egov January 2013

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e-Governance

January 2013 | VOLUME 09 n ISSUE 01 n ISSN 0973-161X egov.eletsonline.com

Leaders congregate to develop

Blueprint for e-Governance in

2013

Event Report

eGov Magazine

IT agility. Your way.

Contents january second grid 2013

grid name

issue 1 n  volume 09

10

69

in person Uschi Schreiber

12

in person Rajiv Gauba

18

in person Ram Narain

19

in person Rene Baas

in person Piyush Somani

in person Michael Hay

28

in person Vijay Gupta

68 cloud computing

License Goes Online

70 updates

Review of Twelve Management Skills for Success

Event report

08 happy new year

Great Expectations for e-Governance in 2013

16

Urban Infrastructure

42 e-Governance is All

about Inclusive Growth

45

Integrated Systems are Needed

46

e-Governance Initiative of MoUD

Outcome, Outcome & Outcome

20 ICT in Railways

You’ve Got a Message

Taking Broadband to Panchayats

22 Digital Economy

50 Meeting the Demands

Policies

Issue of Internet Governance

24

40 Improving Education

ICT in Education

26 Software Industry

Promoting Software Industry in India

30 ict implementations e-Governance Challenges

34 Agriculture ICT

47

of the Public through e-Governance

51

IT is the Big Enabler for Inclusive Growth

52 Ensuring Seamless

Delivery of Railway Tickets

53-67 KEy sessions knowledge exchange

Managing the Health of Agricultural farms

32

in person K L Dhingra

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / January 2013

36 NOFN

the Gateway to Rural Development

further reading Editorial 05

Great Expectations from e-Governance in 2013

R

ecently, we had the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, asking the Centre to consider linking the Right to Public Service Act (RTPS) with e-Governance under centrally-sponsored schemes, and grant assistance to the states to provide basic services to the people under this provision. The Chief Minister was speaking at the launching of newly established ‘Common Service Centres.’ Such a provision can open doors for a new set of benefits to flow to the public.

The thing is that now every state government in the country has realised the importance of e-Governance, so the push for new initiatives has also started coming from the state level leaders. This is an indication of the fact that e-Governance has now attained a wide degree of acceptability. The process of evolution of e-Governance in the country has become even more democratised, as the demand for new initiatives is coming from the grassroots.

Progress in online delivery of services has continued through the year 2012. The government at the centre and in the states have put in place a number of e-Governance initiatives and ICT applications for further enhancing the public sector efficiencies and streamlining the governance systems for sustainable development. In 2013, further progress is expected.

The ICTs can only prove to be truly transformative in the governance space, when there is better awareness and understanding of their role in the achievement of sustainable development goals. Such awareness and understanding is particularly necessary among policy and decision makers. Those who are playing a key role in governance should have a view on the potential and risks involved in the use of ICTs within specific development settings. They must have the knowledge of the enabling environment required for the implementation of ICT solutions in areas like regulations, standards, financial, institutional and human resources, etc.

The eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012 was successfully held from 13th December, 2012 to 16th December, 2012 at Udaipur. The Knowledge Exchange was aimed at developing concrete recommendations for actions for development of more efficient e-Governance models. The event was attended by over 100 delegates, which included political leaders, officials, captains of private enterprises and thought leaders. The event contributed to a thorough exchange of information and experience between stakeholders who are engaged in developing better systems for e-Governance.

The current issue of the magazine has an in-depth coverage of the eGov Knowledge Exchange Forum. Through a range of interviews and articles written by key stakeholders in the e-Governance space, the January 2013 issue of the eGov magazine sheds light on the diverse ways by which ICT is being deployed for public benefit.

In February 2013, we are organising the SecureIT 2013 Conclave in New Delhi. This is a national conference on public safety, security and disaster management. Security is a key area for the success of e-Governance initiatives. The SecureIT 2013 will place spotlight on the need for securing electronic data, protecting privacy of individuals and guarding systems against unauthorised access. We hope that you will be there at SecureIT 2013 to contribute to the discussion on the new age cyber-security measures that we as a nation must have in place.

Email at subscription@elets.in to get previous issues

October2012

November2012

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December 2012

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january 2013 issue 1 n volume 09

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

Consulting Editor: Ashis Sanyal

Editorial Team governance Manager – Partnerships & Alliances: Manjushree Reddy Assistant Editor: Rachita Jha Research Assistant: Sunil Kumar Correspondent: Nayana Singh

Web Development & Information Management Team Team Lead - Web Development: Ishvinder Singh Executive – Information Management: Khabirul Islam

education Sr. Research Analyst: Sheena Joseph Senior Correspondent: Pragya Gupta

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

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

Information Technology Team Executive-IT Infrastructure: Zuber Ahmed

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / January 2013

predictions 2013

Predictions 2013

T

he research done by the International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that Indian business and corporate sectors are going to take a cautionary stance, while considering their ICT spending in 2013. Apart from priority investments in the hardware infrastructure, IDC predicts that strategies like geo expansion, mid-market focus, cloud enablement, and multi-channel enabled infrastructure will drive the top ten predictions for 2013.

If IT vendors need to change for more wins, they are to look for more mature domains.

They need to develop more service orientation, sophisticated value propositions and new pricing models. It is important to deliver with competitive cost structures and have a real understanding of their enterprise customers deeper than ever before.

On the other hand, in the emerging dimensions, IT vendors need to ‘stretch’: create infrastructure to serve customers in tier-III cities and beyond, change marketing messages to

a ‘growth partner’ orientation, expand their channels and alliances, add on capability to serve customers in emerging segments like retail and create product and service bouquets which can be easily consumed by the mid-market.

Ultimately, IT vendors need to change and stretch to continue winning in 2013 and beyond.

Business as usual simply won’t be good enough.

Four pillars of productivity The retail sector is now on a fast growth path.

Last year was noteworthy due to the rise of the customer centric CEO. The C-level conversation this year has morphed to a focus on weaving all aspects of the enterprise into omni-channel customer engagement. This is something that has been foreseen for the last several years.

The market is expected to evolve with the focus on optimisation and orchestration. This will create savings and consequent revenue growth of at least three percent.

The shift in manufacturing will be the move to creating a more productive enterprise. The

Top Ten Predictions for Indian

ICT market

• Multi-device multi-channel era, to dictate IT with a crossplatform support • Channel partner ecosystem will see a sizable rethinking to survive the blitz of Large format Resellers and e-tailers • Continued interest by IT vendors to target T2 and T3 cities would drive maturity and it in turn would resolve more complex solution needs • Telecom service providers will increasingly focus on customised data plans based on usage pattern analysis

8

• Enterprise applications and business processes will be moving on to the cloud with ability to link devices and users as needed • Business analytics will continue to be in the limelight and past and present investments of organisations will see greater interest level by business users • IT infrastructure management would start moving away from specialist management tools to integrated infrastructure management • Many enterprises that

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / January 2013

have been holding back on hardware and software investments will partially reopen their purse strings • Focus on Mid-market segment will become mainstream discussion with most large vendors (hardware, software, and client devices) making sizable investments to drive the mindshare • The interest in IP voice infrastructure and embedding IP voice into applications will drive need to clarify associated regulatory aspects

Avneesh Saxena, Group Vice President, IDC Asia Pacific

four pillars that would drive productivity in manufacturing organisations are social business, big data, cloud and mobility. The biggest trends expected in the energy sector will be on extended B2B networks, product optimisation, visibility and responsibility.

In the BFSI sector, new formats can breathe new life to branch out strategies, while investments in new channels would intensify.

Regulation might stifle Financial Services profitability unless Institutions are able to implement Enterprise Data Management strategies.

It is expected that the currently nascent community based (and not service led) banks will move to the clouds in the financial services industry. The cloud model will become the preferred system in cost conscious markets as it can strike a balance between lower operating costs and adequate service levels.

Institutions will demand significantly more from their analytics solutions to improve operational performance. As the opportunities unfold in 2013 for modernising risk management systems through a focus on 3rd platform technologies, risk officers and CIOs will see continuously higher capital spending and operational expenses associated with risk technologies and services..

happy new year

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Great Expectations for e-Governance in 2013

ions t c i d Pre 013 for 2

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / January 2013

e-Governance in India has celebrated a string of successes in 2012. Going from strength to strength on a robust ICT platform, many new initiatives in e-Governance have been launched and the existing initiatives have been further strengthened. 2012 saw the country moving closer to the goal of setting up more than 100,000 Common Service Centres. The work on National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) is on schedule and the idea of providing 100 Mbps Broadband connectivity to all the Gram Panchayats is likely to be achieved by the end of 2013. The government has also made a move towards creation of enabling framework for direct cash transfers to the account of deserving beneficiaries. The UIDAI has made significant progress in the year 2012 and many new e-Governance initiatives are expected to utilise the UIDAI in the year 2013.

A major achievement in the e-Governance space is the fact that electronic delivery of government services will soon acquire a statuary backing. In a number of states the Electronic Delivery of Services (EDS) rules have been notified. Model EDS rules have already been circulated. Some states have already notified these rules; others are in the process of doing so. This will make it mandatory for government departments to deliver services through the electronic mode. At the Centre also the EDS Bill has already been examined by the Standing Committee of the Parliament. Its recommendations have been received, have been processed and the revised bill could soon go to the parliament.

2013

promises to be another stellar year for e-Governance.

Happy New Year!

January 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

9

In Person

Uschi Schreiber

Managing Partner, Global Government & Public Sector Industry Centre, Ernst & Young (E&Y)

Challenges and Opportunities in e-Governance these include critical issues such as ageing population. These developed economies face the need of replacing outdated infrastructure. To add to this, there is the challenge of very short term political cycles which make it difficult to carry out longterm plans. We have witnessed our clients seeking new solutions to address tricky and difficult long term issues. There is also a third category of countries – the breakout of economies like Vietnam, Libya and Indonesia. Similar issues are being faced by these economies as well. These countries have to drive education, diversify the economy, encourage entrepreneurship and a create private sector market structures.

“I am touched by seeing the passion that technology arouses in people; this clearly indicates an awareness of the difference that technology will bring to their lives,” says Uschi Schreiber, in conversation with Nayana Singh

P

rovide us with an overview of the work that Ernst & Young (E&Y) is doing with governments worldwide.

E&Y works with government clients in several places. These clients belong to both developed economies as well as emerging markets. When it comes to emerging markets, the governments are facing the problems of poor infrastructure. The growing trends of urbanisation is the result of more jobs being available in urban areas. This is resulting in increasing demand for education, in such places. In the emerging markets, the governments are facing very long term issues. Some of

10

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / January 2013

What steps must government of India take to bring improvement in the investment climate in India?

The investors look for confidence and stability in the countries they are investing in. The Indian Government and the other governments of the emerging economies who are trying to attract investors must focus on building confidence and transparency.

How can technology make it easier for masses to access government services?

India has made great strides in using technology to bring government services to the masses.

There is a tremendous move to provide government services technologically. This is a drive to provide internet services to people throughout the country, through mobile technology. The true potential of such trend is yet to be fully understood. This trend might lead to creation of new apps, new jobs, and even whole new enterprises and entrepreneurial ideas, which are not yet heard of. These moves may be prevailing at many places of the world. In Indian context, it is being carried on an enormous scale. As such technologies are providing infor-

mation to people, they can also be vehicles to bring social change.

What is E&Y’s outlook on growth?

The forecasts that I am coming across, indicate that the breaks in economy would continue to persist. However, India’s future is bright. India’s huge labour-force will provide impetus for its growth. When this labour force is equipped technologically, they will lead to job creation not only within the nation, but globally as well.

You recently had E&Y Global Government Leaders conference in Mumbai. What are the key takeaways from the conference?

The conference has reinforced our belief in our strength globally and our efficiency of functioning in both government as well as in public sector. We have the most intelligent workforce and we work with the best clients. Through the conference we got to know that our clients are looking for some new solutions. Some solutions have become really outdated with the government. We are working with the governments as their partners to develop those solutions.

What are the key areas that central and stage governments in India should focus upon for bringing about inclusive growth?

As far as my observation goes, the governments are focusing on some of the key issues centred on education, skill development, Information Technology, citizen engagement in government initiatives and such transformational initiatives. The government and the industry should work hand in hand to develop solutions. E&Y wants to work shoulder to shoulder with the government for when it comes to implementation to Information Technology in order to bring about change.

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In Person

Rajiv Gauba

Additional Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DietY), Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India

new standards in e-Governance Rajiv Gauba is a 1982-batch IAS officer of Jharkhand Cadre.

He has more than 25 years of experience in Central and the State Governments, at the District level and in multilateral financial institutions. He has worked in the Ministry of Environment & Forests as Director in-Charge of Policy & Law. He has also worked in the International Monetary Fund for four years.

H

ow do you see the development of e-Governance ecosystem in the country?

e-Governance has already acquired considerable amount of momentum in the country. There is a healthy competition in the states to implement new e-Governance ideas in every area where there is an interface between citizens and the government. There is now a growing realisation in the government circles that the ability of the government departments to deliver is being acutely tested. There is so much pressure due to rising population and increase in the general expectations of the people that despite the best efforts, there is a mismatch between the capacity to deliver and the expectations. And this gap between the general expectations from the rising population and the capacity of the government to deliver can be bridged only through modern technology and e-Governance.

from other states. So now we are having many successful e-Governance projects getting replicated across different states. While implementing tried and tested applications, with some minor customisation, you can avoid the risk of creating something that might not be as useful as expected. For instance, there is the e-Pass project from Andhra Pradesh that is going to be implemented in a number of other states that have shown interest. Similarly the Human Resource Management, application developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), is being tried out and implemented in a number of states.

Is there a move being made to put the successful e-Governance projects on some kind of app store, from where the interested states can access them in an easy manner?

Precisely. We are working with the idea of creating an e-Governance app store. Different states will be able to access the app store and pick up the apps that are most suitable for the specific needs of their population.

Before becoming the Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Communications & IT, Rajiv Gauba served as the Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Environment & Forests.

Here he was looking after the work of Hazardous Substances Management Division and the National River Conservation Directorate

12

It is during the last five to seven years that e-Governance has really gathered momentum. Many new initiatives have been launched and have been well received by the public. Can you name some e-Governance projects that you think have brought maximum benefits?

The point is that different departments, states and ministries are involved in the creation of these e-Governance projects. Each of them has its own set of priorities and aims. Different e-Governance projects are serving different sections of the population and so it is not desirable that we compare them. Many states are doing exceedingly well in providing benefits to the common man through the electronic route. Now we are trying to encourage the states that rather than reinventing the wheel every time, they should try to replicate the successful models

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / January 2013

What kind of growth can we expect in e-Governance systems in the country?

Now e-Governance has acquired considerable amount of acceptability with the public and the governance circles. I see e-Governance as something that has now acquired a critical mass and in the coming years we can expect a quantum jump in the number of initiatives being launched. A larger proportion of services will be delivered through e-Governance systems. In the central ministries, a large number of e-Governance projects have already been implemented under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP); a number of other ministries are in the process of implementing their own e-Governance systems. e-Governance will gain even more momentum by the fact that it will soon acquire a statuary backing. In a number of states the Electronic Delivery of Services (EDS) rules have been notified.

Model EDS rules have already been circulated. Some

In Person

states have already notified these rules; others are in the process of doing so. This will make it mandatory for government departments to deliver services through the electronic mode.

At the Centre also the EDS Bill has already been examined by the Standing Committee of the Parliament. Its recommendations have been received, have been processed and the revised bill could soon go to the parliament.

The UIDAI project has now advanced across India and there is no doubt that this project will lead to the flowering of a large number of new e-Governance initiatives. But we have not yet been able to develop sufficient number of applications that will work on the Aadhaar based identification systems. What can we do to facilitate better usage of the UIDAI platform?

I would say that Aadhaar is now on its way to playing a central role in the delivery of services.

In fact, Aadhaar is going to be the mainstay behind the direct transfer of funds scheme. A number of pilot projects are also being tried in different states for using Aadhaar for providing benefits directly to the citizens. The Public Distribution System and many other departments will soon start making extensive usage of Aadhaar. There is no doubt that UIDAI is a very secure method of identifying the beneficiaries, but eventually it depends on the concerned ministries and departments to decide what method of identification they are going to use for their e-Governance systems.

Rajiv Gauba, Additional Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DietY), Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India

We have a substantial amount of digital divide in the country because of which educated people residing in urban areas are taking advantage of the e-Governance systems, while those living in rural areas are unable to do so. How do we ensure that the digitally illiterate sections of our population are also able to access the e-Governance initiatives?

You see, every citizen in the country has the right to receive better e-Governance facilities. It does not matter if he is educated and urban, or digitally illiterate and poor. Each and every citizen in the country must enjoy easy access to public services January 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

13

In Person

Vision for Year 2013 “Our vision for 2013 consists of successful implementation of the e-District project, successful implementation of pilot projects for taking advantage of NOFN project and the rapid replication of successful e-Governance projects”

conveniently, without having to run to various government departments. Whether he is living in rural area or in urban area, he must have access to the government services from his doorstep. This is the vision of the NeGP. However, I agree that those who are more affluent and have access to personal devices can take better advantage of e-Governance systems. And there is also the issue of digital illiteracy. All these issues need to be addressed and that is why the NeGP thought of the Common Service Centres (CSCs). Today the CSCs have spread all across the country. Currently we are having close to one lakh CSCs, and the idea is to gradually increase their number to 2.5 lakh, in which case we will have one CSC operating in every Panchayat in the country. So the CSCs are rendering digital services in the rural areas also. Of course, in rural areas we are also facing issues like connectivity, power supply, but these issues are also being addressed.

Some of the CSCs are not proving to be financially viable. There is lot of talk about increasing the scope of the services that are being provided by the CSCs. Please tell us about it.

Now under the new flagship programme, the e-District, the CSCs are going to play a very important role. Under e-District, the CSCs will become the front end for delivery of a very large volume of benefits and services. As far as the financial viability of the CSCs is concerned, I would say that it is a circle. If the CSCs render more services, they become more financially viable. It also depends upon how many essential services are being made available through them.

It depends on the back-end digitisation and the creation of other infrastructure by the state.

Once the CSCs become popular, they become viable also. Even in the project for direct transfer of financial benefits, it has been decided that the CSCs will be an important vehicle. Hence they are being appointed as Business Correspondents for such transactions. This can give them a new impetus and significantly improve their viability.

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Healthcare and education are the two areas of concern in the country. Many sections of our population find it difficult to access quality healthcare and education. What is your vision for improving these critical areas through the use of ICT? A lot of work is being done for improving the healthcare and education sector through the use of modern digital technologies. We have telemedicine in healthcare sector and digital education systems in education sector. Many states have already started using digital means to monitor the general healthcare parameters; they are using it to keep a track of the health of patients, of pregnant mothers, etc. Digital tools are also being used for distribution of medicines at subsidised rates or for free. Similarly, modern education is being revolutionised through the usage of modern technology. The payroll management of teachers, the monitoring of presence of teachers in classrooms located in remote areas or even the evaluation of the students is being done digitally.

What are the main challenges in the path of e-Governance in the country? How do you plan to overcome these challenges?

Of course, there are difficulties to be faced in everything that you do. Many of these initiatives require a dedicated team. But the departments where the e-Governance initiatives are being launched are already overburdened with existing work. So what we have felt is that unless there are dedicated mission teams and empowered mission leaders, the project implementation suffers. That is an important element; the other element is that of capacity building. The success of e-Governance is dependent upon the government officials in the department being fully comfortable with the digital technologies. These challenges are already well-recognised and a number of steps are being taken to encourage the creation of

dedicated teams and capacity building. A committee has recently been set up by the Hon’ble Prime Minister under Nandan Nilekani to look at the entire issue of creating a human resource for e-Governance projects.

The National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) is now being laid down to provide connectivity to all the panchayats in the country.

What kind of impact will this system have on e-Governance systems in the country?

NOFN is a very ambitious project, as it plans to connect all the 2,50,000 panchayats in the country through high-speed network. At present Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) connectivity is available in all state capitals, districts, headquarters and up to the block level. NOFN will achieve its objectives by utilising existing fibres of PSUs (BSNL, Railtel and Power Grid) and laying incremental fibre to connect to panchayats wherever necessary. Thus, connectivity gap between panchayats and blocks will be filled. Up to the panchayat level, we will be having high-speed broadband, but ultimately it will depend on the users to find out the ways by which this kind of connectivity is to be put to use. So it is the different Ministries and the States that will have to take advantage of the NOFN by providing services through a process of connecting all their offices to the panchayats. Currently, we are trying to demonstrate how this high-speed network can be put to good use through pilot projects, which are on in three states, namely – Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tripura. We are also trying to convince various state governments that by December 2013, when the NOFN is expected to be completed, they should have enough applications to take advantage of the high-speed connectivity to the panchayat level.

In a linguistically diverse country like India, many people find it difficult to access e-Governance systems, which are mostly in English. Should we be having laws to ensure that the e-Governance systems are also accessible in local languages?

Language is certainly a barrier for large sections of our population. There is a division in the Ministry that is currently looking at the issue and a lot of work is being done to ensure that the same services are also available in regional languages.

3

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Urban Infrastructure

e-Governance Initiative of MoUD PMIS Implementation for JnNURM The Government is striving to provide its services to the common man in an efficient, transparent and reliable manner. e-Governance is one of its major tools deployed for this task Dr A S Bhal, Economic Advisor, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India Prem Narayan, Director (JnNURM), Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India

A

mong the major e-Governance initiatives being implemented in Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) and in its various attached offices are e-Awas in Directorate of Estates, e-sewa in CPWD, e-dharti in Land and Development office and Project Management Information System (PMIS) for Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM). MoUD is also ensuring implementation of e-Governance across the country through its mandatory e-Governance reforms to be achieved for claiming funds for urban infrastructure projects under JnNURM. Under e-Governance reform, urban local bodies are ensuring online birth and death registration, property tax, accounting, water supply and utilities, citizens grievance redressal, personnel management system, building plan approval as well as procurement and monitoring of projects. This leads to transparency, better information management, improved service delivery and overall improvement in urban governance across departments at all levels. Implementation of PMIS by the Ministry has resulted in providing online and up-to-date information by the States and the Ministry, for management and monitoring of projects approved under JnNURM.

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Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM) was launched by the Government of India on 3rd December 2005, envisaging an investment of more than `1,00,000 crore during a period of seven years from 2005-06 to 2011-12 with a committed Central Government share of `66,000 crore. JnNURM is a reform driven, fast track programme to ensure planned development of identified cities with focus on efficiency in urban infrastructure/ service delivery mechanisms, and through community participation and enhanced accountability of ULBs/parastatal agencies towards citizens.

The programme has resulted in facilitating large scale investments in the urban sector and ushered, policy and institutional reforms, leading to sustainable socio-economic growth in the cities.

The programme focuses, higher level of resources and management attention to 65 select cities across the country. 35 cities with million plus population, other State capitals and cities of heritage and tourism importance comprise the 65 Mission cities under Urban Infrastructure & Governance (UIG). The other towns of 31 States/UTs are eligible for funding under the Urban Infrastructure Development for Small and Medium Towns Scheme (UIDSSMT).

551 projects at a total cost of `61,905 crore have been sanctioned under the UIG for 65 Mission

Dr A S Bhal & Prem Narayan

cities across the country. The Additional Central Assistance committed by the GoI towards meeting the central share of the total project cost is `28,590 crore. There are 807 projects sanctioned under UIDSSMT at a total cost of `14,021 crore for 672 small & medium towns. 166 projects under UIG and 269 projects under UIDSSMT have been completed and have resulted in improved service delivery to citizens.

Prior to launch of the JnNURM Scheme in Dec 2005, only four out of 65 Mission cities had implemented e-Governance modules and now 37 Mission cities have implemented e-Governance reform by the end of 2012. The remaining 28 cities are making efforts to complete this reform shortly. The process of e-Governance reform implementation in mission cities has been steady. Cities like, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pimpri-Chinchwad have successfully implemented more than committed (8) modules.

Urban Infrastructure

Some of the metro cities have gone ahead and adopted innovative approaches in e-Governance. For instance, there is auto SMS to citizens on complaints in Hyderabad, global positioning system device on SWD vehicles in Indore and Biometric attendance system for municipal employees in Hyderabad and Madras.

Process flow of PMIS The PMIS Website ensures step by step process flow right from detailed project report (DPR) submission, State Level Nodal Agency (SLNA) appraisal, project approval by SLSC and approval by the Ministry. SLNAs are submitting utilisation certificates as well as Quarterly Progress Reports (QPRs) on-line for Ministry to take appropriate action for release of subsequent instalment to the States. SLNA are uploading the completion certificate on the PMIS website once the project is completed.

In the process of PMIS development, the responsibility of State/ ULB includes registration of ULB, submission of Detailed Projects Report (DPRs), appraisal of DPRs, submission of Utilisation Certificate and QPRs and completion certificates. The Ministry of Urban Development is responsible for further appraisal of SLSC approved DPR through its technical wings, disbursement of Additional Central Assistance (ACA) and incentives. On release of

Project Management Information System (PMIS) The PMIS system has been implemented to achieve the following objectives:• To provide online and up-to-date information for management and monitoring of projects by the JnNURM Directorate, MoUD • To allow JnNURM Directorate and TCPO: • To update status of the projects with respect to appraisal and approval.

• To update data in respect of funds sanctioned and released.

• To upload Sanction Orders and Release Orders.

• To allow SLNAs to enter data for projects of all ULBs under their control and monitoring.

• To allow SLNAs to submit DPR, UCs and QPRs online for release of funds and project monitoring

Project ID Nomenclature For the ease of understanding, the facility of online generation of alpha-numeric project ID has been created and project ID is generated once the project is approved online by the Ministry. Project ID contains first two digits for the State code, next two digits for the District code, next two digits represent ULB code of the District, next is the Urban Sector code, next three digits represent running Sl.No. under the particular Urban Sector. For example, project ID UP/10/01/ SWM/018 is for a project in the State of U.P under sold waste management sector.

Uploading of Documents on PMIS On utilisation of 70 percent funds and completion of urban sector reforms, the utilisation certificate submitted online by the SLNA is processed for release of subsequent installment and sanction letter is sent to the Ministry of Finance. On release of the

installment by the MoF release order is uploaded on the PMIS website for information of the SLNA, which can then withdraw funds from the State exchequer for further implementation of the project.

Management Information System (MIS) MIS link provided on PMIS website has further links – (i) Project at a Glance (ii) Details of ACA Released and (iii) Registered States and Users.

On navigation of project at a glance link, information can be retrieved on State-wise and Sector-wise Status of projects showing number of projects, number of projects completed, approved cost, total ACA and ACA released as well as project status – completed / in progress. On further drilling down on this page, Summary Sheet of individual project and ULB is retrieved. The facility of retrieving release order of the MoF and completion certificate on clicking on the

links instalment date and completion respectively exits.

Under the link – Details of ACA Released, financial information for a particular State, particular sector for particular financial year is available.

Multiple options for choosing financial year(s), State, Sector, Project Status, etc., can be exercised to have desired information required for dealing with matters relating to Parliament Questions, VIP references, etc.

Online Generation of UC & QPR QPRs are generated online by the SLNA that shows the extent of funds utilised, Stage-wise project implementation including percentage of progress by end of every quarter. The QPR also provides information on progress of all 23 reforms at ULB level, State level as well as optional level reforms. The reform achievement determines further release of instalment to the State by the Centre.

instalment, MoUD updates the States on PMIS along with scanned copy of release order issued

by Ministry of Finance (MoF), Department of Expenditure so that SLNA may utilise the funds for implementation of projects.

mouse is brought on that particular sector. The overall summary of UIDSSMT is automatically displayed once the mouse is brought on the circle in the centre.

Special features in PMIS

PMIS has brought transparency and speed in the urban infrastructure project management and monitoring at the State and Central level.

The availability of the documents on funds releases by MoF and completion certificate by the States could be ensured to the fullest extent.

Information could be extracted from the MIS for smooth handling of Parliament Questions/ VIP references, etc. Data analysis on funds releases, project completion and for the purpose of future line of action relating to approval of new projects, optimum utilisation of funds, etc., is possible with the help of PMIS. Comparison of States based on completion of projects as well as utilisation of funds can also be done with the help of PMIS. This IT enabled tool is thus facilitating smoother and more efficient implementation and monitoring of JnNURM.

PMIS allows the users i.e. officials from MoUD, TCPO, officials of SLNA to easily access and use the website. Online user guide is available on the home page of the website so that the users may understand the process flow and smooth navigation of the website. The homepage has the facility for user to register on-line by creating his user id and password for further access to the PMIS website. The facilities of forgotten password, transaction history as well as helpdesk are also available on the home page for user friendly application of the website.

A special feature has been created on the home page so that the summary of No. of projects sanctioned under the sector, No. of projects completed, approved cost, ACA committed and ACA released is displayed in a box once the

Conclusion

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In Person

Ram Narain

Deputy Director General (Security), Department of Telecommunications, Government of India

Securing the telecom network should be part of the policy and they should take all measures in respect of these activities. We have also asked all the telecom service providers to conduct security audit for their telecom network.

These days people are using tablets, laptops, notebooks and mobile phones to log into the telecom networks and do their work. While such proliferation of devices is leading to more productivity, it might also be making the network vulnerable.

How do you tackle this problem?

Ram Narain talks about the security related issues in the telecom sector

G

ive us an overview of the policies that the department has developed to take care of the security related challenges in the telecom sector?

The most critical issue from the security aspect of the telecom infrastructure is reflected in our 31st May 2011 guidelines issued to All Unified Service Licensees. The guidelines state that the Licensee shall be completely and totally responsible for security of their networks. The network elements have to be security tested as per the international standards. From 1st April 2013, they have to be work certified by labs located in India. The licensees need to have the organisational policy on security and security management of their networks. Network forensics, network hardening, network penetration test, risk assessment, actions to fix problems and to prevent such problems from recurring, etc.,

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It is difficult to regulate so many devices as the numbers are too vast. Some kind of standardisation of devices and equipments is required. If only the devices and equipments that have been tested as per the existing standards are being used by the people, it will greatly contribute to the safety and security. If people are using security checked devices, they will also be in a better position to safeguard their private information and data. The security of the telecom infrastructure is dependent on the cooperation that is received from the people, who are the end users of the system. People need to understand that if the network security is at risk, even their own information and data can be at risk. So they should only use devices and systems that have been properly audited for security.

How do you go about developing the procedure for security auditing devices and software?

By the time you develop the procedure for one set of devices, the same might become obsolete.

The world of technology is changing at a very fast pace.

This is true. This is an ever growing game. The security has to keep evolving with the technology.

I would also like to point out that absolute security

is a utopian concept. It cannot be achieved; even the most sophisticated security system can be breached. But that does not mean that we need not take adequate measures to secure our infrastructure. We have to try our best to optimise the security so that we are in a position of guarding the network against the existing threats. You never know in this world who might attack the network.

It can be a random hacker, who wants to penetrate a network and prove his prowess, it can be an anti-social element, and it can even be a state actor.

There can be stealing of information, blocking of information or even the telecom network might come under attack. The Department of Telecom has evolved guidelines to cover all these areas.

If you have too much of security, you run the risk of slowing down the system. The connectivity can be slower. The implementation of new technology might get delayed, if the process of vetting the new technology becomes cumbersome. How to you address these concerns?

It is not necessary that things should get slowed down while we are addressing the security related concerns. For instance, if you are using safe devices and placing safe infrastructure in the network, it is only a one time exercise. You don’t need to change your systems frequently. Only at the time of installation or at the time of security audit, you need to run a few tests. This does not slow down the system as such. But there can be certain type of security measures that might take longer time to execute. An example of that is the new set of guidelines that have been issued for proper identification of those who are purchasing new SIM cards. You will agree that proper identification of telecom users is necessary. What you ultimately need is a healthy balance between the needs for speed and security.

In Person

Rene Baas

Senior Vice President, Strategic Sales Engagements for AtoS

“We are Aiming Very High in India” city. AtoS has also developed solutions for defence. Our solutions work by integrating infrastructure solutions, they lead to standardisation, and harmonisation. We are doing this in Germany, Netherlands and now, also in France and Belgium.

With its rising population, India is in need of modern urban solutions? What kind of role can AtoS play in India?

Rene Baas currently leads the company’s Strategic Sales Engagement teams worldwide.

In this interview with Nikita Apraj, ENN, Rene Bass talks about the plans that AtoS has for the Indian market

P

lease provide us with an overview of the key focus areas for AtoS.

Public sector is one of major five markets for AtoS. In UK, AtoS is helping Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Justice to fully integrate their IT services and thereby bring about improvements in productivity and efficiency. We are also doing similar works with governments of France and Netherlands. AtoS provides solutions to develop smart cities. We also work in areas like security to make life of citizens more secure. In USA, we have large engagement with the city of San Diego where we have implemented Smart City solutions; these are fully integrated IT solutions for the

In India, we look forward to using our experience across the world. Indian public sector is in need of better infrastructure. We are also focusing on the development of solutions for e-Governance. There are good opportunities in smart city segment with respect to transportation and security as well. India is already providing better security to the people residing in its wide geographical area. We can contribute by developing solutions for better governance and security. We also see the possibility of working for India’s Ministry of Defence.

How does the Indian market compare with the public sector market in other countries where AtoS is providing its solutions?

If I compare Indian market with the European and UK market, I see lot many similarities in terms of public need of solutions. However, India is a very large and complex country; the decision-making process here is very different from what we have in other international markets. UK is the largest public sector business for AtoS. We are currently trying to identify sweet spots in India where we can bring in replication in the initial stages.

Please provide us with your ideas on the business strategy that AtoS will be following in India?

We have long-term strategy and short-term strategy. In short-term strategy we are looking

at e-Governance initiatives like e-Municipalities, e-Districts and other new upcoming projects. We have implemented e-Municipality projects in the MCGM few years back. We are one of the early entrants in the government market. In collaboration with our partners and also by making use of our own expertise, we will penetrate into Indian market. We are very focused on the e-Governance sector. AtoS has a large bouquet of offerings, so there is a lot that we can bring to the e-Governance vertical. We have large expertise globally in the fields of civil and national security, emergency management, traffic management among others and we are trying to leverage all that in India. Our strategy will be to implement solutions that we have developed in different parts of the world.

What key areas of investment has AtoS outlined for India in the coming years?

In India we are focusing on five major areas - public health enterprise, financial services, energy, media and technology services. India is a very interesting market and we are keen to make a mark here.

AtoS is setting up a new Innovation Centre in Pune.

What role will it play in AtoS product portfolio India and global markets?

The Innovation Centre in Pune will play a very important role for AtoS. The centre reflects the importance that AtoS gives to innovation.

The Innovation Centre has been set up in association with Siemens. The new campus in Pune will also serve as the Indian headquarter of AtoS. We consider this place to be a sort of innovation hub of new solutions for areas like smart grid solutions, community-enabled services, business delivery solutions, enterprise community solutions like zero-mail. We are aiming very high in India.

January 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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ICT in Railways

You’ve Got a Message

The IRCTC is coming up with SMS Ticket—a new Internetfree technology—that will enable travellers to book tickets by sending an SMS to IRCTC and the ticket fare shall be directly debited by the telecom operator Monalisa, ENN

I

t’s a step that will enable you to book your railway ticket from anywhere and anytime – while travelling or holidaying, in between meetings or even when you have no access to the Internet – as long as you have a handset. A simple text message sent from your mobile phone will get your railway ticket booked and free you from the hassles of endless wait at jammed websites or hung systems. The confirmation of the ticket will come via a text message on your mobile and the ticket fare shall be included in your monthly mobile bill.

The Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) – a PSU under the Ministry of Railways – has recently announced that it’s developing a new technology called SMS Tickets. Once operational, the new technology will enable a prospective traveller with a new option to book railway ticket by sending text messages to IRCTC and the payment for the ticket will be directly debited by the telecom operator. This option will completely eliminate the payment gateways of going through websites of banks which are considered to be the biggest reason for delays in the current e-ticket booking system.

“SMS Tickets technology is in the pipeline.

The idea is to make booking of railway tickets a simple and hassle-free process which can be done by anyone at anytime,” says R K Tandon, Managing Director, IRCTC. “Heavy congestion at websites and connectivity issues are the two driving factors that forced us to devise this new technology. Not everyone has access

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to the Internet or web-enabled handsets and smartphones. We are aiming to divert the traffic from the Internet to SMS and to make the entire process completely Internet-free,” he adds.

Number game Currently IRCTC is one of the largest e-Commerce sites in the world, with sales of around 4.5 lakh tickets per day, making transactions worth `35-40 crore per day. “Almost 30,00035,000 reservations are done every hour. Such huge numbers indicate that too many people are using the website for reservation of tickets and we need multiple outlets other than website and reservation counters,” informs Tandon.

“For each reservation, the prospective traveller spends on an average 3.5 minutes on the Internet, which includes train enquiry, checking availability status & fares and making payment. A sizeable portion of this time is spent on the payment gateway of banks, which leads to congestion of traffic,” adds Tandon. Officials estimate if the delay due to payment gateways are eliminated, the number of tickets booked every minute can almost double.

There are some concerns regarding security issues, as the step of eliminating banks from the payment loop might compromise on the authenticity of travellers. Though most leading banks refused to comment on this, Tandon negates such specualtions: “As for security issues, I don’t see it as a problem. This is because all details of travellers shall be recorded with the IRCTC at the time of registration.”

The mechanism Explaining the mechanism behind this new technology, Vasu from the IT department of

IRCTC says, “Totally, seven Application Interfaces (APIs) are needed for the system to get operational. Out of the seven, five have been developed and integrated, while two are in the process of customisation.”

The rail booking of tickets via mobile is done in a step-by-step manner. “It isn’t as simple as it sounds. There is a back office behind this,” explains Tandon. “To avail the facility, you first need to become a registered member of the IRCTC website. This will generate a unique user ID and password for all future transactions. In the first SMS, the user enters the login ID and password. This SMS goes to the IRCTC server, which cross checks whether the person is an authentic, registered IRCTC member or not,” he says. The second SMS is sent to enquire about the availability of trains on the date of travel, mentioning the source and destination stations, and class of travel, etc. Once the SMS of train availability confirmation comes, the prospective traveller sends the third SMS for booking the ticket by selecting the train and mentioning the name of passengers, their age, and other details. The fourth SMS is for making payment, which offers a host of options. Payment through telecom operators shall soon be added as an option that the traveller can avail.

“The system is expected to get operational by the end of this month. The mood of telecom operators has been quite upbeat about this new technology.

Definitely there shall be first-mover advantage for the ones who want to partner with us in the beginning. As of now, Airtel, Aircel and the Pyro Group are working with us on this new system,” says Tandon. However, telecom operators refused to comment on this news at this stage.

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Digital Economy Policies

An Initiative of Centre for Digital Economy Policy

Issue of Internet Governance Dr Jaijit Bhattacharya, President, Centre for Digital Economy Policy Research; Director, South Asia, Hewlett Packard

T

he Internet is a critical socio-economic enabler, which has deep impact on the economy, social order, law and order and the fabric of the nation itself. Its impact is only going to amplify as we move forward, especially when things start getting connected to each other and when the next generation of the Internet, IPV6 enabled Internet, starts getting rolled out. It would imply that your automobile can get connected to the cloud computing facility of the manufacturer for automatic analytics of the health of the automobile.

As per some estimates, the number of Internet-connected devices globally crossed 6 billion in 2011, and is expected to reach 15 billion, twice the size of the world’s population, before 2016. More than six billion mobile phone subscriptions are in use today, and the number is expected to cross 8 billion by 2016. Mobile data traffic reached 597 petabytes in 2011, twice the amount of 2010, and is estimated to cross 10 exabytes by 2016. Broadband subscribers, estimated at 1 billion in 2011, are forecast to grow at 40 percent per annum, and reach 3.5 billion in 2016. As a large part of the growth is to take place in the developing countries of Asia, India can be expected to be a major component and beneficiary of this growth trajectory.

The Internet started as a means of sharing information amongst scientist working in different institutions. From that, it is becoming —if not already become—the communications backbone of the world. It is a major economic driver, provides banking and other financial services to world’s business, provides a global market place and is replacing the conventional print and visual media. Internet is now ubiquitous in today’s world.

Cutting off an enterprise or a country from the internet would have severe consequences.

This of course immediately also brings out the dangers that are emerging in such an interconnected world. The Internet can be used to bring

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down the telecommunications network of different countries, its banks and even its’ power grid.

In Iran, we have seen the use of cyber weapons by the US and Israel taking out physically 10,000 centrifuges. If this had been done using a missile, it would have been considered an act of war.

How should we then look at the Internet – also as a strategic space which then country’s need to protect? (ref. http://newsclick.in/india/internetgovernance-and-itu-issues-baku-and-dubai by Prabir Purkayastha) Therefore, a clear governance structure for the Internet, that is aligned to the long-term growth of the Internet and that is aligned to the interests of the economy and national security, is necessary for a healthy socio-economic functioning of a modern economy.

Internet Governance includes, but is not limited to, the following key issues: • Infrastructure and management of critical internet resources, including administration of the domain name system and Internet protocol addresses, administration of the root server system, technical standards, network neutrality, and multilingualisation; • Issues in the use of the Internet, including spam, network security and cybercrime; • Issues of wider impact such as Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), freedom of expression, data protection and privacy rights, consumer rights and International Trade; and, • Developmental aspects, in particular, capacity-building.

From a socio-economic perspective, it impacts issues such as sovereignty over the Internet/ Free usage of Internet and interconnects, issues of Transborder data exchange and therefore its impact on Cloud Computing, issues of Data protection, the freedom of Internet, privacy, cyber-warfare and the issue of global ban on use of Cyber-weapons and cyber-security.

Under the existing system of Internet governance, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) performs two principal functions: • The Internet Assigned Names Authority (IANA) function whereby it controls

entries to the authoritative Root Zone File of the Internet • The management of the Domain Name System (DNS) and the allocation of Top Level Domain (TLD) names.

The function of allocation of TLD has been recently renewed as a perpetual contract, known as the Affirmation of Commitments between ICANN and the US Government. The IANA function has also been renewed for a seven-year period beginning 01 October 2012. The IANA function is overseen by the National Telecommunication and Information Administration under the US Department of Commerce. Technical standards are set by the Internet Engineering Task Force [IETF]. The central elements of the Internet’s logical infrastructure, also called Critical Internet Resources, thus continue to be managed by private entities such as ICANN and IANA under contractual arrangements with the US Government.

The United Nations established the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in 2005 to discuss the issues of Global Internet Governance. However, UN/IGF does not have the organisational structure or the mandate to agree on decisions and the enforcement mechanism to implement them.

There is therefore an urgent need to bring in participation by Governments, especially from the developing countries, in order to establish a multilateral, transparent and democratic Internet governance mechanism that functions with the full involvement of Governments, the private sector, civil society and international organisations, without according a pre-eminent role to any single Government or organization.

Government of India is hence rightly formulating the policies for engaging in the reforms process required for a global participative Internet Governance structure.

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

In Person

Michael Hay

Vice President of Product Planning, Hitachi Data Systems

Managing Big Data

I

s Big Data another buzzword or is it really essential for companies and governments to find new ways of managing it?

Big Data is a bit of both. Earlier cloud was the buzzword, but now we are moving towards actual adoption of cloud based systems. I think this is a natural progression. When Big Data or cloud or something initially starts out, there is a lot of hype. Eventually things move into an implementation phase where people realise the value.

For instance, early on VMware, as a start-up, had a lot of buzz and promise with virtualisation, then there was silence for seven or eight years.

However, during the last two or three years, VMware has proved itself to be a big deal. Gartner calls this the Hype Cycle and so this is natural. Big Data has lot of hype around it, but it needs to be taken seriously. Big Data will not solve all our problems. People have huge expectations, but Big Data will not print money. It will be of help in enabling organisations to save money; it might even open new opportunities.

What steps should government departments take in a country like India, where the reach of IT is still quite mediocre, to take full advantage of Big Data technologies?

As IT gets deployed in ever larger areas, someone needs to pick up the role of “the dreamer.” Whenever a new deployment of IT is happening, we should also focus on extracting data and analysing it from different perspectives. Without right kind of analysis, the data is practically useless.

What kind of solutions would you like to provide to government organisations in India and in other countries?

We are in talks with a few government organisations in India currently.

Internationally, one that has been indirectly spoken about is the archive for George W. Bush at the National Archiving Records Administration in the United States. We were able to build our system and it uses our technology around the content platform. Our storage is used to warehouse the content of the previous president. We are engaged with other governments quite heavily in the APAC region too. For any government organisation we look to take our current portfolio and work with key

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“At Hitachi, we usually perform a revolutionary leap followed by an evolutionary jump,” says Michael Hay, Vice President of Product Planning, Hitachi Data Systems

In Person

system integrators that specialise in government deployments to build a specific solution in mind. There used to be a trend in many governments to build complete independent ICT offerings themselves and there has been a transition towards COTS (Common Off The Shelf Systems) which is meant to procure more standard components and then use system integration techniques to adapt those to particular problems in the government.

In which sectors is Big Data most useful?

Government may be an early user of Big Data; certainly security applications have been talked about, like the ability to mine a lot of unstructured data on the Internet to secure people or look for scary things in crowds. For example, Hitachi has recently unveiled a passive explosive detection system. It puffs air as someone walks through a gate to detect traces of explosive. There are a variety of uses that we can potentially talk about and it depends on what the target is.

What kinds of solutions are available for e-Governance?

Governments using traditional software packages from Oracle or Microsoft can use best-in-class platforms from Hitachi, where the stability, scalability and performance of the systems can be improved, so that as they are being deployed, they are assured that they have highly reliable infrastructure to depend upon for these deployments.

Hitachi Data Systems has deployed a unified storage with virtualisation. Tell us more about it.

There are a couple of different areas of virtualisation that predominantly talk about block virtualisation. On top of that block virtualisation we can add file or object type platforms that access data in different semantics in addition to the traditional block interface. That virtualisation layer is quite important because it means that if customers have third party storage assets or all of Hitachi’s assets, we can reuse that capacity over a longer period of time, and even when it is older Hitachi assets for non-destructive migration where we can move customers to the new platform easily. These layers become critically important for us to facilitate a continuous migration of new technologies over time for our customers. We also offer virtualization capabilities at the file level with our NAS product so it

can sit In front of content and other third party devices using standard protocols again. So the notion of re-leveraging old assets to make them last a little longer for improved operation and total cost of ownership is achieved.

How is the technology evolving over a period of time?

At Hitachi, we usually perform a revolutionary leap followed by an evolutionary jump.

If you look at the USP to USP-V generation, you see the evolutionary jump whereas from the USP-V to VSP was a revolutionary leap.

Across platform generations our users can experience consistent applicability of our key storage features like block and file virtualisation, data protection, and storage management.

Most recently, Hitachi has scaled-down our enterprise microcode from the VSP and we have placed it in the HUS-VM. This represents a revolutionary leap with consistency playing a major theme because the microcode is essentially the same.

In what ways is Big Data enabling a move towards the cloud? Please provide us with an overview of the cloud based Big Data systems developed by Hitachi.

What we’re seeing is that for the private sector and public sector depending on clouds is becoming a challenge especially if data has to be managed at different locations. The idea of capturing data and pumping it into the cloud, specifically private cloud infrastructures, for unstructured and semi-structured data is an essential first step. For HDS the Hitachi Data Ingestor and the Hitachi Content Platform play a big role in this area, and certainly those types of systems have been picked up by government organisations and private organisations around the world to help them build private cloud infrastructures.

What solutions do you have for the healthcare sector?

HDS has a big focus in the healthcare sector through a vertical business focus in Healthcare and Life Science with key people focused on selling to hospitals, life science and to some extent pharma. In particular we have a product called the Hitachi Clinical Repository, which is kind of like an unstructured data warehouse for healthcare information. Further HDS has been solving some interesting problems with organisations, in the United States, with our complete portfolio.

For example building electronic patient records or pumping medical studies from remote clinics back to a centralized core with HCP.

What solutions do you have for the education sector?

We have done a lot with e-research, and again, the Hitachi Content Platform plays a key role in terms of helping our customer in Australia build digital research spaces. Essentially the Content Platform and the Data Ingestor facilitate scientific engagement and collaboration, and all the while help to govern and retain the resulting data for the long haul.

Any other interesting developments you would like to discuss?

There are a couple of interesting things in the recent announcements we have had over the past several weeks. We have an interesting demonstration robot.

Her name is EMIEW, and she has some pretty cool technology behind her. She can recognise people’s faces and find lost objects from pictures. There is some interesting technology for visual search and object recognition that she relies on. Governments are also really sensitive to long term preservation of data. They have to store data for the life of the country. Some of the research we have done on really long term storage media with quartz glass has also recently been announced.

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Software Industry

Promoting Software Industry in India The software exports have had an exponential growth in the last decade and are expected to grow at a steady rate in the coming years also Dr Omkar Rai, Director General, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), sheds light on the strategies that are being used to promote software sector in India

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Software Industry

I

t was in the 70’s that computer as a productivity tool started proliferating in the Indian industrial scene.

But it was only by mid 80’s that the forecasters, analysts and Indian government policy planners began to understand the potential of Indian talent in computer software development.

This realisation led to the formulation of the computer software policy in 1986. The economists began to analyse the potential of the Indian software industry. It soon became obvious that the software sector was destined to be one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy and provide high quality employment for young people. It would earn significant revenue from exports and would be a highly desirable industry, as it required skilled manpower, few raw materials and was not in any way damaging to the environment.

Promoting the software industry Initially there were many problems for the IT entrepreneur in our country. The policies for software export were stringent and complicated. Lack of infrastructure was impeding the development of IT industry and consequently the true potential was not being realised fully and our share of the world IT/ITeS market remained rather insignificant. Keeping in view the above factors, the then Department of Electronics, Government of India, conceived of the Software Technology Park (STP) scheme to give boost to software industry in general and software exports in particular.

Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) was established and registered as a society

under Societies Registration Act 1860, under the then Department of Electronics, Government of India, on June 5, 1991. Initially, Software Technology Parks were established at Hyderabad, Noida, Gandhinagar and Thiruvananthapuram. For achieving a balanced growth of the IT Sector, STPI with 53 centres has now reach to every part of the country.

Out of total these centres, 46 centres fall in the tier-II and tier-III cities. By developing an ecosystem congenial for IT start-ups in these areas, STPI has helped the overall development of these regions.

Wherever an STPI centre comes up, it brings an up gradation of the local infrastructure facilities, government support, social and living environment, along with substantial employment opportunities. STPI, through administration of STP or the Electronic Hardware Technology Park (EHTP) scheme and provisioning of High Speed Data Communication to the software exporters, has played a seminal role in the phenomenal growth of IT & ITeS sector in India. Apart from the statutory, promotional and datacom services, STPI has been providing incubation facilities to SMEs and start-up units. STPI has also helped in the proliferation of private IT parks across the country which in turn has contributed to the growth of the IT industry.

The software exports have had an exponential growth in the last decade and are expected to grow at a steady rate in the coming years also. The IT industry has contributed substantially to the country’s GDP and foreign exchange reserves. Direct employment in IT & ITES has shown a rising trend even during the recession period, as

“Apart from the statutory, promotional and datacom services, STPI has been providing incubation facilities to SMEs and start-up units. STPI has also helped in the proliferation of private IT parks across the country which in turn has contributed to the growth of the IT industry”

favourable government policies have lead to a multiplier effect.

Growth in exports The exports made by STP units have grown manifold over the years. The exports made by the STPI registered units has increased from `2,15,264 crore in 2010-11 to `2,26,712 crore in 2011-12 with a growth rate of 5.36 percent.

In 2011-12, IT software and services added about 2,30,000 jobs, taking the direct employment number to 2.77 million, a year-on-year growth of over 9 percent whereas the indirect employment attributed to the sector is nearly 8.9 million. While IT services exports is the largest employer with 47 percent of the total direct employment.

The spectacular growth performance in the IT-BPO industry in the last decade has helped the industry contribute substantially to India’s GDP. In 2011-12, the IT-BPO industry’s contribution to GDP was 7.5 percent as compared to 7.1 percent in 2010-11.

Since the IT industry in the country has matured enough to venture into R&D and IPR development. A need is also being felt to disperse the IT industry to smaller towns for balance regional growth and also to create huge employment opportunity in the country.

In this regard, Government of India, Ministry of Communications and IT has come up with triad of policies for IT, Electronics and Telecom which envisage accelerating the pace of the growth in these sectors. A very strong emphasis has been laid for creating an entrepreneurial system across the country and for dispersal of IT industry from Metros to such cities.

As we are aware, the Income Tax benefit available under section 10A of the Income Tax Act for the STP units, has expired on March 31, 2011. The IT/ITeS sector has already been facing multiple challenges, ranging from macro to micro and with the withdrawal of such tax holiday, IT/ITeS Sector have to pay higher taxes and surcharge, which may adversely impact their growth. In order to mitigate the impact of withdrawal of the fiscal benefit of Income Tax exemption (10A) and to support IT/ITeS industry in effectively meeting the above challenges, DeitY, in consultation with STPI, is formulating a new set of incentives schemes for the sector.

January 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

Vijay Gupta

Founder, Chairman & CEO, SoftTech Engineers Pvt Ltd

THE KEY LIES IN

UNIFORMITY AND CONSOLIDATION SoftTech has introduced products that can bring efficiency to two core services–Building Plan Permits (AutoDCR) and Infrastructure Works Procurement Process (PWIMS).

AutoDCR is a unique solution for automation of building plan approval. It reads CAD drawings and maps them to the development control regulations to produce a deviation/approval report.

PWIMS has been accepted by many PWDs and works organisations like MIDC to address and automate their entire Infrastructure.

“We need to bring smarter systems to manage growing needs of city infrastructure projects and assets. We need systems which not just manage the data but apply analysis on this data as well,” says Vijay Gupta, Founder, Chairman & CEO, SoftTech Engineers Pvt Ltd

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hat changes and improvements did you notice on e-Governance front in the year 2012?

ICT has provided governments around the world with a cost-effective channel for enabling good governance. The major change I see today is that the government leadership team has acknowledged that e-Governance is perhaps the only way to bring transparent and efficient service delivery mechanism to citizens. IT literacy has shown a marked improvement over the years. Resistance to IT solutions has decreased considerably and government employees no longer see such solutions as a threat to their jobs. We also observe that government officers exhibit a lot of professionalism in evaluating the solutions.

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In your opinion what were the key problem areas in e-Governance that you faced in 2012?

The long approval process is a challenge. It leads to delay in service delivery. This results in delay of payments to the service providers, which in turn brings ineffectiveness. The change in leadership brings some new thoughts which may not align with system requirements and scope approved earlier. The changes suggested, even if they are highly desired, may lead to complete change in the design of the system. And this lets to the creation of an unfriendly environment for businesses.

What policy reforms are you looking forward to in 2013 for the e-Governance sector to be more successful?

The most important thing for successful e-Governance project implementation is change management. The officials should be motivated enough to provide new services to the citizens. There is no lack of talent among government officials, but they need to be motivated. They should be rewarded in the form of cash or credit for taking e-Governance initiatives. This will change their attitude.

With respect to our specific area of building plan approval, we need to have some reforms in terms of defining uniform procedure throughout the organisation. We need to bring smarter systems to manage growing needs of city infrastructure projects and assets. It is well known that government departments are working with

less number of efficient manpower. We need systems which not just manage the data but apply analysis on this data as well.

What are the areas in which your company will engage more with the government for ICT initiatives this year?

SoftTech has strong expertise in government organisations dealing with implementations of civil infrastructure projects. e-Governance has been our core strength over the past decade. We have partnered with global giants like IBM, Microsoft and Autodesk to bring the best-of-the-breed solutions for the government agencies. In 2013, we will be providing business intelligence and business process automation solutions on top of our offerings which will help senior officers in getting deep insight into the operations. We are at different levels of discussions with various ULBs for deploying Intelligent Operations Centre (IOC) which is the next generation service approach for smarter cities.

What expectations do you have from the government for your specific sector in which SofTech is present?

Coming up with a comprehensive building regulation bylaws in line with practical need of the city and a very clear documentation on how these should be interpreted is a basic need. The rules should be simplified considering the current and expected growth of the city. We should have seamless connectivity of land records and revenue records to building permission department to avoid malpractices. The process of providing permit for building construction needs to be re-engineered considering era of digital age. It is necessary that entire approval process is simplified for consultants and architects. They should not approach various departments within the same organisation for different NOCs needed by different departments like drainage, fire, water supply, etc. The approach should be Single Window Clearance for all such NOCs.

ict implementations

Challenges in Taking IT to the Grassroots The Government is striving to provide its services to the common man in an efficient, transparent and reliable manner. e-Governance is one of the major tools deployed for this task R K Sharma, Joint Director, DoIT&C, Government of Rajasthan

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ntil the last decade, non-IT enabled environments prevailed and the service delivery mechanisms were largely dependent on manual processing. Manual processing meant human dependency, which led to long queues, procedural complexities, complicated processes for liaisoning with various government departments, etc.

A common man associates such complex and time-consuming features with the working of the government departments. Consequently, a visit to government department by a citizen to make use of any service was a taxing experience.

Several factors such as lack of resources, supportive infrastructure, etc contribute to such a bleak picture of the government sector.

Metamorphosis to an IT-enabled environment has added a new silver hue to this bleak picture. Now the quality of delivery of services to the citizens by the government has been more pronounced in recent years with the advent of e-Governance. Use of ICT in e-Governance is also transforming citizens’ interactions with the

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R K Sharma

public sector by improving efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of governments.

A paradigm shift e-Governance, which is a paradigm shift over the traditional approaches in public

administration, means rendering of government services and information to the public using electronic means. Prior to this shift, the common man had to stand in long queues and visit various government departments for availing any government service but with the advent of ICT, not only has the footfall to the government departments has lessened, there has also been a significant reduction in time as well as efforts for availing any service.

This new paradigm has also brought about a revolution in the quality of services delivered to the citizens. It has ushered in transparency in the governing process; saving of time due to provision of services under one roof; simplification of procedures; better office and record management; reduction in corruption and improved job handling capacity of the dealing personnel. e-Governance in India has steadily evolved from computerisation of Government Departments to initiatives that encapsulate the finer points of Governance, such as citizen centricity, service orientation and transparency. Lessons from previous e-Governance initiatives have

ict implementations

played an important role in shaping the progressive e-Governance strategy of the country.

Several social sector e-Gov schemes such as UID Aadhaar, CSC/e-Mitra, e-District, Redressal of Public Grievance – Sugam, etc. aim at rural upliftment and provide an improved and accountable system to the masses.

Government is making all possible efforts for maximum reach out of the e-Gov initiatives so that these benefits filter down to the last mile.

True challenge lies in the successful implementation of these schemes to the grassroots.

Ensuring IT readiness Government set up should ensure its ITreadiness for building conducive e-Gov environment. IT-readiness implies infrastructural upgradation as well as capacity building at the individual level, which recognizes the need for reforms in processes using modern technology.

Nevertheless, the biggest impediment in effective implementation of e-Governance is change management. Change management is important, not only in terms of cultural change, but also in terms of changing operations and processes workflow that the IT-driven environment will induce. Government scenario is such that there prevails an IT phobia at the back of the minds of the government officers, making them afraid of this transition and also hesitant in adaptation to this change.

If the will to change from the traditional decade-old procedures to automated environment is developed within the government machinery, the digital divide can be reduced to a large extent.

“The biggest impediment in effective implementation of e-Governance is change management�

Challenges in e-Governance implementations System Digital Divide The digital divide refers to the separation that exists between individuals, communities, and businesses, that have access to information technology, especially to Internet and those that do not have such access. Social, economic and infrastructural indicators explain the existence of this digital divide. Economic poverty, lack of awareness among people on the service delivery channel, complexity in government procedures etc.

are some of the factors that deepen this divide.

the citizens needs to be accomplished to achieve the goals of e-Governance.

Connectivity Selection of appropriate (dependable, maintainable and cost effective) technologies for rural connectivity and information processing solutions is an important component in the service delivery chain. End-to-end connectivity between the central service providers (State and district administrations, Line departments etc) and

There is a need for training and capacity building of the government officials. The success of any well-structured e-governance programme depends on a unified backend infrastructure and sufficient capacities planned at all levels. However, there are specific gaps such as inappropriate institutional and policy framework and guidelines in the area of capacity building that may lead to failure of any e-Gov project.

The e-Governance initiative necessitates the end user i.e. the common man to be an aware citizen. It is important to educate people at all levels about the benefits of technology. The various benefits and advantages of e-enabling the system should be rightly and clearly communicated at the beginning to ensure popular support which will lead to greater chances of success.

Selection of a right service partner: The Government, to a large extent, has been able to convert the above-stated challenges into opportunities. Adopting the public private partnership mode has greatly helped in meeting out the challenges. PPP model like BOT (Buildoperate-transfer), BOOT (Build-operate-owntransfer) in which private players partner with government departments to design, implement and run various flagship programmes, provide attractive propositions for the private sector to work closely with the governments.

It is assumed that the inherent issues faced within the government departments will be

Non-availability of Financial Institutions While they need it the most, rural communities remain the largest underserved market because of lack of financial institutions. Ensuring their financial inclusion can unlock the considerable economic potential of rural areas thus ensuring fund mobility at the grassroots.

reduced, if not eliminated completely, when involving private players. Where PPP model has been adopted to replicate the private success stories of project implementation within the government, it has also become challenging to identify and select the right service provider for requisite quality of service delivery, manpower, project implementation experience in a government scenario etc. along with sufficient check on the private partners.

Incentivisation Shifting government entities from the mechanical application of technology to adoption of e-Governance tools requires incentivizing e-Governance among different entities and individuals. Incentives and rewards can be used as an effective means of increasing motivation and engaging employees in the change process.

Motivating can be effected not only in terms of monetary benefits but also by streamlining of archaic processes. Enabling backup and digitization of official records also eases down the burden. e-Enablement is a liberation from manual record keeping and maintenance of work log.

Today e-Governance is no more an option or something to be experimented with. It is an important tool for transformation, as is evident with the growing number of e-Governance initiatives. The need of the hour is to search for the right blend of technology and management that makes e-governance a success.

January 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

K L Dhingra

Chairman and Managing Director, ITI Ltd

The pioneer in field of

telecommunications

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et us know about your vision for ITI in the year 2013. Where do you see ITI Ltd in the year 2013?

We would like to see ITI emerging as a leader in Telecommunications and Electronics System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) sector. The company has the potential to be a top turnkey solution provider in this sector. I would like to see ITI completing a turnaround by the year 2013 and attain sustainable growth.

ITI has been a pioneer in the field of telecom. Tell us about the role that ITI is playing in the telecom sector in the modern era when there is lot of competition from private players. Please give us an overview of your scale of operations in the telecom sector.

You have rightly said that ITI is a pioneer in the field of telecommunications. It used to provide more than 50 percent of the wire line infrastructure and more than 60 percent of the fixed telephones. After liberalisation of the telecom sector in the early ’90s, ITI has been facing tough competition from the private players. In spite of this competition and the social obligations of a PSU towards its surplus manpower, ITI has been playing a leading role in the telecom sector. In the last two decades we have maintained our position as a major telecom equipment manufacturer in the country. ITI is the only company manufacturing GSM related equipments in India. The company is further diversifying to manufacture products for other sectors by redeploying its manpower. We have achieved a turnover of `922 Crores in the year 2011-12.

efficiency to its operations,” says K L Dhingra, Chairman and

Tell us about the mobile equipment manufacturing facilities that ITI has started at Mankapur and Rae Bareli Plants. What kind of response are your GSM solutions having in the market?

Managing Director, ITI Ltd, in conversation with Nayana Singh

ITI has provided turnkey GSM solutions for the BSNL West Zone &

“ITI has implemented several e-solutions for bringing more

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In Person

South Zone networks in partnership with Alcatel-Lucent France and Huawei Telecommunications, China. In addition, we have also established GSM network for MTNL, Mumbai.

We have Base Transceiver Station (BTS) manufacturing facilities in collaboration with Alcatel at Mankapur and Rae Bareli. ITI has installed capacity of 6 million line (BTS) per annum.

We have already installed 16000 BTSs in BSNL West Zone and MTNL Mumbai network. Our Rae Bareli plant is equipped for manufacture of other GSM infra items like Roof Top Towers (RTT), Shelters and Switch Mode Power Supply (SMPS) in addition to BTS.

Tell us about the solutions that you are adopting for bringing e-Governance to the organisation.

ITI has implemented several e-solutions for bringing more efficiency to its operations. We have our own mail server and mail domain and all our communications are predominantly by mail only. ITI is a pioneer is establishing a full pledged Data Centre in its Bangalore plant which caters to various customers, in addition to serving our own website. All our procurement tenders and Expression of Interests are invariably published through ITI website as well as Government portal for public procurement. We are in the process of implementing e-procurement system in all our plants. Our news letters are published in our Intranet server. As part of implementation of official language policy, we have implemented Hindi-Unicode in our PCs for communication in Hindi. We have been using Video Conferencing for meetings, reviews and training purposes.

Please provide us your opinion on policies that the government should come up with for bringing further growth to organisations like ITI. Tell us about your expectations from the government.

The present policies of the Government of India like the National Telecom Policy 2012 and New Policy on Manufacturing 2011, are steps in the right direction. These policies will boost indigenous manufacturing with increased local content. These policies coupled with the policy on Preferred Market Access (PMA) notified by Government will give a

fillip to manufacturing within the country.

Implementation of these policy initiatives will help companies like ITI to contribute towards building national communications networks.

Government is expected to frame policies, which can lead to the creation of a range of new businesses that will create millions of new jobs. The policies should be such that the PSUs, which are working for national goals, are able to tap into some kind of fiscal support to fund their operations, at least during the initial stages of their operations.

Tell us about your solutions for the defence sector. We would like to know about your encryption related solutions.

bring new projects to ITI. The Government’s new policy to support domestic manufacturers in Electronic segment will help ITI boost its manufacturing activities. ITI is planning to upgrade its manufacturing infrastructure in all its plants to take advantage of this policy.

What kind of role are you playing in NOFN? ITI is hopeful of playing a significant role in the execution of prestigious National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project wherein Government of India is having a mission of providing Broadband connectivity to rural masses under “Bharat Nirman”. ITI is also anticipating substantial orders from NFS (Network for Spectrum) project.

“ITI has been an equipment supplier to Indian Defence for the last four decades” ITI has been an equipment supplier to Indian Defence for the last four decades. In the last decade itself, equipments worth more than `1000 Crores have been supplied by ITI to Defence. As far as security solutions for Defence are concerned, ITI is the pioneer in providing encryption solutions to Defence.

ITI is the first PSU to give network security products (encryptors) to Indian Defence.

Nearly 70 percent of the encryption products of Indian Army have been supplied by ITI. All the three phases of Indian Army’s prestigious project ASCON (Army Static Switched Communications Network) have been executed

by ITI. Today, ITI has the capability to design strong Encryption systems for broadband communication working up to bandwidth of 10 Gb/s.

What kind of growth prospects is ITI eyeing during the next five years? Is the company planning to make a foray into any other areas?

The prospective projects for ITI in the next five years are likely from the New Telecom Policy 2012 and also New Policy on Electronics 2011.

Broadband for all under mission broadband, indigenous manufacturing and preferred market access are the initiatives which would

Today’s competitive environment makes diversification a must for every enterprise. Tell us about the diversification strategies that you are pursuing?

ITI has already forayed into many new areas.

With consortium members BEL and ECIL, ITI is executing the National Population Register (NPR) project of Ministry of Home Affairs and Socio Economic & Caste Census (SECC) project of Ministry of Rural Development. As an extension of this project, manufacturing of smart identity cards to all Indian citizens is also being planned. ITI has already executed SWAN projects for various State Governments.

ITI has set up a Data centre in Bangalore along with a technology partner to leverage huge opportunities in Data centre and cloud computing requirements.

Other areas of diversification are, solar panel manufacturing at Naini plant and banking automation products at Mankapur plant.

Plans are also afoot to take up manufacturing of LED lighting products. The huge capital outlay in the Defence sector as well as the thrust on the indigenous content through its offset policy opens up a huge opportunity in this sector. Hence, ITI is taking up manufacturing of electronics and communication products for Defence in a larger scale.

January 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Agriculture ICT

Managing the Health of Agricultural Farms M Moni, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Government of India

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arm Health Management System is important for improving the state of Agricultural sector in India. Farm Health Management systems include: Plant Health management through Integrated Pest management (IPM), Animal Health Management of about 143 OIE listed Infectious and contagious disease and also noninfectious diseases, which are of economic loss to farmers, Soil Health management through Integrated Nutrient Management (INM) and Input Management (Pesticides, Seeds and Fertilisers), and above all, Water Quality Management (Ground water and surface water) for agricultural development.

ICT interventions are needed at farmer levels, farm level, animal level, crop level, animal feed & fodder level, and water-body level, to establish appropriate database based advisory system to overcome these management issues. The time has come to have a discipline on “Farm Health

Management”, in the similar lines of “Agricultural Business Management”, so as to usher in Management practices among the agricultural graduates and the farmers (producers), to overcome the problems of spurious inputs being applied on farms, and also health related issues.

Preventing crop losses Different sources have estimated that crop losses to an extent of over `90,000 crore per annum as pesticides drops by farmers in the country is the most unwise and non- judicious, which has been harming 20 percent of Indian agrarian land in terms of its yield and fertility.

Insects and Pests surface to eat standing crops. Weeds affect the growth of crops. The biggest challenge facing the Indian farmers is the knowledge gap that is, the communication of agriculture technology to them and its instant practical benefit. The loss could be due to either “poor quality of pesticides” as expressed

by ASSOCHAM or “poor use of pesticides” as

Integrated Pest Management • • • • •

Seed Treatment Pests & Disease Surveillance and Forewarning Production and Distribution of Bio Agents Farmers Fields School Package of Practices: Use of Biological, Mechanical methods to control the pest below Economic Threshold Level • Use of safe use of Pesticides for immediate control beyond ETL level • Global sharing of information for warning and preparedness for controlling locust occurrence through Pesticides • Plant Quarantine ensures that biotic pests do not make entry into the country through International and Domestic quarantine services

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M Moni sheds light on the ways by which ICT can be used to bring about improvements in India’s agriculture sector

expressed by Haryana Pesticides Manufacturers and Formulators Association.

Fertilisers should be used judiciously for sustainable soil health as well as plant health. Advisories to farmers to use fertilisers based on soil health and plant health is essential. At farm level, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) eliminates food safety hazards from indiscriminate use of farm inputs; besides ensuring compliance with hygiene measures like proper waste disposal, personal hygiene, environment production, and pest control. Soil and Water are the most important resource to support growth of plants.

Range of initiatives It requires strong and vibrant Databases and Informatics, and application of demand-

Agriculture ICT

Supply-Chain Models. The issue of “farm health management” is being addressed through the Service-1 (IPM), Service-2 (INM) and Service-3 (GAP) / Service -6 (electronic certification of exports and imports) of the proposed Agriculture Mission Mode Project (AMMP), launched under the National e-Governance Programme (NeGP), and also through the NADRS (National Animal Disease Reporting System) project of the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries (DADF), of the Ministry of Agriculture. The Plant Protection Informatics Network (PPIN) has already networked (a) 35 Plant Quarantine Stations and 125 PSC Offices (http://plantquarantineindia. nic.in), (b) 31 Central IPM centres, and On-line Registration of Pesticides (http://cibrc.gov.in) .

Under the AGRISNET programme of the MOA, States like West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh have computerised on-line registration of Input Dealers. The National Project on Management of Soil Health and Fertility (NPMSF) of the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (2008) (http://www.agricoop. nic.in) is expected to strengthen databases and informatics associated with Soil health and fertility required for enhanced and sustainable agricultural productivity.

Issues that need to be addressed •

•

•

•

To leverage on a mix of emerging and existing technologies for effective and inexpensive ICT penetration in agricultural development; Systematic overhauling of entire agricultural statistical system through ICT enabled process from “farm-household level” and “farm-level” to Panchayat, Block, District, State and Centre; Strengthening of Rural ICT Infrastructure for Agricultural e-Governance System by networking computational centres through NKN, PII, National GIS, Open Source Technology and Standards, Open Government Platform, application softwares for information service delivery through local languages etc; ICT enabled SupplyChains; ICTs Diffusion and Infusion through

stakeholders participation, through “Access layer”, “Distribution layer” and “Network layer”; (spanning the breadth of the agricultural industry, at all scales of organisation from farmer to cooperative and professional bodies, from farm machinery vendors, fertilizer and chemical companies, insurance, regulators, and commodities, to agronomists, consultants, and farm advisors) • Strengthening of Digital Networks for Farming (DNF); • Operationalisation of recommendations related to Databases and Informatics of the National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) – Agricultural Resources Information System, Soil Resource Databases and DISNIC-

•

•

• •

PLAN Databases at Village level; Interlinking of Agricultural Mission Mode Projects of the Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Rural Development; Interlinking with about 450 National Agricultural Research System (NARS), CGIAR and CABI etc to strengthen knowledge bases and advisory systems; Capacity Building through extension and training; Establishment of a National Centre for Agricultural informatics and Computing to prepare about 100,000 Agricultural Graduates ready, through agricultural informatics, for undertaking S&T based agricultural development and to rejuvenate and usher in agricultural dynamism in the country, by 2020.

Training farmers of tomorrow The modern farmer needs ICT solutions on

Soil Health Card & Soil Fertility Maps have been Undertaken in States • Gujarat (AGRISNET Programme) – executed through Anand Agricultural university; • West Bengal (AGRISNET Programme) executed through NIC, Kolkata; • Tamil Nadu (State Government sponsored) - executed through Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Koyambuthur; • Maharashtra (State Government Sponsored) - executed through NIC, Pune; • Haryana (State Government Sponsored); • Karnataka (State Government sponsored) executed through NIC, Bagalkot; • National Software standardisation—a joint exercise between IISS (Bhopal) and NIC

crop specific, location specific for all seasons during the entire crop-life-cycle. India has about 300 Agricultural Colleges, 62 Agricultural Universities, 95 ICAR Institutions, 600 KVKs, 600 ATMAs, 85,000 PACS, 7,500 Agricultural Wholesale Markets, more than 3.5 lakh Inputs dealers, 2000 Computer Science and Engineering institutes / colleges, IITs, NITs, Central Universities, 150 Departments of geography, 550 State Universities / Deemed universities, etc. ICT applications penetrations (diffusions and infusions) are not that appreciable level at farmer level and farm level. There are challenges and but a large scale opportunities to make agricultural turn-around in the country. Each Institution of higher learning should adopt one District for “agricultural developmental planning” for a long term period, say 25 years.

We have proposed establishment of a “Centre for Excellence in Agricultural Informatics and Communication” in NIC, in the 10th and 11th Plan. NIC must consider it in future plan, though not included so far, for promoting informatics research and development. To make

Agricultural informatics as a discipline, we have been instrumental in starting a course at M.Tech level in SHOBHIT University for Agricultural Sciences Graduates. We wish all Agricultural science Graduates to come out as “Agricultural Informatics Professionals”, which requires a 3600 change in existing curriculum.

We have been trying to promote establishment of “Agricultural Polytechnics” and “Agricultural ITIs” (one in each block) to make 10th Pass students in the Rural India to provide “just-in-time” S&T services to farmers. What is being produced in a block needs to be processed in Agricultural ITIs to get more money for farmers. Branded products are to come from Agricultural ITIs. In Manipur, there are a lot of potential to establish “Fisheries polytechnics” to train youths of Manipur in fisheries development and marketing, which will generate productivity rise, income rise and employment growth. Livestock Polytechnics are required in Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. All these Polytechnics and ITIs shall be “ICT enabled” and “Informatics based”.

January 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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NOFN

National Optical Fibre Network as the Gateway to Rural Development Issues and Challenges Ashis Sanyal, Former Senior Director, DeitY

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harat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL) is established now, in pursuit of a high-level policy declaration of ‘broadband for all’ by the central government in 2009. BBNL would implement National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN), which is expected to open up the gateway to rural development, by facilitating implementation of the e-Government projects in the social sectors like education, health, social security, employment guarantee, financial and banking services, all fostering inclusive growth for rural India. It is further expected that this would also provide a great fillip to private sector for providing other services in the remote places on a viable business model which is hitherto non-existent.

Incremental OFC in lakhs of route-km By a very rough estimate made in early 2010, it would need approximately 18-20 lakh routekm of OFC network to reach broadband in all the Panchayat villages in the country, whereas we had around 7+ lakh route-km of OFC network at that time, out of which BSNL was having around 5+ lakhs route-km. The balance length of 2+ lakhs route-km was attributed to the other private service providers. However their share primarily constituted the intra-city

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Ashis Sanyal OFC network, cris-crossing in large to medium size cities, no significant length of long-distance trunk lines, preferring to pay penalty to USOF rather than expanding the network into the rural areas and paying BSNL for access deficit charges. Although, by an industry estimate there is an expected growth of demand for the OFC per year at the rate of 10-12 percent in India, it would take a long time to improve the per capita OFC length in our country, which stands around 60 meter and taking it close to the figure of China (around 200 meter) or USA (around 900 meter).

Against this scenario National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) will now be established by BBNL with help of BSNL, PGCIL and RailTel, who have already laid out significant length of OFC network in the country. Incremental length of OFC network will be laid, wherever necessary, to reach every Panchayat village, which accounts to around 2,50,000 Points of Presence(PoP). While the timeline to complete the entire work by next two years is anyway very tough, how BBNL or its implementation partners, BSNL, RailTel, PGCIL, would resolve the original issues currently being encountered by the Telecom Service Providers (TSP) to lay the OFC lines in the States, is not very clear.

As a first step, pilots have been executed in three Blocks in Ajmer (Arian Block, 30 Village Panchayats), North Tripura (Panisagar Block, 17 Village Panchayats) and Vishakhapatnam (Paravada Block, 17 Village Panchayats) districts which are getting OFC-based connectivity in all Panchayat villages in those Blocks. It is expected that this pilot exercise would reveal the pros and cons issues, to be dealt with in country-wide roll out immediately thereafter.

Right of way issue The first and the foremost is the issue of Right of Way (RoW). How this issue will be solved? Universally, most of the states or local governments miserably missed the reported observation by World Bank that 10 percent increase of tele-density would definitely bring around 1.4 percent increase in GDP growth, always thought TSPs as ‘cash cow’ and con-

NOFN

tinued to charge significant amount, in lieu of conferring RoW to lay the OFC cables.

In a recent interview, Secretary DoT Mr R Chandrasekhar also reportedly observed that…. some local bodies and even state governments tend to get short sighted and they charge huge amount for laying these optical fibres. Such behaviour has led to a slowing down in the development of the project….

This tendency of taking all the golden eggs at one time by the state and local governments and also uncertain business opportunities in rural areas, seriously demotivated TSPs to spread their network in the rural hinterland.

Consequently USOF kitty grew by on an average of `2,000 crore per year. Out of the three BBNL partners, RailTel may have some initial advantage of laying the cables by the side of the railway track in its own land. However, when its network has to laterally move out of the track area and enter into areas governed by Local Bodies, the RoW issue would again crop up.

The prime question remains therefore whether this time central government would be able to resolve this RoW issue once for all. On the other hand, it would be a seminal contribution by the states and local authorities to the NOFN initiative, if they confer free RoW to the BBNL partners with a very smooth and speedy process to close every application for RoW, which will effectively put the NOFN implementation in fast track, against a seemingly impossible timeline. And as benefits, the state governments would be recipient of all-round development of state in the social sectors of health, education, rural development, public distribution, etc, significant improvement in governance by extending G2G services through enhanced SWANs up to village level, CSC objectives more fructified, better services delivered for mandatory activities like RTI, RTE and so on.

On a very encouraging note, the Government of India has recently been able to resolve the RoW issue with 16 states. It is expected that all the local elected governments and the balance states would come forward as soon as possible to remove this barrier of RoW in implementation of NOFN project.

BBNL business model The second issue relates to the applicable business model between BBNL and its PSU partner agencies—BSNL, PGCIL and RailTel—operat-

ing on commercial logic and conditions. How these partners would provide bandwidth to its potential customers, that is, the government entities, private business agencies and TSPs, keeping their commercial interest uncompromised? The value proposition for any business model should provide win-win situation for every stakeholder. We are yet to know clearly what type of business model would propose value to all of them, albeit lot of internal decisions are required to be taken by the government in this regard.

Value proposition to panchayats The third issue is how to create appropriate value proposition to the Panchayat bodies, by providing this high bandwidth capacity network in the rural hinterland. As such the bandwidth itself may not carry much value to the villagers unless some relevant applications

OFC security in rural hinterland In rural areas, protection of OFC from cut, theft, tampering also becomes another prime issue. In Andhra Broadband project (later discontinued and replaced by SWAN) cables had gone overhead, some by the side of power transmission lines, some on dedicated poles and suffered from snapping for various reasons. The harrowing experience of BSNL links not functioning is attributed mostly to frequent cut of underground OFC due to uncoordinated digging of roads, MGNREGSrelated activities and so on. Under NOFN project several lakhs of route-km (although meant as incremental) of OFC will be laid, under or over ground, in the rural areas. In that context the issue of close coordination among the NOFN implementation partners and various entities like PWD, Water, Gas, Rural Electricity authorities, Panchayat/Village Board etc

“A minor tweaking of the specifications of the PMGSY roads can accommodate trenching at one side of the to-be-laid roads where OFC can be easily put inside the trench” utilise them. Who would provide the access network for the two-three villages around every Panchayat area so that services can reach in those villages? For this purpose BBNL has to essentially develop an ecosystem of access service providers, taking advantage of this secure and reliable 100 Mbps links, to be established in the villages. Consequent to creation of NOFN, it is expected that significant amount of investment is likely to be made by the interested service providers in establishing access network complementing the NOFN infrastructure and providing citizen services on commercially viable models. Therefore, to improve viability, rather than providing this high capacity bandwidth free, BBNL has to create stakes around the access network through useful and priority services. On the other hand, in case there are not many service providers to come forward, then government-administered entities and BBNL partners BSNL, PGCIL, RailTel may be asked to provide priority services.

assumes prime importance. One smart solution could be to align the NOFN cable laying activity with the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) activities, wherever relevant and/or feasible. A minor tweaking of the specifications of the PMGSY roads can accommodate trenching at one side of the to-be-laid roads where OFC can be easily put inside the trench. This would resolve the tricky coordination issue to a great extent and also would save financial resource significantly. In a similar way, scheduled activities of MGNREGS also can be used for trenching and the laying of OFC at the Panchayat level.

What rides on NOFN Besides all these above, the most important BBNL-related issue lies with optimal utilization of this high-capacity network. Many laggard State Government departments, which eventually could not gear up in last 5 years to load applications worth of even 2 Mbps bandJanuary 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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NOFN

width consistently through SWANs (except few States of course...counting however finishes within the fingers in one hand!), should get prepared, by next 20 months or so, to use 100 Mbps capacity links at the Panchayat level. While the NOFN execution is expected to pick up pace in next few months after the first tranche of `20,000 crore has been sanctioned recently from the accrued USO fund, are we increasingly sensitizing the state governments to pull their socks to accelerate deployment of applications and services? Is the digital content to ride on NOFN getting ready or in that context, is the much-wanted government policy to create a viable content eco-system in place? Has the government created any incentivised scheme so that content developers get excited to reduce the alarming disparity of 20,000 Websites in regional languages against 5 lakh Websites in English language, in a country having around 22 official languages? The mandatory e-Services Bill, for electronically delivering identified central government services is now under consideration of the Parliamentary Standing Committee. This bill has a period of 5+3 years for complete deployment while the timeline

for the NOFN project completion is only next two years..Therefore it appears that there would be formidable time lag between NOFN project and mandatory e-services projects, in terms of full deployment across the country.

Capacity building for speedy implementation In course of implementation of NOFN, many other issues may crop up, warranting timebound resolution. The BBNL is headed by Mr N Ravishanker who is also the Administrator for the USO Fund. He has been in IT sector for quite some time, eventually exposed to vagaries of the issues encountered both in state and central departments. As the timeline for NOFN is exceptionally tight, it is therefore expected that under his stewardship BBNL will have regular interactions with all the stakeholders to monitor the progress of implementation. Further, it is suggested that a professional project management software tool may be deployed for that purpose. Also it may be a good idea to even get a small BBNL team attached to Delhi Metro Railways Corporation (DMRC) for few days, to receive first hand ideas on management of

complex project with similar features. Recently a very desirable push has come from no other than Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), to accelerate the NOFN implementation by way of constituting a high power coordination committee which would ensure smooth implementation of the project. This coordination committee is headed by secretary, department of telecom and other senior officials from information technology, health and family welfare, school education and literacy, higher education, food and public distribution, panchayati raj and rural development departments. This timely step reiterates government’s serious commitment to complete NOFN implementation on time.

Since government has started UID initiative some time back, creation of NOFN is the next best decision that government could have taken, which would create, when fully implemented, a very long standing impact on the lives of our countrymen living in the rural hinterland. Let the best decision-making wisdom prevail all around in the government and all the roadblocks be removed for this project marching towards inclusive growth for our people who lived for centuries in the world of deprivation.

Computerisation of Records Needed Ramamoorthy G, Associate Vice President, Tally Solutions Pvt Ltd What changes did you notice on e-Governance front in the last year?

The year 2012 started with focus on Aadhaar, Digitisation of Public Distribution System (PDS) for creating beneficiaries’ database, stock management & sale of commodities at Fair Price Shops (FPS). Also, Mobile based Fertilizer Management System (mFMS) came into existence to track fertilizer movement.

A big boost was to enable rural post offices to perform e-transactions and benefit from e-Governance given the fact that more than 89 percent of post offices are in rural India.

Moreover, the decision to set up National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) to provide broadband connectivity up to 100 MBPS to 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats has been a major turn as it would help to facilitate B2B and B2C services encompassing – e-Education, Remote Health Monitoring, e-Governance, Weather, Agriculture and more – that could be accessed by the common man through NOFN in rural areas.

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In what ways can your company engage more with the government for ICT initiatives this year?

We are very successful in giving the right solutions to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Human Resource across length & breadth of the country. Our technology and domain expertise have proved that our solutions are simple and easy to operate. Today we have the required capability and capacity to solve the ICT challenges across the chain for PDS, NRLM, Gram Panchayat, Village level Co-op Society either individually and/or collaboratively.

We can play a vital role in G2G, B2G & G2C space.

Are some specific expectations from the government for your specific sector?

Greater emphasis should be given on shift-

ing to Double Entry Accounting System by the government establishments. Majority of government establishments are depended on their internal technical agencies to recommend them for the right solutions. In 2013 we are looking forward to: • Creation of an environment for every government organisation to: computerise their basic records (payment vouchers & registers, cash register, bank/ treasury registers); computerise their employee attendance registers, pay-slips and pay registers; facilitate smooth data exchange for easy consolidation at higher office and reporting; computerise material inward, issue/ consumption for easy access to check the stock positions and plan for effective timely discharge of duties.

• Successful adoption of CPSMS across all centrally funded projects.

• Shaping up of NRLM and ICT adoption from Day1 to reap the he benefits.

viewpoint

Advocating More Collaborative Business Models between Public and Private Sector

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ince the last few decades we are observing that governments across the world are under pressure, to become more citizen-friendly and serviceconscious. Governments are trying to be more efficient and thereby more productive, delivering more services with larger outreach, without the need to increase taxes. The key governance processes are being revisited, in order to eliminate non-value adding processes and streamlining them, wherever possible. There is a palpable shift in the focus from supply-driven to demanddriven scenario, from processes and structures to output and outcome. Perhaps this paradigm shift to citizen-centricity has been possible because of manifold increase in the efficiency of private sector observed almost in every sector in the last 30 years or so. However, it appears that citizen seldom doubted the ability of the government to perform efficiently but believed that there is no intent on its part to do so. It is now assumed that market alignment and adoption of market-style strategies like private sector entity, would help the public sector organisation to become more agile and effective in delivering its primary duty of delivering public services.

Interestingly in this same period the world has seen almost parabolic emergence of Information and Communication Technologies, opening up myriad of opportunities for all activities conceivable by man-made institutions including governments. Consequently we are observing ICT emerging as a great enabling tool for enhancing the governance, especially to deliver the public services in a more reliable, accountable, transparent, cost-effective and responsive manner.

But knowledge of ICT has not been a legacy virtue within the government system while this knowledge demands to be dynamic, always to be refreshed periodically. In management parlance government is a functional organisation while

successful implementation and sustenance of ICT system as an effective tool inside the government demands it to be a projectised organisation. This requirement becomes more evident in cases of deployment and operation of ICT infrastructure which requires replacement once in every five to six years. All these required a new business model for effective implementation and deployment of ICT in government in functionally, operationally and financially sustainable manner.

Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model for creating public assets and infrastructure has been in practice for some time in many countries which demonstrated many advantages over traditional ways of procurement of assets and infrastructure. PPP model became an immediate choice for ICT-related projects because of low lifecycle time of the assets to be created and also high rate of technology obsolescence. But it is not at all easy to absorb PPP within a government system. After practising a well-oiled legacy hierarchical machinery for a long time the meaning of last P is often not well understood within the government which is still bogged down with the idea of engaging a ‘contractor’ for getting services.

Nevertheless, in the ICT project arena, the PPP model has started its journey in India with a conscious decision in the government that PPP will be garnered, wherever possible, in implementation of e-Governance projects. The face of government is thus changing slowly but in a definititive way, in creating ICT infrastructure, or taking the ICTrelated services from private entities. The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) scheme approved

by Union Cabinet categorically mentioned that PPP will be adopted, wherever feasible. There are significant numbers of e-governance projects all over the country, whether flagship Mission Mode Projects under NeGP, or state-initiated projects in isolation, which are experimenting with variants of PPP model, build-own-operate-transfer, supplyoperate-maintain, build-own-operate and so on.

It is imperative that the responsibility to transform the intent of making PPP successful into a reality lies with both public and private sector.

However, this is not happening with the desired pace. All concerned need to appreciate that, there is an ardent requirement for all stakeholders to change internal functioning pattern, to carry out businesses in the ICT era. On one hand, government should identify and bundle out non-sovereign tasks and activities for outsourcing them to generally more responsive and efficient private sector. The idea of PPP should be appreciated in letter and spirit and service level agreements should be drawn up pragmatically with deliverable attributes which are only logically essential. In procurement of goods and services quality-cumcost-based selection approach should prevail.

Government must take advantage of liberated entrepreneurship mindset of the Indian private sector. On the other hand, private sector also has to make up for its so-called trust deficit with the government, to carry out healthy business with the largest stakeholder in the ecosystem. Profitmaking cannot and should not be the only motto for the Industry. Price realism should take priority.

Business models to work with the government should be more collaborative, taking cognisance of the changes churning inside the government.

The way the government and private sector decisions are influenced traditionally for decades, should change now. A new book of mind sharing between these two sectors should be written, based on collaborative knowledge sharing, bringing in exposure to best practices, preparing for hand-holding wherever necessary and getting in to win-win PPP models for all the stakeholders. In order to urgently accelerate the pedal of inclusive development, to unlock our scarce governmental resources to provide developmental opportunities to all sections of the society, it is essential to embark upon much more thoughtful collaboration between ‘we and they’!

Ashis Sanyal Consulting Editor, egov ashis@elets.co.in

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Improving Education

ICT in Education “As government officials it is our duty to work in such a way that we can achieve the right results in the most cost-effective manner,” says Hari Ranjan Rao, Secretary to Chief Minister and Department of Information Technology, Government of Madhya Pradesh

Hari Ranjan Rao delivering his keynote address at State Education Summit, 2012, in Indore, Madhya Pradesh

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hallenges in education sector are huge, and we should avoid the tendency of getting bogged down by numbers. Once we get bogged down by the numbers, then it becomes are really challenging task to reach the ultimate objective. As government officials

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it is our duty to work in such a way that we can achieve the right results in the most costeffective manner. When it comes to education we have a cause to be worried, and we also have the cause to be optimistic. We are working with better goals in mind, but the task before us is so huge that we have to strive to do even better.

When teachers are guides There is no doubt that IT is going to bring about a paradigm shift in education. In June

this year, Shri Sam Pitroda was in Bhopal and we had a very good interactive session with him. One very pertinent pointthat he said was, “Look, let’s not presume that kids these days need teachers. Actually children don’t need teachers anymore; they only need guides, enablers, and mentors. Give the modern kids an opportunity and they will learn things by themselves.” This is a very profound statement to be made by man of Shri Sam Pitroda’s stature.

Improving Education

In a class, the teacher asks the kids how did Lord Hanuman manage to find Goddess Sita?

One child raised his hand and innocently replied, “Very simple, through Google search.”

Solutions to many of the questions that arise in the child’s mind are found in Google search. The kids of today are computer savvy; they know how to look for answers on Google. So if we give the modern kids an opportunity, they will look for solutions.

All of us who have children at home know very well that whenever a new gadget comes to the house, it is the youngsters who are the first to master the nitty-gritties of running that gadget.

You don’t need to teach a child how to operate a remote. The kids know that automatically. They don’t go to any classroom to learn how to operate a gadget. All we need to do is provide our kids with enabling IT environment and then they will be able to learn on their own. This is very easier said than done.

The problem is that so far we have not been able to create that IT backbone that can reach out to majority of the children who are in need of education. In villages, the IT infrastructure is yet to make a mark in a significant manner. It is not in the tier-I and tier-II cities and towns that we are facing the crunch of IT infrastructure for education. The crunch is being felt in the remote villages, towns and districts. All the PPP projects in education that we have launched are unable to reach the remote areas, as we don’t have network in those areas.

Building digital networks A vast majority of our education applications need the network to run in a proper manner.

So digital education can take the root, only when the network is able to expand to each and every part of the country. What we are doing today in Madhya Pradesh might be of interest to you. We have a State Wide Area Network (SWAN) in place that has now reached up to the block level. We are strengthening the SWAN by the use of lot of technological innovations. We are also trying to expand SWAN to our primary schools. Under this project virtual classrooms are being set up in different parts of the state. In Phase One of the project, we are connecting 313 Block Headquarters. In each Block, we have picked up at least one school.

About 100 colleges have also been picked up.

Each school or college is being provided with a virtual classroom with the entire set up consisting of a projector, a LCD screen, computer,

There are lots of challenges that we have to overcome to bring perfection in the digital system of imparting education. The primary challenge is to connect all the virtual classrooms with the studio microphone, etc. A studio has been created in Bhopal. The best teachers can be teaching in the studio and the lessons will get digitally transmitted to all virtual classrooms located in different parts of state. By this way a much larger number of students will be able tap into the teaching skills of the best teachers. It is possible that all the 313 virtual classrooms could be simultaneously attending the same lecture. As the system is interactive, the children will be able to ask questions and get answers from their teacher.

There are lots of challenges that we have to overcome to bring perfection in the digital system of imparting education. The primary challenge is to connect all the virtual classrooms with the studio. In about a month’s time the system will be in place to cater to the need of the few schools and colleges that we are connecting.

However, it is not as if we have achieved the ultimate objective in education with this initial step.

The truth is that the number of schools, which require this kind of technological solutions, is really large. About 4000 institutions require virtual classroom in government institutions.

Connecting schools One good thing that has happened is the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN). For laying the fibre optic cables, the government of India has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a number of states. The Government of Madhya Pradesh was one of the first states to sign the MoU with Government of India. What is NOFN? Government of India has approved on 25th October 2011, the setting up of National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) to provide connectivity to all the 2,50,000 Gram Panchayats (GPs) in the country. This would ensure broadband connectivity with adequate bandwidth. This is to be achieved utilizing the optical fiber existing up to block level and extending it to the Gram Panchayats.

If an optical fibre network is reaching the Gram Panchayat, then many of the villages en

route will also get connected. Madhya Pradesh has around 23,000 Gram Panchayats, all of these will be connected. Surely this represents a landmark opportunity to revolutionise the education sector in the country. The concept of virtual classrooms can simply be replicated in 23,000 Gram Panchayats. This is a very cost-effective way ensuring that children in even the remotest village have access to quality teaching material.

Can you imagine the state’s best mathematics teacher can be sitting in classroom located inside a studio in Bhopal and he would be teaching students in 23,000 classrooms located across the state? This is the kind of revolution that ICT will lead us to.

A dedicated IT cadre To bring efficiency in actual implementations of e-Governance, the state government has started creating a dedicated IT cadre. Now at every Block and Tehsil level we have Assistant e-Governance Managers, and at every district level we have District e-Governance Managers.

They have been recruited through a process of online examinations that entail very little paperwork and many of them have already joined the jobs.

Also, I would like to point out that the private sector has lot of talent. But as a government official, how do I take advantage of that talent.

Let’s say a private company comes to me with a very efficient model for virtual classroom. I can’t straightway take that virtual classroom and start deploying it. The scales at which the government works are enormous. We need to go through a transparent procurement process. So it is much better if the private sector, instead of bringing their products directly to the government, get their products tested with the private schools. Once the application gets popularised, a demand for the product will get created and then the government machinery can create an ecosystem and procure the solution through a transparent mechanism.

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eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

e-Governance is All about Inclusive Growth The ultimate agenda of e-Governance is inclusive growth. This is the clear message that emerged from the recently held eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012, an event that offered a unique, leisurely environment to experts and key decision makers from across the nation to come together and ponder over the various issues of e-Governance

L to R: Basanti Devi Meena, MLA, Udaipur; Mangilal Garasia, Ho’ble Minister for Sports, Government of Rajasthan; Raghuvir Singh Meena, Member of Parliament, Udaipur; Chief Guest, Virendra Beniwal, Hon’ble Minister for Home Affairs and Transport, Government of Rajasthan; Dr M P Narayanan, President, CSDMS; and B K Gairola, Mission Director, eGovernance, Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India

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uring his keynote address on e-Governance, at the eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012, B K Gairola, Mission Director, e-Governance, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India, pointed out,”e-Governance can be considered

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complete only when all the 1.2 billion people are able to interact with the government directly in a transparent, open and easy manner.”

B K Gairola was speaking at the inauguration of the three-day residential event held at The City Palace, Udaipur, between December 13 and 15, 2012. The event was jointly organised by the Department of Information Technology

& Communication (DoIT&C), Government of Rajasthan, and Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd, the publisher of eGov Magazine – Asia’s premier magazine on e-Governance. eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012 was held with the sole objective of offering a networking platform for discussions by key government officials, industry experts, stakeholders, decision makers and

eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

private players on the essential issue of ICT implementation in governance.

The who’s who Present at the eGov Knowledge Exchange were an interesting mix of key officials from the Ministry of Communication and IT (Government of India); from various e-Governance agencies; heads of e-Governance, IT and other nodal agencies from different states; IT officials from various government establishments including, defence, railways, NIC, data centres, science & technology units, etc, as well as officials from Mission Mode Projects from across the country. The event discussions converged on the idea of better governance through ICT implementation. More than 90 delegates from across the nation participated in the event. Many accompanied their spouses and family members, who took out time for exploring the rich cultural heritage of the City of Lakes.

Eminent personalities at national and state levels including J Satyanarayana, Secretary, DeitY, Government of India; N Ravi Shankar, Administrator (USOF) and CMD, BBNL; Dr Omkar Rai, DG STPI; O P Meena, Additional Chief Secretary, Transport Department, Government of Rajasthan; Ravi Saxena, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Science & Technology, Government of Gujarat; Bipul Pathak, Secretary, IT, Jammu & Kashmir; Rakesh Tandon, MD, IRCTC, etc, were among the delegates who participated in the three-day event.

Rajasthan wins accolades eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012 coincided with the launch of Digitally Signed Jamabandi Programme in Udaipur district, which has already been launched in 23 districts of Rajasthan since its inception in 2012. The inauguration ceremony also witnessed the felicitation of government offi-

cials for their exemplary work in e-Governance in the state during 2011-12.

Lauding the achievements of the state government in the field of e-Governance, the Chief Guest, Virendra Beniwal, Hon’ble Minister of State for Home Affairs and Transport, Government of Rajasthan, said: “Rajasthan is playing a leading role in the field of e-Governance, despite IT literacy levels being low and despite being a late starter compared to southern states.”

Raghuvir Singh Meena, Member of Parliament, Udaipur; Mangilal Garasia, Minister of Sports, Government of Rajasthan; Basanti Devi Meena, MLA, Udaipur; Dr M P Narayanan, President, Centre for Science Development and Media Studies; and Dr Ravi Gupta, CEO, Elets Technomedia and Convenor, eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012 were also present at the inaugural session held at the prestigious City Palace in Udaipur.

Brainstorming at its high The three-day event witnessed sessions, thematic presentations and discussions on landmark technologies. Overall 11 sessions were held, which were clearly divided into technology-specific sessions, such as Cloud Computing & Data Centres, Technology in Security Optimisation, Telepresence & Video conferencing, etc; and governance-specific sessions, such as Mantras of e-Governance, ICT Innovations in Governance, Public Safety, ICT for Inclusive Growth, etc.

Besides, the event also offered a platform to the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) executors to talk about their projects in detail – mentioning the achievements made and obstacles faced.

One of the major challenges of e-Governance programmes that emerged was the issue of lack of cohesion. “Government departments work in silos, which is a major challenge. The departments need to be much more cohesive to project

Raghuvir Singh Meena Member of Parliament, Udaipur

“It’s an opportune moment for Udaipur to host an event like this where experts from across the nation have assembled together. I hope the brainstorming shall help in more e-Gov initiatives”

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Virendra Beniwal

Hon’ble Minister of State for Home Affairs and Transport, Government of Rajasthan

“The state government has decided to allocate up to three percent of the annual plan budget for e-Governance related initiatives” themselves as one single unit of the government to the citizens. Proper IT implementation is one of the ways of achieving this,” said Bipul Pathak.

Talking about the importance of having a clear vision in e-Governance, J Satyanarayana pointed out, “We need to have clarity on what impact do we want to have on the society through our efforts and what difference can we make.”

Sponsors and exhibitors Along with the DoIT&C, Government of Rajasthan, RajCOMP Info Services Ltd and the National e-Governance Plan participated in the eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012 as Host Partners. The Government Partners were STPI and the Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Ltd. Cloud Partner was Akamai Technologies; Security Specialist Partner was Check Point Software Technologies; and Gold Sponsors were Cisco Systems and Vakrangee Softwares. Rajasthan Electronics & Instruments Ltd (REIL) participated as the PSU Partner while Radware, Presto Infosolutions and Revolabs participated as the Sponsors of the event. eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012 served as a unique platform for exhibitors to showcase their IT tools and solutions through an expo that was running parallel with the sessions.

Among the kiosks put up were of Vakrangee Softwares; DoIT&C, Government of Rajasthan; RajCOMP Info Services Ltd; and REIL January 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

Snapshots from eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012 at Udaipur, Rajasthan

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Virendra Beniwal, Hon’ble Minister for Home Affairs and Transport, Government of Rajasthan, greeting Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs)

Delegates and Speakers on a tour of The City Palace, Udaipur

Indu Gupta, NIC, exchanging few words with B K Gairola, Mission Director, e-Governance, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY)

Speakers and delegates attending a session at The Durbar Hall in The City Palace, Udaipur

L to R: Dr M P Narayanan, Ranjan Dwivedi, N Ravi Shankar, Dr Ravi Gupta, Asutosh Deshpande, Sanjay Malhotra, R K Tandon, Anju Sharma

J Satyanarayana, Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communication and IT, Government of India, writing on the white board

The City Palace, Udaipur at sunset

Traditional Dance Show at the eGov Knowledge Exchange Forum

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / January 2013

eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

Integrated Systems are Needed The myriad components of government-to-citizen services are existing in silos. We need to separate the silos and integrate them into a single, homogeneous whole

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oday everybody has accepted e-Governance as an essential component of progress. We don’t hear from any quarter – be it political, bureaucratic, technical or business – that e-Governance is not required. This recognition has taken place over the last seven to eight years and now the road is clear for us to move forward in a rapid mode.

Integrating government departments e-Governance targets are moving targets and they have the acceleration components – the speed tomorrow is going to be faster than the speed yesterday. Therefore, it is extremely important that we don’t plan for five years, but for two years. At every stage we need to optimise and keep track of the goals, because expectations are changing fast, and hence, technology has to keep pace.

The myriad components of the government-to-citizen services are existing in silos.

From the citizen’s perspective, the government is a single entity. Our back-end systems are not integrated and are in silos. We need to separate these silos and integrate them into a single, homogeneous whole. The user can log into the cyberspace without having to worry about the security, the operations and the implementations.

We have issues on infrastructure, mindset, processes, data standards and meta data standard operations. Unless and until we have integrated systems, citizens cannot get the holistic view of e-Governance. e-Governance can be considered to be complete only when all the 1.2 billion people are able to interact

B K Gairola, Mission Director, e-Governance, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India with the government directly and have transparency, openness and participation in the governance process.

Landmark initiatives In the last two years, we have taken up two new projects, namely National Knowledge Network and National Optic Fibre Network System. The National Knowledge Network is a `6,000 crore project, whereby we have connected 5,000 knowledge institutions / universities into a single gigabit backbone network. We know that knowledge economy is the economy of tomorrow and equipping people with knowledge will empower everybody to earn his livelihood. This network

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is a unique network, one that encompasses research and development, governance and , R&D into a single entity.

The National Optic Fibre Network System is an `20,000-25,000 crore project, which will give connectivity up to Panchayat level. This network will provide you a seamless network across 20-25 lakh government employees who can do their workflow and service delivery in a seamless manner. The idea is to understand how an ecosystem can be built at the Panchayat level by making technology accessible.

We have not focused ourselves on developing appropriate standards. It has taken us two years to define what we call standard for identity. There is the UIDAI, which has uniquely defined identity for Indian citizens.

We are also working on making sure the banking structure is rolled out to the last mile.

The identification system, the banking system and the workflow system of this application is going to give us the framework in which we will be able to provide effective services and participative governance to the citizens.

The other area we are working on is information. Information can be used by industry as well as the common man. So now every government department is making all its data available in open domain called data.gov. in. You can use this data in finding out what is happening in village,; you can also use to find out which are the vehicles which have done more accidents and hold more LIC policy, etc. We are now looking at making the data, which is developed by the government for the citizens, is owned by the citizens and public.

This will bring in transparency, openness and democratisation of information.

So now we are working on three components – creation of a national information infrastructure where government can work homogeneously; generation of a platform for the service delivery which has Aadhaar on one side, banking system on the other side and application in the middle; and ensuring that bulk of data which is not confidential is made available to the people of the country. This cannot be done by central government or state government alone.

There are issues that are yet to be resolved in technology, in mindset and in process but we have to proactively work with the citizens, allowing them to participate, create capacity and enable them to exploit and utilise the resources that we are making.

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eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

Outcome, Outcome & Outcome When it comes to e-Governance, it is the outcomes that matter more than anything else

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t the morning session of the eGov Knowledge Exchange, they had a white board on which the delegates were asked to write a message. When my turn came to write, I wrote spontaneously, “Outcome, Outcome and Outcome”. The point is that the expectations of the people from the government are very high, and ultimately it is the outcomes that matter. The people in the country have waited for too long and now they demand results. It is a high- time that we, the government functionaries, produce the results. e-Governance is a way by which we can try to meet the myriad expectations of the people.

The outcome of all governance related activity may mean different things to different people.

It could mean a birth certificate to somebody, it could mean easy access to land records to somebody else. So we need to have clarity on what impact do we want to have on the society through our efforts and what difference can we make. Once we are clear about this, we will be capable of doing good work.

While delivering e-Services we need to ask ourselves if the services are simply a case of old wine in new bottle, or are they totally different and transformed services? We need

J Satyanarayana, Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communication and IT, Government of India to assess the quantity of services that we are delivering – are we covering the entire set of services and the entire set of target stakeholders that are interested in taking those, are we serving every nook and corner of this country?

Also the quality of services matter. Very often deficiencies raise their heads when we are defining one or more of these three essential requirements of service delivery system. We know what to do and also know how to do things better, but then how do we implement

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that idea? Ultimately it boils down to “how”?

Then comes the stage for planning where you have to re-engineer or where there is no process in place and you may have to invent or design from a clean slate perspective. You have to entrust it to an agency which is competent enough and then monitor the project to ensure its timely implementation. These are fairly simple or primary lessons in management but I am putting it in perspective of e-Governance.

We also need to have an enabling environment. In a country as large as India with 35 states and union territories, certain programmes are being conceptualised, funded, promoted, supported by the central government and several others are being taken at state levels – it’s not a trivial task.

Once you have the right environment it will enable quick and elegant transformation of that idea into reality. So it will have several other components – clear implementation guidelines whether from the Centre or from the States. We also need to have flexibility at various levels of legal frameworks so that the new system is legally sustainable. The last but not the least, it is the leadership which is key to the success of any project. The leader is the one whose mind is always occupied with the outcome. His eyes are always glued to that particular outcome. He does the consultations, but at the end of the day he has his clarity and he doesn’t deviate from the goal.

While developing its e-Goverannce initiatives, DietY’s philosophy has been to guide, to expedite, to facilitate and to produce the desired outcome. Now a lot of guidelines and frameworks have been put in place. We are also attempting rapid replication, where there is hope for quick success. Why don’t you pick it up and replicate rapidly, so that the outcomes are achieved in much more quicker manner across the country.

I would also like to talk about the e-transaction portal. We have designed it and it is now operational. In e-Governance, the scenario boils down to e-transactions – how many e-transactions have we done today! So to enable some resonance to happen across the country, this portal has been created. Any service delivery mechanism, any service delivery project can link to this portal seamlessly through web services and report the kind of transactions on a real-time basis. So when a transaction happens in a remote village somewhere, the next minute it is there on the portal and we are able to view it.

eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

Taking Broadband to Panchayats The National Optic Fibre Network is undoubtedly going to be a game changer. It would connect 2,50,000 gram panchayats to the mainstream, hence enabling inclusive growth and facilitating socio-economic transformation

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o enable ICT applications and to have outcomes we need to have very good infrastructure. The National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) is an initiative of the Department of Telecommunications, Government of India, for the purpose of creating e-infrastructure across the country. It would connect 2,50,000 gram panchayats to the mainstream. Right now optic fibre network is present only up to the block level and the endeavor of the Department of Telecom is to ensure that this reaches the gram panchayats as well so that our villages become part of inclusive growth.

We have started pilot projects in three states, with Rajasthan being one of them. In Arian block of Ajmer district, Rajasthan, 30 gram panchayats have been wired up and 100 mbps has been made available. This bandwidth is far higher than what even the residents in urban areas have. The idea is if you have high quality bandwidth then all the activities such as telemedicine, e-Learning, e-Governance, e-Commerce can be enabled.

This will give an opportunity to villagers to move

N Ravi Shankar, Administartor (USOF) and CMD, Bharat Broadband Network Limited out of the poverty line. It is part of the inclusive growth story that if you take infrastructure to the villages, you will facilitate their socioeconomic transformation as well.

Public Private Panchayat Partnerships shall be the ecosystem as panchayats are an important partner in the whole progress

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Often IT is thought of as some instant transformation process. But in countries like India we consider it as an incremental transformation because there are many other factors that go into creating the ecosystem for transformation. Three major policies by the Ministry of Communication and IT, namely the National Telecom Policy, the National Policy on IT and the National Policy on Electronics are dependent on the infrastructure that is expected to be created by the NOFN. For instance, the National Telecom Policy seeks to have 600 million broadband connections by 2020. This will be possible only when the rollout of the NOFN does occur. The government expects to roll out the project by December 2030, which is a tough deadline. Fund is not a problem for this project though. This initial estimate of the project was `20,000 crore and we expect that the NOFN project would be funded entirely by the USOF. The Bharat Broadband Network Limited is a special purpose vehicle created for this project.

As for the ecosystem and participation process for the project, it is Public Private Panchayat Partnerships, because panchayats are an important partner in the whole progress. We need to ensure that first of all the IT content being provided to the masses is in local flavour. This implies that a lot of IT developers would be needed to ensure that the back-end content generated is relevant.

Secondly, a lot of indigenously developed, affordable devices would be needed that are accessible to the local area. The third thing is competitive prices. The data sector will have to monitor the competition among players and ensure that on the strength of content and devices being very affordable, competitive tariff is also created for the total ecosystem for broadband to take off.

NOFN is undoubtedly going to be a game changer. All development indicators can be monitored and this broadband network could definitely facilitate growth. We have to use the combination of both hand-held devices and also desktops and laptops, to see that we are able to create the genesis of growth. I think all of these would be definitely go to create an inclusive paradigm. I would think that this broadband will create a world of change for Rural India.

Fifty years ago people used to say Mera Gaon Mera Desh, but now with broadband penetration spreading up to village levels and helping citizens avail various services online in their villages, the future generation will coin a new slogan; Mera Desh Mera Gaon. And this will be due to combination of ICT and broadband infrastructure.

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eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

CSC Awards

In the state of Rasjasthan, citizen services are being delivered through more than 4,600 kiosks under Common Service Centres (CSCs). Among the various services being delivered to citizens, digitally signed certificates need a special mention whereby more than one lakh certificates are being issued to citizens every month through CSCs. As a part of eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012, the Department of Information Technology & Communication (DoIT&C), Government of Rajasthan, felicitated officers who have played a stellar role in the implementation of e-Governance initiatives in the state.

The awards were given to officers across all levels – right from the grassroots level, Village Level Entrepreneurs (VLEs), Collectors / ADMs, state level officers. The following HoDs and collectors were awarded:

Manjit Singh, CMD, Transport Department, Government of Rajasthan

Sharat Kaviraj, IPS, State Crime Record Bureau, Jaipur

Manju Rajpal, Deputy Secretary, Rural Development Department, Ministry of RD, Government of India

Arti Dogra, Collector, Bikaner

Rohit Gupta, Collector, Churu

G L Gupta , Collector, Kota

The following functionaries were honoured with awards: 13 individual government officials working on e-Governance (e-Mitra and CSC project) 11 individual government officials working on e-Governance (on projects other than e-Mitra and CSC) 33 tehsildars contributing in issuance of digitally signed certificates 66 individual CSC kiosk owners 33 individual e-Mitra kiosk owners

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Joga Ram, Collector Jhunjhunu

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eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

Meeting the Demands of the Public through e-Governance ICT can serve as a big enabler by providing the tools that can facilitate better service delivery by myriad departments and thereby meet the expectations of the public

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-Governance is basically about the new ways in which services can be delivered to the public. Today we are witnessing a huge rise in the expectations that the public has from the government, municipal administration and from all the bodies of government. It is immensely challenging for us to cope up with the rising expectations.

The country is in the middle of a catharsis, as the Civil Society is demanding more and more from the government. The government in turn is trying its best to live up to the expectations of the common citizens of the country. In such an environment of rising expectations, ICT can serve as a big enabler. It provides us with the tools that can facilitate better service delivery by myriad departments and thereby meet the expectations of the public.

All of us present here have definite roles to play – the role for those of you from the private sector is to maximise profit and the role of those from the government is to deliver services to the public. But ultimately, we are all citizens of this country, and we too are amongst

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

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those who will derive benefits from ICT initiatives of the government. So despite the position we may occupy, it is in our interest to keep implementing new innovations in governance.

Mantras of e-Governance For both the public and the private sector who are working for the government, the field of e-Governance is fraught with challenges. Software development is very complex, tedious, time-consuming, requirement gathering, etc. So replication becomes important. The successes that we have had lately have been faster on the replication side.

Arogya Online is a wonderful example of replication of software. The software was already running in one of the private hospitals in Maharashtra and we replicated it in Rajasthan.

In e-Procurement, we are using e-Tendering which is software of the National Informatics Centre (NIC). We are replicating the success of e-Office, which is again an NIC product. Along with replication, knowing your requirement is also very important. You have to tell them what you want. This is generally absent. When we want to do something, we just do it for the sake of doing it or it comes more from the side of the people who are selling it. The project shouldn’t be vendor-driven.

If you are not replicating, the process of implementing new ideas in e-Governance can become very long. You have to start with business process re-engineering. The thing is that software development takes time. Lot of changes have to be made. We also need to change the mindset of the people who are going to use the new ICT based systems. We have taken certain measures to reduce the time. We have tried to adopt the philosophy of not trying to re-invent the wheel. This cuts down drastically about 60-85 percent of implementation.

Urban development As the cities are growing, problems of pollution, traffic, garbage collection, municipal services, etc become larger. As more and more population is coming to cities, it becomes more important to deliver those services through a seamless online process.

The pressure on municipal bodies and other bodies is increasing with growing population.

And there are many areas where IT can be used.

For example, Andhra Pradesh is using IT for efficient garbage collection, whereby they are using mobile technology and photographs to monitor if the concerned people are doing their job.

eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

IT is the Big Enabler for Inclusive Growth e-Governance is all about enabling better governance in the country. We need to ensure that the current level of governance in the states and centre is close to the ideal of good governance.

People who are engaged in the task of governing must be constantly assessing themselves

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oday most state governments are at various stages of rolling out many of their services in ‘e’ format. This is an attempt to facilitate a move towards good governance. However, we are still far from the stage where we can provide best possible governance to the people. If you talk to the citizens, residing in areas where such e-services have been rolled out, you will find that their expectations are of even better services. They do not want to apply for six different services from the same kiosk six times. That is a major challenge. e-Governance, within our system, is struggling. Citizens perceive that the government is contrived out of a singular unit, but behind the scene we lack that kind of cohesion. Government departments work in silos. Hence, the internal governance of the government itself is a major challenge and the departments

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

Our piping networks have to be mapped for better water supply management. Same goes for other municipal services and structures

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need to be much more cohesive to project themselves as one single unit of the government to the citizens.

This challenge of lack of cohesion has to be handled by most of the state governments.

Proper IT implementation is one of the ways of achieving this.

Urban development In our country, urban development catches up with the existing realities rather than being planned in a proper and thoughtful manner. Many cities do not have plans for the basic amenities even for the urban rich.

Even if planning catches up later, there is hardly any advance planning. This phenomenon used to happen around metro cities; but with rapid urbanisation in the last 10-15 years, we are finding this phenomenon now happening around cities with 1 million population as well. We are talking about places like Ludhiana and Jaipur. We are not able to manage cities well, and these are the sources of social exclusion.

How does IT fit into this? The telecom revolution did bring about social inclusion.

At least the lowest strata of society today is in the position to connect in the same way as the rich people. In terms of urban development, we are not able to manage encroachment on the public land. Better deployment of GIS systems can lead to curbing of encroachments. In fact, GIS systems are already being used by many urban local bodies to keep a track of the public land in urban areas.

I would argue that IT in various forms can be a good enabler for advance planning.

Our piping networks have to be mapped, so that we have a better water supply management system. Same goes for other municipal services and structures which have to be properly mapped, planned, kept on maintenance mode, etc, through the use of IT. Then we will be in a position of advance planning, not catching up.

It’s all about advance planning; we need to use technology, we need to use IT and other kind of technology available for better urban planning, development and management.

That is the only way forward and hopefully we will be able to achieve some kind of planning model in urban areas.

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Ensuring Seamless Delivery of Railway Tickets IRCTC has been playing a big role in last mile connectivity. The success of IRCTC can also be seen as a vote for e-Commerce in the country

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t is in the area of last mile connectivity that the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has been playing a big role.

A large section of our population is using IRCTC services to reach their destinations. The success of IRCTC can also be seen as a vote for e-Commerce in the country. According to some estimates, in 2012, the e-Commerce sector has seen a growth of almost 80 percent in India, whereas the figure stands at only 25 percent in China. e-Commerce also facilitates a more green way of conducting business. For instance, there is the IRCTC e-ticket. Nothing gets printed and yet the passengers are able to conduct their rail journey in a safe and hassle-free manner. On the day when IRCTC portal was launched, only around 27 tickets got sold. Since then the sale of tickets have zoomed to levels that are beyond anyone’s expectations. The highest ever per day book-

Rakesh Kumar Tandon, Managing Director, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC)

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ing is 4.96 lakh e-tickets on July 13, 2012.

For the sale of online tickets, IRCTC is charging only `10 to 20. The Ministry of Railways has been insisting that why we should not make the sale of tickets free.

But we also understand that someone has to pay for the infrastructure that is leading to the efficient generation of online tickets. It is better that we charge this nominal sum from our end users.

In my opinion, anyone who buys a railway ticket from IRCTC is richer by at least `90. This is because he will be paying us only `10 out of the `100 that he might have to spend in coming to the railway station booking counter and standing there for few hours. Even if he comes by bus, he will have to spend at least `100. If he comes by car, he will be spending much more by way of fuel costs and also the parking fees.

Now IRCTC has started the service of ticket on SMS. My appeal to all of you who use IRCTC services is that you should not take a print out of the tickets. The SMS confirmation of the ticket booking that you receive is a valid ticket. Nothing else is required. In future, we plan to make even the SMS ticket redundant. If you know your berth number, coach number and the PNR number, you can just walk into the train and occupy your seat.

At times, we have to face some flak from users who find the speed of services being provided by the IRCTC website somewhat slow. In those times, when there is heavy influx of traffic from users all over the country, the website will slow down a bit. But we are making a lot of new technological changes to ensure that the speed remains optimised at all times.

We are gradually shifting a number of activities to separate servers. Other strategies are also being implemented.

The thing is that a ticketing portal is not only a portal; it has a number of services attached to it. The call centre, service requirements, incoming mails, trouble-shooting, ensuring payment security, tying up with banks, management of 18 payment gateways, and a huge front-end – all this needs to be tackled in order to provide best possible services to our end users.

eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

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Mantras of e-Governance By the virtue of being the enablers of e-Governance, ICTs serve as tools in processes for transformation and change. The session had a healthy discussion on how new initiatives in e-Governance are leading to better social outcomes.

Sanjay Malhotra, Secretary, Department of Information Technology and Communication, Government of Rajasthan eGovernance is definitely a challenge for both the public and the private sector who are working for the government. Software development is very complex, tedious, time-consuming, requirement gathering, etc. So replication becomes important. The successes that we have had lately have been faster on the replication side.

Debasish Bandopoadhyay Deputy Secretary-IT, Government of West Bengal

Dr Aatul Wadegaonkar Managing Director, Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Ltd

Dr Meera Singh Head – Bioinformatics Centre, Indian Council of Medical Research

e-Governance is about freedom of delivery mechanism and choice of the citizen. It is not merely computerisation of the existing projects, but about increasing efficiency of those projects. It is a mode of service orientation, efficiency, transparency and cost-efficiency.

A lot of capacity building is taking place through us, so that the targets of all e-Gov initiatives are achieved.

Even in unreachable places, people are able to take their learning. Digital Saheli is one such programme empower women. In the last four years, about 5 lakh learners have been trained under this.

IT has benefited mankind by leaps and bounds in the field of biomedical research. IT has played a major role in the development of immense databases needed in the research; in the development of data mining tools for those databases; and in the analysis of those databases as well.

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Indu Gupta, Senior Technical Director and State Informatice Officer, National Informatics Centre, Rajasthan The Pregnancy and Child Tracking System – the flagship programme of the Government of Rajasthan – was one of its first initiatives in the country. It has been highly appreciated not only by national level agencies such as the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, but also worldwide by the WHO, the UN, World Bank and by the advisor to the President of the US.

Tapan Kumar ACP (Deputy Director), Department of Information Technology & Communication, Government of Rajasthan Aarogya Online project was started in 2007 with the biggest hospital in western India that caters to around 8,000 patients daily. We started with the computerising the complete hospital in a phased manner. As a result, our patient management improved. Till date we have covered around 40 lakh patients and around 83 lakh investigations have been done through this system. Investigation reports and availability of blood in blood banks are now available online.

Indu Gupta from NIC signing on the eGov Knowledge Exchange white borad

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Dr M B Dholakia Joint CEO, Gujarat Knowledge Society When you talk about ICT implementation, you have to be very clear about what you want – why you are doing it, who are the beneficiaries, what are the modalities, and the provisions that you are supposed to make. We have to create that kind of governance where we can moniotor the trainers, the trainees as well as the private bodies. We need to be clear about the objectives of the private bodies. We provide the trainer and private companies provide funding.

The private players need to take e-Governance as a Corporate Social Responsibility initiative and not as a part of their business strategy.

Audience attending the session

eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

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ICT Innovations in Governance Major Gen R Siva Kumar, CEO and Head, NRDMS and NSDI, Government of India The Government of India has realised the importance of g-governance.

So now in the twelfth five-year plan, under the Department of Science and Technology, it is launching a massive program called National Geospatial Information Systems. It shall bring together all excellent work done across the country and offer practical solutions.

Dr K K Pathak Secretary, Rajasthan Public Service Commission

Prem Narayan Director, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India

While technology is making inroads in all aspects of governance and making innovations, we also need to be watchful about technology not becoming an obstacle in anyway.

We need to analyse if there is a real and genuine demand for the services and solutions that we are offering.

e-Awas – our e-Governance Award winning national website – takes care of 66,000 online houses allotments in Delhi alone. Other initiatives include e-Seva, CPWD online service monitoring for government accommodation and maintenance; and e-Dharti, an initiative on management of government properties.

V K Sharma CEO & Director, Gujarat Info Petro Ltd We have created Smartphone Surveillance System for the Forest Department, whereby all beat guards are provided with a smartphone and central control command monitors their position & alerts them. Also we have Crop Certifying System and Tablet-based Seed Certification for the Agriculture Department; and e-Challan System for the Traffic Police.

Sandeep Ahlawat, Head, State e-Mission Team SeMT, Government of Delhi In order to bring in efficiency and sustainability, around twelve states have enforced Service Guarantee Act. This ensures that the government departments deliver their services in a time-bound manner.

If a delivery is delayed beyond stipulated period then a penalty will be paid to the consumer.

Santulan Chaubey, Director, Delhi eGovernance Society We created Delhi Geo Spatial Act 2011, which has made mandatory for all users of land departments to use the Delhi State Spatial Data and also update it. Basically, the purpose is that whatever data is collected will remain there and its updation will be sustainable. So the data will be there and we can use this data for our applications.

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e-Governance for Good Governance & Inclusive Growth Ravi Saxena, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Science & Technology, Government of Gujarat Good governance obliges the state to perform its functions in a manner that promotes the values of efficiency, zero corruption and responsiveness to civil society. Therefore, it becomes a principle that is largely associated with the statecraft. Ensuring inclusive growth, leadership, legal infrastructure, security, transparency, ability to deal with crisis, education, effective execution, accountability and access to beneficiaries are some of the parameters of good governance.

Aravind Sitaraman President, Inclusive Growth, Cisco

Joan Mccalla Distinguished Fellow, Cisco

We need to bring inclusive growth not just to catch up with developed nations, but to leapfrog into the future. In order to do that we need to: build strong partnerships of government with service providers, universities, NGOs and industry associations; build human capital in a way so that money goes back to the rural systems; and build affordable business models in a way so that people can utilise technology and services.

The Government of Canada adopted a four-stream approach in the 1990s to address the issue of inclusive growth. These included addressing the market gap that existed in both supply and demand of technology, stimulating demand, providing direct support to industry, and adopting technology in its functioning to prove how technology could help in transforming operations.

Major Gen R Siva Kumar CEO and Head, NRDMS and NSDI, Dept of Science and Technology, Govt of India As most of the human activities are related to location, there is need for geo-governance (g-Governance)) more than e-Governance. Goverance has to be location-based. We are trying to use maps and are trying to migrate from these maps to the apps that people are using today. These should provide g-Governance and empower people.

Bipul Pathak, Commissioner & Secretary, Science & Technology and Information Technology Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir We need to assess where we stand today. All state governments are at various stages of rolling out many of their services in ‘e’ form. This is an attempt to move up the spectrum towards good governance.

But if we assess it in a rational manner, we would realise that we are somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.

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eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

Cloud Computing and Data Centres K Gururaja Rao, CMD, Gujarat Informatics Limited Had Cloud Computing come before applications, probably we could have made better utilisation of infrastructure. But in India, it happened the other way round. We started with individual apps for which we developed individual hardware and kept them in different servers and now we are trying to consolidate them into data centres. The challenge is that hardwares exist in individual silos and we now need to devise ways how to move towards a unified Cloud.

Jaydeep Nargund Sr Service Line Manager, Akamai Technologies

Sharat Kaviraj SP, State Crime Record Bureau, Government of Rajasthan

Sanjeev Chauhan Technology Head – North and East India, Radware

Aman Madhok Regional Head – North and East India, Radware

Adoption of Cloud is important not only for the government departments but also for enterprises. Customers trust our Cloud platform to securely deliver highperforming user experiences to any device, anywhere. Our platform provides customers with unmatched reliability, security, and visibility into their online businesses.

We are facing challenges in rolling out the CCTNS pilot project, a flagship project of the Government of India to connect all police stations across the country, through State Data Centres. As the SDCs are currently not working optimally, the implementing agency suggested sharing their data centre for the pilot project roll-out.

With more and more businesses migrating to the Cloud, the growing Infrastructure-as-a-Service market represents a significant revenue generating opportunity for hosting companies and Cloud service providers.

Our Smart Choice Cloud Partner Program will give service providers tools to meet the growing demand.

Radware is a global leader in application delivery and application security. Seventy percent of data centres of e-Governance are by Radware.

Ruchin Kumar, Security Evangelist – India & SAARC, SafeNet India Pvt Ltd Security is a major concern for organisations to move into Cloud Computing. Our survey with large organisations showed that virtualisation, which is sort of private Cloud environment for consolidation of data, has become an important part of the complete Cloud infrastructure. Confidentiality, integrity and accessibility at the very beginning of data lifecycle should be incorporated to ensure that even if someone intrudes into the networks he should only get trash and not access to meaningful data.

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Technology in Security Optimisation Ranjan Dwivedi, Member, UP Police, Bharti Avam Pronnati Board, Lucknow We are often at a loss as to what to do when it comes to the issue of security in cyber space. Although the common man knows how to use IT, the whole issue of how to address security concerns eludes many of us. And this is a serious problem. If we have a sense of security as to what we can do to make our organisation, data, hardware and software more secure, then we will be optimising at least our own environment.

Ramandeep Singh Head - Systems Engineering, India & SAARC Countries, Check Point Software Technologies

K Ram Additional Director General, Intelligence Bureau, Jaipur

In order to optimise the investments and decisions on security deployment, we need to be very clear as to what exactly are we trying to protect. In the current scenario, there is a proliferation of collaborative apps, P2P apps and gadgets which have to be continuously incorporated into the security framework of computing. Security is a requirement which never ends. So we need to keep evolving our understanding of the risks hovering over new applications.

For companies to survive in present times, it’s no more enough to recruit skilled manpower, unlike the past. Rather, incorporating advanced technology has become a must. We don’t have a choice, as we have competition across the globe. Hence, it’s mandatory for us to have the latest technology. If we are opting for advanced technology, we have to also guard it well in order to ensure that it is not taken away.

Audience attending the session

L to R: Dr Ravi Gupta, Muktesh Pardesi, A S Bhal, Prem Narayan and V K Sharma during the session January 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Telepresence and Video Conferencing K Gururaja Rao, CMD, Gujarat Informatics Limited Video conferencing is an area which is effectively being used in improving the quality of governance. In Gujarat, we are using it especially in education and medical field. SWAGAT (State Wide Attention on Grievances by Application of Technology) – an online grievance redressal programme - is an initiative whereby our CM directly interacts with people at various levels. It has won UN award for the Best Interaction with Citizen-Centric Service. I am hopeful that more departments across the nation shall adopt this techniology for better governance.

V K Sharma CEO & Director, Gujarat Info Petro Ltd In Gujarat, we are utilising the facility of video conferencing for healthcare and education. If any major operation is happening, it is videocast to all medical colleges across the state. Similarly, there is a collaboration with ten universities in the US whereby every year lecturers deliver lectures to students of Pt Deen Dayal Petroleum University through video conferencing. Under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, all schools in the state are being connected through technology and if teachers are not available, lectures are still being provided through teleworking.

Roshan Gupta Country Manager, India & Middle East, Revolabs Collaboration over video and audio nowadays has become an important tool for efficient communication, productive meetings and saving time. However, the adaptability and usage is not as high as expected, mainly because of poor availability of tools. Revolabs microphones have an edge as they offer great audio quality, are totally cell phone interference free, are small and easy to handle, highly secure & encrypted, and are cost-effective as well.

Prakash Kumar, Director, Internet Business Solutions Group, Cisco Telepresence solutions that enable us to participate in another location without physically travelling there are being used by different industries, namely healthcare in the form of telemedicine, banking sector, retail, manufacturing, law & judiciary, as well as media & entertainment.

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Urban Development & New Horizons of Social Inclusion In order to cater to the needs of the large numbers of people living and working in urban areas, the government departments need to deploy new technologies to bring more efficiency and transparency into their operations. This session at Knowledge Exchange Forum was devoted to analysing new technologies for better decision making and anticipating problems that often surface in modern urban societies

Bipul Pathak Commissioner & Secretary, Science & Technology and Information Technology Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir We are not able to manage encroachment on the public land and for that I think the GIS system should be used more. It’s all about advance planning; we need to use technology, we need to use IT and other kind of technology available for better urban planning, development and management. That is the only way forward and hopefully we will be able to achieve some kind of planning model in urban areas.

A S Bhal Economic Adviser, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India We are very emotionally attach with the term rural.

Cities are the great inclusive growth engines and we must encourage them to grow. The huge challenge of urbanisation is lack of infrastructure in terms of water supplies, sanitation and urban transport. That’s because we came in late on to the urban development escalator. The IT is the great enabler which will help us develop inclusive and smart cities.

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Sanjay Malhotra, Secretary, Department of Information Technology & Communication, Government of Rajasthan As the cities are growing, problems of pollution, traffic, garbage collection, municipal services, etc become larger. As more and more population is coming to cities, it becomes more important to deliver those services and IT has a huge role to play in this. For eg Andhra Pradesh is using IT for efficient garbage collection, whereby they are using mobile technology and photographs to monitor if the concerned people are doing their job.

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Leveraging Connectivity to the Last Mile The central government’s promise to provide connectivity to 2, 50,000 Gram Panchayats is all set to come true in 2013, as the project for laying of National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) is underway. This session had an excellent presentation of ideas on how the NOFN project will make a difference.

J Satyanarayana, Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communication and IT, Government of India What counts eventually is the outcome of all our efforts. Irrespective of the departments and the agency (public or private), it is eventually efficiency, convenience and transparency in service delivery that we look for.

Whether it’s service to a citizen or service to a business or internal service within the organisation. Expectations of the people from the government are very high, and ultimately it is the outcomes that matter. It is high time that we, the government functionaries, produce the results.

N Ravi Shankar Administrator (USOF) and CMD, Bharat Broadband Network Ltd The National Optical Fibre Network project will be a game changer.

Fifty years ago people used to say Mera Gaon Mera Desh, but now with broadband penetration upto village levels, the future generation will coin a new slogan; Mera Desh Mera Gaon.

This will be due to combination of ICT and broadband infrastructure.

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Sanjay Malhotra Secretary, Department of Information Technology & Communication, Government of Rajasthan The expectations of people are increasing so much that now it is increasingly becoming a challenge for us to learn how to cope up with those expectations. We have had challenges in producing the outcomes at the speed that everyone would want.

Ritu Maheshwari District Magistrate, Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh Unless all the schemes or projects reach the final stage or to till that time they are useless. All the schemes should be focused on the common man. Health is a very crucial parameter of development but we are still way behind the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations.

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Mayur Maheshwari, Special Secretary, Irrigation Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh We have created a database that is helping us reach indivdual families, and also helping us in involving the communities. With the help of database, as we are involving all stakeholders, including aanganwaadi workers, gram pradhans, etc, so our reach and penetration has increased tremendously and we are able to reach right up to the individual level.

Anupam Shrivastava Senior General Manager, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd About 70 percent of the work of NOFN is executed

by BSNL. A pilot was carried out in the Aryi block of Ajmer district, which has a total of 30 panchyats.

BSNL is willing to provide end-to-end solutions to several citizen-centric services. We must convert Rajiv Gandhi IT Centre into an ‘edutainment’ centre, where we can provide Internet services, voice telephony, and IPTV so that the villagers can come to the IT Centre and avail these facilities.

L to R: Dr Omkar Rai, Muktesh Pardesi, Samir Chaudhury attending

Rakesh Tandon MD, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) IRCTC is going to revolutionise the concept of e-ticket from February 2013. A passenger will not have to carry even an e-ticket on his or her mobile phone. Rather, a simple ID proof with the PNR written on his palm will be sufficient to traval by train. It will be a true green initiative by the IRCTC.

Aarti Grover, Director CMS, participating in the question & answer round

the session

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Critical Information Infrastructure Protection & Security K Ram, Additional Director General, Intelligence Bureau, Jaipur The system should be updated, upkeep and upgraded so that it doesn’t become obsolete. The infrastructure must be used fully and effectively, lest, your neighbour will start eyeing it. Technology must be used selectively, as overuse of anything leads to negative outcome. The system must be guarded effectively too.

Ruchin Kumar Security Evangelist, India & SAARC, SafeNet India Pvt Ltd

Dr Govind Senior Director, Ministry of Communications & IT and CEO, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI)

In order to solve our local language connectivity problem in the country, we are using ‘bharat’ so as to include all the 22 languages which are included in the Constitution of India. Thus, the local language domain names will be proliferated in the country. As IPV 4 is already exhausted, I will urge people to come to IPV 6.

Through NIR we are giving discounted prices so that people are benefitted and the entire country will have a single registry where all IP addresses can be tracked.

As we are progressing from Governance to e-Governance, we can notice that there is a lot of visibility of data. It has increased efficiency of employees; it ensures that data is available to the right people; and also has facilitated us to do a lot of analysis on the available data. However, it has also opened the system to a lot of vulnerabilities as far as security is concerned. It gives access to the infrastructure and people can find loopholes to exploit the system.

Kapil Awasthi, Senior Security Consultant, India and SAARC, Check Point Software Technologies Limited The human mind connects to security more than it actually connects to security. Hence, it becomes difficult to convey the importance of security to people. Optimally, security should be right at the DNA of a particular infrastructure.

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Public Safety Ranjan Dwivedi, Member, UP Police, Bharti Avam Pronnati Board, Lucknow Only seven to eight percent of the country’s population speaks English.

Unless you can mainstream English language computing in IT and develop protocols and interoperability that pre-requires that Indian language should be mainstreamed in official work in the country, justice to the people will remain a distant dream.

Sharat Kaviraj SP, State Crime Record Bureau, Rajasthan

Purushottam Sharma ADG (Police Reforms & Community Policing), Bhopal

Manoj Agarwal IGP, State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB), Government of Gujarat

ICT has not been effectively used by the police department yet. CCTNS is a major project to be implemented in the country, that will connect all police stations across the country to state data centres, which in turn will be connected to the national data centre.

It will also automate all crime records of the police stations, implying that the entire country will have one VCNB (crime records of police station), thus leading to integrated crime records.

The Indian railways and the banking sectors have been the two largest beneficiaries of IT revolution in the country, and I am optimistic that the Indian police will be the third in this respect. Twenty-two states in the country are having Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), by which you capture the fingerprint of a criminal and can find him/her. Eleven more states need to go for AFIS.

In Gujarat, we have been trying to computerise each and every level of the police department. We have developed web-based applications, not only for tracking criminals, lodging FIRS, or investigations but we have gone ahead in covering other ambits of the police department as well. Apart from the CCTNS, AFIS and MIS, we have also adopted apps like e-prison. We are optimising the existing manpower by using IT services.

Prakash Kumar, Director, Internet Business Solutions Group, Cisco We need to analyse three aspects: how do we use technology to accelerate incident detection; how do we automate response; and how do we enable collaboration between people who are on the site and those who are sitting at the district head quarters like SP, IG or the CM. The objective is to reduce the time between incident detection and response by empowering the field personnel to make decisions based on available information and to disseminate right information to the right people at the right time.

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ICT for Inclusive Growth The nation needs to ensure that every section of society is able to reap the fruits of development. This session was devoted to discussing the ways by which development could be made more inclusive through the use of ICTs and by other means.

Anju Sharma, Secretary, Women & Child development, Government of Gujarat Aadhaar is our future. With the direct cash transfers coming in, we have a long way to go. Both the Government of India and the state governments are in the process of working out the detailed modalities for all the 42 schemes that have been taken up for Aadhaar. We belong to an era in which a lot of e-Governance applications have been developed at various levels in the government. These applications have brought in a lot of change in not only the governance but also in people’s lives.

Dr Omkar Rai Director General, Software Technology Parks of India Including people while we are growing is a big challenge, especially for a country like ours with a population 1.2 billion. Definitely the benefits of prosperity and growth haven’t reached all. However, with the advent of IT tools, we are finding it easy to take the prosperity, jobs and growth to the masses.

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Muktesh Pardesi Jt Secretary & Chief Passport Officer, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India

Ajay Bhargava AGM, Corporate Planning and IT, Rajasthan Electronics & Instruments Ltd

The Passport Seva project was conceived in 2006 with the intention of giving hassle-free service to the citizens. In 2011, we issued more than 73.65 lakh passports. This year we are expecting to issue passport to eight million people. ICT enablement has improved the overall operations in passport offices.

We have been trying to leverage ICT in our various initiatives. Our company is an outcome of the NDDB initiative of the Government which was aimed to take electronics to the villages in order to empower the rural folk and bring inclusive growth.

eGov Knowledge Exchange 2012

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Samir Chaudhury, Additional General Manager, Power Grid Corporation of India Information Technology and power network have both similarities as well as dissimilarities. Both are utilities and on demand services. They both are connected in interconnected mode in which power is named as grid and interconnected network is called Internet. Both these two components are equally dynamic in nature. However, as far as power is concerned there is zero tolerance unlike the Internet, where we can wait for a few seconds before it starts functioning.

Korath V Mathew Senior State Projects Coordinator, UIDAI Aadhaar is the largest biometric database, consisting of more than 25 crore. 28 crore has already been enrolled. We have very successfully piloted our applications, and we have been able to get online authentication from remote places. The online authentication system is very fast and operates at a speed of 200 mili second. It is a super fast process.

Indu Gupta State Informatics Officer & Senior Technical Director, National Informatics Officer For UIDAI direct cash transfers, scheme inforamtion automation is imperative. Scheme data and beneficiaries data have to be made online. There are two major challenegs.

First, Aadhaar seeding in the existing databases is needed.

Databases are ready but how do we populate them with UIDAI? Secondly, bank accounts need to be made and mechanism of direct cash transfer has to be evolved.

L to R: Dr Ravi Gupta, Sanjay Malhotra, Samir Chaudhury, Muktesh

Question answer round during the session, while Prakash Kumar from

Pardesi, Dr Omkar Rai, Anju Sharma, N Ravi Shankar, Indu Gupta, Korath V

Cisco looks on

Mathew, Ajay Bhargava, Krishan Giridhar

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cloud computing

License Goes Online e-Parwana, a recently launched application by the Department of Agriculture, Government of Maharashtra, was awarded at the eINDIA 2012 event in Hyderabad Nikita Apraj, ENN

T

he primary aim of the e-Parwana is to provide hassle-free licenses for dealers and manufacturers of agricultural inputs namely, seeds, fertilizers and insecticides. Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Minister of Agriculture and Marketing, Maharashtra, is the main inspiring force behind the application. Considerable efforts have also been made by Umakant Dangat, Commissioner of Agriculture, Maharashtra and Dr. S. S. Adsul, Director (Input and Quality Control), Department of Agriculture, Maharashtra. The application has been developed by Kailash Elekar, Senior Scientist, NIC, Pune.

Not an easy way The project is mainly targeted at rural areas where internet penetration is much less as compared to urban areas. Majority of dealer license holders are from rural area. Vijay Ghawate, Nodal Officer for the application, says, “Training of the 35 licensing authorities in areas of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides was a big task which was completed in a phased manner and today, all of them are using the application.”

Other stakeholders such as dealers, manufacturers and farmers were motivated to use e-Parwana by integrating the service with m-Governance. MahaAgri SMS service provides timely information regarding license validity and application status. Online help is also being provided on the website. Helpdesk at Director (Input), Commissionerate of Agriculture, has also been set up for the stakeholders.

Bridging the gap The application has brought transparency in the licensing process as the database is accessible in public domain. It has helped to use licensee information more precisely at same time, reducing the time required for license issuance.

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From left: Pratibha Joag, DDG, NIC,Pune; Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, Minister of Agriculture and Marketing, Maharashtra; Vijay Kolte, Vice President, Maharashtra Council for Agriculture Education and Research; and Umakant Dangat, Commissioner of Agriculture, Maharashtra, at e-Parwana Launching Ceremony

Response to the project from rural and semi urban users is overwhelming. Previously manufacturers and dealers had to travel a long distance for obtaining or renewing their license.

It was a time-consuming manual process. Introduction of e-Parwana have eased the things.

Around 6,616 people have applied for license till date and 1,874 licensed are issued online.

Best is yet to come “The department of agriculture is working on online submission of license fees through an online payment gateway. Implementation of statutory requirements like submission of monthly sales return, inspection and sampling will be done in next few months,” says Ghawate.

• MSR (Monthly Sales Return): This will be implemented in next couple of months.

Once implemented, it will become easy to predict requirement of inputs well in advance i.e. before season and accordingly authorities can plan the distribution in advance.

• Product Information: This system will help farmers get information about agricul• e-Parwana is integrated with MahaAgri SMS service to provide timely information • Work is in progress to integrate monthly sales reports, quality control, inspection, lab testing

ture products. Farmers will get information about price, recommendations from manufacturer/producer of inputs. This information will be accessible even from mobiles.

• e-Lab: The application will be integrated with State Input Testing Laboratories. e-Lab will computerise quality control of inputs (seeds, fertilizers, insecticides). These results will be made available in public domain to help farmers take informed decision.

• e-Inspector: This application will computerise quality control works such as inspection and sampling. It will help quality control inspectors to get sample results instantly and take action within prescribed timeframe, perform their duties as per various acts, orders and notifications.

The department has created a standard set of documents required for various licenses.

While formulating the standard set, redundant documents have been deleted from the essential set. Applicants need to present the documents prescribed in the set.

While e-Parwana is more business-centric, Maharashtra’s agriculture department also provides a wide range of consumer-centric online applications with most of the information available in Marathi. Farmers can access information such as market rates of commodities, agricultural statistics and new technologies in the field of agriculture and horticulture.

In Person

Piyush Somani

Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer ESDS Software Solution Pvt Ltd

Solutions

for e-Governance private players to take ownership of operating the services profitably. The broadening of the way for private organisations has also helped in reducing the burden on central agency, thus enhancing speed of implementation and offering better value proposition to citizens.

What policies and reforms are you looking forward to in 2013 for making the e-Governance sector more successful?

Piyush Somani, provides an overview of the expectations that his company has from the year 2013

W

hat changes and improvements did you notice on e-Governance front in the year 2012?

Lot of positive changes in e-Governance took place in year 2012. There has been implementation of some projects that were started as proofof-concept projects. These projects were aimed at designing citizen-centric services and have been implemented with more dependable service mechanisms. Solutions like Aadhaar cards and use of GPS are steps towards making sure that citizens everywhere are able to access welfare schemes. 2012 saw implementation of cost effective delivery stations (kiosks) that enable

A major policy that will decide the fate of e-Governance is the one that can track and measure the progress of any initiative. A proper roadmap must be in place for the sector to drive this long-term systematic change to be successful. Rather than having different online portals for various initiatives, there should be an initiative to have a common single portal with a single-sign on policy for all public services. States need to work with the Centre to come up with better policies. Initiatives need to be prioritised to be implemented based on the ease of implementation and its criticality. Business processes that need to be restructured must be identified early on and redesigned keeping in mind the acts, laws and regulations that govern them.

The push from the Central Government to give software development and hosting work to National IT companies needs to be re-thought if we want to be on par with other developing nations. e-Governance must also focus on mobile apps since that is the future of ICT.

In what ways do you think your company can engage more with the government for ICT initiatives in the year 2013?

ESDS is a high specification, carrier-neutral, fully-managed data centre built on the concept of Green Data Center. ESDS is engaged with the government for ICT initiatives till now by providing turnkey solutions and software solutions

to organisations. We have developed, a unique cloud platform called eNlight. eNlight takes care of resources allocation, scalability and server upgrade or downgrade cycles automatically and adjusts resources in real-time, without the need of a server reboot. This makes up a perfect solution for critical applications that require zero downtime and applications where the traffic is sporadic. ESDS has also developed an ePDS (Public Distribution System) solution that can be used for online monitoring of commodities on real-time basis, detection and elimination of bogus ration cards, and providing flexibility to citizens to get ration from any shop in their city.

Talking about sectoral reforms and expectations, what are some specific expectations from the government for your specific sector?

India is still way too costly in terms of providing data centre services. While the hardware cost has come on par with that of the global market, cost of bandwidth still says on the higher side. Policies need to be made where the cost of bandwidth comes down to a level such that Internet becomes accessible to every citizen of India, be it in a city, a village or any rural area. NIXI is a very good initiative that has helped decrease the cost for domestic bandwidth usage but unless NIXI in all states are interconnected the cost incurred will really not prove to be an advantage for hosting providers. The State Government needs to make sure that dual power supply is available in all cities, which is one of the critical requirement of any data centre. With the growing cost of building a data centre, government should provide certain benefits to the upcoming entrepreneurs to help them grow the hosting sector, and one fine day, make India a hub for hosting services similar to what India has become today in the field of software development.

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updates

book review Title: Twelve Management Skills for Success Author: Ram Narain Publisher: Viva Books Pvt Ltd Pages: 432 Price: `395

Quick Tips for Management

W

hile providing his tips on management, the author has also done first-hand assessment of management that is currently being practised. Ram Narain does not believe in wasting the reader’s time.

In the preface, he states that his book can enable readers to acquire management skills in just 18 days.

“Therefore the reader gains not just in terms of saving money, he saves in terms of time also.”

As the title reveals, in all, twelve different types of skills are discussed in the book. Each chapter is followed by a detailed annexure in which detailed information for further study and training is presented in an easy to use format. Some of the case studies that follow the different chapters give examples of the practical implementation of the management tips that have been discussed.

The biggest enemy of any business, according to the author, is lack of time management.

Written in a lucid style, Ram Narain’s book lays bare the thin ‘science’ of management theory. There are vital performance and career lessons here for managers at every level, and, best of all, the book shows you how to apply them to your own situation. However, the greater cause of the book is to introduce more humanity and apply less bad science in the way we go about conducting our business.

The author is Deputy Director General (Security), Department of Telecommunications, Government of India

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UP Plans to Roll Out 60 e-Gov Services in 2013 The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to expand the ambit of its e-governance services from current 26 to 60 by the end of 2013. Currently the state government is running 26 services in eight departments through Internet-enabled common service centres set up at the village level in all the districts of the state.

The new services to be launched this month include filing of commercial tax (VAT returns) and women literacy programmes. A pilot project of this scheme is already being carried out in Maharajganj, Mirzapur and Sonbhadra districts of the state and is targeting to make 10,000 women literate by March 2013.

Mamata’s Big Boss Act CCTVs will soon be monitoring the attendance of government employees in West Bengal, recording in and out times of employees to ensure that they reach by 10:30 am and complete their shifts. The Mamata Banerjee government will launch the pilot project at the West Bengal Essential Supplies Corporation on February 1, 2013, hidden cameras for which have already been installed. These shall be monitored by Food Minister, Jyotipriya Mullick.

In yet another move, the state government is to roll out e-district project this year, whereby every district shall have an IT hub with incubation centres by 2014.

Once implemented, all government services in the state will be made available online, informed Partha Chatterjee, Minister for Commerce and Industry, Government of West Bengal. Riding high on the success of recently introduced online file tracking systems in all government departments, Chatterjee claimed that West Bengal was one of the best states in e-governance.

Centre Grants `13 Crore to Chandigarh The Centre has cleared a `13 crore proposal of the Chandigarh administration’s e-Governance plan that will enable the government to offer public utility services like payment of water and electricity bills through online mode. The UT administration will set up the hardware infrastructure in various departments of the government and will also launch a portal for the people to subscribe to the government services. The online delivery of the services will be broad based with involvement of a number of government departments and for this they will also digitise the records.

Get Fog Updates on Web The Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) in alliance with railyatri.in has launched its mini-site (http://events.trainenquiry. com/fog) for providing latest information on fog and trains delayed by it. The mini-site shall be updated

every 2 to 10 minutes to give passengers status updates related to fog reports on routes over the last 24 hours, current-time list of trains affected by fog, cancellations and diversions due to fog and trains rescheduled from origin.

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