desired results? Considering the gigantic size and complexity involved, the role of ICT is critical in this scenario and I believe it can assist the governments in address these question through integrated automation. There are a wide range of benefits ICT can deliver in making social welfare programmes effective.

and ` 60 in daily wages? Portal development activity has been seen in the recent past. A majority of the underprivileged do not use this channel, so the educated section, however small, operating staff and concerned people should be targeted to disseminate such information to the whole community. The awareness messages should be designed accordingly for each target group e.g. women and children, tribal or OBCs. Multimedia should be effectively and creatively used to promote awareness among the digitally unconnected sections. Today ICT has reached this maturity, and society should address this doggedly. To support this, portals need to be integrated with channels such as SMS, IVR and social media.

Generating awareness Probably one of the biggest challenges faced today is that the citizens are not aware of the various programmes and schemes they can benefit from. Does a student from the OBC socio-economic class know that he may be eligible for scholarship or does a daily-wage worker know that under NREGS he is assured a minimum of 100 days of employment

Giving meaning to numbers The organised sector is using MIS and BI tools as decision support systems. The social justice sector should also start using these tools

Multiple reports get generated for the departments on a regular basis. But what do these numbers mean? For example, just knowing that there are 100 colleges in a state does not mean anything until one knows the demographics of the student population in these colleges. Thus,

inclusive growth

opinion

January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

opinion

inclusive growth

contextual information is important to interpret the numbers. Without the context, the effectiveness of the programmes and schemes and its impact on society is not known. Based on our experience in this domain and interaction with central and state departments, I believe that a ‘dashboard’ is required to provide the departments with a view of how ‘healthy’ their schemes are. Data aggregation, in the context of the budgetary allocation, coupled with the expected effect is a key activity for this. It is important to start with identifying what information needs to be provided and in what context is the data meaningful. The organised sector, public as well as private, is using MIS and BI tools very effectively as decision support systems (DSS). The social justice sector should also start exploiting such tools effectively. It will therefore be necessary to widen the scope of such IT systems beyond mere accounting of the funds disbursements, and link it to the fundamental problem areas and the social reengineering model designed to resolve them. I am aware this is easier said than done. However, IT Industry has to rise to undertake such challenges so as to assist society in diluting the ‘starkly contrasting disparity’ referred in the beginning.

Taking a beneficiary view While the social justice & empowerment department is able to create the mandate and the planned, scheduled and budgeted activities, it needs to route most of the schemes through different line departments like agriculture, education or housing, so as to make the schemes relevant and effective. Thus, the beneficiary can have multiple touch points to receive the benefits. From our discussion with the state departments, I realise that the government does not have an integrated view of the beneficiary. Overcoming this challenge will enable it to know if its investment is correctly used and if the right individual or class of individuals received the social benefit or not. The challenge of creating visibility is that first there are various other depart-

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Portals, SMSs and IVRs can act as channels to get feedback from the citizens to understand the pain points and bottlenecks in program execution

ments and corporations involved and each state has districts, further drilled down to tehsils, talukas and gram panchayats—all of which are jurisdictiondriven. Second, there is no unique way to identify an individual or small-scale business in service at the moment. The UID programme is what is required as a first step to the solution. This will provide a unique identification to the individual. As a second step, contextual data i.e. socio-economiccultural factors need to be applied to these demographics from UID as metadata, in order to arrive at the single view of the individual. This is a paradigm shift from being programme- or budget-focused to becoming citizenand result-focused. The social benefits being consumed by a citizen, a family, a community, a state or a country and their ‘development’ can then be tracked and monitored and leakages can be identified or course correction be applied in time.

Bringing transparency in movement of funds The department has the visibility of the funds budgeted, allocated and disbursed to districts for execution of the programmes and schemes. However, it does not have visibility of how the funds have been utilised and services rendered to citizens. As mentioned earlier, due to the ‘jurisdiction-driven’ and ‘process bound’ execution, which is most of the time criticised as ‘red tapes’ because of inherent inefficiencies, at least this much visibility is possible. Creating any

other meaningful information in time is humanly impossible considering the size and issues involved in handling and managing paper documents. Collation of information is a challenge. Increasing integration and automation of the activities is the only cost effective way out and I am able to see the gradual shift in the government sector in that direction. Ensuring compliance to the most complex set of processes and rules (helping the administration) and delivering the service to every needy citizen speedily and as per his personal convenience is what efficient and effective systems are about. This I believe is the challenge which IT Industry must meet, and I’m confident it will.

Getting feedback It is important to not only provide information but also receive feedback, complaints, suggestions from the citizens to understand the pain points and bottlenecks in the programme execution. Portals, CSCs, SMSs and IVRs can act as channels for these and provide the user a concrete experience. A happy customer is a satisfied citizen who can depend upon and believe in his or her government. Indian ICT professionals have tackled business, industrial and scientific sectors problems, domestic as well as global in these types of situations very effectively. The need of the hour is to employ these techniques creatively in this unique Indian situation to make inclusive policies efficient and effective.

in person

We need about 100 million broadband connections, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not two or five megabits; Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m talking of about 100 Mbps

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

grid name in person

Sam Pitroda

Advisor to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovationsk

“India has

an opportunity to do

e-Governance right”

ow do you see the progress made by the country in governance and development after 63 years of independence?

India is indeed the world’s largest working democracy. With that come lots of challenges in terms of [difference in] perceptions, centre-state relationships, large programs, bureaucracy, politics, governance and planning. We believe that technology, especially information technology, will play a very important role in the next decade in improving governance, creating open government, bringing transparency and accountability and ultimately improving the delivery of public services. Mahatma Gandhi had stressed upon rural empowerment, decentralisation, promotion of local industries and jobs for people. Many of these things could not happen. But I don’t think 63 years are enough for a country having a billion plus population. The country has its own inner strengths and weaknesses. In order for us to really expedite the whole process, our founding fathers had really that foresight. Gandhiji had the dream of village empowerment and democratisation, decentralisation, local industries, while Nehru had a vision to build human capacity. We built atomic energy, space research, agriculture research, IITs and IIMs. We didn’t have the institutions and the infrastructure that a nation of our size would require. It took couple of decades to build that capacity. Now that we have the human capacity, fortunately we have the information technology to change the whole process of governance. Going forward, it has to be how we use IT in enabling e-Governance, to really improve productivity, efficiency, reduce costs and make sure that the benefit that is to be delivered to the poor, indeed can reach the poor.

To achieve these goals, we are just beginning to set up proper systems in place.

Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister

What is the role you see of processes re-engineering towards enabling open government? The Knowledge Commission report on e-Governance will tell you how we thought about e-Governance in terms of scalability. First, you need to really redesign processes. You can’t really computerise the processes that [British] Raj left behind. We need to really redesign processes. No one has ever attempted to do in terms of magnitude we have. United States has also an e-Government which is in a mess just because they have a vendor driven system. In some places it is Microsoft driven, somewhere it is Oracle, in other places it is IBM or HP. Consequentially, they have 1,200 data centres. Everybody is doing their own things. India has an opportunity to do it right. The country is just beginning the process because all that we have done so far is not good enough. So what we need to do is to rethink. We need to look at some of the big pieces. One big piece is process re-engineering. We need to really re-engineer the process, which is a very difficult task. So what we could do is identify 20-30 processes, which affect every citizen and then tackle those processes first. For example, these could be the processes concerning birth and death certificates, land records, police reports, employment and pension. These are some of the standard examples where people really interact with the government. The second task is to standardise. Everybody should have standard birth and death certificates in the country. The states can have little bit of nuances that are typical of those states, but the overall format has to be the same. There will always be a question of autonomy. You may

on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations, is widely acknowledged the architect of India’s telecommunication revolution. He is currently driving creation of information infrastructure for delivery of services to citizens and charting a roadmap for a ‘Decade of Innovation’ to drive benefits of technology at the grassroot level. In an interview with Pratap Vikram Singh of eGov, he talks about the country’s progress so far in governance and development and the role of information and communication technologies towards open government.

January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

IN PERSON

“You can’t really

computerise the processes that British Raj left behind. We need to really redesign processes” have to let some of the autonomy go to create efficiency and productivity. We will set up high-level standards, which no body is doing today. So you need a political will. We know what needs to be done, but without political support these things cannot be done. We are going to meet the chief ministers and explain to them what these issues are, and then say that these are issues which are in national interest, join hands and let’s do this. This is not directed against any state. It’s not to take away the state’s autonomy; we have all the respect for it. However, today, it’s all about spending e-Government money. Nobody knows the facts. You go and ask the consumer and he will tell you: I haven’t benefited from e-Governance yet. You pick up 100 citizens randomly. They will say: We haven’t benefited from it; except for the railway ticketing. So first we have to re-engineer processes. We need to create standards, collaborate with the states, and improve centre-state relationships. Then comes the technical part. Fortunately, we are now a nation of a billion connected people. We never had the type of connectivity as we have today. And because of the connectivity, we have a massive optical fibre cable (OFC) network, which we need to capitalise on, to build the next generation of applications for e-Governance. So the first thing is to really improve broadband connectivity. Today, the connectivity is predominantly for voice. We need to have that connectivity for broadband. And it’s not two or five megabits; I’m talking about 100 Mbps because with this broadband, one could see lot of videos and training material for immunisation and for teaching, all of which will happen through the electronic medium. It is an imperative to connect the country with broadband. We need about 100 million broadband connections. That is a big challenge. There are lot of discussions around it. I wish it could happen faster. The second challenge is what Nandan Nilekani is doing—tagging every human being so that we know that these are residents and citizens. We need to make sure that there is

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

one person per ID. Because that will stop lot of leakages, fake names, and lot of duplicated stuff that goes on. So what Nandan is doing is very thought provoking.

There are some security concerns around UID... Also, UID alone can’t bring about the desired results. What are other essentials that need to be put in place? Some people are concerned about security [aspect with the UID data], but that is the part of the process. We will make sure that it is not misused. We have to guard the right of the citizen. We have to be extra vigilant. But we cannot afford not to do it. Like UID, we need to tag every geographical space through GIS. So we know that every building, school, hospital and government office is physically identifiable. It can’t be like people took money for building bridges and there is no bridge. Therefore out of the five platforms, first is UID and second is GIS. Third is the security platform. You need to make sure that these things have security. There will be multi-layered security requirements. There will be need for security for payments, government transactions, databases, server, transmission and access. The fourth platform is about applications. We need to create lots of applications—for food distribution, driving licenses, passports, ration cards and the National Rural Employment Guarantee program. For each of these verticals we need applications. And eventually these applications have to be tied to UID so that they are not in silos. Similarly, we need a payment platform. We need electronic payments, so that we may bring the un-banked into the banking system and we can focus on micro loans, and we can really give payment options on your cell phones. The key here is to reduce the cost of transaction. You can’t have only 50 million people having access to banking. Given the size of the population, you really need 800 million people in the banking system. If we build these five platforms and create open platforms, people will develop applica-

tions on their own. But we need to create some standards. If we do this, then there will be hope for open government. But all of this has to be done by the government. You know there is a push in the government also to privatise everything. But this is not something you privatise because it is your government information.

How do you see state of common services centres, which have now been renamed as Bharat Nirman Common Services Centres. Lot of people are pushing for CSCs, which is a private initiative. They want to subsidise it with thousands of crore of government money. I have said this is not the way to do it. In fact, every panchayat has to be connected to fibre. Every PRI has to have their own computers, people and the ability to collect data. It’s simply because it is government work and you cannot outsource it. Once all of this is done, the private sector can create a business model to offer copies of birth certificates, licenses and land records. It is government’s responsibility. So, we really need to create public information infrastructure for the government and we need to really innovate in the government. That’s the challenge we have in front of us.

Of what use will be the broadband connectivity, given the situation that the departments at large are non-digitised? It’s again a chicken-and-egg kind of thing. You need to start somewhere. The best way is to provide the right infrastructure first. Then get some young people to the systems. My vision is to have two young people in every PRIs who know how to operate computer and type. They will then start collecting data on infant mortality, female ration, literacy, et al. Those will be the change agents. Change is not going to come from PRI head who is 65 year old. He will not be able to understand what it is. The best way is to start is to build infrastructure first. Then get young people to operate it. It will bring about the generational change.

Your concluding remarks. I think that next decade will be the most important decade. Few things that matters most as we target 2020 for a generational change are: good governance, judicial and administrative reforms, education, health and infrastructure. All else will fall in place.

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gov talk

Sanjiv Mital CEO, National Institute for Smart Government

Let tech take backstage ICT is a great enabler, but e-Governance vision is best driven by those trained in the ethos of citizen service

o d e r n information and communication technologies are rapidly transforming not only personal lives but also the manner in which citizens interact with governments. e-Government is rapidly expanding its footprint not only across geographies but also in all walks of life from paying utility bills to e-voting. Over the years the concept of e-Government has moved through three stages: The first phase emerged from the success of e-commerce in the world of business. The primary view of the government was that of a provider of public services and hence e-Government was primarily seen as a means of improving service delivery. This view, having a technology bias, was the primary driver of e-Government initiatives all over the world. Thus governments converted a whole basket of services to electronic format to make them more easily accessible over the Internet. As electronic delivery of services gained widespread acceptance as a vehicle for delivery of public services, the

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

view emerged that this was part of the ongoing reforms and transformation of the government. Governments were seen to be reinventing themselves to be more citizen-focused, mission-driven, result-oriented and decentralised. ICT tools came to be seen as key drivers of a major transformation of government processes, systems and structures. The third evolutionary step is to locate e-Government in the context of good governance. Thus e-Government now becomes e-Governance. This enlarges the scope of e-Government beyond delivery of services to include participatory governance, socio-economic development, transparency and accountability with the aim to make governments effective and responsive. The defining feature of this view is that government orientation shifts from government-centricity to citizen-centricity. This means that the needs and conveniences of citizens drive government processes, procedures and strategies and not the other way around. During the first two stages of evolution, e-Government is primarily driven by technology. The main objective is to leverage the benefits of modern ICT tools

In evolving to the next stage of e-Governance, a community empowerment and development agenda, not technology, should inform the policy making process

to improve service delivery, benefit from digitisation of data and creation of management information systems (MIS) and to decrease transaction time and cost. Some of the benefits that ICT tools provide are single-window delivery, reduced transaction costs, improved efficiency, better decision making through the use of MIS and decision support systems, accountability through process transparency, and effective targeting and preventing leakages using identity authentication and transaction authentication. The above benefits, among many others, have been the primary drivers of e-Government initiatives in the country. India is in the middle of the second stage of maturity and now it is time for our policy makers to focus on the task ahead, of taking India to the third stage. The third evolutionary stage should not be driven by technology. Instead a community empowerment agenda and a development agenda should inform the policy making process for the third stage. Development policies and programs aim not only at delivering a set of services, but also at enabling communities towards greater empowerment, through building

gov talk

their capabilities (to use Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s capability approach). Correspondingly, the potential of ICT is not only as a service delivery platform, but also as a means for empowerment of communities towards self-determined goals. It is important that e-Governance policies are situated within overall development policy frameworks, and not just seen as a part of telecom or other infrastructural policies. This approach requires an appropriate institutional framework, and a programmatic design that is oriented towards community empowerment. To ensure that e-Government initiatives result in achieving an inclusive society; fostering an open government culture, and promoting citizen-centric governance, it is essential that policies are framed keeping people and their empowerment in focus rather than being based on what is technically convenient or market friendly. Policies have to evolve beyond a service delivery approach and focus on community involvement, empowerment and social equity. An e-Governance vision and strategy for the coming decades can be built on certain guiding principles, which could be as follows: • An e-governance vision should be based on frameworks of social equity and justice: e-Governance is not about computers and networks. It is primarily about governance which implies that the welfare of citizens is the prime consideration. Any e-Governance policy cannot be solely based on technology or economic considerations. Principles of participation, social justice and equity should also factor in the decision making process. Most importantly, policies should be drafted in such a manner that the outcomes favour the disadvantaged sections of the population. • A two-way information flow to create space for community involvement: ICT technologies shrink time and distance. This means that the transaction costs are greatly reduced for citizens to participate in the governance process and this in turn opens up myriad ways in which citizens can participate in the policy formulation processes, leading

Principles of participation, social justice, equity and welfare of citizens should be the key considerations, not computers and networks

to a true participatory democracy. Since in today’s complex societies a lot of information must be collected and processed in order for the decision making processes to be fruitful, technologies that facilitate accretion, processing and dissemination of knowledge are especially useful for enabling participatory democracy. Such technologies already exist and there is a need for our decision makers to factor those in. • Conceptualisation of e-Governance should transcend digitisation and service provision: Current e-Government initiatives are primarily focused on digitising reams of historical data and on providing government services like land records, driving licence, passport, payment of taxes and utility bills, and submission of applications. The next paradigm shift in e-Governance will happen when we move beyond these to a stage where we start using the power of technology to involve the citizens in decision making processes and use the disruptive power of ICT to change dominant exploitative social and economic structures. However transformation and re-defining relationships is a challenge that can be met adequately only if there is an e-Governance strategy that goes beyond service provisioning and looks at issues of social equity and justice. • Public information systems: The current e-Government paradigm talks of creating decision support systems and MISs. But these are all oriented primarily to the bureaucrats or the decision makers. A paradigm shift is required where we start building public

information systems, of which the primary purpose is to provide all the information required by the citizens so that they can make informed decisions. This means that rather than giving the citizens pre-digested information generated by an MIS, citizens should have access to raw data (or to use the current jargon, open government data), which can then be processed in different ways to yield various kinds of information required by the citizens. This requires a shift in mindset; it is about inverting the lens and looking at information from a citizen perspective rather than from the government perspective. It implies that information available on government Websites should be in open machine readable formats that can be processed using various software tools rather than being available as a PDF file. The principles and public sector ethos that guide public policy should also govern the design and deployment of software used for e-Government. The current manner of e-Government software procurement is based on the belief that software procurement is best left to computer experts. Well-meaning civil service officers who otherwise put public interest above all else in other matters of governance seem to abdicate their responsibility by default when it comes to e-Government procurement. There can be no debate on the transforming power of ICT technologies and the impact of e-Government in improving the lives of citizens. What is debateable is whether we are making the best use of the transformative power of ICTs in putting the public interest first. January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

ov The First Asian Monthly Print Magazine on e-Governance Subscribe & be updated about latest scenario in e-Governance, egov magazine presents a ‘value for money’ subscription offer

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tech trend

Govt will ride the cloud wagon Adoption of models like SaaS will gain momentum to meet growing expectations in G2C service deliveries By Chong Kok Keong

ndia is poised to embrace e-Governance in order to increase its competitive advantage and become transparent with its global trading partners. This can be seen in projects we are working on, with the various government and quasi-government bodies in India. A perfect example is the Port Community System (PCS) that provides a single interface for members of the port community across 37 ports in India, to access critical information readily and securely. Another example is the computer-based security solution that stamps documents digitally, to safeguard against duplication and fraud in the state of Gujarat. Globally and in India, governments are increasingly looking to develop e-Government solutions that will help them boost their competitiveness, transparency and efficiency. In India, adoption of technology has led government operations to rethink their processes and changes. There is growing expectation from citizens for government agencies to modernise government-to-citizen services and to improve and make e-Citizen services more accessible. We have seen this in 2010, despite the relatively challenging economic environment. Emerging markets are clearly the driving engine for growth, with a majority of the future population and business opportunities residing in these emerging powerhouses. There is room for closer collaboration between Asia and Latin America, with the latter looking to Asia for new sources of investment and expertise for its own development.

Uptake of cloud computing A confluence of forces has led to the shift to cloud computing—a compelling increase in technological bandwidth or the business-driven need to innovate business at a faster pace. Gartner has forecasted worldwide cloud services revenue to reach USD 68.3 billion in 2010, a 16.6 percent increase from USD 58.6 billion in 2009. Software as a Service (SaaS) is being used to deliver a variety of e-Government cloud services such as Singapore’s TradeNet—a Single electronic window platform that enables important stakeholders within the supply chain to reduce the time needed to facilitate the trade process. In a large country such as India, with a public sector that is technologically diverse, with some agencies still relying on manual systems and others already interacting with the public online, a cloud-based delivery model can provide flexibility and scalability to the various participating agencies with their varied requirements. It will enable agencies which may not have the resources, to tap into the shared infrastructure of services and data. According to IDC, the public cloud computing market in India is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 percent over the next few years through 2014, from an estimated USD 66.7 million in 2009. The evolution of cloud computing is more than a change in nomenclature as the underlying technology has been adapting to the changing business and technology landscapes. A sound cloud strategy involves building strong alliances. Together with a strong implementa-

tion experience in national projects, service providers should also have established partnerships with specialist players in the cloud computing industry that will enable them to adequately address their clients’ specialised cloud computing needs.

Best cloud practices Cloud computing is to be seen as a key technology milestone and there has to be a continuity in developing solutions for it. Moving forward, one sees an increased focus on customer-centric solutions, emerging out of cloud offerings. Gartner has also predicted that 20 percent of non-IT Global 500 companies will be cloud service providers by 2015. It is also important to recognise the possibility of combining a private cloud with the public cloud model and generating economies of scale. New technology methods are constantly being tested to determine viability for the user organisations. This can be in the space of public clouds for delivery models, private clouds for customers, and hybrid clouds for both private and public customers. From a consulting point of view, it is important to understand the client’s domain and work with them to come up with a value proposition to address their concerns.

the author is author is Vice-President, Solutions & Consulting, CrimsonLogic

January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

state update

kerala

Suresh Kumar K

IAS, Secretary Department of Information Technology, Government of Kerala

“Universal and

affordable access is fundamental to bridging the digital divide ”

hat were some of Kerala’s key achievements in implementing e-Governance projects in 2010?

The State of Kerala flourished well in its ICT initiatives via e-Governance projects in 2010. The state’s IT/ITeS sector is growing three times the national average and its GDP contribution to the national economy is `20,000 crore. The third IT Park at Koratty, near Kochi Airport, was made operational in October 2009 and 10 new IT parks based on huband-spoke model are coming up soon. Investments of around `8,000 crore for eGov initiatives in the state are in the pipeline.

What are the plans to bridge the digital divide in the state? Suresh Kumar K, IAS, Secretary Department of Information Technology, Government of Kerala, is a 1989 batch Kerala cadre IAS officer. In an interview with Prachi Sirur of eGov magazine, he provides a comprehensive view of the various goals achieved by the state of Kerala on the e-Governance front and also expresses a vision of where the state could be in a few years from now in terms of delivery of government services to citizens.

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

Several initiatives have been made in Kerala towards digital access to information and several programs have been initiated to bridge the digital divide. Highlights include the far reaching policy reforms of the government in overall development of the citizen, giving impetus to reforms in the telecommunication and IT sectors. There are several ongoing projects and programs initiated by the government and non-government organisations that address basic challenges faced by the state in overcoming the barriers of digital divide.

What are the challenges and barriers to bridging the digital divide? A fundamental requirement for reducing the digital divide in the state is to give priority to the development of communication infrastructure and provide universal and affordable access to information to individuals in all geographical areas of the state. There are a number of barriers in bridging the digital divide. Although underserved communities in the state are gaining access to computers and the Internet, the

kerala

benefits are limited because of infrastructural barriers, literacy and skill barriers, economic barriers, and language and content barriers. The state government has declared IT as one of the thrust areas for development and has recognised it as an essential service. It has proposed many mega projects which include distance education to boost adult education in rural areas and setting up of information kiosks. There is also strengthening of Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Kerala as a national institute.

What are the initiatives, opportunities, roles and responsibilities of stakeholders and what are the prospects? The government has made encouraging steps to improve the lives of common people through several IT-oriented projects. Some of the efforts made towards bridging the gap include creation of infrastructure development in bridging the digital divide; government programs for e-Governance, and creation and support for the growth of Citizen Service Centres.

A network of over 2,000 common service centres (Akshaya kiosks) dot the state at a rate of approximately two in every panchayat. In addition, the ICT applications in the state are also powered by other ICT infrastructure including the District Wide Area Network which covers over 200 points in the Mallapuram district; Secretariat Wide Area Network which caters to over 3,000 nodes within the government secretariat, and state wide video-conferencing facilities that cater to all districts, High Court, Secretariat, and other important offices and Kerala House in Delhi. Another salient ICT infrastructure has been created as part of the IT@school project through which computers and broadband have been provided to all high schools of the state and training is provided to nearly 1.6 million students every year.

What is the progress on the ICT infrastructure front? Notwithstanding fairly developed ICT infrastructure, the state recognises the need that the ICT infrastructure should be expanded and strengthened to meet the growing needs

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are in the process of

developing a proposal that would help connect all village offices of the state, numbering around 1,600 to KSWANâ&#x20AC;? All ICT applications run on common ICT infrastructure. The ICT infrastructure does not create value by itself but is essential for other ICT applications to generate value. The e-governance in Kerala rests on the strong pillars of its ICT infrastructure. The Kerala State Wide Area Network (KSWAN) reaches all district headquarters and block headquarters and nearly 100 remote offices in each district. It has connectivity of 14 Mbps at each of its districts NOCs, which is one of the highest among the various state wide area networks. The state has two state-of-the art tier 3 State Data Centers (SDCs) covering 5,000 sq. ft. The first one has been fully-operational with over 100 servers and 150 applications running on them and the second one is likely to be operation by mid-2011.

of government departments and organisations. We are in the process of developing a supplementary proposal which would help connect all village offices of the state, numbering around 1,600 to KSWAN. Civil stations house most of the government offices at the district level. To connect these district offices with KSWAN, a proposal to create a wide area network for all civil stations is also under active consideration of the government. A central infrastructure for e-Procurement is in an advanced stage of formulation. NISG and PWC are assisting the state in setting up the centralised infrastructure. The RFP for this is expected to be floated later this year. The state is also in the process of setting up an open source-based public key infrastructure which would enable a number of e-Governance appli-

state update

cations with digital signature. The application for PKI is being made shortly. The state is also in the process of expanding its e-mail server capacity to provide e-mail facilities to government employees for official correspondence and to stipulate suitable e-mail management practices for storing, retrieving and archiving e-mails. The IT Policy recognises the need to focus on the synergies to bring about a user friendly e-Government system. Accordingly, on the lines of the National Service Delivery Gateway, steps have been taken to formulate a strategy for State Service Delivery Gateway. The necessary strategy for developing ICT infrastructure that would allow providing of services through various mobile devices is also being put in place. Yet another important initiative that is in the pipeline relates to setting up of a Kerala State Spatial Data Infrastructure (KSSDI), on the model of National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). KSSDI shall be a collaborative effort of all concerned government departments and organisations which are in the process of developing and using spatial data at the state level. Despite significant teledensity, there still exists a divide between rural and urban areas that needs to be bridged. While the urban teledensity exceeds 15 to 18 percent, the rural penetration is about two percent. One of the prime concerns of the governments in developed and developing worlds has always been to ensure the accessibility and availability of information and public services without much hassle. In this regard, the state government have been actively involved with several IT-oriented projects in an effort to bridge the digital divide.

Could you highlight some of the programs that are aimed at bridging the digital divide? The e-Governance applications in Kerala have a strong service orientation towards society. Programs like Fast, Reliable, Instant Efficient Network for Disbursement of Services (Friends) and Akshaya have been recognised nationally and internationally for their service focus to citizens. The objective of this e-Literacy project Akshaya is to create an IT empowered society and transform the lives of the common man by familiarising at least one member of each of the 65 lakh families in the state with the basic use of computers, including familiarity with January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

state update

kerala

the key board, ability to use the mouse, browse the Internet and send e-mails and subsequently provide, to the common man, easy access to e-Governance services. The project involves setting up of around 3,500 multi-purpose broadband enabled community technology centres called Akshaya e-centres across Kerala. Run by private entrepreneurs, each e-kendra is being set up within 2-3 kilometres of every household and caters to the requirements of 1,500 to 2,000 families. The Akshaya centres have since graduated to the next level. They now act as the decentralised information access hubs and service delivery points offering G2C, G2G, C2C and G2B services. The services include higher-level computer courses and multimedia aided training programs, Internet and e-mail facilities, e-payment of select utility bills. Also available is e-content in education, career building, health, agriculture and law in Malayalam language, a platform for transaction between buyers and sellers through e-krishi, forum for public grievance redressal, rural e-banking and financial services. A salient service that has been started through Akshaya centres is the e-pay service that allows bill payment facilities of several departments like KSEB, KWA, BSNL, and colleges and universities. Payment facilities for other departments like the regional transport authority, local self government, civil supplies and revenue are also available through Akshaya centres. Akshaya would be the nodal agency for the rural sector for the UIDAI project and also for all the future government services to be rendered to citizens. The Akshaya project is a social and economic catalyst to make Kerala the foremost inclusive knowledge society in India and a model in development for the whole world. Bridging the digital divide would be the most noteworthy outcome of the project. The Friends project has been launched with a view towards mitigating the hardship of citizens when paying taxes by eliminating middlemen, delays and long queues. Essentially, Friends is a centralised collection counter that accepts almost all types of tax and utility payments. This project has been expanded to serve 15 million people in 14 districts of Kerela. The basic philosophy of FRIENDS is to treat citizens as valued customers. These two programs of the state government ensure any counter, any service or payment any where across the state.

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

What is the Ente Gramam project and how does it help bridge the digital divide? Digital divide is manifested not only in access and tools of access but also in the inability to provide locally relevant information in their local language. Ente Gramam, translated as My Village, provides a community portal for

of government agencies and departments. This is especially important in case of schools, gram panchayats, public health centres, community information centres, post offices as also in case of development programs in areas of education, health, agriculture and employment. It is required to provide additional technical and financial assistance to the state for effective

“The Akshaya project is a

social and economic catalyst to make Kerala the foremost inclusive knowledge society in India and a model in development” localised content, which is developed by local people in local language. Typically, local content pertains to the history of the village, local resources, government and public services. The portal serves information needs relevant to the local community, for example, availability of agricultural, health or labour resources in the village, or details on educational institutions, industries, tourism and culture. In addition, locally relevant news and announcements are also displayed on the portal. The portal also has interactive features which enable providing feedback and blogging. Ente Gramam is therefore an effort in preparing the community for being a more participative, empowered, democratic knowledge society of the future.

and efficient implementation of MMP and also state sponsored MMPs. A centralised national repository of standardised e-Governance applications and best practices may be developed on the lines of Apple’s app store. The states can download applications from this repository and adapt them to suit the locale-specific needs. This will help in reducing the cost of the implementation as well as the time frame required for pan-India deployment, while also easing out the interoperability issues. It is also required to support the state government with additional fund allocation for capacity building in order to bridge the digital divide and more so in creating provisions for PR finding especially for ICT training for the masses as well as for the poor and the needy across the state.

What are your expectations from the central government and what support do you look forward to?

What is the vision for the next three years or so?

e-Governance has attracted tremendous interest world over. Significant amount of money is being put into making e-Governance a reality. A number of projects are being taken up at various levels; it therefore becomes important to use reasonable means of assessment to see if the projects are moving towards their planned goals. Proper assessment of these projects gives us crucial learning on the kind of changes needed to make them successful. It is required to provide policy, financial and infrastructural support to the schemes and projects. One has to decide on the mode and degree of integration of the projects with the existing physical, digital and institutional infrastructure

Our vision for the coming years is to become a state government that is most connected with its citizens and also connected within, breaking the silos. Interdepartmental and interagency data sharing should become a reality, so that most of the citizenry is able to access all government information and services online at the time and palce of their preference. Also, the aim is to accerlate and streamiline service delivery to citizens, reduce paper work, improve management and responsiveness of central and state-run programs and apply commerical best pratices to improve the government’s operating effeciency by way of measures such as policy reforms and business process reengineering.

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tech trend

The three G2C

delivery essentials New-generation networks, smart devices and rich apps promise to make e-Gov a reality for non-creamy layers of society too By Navin Agarwal

t has been observed that in India, individuals in the lower income groups often do not have unhindered access to government services and schemes. With vast population being one of the challenges in effective provisioning of government services, the level of interaction between citizens at large and the government has been minimal. While the financially equipped and

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

well informed citizens are able to reap substantial benefits, the weaker and less informed sections of society are left out even in today’s digital age. With the rapid developments in information and communication technologies, it now appears possible for the government to interact with citizens in a more uniform manner. Today, there are networks having universal footprints

and there are applications that can be accessed from next generation smart devices, which are getting more and more affordable. With innovative and effective use of these three pillars of ICT—the networks, the smart devices and the applications—even the less empowered citizens can be included in the overall e-Governance framework and can have easier access to government welfare schemes and services.

tech trend

Each of these pillars carries the potential to bring about changes that are likely to take place in the near future with respect to service delivery by the government.

Ubiquitous networks With the growth and spread of new networking technologies, the ground is being readied to deliver services at citizens’ door steps. Service providers are today using Multi-Protocol Label Service (MPLS) in the network backbone as it is protocol agnostic and offers a highly scalable data transmission mechanism. It enables transmission of data from one node to other, both for circuit-switched and packet-switched scenarios. It can be used to carry many different kinds of traffic, including IP packets, native ATM, SONET and Ethernet frames. It has higher fault tolerance and lesser transmission overhead, making it a preferred mode of data transmission in the next generation networks. The reach of State Wide Area Networks (SWANs) can be extended to remote villages with 3G and Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) technologies providing the last-mile connectivity in areas where deployment of wired networks is not feasible. Further, the newer paradigms of communication and networking will change the way data transmission and data access takes place. Cloud computing is coming in a big way, and it can be implemented as a public, private or hybrid model. As defined by NIST, “Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.” With acceptance of cloud computing, the complete financial model at service providers’ end can be overhauled leading to lower capital expenditure (CAPEX). Operating expenses can be based either on a utility billing model or a subscription model. Riding a cloud computing infrastructure, applications may be delivered as softwareas-a-service (SaaS). A good example of SaaS is Web-based conferencing service WebEx, which is being used by many organisations on a subscription basis. Here, while the user organisation saves on CAPEX, the third-party provider is able to maximise the utilisation of the underlying infrastructure.

Smart handheld devices The evolution and adoption of handheld devices has been phenomenal over the past years. The availability and affordability of these handheld access devices implies that there will be a compounding effect on the networks and applications being used by such devices. Mobile penetration in India has crossed the 60 percent mark and the demand of smart phones and handheld computing devices like notebooks and netbooks is ever increasing. The processing speed of these devices is also increasing and so is the demand for various features and applications running on these devices. Next-generation features like GPSbased navigation, GIS, inbuilt scanner and advanced wireless accessories promise to kick in far reaching changes. Their usage will eventually force developers to change the way applications are developed for these smart devices. Introduction and acceptance of next generation devices has increased in the urban centres as well as in remote areas. The entire IT infrastructure and application ecosystem is on the verge of a major overhaul and the expectation from the consumer is ever increasing to bring about this change. The demand for government services by citizens will increase through availability of mobile handheld devices and with increased ease of access, enhanced tracking and monitoring. The new devices that will be available in the enterprise-grade category, like wireless printers, scanners and high-end portable biometric devices, can be used in government offices for faster verification processes as well as faster service delivery to citizens.

Applications for all Next-generation applications are being designed keeping in mind the demands from mobile devices and the cloud computing paradigm. The key aspects that need to be addressed by developers while designing applications for next-generation devices and networks include interfaces between disparate technologies, device configuration, software deployment and upgrades, user interface, performance, memory management and security. In order to effectively address these, developers need to follow a standard for development based on following principles: thematic consistency, exploiting device capabilities, testing, resource URLs, balanced structure, target identification of links, image maps, externally linked

resources, page content, layout and definition. Another major concern for mobile applications would be the secure transmission of private data over open wireless networks. With advancement in the regulation regime and availability of mobile banking services, the concerns for developers as well as users are further raised. The proportion of mobile devices providing open platform functionality is expected to increase with time, as these platforms offer significant opportunities for a complete mobile-based application ecosystem. These also provide the ability for flexible programs and service delivery options that may be installed, removed or refreshed multiple times as per users’ needs. Openness of these ecosystems may be exploited by the APIs from non-trusted sources that may access the mobile resources and damage the device or the network. This issue has to be managed through better security architecture and pre-emptive monitoring of the networks. The application deployment model will also change as the traditional model will not really work on mobile handheld devices. Similarly, the database structure has to change for future applications. The applications developed need to be lighter, faster and more secure for encrypting private and sensitive data. Most of the data processing will be carried out on the server end to minimise the requirement of bandwidth and the processing power on mobile devices. With new applications being developed and accessed through mobile devices, the service provisioning by government channels would change and lead to more transparent, time efficient and effective service delivery models. The overall penetration of e-Governance services would be enhanced by such transformation. It will not only help in better service delivery but will also bring digital equality among masses and will particularly bring better infrastructure to rural areas. Indeed, an e-Governance service delivery transformation can be achieved through successful implementation of these three key pillars of ICT across the government.

the author is Executive Director, Advisory Services, KPMG

January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

tech Trend

Green mandate will firm up The key differentiators will remain guiding customers about best-fit solutions and unwavering focus on energy efficiency By Sandeep Nair

010 was the year of cloud computing—a phenomenon that Indian enterprises welcomed and endorsed quicker than many had expected. This, coupled with virtualisation, clearly reflected CIOs’ intentions to get the most out of each buck spent on IT infrastructure and to deliver on the mandate for reduced energy consumption at their organisations. This represented a very new scenario for channel partners, wherein to stay relevant, they had to differentiate themselves. The first step towards distinction was the acquisition of newer skill sets that enabled them to sell newer technologies to a set of customers who had radically changed their approach towards buying IT. They gradually realised that up-selling i.e. offering customised solutions that satisfied a particular customer’s specific needs earned bigger profits, repeat business and better prospects for growth. The realisation has changed the equation for channel partners, as the ability to sell end-to-end solutions now also enables them to create an entry barrier for their lesscompetent counterparts. How the equation balances in 2011 will be interesting to watch. Cloud computing and virtualisation will continue to trigger growth in 2011, while the market will witness consolidation as the economy begins to reap the benefits to these technologies. It will be interesting to observe how adoption and proliferation of 3G falls in

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

place. Long Term Evolution or LTE, which is a 3GPP 4G technology will follow in its predecessor’s footsteps, and with telecom bigwigs’ backing, it might just get quicker attention. We have observed a clear trend among facility managers focusing on optimising operational expenses (OPEX) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), as opposed to an earlier focus on capital expenditure (CAPEX). Consequently, green data centres have a bright future ahead in India. Marketers will increase focus on the Internet as an alternative medium to push their goods and gain more eyeballs. It will offer customers a secure and cheaper medium to compare offerings and make informed decisions. The trend would be limited to certain product lines and to metros. On the same lines, social marketing will also gain prominence. Vendors are expected to also adopt retail as an effective medium for marketing IT products, with an objective to get more footfalls and allow customers to ‘feel and buy.’ I expect the global economy to consolidate in 2011, and begin its trek northwards. The worst is definitely behind us. Risk-averse credit institutions would be seen loosening their purse strings to offer credit to small and medium businesses (SMBs) that are expected to be the growth drivers, especially in emerging markets. ICT would again gain prominence as a tool for economic productivity, and the speed of execution would be the key. An expected GFI of around 8-9 percent and the rise of SMBs will create a cascading effect to reinforce growth in 2011. Certain sectors such as infrastructure,

government and BFSI, which are key to the economy, recorded double digit growth. Overall, the market was upbeat throughout the year but slow to pick up momentum. At present, all eyes are on the infrastructure space. India needs much faster infrastructure growth than it is currently witnessing. Our biggest challenge will lie in the proliferation of robust infrastructure, arguably the single-most important element for equal distribution of economic progress. The key differentiators remain the same— guiding customers on the best end-to-end solutions that fit their needs and an unwavering focus on energy efficiency. The data centre bandwagon is a great opportunity for top-end system integrators (SIs) and network solution providers (NSPs), provided they augment their skill-sets in the space, and focus on selling end-to-end solutions. Innovators will lead the market in 2011! Vendors will need to encourage channel partners to break out of the mould and adopt a solutions approach towards the customers’ power needs. By doing so, one can help the channel community to evolve as informed troubleshooters with an expertise in tackling uptime issues in one or more verticals.

the author is President and MD, Emerson Network Power, India.

ANDHRA PRADESH

grid name state update

K Ratna Prabha

Principal Secretary, IT, Department of IT, Government of Andhra Pradesh

“We are encouraging departments to own and implement the projects”

hat are the critical success factors for e-Governance implementation? How do you plan to address these factors in your strategy?

K Ratna Prabha, Principal Secretary, IT, Department of IT, Government of Andhra Pradesh (AP), is a 1981 batch IAS officer of Karnataka cadre. Calling IT promotion and e-Governance as two eyes of the IT and Communications Department, she describes that the state of AP has created opportunities and successes in both the areas. In her current tenure, the Department is concentrating on tier 2 cities for creation of infrastructure and providing attractive incentives. In an interview with Pratap Vikram Singh of eGov, she illustrates Andhra Pradesh’s IT vision and also the challenges that could impede the IT initiatives and plans in the coming years.

Ownership, simplicity, minimum business process re-engineering (BPR), value to the end user, right selection of technology partners, and perfect combination of products with proper SLAs are the factors for success of an e-Governance project. We are now encouraging the departments to own and implement the projects. The design has been made simple and BPR is kept to minimum so that the end user does not feel any major challenge. The functionality is made such that end users themselves will able to feel comfortable and be able to perform with efficiency. IT is projected as a tool, not as a transformation mechanism. Besides, we follow the open tender process for the selection of the technology partner. The SLA is part of the tender and the technical committee examines the solution suitability during the tender process.

In spite of a lot of hype, there is still a gap in IT awareness

and usage in government departments. How do you plan to address this? The government has already taken up the CIO program to create IT awareness among domain officers of line departments. We are also planning IT awareness workshops for both political executives and administrative executives under Capacity Building program of NeGP. Further, a Dy. CIO program is planned for level 3 and level 4 officers of departments to assist in project implementations.

Andhra Pradesh has been a pioneer in ICT initiatives but there are many other states that have made great efforts in the past two to three years to catch up with AP. How do you plan to maintain the leadership position that AP has? We are working on ICT policy 2010-2015 wherein an e-Governance advisory panel is being proposed that will oversee development of globally benchmarked competencies in e-Governance using ICT. We are defining an e-Government interoperability framework with a similar IT architecture for all departments. This process will enforce data standards as mandatory for interoperability to achieve vertical and horizontal integration. January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

tech TREND

Trend, set, grow If 2010 was a watershed year for ICTs, their adoption will pick up in 2011—and yes, expect new arrivals too

n many ways, 2010 marked the beginning of some trends that will have pervasive impact in the coming decades. Enterprise social networking: Social networks are spreading in the workplace, taking collaboration to a new level. As a result, future decision-making cycles will be accelerated, and this will have huge benefits for organisations and B2B marketers. Cloud computing: Cloud computing is enabling businesses to move to a new and more efficient IT model. It’s about providing computing resources (network, server, storage) on demand and serving applications centrally. This will benefit businesses from lower costs in IT, energy and real estate. Along with data center virtualisation, it will help in rapid business expansion 360o security: 360 security has become important as businesses and government agencies apply security across the cloud, the edges of their networks and for specific devices whether over the Internet or via a private network. Mobile workforce: From telework to telepresence, the ability to collaborate via wired and wireless technology embodies the modern workplace. Many organisations are deploying mobile applications in a structured, secure environment to help companies spur productivity and innovation. Borderless business: It’s about having an IT architecture that enables organisations to deliver services and applications to anyone, anywhere and on any device, at any time. Borderless businesses are embracing the use of video, collaborative applications and other networked services

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

By Sunil Kakkad

and delivering those across the enterprise Enterprises will go green: Businesses and consumers have started to embrace energy efficiency in the workplace and at home. Seeing is believing: The advent of visual communications in the workplace is driving greater return on collaboration investment, higher productivity and improved overall business performance. Video will also play an important role in delivering on-demand content that can be viewed anywhere, anytime.

Expected trends in 2011 Wi-Fi direct: Wi-Fi devices will communicate directly with each other without having to connect first to a conventional Wi-Fi access point, bypassing traditional Wi-Fi networks and providing numerous device-to-device applications. e-Books for the new world: Mobile tablets or pads are driving new multimedia applications. The existing e-books transform the conventional paper format into an electronic book, but the next generation will go even further, providing an enhanced and interactive audiovisual experience for the reader by cross-linking the e-book to other digital forms, including videos, social media and Web cams. Mobile commerce: Mobile commerce is becoming quicker and more secure for consumers and businesses alike, making it easier to shop and order securely, particularly when making smaller transactions. Secure and quick-click checkouts from a mobile device will give consumers the ability to make on-thego payments and to stay logged in while they

surf for more goods to buy. VoD in your hand: Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standards have jump-started mobile and personalised videoon-demand (VoD). This IP-based technology will let you receive your choice of movie entertainment whenever you would like it. Feel-good technology: gesturing and haptic feedback: The desire for greater physical freedom in controlling devices has led to gaming consoles without handheld controls that rely purely on interactive 3D visuals, sensors and gesturing. A combination of gesturing and physical feedback will have applications beyond gaming. The possibility to ‘grasp’ electronically-generated objects, feeling their size, shape and texture will enhance education; for instance, in teaching medical students to feel the difference between healthy and diseased organs. The mobile cloud: Accessing software, systems and applications in the cloud began with software as a service (SaaS) and is quickly accelerating as confidence grows. Companies are now using time- and security-critical solutions outside of their firewalls. Mobile computing is an important new impetus for the use of ‘cloud’ and versatile mobile devices will become pervasive thin clients that would be ideal for accessing cloud solutions anytime, anywhere.

the author is CMD, Sai Info Systems (India) Ltd.

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e-governance

Dr. Ashok Jhunjhunwala

Prof, Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai

Back to backend basics! Govt should pull its focus off the ‘access’ piece and get the primary act of computerisation in all departments

ver the last decade or so, there has been a surge in talks about e-Governance in India. This became the new panacea which would enable people of India to deal with the government more easily, and make government more reachable and transparent. There have been policy papers, conferences, and programmes, some small and some large. But where have we reached today? Do large sections of our people find it easier to deal with government using electronic means? Do they travel less to government offices like various registrar offices, public utility companies and courts? Do they wait less in queues and are they treated better? If you take a poll, most of the people will still choose to disagree. Yes, there have been some definite gains. The biggest one came from railway ticket computerisation, which happened many years ago. It certainly helped middle and lower-middle class people to book the train tickets without bribes; more importantly, it showed what can be done with IT. It has now been extended to most travel bookings. Although the gains are more for air and railway travel

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

bookings and only in patches for the bus transport, there is little reason that this cannot happen in other sectors. Probably the next biggest gain has come from computerisation in the banking sector (core-banking), which has enabled dealing with almost any bank easily through widespread ATMs, Internet banking and now increasingly through mobile-banking. There have been similar gains in stock trading and depositories, though it impacts a smaller section of the society. Similarly, dealing with mutual funds has become easier. One can also pay for the credit cards using electronic fund-transfer. Tax filing is another area where there have been significant gains. For companies, dealing with SEBI and ministry of company affairs has become easier and for most publicly listed companies, information is more easily available. Beyond this, the services become patchy. Sure, one can pay one’s electricity bill and property tax in some regions in some states, there is no specific reason why it cannot be done all over India. There is this wonderful land-record certificate that one can get in most Taluks (if not all) in Karnataka, but there is no reason why it can’t happen elsewhere.

Despite much hype, e-Governance services at CSCs are still tottering; there are not sufficient services to make these kiosks viable

There are some other services, which are there in some part of the country or the other, but not many have been implemented everywhere. One can occasionally see the status of passport application, but not more. Yes, one can print out a number of application forms for different government services from different Websites, but rarely can one submit the forms online. Going to a registrar’s office to get any land transfer deed notarised continues to be a nightmare. The same is the case with respect to transparency in government processes. At places, one can see some public accounts of expenditure online; but they are rare. While Right to Information (RTI) has enabled citizens to get information from most government files, rarely can one do that online. In fact, most government departments dread these RTI queries, as even to provide answers, they have to scan bundles of papers and registers because very few files and file-movements have been converted to electronic workflows. More than a decade after we started paying attention to e-Governance, the question is why has the progress been so slow?

e-governance

opinion

Focus on access When the focus on e-Governance started in the late nineties, the Internet connectivity was abysmally poor. In rural India, there was practically no such connectivity. Therefore a significant amount of e-Governance focus was on connectivity and especially on setting up rural Internet kiosks, a shared access center, where the rural citizens could come and access services through the Internet. The 700 million plus people, then living in rural India, had difficulties in accessing services. With these access centres, also referred to as Community Service Centres (CSCs), they would be able to deal with the government through electronic means. They would also be able to get other services commercially in addition to using these centres to access education-based services. The centres could also be used to provide telemedicine services and financial services (like banking) which were not accessible to rural Indians. The setting up of these kiosks started as an initiative of some district collectors in remote regions of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Soon, companies like n-Logue and Drishtee emerged, which attempted to set these Internet kiosks on commercial basis. There were many great stories of how it impacted people and how a host of services were introduced that would transform the lives of rural people, and soon the movement spread. The Department of Information Technology stepped in and created a huge programme to involve large commercial companies to set up a CSC in each village. Unfortunately, even with such great hype, the CSCs have not been commercially successful. The e-Governance services promised at these rural kiosks are still in their infancy, generating very little revenue except in some pockets. The larger companies, now setting up these Internet kiosks have not even attempted to learn enough from the prior efforts that were carried out in setting up such kiosks in between 1999 and 2007. They have themselves failed so far to build sufficient services which could

Most of the rural areas have mobile connectivity today, and with 3G, we will soon see higher data rate connectivity all over

More than a decade after we started paying attention to e-Governance, the question is why has the progress been so slow?

make the CSCs viable. The whole effort is therefore tottering.

agricultural sector and are being continuously expanded.

Mobiles have made great strides

Time to move on

In the meantime, mobile telephony has made great strides in India. Over 700 million mobile connections exist today and the base grows at over 15 million per month. Most of the rural areas have mobile connectivity. In addition to voice connectivity, low bit rate data connectivity (GPRS, 3G-1X) on mobiles already exists. With 3G licensing now behind us, we will soon see higher data rate connectivity all over. Further, mobile phones are increasingly becoming more powerful and could enable one to access most services that would have been earlier available only on computers. In fact, mobile banking is already being provided by most of the banks today. There is no reason why most e-Governance services cannot be provided using mobile services. But many people in rural India are still illiterate or semi-literate and are therefore not too comfortable in accessing any kind of data services on mobiles. With such barriers, innovations in enabling voice-based services can open avenues for rural India. They can interact through phones with backend computers using regional language in local dialects, and access information and carry out transactions. In fact, voice services also benefit from using voicebased authentication as an additional factor for authenticating a user before providing the services. Such services are now being provided in banking and

It is time to move on from the focus on access. Let commercial players take care of it. Services could be provided on mobiles and some advanced services can be provided by the shared CSCs wherever they exist. The e-Governance focus has to shift back to back-end computerisation of government offices, so that services could be accessed by people by electronic means. This is a difficult process but as several agencies like banks, department of company affairs, incometax and other taxation departments and stock-exchanges have shown, this is indeed doable with the right focus. We need to take up each service (or department) and focus on why they cannot be converted to electronic means in a short time frame and all over the nation. The conferences and workshops have to be focused on one service at a time, and get into depth of existing bottlenecks, and figure out ways to overcome them. Specific timeframes must emerge from such workshops, and teams that will carry out the tasks should be identified. The benefit will just not be in terms of accessing services; it will also be a strong step in terms of bringing about transparency. With the right approach, one should start seeing the impact in the next couple of years. The telecom service provider will indeed need to rise to the occasion and provide access all over India. The citizens will see the difference. January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

tech trend

Tech is a healthcare booster Some of the biggest benefits of technology have come in the areas of precision surgery and e-Health provisioning By Dr Parvez Ahmed

echnology has opened up new frontiers in the field of medicine and has brought about a rapid change in the areas of diagnostic imaging, minimally invasive surgical techniques, reconstruction and regeneration. This has ushered in a new era of personalised medicines, attaining the digital frontier of e-Health and research. Diagnostic imaging, with advancement of technology, has shifted from showing anatomical images to functional assessment in situ. For example, fusion of CT MRI images with ultrasound images helps in better characterisation of tumours. The fusion of images makes it possible for much more accurate needle guidance for studying a biopsy specimen. Minimally invasive surgical techniques are of various flavours. These are endo, robotic, hybrid and stereo tactic radio surgery. With endo surgical techniques, surgery has â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;taken the fingers of a surgeon outside the bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; through a one-centimetre key hole inci-

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

sion, which reduces hospital stay and hospital cost. Benefits to the patients include quicker recovery and lesser pain. Robotics assisted surgery is reliable and has great opportunity in prostrate, obstetric and gynaecological surgeries. Hybrid surgical techniques combine the best options of intervention techniques and surgery for optimising outcomes. Hybrid Cath Labs and OTs help in the delivery of this fusion. In stereo tactic radio surgery, precisely focused radiation is used for treatment without any incision or general anaesthesia for adults. In effect, it is a surgery without a scalpel and hence the name radio surgery. It can be used for treating both malignant and benign tumours.

Reconstruction and regeneration Reconstruction surgery attempts to restore the anatomy or the function of the body part to normal. This ranges from very simple techniques such as primary closure and dressings to more complex skin grafts, tissue expansion and free flaps. Reconstructive surgery, even

when elected for aesthetic reasons, is usually done to correct an abnormality. With advanced technology support like 3D reconstruction and virtual environment technologies and extensive usage of software integrating laser images with computer tomography scan has brought in an edge to reconstructive surgeries. One of the most pervasive uses of reconstructive surgery is in professional sports in addition to cosmetic surgeries and reconstructive surgeries for oncology patients. Many of these procedures are constantly being improved. Regeneration is a process of creating living, functional tissues to repair or replace tissue or organ function lost due to damage, or congenital defects. This field holds the promise of regenerating damaged tissues and organs in the body by stimulating previously irreparable organs to heal themselves. Regenerative medicine also empowers scientists to grow tissues and organs in the laboratory and safely implant them when the body cannot heal itself. Importantly, regenerative medicine has the potential to solve the problem of the shortage of organs available for

tech trend

donation compared to the number of patients that require life-saving organ transplantation, as well as solve the problem of organ transplant rejection, since the organ’s cells will match that of the patient. For example, this technology is used for growing bone tissues with its own blood supply or in amniotic fluid stem cell for tissue regeneration for treatment of diabetes, cardiovascular repair and repair of central nervous system.

New era of personalised medicines This is the area of products and services that leverage the science of genomics and proteomics (directly or indirectly) and capitalise on the trends toward wellness and consumerism to enable tailored approaches to prevention and care. Advances in a number of molecular profiling technologies like proteomic profiling, metabolomic analysis and genetic testing allow for a greater degree of personalised medicine. Information about a patient’s proteinaceous, genetic and metabolic profile could be used to tailor medical care to that individual’s needs. A key attribute of this medical model is the development of companion diagnostics, whereby molecular assays that measure levels of proteins, genes or specific mutations are used to provide a specific therapy for an individual’s condition by stratifying disease status, and by selecting the proper medication and tailoring dosages to that patient’s specific needs. Additionally, such methods can be used to assess a patient’s risk factor for a number of conditions and to tailor individual preventative treatments.

Digital frontier of e-Health Telemedicine, with the support of IP telephony, has made healthcare accessible to the rural population in the remote corners of the country. Through telemedicine, doctors in the cities can provide consultation to people in the remote villages and can even interpret the ECG and other diagnostic reports. With the new technologies enabling faster transmission of information and images, storage of huge amount of data to be retrieved as needed and lowering the cost, telemedicine is gaining popularity and becoming affordable. Globalisation of image interpretation is also an area of e-Health. Healthcare providers are under pressure to handle increasing demand for interpretation of medical images. In the face of unequal distribution of expertise across the globe, the need to have technologies to support image transmission to remote locations became pressing.

Tech trends of in e-Health The past decade has seen a flurry of promising breakthroughs in medicine. The HPV vaccine, targeted cancer therapy, human genome mapping, natural orifice surgery, and drug-eluting stents are among the biggest breakthroughs of the 21st century. While expertise in technology has been available for the last

25 years, penetration of EHR has been only 33 percent. The possible explanations for under penetration could be cost, insecurity of using technology, and lack of regulation and confidentiality. Multiple software programs, multiple formats and inadequate demonstration of positive outcomes of EHR have also

been among the reasons. In India, we have an opportunity to leapfrog to adopt and adapt technology to improve access and provide healthcare in a timely, safe, efficient and patient-centric manner. The enablers to this in India would be use of common language, standardization and confidentiality.

Expected trend in coming years Still in its infancy in most areas around the world, e-Health offers healthcare providers and medical facilities with a wide array of benefits. With changing regulatory scenario, creating public awareness about the advantages of e-Health and

making the systems robust with minimum quality and security issues, e-Health has the potential of revolutionising the healthcare industry with significant penetrability in the days to come. The changes in the trend will be in areas of

The demanding consumer put additional pressure for quick turnaround of image interpretation and other diagnostic tests. To overcome this problem, the job of radiology and pathology image interpretation has been globalised with the help of technology. With the new technologies such as cloud, 3G, lower transmission and storage costs, coupled with the new generation Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems, globalisation of image interpretation is fast becoming the practice across the globe. In our hospitals today, we are already equipped to support remote second opinion from a specialist, with the help of technology. This, along with high-speed network, enables us to effectively use domain specialist clinicians across for collaboration and second opinion on patients, especially for telepathology in the fields of histopathology, oncopathology, bone marrow smears and FNAC studies. For example, motorised microscopes can be used in real time and manoeuvred from remote location by users to see content of a field. Technology also improves efficiency by providing clinicians with information about their patients at the point of care. Healthcare providers and facilities can deliver better quality of care and a more satisfying patient experience. e-Health offers a mechanism that eliminates

healthcare delivery, healthcare management and governance, improvements in health insurance, management and product improvement. There will also be comparative performance tools that will create value for the patient and the consumer.

duplication of efforts and provides operational and administrative efficiencies, reducing costs.

The area of research The increased longevity of humans over the past century can be significantly attributed to advances resulting from medical research. Among the major benefits have been vaccines for measles and polio, insulin treatment for diabetes, classes of antibiotics for treating a host of maladies, medication for high blood pressure, improved treatments for AIDS, statins and other treatments for atherosclerosis, new surgical techniques such as microsurgery, and increasingly successful treatments for cancer. New, beneficial tests and treatments are expected as a result of the human genome project. Many challenges remain, however, including the appearance of antibiotic resistance and the obesity epidemic.

the author is CEO and Managing Director Max Healthcare Institute Ltd.

January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

opinion

cloud computing

Samia Melhem Sr Operation Officer, The World Bank

Developing world’s IT maker Cloud computing can jumpstart governments with IT without requiring them to make huge investments in infrastructure

very now and then the IT world produces catchy buzz words appealing to the closet poet in some of us—killer app, WYSIWYG, TCOO, petaflop, and so on. One of the latest ones—listed under the Global Language Monitor 2008 list of most confusing buzz words—is cloud computing, followed by an older relative grid computing and three related acronyms, software as a service (SaaS), infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS). Cloud computing allows companies and enterprises to move applications, networking, services and computing infrastructure they currently have on premise to a virtual environment ‘out there’ on the Internet. That virtual environment is actually running in some data center in large server farms shared for different applications and clients (virtualisation is the buzz word to use here). With IaaS, customers get on-demand computing and storage to host, scale, and manage applications and services through cloud vendors’ data centres. This allows customers to scale with ease and quickly meet the infrastructure needs of

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

an entire organisation or an individual department, either globally or locally. EMC, HP, CRM, Google, Verizon are examples of IaaS providers. For the customer, say a government or a private enterprise, there is no need to buy and maintain servers, data centres, or to build backup and redundancy infrastructure. PaaS customers get the operating system, a fully relational database, and consumable Web-based services that provide security-enhanced connectivity and federated access control for applications. IBM, CSCO, VMW and Oracle are examples of PaaS providers. For the customer, there is no need to buy operating systems, database or Web service licenses. SaaS online services are subscriptionbased, on-demand applications and hosted services, providing end users with a consistent experience across various client devices. Microsoft SharePoint Online is an example of such a service. Google, Amazon, SalesForce.com, IBM, Zoho and CRM are examples of SaaS cloud providers.

Cloud is big, getting bigger Cloud computing has become serious business. According to latest Gartner reports, worldwide cloud services reve-

IT infrastructure, platforms or software applications can be delivered as a service, obviating the need to set up data centres or to buy licenses

nue was forecasted to reach $68.3 billion by end of 2010, a 16.6 percent increase from 2009 revenue of $58.6 billion. Worldwide cloud service revenue is projected to reach $148.8 billion in 2014. Gartner estimates that, over the course of the next five years, enterprises will spend $112 billion cumulatively on SaaS, PaaS and IaaS put together. North American and European markets represent the largest markets from a geographic perspective. The US share of the worldwide cloud services market was 60 percent in 2009 and would be 58 percent in 2010, but by 2014, according to Gartner, this will be diluted to 50 percent as other countries and regions begin to adopt cloud services in more-significant volumes. Western Europe was expected to account for 23.8 percent of the cloud services market in 2010, and Japan 10 percent. In 2014, the UK is forecast to account for 29 percent of the market, while Japan will represent 12 percent of cloud service revenues. In the last few years, a whole new industry based on cloud computing marketing, promotion, operation and maintenance has transformed the IT industry and its media machine. New companies are born, new jobs are being

cloud computing

created (like cloud evangelist and cloud manager), and cloud expos, international cloud computing conferences are being organised. Large companies are designing or adopting a cloud strategy for some of their applications, and progressive enterprises are thinking through what their IT operations will look like in a cloud computing model.

opinion

Cloud computing can be an optimal route for catalysing government transformation, economic growth and efficient allocation of resources

Governments are still hesitant Governments and large companies seem hesitant to take the cloud approach. This seems to surprise some of the cloud proponents, as cloud computing is supposed to reduce costs of operation and maintenance of large information technology applications. On the other hand, cloud is not free and requires upfront investments and lot of changes to existing legacy systems. So why break something that is working, unless you are desperate for savings or unhappy with your current environment? Challenges inherent in managing technology based on the principles of previous eras—with complex, custom, expensive solutions managed by large in-house IT teams—have become greater, and the benefits of cloud computing in addressing these challenges have matured to become more appropriate and attractive. The way I see it, the biggest beneficiaries could be the new kids on the block, the new users who do not have much to lose, but stand to gain much, and who can leapfrog. Developing countries’ government using ICT to reform public sector services and provide online services, for both local and central administrations are, a good example of such winners, as they benefit from the latest and best services available, and need not reinvent the wheel. Small and medium businesses in need of email, storage facilities, accounting and customer care applications are well positioned to benefit as well. Doctors and health care providers looking for case management systems can be another set of adopters. The cloud computing deployment can be private cloud-based, where the data centre, network or applications belong to the client and are managed

by the provider. Private clouds allow governments to have centralised control over their data and IT resources and countries like UK, Japan, Singapore and China have already implemented such government clouds. Then there is the public cloud model, where the cloud provider owns the infrastructure and runs the client’s system on it. A third model is the hybrid cloud, which is a mix of public and private clouds depending on the customer’s needs and requests for data ownership.

Benefits are many for governments

The way I see it, the biggest beneficiaries could be the new kids on the block, the new users who do not have much to lose, but stand to gain much, and who can leapfrog. Developing countries’ government using ICT to reform public sector services and provide online services, for both local and central administrations are, a good example of such winners, as they benefit from the latest and best services available, and need not reinvent the wheel

Governments and public sector organisations across the world today are starting to look into virtualisation and cloud computing to meet the rapidly changing economic needs and to improve citizen service delivery. Experts agree that these technologies will help cut down on IT management cost, while providing greater flexibility in maintaining security, reliability and compliance. Also, the public sector often has a huge problem to attract and retain skilled IT staff, so sourcing these services from a private cloud may the most efficient option. At the same time, governments, worldwide, are facing budget constraints and skills retention challenges. The recent financial crisis has emphasised the importance of financial discipline and efficient use of resources. Today, state authorities are looking for low-cost ICT solutions which would

provide efficient outcomes. Some countries are already implementing government clouds which will allow them to cut spending on IT infrastructure, manage IT and labour resources more efficiently and provide high-quality public services to the population. The use of cloud computing in the public sector is an optimal solution for catalysing government transformation, economic growth and efficient allocation of resources in developing countries. Instead of spending many years and millions of dollars to develop and maintain public sector management information systems such as a citizen registration database, human resource management system for the civil service, business registration; or an incident tracking system for the police, for instance, governments today have the opportunity to select such applications from cloud vendors. This is of course if government officials agree to adopt the workflow and processes built in the cloud service itself. This may be difficult at times, but cloud vendors are willing to localise and customise their services to clients’ needs. The technology piece in the case of cloud computing is the easy part. The more difficult part is the change of mindsets, of policies and regulations, and the development of relevant skills and competencies needed for cloud computing. Legislation may be a challenge: some countries require that national data to be hosted within the country itself.

Disclaimer: The author is Senior Operation Officer and Chair eDevelopment Thematic Group, The World Bank. Views and Ideas expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect World Bank Group policies, or those of World Bank Group’s Board of Directors’

January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

tech trend

It’s time for a beta All the e-Governance cogs have been put up; now the testing phase can’t be far away By Amit Chatterjee

he objective of e-Governance is to bring to citizens governance that is efficient, accountable, inclusive and reach out to all in a convenient and effective manner. e-Governance also eradicates corruption, one of the biggest monsters we battle in the country, by providing transparent governance. Given the recent spate of scandals, coupled with the fact that political parties are learning that good governance is good politics too, we see a definite trend moving towards greater emphasis on e-Governance. Business process re-engineering (BPR) and the use of ICT, two of the most important aspects of e-Governance, can bring around the much needed changes and improvisation in the way government functions and delivers services to its citizens. Banish the thought that e-Governance is only for governments. It cuts across all the fields, be it health, education, business, skill-building, ushering in an era of better services, better management and faster growth as a whole for the nation. This enables overall efficiency and these industries in particular are likely to strengthen their e-Governance initiatives. However, it is in the macro perspective where the average Indian citizen benefits, is where we will likely see maximum action. With the right structuring that has been put in place under the National eGovernance Plan (NeGP) in terms of integrated Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) and the various components like core infrastructure

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

(SDC, SWAN, CSCs), capacity building, awareness and assessment, along with the necessary operational guidelines and institutional framework, the foundation for the success of e-Governance has been laid. Fruits of this will be realised in the subsequent years in incremental fashion. Further, the adoption of public private partnership (PPP) model will gather steam. The little progress made so far has ensured that the domain expertise of various government departments and its officials and the implementation and operational expertise of the private sector coming together is an effective way to achieve the desired results. So, what will be the five governance issues in 2011? • Putting the e-Governance service delivery framework, comprising infrastructural components like SDC, SWAN and CSCs, state portal and SSDGs to test by connecting all the pieces together, pretty much like a jigsaw puzzle, to deliver services to citizens in a manner that is scalable, repeatable and inter-operable. • Ensuring timely completion of infrastructure pieces so that other e-Governance projects banking on the availability of those pieces could go as per schedule. The focus should be not just on completion of these infrastructure projects, but on seeing to it that they are operationally sound. • Making CSCs self-sustainable, so that their desired objective of extending the reach of government services to the common man is not just a touch-and-go affair, but a permanent fixture. • Speeding up service delivery through faster

execution and better monitoring and management of timelines, resources and escalation mechanisms. The government is currently developing a strategy for extending the current infrastructure and bringing in cloud technologies so as to achieve the ultimate outcome of offering service to various government departments for quickly rolling out their individual department’s applications and services. • Ensuring inter-operability and adherence to the standards and guidelines being rolled out. In the absence of the same, even the successful e-Governance projects will remain in silos and the ultimate goal of e-Governance will fall short of expectations. The need is to create a comprehensive and integrated service delivery management framework to carry out SLA management, reporting and monitoring. We do, however, need to appreciate that e-Governance is not a one-year issue. It is something that will roll on and strengthen over time. In the light of this it makes sense to share a broader vision. With the various pieces of the jigsaw puzzle put together and with appropriate processes, policies and technologies in place to take care of any exigencies, it can be ensured that services are delivered to citizens and other stakeholders at the desired service levels.

the author is Managing Director, CA Technologies (India)

national conference on ict in Public safety & security April, 2011 The Claridges, New Delhi

securing citizens through technology 1 01 t2

• Access Control & Identity Management • Critical Infrastructure Security & Control • Cyber Security & Internet Governance

• Disaster Management & Recovery

01 t2

• Emergency Response System • Fraud Detection & Mitigation

1 01 t2

e ur ec

r cu e s

1 s

01 t2

t ei

r cu se

01 t2

• Homeland Safety & Border Security

r cu e s

Presented By

Partner Publications

re cu e s

Target Audience

Focus Areas

r cu e s

Supporting Partner

• Senior Officers from Key Government Defence Establishments • Heads of Police Departments & Intelligence Agencies • Security Experts & Defence Analysts • Technology Providers & Suppliers

Organised By

For Sponsorship enquiries: Debabrata Ray, Email: sales@elets.in, Mob: +91-9899650692 For Programme enquiries: events@elets.in

www.secure-IT.in

in person

Debraj Dam

Vice President—Strategic Business and Partner Alliance, Digilink

“Many old

installations would be revamped this year to support new apps”

hat were the trends in network and structured cabling in 2010 and what is expected in 2011?

Digilink is a well recognised brand in the structured cabling market, and provides an entire range of structured cabling solutions for enterprises and small and medium business. Its basket of offerings also includes the indigenously designed and developed VoIP and suite of Layer 3 products to suit the unique characteristics of various markets. Debraj Dam, Vice President— Strategic Business and Partner Alliance, Digilink, speaks to Prachi Shirur of eGov magazine on trends in the Indian networking and structured cabling market and how the company is addressing the government segment in the country.

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

Calendar year 2010 started with a big change in the cabling domain, after the new standard ANSI/EIA/TIA 568-C.0 was ratified in June 2009. The use of lower bandwidth (10/100Mbps) cabling got replaced by 1G and 10G Ethernet. Now, with IEEE working on the 40G and 100G Ethernet, cabling market is looking forward to have 40G and 100G in place. Most of the old installations supporting lower bandwidths are expected to be revamped this year with those supported newer and higher bandwidths as the applications are becoming more and more demanding. In terms of fibre, OM4 was introduced in 2010 but the market started looking for OM4 cables in the last quarter of the year and is expected to capture big share in the data centre market segment. Data center is one of the fastest growing segments in today’s ICT technology space. It is generally believed that data creation and retention requirements in large enterprises are growing at 50 percent per year. This growth is due to a multitude of legislative and financial agreements in the United States and other

countries. These are dictating how much information must be stored, how it is stored, and for how long. For example, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires publicly held companies with a market capitalisation greater than $75 million to retain documents related to financial statements for seven years, effectively requiring top management to sign for the financial accuracy of the company’s annual reports, and being held accountable for the practices and procedures in their IT departments. The new Rule 17a of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) establishes strict requirements for brokerages and stock exchange members. Under the new rule, a six-year retention period is required for transactions, e-mails and instant messages. These and other laws and international agreements have fuelled the growth in the network and structured cabling market.

How big is the global networking and cabling market and what are the figures for India? The global networking market is very huge and India’s share is very small, but in recent years we have observed that India’s share is increasing day by day. The increasing requirement of bandwidth, along with the office automation to be in line with world standards, has led to the market growth for SCS. The traditional way of crimping the cables is outdated as the industries are getting more updated with the tech-

in person

nical advancement in all sectors. People today realise the importance of channel performance and look forward to structured cabling solutions. Large corporates and governments have taken a major lead by investing money in the ICT sector and in the modernisation of existing and other critical national infrastructure projects. In India, our yearly financial budget is also encouraging for industrial growth which in turn improves the SCS growth in terms of both volume and value in the market. The structured cabling market is expected to be around Rs 1,400 crore in the year as per the IDC report, which indicates a growth of approx 15-18 percent over the last year. Digilink emerges as the product leader in the India structured cabling market and prominent player in global market this financial year due to the increasing demand for emerging new standards and technologies in the cabling industry. Many enterprise and campus networks and data centres are in the planning stage, which again are expected to be active in the early half of the calendar year and will boost the market share.

What is the USP of Digilink’s cabling solutions? How did Digilink fare in 2010? With globalisation, the industry is more conscious about the quality and performance of products with respect to their requirements. In order to satisfy the customer, it is the prerequisite to match their quality expectation. We are one of the prominent players in the market with Future First technology, quality, performance, support and total cost of ownership. Digilink’s complete end-to-end solution with best quality products, 10 years of product warranty and performance and product warranty of 25 years after site certification gives an edge in winning the customers’ mind share.

Our products include TG800, TG500, G600 and E400 in copper; OP∞, OP3 and OP2 in fibre; and trunk cable assemblies, MPO connectors, fibre management solution in data centre segment. We offer high-density aluminium die cast patch panels. Our residential cabling solutions have cable specially designed for residents, face plate to match home decor, data connectors for electrical plates and customised IMD face plates. Further, there is the fifth generation future ready intelligent physical layer management hardware solution and sixth generation of software. There are also patchless solutions for communication room in copper, including CAT6A or 10G. In terms of standardisation, we always take care that we provide the market with latest standard and set a benchmark for all. In this regard, we always keep spending on research

today provides complete range of products for structured cabling products and systems. We are among the first to start green initiative in the SCS industry in India to provide superior quality products with RoHS compliance which can improve our customers’ network life cycle. It will help the customer for better RoI through device preservation and network efficiency. It will also help us as an OEM manufacturer to recycle the technology products by re-manufacturing.

What is your plan for covering the government market segment in India? Digilink is committed to be an integral part of the central government’s NeGP initiative under 27 MMPs and other central and state government projects to provide green products

“Crimping of the cables is

outdated. People today realise the importance of channel performance and look forward to new cabling solutions”

and development for our products. We always get our products tested by globally renowned third party agencies like UL and ETL to match the latest international standards.

Digilink recently became the first manufacturer of networking solutions to achieve compliance with a new international carbon footprint standard. Please tell us more about your green initiatives. Being the only Indian manufacturer, Digilink

to save energy, increase efficiency and quality of the network life cycle and hence improve the connectivity of public utilities to citizens and different government departments in the center as well as in states. It helps the government in improving network efficiency, business productivity, e-Governance and multi-channel service delivery. We are working very closely in partnership with key stakeholders in different central and state government agencies. Our products are in line with the go green India initiative.

Thought bytes On ICT usage in agriculture: The great challenge in agriculture is the mobilisation of frontier technologies for improving the productivity, profitability and stability of small-farm agriculture. Among the frontier technologies, ICT is extremely important since it is a transformational technology. We will be able to attract and retain educated young women and men in farming, only if farming becomes intellectually stimulating and economically rewarding. It is in this context ICT plays a very critical role. On tech trend: The technology trend during 2010 was good. There was a greater spread of ICT as well as space and renewable energy technologies. I feel that in the coming years of this decade we will see technological leapfrogging in rural India, thereby ending the urban-rural digital, technology and gender divides.

MS Swaminathan Chairman, MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, and Agriculture Scientist and Member, National Innovation Council

January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

special feature

cisco

Give defence the power of IP Secure IP networks can bring high degree of synchronisation among armed forces and boost their ability to act and strike By Sandeep Raina

ur defence and military are our national pride and receive significant attention. Yet, investments in defence and security find their way to

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

weapon systems rather than to platforms for collaboration that can bring transformational changes and improve overall defence capabilities. This tends to leave defence systems stuck

in a cycle of upgrading their weaponry without gaining much synergy. The most glaring impediments to growth have always been cultural and bureaucratic

conflicts and budgetary constraints, a lack of long-term commitment or foresight, pre-existing procurement commitments, and institutional biases for legacy systems over transformational ones. Overall, the transformation that is essential is viewed as challenging, expensive and threatening to the existing system. As a result, most of the military is merely modernising, not transforming their organisations. However, despite these obstacles, armed forces can achieve true transformation without increasing costs or sacrificing on purchase of new weaponry, through investment in robust, mission-critical Internet Protocol (IP)-based networks. True transformation can be achieved by providing a robust IP network, enabling seamless, highly-secure communications across different

cisco

special feature

These networks can also promote interoperability between allies or coalition forces, especially in disaster relief and humanitarian missions

branches of the military. This concept is gaining importance across armed forces all around the world. By developing and leveraging IT and the network, the military can increase its precision. The result is higher speed of command, tempo of operations, competency and enhanced survivability. The effect is described as self-synchronised battlefield operation, which paralyses the enemy and hampers their ability to react by dominating the Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA) loop. In addition to the benefit of improved military operations described above, there is a lesser known, but perhaps more critical benefit, of network-centric transformation. Maintaining essential information will help enhance security and predict or prevent enemy attacks. With information

available over a network, decision makers are able to cope better with fog and friction. IP networks can also promote interoperability between allies or coalition forces, especially in disaster relief and humanitarian missions.

Unlocking value During an earlier conversation with a military officer, I learnt how procurement of four utility helicopters helped in the war against enemy troops. In retrospect, these helicopters could also have been detailed as excellent airborne sensors, capable of providing vital information like images or video to the tactical and strategic headquarters. If they were also fitted with rockets or guided missiles, they could function as light attack helicopters with some level of precision-strike-capability, in

collaboration with troops on the ground. However, military budgets are a constraint and the absence of a network proves to be a barrier to such an undertaking. Increasingly, countries worldwide are realising the need to bring about transformational change. With channeled investments, the right technology and well-trained people, they can embark on a transformational effort. Given the importance of IT infrastructure in defence, we must invest in leveraging advancements in sensor and information processing technologies to improve the deployment of existing legacy weapon platforms. Imagine the benefits to our armed forces when all their information runs on IP networks equipped with unified communications; when it is supported

by data centres and by planned business continuity and disaster recovery facilities; and is secured with best-of-breed network security protocols. A network of this kind will also help connect various government bodies with defence agencies, and closely link them with civil security. Better collaboration amongst defence and civil agencies drives more informed formulation of national security policies. I believe that incorporating scalable IP network in the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s defence strategy will only better current defence operations.

the author

is Sr. VP - Govt & Defence, Cisco India and SAARC

January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

February 5, 2011 The Claridges, New Delhi

exploring frontiers of

technology in higher education.. Target Audience Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors of leading universities Principals, Directors, and Deans of colleges and higher education institutions Academicians and Education experts Policy makers from central and state education departments Education technology vendors and solution providers

Discussion Topics Technology road map for higher education Institutions Role of technology in improving academic quality Smart class rooms and smart campuses Online assessment tools and associated technologies Virtual learning environments Distance education and remote learning Key Speakers

Prof S S Mantha

Dr Girdhar J Gyani

Sharda Prasad

Dr S S Jena

Shakila Shamsu

Chairman (Acting), AICTE

Secretary General, Quality Council of India

Director General, DGET, Ministry of Labour and Employment

Chairman, NIOS

Joint Adviser (Education), Planning Commission

Prof V N R Pillai

Prof S K Jain

Dr Devi Singh

Vice Chancellor, IGNOU

Director, IIT Gandhinagar

Director, IIM Lucknow

Dr B B Bhattacharya

Dr Kripa Shankar

Vice Chancellor, JNU

Vice Chancellor, GBTU

many more...

Organisers

Presenting Publication

Knowledge Partner

Supporting Partner

For programme enquiries: Sheena Joseph, Email: sheena@digitalLEARNING.in, Mob: +91-9971841718 For sponsorship enquiries: Fahim Haq, Email: fahim@elets.in, Mob: +91-9873277808

www.digitalLEARNING.in/highereducationsummit

tech trend

A green revolution is coming? With IT solutions that optimise business and customer processes, we could soon be seeing onset of smart utilities

he power utility industry in India has taken keen interest in delivering new efficiencies in business processes, customer relationships and partnerships. Adoption of technology in power sector has enabled power companies, through optimisation of resources, to help boost productivity in every sphere of business. Today, comprehensive set of software, technologies, and services tailored to help government improve operations are available. Likewise, there is availability of deep industry expertise and experience in enabling power industries in India be sustainable, collaborative, and energy efficient. The solutions can enable organisations to optimise key end-to-end business processes and achieve key business goals that can bring in maximum energy efficiency with energy capital management processes for optimising energy portfolios and smart master data integration. Other benefits include financial excellence through processes optimised for financial performance management; highperforming assets with processes optimised for enterprise asset management; and operational excellence with processes optimised for operations management. A key trend seen in the power sector in the year 2010 was enhancing of operation efficiencies through the R-APDRP program. The key objective of the R-APDRP program is to reduce the aggregate technical and commercial losses through strengthening and up-grading sub

By Mathew Thomas

transmission and distribution networks, and adoption of information technology for establishment of baseline data for energy accounting and fixation of accountability. The year ahead is expected to see a revolution in the power industry with this new initiative. Some of the organisations to watch for are: • Maharashtra State Power Generation Co. Ltd (MAHAGENCO): It is standardising business processes and optimising energy and natural resource efficiency in order to improve profitability and deliver better energy for the residents of Maharashtra. • Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Distribution & Generation company: The company is furthering its mission to provide uninterrupted, reliable and quality power supply around the clock and throughout the year to all its customers, as well as make HP ‘a hydro power state’ • West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (WBSEDCL): It has a complete business integration done through ERP application that covers accounting, human resources, stores and, project management functions as well. Going forward, some of the key trends that are expected to pick up are: • System strengthening: Increased investment in technologies and tools across the energy value chain to improve energy and operational efficiency will be one of the major game changers. Sustained emphasis will be on improving the current systems and business processes such as billing and collections, ERP,

metering and infrastructure, grievance handling and services. Improved efforts to reduce cost will drive changes in business processes, IT functionality requirements, and IT spending. Wider use of communication and control technologies will further drive the creation of smarter grids. Utilities will continue to pursue strategies focusing on operational excellence and improving business processes. • Regulatory uncertainties: Regulators will significantly influence utilities calling for greater disclosure and stricter compliance. Regulatory forces shall be in areas of reliability, unbundling of distribution and ultra mega generation projects, distribution open access and policy changes. Climate change regulation will increase adoption of new energy technologies, including more expensive renewable and nuclear generation. Emphasis on reliability will lead towards adoption of smarter-grid initiatives and enterprise-wide software solutions. • Customer management: Utilities will look for ways to service customers in a more cost effective manner. With changing customer needs and purchase behaviours, they will offer more rate choices. IT investment is expected to increase in areas like dynamic pricing, advanced metering system, outage management, CRM, analytics and meter-to-cash solutions..

the author is Vice-President—Strategic Industries, SAP India Subcontinent

January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

state update

karnataka

MN Vidyashankar

Principal Secretary, e-Governance Department, Government of Karnataka

“Right to Information project will be fully operational in Karnataka from April 2011”

hat is the progress on implementation of State Mission Mode Project (MMPs) in Karnataka?

Karnataka has been way ahead in implementing Mission Mode projects, well before Government of India formulated MMPs. The land records project Bhoomi, the treasury project Khazane, the stamps and registration project Kaveri and the municipal property tax collection project Aasthi are some such examples. Besides, the revenue department’s UPRO project for Accurate Updated Ownership Records of urban area was implemented in the state quite ahead of others. In addition, Karnataka launched several new projects at its departments, including Rural Development and Panchayath Raj, Panchathantra, which deals with the computerisation of gram panchayaths; Commercial Tax department’s e-Sugam which deals with collection of commercial taxes; Transport Department’s Smart Card project; and Police Department’s Intelligent Traffic Management and Enforcement project.

MN Vidyashankar is an Indian Administrative Service Officer of 1982 batch and has served in different departments in the State Government of Karnataka. He is currently working as Principal Secretary, e-Governance Department, Government of Karnataka. In an interview with Prachi Shirur of eGov, MN Vidyashankar talks about the state’s progress in e-Governance in the year gone by and the plans for the coming year.

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

What have been the state’s key achievements in implementing e-Governance projects in G2C, G2B, G2G categories in 2010? One of the key achievements is the rapid adoption of e-Procurement project in the government-to-business category by various state departments. The state government is making all its procurements transparently through electronic media, under this project. Even though it started in six establishments on a pilot basis, during the last two-and-a-half years, this scheme had been extended to 86 departments, by the end of November 2010. Procurement to the tune of `47,000 crore is made through this platform. As the platform has encouraged competitive spirit among the bidders, increased participation resulting in savings of more than 10 percent. With this, the expenditure for the state exchequer got reduced by `4,700 crore. As it is a Web-based application, anybody can participate without any hindrance. As a result more than 10,000 users have registered for it. The project bagged Futuregov Award 2010 for best practices in Asia’s public sector during the year.

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Human Resource Management System (HRMS) comes second in the achievement list, in the government-to-government category. The project that started with assistance from World Bank has achieved increased progress during the last two-and-a-half years. About 19,200 drawing and disbursing officers are able to disburse the salaries to government officials working under their control using the electronic media. Besides, the service registers of all the employees have also been updated. Because of this, government employees who are retiring will be receiving their retirement benefits on the day of retirement itself in the days to come. This scheme has been extended to several corporations and boards. The Government of Andhra Pradesh is in consultation with the Karnataka State Government for implementing this scheme. Serving as the front end for the delivery of services in the government-to-citizen and government-to-business categories, Bangalore One is another project that was started with an idea of providing all the services under a single roof. With an intention of starting a center for each ward, 30 centres have started functioning, aggregating the total to 63 in the Bangalore city. The centres provides around 40 odd services like payment of all bills and revaluation of PUC marks. A transaction of `6 crore has taken place during this year. Bangalore One has won several awards and recently bagged ‘National Web Ratna 2009’award. Karnataka One is yet another key state project in the G2C and G2B categories. Chief Minister of Karnataka had inaugurated Shimoga One centre on heralding the Karnataka One Scheme on the model of Bangalore One centres. Continuing this tempo, 32 Karnataka One

centres have been established at tier 2 cities of the state covering Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum, Bellary, Mysore, Mangalore, Davanagere, Gulbarga and Tumkur. Inaugurated on October 8, 2010, Aadhar (UID) is a unique project which intends to give unique identity numbers to all the 6 crore

grid name state update

Under the Planning Department, in order to implement various plans and schemes of different departments in districts and talukas, information will be collected in a time frame through the Internet. A management information system (MIS) is also being developed. This project will come into force from April 2011.

“The rapid adoption of

e-Procurement project in the G2B category has reduced expenditure for the state exchequer by `4,700 crore” residents of the state. For the first time in the country two districts Mysore and Tumkur have been considered simultaneously for the project and 5 lakh residents have already been registered under this scheme. The response from the residents is highly encouraging. With the implementation of this scheme, it is expected that public services will reach those for whom these are intended, in the most systematic manner.

What programmes and projects will be the focus of your state in 2011? Among many others, the Right to Information project is being implemented with an intention of furnishing the information to citizens, who can apply for the same under the RTI Act through call centres or Bangalore One and Karnataka One centres or the state web portal. The project will be fully operational from April 2011.

Then there is State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG). The main intention of this project is to provide anywhere and everywhere services to citizens. All services and forms will be made available through the Internet to citizens, avoiding their frequent trips to offices. An amount of `5 crore is provided for this project and it will come into force from June 2011. The Stamps and Registration Services project is to be executed by March 2011. Marriage certificates, encumbrance certificates and sale deeds will be made available to the public through Bangalore One centres electronically. Around eight lakh records have been computerised for this purpose. Coming into effect from June 2011, the Karnataka Residents Data Hub project intends to have the consolidated information of all the citizens who are availing these benefits. This will help the government in evaluating not only the progress of the project but also extending the benefits to the real beneficiaries.

Thought bytes On trends in e-Governance and education: Use of mobile phones as delivery platform, with mobile banking and mobile trading permitted by RBI in November, and the National Knowledge Network (NKN) are the key technology inductions in e-Governance and education in 2010 in India. Globally, it is the ‘cloud’ adoption On technology in the coming years: It will be more pronounced, particularly, the widespread availability of smart phones and tablets (with apps showing up everywhere) and the cloud adoption will change software production, delivery and consumption significantly. Software production will be possible even for non-programmers, software delivery will shift more and more to the cloud (away from shrink-wrapped software) and software consumption will be through information appliances (tablets, smart phones and e-books) rather than being PC-centric.

Prof S Sadagopan Founder Director, International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Bangalore

January 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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Shubhendu Parth Managing Editor eGov

Caution—cyber missiles are coming!

The threat potential of Stuxnetlike malware hitting and crippling industrial plants and utilities is very high for India

n February 2010 when International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors were busy preparing the quarterly report on Iran’s nuclear program, it started registering a strange problem. The country had pulled the plug on about 1,000 of the 8,692 installed centrifuges at its Natanz plant. According to a December 23, 2010 report released by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), while Iran’s centrifuges are known to break and to be replaced frequently, the pace of breakage in February 2010 exceeded expectations and occurred during an extended period of relatively poor centrifuge performance. By mid-November, Iran was forced to temporarily halt the enrichment process at Natanz due to widespread fluctuations in centrifuge operations, the ISIS report reveals. While the country continued to avoid talking about the issue throughout 2010, the severity of the problem compelled the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by the end of November 2010 to admit that a computer virus

egov / www.egovonline.net / January 2011

had indeed caused problems with the controller handling the centrifuges at its Natanz facilities. This was Stuxnet, the new cyber weapon that goes beyond cyber espionage and denial-ofservice type of attacks against Web services and has the capability to cause real-world damage to physical assets. Stuxnet is a computer worm that is believed to be specifically written to attack Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems used to control and monitor industrial processes. Worse, it also has the capability to reprogram the programmable logic controller rootkit. Imagine the potential damage that perpetrators of malware like Stuxnet can cause by remotely taking over industrial operations and by making machinery open or close a valve of gas or water lines, increase or disrupt power supply to a particular grid, or cause a blast at a nuclear power plant, undetected by the plant’s operators because the virus manipulates the reporting dashboard to show that instructions are being followed. Strangely enough, while many countries are

pursuing Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) initiatives, with the US leading the pack with the proposed National Centre for Cybersecurity and Communications, or N Triple C, within the Department of Homeland Security, India is yet to wake up to the perils of the lack of it. While sources suggest that Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (ICERT) had recently held a meeting of all critical infrastructure stakeholders in the country, the country’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and its constituents—the National Disaster Response Force, National Disaster Mitigation Resource Centres, and National Institute of Disaster Management—are yet to be roped in. All this despite the fact that India is one of the top three countries infected by something that The Christian Science Monitor calls the world’s first known ‘cyber missile.’ The country also needs to remember that Stuxnet is possibly just the first highly visible sign of cyber warfare and as security firm Symantec warns, India, and the rest of the world, should be ready for additional attacks targeting critical infrastructure in 2011.

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