e-Procurement in Government: Strengthening the Supply-Chain Process: July 2008 Issue

Strengthening the Supply-Chain Process Efficiency

PEPPOL Consortium and e-Procurement in European Union e-Procurement in Indian Railways Bringing Transparency and Efficiency in Government Procurement

I SSN 0 9 73-16 1X

VOLUME 4

| ISSUE 7 | JULY 2008

w w w .e g o v o n lin e. n et

THE E-GOVERNMENT MAGAZINE FOR ASIA & THE MIDDLE EAST

e-Procurement in Government:

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE AS BASIC PHILOSOPHY PROVIDING HOLISTIC SERVICES SUPPORTING GOVERNMENTS DEVELOP ITS STRATEGIES M-CONNECT

GRAMJYOTI: HUMAN RIGHTS CASE STUDY M-GOVERNANCE: INNOVATIVE METHOD FOR INTERACTING WITH GOVERNMENT SPECIAL FOCUS: IT IN BANKING

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN BANKING: AN INSTRUMENT FOR ECONOMIC REVOLUTION

Revenues

Transparency

Quality

Meet the Who's Who of India's e-Governance Fraternity! egov INDIA2008 provides a platform for all stakeholders, policy makers, practitioners, industry leaders, academicians and architects of e-government projects to discuss the achievements, challenges, and the progress made towards achieving the goals of e-Governance.

Key Speakers

D Purendeswari Minister of State for Higher Education, MHRD, GoI

R Chandrashekhar Additional Secretary, DIT Min of Comm & IT, GoI

Oleg Petrov Coordinator e-Development Thematic Group, The World Bank

Ashish Sanyal Senior Director, Min of Comm & IT, GoI

S R Das Senior Director, DIT, GoI

Renu Budhiraja e-Governance Project Management Unit, DIT

S P Singh Senior Director, DIT, GoI

Aruna Sundararajan CEO, CSC Programme, IL&FS

Shashank Ojha Senior e-Government Specialist, e-Government Practice – ISG, The World Bank

R S Sharma Secretary, IT Government of Jharkhand

Amod Kumar Special Secretary, IT, UP Government

Syedain Abbasi Director, Min of Comm & IT, GoI

Vivek Bharadwaj Principal Secretary, Dept of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs, Government of West Bengal

Ajay Kumar IT, Secretary, Kerala

Vinnie Mehta Executive Director, MAIT

K Shivaji Secretary, IT, Government of Maharashtra

Dr SL Sarnot Director General, STQC (Standardisation, Testing & Quality Certification), DIT, Min of Comm & IT, GoI

Nabroon Bhattacharjee Country Team leader, (Water and Sanitation Program) World Bank, New Delhi

M Raman Director General, DGS&D, (Directorate General of Supplies & Disposal) Ministry of Commerce, GoI

Hannes Karkowski Senior Advisor, Economic Development through e-Government, German Technical Cooperation (GTZ)

Key Themes State Data Centre •SWAN •Gov2.0 •Financial Inclusion •eProcurement •Data Storage & Management •Web Quality Assessment • RFID Smart Card/ Biometric •Capacity Building •Power Solutions •Railway •Infrastructure

4th

29-31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

w w w . e g o v o n l i n e . n e t | volume 4 | issue 7 | july 2008

NEWS BYTES

COVER FEATURE

PEPPOL Consortium and e-Procurement in European Union

Dr Peter Sonntagbauer, Senior Advisor, Federal Computing Centre and Public Relation Director, EU- Project

e-Procurement in Indian Railways

Amit Kumar Jain, Deputy Chief Operating Manager/Planning, Northern Railways, and Surbhi Jain, Deputy Director, Department of Commerce, Government of India

COVER INTERVIEW: GOVERNMENT SPEAK

Harnessing the Potential of IT for Public Procurement

Interview: Suresh Chanda, IT Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh

SPECIAL FOCUS: IT IN BANKING

e-Procurement: Not a Distant Dream Interview: Aman Singh, Secretary Incharge (IT) & CEO Chips, Government of

Chhattisgarh

Information Technology in Banking: An Instrument for Economic Revolution

Tushar Pandey, Country Head- Strategic Initiatives & Advisory Government (SIG), Yes Bank,

COVER INTERVIEW: INDUSTRY SPEAK

Antonio Menezes, Manager (SIG), Yes Bank and Venetia Vickers, Associate (SIG), Yes Bank

PERSPECTIVE

Bringing Transparency and Efficiency in Government Procurement

Interview: Sumeet Bhatt, Director, Nextenders India Pvt. Ltd.

Time to Payback to the Nation Sudhir Aggarwal, Senior Vice President and Head- Government initiatives for

Enterprise Division, Sify

Technologies Ltd.

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

31 35 39

Management of Change as Basic Philosophy Interview: Paul Faisal, Country Manager, HPC and Linux-Open source

e-Gov 2.0: Model for Greater Citizen Participation

Dr Jaijit Bhattacharya, Country Director, Government Strategy, Sun Microsystems, and Adjunct Faculty, IIT Delhi

Providing Holistic Services Interview: Pranav Roach, President, Hughes Network Systems, India

Supporting Governments Develop its Strategies

On Information Security Issues in e-Governance

Anil K. Kaushik, Scientist, Department of Information Technology, Government of India, Chandan Mazumdar, Professor, Computer Science & Engineering, Jadavpur University, Parthasarthi Banerjee, Director, Technology & Development Studies

Interview: Graham Walker, Managing Partner, GOV3 Limited, London, UK

MCONNECT

41 46

Gramjyoti: Human Rights Case Study

Ajith Sukumaran, Senior Manager- Strategy, Ericsson India Pvt. Ltd

m-Governance: Innovative Method for Interacting with Government

Samia Melhem, Senior Operations OfďŹ cer, World Bank

MCONNECT

49-50

News

July 2008

34 3

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ov egov is a monthly magazine providing a much needed platform to the voices of various stakeholders in the arena of e-Government, apart from being a repository of valuable information and meaningful discussion on issues of e-Governance in general, and eGovernment in particular -both to the specialist and the generalist. Contributions to egov magazine should be in the form of articles, case studies, book reviews, event reports and news related to e-Government projects and initiatives, which are of immense value for practitioners, professionals, corporates and academicians. We would like the contributors to follow these guidelines, while submitting their material for publication.

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ov volume 4 | issue 7 | july 2008 PRESIDENT

EDITORIAL

Dr. M P Narayanan EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Ravi Gupta

Time to Transform Public Procurement Process

GROUP DIRECTORS

Maneesh Prasad Sanjay Kumar ASSISTANT EDITOR

Prachi Shirur RESEARCH A SSOCIATE

L. Chaitanya Kishore Reddy SR. SUB EDITORS

Parijat Saurabh

Procurement is the purchasing of product components, standard raw materials, customised supplies, and other goods needed to conduct business operations. e-Procurement applies Information and Communication (ICT) technologies to the buying process in the supply chain. Electronic public procurement not only makes it easier for enterprises to identify contract opportunities and to supply their goods and services, but can also save money and time for both businesses and administrations and decrease the potential risk of corruption.

Nilakshi Barooah MARKETING

Gautam Navin mobile: +91 9818125257 email: gautam@egovonline.net Debabrata Ray mobile: +91 9899650692 email: debabrata@egovonline.net SALES EXCUTIVE

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Bishwajeet Kumar Singh GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Om Prakash Thakur Chandrakesh Bihari Lal (James) WEB MAINTAINANCE

Zia Salahuddin, Amit Pal Santosh Kumar Singh SUBSCRIPTIONS & CIRCULATION

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

eGov G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India tel: +91 120 2502181-85 fax: +91 120 2500060

However, there are certain challenges to e-Procurement implementation. One of the major issues concerning e-Procurement initiatives is security. The growing number of cyber crimes has added doubts regarding the reliability of the Internet. The problem is further compounded by the absence of security culture among end users. Security measures such as authentication and encryption are therefore very important while passing sensitive information. Another major issue concerning e-Procurement is the type of goods that are procured through the online medium. Companies usually prefer to source smaller, inexpensive goods such as office stationery. There are also issues relating to software and catalogue integration. The various modules of e-Procurement, such as supplier registration, indent management, e-Tendering, catalogue management, contract management, e-Auction, e-Payment, accounting and management information systems, need to work together in an integrated manner to seamlessly handle the processes involved in procurement of works, goods and services. Only when an integrated e-Procurement system is in place, the government can enable the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;transformationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of public procurement. In this issue of egov magazine, we have focussed on e-Procurement in government and have covered experiences from various government agencies, such as Indian Railways, state governments such as Andhra Pradesh, the pioneer in implementing e-Procurement in India and Chhattisgarh, which is moving fast ahead in e-Procurement implementation, apart from covering the private sector viewpoint on public e-Procurement. We have also covered the initiative taken by the European Union through a pilot project called PanEuropean Public Procurement Online (PEPPOL), which builds on the current e-Procurement activities at the national level and facilitates the electronic cross border exchange of orders, invoices, and catalogues. Hope, you would enjoy reading this edition of the magazine. We look forward to your suggestions and comments.

email: info@egovonline.net egov does not neccesarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in the magazine are those of the contributors. egov is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred, directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided. egov is published by Ravi Gupta on behalf of Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. Printed at R P Printers, G-68, Sector - 6 Noida, U.P. and published from 710 Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50 Noida, UP Editor: Ravi Gupta

July 2008

Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in

COVER FEATURE

PEPPOL Consortium and e-Procurement in European Union In order to support Member States of the European Union and the private sector in implementing its e-Procurement vision, the European Commission has launched a pilot project called Pan-European Public Procurement Online (PEPPOL). It facilitates the electronic cross border exchange of orders, invoices, and catalogues. It also includes the re-use of company information required for bidding as well as the mutual recognition of electronic signatures. Dr. Peter Sonntagbauer ROLE OF PUBLIC e-PROCUREMENT IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Overall governments are the largest buyers of services in the European Union. Total public procurement in the EU is estimated to be around 16% of the Union’s gross domestic product (GDP) or 1,500 billion. This means public e-Procurement is an important issue in the EU. e-Procurement systems are already functioning in several Member States. However, many public administrative bodies lag behind industry in electronic data exchange with their suppliers. There is a lack of common standards, which is a major obstacle for companies to participate in the public procurement process. Moreover, the lack of harmonised electronic procurement and invoicing business processes is an additional administrative burden for companies. This affects suppliers of governments which operate cross-border as well as suppliers dealing with different governmental organisations in the same country. Electronic public procurement processes have to be lean and as much as possible harmonised across all governmental institutions in Europe.

EUROPE´S VISION

Major changes in the way European governments are dealing with their suppliers are on the anvil. It is sure that those changes are going to happen, there is a political will and initiatives have reached a critical mass. In 2006, EU Member States agreed to enable public administrations across Europe to carry out 100% of their procurement electronically and ensure that at least 50% of public procurement - above the legally set threshold values – is indeed carried out electronically by 2010. 8}

Some Member States have already implemented legislation, which makes the electronic submission of tenders or invoices mandatory, other member states are preparing such legislation. The broader vision is that any company in the EU can easily communicate electronically with any EU governmental institution for all procurement processes. It is important to understand that e-Procurement is not limited to the pre-awarding phase, it covers the electronic exchange of all documents related to the various phases of the public procurement process such as tendering, bidding, ordering and invoicing.

Figure 1: e-Procurerment process

The implementation of this vision requires following actions: • Governments and their suppliers must adjust their business processes and modify their IT-systems. • Standard software suppliers must modify their software and adhere to common standards for the public sector in the EU. • Governments may have to adopt new laws to ensure that all electronic processes are as easy as possible and legal barriers are removed. • Governments have to initiate appropriate actions to encourage supplliers to implement the new electronic processes quickly. www.egovonline.net

THE ROLE OF THE PEPPOL CONSORTIUM

In order to support Member States and the private sector in implementing this vision, the European Commission has launched a pilot project called Pan-European Public Procurement Online (PEPPOL). The pilot project builds on current eProcurement activities at the national level. It facilitates the electronic cross border exchange of orders, invoices and catalogues. It also includes the re-use of company information required for bidding as well as the mutual recognition of electronic signatures.

THE STRATEGY OF THE PEPPOL PROJECT

Dissemination and consensus building is of key importance to the success of the project and therefore, at the centre of its strategy. The project and its results have to be accepted and well-known by all key players in the EU. A core team of EU Member States is involved in this project in order to ensure that the development of new technologies in different countries does not create new barriers to the single market. This core team comprises of countries such as Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Norway. The current project partners are governmental organisations, like central purchasing agencies or Ministries of Finance in Members States. The project is open to interested parties. At all stages, the work will be carried out openly to facilitate consensus on the results by public administrative bodies, their suppliers, the software industry and standardisation bodies. All reports will be made public and the software solutions will be published under the EUPL license (European Public Licence) or equivalent. This will facilitate acceptance of standards by all countries and enable an effective crossborder e-Procurement service. In its first phase, ministries and public authorities will be the most active. Public authorities from all Member States and Associated States are encouraged to join the reference group, which currently comprises the project partners as well as Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Iceland, Estonia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Romania, Scotland, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. A first consultation meeting has already taken place on the 11th of June 2008. Software companies are also invited to monitor the development and prepare their own product in view of the expected outcome. Interested software suppliers are invited to participate in a technical advisory group to get all the information, how to connect to the PEPPOL infrastructure and provide their input to the design of the specifications. The first meeting is planned in the 4th quarter of 2008. Likewise, coordination with all projects active in the area of e-Procurement and e-Invoicing is considered to be very important to avoid duplication of efforts and share ov

July 2008

experiences. The PEPPOL project has a special responsibility in this respect, because of its size and the project partners involved. For each initiative or project relevant to the PEPPOL project, a liaison manager has been appointed and other initiatives and projects are invited to do the same.

WORK PLAN

The project has 3 main phases: • Q2/2008 - Q2/2009: Requirements and design • Q2/2009 - Q2/2010: Implementation • Q2/2010 - Q2/2011: Pilots running It will focus on in depth development of the key blocks/ enablers to the interoperability solution while ensuring a red thread along the project course.

THE MAJOR TOPICS ARE:

Infrastructure (interoperability layer): The activity is focused around architectural work in order to define the technical interoperability layer and development activities required to provide an operational e-Business infrastructure to the PEPPOL project. A proper operational infrastructure at a very early stage is believed to be a key success factor to the PEPPOL project. e-Signature: The vision is to make it possible for economic operators in any European country to utilise the e-Signatures of their own choice when submitting offers electronically to any European public sector awarding entity. That means that based on a comprehensive review of national activities, PEPPOL will select some alternative procedures for use of signatures and describe them in common specifications. The initial focus will be on simple procurement scenarios where one economic operator is the signatory. More complex tasks like submission of a certificate signed by the issuing body and tender documents signed by different parties will also be studied. 9

COVER FEATURE

Virtual Company Dossier (VCD): Economic operators and awarding entities in any European country will be able to use electronic means to submit business attestations and certificates normally required for the participation in the public procurement procedures when submitting offers electronically to any European public sector awarding entity. e-Catalogue: This work-package will implement solutions that will allow economic operators in any European country to provide product information, descriptions and prices in electronic catalogues as basis for an offer. Specifically, it will define a set of standard attributes to be used independently of category, and a standardised pan-European metacatalogue structure, for an identified set of categories, i.e. the identification and sharing of a data structure to represent supplies and services through the unambiguous description of their commercial and technical characteristics. e-Ordering: Solutions will be provided to demonstrate that electronic orders and related documents such as order notification and advanced shipping notices can be exchanged between awarding entities and economic operators across EU member states, and thus be received into respective business systems without any ‘manual action.’ Furthermore, the eOrdering solution will have its basis in electronic catalogues ensuring that orders are based on agreed contract prices and accordingly reduce the need for further clarification in the purchase to pay process. e-Invoicing: Economic operators in any European country will be in a position to send invoices electronically to any European awarding entity. The deliverables will include aspects such as software building blocks that will lower

organisational, semantic and technical barriers; benchmarking and good practices will be highlighted and communicated.

BENEFITS

The implementation of Europe´s vision promises huge benfits: • Both governments and their suppliers will benefit from more efficient, harmonised electronic procurement and invoicing processes. • The initiative will also be a catalyst for introducing e-Business in companies and for speeding up the overall uptake of new technologies. • It is anticipated that the use of e-Procurement will save billions of Euros not only by reducing administrative burden but also by increasing competition and transparency. • Tax-payers will ultimately benefit from the increased efficiency of the procurement processes and the savings achieved through better competition. Dr. Peter Sonntagbauer (Peter.Sonntagbauer@ brz.gv.at) is Senior Advisor in the Federal Computing Center (Bundesrechenezentrum - BRZ) and Public Relation Director of the EU-project ‘Pan European Public Procurement Online - PEPPOL’. His main responsibility in the BRZ is the coordination of international projects. Before joining the BRZ in 2005 he was working in the IT management of large corporations and as an advisor for the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in Asia and Africa.

ICICI Bank Launches Visa e-Marketplace Visa, ICICI Bank and Elcom Systems Ltd announced the launch of the Visa eMarketplace, an online portal that connects sellers and buyers of commercial goods and services. Visa eMarketplace makes it possible for businesses in India to conduct the entire procurement and payment transaction electronically and efficiently over the internet using a Visa Purchasing Card. This is the first Visa eMarketplace service to be launched in Asia Pacific. Santanu Mukherjee, country manager, South Asia, Visa International, said, “Visa eMarketplace is designed to be an efficient, seamless and transparent procurement system for the commercial and government sectors. It helps to eliminate the need for paper-based purchase orders and approvals. ” Visa eMarketplace offers a secure online option that builds on the existing Visa Purchasing Card platform. Sellers can give buyers easy access to their product catalogues while buyers can have better understanding and management of their inventories, for example, by providing purchase analysis to help in the planning of expenses. The records provided also help ensure detailed tracking for audit purposes. Sachin Khandelwal, Head – Cards Product Group, ICICI Bank said, “ Visa eMarketplace are designed to offer corporates and government organisations a robust, transparent, more economical and secure procure-to-pay solution. Corporates and government departments can use Visa eMarketplace to make purchases online from their suppliers and use ICICI Bank Purchase Card to make payment. ” William Lock, Chairman, Elcom Systems Ltd added, “The combination of the Visa payment card with Elcom’s world-class eProcurement Platform improves the procurement process in any organisation.” Visa eMarketplace is an eProcurement service that does not require participating organisations to invest in hardware, software or continuous upgrades. Visa eMarketplace is a secure system that uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) data encryption to help ensure that information exchanged within Visa eMarketplace is encrypted to prevent unauthorized disclosure.

www.egovonline.net

COVER INTERVIEW: GOVERNMENT SPEAK

Harnessing the Potential of IT for Public Procurement www.eprocurement.gov.in

“e-Procurement platform has decisively demonstrated beneﬁts in cost savings due to improved competition, improved internal efﬁciency - the tender cycle period came down from 120 days to less than 35 days, brought in transparency in tender process, reduced bidding cost for contractors and reduction in physical interface between government staff and contractor,” says Suresh Chanda, IT Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (AP) is the first state to implement electronic procurement. What has been the achievements and impact of this project? AP state was the first state in India to harness the potential of IT in bringing transparency in tender system for procurement of goods, contract and civil works. e-Procurement pilot was launched in the year 2003-04 with 564 transactions taking place in that year with total transaction value of 1982 Crores. Now more than 20 departments, 30 public sector units, 110 municipalities and 10 universities are using this platform for procurement. During 2007-08 10,054 tenders were finalised with transaction value of INR 1,6 9,570 million. From its inception till May 2008, more than 30,800 tenders have been handled by the procurement system with a total transaction value of more than INR 6,70,000 million. ov

July 2008

e-Procurement platform has decisively demonstrated benefits in cost savings due to improved competition, improved internal efficiency – the tender cycle period came down from 120 days to less than 35 days, brought in transparency in tender process, reduced bidding cost for contractors and reduction in physical interface between government staff and contractor. It has reduced the previous system of three visits of a contractor to the concerned government office – first to obtain tender document, second visit to file tender and third related tender opening. What are the services offered through the e-Procurement. gov.in platform, the e-Procurement portal of AP government? The services being offered through the e-Procurement.gov. 11

COVER INTERVIEW: GOVERNMENT SPEAK

in platform are indent creation by government departments, tender publication, digitally signed bid submission, forward and reverse auction.

Some of the implementation challenges in e-Procurement project implementation are: convincing the departments about the beneďŹ ts of e-Procurement; IT infrastructure like PCs and Internet connectivity at remote locations; inter-departmental coordination; non-standard processes different procurement process in different departments; resistance to change; security and authentication; creating trust in e-Procurement system; convincing bidders that e-Procurement is safe and secure; and training contractors/bidders who were spread all over the state What were the major drawbacks of the manual system of procurement? What were some of the implementation challenges faced while implementing e-Procurement? The major drawback in the manual system are: possible discrimination in issue of tender document; possible physical threats to bidders during filling of bids; cartel formation suppressed competition; pressures on department officials; inordinate delays in tender finalisation; high degree of physical interface with the government staff for obtaining tender document, clarification, submission of bids and tender opening etc.; inadequate transparency and the the lack of management information system (MIS) reports on past procurements. Some of the implementation challenges in e-Procurement project implementation are: convincing the departments about the benefits of e-Procurement; IT infrastructure like PCs and Internet connectivity at remote locations; interdepartmental coordination; non-standard processes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; different procurement process in different departments; resistance to change; security and authentication; creating trust in e-Procurement system; convincing bidders that e-Procurement is safe and secure; and training contractors/bidders who were spread all over the state.

provider. Service provider gets the transaction charge from the bidder for each transaction. Presently the transaction charge is 0.03% of the estimated cost with a ceiling of INR 10,000 for tender up to INR 500 million and a maximum of INR 25,000/- for tenders above INR 500 million. What has been the experience so far in terms of the benefits achieved in bringing about transparency and efficiency in the procurement process? e-Procurement platform has decisively demonstrated benefits in cost-savings due to improved competition, improved internal efficiency â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the tender cycle period came down from 120 days to less than 35 days, brought in transparency in tender process, reduced bidding cost for contractors and reduction in physical interface between government staff and contractor. What are the change management issues that had to be dealt with in the transition from manual to electronic procurement? Implementation of e-Procurement was not merely implementing off-the-shelf software. It involved change in perceptions, attitudes and processes. First of all, it involved convincing all stake holders that it is safe and secure to use e-Procurement. Creating IT awareness among bidders was another challenge. Reliable Internet connectivity in remote office locations and similar facility for bidders to participate in e-Procurement platform was another challenge. Constitution of high level coordination committees, training, workshops and help-desk modes were used to meet change management issues. How is the security of information being maintained? Bids filed by bidder are digitally signed to protect information security.

Which are the departments that are following electronic mode of procurement for its purchase in your state? What has been the cost of implementation? The major departments implementing e-Procurement in AP are: Irrigation, Source: www.eprocurement.gov.in Panchayat Raj, Rural Water Supply Department, Public Health Engineering, Hyderabad Metro What are your plans for the e-Procurement project in the Water Supply Board, Urban Development Authorities, coming years? We plan to have integration of enterprise resource planning Electricity Department, Singareni Collieries Company Ltd. e-Procurement system is developed on the public-private (ERP) system of few user departments with e-Procurement partnership (PPP) model. The entire capital cost, operations Platform and linking of contractor database for facilitating and management cost is the responsibility of the service evaluation of tenders. 12

www.egovonline.net

COVER FEATURE

e-Procurement in Indian Railways Amit Kumar Jain & Surbhi Jain INTRODUCTION:

The Indian Railways (IR) is Asia’s largest and the world’s second largest rail network under a single management. It is a multi-gauge, multi-traction system covering over 60,000 route kilometres, with 300 railway yards and 700 repair shops, and covers most of the country’s vast geographical spread. Realising the important role that information plays in customer services and in railways operations, IR had embarked on its Computerisation programme, earlier than many other organisations in the country. Annual purchases by IR amount to about INR 150000 million with 0.2 million purchases settled in a year through tenders. e-Procurement has been adopted by IR as a part of the modernisation process and to increase transparency in its dealings. Northern Railway (NR) has successfully started eProcurement from May, 2005. It covers all types of tenders issued by engineering (works) and stores department of NR. All tender notices are published on NR’s website from where tender documents can be downloaded by the vendors directly. The offers are submitted electronically with digital signatures and the electronic tendering system has all required security features as in manual system. The tenderers can see the tabulation statement of all offers after opening of advertised tenders and also the status of their tenders. The security money is deposited electronically through a payment gateway. The information regarding purchase order is conveyed to the concerned vendors through e-Mail

E-PROCUREMENT IN PUBLIC SECTOR

The e-Procurement process is unique to government. While corporate purchasing has become supplier management and driven by business partnerships, government procurement remains dedicated to levelling the playing field between competitors by use of the sealed competitive bidding and awarding bids to the lowest bidder meeting specification. Government records are open and the prices are revealed in the public arena. Fortune 500 companies boast of maintaining a key supplier base of 10-15 first and secondary suppliers, which is miniscule to what a government has as registered vendors and many more that bid, but never make it to the vendor list. Therefore, government must forge its own model of e-Procurement and by doing so, encourage the competition so heartily sought. The deluge of requests via the Internet from companies seeking to compete will have to be managed. 14 }

Government must create a model that pays for itself, thereby maximising the taxpayer contribution without damaging small and emerging businesses. The opportunity to conduct online transactions with government reduces red tape and simplifies regulatory processes and helps businesses to become more competitive. The delivery of integrated, single-source public services creates opportunities for businesses and government to partner together for establishing a web presence faster and cheaper. A vision of e-Procurement implies providing greater access to information as well as better, more equal services and procedures for public and businesses.

THE CASE OF INDIAN RAILWAYS

Procurement functions in Indian Railways form major part of the materials management activity and these functions are effectively discharged by adopting well established procedures, policy guidelines and practices. As a part of the overall reform process and to increase transparency in its dealings, IR decided to adopt and implement e-Procurement systems for deriving mutual benefits to the railways as well as the participating industry. In NR which has successfully started e-Procurement from May 2005, more than 3000 eTenders have been uploaded and 1500 tenders opened electronically and 800 e-Tenders have been decided through e-Procurement in. Around 3287 suppliers are registered with NR. NR has been assigned as the nodal agency for implementation of e-Procurement project over eight Zonal Railways (WR, CR, NR, SECR, WCR, SR, NCR, SR and SCR) and five Production Units (RCF, ICF, DLW, DMW and RWF) and it is expected that it will take off by July 2008. The existing application software (stores tendering module) developed by HCL is running successfully at NR in Application Service Provider (ASP) mode, will be extended for use by other railways and production units on a centralised data centre by suitably customising the same through HCL. A single portal will be developed for tendering process for all railway units and there will be a single log-in registration for vendors. Tenders shall cover all types such as supply tender for procurement of goods, tenders for construction works and services and Fabrication (track). It is planned that enhanced features will be developed in the application software for global tendering and reverse auction for procurement of stores and auction for sale of scrap unserviceable stores. Reverse auction, engineering stores tendering module and works tender www.egovonline.net

COVER FEATURE

module developed by HCL have not been rolled out in NR. The application software will also be upgraded suitably to include other utilities such as two packet tendering system, inspection call screen interface, inspection report, material dispatch information, fetching of receipt note data from Material Management Information System (MMIS) server in purchase office to SPS, contract data transfer module from MMIS to Enterprise Procurement System (EPS), post contract amendment interface, search options, global tendering and auction/reverse auction. An integrated payment gateway for tender cost, earnest money, security deposit will be created and payment module will be linked with stores accounts module of MMIS for payment through electronic clearing scheme (ECS) or electronic fund transfer (EFT) against supplierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bill. The EGP application has been integrated with latest digital security features to demonstrate and ensure highest level of security, confidentiality and trust between the buyer and the seller. It permits vendors to search, view and download tenders directly from the Railwaysâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; secured website and also participate and submit online offers in e-Tenders directly from the website in a fair, secured and transparent manner. All tender notices are published on Northern Railwayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website www.nreps.com from where tender documents can be downloaded by the vendors directly. The offers are submitted electronically with digital signatures and the electronic tendering system has all required security features as in manual system. The tenderers can see the tabulation statement of all offers after opening of advertised tenders and also the status of their tenders. The security money is deposited electronically through a payment gateway. The information regarding purchase order and other purchase activities like renewal of registration and post contract correspondence etc. is conveyed to the concerned vendors through e-Mail. The e- Procurement system is governed by digital security features as provided under Indian IT Act 2000. No vendor can interact with the e-Procurement portal of Northern Railway unless they possess a legally valid digital certificate from a licensed certifying authority. For the convenience of the vendors, software developer for Northern Railway has tied up with Safescrypt Limited for issue of digital certificates. Use of digital signatures for e-Transactions, public key infrastructure (PKI) for data encryption/decryption, time stamp by certifying agency, 128 bit SSL (secured socket layer) for secured data transmission has ensured enhanced level of trust for authentication - digital certificate of sender attached with each bid document, integrity and protection by hash check using same one way hash function and senders public key, authorisation- only an authorised person from the railways decrypt and open e-tender box. The home page provides direct links for instructions, manuals, general and standard tender conditions which form part of bid documents. There are separate links for creating and uploading advertised/open tenders and also limited tenders issued to only approved and registered vendors. Each e-Tender NIT (Notice Inviting Tender) will be digitally signed before uploading on the website. Vendors home page provide screens for search view and permit downloading of tender NIT, documents and special tender conditions in PDF 16

format free of cost. With each tender record, there shall be a corrigendum and notices box directly linked with tender document which shall auto create and store corrigendum to tender notices and upload with date and time stamp. Corrigendum shall also be digitally signed for proper authentication. Application will also declare and attach the public key digital identity of tender opening officials. This is necessary to permit data encryption and tender opening only by authorised railway persons.

The home page for vendors shall have online vendor login registration link for all new vendors. A user login ID is generated by the application after the user fills online loginregistration form. Password protection is also provided for safe access and proper authentication of the user. A single login ID is permitted for one single vendor. There can be more than one ID for same vendor at different location address. Vendors can submit commercial and technical offers online directly using standard input screens in an online manner by validating themselves with their login ID and password. Each vendor after downloading the e-Tender and after obtaining user-login registration ID can obtain digital certificates by using link to Certifying Authority (CA) homepage directly from vendors screen. A digital certificate is either directly stored into receivers computer browser or is given in the form of hardware token such as a pen drive to www.egovonline.net

COVER FEATURE

be inserted into USB port of receiver’s computer. This shall permit access to input screens used for submitting offers. One digital certificate is valid for a specified period and can be used for signing any number of tenders issued by railways during such validity period. The application provides for pre-designed input forms where suppliers can fill commercial offers and submit the same in detail using pre-specified entry spaces. Application shall auto generate the all inclusive rate before an offer is actually submitted online by suppliers. Commercial offer consists of four standard forms pre-designed separately for supply and works tenders. These are: • Rate form: Pre-designed standard form for submitting rates, taxes duties, freight, discounts, any other charges etc. and all inclusive unit rate • Performance sheet form: To fill up details of past supply to railways. This will be used for considering past performance, capacity of the vendor etc. • Special condition compliance sheet: To give compliance or otherwise to special condition attached with eTenders. • Deviation sheet: To give statement of deviation to tender conditions. To provide improved transparency to vendors, the application auto creates total rates for each item with user friendly messages directing vendors to fill and submit commercial offers. Before bid can be submitted, total all inclusive unit rate will appear in numeric form and vendor can modify any rate or all before submitting bid. Each bid document will be digitally signed and time stamped and notarised. HTML receipt message is sent to the vendor as acknowledgement to submission of online offer with date and time for keeping records. Vendors are not permitted to submit electronic bids after stipulated date and time of tender opening. To ensure confidentiality of rates and security, the commercial page, containing the rate values as quoted and submitted under commercial rate page will be transmitted and stored in secured time locked data base in fully secured encrypted form using PKI before transmission on Internet channels and shall remain encrypted till tender opening date / time using highest levels of data security standards as

Data Security Features Adopted in Opening of e-Tender Box • • • • • • •

Time locking of digital tender box Notarised time stamping of tender box opening Verification of digital signatures with public key of each vendor and hash checking for bid integrity and protection Decryption of bid documents with digital permission only Opening permitted to only two authorised tender opening officials using their private keys Creation of digital archive for storing original encrypted messages Access to digital archive only with digital permission

provided and tested and also approved by the CA. It will be digitally signed using the valid digital certificate as selected by the vendor for verification of identity of the vendor (as provided under law) who submits his electronic bid using the railways EPS application. All such offers submitted online will be stored directly into the time locked electronic tender box, which can be opened only after the stipulated date and time as stipulated for tender opening by two authorised railway officials who are provided valid digital permissions through digital certificates issued by CA in their names and as verified by the railways. Application provides submission of tender cost and earnest money either manually as per existing procedure or through payment gateway facility using credit card. The vendor can use the link submit payment details and choose mode of payment as payment gateway to pay tender cost and EMD by filling details of his electronic instrument. In case of manual submission of tender cost and earnest money, vendors submit details of such payment in the required electronic page before filling up commercial rate page and manual instruments towards such payments shall be submitted to electronic purchase (EP) section of railways for maintaining records in register. The EP Section will hand over these instruments to the concerned purchase section for further action. In case of submission of tender cost and earnest money through payment gateway, the vendors shall be permitted to make online payment through credit card/debit card using payment gateway facility and shall give details of such payments in the required electronic page. The EP section shall submit the details received from ASP provider regarding details of payment received against the particular tender to the concerned purchase section for further action. e-Tender box will be date and time locked. Tender box can be opened only with private keys of minimum two tender opening officials whose public keys have been pre-declared and pre-attached with uploading of e-Tender document. This shall be done internally by application without involving vendor. Tender box opening will permit opening only after specified time lock permission. Each offer as received in the e-Tender box will be first verified for digital signature of the sender and shall attach details of senders with the www.egovonline.net

offer. Application will auto decrypt each offer using digital certificate of opening official. Application shows total number of bids received in each tender box before verification and also show number of actually opened bids. The bid document (rate page with

Facilities Provided to the Vender Under e-Procurement • • • • • • • •

Free online login registration ID for online participation in e-Tenders. Free e-Tender search and download of tender documents and tender corrigendum. Direct participation and online submission of electronic offers in an e-Tender. Direct submission of offers in standard commercial rate page in fully secured manner. Direct viewing of tender opening and view of tender tabulation from website on or after tender opening date. Direct access to view purchase orders details from website and contract/purchase order links from vender home page. Direct submission of requests for amendments by contractors using website links from contract page. Direct receipt of intimations and also post-contract amendments, requests for delivery and other amendments of contract through emails as notified by the contractors.

other three forms) is freezed and online tabulation statement in PDF is prepared. Each commercial bid is stored in archive retaining the original encryption and hash functions and digital signature. The tender box database is updated automatically. Vendors are provided online access to their bid and tabulation sheet in PDF. This can be accessed only by a vendor whose valid bid has been received in tender box after its opening. Entire bid submission process is maintained in fully secured, confidential and at the same time transparent manner to the vendors. Digital data archive is created for storing entire bidding process in originally encrypted form even after completing decryption process and for maintaining the highest level of digital security and confidentiality. Comparative statements are also generated at the time of tender opening, when all the electronic offers are verified and acknowledged. The application also demonstrates the progress of tender opening with date and time of opening. Verification process demonstrates the identification of the bidder and can also be saved along with offer details. Vendors can open any tender page and see the detailed status of the tender box by using the tender opening link as available on the tender page. Vendors who are awarded contract/ purchase orders in an e-Tender can submit online requests for issue of amendments in a purchase order by going to NR, EPS website under heading view notices against any tender. The Railway Board has approved certain guidelines for e-Procurement system which are as follows: a) Late and delayed offers after due date/time shall not be ov

July 2008

permitted. Submission of manual offers along with electronic offers shall not be permitted. c) The electronic tender box shall be opened at nominated date and time by two pre-authorised officials, one each from store and associated finance units. d) The offers of firms so received shall be opened and acknowledged by the tender opening officials. The tender opening officials shall put their signatures on the tabulation statement as generated by e-Procurement application for records in tender cases. e) If there are no special conditions/PVC etc. given by any tenderer on commercial rate page, the same system generated tabulation statement shall be sent to account department’s for vetting which they will return back to stores department within one working day as vetted. f) In case any updated manual tabulation statement is required to be repaired for taking PVC/conditional offered rate by tenderers into account, such manual tabulation statements shall be vetted by accounts as per existing procedure. g) After opening, verifying and acknowledging of each offer by tender opening officials, such offer details shall remain in secured encrypted form and stored in archive. Any change in tender opening officials’ name and ID can be made before tender opening date and time by the administrator, who can access and modify the name and ID of tender opening officials. However, such changes shall not be carried out in routine manner. Tender decision shall continue to be taken as per existing guidelines. After opening of the tender in EPS, post tender activities shall be carried out as follows: • Negotiation: Shall be created directly in EPS in notices folder under negotiation. • Counter offer: Shall be created directly in EPS in notices folder under counter offer. • Advance acceptance: Shall be created as per notice folder under advance acceptance. • Purchase order: Shall be created as per manual system in MMIS and uploaded in EPS in notices folder under purchase order. • Modification Advice (MA): Approval for MA shall be taken as per existing system. MA to be created first in MMIS as per existing system and later to be uploaded in EPS in notices folder under modification advice for access and view by vendors. b)

CHALLENGES

Reverse auction, engineering stores tendering module and works tender module developed by HCL has not been rolled out in NR but will be implemented in the next phase envisaged to start from July 2008. It will be a major challenge when these modules will be operationalised due to the complex nature of works tenders. Adding an ‘e’ to procurement introduces a layer of complexity by transferring all interactions, rules and procedures into the virtual world. On the Internet, the provision of trust becomes the keystone of any 19

COVER FEATURE

successful model. Any system has to meet four requirements: • Privacy: Information must be kept away from unauthorised parties. • Integrity: Message must not be altered or tampered with. • Authentication: Sender and recipient must prove their identities to each other. • Non-repudiation: Proof is needed that the message was indeed received. The application used by NR incorporates all security measures but risks of a breakdown or security breach always exist. Utmost care should be taken to ensure confidentiality of quoted rates and tender details to inspire confidence in the suppliers to use the system and to address the lower level of trust in electronic procurement and lack of initiative by participative industry. A major issue that needs to be addressed here is training of railway staff and vendors to educate them with the application software for smooth functioning of the system and overcome the inertia to work with latest technology. This poses a bigger challenge of universal Internet accessibility and IT literacy. e-Tendering is often condemned for discriminating against small vendors who are not comfortable with the use of IT or devoid of high speed internet access. There should be an effective inbuilt grievance redressal system for any problems encountered in the use of the software. A disaster recovery mechanism must also be in place as a backup for all the databases and electronic records, as such systems are always vulnerable to virus attacks.

CONCLUSION

As this is just the beginning of the application, it will pose many more challenges and opportunities to redesign the system. It is a crucial initiative in the direction of increasing transparency and saving time and costs. In more than 150 years of its existence, IR has successfully adapted to the changing needs of travel and transport and absorbed the advancements in technology and successfully met the requirement of moving large volumes of freight and passenger traffic. IR was the pioneer in developing a dedicated skeletal communication network, as a basic requirement for its reservation system and other applications. e-Procurement in IR reflects the earnestness and dynamism of Indian Railways to keep pace with the latest technologies and reap the benefits, e-Business generates.

Amit Kumar Jain, Deputy Chief Operating Manager/ Planning/Northern Railways is a civil engineer from IIT Roorkee, working with Indian Railways as an Indian Railway Traffic Service Officer since 1999. He has been a gold medalist from IIT Roorkee and Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie. Surbhi Jain Deputy Director, Department of Commerce, Government of India is a post graduate in Economics from Delhi School of Economics, working with Department of Commerce as an Indian Economic Service Officer. She has been a rank holder at Delhi School of Economics.

India: Orissa Government to Roll Out 8558 Common Service Centres The Government of Orissa has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with three private operators to roll out 8558 Common Service Centres (CSCs) in the state. Those centres will be developed on buildown-operate (BOO) model for the first five years. Each gram panchayat will have at least one CSC. Stringent service level agreement (SLA) has been prescribed to ensure the service quality. These CSCs will deliver government to citizen (G2C) services like land records, registration, certificates, details of the government scheme, pension scheme, utility bill payments, road transport and employment exchange. The CSCs will also deliver business to consumer (B2C) services like typing, photography, Internet surfing, agri-information, railway and air ticketing and business to business (B2B) services like market research, surveys, rural BPO services, advertising , branding and promotions. Bangalore based CMS Computers Ltd, New Delhi-based

Zoom Developers Private Ltd and the SREI Infrastructure Private Ltd. have signed MoU with the Orissa Government to set up CSCs. As per the agreement, CMS Computers will set up 4962 CSCs in zone-I, II and Zoom Developers will set up 1314 CSCs in zone III and SREI Infrastructure Finance will set up 2282 CSCs in zone-IV and VI. The cost of setting up each Centre will be around INR. 300 000 to 400 000. Each CSC will have computer, printer, digital camera, web cam, scanner, UPS and Internet connectivity. Under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), the Planning Commission has approved INR 1350 million. The Orissa Government will provide INR 5000 per month per centre to the developer in zone-VI consisting of Malkangiri, Koraput, Nawaranagpur, Kalahandi, Nuapada districts and INR 1190 per centre every month in zone-III consisting of Angul, Keonjhar, Dhenkanal, Deogarh and Sundergarh districts.

www.egovonline.net

COVER INTERVIEW: INDUSTRY SPEAK

Bringing Transparency and Efﬁciency in Government Procurement www.nextenders.com

“The single most critical outcome that should be expected out of adopting e-Procurement is the ability to assure each stakeholder (in the tendering process) that there has been no malpractice during the transaction, and that the highest levels of fair practices has been adhered to. This primarily refers to the integrity of the mechanism by which the tender has been processed,” says Sumeet Bhatt, Director, NexTenders India Pvt. Ltd. ov

July 2008

4th

29-31 July 2008, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

Special Workshops on Internet Governance Issues 29 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

Get involved! Spam

Cybercrime

Critical Internet Resources

Access

Diversity

Openness Multilinguism

Infrastructure

Security

As a lead up to the Internet Governance Forum being held in India in December, 2008, we are bringing together the experts to introduce us to the Genesis of Internet Governance and discuss some pertinent issues like the socio-political imapct of the Internet, IT policies, security, capacity building and access. Session I

Genesis of Internet Governance

Session 2a :

Security, IT policies and its effect on developing economies

Session 2b :

Capacity building and the way to Internet Governance Forum

Co-Organiser National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) is a non-profit organisation under Section 25 of the Companies Act. It is managed by a Board of Directors, drawn from the government, eminent academicians, ISPAI, and from among the peering ISPs. It operates 6 Internet Exchange Points and three root servers at Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. It is also working extensively with the implementation if IPv6 and other Internet Governance issues. eINDIA 2008 Presented by

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

UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development

knowledge for change

Ministry of Human Resource Development Government of India

Contact: Sulakshana Bhattacharya, Email: sulakshana@csdms.in, Mobile: +91-9811925253 For Exhibition or Sponsorship Enquiries: sales@eINDIA.net.in, For Registration Enquiries: registration@eINDIA.net.in

Department of Agriculture and Co-operation Ministry of Agriculture Government of India

What are the advantages of e-Procurement process in the public sector? The advantages in adopting an e-Procurement Solution are manifold: • Greater transparency in the tendering process • Reduction in tender processing cycle time • Reduction in administrative and communication costs • Real-time access to information to decision makers • Instant and round-the-clock access to publicly accessible information on the Internet • Increased Levels of accountability • Capability to monitor the performance of state agencies • All transactions are truly auditable • Enhanced security • Demand aggregation across different divisions/ departments leading to better negotiating power with suppliers and process efficiency • Supplier discovery / widening choice and the supplier base • In-built document management/file management system Please discuss the deployment of NexTenders’ e-Procurement solution. What benefits does it offer? NexTenders implements an e-Procurement solution based on the principle of appropriate change management which is the gradual introduction of e-Procurement so as to overcome initial resistance. Typically, the activities involved in an implementation are training (of buyer and supplier users) and hand-holding them through the transactions during the initial stages of implementation. Both electronic and manual traditional modes of transactions are usually permitted till the point the users reach a certain level of proficiency in using the system. This ensures smooth transitions to the electronic platform. The various stakeholders (suppliers in particular) are educated about the benefits of e-Procurement. This is essential so that no misconceptions remain which can lead to rejection / boycotting of the electronic system. To start with an implementation plan is devised in conjunction with the buyer organisation that clearly defines the time-lines and sets the milestones of the implementation. The plan factors in the IT readiness of the various stakeholders and other prevalent realities in the organisation and the state. Once the plan is accepted, it is circulated and adhered to. This approach ensures a high level of adoption of the electronic process both by the users in the buyer organisation and the suppliers. The concerns of each set of users (viz., the buyer users, the suppliers and those belonging to the regulatory bodies) are quite exclusive and get adequately addressed by this approach. What are the specific features of NexTenders e-Procurement solution? Our Electronic Government Procurement System (e-GP) provides an electronic platform that enables end-to-end automation of all activities in the government procurement process from requirement generation through contract fulfilment. The e-GP system is entirely web-based and browser ov

July 2008

based and assures the widest reach. While the system utilises the state-of-the-art technologies based on cryptography to secure transactions both in the public domain and those internal to the organisation, the application interfaces are highly optimised to work even on low bandwidth dialup internet connections. This ensures accessibility in the remotest and the most rural parts of the country. The e-GP system implements 4-tier architecture and provides a common interface to all parties involved in the procurement process and enforces access-based privileges. All critical transactions in the various modules of the e-GP system are work-flow driven and all data definitions are template-based. This achieves two objectives: to guide the users through the transactions and, to ensure that only those transactions that are legally valid can be executed. The e-GP system has three functional areas: electronic pretendering, electronic tendering and electronic post-tendering. electronic pre-tendering automates the transactions before the tendering process. These are the processing of requirements, indents through a work-flow. Electronic tendering is the most important and critical of the three areas of e-Procurement as it is mostly in the public domain. The e-GP system provides highly configurable work-flows to automate the tendering process. It is capable of processing multi-stage tenders with various bidding and bid opening rules. The solution also incorporates a reverse auction module which is gaining popularity as a negotiation tool after the bid opening. Electronic post-tendering kicks in after the tendering process is completed. Here again the e-GP system provides specialised work-flows optimised for tracking the fulfilment of purchase orders. It provides options to log in details of the progress of the work / supply of material or service and the payment being made to the suppliers during the course of the contract. In the case of rate approval tenders, the system automates the definition of a rate contract on award of contract. The rate contract catalogue can be referred to in the pre-tendering module while analysing requirements. The e-GP system has the capability to map the entire organisation and to define the powers vested in the various officers to sanction an expense. This functionality is called in at sanction points during the electronic procurement process. Additionally, there exists the capability to define the committees and set escalation paths during critical decision points. The NexTenders e-GP system is unique e-Procurement system in that it is entirely process-centric in approach. This means that all the information (tender specifications, bid formats, work-flow parameters, and other transaction rules) in the various modules are not captured in document but rather in data templates. This makes it possible to define data to a very high level of precision and detail. All the transactions are work-flow based thus eliminating any chance of making incorrect / conflicting specifications is entirely ruled out. As all transactions are electronic the process is entirely paperless. This enables powerful MIS, audit capabilities and other benefits expected of the electronic platform. The e-GP system provides end-to-end automation across pre-tendering, tendering and post-tendering and all (buyer 23

COVER INTERVIEW: INDUSTRY SPEAK

and supplier) transactions are web-based and browser-based thus allowing maximum mobility and reach. The system has evolved considerably since the version 1 series was launched in 2003 in Public Works Department (PWD)-Chhattisgarh, which was essentially an e-Tendering system addressing the processes from tender preparation to award. Version 2 series (also known as the Wipro-NexTenders EGPS), co-developed and launched in partnership with Wipro in 2005, was first deployed in Municipal Corporation of Delhi. This system is an end-to-end e-GP system and has subsequently been deployed in the Government of Chhattisgarh, the Punjab National Bank, the Government of Madhya Pradesh, etc. The Version 3 series of the e-GP system (to be released to the market shortly) will be available in various flavours that are pre-configured to meet the functional requirements of various kinds of government entities. (e.g. state agencies predominantly executing works tenders, state agencies predominantly establishing and managing rate contracts, public sector undertaking {PSUs}, etc.). There will also be a flavour that will be truly comprehensive that span all the functional modules of e-Procurement with all its nuances and variations. Version 4 series of the e-GP system which is in the pipeline will take e-Procurement to the next level of modularity, scalability, interoperability and compliance with global standards. Based on state-of-the-art technology and on our proven domain expertise in the field of e-Procurement, the new version will be as easy to use as desktop office software thereby revolutionising the way public entities procure globally. What are the fundamental security requirements for tendering? The following are the four most important security considerations and challenges in tendering: • From the point of tender notification through the opening of the first envelope of the bid response the identity of the bidder(s) and the number of bidders responding to the tender has to be confidential. It should not be known to even the officers in the buyer organisation (that has called for the tender). This is critical as the knowledge can be potentially misused. • The information contained in the bid should neither be physically accessible nor visible during any point of time from the point of bid submission to the point of the bid opening (of the envelope containing the bid information). This is because the mere act of viewing the bid data is a compromise of the entire tendering process. • It should not be possible that the tender data be modified after release (of the tender) or the bid data be modified after submission (of the bid) unless it is legally permitted under a provision to amend it. • It should not be possible for the person who has signed and submitted a document (tender or a bid) to repudiate the information contained in the document. • Most ‘secure’ e-Procurement systems in the market are dependent on the ‘principle of 4-eyes’ for their security requirements. In other words, the security of the tendering 24

process is dependent on the personal integrity of specific individuals (usually the system administrator and a buyer officer). However, such systems are completely at risk since any collusion between these individuals completely exposes the system. A truly secure e-tendering system should not be dependent on any individual but should rely on sound logic and process sanctity, which are provable and audit able. How secure is the NexTenders e-Procurement solution? All versions of the e-GP system incorporate implementations of certain patented processes (viz., the Secure Bid Process and the Key Manager Process) that are incontrovertibly the only ones that adequately address key considerations and challenges in government procurement as outlined earlier. Additionally, the e-GP system addresses the issues that arise from e-Enabling the traditional processes. All known vulnerabilities introduced because of data exchange on the internet are addressed by deploying all the known and time-tested methods for securing the application hosting environment. NexTenders caters exclusively to governments and the public sector. What are the best practices in public sector e-Procurement? The single most critical outcome that should be expected out of adopting e-Procurement is the ability to assure each stakeholder that there has been no malpractice during the transaction, and that the highest levels of fair practices has been adhered to. This primarily refers to the integrity of the mechanism by which the tender has been processed (most importantly, from the point of tender release to the point of tender opening). While there are various methods that are in use to handle the bid data, only the NexTenders’ patented secure bid process has been able to assure these by rendering the tender processes tamper-evident. In the electronic paradigm, it is best that tender, bids, requirements, indents, purchase orders, invoices, etc., be looked upon and transacted upon as a set of data (residing in templates) rather than as a document. This approach delivers the capability to harness the full benefits of the electronic platform and leads to process improvements which are fundamental requirement of e-Governance. The system to be adopted should provide decision support so that the authorisers (of transactions) and the competent authorities are empowered with complete information pertaining to the transaction. This will enable the authorisers to take an informed decision, faster. This would mean that the system to be adopted should deliver document management capabilities to the required extent. The system should also enforce accountability at every level by mandatorily securing each transaction with observations/ comments, digital signatures and automatic time-stamps. Apart from the procurement transactions all modifications in the system should be completely auditable. For this reason, detailed audit trails of all transactions and modifications have to be maintained. The solution being adopted should be modular and allow selective adoption of modules so that legacy systems (that www.egovonline.net

Unlimited opportunities for the ICT community of India!!

4th

29-31 July 2008, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

Distinguished Speakers

D Purandeswari Minister of State for Higher Education, MHRD, GoI

Alain Madelin President, Global Digital Solidarity Fund

Prof M S Swaminathan Chairman, MSSRF

Dr K Kasturirangan MP, Rajya Sabha

Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu MP, Lok Sabha

R Chandrashekhar Additional Secretary, Min of Comm & IT DIT, GoI

Subhash C Khuntia Joint Secretary, Dept of School Education and Literacy, MHRD GoI

Sanjeev Gupta Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, GoI

N Ravi Shankar, Joint Secretary, E-Learning Group, Min of Comm & IT, DIT, GoI

S Regunathan Advisor National Knowledge Commission

Vivek Bharadwaj Principal Secretary, Dept of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs, Govt of West Bengal

Chetan Vaidya Director, National Institute for Urban Affairs, GoI

Dr T P Trivedi Project Director, DIPA, ICAR

Dr V S Ramamurthy Chairman, Board of Governers IIT Delhi

Dr Rajashekharan Pillai VC, IGNOU

Deepak Pental VC, Delhi University

Terry Culver Executive Director, Global Nomads Group

Michael Riggs Information Management Specialist, FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific

Oleg Petrov Coordinator e-Development Thematic Group, The World Bank

Lee Baker Chief of Party Indo-USAID Fire (D) Project, United States Agency for International Development, New Delhi

A Vijayrajan CIO & CTO, Manipal Hospital

Dr G S K Velu, Managing Director, Trivitron Group of Companies

V Shunmugam Chief Economist, Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd

Ajay Ranjan Mishra Global Head of Business Development, New Growth Markets for Nokia Siemens Networks

...Among many others

eINDIA 2008 Thematic Tracks

INDIA

2008

INDIA

2008

INDIA

2008

eINDIA 2008 Presented by

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

UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development

knowledge for change

Ministry of Human Resource Development Government of India

REGISTER NOW @ www.eINDIA.net.in For Exhibition or Sponsorship Enquiries: sales@eINDIA.net.in, For Registration Enquiries: registration@eINDIA.net.in Contact: eINDIA2008 Secretariat, G-4, Sector-39, Noida, UP, INDIA Tel: +91-120-2502180-85, Fax: +91-120-2500060, Web: www.eINDIA.net.in

Department of Agriculture and Co-operation Ministry of Agriculture Government of India

COVER INTERVIEW: INDUSTRY SPEAK

may already be in place) need not be thrown away. In such a scenario, the e-Procurement solution should be capable of lending itself to integrate with the legacy systems at various functional points so as to enable a seamless enterprise. As e-Procurement works on the Internet which is a global system, global interoperability is critical. For this reason the e-Procurement solution should adhere to global standards with respect to processes, transactions and data definition structures/formats. What has been your experience of deploying eProcurement solutions in the different states in India, what are some of the factors for the success of e-Procurement project? Also, what are the reasons for slow adoption of the project here in India? Firstly, the solution should provide an assurance to the various stakeholders that the e-Procurement initiative is for their betterment and that the solution imparts the transactions the highest levels of integrity. The solution that is being deployed should be engineered appropriately so that the value proposition is demonstrable. The solution should deliver the following: • Non-duplication of work • Reduced transaction life cycles • Reduction in costs • Highest level of security • Easy access to critical information (at the time of decision making) • Mobility and logistical convenience The success of the implementation vastly depends on how well the users (of the system) are trained. There are various approaches to this (viz., classroom lectures, hands-on sessions, training-the trainer, etc.). In addition to training, it would be worthwhile to have a help-desk where the users can call in at the point of transaction in case of doubts and issues. Additionally, the conviction displayed by the government in adopting e-Procurement to its employees and to the supplier community plays a crucial role in the success of the implementation. The primary reason for the non-adoption or delayed adoption of e-Procurement by any organisation or state government is the lack of political or bureaucratic will. Certain states that are considered to be ‘new’ or ‘backward’ are in reality front-runners. The Government of Chhattisgarh has been tendering electronically for the last four years and has now gone on to implement e-Procurement across the entire state. The Government of Assam has been tendering electronically for over three years and has been able to secure some of the highest amount of government sanctions for works as a result of adopting e-Tendering. On the other hand, certain states and PSUs exist with the highest levels of IT capacities without having taken any material steps towards full-fledged adoption of e-Procurement despite strict guidelines from the Central Vigilance Commission and the Finance Ministry Other factors in delayed/slow adoption are the poor technical evaluation by states/PSUs of a solution or solution provider. A combination of poor technical evaluation and the L1 mindset can lead to disastrous choices. Another factor 26

is technology ideology – usually the Microsoft versus Open Source debate, or obsession with brand names. These issues detract from the fundamental needs and evaluation criteria that are necessary to select a good system suitable for the public sector delivered at a fair price. What are your recommendations for the government in implementing e-Procurement projects? Firstly, the organisation must internally debate key questions and issues and ensure it is prepared. The implementation model and the selection process to decide on the solution and the partner needs to be appropriately chosen. Some key questions that ought to be debated internally are: • What is the best method for my organisation to adopt and implement e-Procurement? Some organisations are better off starting with e-Tendering and then gradually progressing to e-Procurement. Some organisations respond better to rapid implementation of e-Procurement. • What is the functionality required by my organisation? What types of suppliers are best suited to provide the functionality and implementation plan that we require? Critical issues here in selection are the bonafides, track record, functionality offered and the implementation plan proposed by suppliers. • What revenue model do we go for? e-Procurement offers a choice of revenue models, so the most appropriate model should be decided beforehand. • What is the best selection process for my organisation within the rules that I have to follow? This is essentially the tender conditions that are to be set out for selection of the supplier. • Are we capable of evaluating proposals or do we need external consultants? • What are the technology issues we will face if we adopt e-Procurement? Do we need to upgrade our skills and/or equipment? Secondly, certain e-Procurement standards have to be formulated, published, adopted and enforced. This is primarily with respect to the best practices outlined earlier. Thirdly, the organisation should ensure that political / bureaucratic and management will to implement eProcurement percolates to the user level in the organisation (including suppliers). This is frequently the key differentiator of success/failure, even if the best system and service provider is chosen. This can be initiated through regular seminars, workshops, pilot projects, etc in partnership with e-Procurement solution providers prior to a formal implementation or roll out. Fourthly, the government organisation should participate in the risk and reward with the service provider so that it has a stake in it. This could be a financial stake, but need not necessarily be limited to financial. Essentially, organisations need to feel a sense of ownership and pride in their adoption of e-Procurement. e-Procurement is a critical component of e-Governance. Appropriate and timely governmental measures combined with a strong e-Procurement system will put India well on the path of becoming an e-Governed nation. www.egovonline.net

COVER INTERVIEW: GOVERNMENT SPEAK

e-Procurement: Not a Distant Dream

“The vision of e-Procurement project is to enhance the efﬁciency and transparency in public procurement through the implementation of a comprehensive, end - to - end e-Procurement solution and to route the entire public procurement activity being undertaken by the government through such a system in a phased manner,” says Aman Singh, Secretary Incharge (IT) and CEO Chips, Government of Chhattisgarh ov

July 2008

What is the vision and objectives of the e-Procurement project of Chhattisgarh? The vision of e-Procurement project is to enhance the efficiency and transparency in public procurement through the implementation of a comprehensive, end – to – end , e-Procurement solution and to route the entire public procurement activity being undertaken by the government through such a system in a phased manner. Efficiency in handling public procurement by the government shall be enhanced through automation and process re-engineering wherein the e-Procurement system shall enable the government maintain a clear/unambiguous picture of its procurement activities on a realtime basis. Through e-Procurement in public procurement, our prime objective shall be to introduce utmost transparency, cost savings through higher competition, reduced inventory cost and the supplier community shall have an equal, fair and unbiased access to opportunities advertised online. What are the departments that are being covered in the e-Procurement project? What is the estimated budget of the project? 27

COVER INTERVIEW: GOVERNMENT SPEAK

The implementation of e-Procurement is phased according to function geography, value and time-. The term ‘function’ denotes the e-Procurement components implemented and the term ‘geography’ denotes the departments and locations at which the solution is being implemented. ‘value’ denotes the worthiness of transactions routed through the e-Procurement system. The implementation of e-Procurement in Chhattisgarh is being done in two phases: pilot and rollout. In the pilot phase the Application Service Provider (ASP) has been asked to implement all the required modules on a test basis in the pilot departments identified by the Government for the e-Procurement project. Public Works Department (PWD), Water Resources Department (WRD), Public Health Engineering Department (PHED), Health Department and Chhatisgarh State Industrial Development Corporation (CSIDC) has been identified as pilot departments by the Government. Following the common practice of high value tenders first, Government of Chhattisgarh (GoC) has mandated PWD, WRD, PHED and Health Department to adopt e-Procurement system for all their tenders worth INR 200 million and above and CSIDC to conclude all their Rate Contract tenders through the e-Procurement system. Subsequent to their successful adoption, the eProcurement system shall be rolled out across the State to all Government departments, organisations, agencies, boards, etc. and also the tender slab of INR 200 million and above shall be lowered even further. The Government of Chhattisgarh’s (GoC) annual public economic procurement expenditure is about INR 40,000 million and owing to the rapid development; this figure is expected to increase in the years to come. To increase the transparency and efficiency, and also acknowledging the importance of the public procurement activity, the Government of Chhattisgarh decided to implement an end-to-end e-Procurement solution for all Government departments/ agencies/ boards across the State in a phased manner. The project is being done on a PPP model and there is no upfront financial burden on the state 28

government. The Application Service Provider (ASP) will be remunerated for the services rendered on a ‘transaction fee’ model. The transaction fees paid to the ASP is calculated at the module level. Some of the nine modules have been clubbed together and termed as a unit for the purpose of transaction fee calculation. The methods used for calculation of transaction fees are ‘Percentage of Estimated Contract Value (ECV) of a tender’, ‘percentage of order value’ and ‘fixed fee per bid received’. What architecture is being used to deploy the e-Procurement system in your state? The e-Procurement solution implemented in Chhattisgarh is based on an n-tiered architecture with Web, application and database server farms. Each tier shall be scaled independently, both vertically and horizontally, to address the performance and scalability requirements as and when needed. How is the security of information being maintained through the use of digital signature? Harnessing the power of Security and ICT tools, the strong security measures have been incorporated in the e-Procurement system to maintain the confidentiality and security of information. From the bid preparation to the bid opening stage, we are using a secure bid process which has been patented by our Application Service Provider (Wipro Ltd.) wherein two very important stages of bidding have been introduced viz. a hash submission stage by bidders and a super hashing stage by the department. In case of bid tampering, that particular bid’s hash and the super hash will not match at the time of opening and tampering would be evident. But it is worthwhile to mention that all encryption and decryption is handled on the client machine. So the data remains encrypted while in transmission from client – server – client and remains stored in encrypted form on the server. Every user has to mandatorily login using their user-id and password for accessing the tendering activity on eProcurement website. For control and monitoring purpose, the login-id for respective department users is created

e-Procurement in Chhattisgarh The Government of Chhattisgarh has undertaken due efforts to reform the procurement activity notable of which is the reformation of Public Works Manual and the issuance of a Government Order by the Chief Secretary vide letter no. 246/CS/2007 dated 5th December 2007 directing and mandating the Public Works Department, Water Resources Department, Public Health Engineering Department and Health Department to adopt e-Procurement system for all their tenders worth INR 200 million and above and Chhattisgarh State Industrial Development Corporation to conclude all their rate contract tenders through e-Procurement. The Government has selected, through a bidding process, Wipro Ltd. (in consortium with NexTenders India Pvt. Ltd.) as the Implementation Partner Application Service Provider to implement e-Procurement on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model and deploy the solution on Build-OwnOperate (BOO) basis for a period of 5 years. The Chhattisgarh infotech & biotech Promotion Society (CHiPS) has been designated as State Nodal Agency for successful implementation of e-Procurement in the State of Chhattisgarh.

www.egovonline.net

by an administrative user nominated from their own department and the supplier community is provided with the login-id only after their successful registration/empanelment as per the requirements of the respective department(s). The department of public works, water resources, health, public health engineering, Chhattisgarh state industrial development ltd., are already implementing e-Procurement in their procurement process. What has been the experience so far in terms of the benefits achieved in bringing about transparency and efficiency in the procurement process? According to the department heads who adopted the e-Procurement system for their tenders, one of the major benefits which is noticed is the elimination/ minimisation of cartel formation by bidders since the bidders are not aware of the bidding agency submitting the bid. This shall also have a direct impact on the cost of materials being procured by the government but it would be too early to point out any figures at this moment. However, national and international experiences are very encouraging and a saving of 5-10% is very normal. I remember a tender in one of our Works Department worth INR 1058 million (as per government estimates) through manual mode. On complaints, the Hon’ble Chief Minister directed us to do the same tender via e-Tendering. To our pleasant surprise, the lowest bid received was less by INR 223 million at INR 835 million due to intense competition. So the gains in savings are not only going to be huge but also recurring. The procurement cycle time also shall reduce once the users are well versed with the system. What are the change management issues that had to be dealt with in the transition from manual to electronic procurement? Change management/process reengineering is the most fundamental aspect to any automation process which should involve all stakeholders. It should have a holistic and long term view of the government organisation, its processes and stakeholders. The success of an e-Governance project depends on ov

July 2008

the participation and cooperation level of its stakeholders. During the transition stage, the following issues were faced: a) At the time when this project was being envisaged, confidentiality and security of information was the major concern. Hence, it was decided to introduce the usage of PKI enabled Digital Signature Certificates (DSC) along with the normal user-id and password at critical stages. b) We have waived the tender document fees at the time of online tender viewing for bidders. c) We have centralised the supplier registration process on the eProcurement system. But for some departments as per the department’s requirements, they need to empanel themselves for participating in tendering process of that department. d) After the implementation, one of the most important issues was the adoption of e-Procurement system by the departments and change the mindset and attitude from the existing manual working system to electronic working system. Accordingly, the Government after a series of meetings and discussions with the departments, mandated to adopt the eProcurement system for tenders worth Rs. 20 Lakhs and above. Since, changing the mindset and attitude was a slow transformation process, we organised workshops at various districts for providing an overview to the users and now we are conducting comprehensive training sessions for them. What are some of the capacity building plans in this regard? Owing to the new way of working for department users and supplier community, which the e-Procurement system brings and the huge user base to be trained, the strategy adopted for provision of the training is highly critical. As a first step towards capacity building activity, we had organised many one day awareness programmes for both government officials and supplier community separately at various districts of the state. In the final step, to accustom the

e-Procurement users, a comprehensive training calendar has been developed. Training would be conducted in Raipur in the initial phase and shall subsequently be conducted across the state in various districts. The training shall be provided in classroom context wherein the user community shall obtain hands-on experience in using the e-Procurement system. The size of the classroom is being kept small with about 25-30 users in a batch for increasing the effectiveness of the training. Simultaneously, in addition to training users in a class-room environment, other ways are being adopted such as a training facility at the ASP’s office premises accessible to Government users and supplier community on a reservation basis, e-Learning method wherein, a screenshot wise, e-Procurement training manual have been uploaded on the website for ready reference and ‘Trainthe-Trainer’ method. The e-Procurement project in Chhattisgarh is being implemented on the PPP model. What has been your experience with the private sector partners? What are some of the expectations from them? Experiences show that IT is one area which is eminently suited for PPP. IT projects being undertaken by Governments have an opportunity cost associated to it. We, in fact every government, primarily adopted the PPP model to bridge the gap between levels of speed, efficiency, reach of public projects and technical expertise. e-Procurement project is the first PPP model project implemented in the State. We are also implementing our ambitious Chhattisgarh State Wide Area Network project and Common Services Centres Project on PPP model. What are your plans for the e-Procurement project in the coming years? As roll out depends on successful adoption of the e-Procurement system by the pilot departments, we plan to roll out successful pilot projects across all the government departments, agencies, boards, etc. in near future. Also, we shall further lower the tendering slab in consultation with the departments. 29

For Exhibition or Sponsorship Enquiries: sales@eINDIA.net.in, For Registration Enquiries: registration@eINDIA.net.in

Contact Person: Nilakshi Barooah: Mobile No: +91-9911142973, Email: mserve@eINDIA.net.in

INDIA

2008 www.eINDIA.net.in/mserve 29-31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, INDIA

Digital Opportunities at Your Finger Tips! Find out more this July at mSERVE INDIA 2008 The rapid advancement in the technologies, ease of use and the falling costs of devices, make the mobile an appropriate and adaptable tool to bridge the digital divide. But there is a need to engage the service providers and key operators to take the mobile and its development perspective to the remotest parts of the country. mServe India 2008 will explore the opportunities further and will help getting answers to questions like allocation of spectrum, 3G policy, WiMax policy in the country.

Key Speakers .

Ajay Ranjan Mishra Global Head of Business Development, New Growth Markets for Nokia Siemens Networks

Yogesh Kochhar Head,e-Governance Business Unit, Tata Teleservices Ltd

Parvez Iftikhar Chief Executive Officer Universal Service Fund (Guarantee) Ltd Pakistan

R N Padukone Senior DDG (TEC) Department of Telecommunications

... Among many others

Key Themes

Who will attend

Value Added Services (VAS) • mGov • mLearning • mHealth • mRadio • mLocation • mTV • mAgriculture • mBanking • Emerging Value Added Services

Connectivity • Rural Connectivity • WiMAX • Mobile Broadband

• • • • • • •

Policy Makers in Telecommunications Department Heads of Information and Communication Department Heads of Telecommunications Regulatory Authority Heads of Service Providers Heads of Content Providers Technical Architects Information Systems Managers Among others

Supporting Partners

eINDIA 2008 Presented by

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

UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development

knowledge for change

Ministry of Human Resource Development Government of India

Department of Agriculture and Co-operation Ministry of Agriculture Government of India

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Management of Change as Basic Philosophy Hewlett Packard

www.hp.com

“For the government, HP provides several IT solutions which include development of new applications for document management with ISV’s (independent software vendor’s), e-Procurement, document capture retrieval system in digital library, teacher/ student portals, State Wide Area Networks (SWAN) and security prospects,” says Paul Faisal, Country Manager, HPC and Linux-Open source ov

July 2008

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What are the value propositions of HP since the last five years? Today HP is the largest IT product and service providing company in India. It is around “twice the size of its nearest competitor.” One third of the revenue comes from HP TSG (Technology Services Group), which is responsible for HP servers, storage and services. TSG also contributes one third of revenues globally as well. Since the last five years, HP has focused on the public sector from a very different perspective. HP recognises public sector as a separate entity. In its experience with Public-Private Partnership, HP has developed models such as Build Own Operate (BOO), Build Own Operate and Transform (BOOT), and Build Own Operate and Refresh (BOOR). These models have become the basis of structuring all the large government projects across the country, which typically span for over five to ten years period. The Return-on-Investment (ROI) is based on pay-per-use system. All these Public-Private Partnerships, which HP helped in building, are based on the basic philosophy of Management of Change (MoC) which, involves a systematic migration from the existing way of doing things to a well structured organised way of doing the same. This philosophy is being adopted both in central and state governments, as well as in defense organisations. In addition to these, HP is involved in total comprehensive projects with Bank of India, Bank of Baroda etc. In its eProcurement projects and e-Health projects, HP helps in recording, documenting and storing documents. Thus, in all these projects HP offers umbrella of services comprising all components like solutions, architecture, implementation,

With the central and state governments, HP is implementing several connectivity projects such as the State Wide Area Network (SWAN), connecting the central and state ofﬁces, capacity building programme, which involves large scale processing and data transactions. Apart from these, there are other projects like content creation which are in the areas of health care, education and agriculture. HP is also involved in cyber laws project, deﬁned by central and state governments.

support, 3-party solution component and management. In these kinds of multi-year projects, products become incidental as these projects are strictly governed by Service Level Agreements (SLAs). HP also deals with pure product play deals like - NIC (National Informatics Centre) and NICSI (National Informatics Centre Services Inc.) rate contracts, for all volume products like servers, storage, networking products apart from PC’s, notebooks and printers etc. Further, HP’s commitment to open source based software stack solutions and integration of operating system, middle-ware, database and application areas significantly brings down the overall costs of a multi-year project as compared to a solution built 32

around the commercially available software stacks. In turn this keeps the maintenance cost low and makes it affordable to the government as well as the consumers. Moreover, HP’s financial services provide a return on investment (ROI) and pay back mechanisms. It supports and finances the initial project costs with a clear recovery plan spread over the life cycle of the projects. What are the different projects that HP is involved with the Government in India? The public sector and Government of India are the key Accounts Strategy for the HP. This space of interaction has HP focus areas such as the central government, state governments and the defense sector. In this space HP is present in different directions and divisions within the government. With the central and state governments, HP is implementing several connectivity projects such as the State Wide Area Network (SWAN), connecting the central and state offices, capacity building programme, which involves large scale processing and data transactions. Apart from these, there are other projects like content creation which are in the areas of health care, education and agriculture. HP is also involved in cyber laws project, defined by central and state governments. Then there are aspects like the citizen-government interface, which has evolved in the last few years. Here HP deals with projects which involve licensing, income tax filing, registration, land accounts, passport and visa. HP also has projects involving fund location, fund processing, approval sanctions, and disbursements from the central to the state governments. These are some of the areas in which HP is working with both the central and state governments. What are the IT Solutions that HP provides for the government and the defence sector? HP provides several IT solutions which include development of new applications for document management with independent software vendor’s (ISV), e-Procurement, document capture retrieval system in digital library, teacher/ student portals, State Wide Area Networks (SWAN) and security prospects. HP worked in developing the SWAN applications both in Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, where the state data centres were operated and security managed. The defence sector, whose requirements are very different from the normal government is a niche segment for HP. HP’s work on defense security projects started six years back. Among these some of the projects include home land security project, creation of real-time database information to catch various areas, development of the command control portals at the front which provides with a secured platform for interaction and secure messaging system with the field officers and also vehicle tracking system which is a GPS based equipment to locate the position and track the movements of the military vehicles deployed. Please elaborate on your e-Procurement solution. HP through its e-Procurement solutions intends to solve www.egovonline.net

the lack of efficiency and transparency in the procurement division in the government offices. The need was to develop a centralised system. HP developed a system which could be used for centralised registration of contractors, suppliers, event management in auction, services cataloging, accounting and management of stationary updates. HP thus deployed security solution use of PKI infrastructure for access and document security. HP solution is based on open source components like Redhat ES-Linux OS, Apache – Web Servers, JBOSS JEMS – Application Servers, MYSQL – Database Servers, Archiving and Backup – Amanda. With the implementation of these systems, HP brought down the cost of transaction for the consumers. Along with that, it also ushered in the benefits of transparancy, efficiency and predictable Service Offering. Another benefit of this system is that, this solution can be repeated and hence can be implemented in all government sectors in the state. What is HP’s experience in working with Karnataka Government in implementing e-Government solutions? The partnership with the private-public projects with the Government of Karnataka was a good experience for HP. The projects have been completed on time and has been an enriching experience leading to a good partnership with the government. Comment on HP’s High Performance Computing Solutions High Performance Computing problems are characterised by computational, data or numerically intensive tasks involving complex computation and visualisation of large data sets requiring exceptionally fast throughput. The areas where these solutions can be utilised include Computer Aided Engineering (CAE), Electronic Design Automation, Product Life Cycle Management, Digital Content Creation, Oil and Gas-Exploration and Production, Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Scientific Research , financial services,

government, defense etc. HP’s HPC Solutions are deployed by various organisations across the world especially in the area of Computation, Data Management and Visualisation. Large HPC companies use all the 3 aspects of HPC specially in the domain of CAE and O and G upstream. This HPC Solution approach by HP is integrated solution spanning computation, storage and visualisation. Further, this solution provides with a choice of industry standard platforms, operating systems and interconnects. It provides with engineered and supported solutions that are easy to manage and use. These scalable applications perform on complex workloads. The extensive use of open source software is seen in clustering, parallel file system and graphics. It is used in extensive portfolio of qualified development tools and applications. What are HP’s plans for capacity building and content generation? The central and state governments have a huge repository of knowledgeable people who have in depth knowledge of administration. Capacity building involves planning and training of these resources to leverage technology for efficient administration. On the issue of content generation, HP is involved in areas like health-care, education, technical areas, agriculture. The aim is to create and store the content in such a way so that the common consumer can access and gain benefit. Please tell us about HP’s partners. HP works in close association with its partners. It directly delivers the core aspects of the projects like solution architecture, project management, project solution integration, data centre design, security and management, the WAN network design etc. While it works with its solutions eco-system partners to deliver their share. Further HP implements wide area networks with its partners. HP tries to provide with complete transparency to its customers and it does so by providing more and more industry based solution to customers which is achieved in co-opearation with its partners.

e-Procurement Platform in Karnataka-Powered by HP The Government of Karnataka and Hewlett-Packard (HP) have entered into a partnership to enable a key e-Procurement project. The initiative has received positive response and increased adoption among the contractor community. In their pursuit to bring in transparency and reduce transaction time the following departments in Karnataka have successfully adopted the HP-enabled e-Procurement platform: • Public Works, Ports and IWT Dept (PWD) • Sarvasiksha Abhiyan (SSA) • Karnataka Drug Logistics Warehousing Society (KDLWS) • Krishna Bhagya Jala Nigama Limited (KBJNL) • Center for e-Governance (CEG) The solution running on HP infrastructure, including industry standard blade servers, storage area network (SAN) and enterprise classapplications based on open

July 2008

source technology has already resulted in tangible benefits to these departments. Proof Points from the point of view of benefit to the government, include a reduction of the tender processing time from estimate preparation to tendering, in the case of PWD there has been a reduction of up to 40% in transaction time. For the contractor community, specific benefits include the reconciliation of earnest money deposit (EMD) and other payment related parameters by 50-60% as all payment transactions are now enabled online and the return of EMD to contractors is now quicker and simpler. One of the leading benefits of the e-Procurement initiative has been the standardisation of public procurement practices across departments for works and goods procurement. The initiative has also led to greater transparency. Tenders above INR 5 million in Karnataka are being handled by this e-Procurement project supported by HP.

This July at municipalIT INDIA2008

Find out how ICT innovation is altering Indian cityscapes! municipalIT INDIA2008 intends to provide a unique platform to understand and debate about the strategies to arm municipalities with IT, challenges that might arise and the advantages that people stand to get. The event will create a knowledge base about the role that information technology can play in making the municipalities more effective.

Key Speakers

Vivek Bharadwaj Principal Secretary, Department of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs, Government of West Bengal

Chetan Vaidya Director, National Institute for Urban Affairs, GoI

Lee Baker Chief of Party Indo-USAID Fire (D) Project, United States Agency for International Development, New Delhi

Nabroon Bhattacharjee Country Team leader, (Water and Sanitation Program) World Bank, New Delhi

... Among many others

Key Themes

•

Work management system

IT innovation in municipalities

•

e-Procurement

Role of IT in establishing contact with citizens

•

Personal information system

•

Speeding up the work process

•

Payment of property tax, utility bills

•

Efficient handling of work

•

Transparency in dealing with citizens

•

Efficient transactional services

• Building plan approval Management of amenities that come under ULBs (Urban Local Bodies)

•

• Easy accessibility of services e-Governance services as envisaged under JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission) •

Registration of births and deaths

•

Public grievance redressal

•

Property tax management, including records management

•

Municipal accounting system

•

Urban water supply

•

Sanitation

•

Transport

GIS for urban areas •

Case studies on GIS in municipalities

Supporting Partner National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) is a premier institute for research, training and information dissemination in urban development and management. Established in 1976, as an autonomous body under the Societies Registration Act, the Institute enjoys the support and commitment of the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Employment, Government of India, State Governments, urban and regional development authorities and other agencies concerned with urban issues eINDIA 2008 Presented by

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

UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development

knowledge for change

Ministry of Human Resource Development Government of India

Department of Agriculture and Co-operation Ministry of Agriculture Government of India

Contact Person: Parijat Saurabh : Mobile No: +91- 9891658964, Email: municipalit@eINDIA.net.in

29 - 31 July 2008, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

For Exhibition or Sponsorship Enquiries: sales@eINDIA.net.in, For Registration Enquiries: registration@eINDIA.net.in

www.eINDIA.net.in/municipalIT

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Providing Holistic Services www.hughesindia.in

“We are a diverse country and requirements are area speciﬁc and therefore, setting up networks will take time and involves huge cost. Success will come only when people use them effectively. This will signiﬁcantly transform the country in an unprecedented manner and will create greater opportunities for greater number of people who were denied these opportunities” says Pranav Roach, President, HUGHES Network Systems, India. ov

July 2008

How do you see the present state of National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) in terms of delivery of services? The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) which includes infrastructural projects such as State Wide Area Networks (SWAN), State Data Centres (SDC), Common Service Centres (CSC), is a huge and ambitious initiative by the Government of India. It is an excellent plan which will bring together different aspects to deliver digital services to citizens across rural India. It is a noteworthy attempt to create a common infrastructure for usage of people who ordinarily will not have direct access to Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). From this point of view, there is little room for finding fault with the initiative. The issue here may be as to what approach to follow. There are, in fact, various aspects such as the hardware, software, computing, integration of services, connectivity aspects and different ways through which one can develop these aspects. The crux of the matter here is in two things. Firstly, creating infrastructure such as the SWAN, CSC, SDC etc., and providing bandwidth. Creating network and establishing infrastructure is a function of time and money. The second and the most important aspect is utilising the infrastructure in an economically viable manner, which otherwise aborts the investment made. The services must be useful and relevant for people, especially in the rural areas. Therefore, the challenge lies in creating a sustainable ecosystem of services which are relevant, affordable and useful to people. In India about 2/3rd of the population lives in the rural areas i.e. at the block and gram panchayat level. Most of these people are out of the ambit of modern information and communications networks. There are many problems such as availability of food, electricity, drinking water and other basic amenities for decent living in these areas. For these people government services like ration cards, land records, birth and death certificates, access to government schemes etc., are relevant as their lives revolve around these aspects. Therefore, providing such core services by the government creates a belief that government will assist them and that things are transparent. Education is another aspect which can be provided through these initiatives that can impact their livelihood. Thus, NeGP is a noble model objective. Is the present model of e-Governance in India financially viable? How can it be made a financially viable and successful? In the present model, services are provided at a minimal price and here it starts to disintegrate as huge CAPEX

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(Capital Expenditure) is involved in establishing, maintaining and running the infrastructure. Therefore, providing eGovernment services exclusively may make the model financially unsustainable. Thus, to make them financially viable, private services should also be provided. In addition to this tutorials can be given for students aiming for professional courses like engineering and medicine through e-Learning practices at a low cost with high standards, that can cater to the interests of both the industry and government . This training can lead the youth to retail chains, Business Process Outsourcing (BPOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s) etc. Educational training is relevant and can be a enabler. These training programmes can cater to about 200-300 million young Indians in the age group of 15-25 years. We have a good bouquet of services designed to meet the needs of the people and which are affordable to make it a sustainable business model. Both the government and private services are the key for long term viability and financial success of e-Governance.

NeGP is a noteworthy attempt to create a common infrastructure for usage of people who ordinarily will not have direct access to Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). From this point of view, there is little room for ďŹ nding fault with the initiative. The issue here may be as to what approach to follow

Please tell us about HUGHES broadband solutions to empower government to better serve the people. We are a managed network and broad band solution provider. Networking is our speciality and we use terrestrial, wireless and satellite technologies. The beauty of satellite solutions is its ubiquity. This ubiquity creates ease in deployment which is critical. Therefore, we can create a site and run it in any part of India within hours. Once we establish the network, we emphasise on delivery of services. These include integrated services such as education, vocational training, eCommerce tie-ups that are relevant and meaningful to people. In education we provide high end specialised programmes in management, vocational programmes directed at specific requirements such as travel, retail management, BPO and areas where there are opportunities. A person attending these programmes will have high possibility of finding employment. These things will add to their skill sets.

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We also intend to provide choice in education at an affordable cost to common people closer to their area of living and encourage participation in greater numbers. Today, we have greater opportunities and therefore, the need for skilled people is on the rise and we are focusing on this area. What are the various VSAT based services being developed and offered by HUGHES Network Systems in India? Virtually some or the other aspect of our daily lives is touched by services delivered over VSATs. Banks use them for ATMs, cinemas for downloading movies via satellite, stock exchanges for trading, big corporates, oil companies to connect their petrol pumps, students to access interactive educational content and many others. Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) is essentially a router. It enables voice, data and video to be transmitted and received over a wide area network (WAN). In my view, technological devices that are provided must be made relevant and useful to people.

The beauty of satellite solutions is its ubiquity. This ubiquity creates ease in deployment which is critical. Therefore, we can create a site and run it in any part of India within hours. Once we establish the network, we emphasise on delivery of services.

People who are supposed to benefit from VSAT devices in remote areas should be aware of the utility of these devices. In this regard creating awareness regarding utility and various services that can be accessed is pertinent. For this, tie-ups with various service providers like the railways, transport operators and integrating these services to ensure that everybody gets their share are vital aspects. For people the application of any device or service is important than the device or technology. Through VSAT technology and services, we can create awareness regarding the enabling courses which we provide for better job opportunities. Overall, if we can think out of the box and focus on the application part of technology, creating useful and affordable services, successful results will follow. HUGHES is actively working at the ground level to create awareness regarding the services we provide. The challenge is in creating services which are actually aimed at people in rural areas and we are constantly focusing on this area. When we launch a product to take it to larger audience we have vans, street plays, pictures to showcase the utility and benefits of these products and services to the people. Here we emphasise on communicating the use and relevance to the people and it is different from the classical marketing approach followed in urban areas. In HUGHES we have a division called HughesNet Fusion aimed at creating an ecosystem for delivering services to the under served.

What are the crucial components for realisation of m-Governance in India? Briefly tell us about m-Governance scenario in India. It is a fact that mobility has done wonders. Mobile phone is a very good voice device. But the current generation is inherently a narrow band standard and is very good for mobile voice. However, when it is loaded with data and video, the existing capacity fails to handle it and becomes difficult to operate. At the theoretical level m-Governance is a very good initiative but, when we look at the practical side we still have to cover a long distance. Mobile devices are designed to handle voice calls and their effectiveness declines when they handle additional services like data and video. Considering the vast size of our country, we have to develop required infrastructure for m-Governance in India along with awareness creation regarding its utility and enhancing the mobile handling capacity. Total mobile subscriber base in India has increased from 56.88 million in March 2005 to 261.08 million in March 2008. In this light how do you see the future of m-Governance in India? Though the mobile subscriber base in India increased to around 261 million by March 2008, the mobile network covers about 35% of Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s geographical territory only. A large part of the territory is not covered by any network. The second reality is that when we look at the mobile subscriber base in the rural areas it is about 2-3%. Most of the available mobile networks in India are in and around the urban areas. In our country there are still more than 800 million people who are not connected through mobile. Therefore, m-Governance in India is still a long way. HUGHES Network Systems leadership spans all aspects of technology products development, standards, satellite network solutions and services. Compared to other market players how competitive are these products and services in Indian market? Our products and services are viable and suitable on all parameters. Our focus is not only on providing equipment or connectivity but also on providing â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;service.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; We look at it as a holistic service and that is the differentiator. Share with us your vision for e-Governance in the country for serving the common man. NeGP in India is a very good initiative. But, the challenge involved in making it a success is huge. I stress that success depends on the delivery of services which are useful, relevant and affordable to people wherever they are. We are a diverse country and requirements are area specific and therefore, setting up networks will take time and involves huge cost. Success will come only when people use them effectively. This will significantly transform the country in an unprecedented manner and will create greater opportunities for greater number of people who were denied these opportunities.

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PERSPECTIVE

Time to Payback to the Nation Indian MNCs Sudhir Aggarwal

Gone are the days when IT companies in India out of compulsion had to serve only US and European markets. The reason being Indian companies had skills and manpower and these markets had business potential and opportunities. Now after globalisation and competition has made inroads in Indian markets we are seeing booming business in India across sectors like banking, finance, and insurance; telecom; aviation; automotive, etc. The latest in the chain is e-Governance. Government has explicit and implicit reasons to adapt to these fast happenings for various political, economic, social, and all other good reasons; the pace of change within government has been mixed, however the good news is ‘It has begun and there is no scope for U-turn’. Today there is no dearth of opportunities in India, Government in India is showing the willingness and symptoms to change continuously. The change journey in government is ON.

BOTTLENECK

The bottleneck is with the industry to respond and demonstrate its commitment to the nation in such ever changing scenario. The Indian MNC(s) [Multinational Companies] - all big ticket, big time exporters in ICT and related industry need to look at India seriously. Here, efforts are to be made to highlight primarily the e-Governance space. There are many reasons for Indian MNC(s) to look at India seriously and deliver their commitment to the Nation. Opportunities are growing in India, market is maturing in India, Rupee appreciation, recession in different parts of the world, … are among the key factors. The fact remains; the Indian MNC(s) are hardly working for India as a nation by means of seriously and actively participating in the e-Governance projects. Even if some claim to be working subject to some partly exception, they either work on creamy opportunities or do the lip service by associating few top individuals from their leadership teams with some high level teams. However, they need to associate themselves with ground realities and on-going projects; they need to bring their skin to the table to demonstrate their commitment to the country. The fact remains, the best of talent, infrastructure, and investments of Indian MNC(s) still works for international assignments; reasons are many; however the Indian MNC(s) must accept the challenge the create meaningful reasons to 38 }

bring their best talent, infrastructure, and investments to deliver on National assignments. If it calls for few demands/ expectations from the Government of India, they must spell them out clearly to ensure their effective participation. It is easier said than done, but it is do(able). There are sectors like education, health, agriculture, rural and urban development, and other sectors; where industry players are running their businesses in respective sectors; however, there is a need to create meaningful synergy between industry and government such that these sectors can progress and deliver results efficiently and effectively. If Indian MNC(s) start working with the Government of India with full or little more intent, it should help the Government of India to change still faster for good in terms of its procurement norms, process, and procedure; project definitions, expectations, and deliverables; project execution, monitoring, and sustenance strategies; …. In the process, many mid-sized companies have come up in India. It is again good news, but there would be enough market and opportunities for all size and all kind of companies to find their feet in India. On government’s part, they need to create some motivational reasons for the Indian MNC(s) to bring their best to the nation. May be, government needs to enhance the industry participation in their policy making, decision making, and implementation and monitoring. The brighter side of the story is that government is changing and clearly demonstrating the adoption to ever changing scenario. It is the turn of Indian MNC(s) to reciprocate. The Government and Indian MNC(s) must look for meaningful inclusive opportunity creation and management, but Indian MNC(s) must look at the means and ways to deliver to the nation through their core. Commitment to the nation must clearly reflect in all their actions, right from their vision and mission through business strategies and plans, human resource policies. It must be measurable. These companies must align their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) in their absolute and explicit commitment to the nation. Sudhir Aggarwal is Senior Vice President and Head – Government initiatives for Enterprise Division at Sify Technologies Limited. He is responsible for strategic business development in government and defense segment. Prior to his tenure at Sify, he was General Manager, Government (Business Development) at Oracle. He is a casual writer in IT and in-house magazines and newsletters and has been guest speaker on various occasions.

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INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Supporting Governments Develop its Strategies www.gov3.net

“The Gov3 helps governments connect to their citizens, fosters ICT-enabled transformation, and delivers concrete ‘howto’ help with countries implementing good practice. Additionally, the Gov3 provides an environment within which governments and industry can engage in a ‘grown up’ discussion about the changing needs of governments” says Graham Walker, Managing Partner, GOV3 Limited, London, UK ov

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After serving for eleven strong years in UK government in Policy making, what has been the motivation to start Gov3? Gov3 stands for government for the third millennium. Probably what it should say is government fit for the third millennium. What motivates us is the opportunity technology provides for governments to interact with citizens in ways that have never before been possible. For governments to actually be the government that citizen deserves. The challenge facing those working in government is using technology to deliver public services centered to people’s satisfaction. That is the strong motivating force for us. After serving 11 years in the UK Government, we were motivated to share some of the lessons we have learned. The good things we did and the not so good things we did. The not so good things are sometimes more useful to people. That is why we decided to start Gov3, a different kind of consultancy business. We decided that we did not want to just focus on UK. We wanted to go around the world, discussing with people in other governments and to share the lessons we have learnt. What is the approach/strategy adopted to achieve this vision? The main thing about our approach is that, wherever we work, we are always supporting our clients in government to develop their own strategy. We do not tell them: ‘here is the way to do it.’ Because we have learned that, in every country, context varies. Politics, economics, social situations, people’s culture and values are all different. Therefore, we will never sell one-size-fits all policy or strategy to the governments. That said, we do have a lot of experience and we can provide a great deal of support to help people develop their own strategies. Thus, our approach is to provide whatever assistance we can, to support governments with the experience and knowledge that we have, to help people develop their own strategies. What does Gov3 offer to governments in order to enhance them in transforming into e-Governments? The Gov3 helps governments connect to their citizens, fosters ICT-enabled transformation, and delivers concrete ‘how-to’ help with countries implementing good practice. Additionally, the Gov3 provides an environment within which governments and industry can engage in a ‘grown up’ discussion about the changing needs of governments as they move beyond traditional e-government approaches towards more significant transformation. It is mainly pure strategy advice and we also do programme management when it is a huge strategic project. Often governments have big agenda around education, health and also a big IT project, and there is hardly a connection between them. These two things need to be joined, not just what IT can do, but what is it that governments want out of IT for its citizens. We are excited about the potential of IT but not about the potential of selling IT. What according to you are the competitive advantages of Gov3? 40

What differentiates us from other consulting firms is that we have all worked in government for a very long time. The majority of Gov3 consultants have worked in government. The ex-CIOs of Estonia and Finland, very senior officials from Indian Government and former World Bank , OECD advisers significantly contributes to our strength. They all have insight in to government’s ways of working and its problems. Our biggest competitive advantage is that we are in a market of one. There is no company like us in the market. We regularly compete with very high level strategy houses but they just sell governments the philosophy of implementation

The main thing about our approach is that, wherever we work, we are always supporting our clients in government to develop their own strategy. We do not tell them: ‘here is the way to do it.’ Because we have learned that, in every country, context varies. Politics, economics, social situations, people’s culture and values are all different

of ICT systems. On the other hand, we not only understand the best practice of transforming business but also we have practically done it to deliver the intended benefits. We do not sell any ICT solution. We just advise governments to make the right choice. We understand what goes wrong, why it is different or why it is difficult. This is how we are different from other consulting companies. According to the United Nations (UN), you have build the worlds’ Best portal. What do you think as the key driver for this achievement. It is nice that the UN has said that directgov (www. directgov.uk), the portal, we built when we worked in the UK government, is considered the world’s best. That said, the opinion we value most is that of citizens themselves. This is an important point because citizen’s expectations are rising. They are demanding the same quality of service from government as they get from the private sector retailers. The vision behind directgov was to create an online government store, a very high quality departmental store for citizens. Our aim was to aggregate services from all the different sources within government. And then deliver them to citizens in one place and in the most convenient way possible. It was a long journey to produce something like directgov . What are the Gov3 plans in India. India stands as one of the fastest growing countries in the world and the IT world has lot of expectations from this country. Your country has a golden opportunity to learn from the past experiences of other countries and adapt the best to practice in order to get the best results. India has already created enabling framework by launching NEGP, SWAN and CSC programme to name a few. Looking at the strong potential in India Gov3 has set up its first office out side UK in Pune from November 2007. www.egovonline.net

Gramjyoti: Human Rights Case Study Ajith Sukumaran INTRODUCTION

India, the world’s largest democracy and second most populous country, has had a fast growing economy over the last two decades, and has made slow but solid progress in reducing the number of people living below the poverty line. However, according to the United Nations, India has achieved only mixed success with regards to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs are a set of targets that involve reducing extreme poverty and hunger by half while improving education, health, gender equality and sustainability by 2015.

AIM OF THE PROJECT

Ericsson launched the Gramjyoti (which means ‘the light of the village’ in Hindi) project to showcase the benefits of mobile broadband for rural India using wireless 3G/High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology. It benefited thousands of people in 18 villages and 15 towns in the south-eastern state of Tamil Nadu. The demonstration project started in September 2007 and was successfully completed after two months. Ericsson – in partnership with Apollo Hospitals, Hand In Hand, Edurite, One97, CNN and Cartoon Network – created a stable ecosystem that demonstrated the benefits of highspeed broadband in supporting rural development. The access provided a range of new services including telemedicine, eEducation, e-Governance, online local information, voice and video-call services, and live TV and entertainment. The Gramjyoti project in Tamil Nadu sought to demonstrate the social and economic benefits of 3G technology in India and in particular mobile access to high-speed broadband. In particular, the study looked at the impact on the right to education, the right to health, the right to information as well as protection issues in relation to discrimination (in particular the rural divide) and child labour. Human rights have been an intrinsic part of the country’s constitution since it achieved independence in 1947 and can in no way be regarded as a western imposition.

NATURE OF THE PROBLEM

The villages and towns in Tamil Nadu were chosen for the ov

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www.ericsson.com project because they reflect the typical telecom profile of rural India, where many families have little or no access to fixed telephones, but do have access to a mobile phone. The total mobile penetration in rural areas in India is about 6 percent, compared to more than 55 percent in urban areas.

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

As the fastest growing telecommunications market in the world, India represents an important business opportunity. It has low telephony penetration, particularly in the rural areas, low call rates and a rising consumer income as a result of strong economic growth. By the end of October 2007, there were a total of 255 million telephones, mobile and fixed, with a monthly addition of around 8 million. Despite this growth, there still remains a substantial number of people in rural areas who do not have access to mobile services. Current networks in India only cover 40 percent of the landmass and 60 percent of the population. The government policy focus has been towards rural and broadband expansion, a prospect in line with Ericsson’s vision behind this trial project. The project built an efficient and affordable Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA)/ HSPA) rural broadband network that would serve as a blueprint for the widespread introduction of Internet and broadband connectivity, as well as a showcase for operators, media and policy makers on the tangible social and economic benefits of HSPA for rural communities. Infrastructure and site sharing are one way to bring down the total cost of ownership for an operator while rolling out their mobile network. Operators are able in turn, to provide mobile phone services at more affordable prices. In this project, Ericsson demonstrated the concept by sharing existing towers. The technology used in the project – the first 3G wireless network in India – was an evolved version of the existing GSM international mobile telephony standard. This was a unique opportunity for Ericsson, as it had secured the 3G license for the trial project. This in turn, has put Ericsson in a prime position to utilise the lessons from the trial for the rollout of the 3G technology once the Indian authorities release 3G licenses. The social and economic development context in which Ericsson has approached and developed this project is an 41

Turner Broadcasting Systems (a division of Time Warner, the media company that also includes CNN and Cartoon Network) – Provide information and entertainment services. One97 Communications – Provided the voicebased technology to provide local rates on agricultural, weather information and so on.

PROJECT MILESTONES

The pilot achieved the following results: Three schools with nearly 5000 students were connected. Of these, more than 1000 students experienced high-speed Internet for the first time. 23 sessions of e-Learning with 100 students in each session. Around 1000 villagers used the citizen centres.

• impressive example of such an innovative development. The project has effectively offered an enriched learning and development experience for the company, project partners, customers and other stakeholders including those the company may seek to work with, in the future. The tangible Human Rights benefits engendered by the project have clearly enhanced the reputation of the Ericsson brand as a socially responsible company, helping to develop good working relationships with national and local government and other stakeholders. A dialogue with the potential future customers has also been started to maximise its potential. Working with so many different partners all undertaking innovative component parts within the eco-system model have added insight and suggested many opportunities for the future. This must be particularly true for the Value Added Services (VAS), which will almost certainly be an important part of future developments, building in additional revenue streams to maximise the benefits from investments. The project has also served as a test bed for the technology and provided a useful template that can be used in other areas.

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20 sessions of telemedicine were run, with 90 percent of patients given medicines locally.

ERICSSON’S CORE TECHNOLOGY AS AN ENABLER OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Ericsson believes that communication and information is a human need and a prerequisite for development. It has demonstrated through the project how technology can be deployed to empower people in rural areas and be a catalyst for social and economic change.

STAKEHOLDERS

Ericsson – in partnership with key sector leaders – was able to unite technology with social work in a comprehensive ecosystem. The partners were selected on the basis of their commitment to a social cause, their involvement at the community level and their ability to reach a large number of people. Apollo Hospitals – Implemented the telemedicine and mobile healthcare services. They provided all medical equipment, resources (doctors, paramedics), ambulances and medicine. Edurite Technologies – Focused on e-Learning by standardising the quality of education and use of technology, particularly IT/Internet, to enhance the learning process. Hand in Hand – Established three citizen centres which provided Internet service, e-Governance, and entertainment and helped in social mobilisation of patients, villagers and students. The centres served as information providers to villagers. 42

The Gramjyoti project has touched a number of aspects in people’s lives, particularly relating to improving access to the universal human rights of health, education, livelihood and information. Health – The project benefited communities by providing health services, as people were able to obtain instant medical advice from live interactive check-ups. This made a real difference, as the alternative would have been to travel long distances to seek medical help. Education – Ericsson together with its partner provided an end-to-end solution for e-Learning. The offer of ‘anywww.egovonline.net

CIVIL SOCIETY

Village leaders ensured active participation in the community, ensuring vulnerable groups had access to the new services. The overall feedback from the local community was very positive. Having services and treatment from consultants from reputed hospitals such as Apollo Hospital and the opportunity for teachers and students to follow complex subjects in an accessible way through e-Learning, were two of the key advantages highlighted by the community.

LOCAL BUSINESS

time, any-place’ learning helped students gain access to new information and educational resources for the first time. The technology substantially reduced costs compared to conventional teaching and was not limited by geographical location; for example, students at schools in rural areas that did not have lab facilities were shown video illustrations of chemical and physical experiments. Teachers in these areas were also able to explain them. At the same time, it also facilitated the monitoring of the progress of all trainees. Livelihood – One of the applications provided up-todate information relating to crops, such as the choice of best fertilizers, seeds and rates in the market, which helped the local community get better price for their produce. Information – The use of Information and Communication Technologies improved information and service delivery through the citizen centres. Integrated and enhanced access to government services through e-Governance helped people save time and money. For example, being able to file a birth certificate online enabled a child to easily get an identification card, which in the future will facilitate their registration in a school, among other things. Without the card, access to basic rights would be hampered. Earlier, because of the distance to government offices and the tedious process, less than 5 percent of villagers registered their children. Other documents were also facilitated by the citizen centres, which enabled access to a number of other rights. Among them were election card applications, voter registrations, ration card applications and employment search documents. Ericsson Consumer Lab will conduct a study in India in 2008 that plans to include the villages supported by the Gramjyoti project. The study will analyse the impact of the projects in detail.

Members of the local business community felt that the project was an exhilarating use of new technology, and its applications truly changed people’s lives. On their project visits, they noted how the local communities had embraced the project and saw that its benefits went beyond the trial period. It demonstrated to them the value of the ecosystem partnership that they had supported. Their positive impression of the project has inspired them to promote the expansion of the project to other parts of India.

GOVERNMENT

Following project monitoring visits, government representatives reiterated the effectiveness of mobile technology to bring urban facilities to rural areas expeditiously. The representatives saw the significant impact of the project, but recognised the need for a partnership approach if it was to be successful. In addition, they extended their support for 3G-based HSPA connectivity to be deployed into rural areas at a commercial level and on a larger scale. This in turn ensured extensive coverage at a lower cost.

STAKEHOLDER PERCEPTIONS

The evaluation of the Gramjyoti project recorded the following perceptions from different stakeholders:

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KEY LEARNING

A number of conclusions have been drawn since the end of the project that are transferable and can be replicated in other situations. These are the following: The initiative demonstrated how WCDMA/HSPA technology can be a major catalyst for social and economic empowerment, increasing productivity and quality of life; proving that mobile broadband made changes in people’s lives. The key differentiator in this trial project was the sustainable and scalable ecosystem that was developed to

provide validity to HSPA as a platform to bridge the rural divide. This demonstration project is planned to be rolled out on a commercial basis to other areas of India, utilising existing GSM towers, especially for telemedicine. There will also be a replication of the Gramjyoti pilot in other countries on a trial basis, including Algeria, Bangladesh and Vietnam. Although, the introduction of mobile communications did not achieve poverty reduction on its own, it certainly made an active contribution towards the MDGs by contributing to the economic and social well-being of poor communities. The project demonstrates that 3G technology is likely to have beneficial impact on the right to health and the right to education when rolled out more widely, provided the phones and technology are accessible to the greatest numbers of people and across all caste and societal divides. In addition, it worked towards the MDG partnership for development, in which cooperation between the public and private sector made the benefits of new technologies available to the rural areas. Innovative approaches to overcome the digital divide – such as poor infrastructure, low competence levels, high phone prices, regulation and taxation, subscription costs – were considered in order to achieve Ericsson’s vision of an all-communicating world. The project demonstrated that the technology and business models created, made it not only possible, but also profitable, for potential operators and service providers. Moreover, it showed that the integrated strategy of Ericsson made a meaningful social impact while strengthening Ericsson’s long-term competitiveness in the country.

Ajith Sukumaran is a Senior Manager - Strategy at Ericsson India Pvt Ltd. Ajith holds the responsibility for strategy management and various other rural initiatives for Ericsson in India. He has more than 13 years of experience in India and abroad. He can be reached at - ajith.sukumaran@ericsson.com

Telemedicine Initiatives of Ericsson in Rural India In a new initiative towards providing health care through mobile services, Ericsson and Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation (ATNF) have joined hands to bridge the digital divide in rural India. They have introduced mobile health services via telemedicine. The two organisations have singed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in order to educate people and to publicise, promote and implement the use of telemedicine. The mobile health services are provided through the use of High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology which enables the provision of affordable and accessible healthcare to millions of people in remote corners of the country. The service will enable easier access to health care for

rural populations which would help provide critical health information and save time and money and reduce travel. Speaking on the initiative, Ericsson India President Mats Granryd said that “Through our ongoing partnership with Apollo, we are putting an ecosystem in place to support telemedicine applications once the 3G network is deployed”. On the other hand, Apollo Hospitals Group Chairman Prathap C Reddy said that with “the availability of wireless technology, mobile health will be integrated into the healthcare delivery system”. Adding more on the initiative, he said that the new mantra could well be ‘healthcare for anyone, anywhere, anytime.’

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m-Governance: Innovative Method for Interacting with Government

www.worldbank.org

Samia Melhem The incredible growth in mobile phones has started a new debate and reflection: Why canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t we use the ubiquitous mobile phone device as a delivery platform for all sorts of governmental or public information services and hence help foster much needed interaction between government and citizens? With 3.3 billion mobile users around today, and a growing users base, the prospects and possibilities in using the mobile phones as a two-way service delivery platform are incredible. Mobile phones are more ubiquitous in developing countries than the older media of choice for one way communications : TV sets, or radio. However, just like TV and radio, mobile phones can carry various sources of content, coming from both the private or the public sphere. Mobile phones also can help foster an innovative method for citizens to interact with the government. Government can provide needed and sometimes life-saving information to citizens via phone or Short Messaging Service (SMS) based alerts. In order to get there, a cultural and organisational change is needed: Governments need to change their attitude towards provision of services and transform their models of providing public information to citizens. Governments need to create a culture of written and oral accountability and follow-through in order to achieve and maintain such a transformation. With information services available on devices that can record caller identity, gone is the faceless bureaucracy. In this brave new world of information on the go, the public sector would make available contact names, appointment times, and employeesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; calendars and make their public servants accountable in providing on-time professional and reliable services, transactions or plain reliable information provision. Information provided to citizens would need to be accurate, acceptable across the board and most of all irrefutable by the different parts of government that would be processing the related transaction (registration, payment, renewal, etc). Citizens interested, or concerned in a specific service can and should be able to directly contact the government, by SMS, or voice, and get their questions answered within a specific time frame (varying on the urgency of the request). This changes the paradigm of the amorphous bureaucracy by appointing clear contact points and jurisdictions for specific services and information provided by the government. The benefits are clear; half the planet with 3.3 billion users of mobile telephony could lead safer and better lives with 46

factual information services at their fingertips helping them make educated choices and better decisions, from what crops to plant, to what roads not to take during a natural disaster, to how to prevent specific diseases, to whom to go to in your district to protect yourself in cases of domestic violence. For many committed administrations in developing countries, a mobile services-based strategy is an innovative way to showcase to its citizens and elected bodies how responsive and serious they are about good governance, and empowering citizens. For many others the change of mindset, the level of efforts needed, and the leadership required is simply not there to help achieve the transformation from an information-poor to an information-rich environment. For some governments who perhaps have the financial and organisational skills to operate such a change, the political will is missing, and there www.egovonline.net

is no burning desire to serve, assist, or empower the citizens. These governments are not yet seeing the possibilities that mobile phones offer them to get closer to their citizens by providing a two-way communication, information exchange and feedback process; or are in fact unconcerned or wary of this potential. On the positive side, we are seeing a lot of changes from some governments who are serious about improving the livelihood’s of their citizens as these are making a concerted effort to talk to citizens and operators and see what can be offered in a specific platform. The latest e-Readiness ranking we have seen from INSEAD and the World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey in the latest annual Networked Readiness Index report (http://www.insead.edu/v1/gitr/wef/ main/home.cfm) ranks Estonia, Singapore, Canada, Australia, USA etc. amongst top 10 performers in e-Readiness and availability of services to their communities, businesses and citizens. These are the same top 25 countries in provision of mobile government services to citizens. The new entrants include Dubai and Qatar, who have been achieving remarkable progress in the e-Government space. The index looks at the availability of government services online (personal tax, car registrations, business permits, passport applications, e-Procurement applications etc.). These services are based on the traditional web-based delivery platform for e-Government services, but several of them are now being migrated to the mobile platform under different agreements between the government and the mobile operators. Rank

Country

Score

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Estonia Singapore Denmark Sweden Ireland Malta Iceland Austria Korea United States Norway Chile Hong Kong SAR United Kingdom Australia Canada Finland New Zealand Malaysia France Switzerland Taiwan, China Qatar Netherlands United Arab Emirates

6.48 6.31 6.13 5.90 5.82 5.79 5.76 5.72 5.69 5.69 5.67 5.64 5.63 5.54 5.48 5.46 5.38 5.38 5.32 5.22 5.20 5.20 5.17 5.15 5.13

July 2008

Examples of such services offered by government in partnership with cellular providers are (1) one-stop access to government services via mobile citizen service centres in Sao Paulo and Bahia, Brazil; (2) security alerts sent out by

London’s Metropolitan police; (3) disaster recovery relief for British tourists in Sri Lanka being located and saved after Tsunami; (4) Singaporeans receiving SMS alerts for passport renewal notifications, and season parking reminders; (5) the Hong Kong government using SMS for emergency announcements; (6) in China, the mobile phone owners able to send SMS to the 2,987 deputies of the National People’s Congress; (7) in Fairfax county, VA SMS based weather and traffic updates sent to subscribers (8) in Estonia paying or parking (9) in Ireland, 48 per cent of mobile phone users use their mobile phones to get reminders for appointments with public health agencies. At the moment, most of the initiatives are fairly smallscale and to varying extents experimental, but experts in the field suggest that the rate of innovation means that the system will soon be in routine use almost everywhere. Mobile services in Tartu, Estonia: Tartu, with its population of 100,000 inhabitants, is one of the leading cities in Estonia to introduce municipal m-Government services, from m-Banking, to m-Positioning to m-Education, m-Library, m-Hospital. Citizens can send SMS to the government officials on issues related to security, law and order, utilities, weather conditions and disaster management. They can make appointments with government officials by SMS and get notified or reminded of exact time of dental or medical appointment. Singapore is also a leader in the mobile government based services. (http://www.ecitizen.gov.sg/mobile/index.html). Singapore’s mobile penetration rate has reached a high of 9 per cent. Today, the mobile phone can be used to pay fines, vehicle registration, and driver license, get traffic and weather information as well as vote via SMS on various issues, surveys, elections, etc. In South Africa SMS messaging is used to report domestic violence incidents against women and children in rural areas. The operator, Clickatell, donates free SMS credits so 47

that relevant information on human rights is propagated to its subscribers, and allows as well access to agricultural extension information. The project is managed by Fahamu, an African organisation whose newsletter was voted in 2005 and 2006 as one of the top 10 websites changing the world of politics.

There are many innovations governments could lead in partnership with mobile operators to transform its delivery of services. Government payroll management is usually costly and very difﬁcult to maintain, and often the object of controversy, corruption or inaccurate record management (duplication of records, erroneous payroll ﬁgures, erroneous entities listed) could for instance be outsourced to the mobile operators content developers, and could become a much more improved ‘m-Banking’ application. There are many innovations governments could lead in partnership with mobile operators to transform its delivery of services. Government payroll management is usually costly and very difficult to maintain, and often the object of controversy, corruption or inaccurate record management (duplication of records, erroneous payroll figures, erroneous entities listed) could for instance be outsourced to the mobile operators content developers, and could become a much more improved ‘m-Banking’ application, as most government officials have mobile phones and are

registered with mobile operators. The biggest challenge for governments and operators is to work together and provide the same service across different competing mobile operators and technologies. Today, the service provided itself, and its cost, differentiates one operator from another, and is a motivation for users in mobile provider selection. This type of work has been done before in the broadcasting sector. One day with more content, the mobile phone providers will operate like cable companies, broadcasting different channels and content sources based on subscription plans. The big difference though, is the two-way communication possibility, and the requirement that the mobile phone user can enter data or requests into government systems and then follow-through. This is the tricky part where technology, security, inter-operability, human resources and legislation have to be transformed to deliver the aspired features, functions and capabilities. It can be done, and when and if this happens (just like the examples mentioned above) both citizens and governments will enjoy improved, quality interactions, and build-up of trust, loyalty and a culture of citizenry and services that will greatly benefit the economy, growth, foreign investments and competitiveness. Samia Melhem is a Senior Operations Officer at the World Bank Group and heads the e-Development Thematic Group. She has 20 years of development experience, and has written extensively on ICT4D.

Sagem Sécurité to Provide Biometric Systems Sagem Sécurité (SAFRAN Group) has announced its selection by the UK Home Office to supply the biometric management system for UK visa applicants and the biometric management subsystem for the Biometric Residents Permit (BRP) project. These systems will provide the means to track the immigration status for Third Country Nationals, through the production of biometric cards. These Automated Fingerprint Identification Systems are designed to process more than 5,200 requests per hour for a database of 16 million. These critically important elements of the overall system are paramount to the success of the project and sit at the heart of the system’s biometric technology.

Serving the joint unit of the UK Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the central system and subsequent additional sub systems were provided by Sagem Sécurité to plan and within budget. “This programme is a major step in the process of managing identity and developing biometrics in the UK,” said Jean-Paul Jainsky. “It confirms Sagem Sécurité’s ability to deliver on short notice a complex biometric system.” Sagem Sécurité has delivered more than 130 fully operational biometric and multi-biometric ID systems and solutions in 70 countries. These deliveries are compliant with the future European Union Visa Information System (EU VIS), for which Sagem Sécurité supplies the Biometric Matching System for Schengen zone countries Sagem Sécurité is a high-technology company in the SAFRAN Group.

Ethiopia: Mobile Network Project goes Operational The Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation claimed that 1.2 million network capacity worth mobile telephone service project of the millennium has already gone operational. The 769.6 million birr (USD 80.26million), project has enabled 600,000 subscribers to get access to mobile telecom services. The Corporation is planning to launch third generation mobile project. The second generation mobile project will enhance the current mobile network capacity to 5.6 million and expand mobile to all towns across the nation. A total of over 4.3 billion birr is allotted for the execution of the project. The corporation is currently undertaking expansion work at 17 spots to curb network conjunction that occurred following the launching of the millennium project. 48

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NEWS USO FUNDS TO BE INVESTED IN ‘GREEN’ RURAL TELEPHONY IN INDIA: DOT The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in an initiative to bring ‘green’ telecom revolution in rural areas plans to allocate funds for renewable power projects under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). The government is inviting proposals from companies which use solar or biogas power for running the rural telecom infrastructure (towers). Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Finance Ministry are supportive of this proposal. This initiative is a significant alternative to fossil fuel on which the government is paying a huge subsidy bill. Approximately Rs 15,000 crore is lying unutilised under the USOF scheme and DoT is trying to figure out ways to invest this amount in a holistic fashion. Speaking on the initiative, USOF joint administrator Archana G Gulati said that “We would subsidise the power projects of companies investing in renewable energy. The subsidy would be effective for the next phase of infrastructure projects which include setting up of 11,000 towers”. The telecom companies in the country pay 5% of their total revenues to the USOF. This money is to be utilised for the telecom infrastructure in rural India. The DoT estimates that this amount crossed the Rs 10,000 crore mark in March 2007. Industry estimates that this figure must have touched Rs 15,000 crore by this year. Currently, the USOF has been funding telcos and stand-alone tower companies to roll-out cellular and landline infrastructure in rural India. it In the last year, the government approved the use of USOF for expanding mobile telephony networks.

GURGAON POLICE NOW AN SMS The Gurgaon Police has launched an online citizen-centric policing system to enable the filing and tracking of complaints. It is reported that a person can send an SMS to 9717595423 (Police) if he / she is in distress. The Police would respond to the SMS and zero-in on the location from where it was sent to and rush for assistance. Hi-end Internet Protocol (IP) Close Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras are installed at crucial locations in the city and the police vehicles including the control room vans, are being fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) locators. These CCTVs and police vehicles have been linked to a broadband-based online software surveillance system that senior officers can access on their laptops even while on the move. The website would also enable users to view the status of their complaint. There is a plan by the Police to install around 110 such cameras in next couple of months and approximately 5,000 by the year 2010. Speaking on the initiative, Gurgaon Police Commissioner Mohinder Lal said, “The initiatives were aimed at improving the comfort levels of the people, including senior citizens and women who were not in a position to venture out of their homes on their own”. Even all the written complaints filed in the police stations would be digitised and people would be given printouts of their First Incident Report (FIR).

July 2008

MOBILE SECURITY THREATS ON THE RISE Mobile security issues are still not very high but it is expected to grow in the near future with the rise in the number of smart phone and Personal Digital Assistant (PDAs), says experts. At present, the mobile security threats are restricted to bluetooth usage and peer sharing of data from computers to mobile phones according to Frost & Sullivan. McAfee’s Mobile Security Report 2008 revealed that 13.7 percent of those polled from Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States were aware they had been attacked by mobile viruses. According to the McAfee report, 55 percent of respondents said that they are concerned about the security in terms of mobile payments and banking. Over 40 percent were worried about mobile vouchers, ticketing and mobile multimedia downloads such as ring tones, music and games. Short Messaging Service (SMS) is the main source through which viruses spread in a mobile device. This happens with the installation of a script on the handset and as soon as the user opens the offending text message, it activates the phone to either call or send text messages to numbers listed in the user’s phone book. Cabir was the first mobile phone virus being identified in the year 2005. Mobile virus is still restricted to particular section of people using smart phones. Trend Micro, a security software maker says “Mobile threats that target smart phones generally comprise Trojans and worms and require user intervention to spread. Other mobile threats that leverage bluetooth spread without user intervention, and this increases the vulnerability of all corporate mobile devices, as well as the network”. The firm further said that the explosion of interest in phones using operating systems such as Symbian and others, means that mobile threats are due to rise. In another survey conducted by Datamonitor reveals that “83.5 percent of mobile users in the survey use separate security software on their PCs and about 79 percent do not use any mobile protection software at all”.

INDIAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS MINISTRY FAVOURS GLOBAL AUCTION FOR 3G The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, India is preparing to roll out 3G guidelines to auction the 3G spectrum this year. The Finance Minister, P.Chidambaram has asked A.Raja, Communications Minister to put policies in place that will pave the way to auction 2G spectrum, both for new players and existing operators. The guidelines will focus on four things: entry of global telecom majors who do not yet have a presence in the world’s fastest-growing telecom market, future proﬁtability of incumbent telcos, the size of revenues accruing to the government from spectrum auction, and the cost of telecom services for the consumer. The Ministry is planning to endorse an ‘open global auction’ for all new players. The Ministry has also recommended that international competitive bidding model can also be used with several clauses to ensure rollout of services and that the auction is restricted to serious contenders. The Finance Minister also emphasised for allotment of 2G spectrum beyond 6.2 MHZ. 49

NEWS RBI’S RECOMMENDATIONS ON m-PAYMENTS The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in a draft operating guidelines for mobile payments in India has asked all the banks to offer its customers mobile payments service on all the mobile networks operator. On a long term basis, the RBI panel has recommended that before offering mobile payment services to their customers the banks should get the scheme approved by their respective boards or local board (for foreign banks). Such approvals are required for documenting operational and fraud risk and in order to mitigate such risks. The RBI draft further stated that the existing banks which have started offering such payment services may review their position and comply to these guidelines within three months from the issuance of these guidelines. The RBI stated that the long-term goal of mobile payment framework in India would enable transfer of funds from an account in one bank to any other account in the same or any other bank on a real time basis irrespective of mobile network a customer has subscribed to. This means there would be interoperability between mobile payments service providers and banks and development of a host of message formats. In terms of infrastructure, the RBI says that a strong clearing and settlement infrastructure operating on a 24x7 basis would be required. The bank could enter into various multilateral arrangement and create mobile switches or inter-bank payment gateways with expressed permission from the RBI. The RBI draft further stated that the guidelines on ‘Know Your Customer (KYC)’ and ‘Anti Money Laundering (AML)’ as prescribed by the RBI from time to time would be applicable to customers opting for mobile-based banking service. These guidelines would be applicable to the bank accounts and credit card accounts in India which are KYC and AML compliant. The RBI said that banks should have a system of registration before commencing mobile-based payment service to a customer.

REGISTRATION OF CALL CENTRES DECENTRALISED: DOT The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has stated that it will decentralise the registration of call centres both domestic as well as international and telemarketers which will help to secure government approval in a faster way. Vigilance Telecom Monitoring (VTM) cells which are placed across the country will monitor the registration of the call centres and telemarketers. DoT started with the decentralisation process of the registration of call centres under the Other Service Provider (OSP) category and the telemarketers under telemarketing category to the respective Vigilance Telecom Monitoring (VTM) Cells of 10 circles in the ﬁrst phase in September 2007. After the success of this pilot, DoT has decided to decentralise registration under OSP/Telemarketing further to all VTM Cells The new phase of decentralisation will be effective from June, 2008.

DANISH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS BRINGS COMMUNICATION UNDER SINGLE IP The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has chosen Verizon Business for consolidating global communications over a single Internet Protocol (IP) network which would enable a secured and centralised communications infrastructure for its employees around the world and thus help reduce costs and administrative hassles. The ministry is going hi-tech with video conferencing which would help their employees to collaborate from wherever they are based. The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has 115 outposts in 95 countries which represents Danish citizens and Danish interests. The ministry does research on new economic opportunities and providing an information-and-support resource for Danish citizens collaborates and implements changes in foreign policy. Since they have a global presence, there is a need for its employees to collaborate daily with the Danish government and other domestic authorities to articulate realtime responses to local requests and activities. Therefore the consolidation under a single IP will help the ministry to implement IP-enabled applications such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and on-demand video conferencing. Communications trafﬁc is prioritized via strict service level agreements, ensuring the most efﬁcient delivery of business-critical information. The result is an always available, high-quality communications infrastructure to support virtual team meetings, crisis talks and even broadcast media interviews.

VALUE ADDED SERVICES UNDER LICENSING REGIME IN INDIA: TRAI Telecommunications Ministry’s plan for 3G roll-out from next year has increased the possibility for licensing of Value-Added Services (VAS) and mobile-content providers in India. VAS have come to the forefront because of security issues over Blackberry services in India. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in a consultation paper has brought the issue of bringing content providers or aggregators called Value-Added Services Providers (VASPs) under the licensing regime. It has also raised issues regarding licensing obligations for protecting copyrights, including digital rights management, and infringement of other laws. In the paper, TRAI said: “In such cases (the Blackberry case), a licensing and appropriate regulatory regime will provide clarity and the telecom operators need to source the content for Value-Added Services from authorised, licensed or registered content aggregators in India.” Under the current scenario, operators have to intimate the licensor and TRAI at least 15 days before launching the service. However, there is no licensing framework for content providers or content aggregators who provide these Value Added Services. Given the advent of 3G and New Generation Network (NGN) services in the near future, TRAI had invited suggestions from stakeholders by the end of June 2008. The estimated revenue from mobile VAS in India is over 10 to 14 per cent of the total income of mobile telecom service providers. This is expected to cross 30 per cent in the next 5-7 years. The decline in average revenue per user with call rates becoming cheaper, the service providers are expected to shift their focus from expansion of the subscriber base to VAS, which have the potential to generate huge revenues.

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IT IN BANKING

Information Technology in Banking: An Instrument for Economic Revolution

www.yesbank.in/sig.htm

Banks and ďŹ nancial institutions have recognised Information Technology (IT) as an enabler of sophisticated product development, better market infrastructure, implementation of reliable techniques for control of risks. Tushar Pandey, Antonio Menezes & Venetia Vickers

The growing competition and increasing customer aspirations have led to increased awareness amongst banks on the potential and importance of technology in banking. The arrival of foreign and private banks with their superior state-of-theart technology based services has pushed Indian Banking fraternity to follow suit by adopting the latest technological advances so as to meet the threat of competition and customer expectations. Indian banking industry, today is in the midst of an IT revolution. A combination of regulatory and market forces has supported the implementation of technology and automation in the Indian banking industry. Banks and financial institutions have recognised Information Technology (IT) as an enabler of sophisticated product development, better market infrastructure, implementation of reliable techniques for control of risks. This helps the financial intermediaries to reach geographically distant and diversified markets. With continuous and rapid advances in technology, the banking sector has seen a revolutionary wave. Technology has changed the contours of three major functions performed by banks, i.e. access to liquidity, transformation of assets and monitoring of risks. Further, IT and the communication networking systems have a crucial bearing on the efficiency of money, capital and foreign exchange markets. The most important impact of IT in banking however has been the manner in which it has facilitated financial transactions across an entire spectrum of economic activities thus resulting in a sort of Economic Revolution. By introducing the possibility of online payments and other financial transactions, IT in banking has scaled up immensely the level of activity across sectors by making services and products easily available and accessible to an ever increasing net of people. ov

July 2008

YES BANK has been conceptualised with the vision of being a new age, technology driven, state-of the-art, private Bank. As the youngest Indian bank, YES BANK has benefited from the lack of legacy systems and capitalised on the experience of peers in the industry in adopting the best of international technology. In addition, YES BANK has adopted a unique â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;knowledge drivenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; approach towards offering solutions that go much beyond the traditional realm of banking. The Strategic Initiatives and Advisory Government (SIG) Group of YES BANK has been institutionalised from this perspective as the government advisory and development research arm of the bank. SIG has been actively involved in policy advisory, governance reform and Public Private Partnership (PPP) Initiatives across identified themes and sectors. These initiatives led to greater access to banking and created more bankable projects which will benefit not only YES BANK, but the banking fraternity as a whole. Some of the

Application

Description

Payment of utility bills

• • • •

Electricity bills Water and sewerage bills Telephone bills Property tax etc

Certificates

• • •

Registration of births and deaths Issue of birth and death certificates Issue of caste certificates

Focus Areas of Yes Bank include: Enabler of e-Governance: e-Governance is the application of Information Technology to the process of government functioning to bring about an effective, accountable, responsive, moral and transparent governance. It results in a strong and effective information chain, provides fast and convenient services to citizens and leads to effective utilisation of resources. World economies have recognised IT as an effective tool in catalysing the economic activity in efficient governance and in developing human resources. As the era of digital economy is evolving, the concept of governance has assumed significance. e-Governance has consequently become an accepted methodology involving the use of IT in improving transparency, providing information speedily to all citizens, improving administration efficiency and improving public services such as transportation, power, health, water, security and municipal services. In all these services, by providing an efficient, transparent, easy and cost effective method of online financial transactions, IT in banking has proven to be one of the key enablers for e-Governance. In order to provide a network model which facilitates information dissemination, communication and transaction in the state on a self–sustainable basis, YES BANK has been advocating a Central Electronic Service elivery System. Banks are a crucial link in such a system and some of the applications include: Financial Inclusion: Poverty alleviation organisations, social entrepreneurs, government institutions, corporate enterprises and even uneducated village entrepreneurs are continuously developing technological solutions to serve the often overlooked customers at the bottom of the pyramid. These solutions are bringing the benefits of the digital age, increased access to markets, education, environmental information and government services to society. In doing so, they are helping to build the business, economic and social cases for investing in systems and infrastructure needed to serve all strata of the society. Together they are helping to empower thousands of the country’s underprivileged to become agents of their own development. ICT is a major enabler in this process of providing sustainable solutions to the needs of a larger section of society,with special emphasison the under-privileged communities. The ICT sector is the creator of jobs for knowledge professionals and skilled persons, producer of goods and services by small, medium and large enterprises, payer of taxes and recipient of subsidies, earner of foreign exchange through exports, attractor of foreign investment and business, and earner of 52 }

quick and high returns on investment in higher technical education. Consequently, the growth of the ICT sector contributes to overall economic growth. Given that all these transactions involve money, there emerges an important role for the banking and financial system. And consequently,IT in banking assumes an important role. Tourism: Tourism has emerged as a key sector in terms of income generation, employment creation and foreign exchange earnings. The tourism industry has a very high revenue capital ratio and one of the highest employment investment ratios. The introduction of IT to this sector can change the face of tourism. Online bookings, reservations and payments with respect to all forms of travel and accommodation have taken tourism to a completely different level of operation. The setting up of Tourist Reception Centres across the states in India has resulted in an integrated system with Internet connectivity among the private operators and the government to ease the planning and execution of bookings. Once again the importance of IT in banking emerges with the need of an integrated ‘Transactional Banking Solution’ with involvement from the tourism departments that would include not only local payments but payments across currencies as well. Reaching Out to Rural Community: A major challenge that the banking sector in India faced was that of its spread and presence in the rural parts of the country. Despite the priority sector lending requirements, the banking interface in the rural areas was hitherto quite limited. As a result, even the industry penetration was restricted by the limited financial transaction possibilities. With the introduction of various technological innovations in the banking sector and with industry reaching out to the villages through Internet kiosks, banks have been able to create a rural community interface that never existed before. Through this interface, industry, services and the banking sector has gained huge momentum in rural India. The biggest example of this is the e-Choupal movement. Through e-Choupals, ITC began the silent evolution of rural India with

The banking sector led by RBI along with all the public and private sector banks and the whole of industry, agriculture and services sector need to come together under this umbrella of e-Governance in order to maximise the beneﬁts from IT soya growers in the villages of Madhya Pradesh. Farmers now log on to the site through Internet kiosks in their villages to order high quality agri inputs, get information on best farming practices, prevailing market prices for their crops at home and abroad and the weather forecast – all in the local language. e-Choupal delivers real time information and customised knowledge to improve the farmer’s decision making ability, thereby better aligning farm output to market demands; securing better quality, productivity and improved price discovery. Most of these IT and e-Ggovernance linked initiatives require an active banking interface for their success. It is www.egovonline.net

only when the banking and financial system is completely IT enabled and effective that these financial transactions can be undertaken. Thus, the governance aspects of IT in banking are of extreme importance and it is imperative that all banking institutions introduce IT as a key element of their activities. IT is a strong enabler for all these initiatives and banks must play the vital position of a facilitator. Consumer Access: The banking sector, in keeping with the increased competition, has developed unique product propositions extending the entire benefit of the advancements in the e-Payments landscape to the customer’s desktop by pioneering the introduction of the electronic payments. Through the net banking facilities, banks have extended a whole plethora of services to their customers in an attempt to make banking easier and more accessible to a wider customer base. Banks provide multiple options for making payments based on the ease of use and feasibility for beneficiaries to accept payments. It allows its customers to initiate online payments through various payment modes like Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT), online issue of demand drafts, YES BANK to YES BANK account transfers. All these facilities bring with them a whole array of advantages like speedier payments cycles, extensive coverage, 24x7 payments, payment tracking mechanism, beneficiary advice information and two factor authentication. On the corporate side also a number of benefits accrue from these e-Payments. The financial benefits include reduction in cost of printing, dispatching physical instruments and cost of idle funds lying in the account till all instruments are cleared. There are also a number of operational efficiencies like elimination of time and effort of manual signing of instruments and the time saved can be utilised for core business opportunities. Apart from introducing RTGS & NEFT transfer options, YES BANK has introduced a unique e-Payments product, YES Xpress Outbound that gives the capability to initiate real time online payments for any values from users desktop using RBI sponsored RTGS and NEFT payment gateways. The bank Customers are provided with an online confirmation along with instant settlement making cash flow forecasting easier and precise to the last minute. Other electronic initiatives in the Transaction Banking space include • Online Forex Solutions: Corporate customers can trade multiple foreign currencies using this platform • Auto Upload Facility: This facility automates the bulk payment file upload process for the customer.

•

Email Advice Master: Ability to send customised email advices to beneficiaries. The email advice contains the invoice/bill level information for the payment instructions YES BANK has also ensured the security of these transactions by benchmarked robust security features like: • Unique Tracking Number generated for every transaction ensures the transaction can be traced through the history of RTGS/NEFT payments • The transactions are routed through a closed user group; thereby eliminating the risk of third party intervention • Straight through process ensures no manual intervention from the bank to RBI servers. Be it e-Agriculture, e-Business, e-Tourism, e-Procurement, e-Post, or any other e-System that requires a financial transaction, it necessitates theneed for the banking sector to be integrated within it. An immediate outcome of this is the policy implications and thus the emerging need for institutional mechanisms to be introduced that will allow for this level of e-Governance. The banking sector led by RBI along with all the public and private sector banks and the whole of industry, agriculture and services sector need to come together under this umbrella of e-Governance in order to maximise the benefits from IT. As the New Age Private sector bank, YES BANK has introduced and continues to structure a number of e-Payment instruments in an effort to make banking more accessible to a larger and wider customer base. Tushar Pandey is the Country Head- Strategic Initiatives & Advisory Government (SIG), YES BANK. Tushar has been responsible for establishing this division and leads the Strategic Government Advisory & Development Research focus of the group. As Country Head he has also overseen significant advisory, knowledge partnerships, publication, papers and strategic thought leadership initiatives with various governments and industry organisations. Antonio Menezes is Manager (SIG) in Yes Bank. He holds a Masters degree in Business Administration (MBA) from University of Aberdeen, UK and a Bachelors degree in Architecture (B.Arch) from Goa University. His areas of interest include Governance, Policy Research, PPP, Project Conceptualization & Coordination. Venetia Vickers is Associate (SIG) in Yes Bank. She holds a Masters degree in Economics from Fergusson College, Pune and a B.A (Hons) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. Her areas of interest are Community and Social Development Projects, PPP- Project Development & Structuring, and Research and Strategy Development.

Join us in the Deliberations on India’s March Towards Transforming Public Sector Delivery www.eINDIA.net.in/egov 29 - 31 July, 2008, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi ov

July 2008

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

News

e-PROCUREMENT BY COAL INDIA LTD. IN A BIG WAY Coal India Limited (CIL) has planned to procure about one-third of its equipment, consumables, spare parts and other stores, electronically in order to cut delays and enable efficiency. This public sector undertaking aims at purchasing INR 34,000 million worth of equipment and consumables in the financial year 2009 through this platform, which would help them to integrate with buyers and suppliers. Coal India happens to be the first public sector enterprise to offer 4-models of e-Procurement. The 4-models offered under e-Procurement are- e-Tendering with multiple bids, reverse e-Auction with price bid and reverse e-Auction with quantity and price bidding. e-Tendering will facilitate conversion of the the physical into an electronic form. Under this new system, eligible vendors can quote from any place on the Internet and the buyer will have the option of obtaining the techno-commercial bid manually or over the Internet. The eight subsidiaries of Coal India might opt for this electronic platform, as well. MSTC (another public sector company) has been selected as the service provider. The e-Procurement project is strictly under the confines of the Information Technology Act of 2000 and whereby the bidders will have to conform to the guidelines. In order to satisfy the bidders with the security issues, CIL has also engaged certification agency CERT-IN in the e-Procurement system. This will help to devise a secure and encrypted platform both for the bidders and Coal India as well. CIL has signed an integrity pact with Transparency International and is therefore committed to provide proper and secured services to its customers.

ESTONIA INVITES IDEAS TO IMPROVE e-SERVICES The Government of Estonia has invited ideas and proposals through an ‘idea competition’ for improving e-Services. People can forward their ideas through the state website. Speaking on the initiative, country’s Regional Minister Siim-Valmar Kiisler stated that the website would bring together the citizen initiative and development of the e-State, which would be very beneﬁcial for the future of Estonia. The website allows people not only to submit their ideas but also a host of other options related to the state affairs such as participation in the legislative procedure, as the ministry publishes the draft legislation currently being discussed and invites public discussion which gives all interested parties the opportunity to express their position. European Union has funded a freeware platform which could also be used outside Estonia as there is high level of international interest in the Estonian e-Government initiative.

e-PROCUREMENT LAUNCHED BY HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT The Government of Hungary plans to introduce an Electronic Public Procurement (EPP) system by the year 2010 by amending its present Act on public procurement. The main objective behind the initiative is to make public procurement simpler, faster and more transparent. The new system would be covering electronic publication of calls for tenders as well as other aspects of the public procurement procedures which includes the announcement of winner and appeal procedures. The system is aiming at cutting down the tender processing time, which would shorten the deadlines for the publication of the winners. The e-Procurement project would be introduced in two phases—between July 2009 and July 2010. A feasibility study is being carried to review similar services in other countries such as UK, Denmark, Italy, Romania and in the private sector in Hungary, which would set the yardsticks for the new system.

UTAH’S OFFICIAL WEB PORTAL RECEIVES THE BEST OF STATE AWARD AGAIN! The ofﬁcial website of the state of Utah, Utah.gov, is the recipient of the Best of State award for the year 2008 in the category of ‘Community Development’, due to its extensive services rendered, to over more than 1000 citizens of that state. According to a release from the state, the website has gained popularity as being the most visited website, leading up to nearly two million visits per month. While announcing the award, Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, appreciated the service provided by the web site and congratulated the staff at the Department of Technology Services and all agencies who are responsible for creating and maintaining the website. He said, “This recognition shows our commitment to providing innovative and cutting-edge resources to businesses and citizens alike.” Commenting on the accessibility of the website, Steven Fletcher, state CIO and Executive Director of the Department of Technology Services said, “Utah.gov provides both businesses and citizens easy access to hundreds of services and it’s one of the most citizen-friendly sites in the nation”. He further added, “This award recognizes Utah.gov’s robust functionality and its appealing design.” The choice of the recipient of award is tedious as it is judged by more than 100 judges. The nominees are all judged on their individual merits based on their innovative, originality and excellence in their respective ﬁelds along with their impact and contribution to the community as a whole. Hence, the success of the Utah’s website is revealed in the fact that it is the recipient of this award for two consecutive years - 2007 and 2008.

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India's Largest ICT Event 29 - 31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi

Organisers

Government Partner

Co-Organisers

Diamond Sponsor

Platinum Sponsor

Media Partners Electronic Partner

knowledge for change

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

Ministry of Human Resource Development Government of India

UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development

Premier Partners

Department of Agriculture and Co-operation Ministry of Agriculture Government of India

速

The World Bank e-Development Thematic Group

PERSPECTIVE

e-Gov 2.0: Model for Greater Citizen Participation Dr. Jaijit Bhattacharya INTRODUCTION

The adoption of IT by governments has typically been viewed as a four stage phenomenon, starting with the publish stage, the transact stage, the interaction stage and the integration stage. However, there has been a plethora of changes in technology, legislations and business models that have led to a new paradigm emerging in e-Governance, which I have termed as e-Gov 2.0. The first generation of e-Governance involved ‘transplanting’ the ‘brick and mortar’ government into a ‘computerised’ government without actually leveraging the full potential of technology. In some places, limited business process re-engineering helped in higher productivity gains but yet, it did not really leverage technology to anywhere near its full potential. This leads to the concept of e-Gov 2.0

WHAT IS e-GOV 1.0

e-Gov 1.0 is characterised by a very limited use of internet technology and is basically dependent on government funding or on limited public-private partnership based on traditional business models. This kind of e-Governance continues to attract limited and indirect participation of the citizens. Thus, citizens continue to play the same role in an e-Governed nation as what their role was in a non-e-Governed nation. Hence democracy continues to be completely an indirect democracy and national legislations, policies and governance per se are all dictated by the elected (or nominated) representatives of the citizens and not the citizens directly. e-Gov 1.0 has a complete absence of pure-play eGovernance solutions. Pure-play e-Governance solutions are those solutions which do no have a brick and mortar equivalent and are completely enabled by the Internet technology. In e-Governance too, it is possible to have pureplay e-Governance solutions such as online land exchange system like the stock market which integrates land sale deed registration and mutation, which would significantly reduce the number of civil litigation sin the courts. However, e-Gov 1.0 has not implemented such solutions. More importantly, e-Gov 1.0 has no significant cross-departmental solutions. There have been some attempts to do systematic process reengineering to get more benefits out of adoption of technology. However, the process re-engineering did not necessarily leverage the full power of the newer tools of information technology. For example, it did not use Web 2.0 technologies such as Wikis, blogs etc to help create micro-communities 56 }

of citizens so that citizens could start some limited selfadministration. These micro-communities are not necessarily ethnic communities but all kinds of multi-dimensional community. For example, a pregnant, tribal woman who are handicapped could form a community that could ensure that is gets government benefits that the community is entitled as a woman, as a tribal, as a handicapped and as a pregnant woman. Finally, e-Gov 1.0 had no focus on the concept of Service Oriented Administration or SOA. Essentially what SOA implies is that governments should be more dependent on services for revenue generation rather than on taxes. The monopolistic situation of the government gives it enormous revenue generation capability through providing services. For example, if the government provides an online land exchange, it can get the 1% service charge that is typically charged by brokers. In addition, it would help in increasing the number of transactions.

CURRENT CHALLENGES OF GOVERNANCE

Governance in large countries such as India, Brazil, China, Indonesia etc face many challenges. These challenges are compounded by the fast changes brought in by globalisation and by increasing expectations of the citizens. To begin with, citizens expect a greater say and greater direct participation in governance. Citizens have witnessed how their voice has forced businesses to be more customer friendly but frustratingly, citizens find that their voice is completely lost to the government. The demand for participatory governance is further compounded by the fact that there exist numerous stakeholders. Each such stakeholder has limited visibility to the demands of other stakeholders and hence they bring opposing and sometimes contradicting pressures on the government. The above issues are further complicated by the political and cultural issues. For example, the demand by certain communities to have government websites only in their language is a very difficult expectation to meet. Such demands will become more vociferous once communities understand that they cannot get ‘access’ to e-Governance since the eGovernance portals are not in their own language which their community members can understand. More critically, it would also lead to the realisation that if the government itself is not supporting their language, then in the new digital www.egovonline.net

world, it is only a matter of time that their language will die away. Such cultural issues thus also become political issues. Also, as discussed in the previous section, there are larger and larger number of micro-communities that are coming up and are aware of their identities. They bring in the challenge of managing infinite number of expectations and requirements. Finally, while governments claim to be run by rule of law, in the same breath, governments give discretionary powers to their functionaries. In fact, theoretically, if the government is run purely by rule of law, then such law can be programmed and the government can merely be a large computer system with no injustice done. Since this is not possible in a realistic world, therefore, there is a demand for further devolution of power. In India, in response to such demands for devolution of power, the 73rd and 74th amendments were made to the constitution to strengthen the Panchayati Raj Institutions and the urban local bodies. Such devolution of power can be managed only with a strong centralised administration support system supported by IT.

DEFINITION OF e-GOV 2.0

Given the challenges mentioned in the previous section, there is a need to create new business models, new operational models, new financial models and new technology models. This is captured in Illustration 2 below. e-Gov 2.0 is defined as an evolutionary step towards a more efficient, inclusive and participative government through adoption of a set of new trends in business models, operational models, financial models and technological models.

e-GOV 2.0 BUSINESS MODELS

If we look at the business worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s usage of Internet, the introduction of ICT technology has led to the creation of radically new and innovative business models. We see businesses that are based on smart mobs and co-creation where users are involved in creating and delivering the content and services. We see the emergence of wikis, blogospheres and social networks such as wikipedia, orkut and linkedin. Even the revenue models are radically different from traditional business models. In the next generation of businesses, the customers do not necessarily pay directly for the services. For that matter, even the definition of customer is changing. Similarly, the next generation of e-Governance, i.e. e-Gov 2.0, must explore and adopt radically different business ov

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models. Why cannot the e-Governance solutions help in direct participation of Citizens in the business of governance? Why cannot the 100,000 Common Service Centres take polls of peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s view on each bill that is passed. Why should the government be largely dependent on taxes as its source of revenue when it has tremendous amount of data that can give it access to new monopolistic businesses ? For example, setting up of a property exchange on the lines of the stock exchange will not only usher in very high liquidity in the land market and help increase the GDP of the country but also bring in substantial revenues to the government that is currently going to middlemen in an imperfect market, with many a transactions landing up as civil cases in the already clogged court system. Some of the online systems are critical for supporting rural commerce such as online e-Emporiums for rural handicraft that creates the trust that is associated with brick and mortar government emporiums. Similarly, one can have online marketplaces similar to e-Bay and Bazee.com. Some of these systems will have fundamental enabling impact of new institutions such as the micro-finance institution. They will also play a critical role in the labour arbitrage market by creating job portals for blue collared workers and facilitating rural to urban migration. Finally, why cannot we involve ordinary citizens in public-private partnership projects? It is assumed that the public in the PPP stands for the government. However, the ordinary citizen is one of the most important stakeholder in the government and hence in order to ensure ownership of the project by this important stakeholder, it is necessary to involve citizens in PPP projects. The possibilities are limitless. Each of these will have a fundamentally effect on the society, altering it positively, while enhancing the revenue of the government.

e-GOV 2.0 OPERATIONAL MODELS

e-Gov 2.0 operational models involve radically different approach to the operations of public service delivery. To begin with, e-Gov 2.0 operational models focus more on the outcomes rather than the output. e-Gov 2.0 operational models focus on purely on the outcome that is the number of students who are getting an IT education and are passing the examinations and the increase in their quality of education rather than the output, which in e-Gov 1.0 was the PC and hardware etc. It also includes regulatory support for the new models. For example, if in the above case, the number of students failing increase due to law and order or an exceptional tough examination paper, then who is responsible for it? Should the PPP operator be penalised? How do we protect the interest of the students themselves. Similarly, if there is a violation of citizen privacy through leakage of citizen records (on say healthcare which leaks out the diseases of individual citizens), then there would be necessary regulatory frameworks to bring justice to such privacy violations. In the increasingly digital world, it is easier to have the citizenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s privacy violated and hence e-Gov 2.0 will focus on such operational issues. 57

PERSPECTIVE

e-Gov 2.0 will also focus on capacity building with not only government and other stakeholder agencies but also with citizens. In the absence of such capacity building of the citizens, in an increasingly e-Governed world, more and more citizens will become government services-deprived and would be pushed into an anti-governmental community. Finally, the government will become more sharply focussed on SOA which will have a deep impact on the government processes that will necessarily get re-engineered around the concept of SOA.

e-GOV 2.0 FINANCIAL MODELS

The financial models of e-Gov 2.0 will move away from taxes as a source of revenue to alternate sources of revenues. Government has the largest advertising real estate. It is quite conceivable that if the government properties are put to good use, they can generate significant amount of advertisement revenues. This includes properties as well as online and postal advertising real estates. Governments have the largest number of touch points with citizens and citizens are the main targets of advertisers.

e-Gov 2.0 will usher in greater citizen participation and will have tremendous uplifitng impact on the economy. Not only will it make the government more efficient by cutting out the non-value added processes but will also increase the efficiency of government’s interface with the citizens, businesses and other institutions

Governments can also redevelop its properties, especially those in prime real estate areas where they may have built residential projects of very poor quality for the government employees or would have poor quality of government offices. The excess real estate generated can be used for annuity based income from rentals which can be given through continuous online bidding for properties that are falling vacant.

e-GOV 2.0 TECHNOLOGY MODELS

Technology will play a very critical role in e-Gov 2.0. In an increasingly technology driven government service delivery model, the digital illiterates will end up being governance have nots also. Therefore, it is imperative to have democratisation of technology. Democratisation of technology has several dimensions. The first obviously being digital literacy for all, including adults. Second, access to computing should be nondiscriminatory. That is, it should not discriminate against what language, one is comfortable with, what kind of access device one has and what is the paying capacity of the individual. This implies that there needs to be local language support 58

for computing that should be freely available for access to government services. In order for the above to happen, it is therefore, imperative to have open standards for e-Governance. Perhaps, what is more important from a societal perspective is non-discriminatory access to open source software, especially those that are necessary for IT literacy, that is office productivity solutions. This also implies that there is a need for technological sovereignty and independence from vendor lock-ins so that the society can gain from the benefits of reduced cost of access to computing. One of the necessary pre-conditions for arriving at such a state is to have open standards that are royalty free. Another important component of e-Gov 2.0 technology model would be the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs and wikis that would help support micro-communities and help the citizens participate in governance. Such large scale adoption of ICT technologies would have severe implications on the digital infrastructure. To begin with, if in 2008, India had 7.5 million PC’s and laptops sold, with on an average, each one consuming 150 Watts of electricity, this adds up to 1.1 GW. That is equivalent to two nuclear power plants. This excludes the electricity consumption of the datacentres and the networks. It is easy to see that in order to sustain such large scale movement to ICT would require atleast 4 nuclear power plants per year in India alone. e-Gov 2.0 technology models will focus on alternate technology models that do not have such debilitating impact on the existing infrastructure and on the environment.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

e-Gov 2.0 will usher in greater citizen participation and will have tremendous uplifitng impact on the economy. Not only will it make the government more efficient by cutting out the non-value added processes but will also increase the efficiency of government’s interface with the citizens, businesses and other institutions. It would also enhance the interactions between various stakeholders in the society by intelligent usage of ICT. However, e-Gov 2.0 will fundamentally be a realisation that the form and substance of governance needs to be changed radically. ICT will act merely as a tool and an excuse to bring in this change. The forces bringing in this change are basically people’s expectations of governments delivering more from less and that service delivery needs to be personalised to such an extent that it not only serves micro-communities but perhaps is tailored to the requirements of individuals.. Dr. Jaijit Bhattacharya, Country Director, Government Strategy at Sun Microsystems and also an Adjunct Faculty at IIT Delhi. He is responsible for the creation of the next generation of solutions for the governments, based on open standards. He is an e-Governance adviser to the Government of Sri Lanka and has been conducting trainings for ADB institute in Tokyo on Public Expenditure Management as well as helping the World Bank develop curriculum for their e-Leadership programme.

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PERSPECTIVE

Information Security Issues in e-Governance Anil K. Kaushik, Prof. Chandan Mazumdar, Parthasarathi Banerjee INTRODUCTION

It is widely discussed that governments in developing nations cost too much, deliver too little, and are not sufficiently responsive or accountable. There is a distinct inclination of several governments across the developing countries to move towards e-Governance to improve processes, connect citizens and build interactions with and within the civil society. The citizens expect high standards of services, instant access to information, efficient transactions and support, whenever and wherever they need it, but in a secure fashion. The two major components of the approach are the information delivery and service delivery. In the first component, various web-based information services are used by the governments of different granularity. On the other hand, in the second component, the citizen is given access to the government MIS system to get different services like tax payment, various form filling, etc. These two types of components bring the issues of information and systems security such as architecture, standards and technology to the forefront. Another fundamental element of the problem is the unprecedented gap between the vertiginous pace of technological change and the inevitably glacial pace of policy and law making. Any good system of governance should be resilient to attacks by frauds, inadvertent virus, a variety of motivated cyber crimes through unauthorised access and even to a nation-sponsored cyber war and in the scenarios of disaster and warfare. In a networked society these kinds of threats have a potential to cripple a nation. The issue is compounded in multi-lingual and multi-cultural countries like India. The focus of this paper is on the various aspects of security vulnerabilities and threats existing in the e-Governance scenario. Then, the security requirements of the e-Governance system to tackle the internal threats and the outside threats to protect the sovereignty of the nation are discussed.

MODELS OF E-GOVERNANCE

From the developmental perspective, e-Governance can be defined as the application of electronic means (in particular ov

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the ICT) in: (1) the interaction between government and citizens and government and businesses, as well as in (2) internal government operations to simplify and improve democratic, government and business aspects of Governance [Backus 2001]. Naturally, the nature, extent, and implementation difficulties of e-Governance projects will depend on the kind of information and interaction supported in the projects. The kinds of information exchanged in governance can be classified as Public Information, Critical Information, Comparative Data, Feedback and Opinions, Business Information, and Personalized Information. Based on these classes of information, their sources and frequency of update and exchange, various models of e-Governance projects can be evolved. The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of the Government of India can act as a model for such projects. Other sources of information include [Tapscott, 1999] DigitalGovernance.org web page of Mr. Vikas Nath [Nath, 2005]. In the latter, Nath has classified the models into the following categories: • Broadcasting / Wider-Dissemination Model • Critical Flow Model • Comparative Analysis Model • e-Advocacy/ Lobbying and Pressure Group Model • Interactive- Service Model Obviously, ICT plays a key role in technical, supportive and innovative assistance to the government machinery.

TECHNOLOGY BASE FOR E-GOVERNANCE

In this section we identify the technology components, which are essential for the delivery of e-Governance services. One can distinctly classify such technology infrastructure into the following groups: • Citizen’programmes Access Station: Examples are PC’programmes owned by citizens, Convergence Technology Devices, Kiosks, Telephone Booths, etc. • Communication Network: The Data and Voice Network owned by the Government or private players. • e-Government System Interface: Point of admission to the Government System. 59

PERSPECTIVE

Backend Systems: Database and Business layers of the Information Infrastructure While the first component is already available to the middle and upper class citizens, the relatively poorer section of the society will have to depend on facilities like kiosks. Particularly people in the rural areas across the developing countries have to access the services through the kiosks. The Voice and data networks of the developing countries are being upgraded at a fast pace and can provide the required bandwidth in most of the cases. But, in some situations there may be congestion in the network, particularly when there are sudden massive accesses over the network, like in case of tax deadlines. The traditional e-Governance System interface is through a web site or portal, to be accessed by the citizens. But there would be other modes of accesses, like the IVR systems and SMS responses. The convergence technologies are going to be used in the future in more and more innovative ways for direct and personalised contact with the citizens. The Business and Database layers would be housed in various servers and they will essentially be part of a huge distributed system. In some projects, there may be isolated networks for such systems, while in other cases, the system may utilise the public networks.

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INFORMATION SECURITY THREATS AND VULNERABILITIES

e-Government security requirements can be studied by examining the overall process, beginning with the consumer and ending with the e-Gov server. The assets that must be protected to ensure secure e-Gov include client computers, the messages traveling on the communication channel, and the Web and egov servers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; including any hardware attached to the servers. Client Threats: Until the introduction of executable Web content, Web pages were mainly static. Coded in Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), static pages could do little more than display content and provide links to related pages with additional information. But, the widespread use of active content has changed this perception. Active Content: Active Contents like Java applets, ActiveX controls, JavaScript, and VBScript refer to programmes that

are embedded transparently in Web pages and that cause action to occur. Embedding active content to Web pages involved in e-Governance introduces several security risks. Malicious active content delivered by means of cookies can reveal the content of client-side files or even destroy files stored on client computers. Malicious Codes: Computer viruses, worms and Trojan Horses are examples of malicious code. People are aware but may not be prepared to deal with such adversaries. Server-side Masquerading: Masquerading lures a victim into believing that the entity with which it is communicating is a different entity. For example, if a user tries to log into a computer across the Internet but instead reaches another computer that claims to be the desired one, the user has been spoofed. Communication Channel Threats: The Internet serves as the electronic chain linking a consumer (client) to the e-Gov server. Messages on the Internet travel randomly from a source node to a destination node. It is impossible to guarantee that every computer on the Internet through which messages pass is safe, secure, and non-hostile. Confidentiality Threats: Confidentiality is the prevention of unauthorised information disclosure. Use of Internet definitely poses confidentiality threats to the messages sent. Integrity Threats: An integrity threat exists when an unauthorized party can alter a message stream of information. Unauthorised changes and defacing of web-pages may put any e-Gov project into jeopardy. Availability Threats: The purpose of availability threats, also known as delay or denial of service threats, is to disrupt normal computer processing or to deny processing entirely. Slowing any Internet service will detract citizens from using egov services. Server Threats: The server is the third link in the clientInternet-server trio embodying the e-Gov path between the citizens and the government. Servers have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by anyone determined to cause destruction or to illegally acquire information. Web Server Threats: Web server software is not inherently high-risk, it has been designed with Web service and convenience as the main design goal. The more complex the software is, the higher the probability that it contains coding errors (bugs) and security holes.

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e-Gov Server Threats: The e-Gov server, along with the Web server, responds to requests from Web browsers through the HTTP protocol and Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts. Several pieces of software comprise the egov server software suite. Each of these softwares can have security holes and bugs. Database Threats: Besides government information, databases connected to the Web contain critical and private information that could irreparably damage a enterprise or citizen if it were disclosed or altered. Some databases store user name/password pairs in a non-secure way. If someone obtains user authentication information, then he or she can masquerade as a legitimate database user and reveal private and costly information. Common Gateway Interface Threats: A Common Gateway Interface (CGI) implements the transfer of information from a Web server to another programme, such as a database programme. Because CGIs are programmes, they present a security threat if misused. Just like Web servers, CGI scripts can be set up to run with their privileges unconstrained. Defective or malicious CGIs with free access to system resources are capable of disabling the system, calling privileged (and dangerous) base system programmes that delete files or viewing confidential customer information, including user names and passwords. Password Hacking: The simplest attack against a passwordbased system is to guess passwords. Guessing of passwords require access to the complement, the complementation functions, and the authentication functions be obtained. If none of these have changed by the time the password is guessed, then the attacker can use the password to access the system.

has sufficient authority for the request to proceed. However, in case of e-Governance, the huge and varied type of clientele pose a challenge for the authorisation process. Integrity: The Integrity of information means ensuring that a communication received has not been altered or tampered with. Traditionally, this problem has been dealt with by having tight control over access to paper documents and requiring authorised officers to initial all changes made â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a system with obvious drawbacks and limitations. Integrity of messages can be achieved in G2B and G2G applications by using digital certificates. However, for general population this will remain a challenge. Non-Repudiation: Non-repudiation allows one to legally prove that a person has sent a specific email or made a purchase approval from a website. Proper mechanisms and protocols are to be framed for ensuring non-repudiation.

A STRUCTURED APPROACH TO SECURITY DESIGN

Technology components of good online security, such as encrypted email, secure socket layer (SSL) websites, and

INFORMATION SECURITY REQUIREMENTS

These needs are governed by the necessity to protect the following security attributes: Authentication: This is the ability to say that an electronic communication (whether via email or web) does genuinely come from who it purports to. Forging the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fromâ&#x20AC;? field in an email header is a trivial matter, and far more sophisticated attacks are standard fare for hackers. The challenge here is to have simple, cost-effective but strong enough authentication method. At least two levels of authentication are recommended. However, implementation of hardware tokens like Citizen Smart card are expensive and not easily manageable. Privacy: Privacy is the ability to ensure that information is accessed and changed only by authorised parties. Typically this is achieved by enforcing strong security controls in the server systems and via encryption. Authorisation: Authorisation allows a person or computer system to determine if someone has the authority to request or approve an action or information. Authorisation is tied with Authentication. If a system can securely verify that a request for information (such as a web page) or a service (purchase requisition) has come from a known individual, the system can then check against its internal rules to see if that person ov

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Security Engineering Life Cycle

PERSPECTIVE

intranets/extranets all have a role to play in protecting valuable data. For security to be effective it must be designed as a whole and applied consistently across an organsation and its IT infrastructure. In the case of security systems, the designer has to ensure that the system properties are preserved in the face of attack. The steps to design security of a system is to model the system, identify the security properties to be preserved, model the adversary, and then ensure that the security properties are preserved under attacks. Detailed modeling of the system and identification of the required security properties are possible. But it is almost impossible to accurately model the adversaries and vulnerabilities of the system exploited by those adversaries. The result is that there is nothing called absolute security. Thus, to the designer, system security means: under given assumptions about the system, no attack of a given form will destroy specified properties. Therefore, system security in general and e-Governance security in particular is conceived as a process rather than a one-time developed product.

operational context, existence of known vulnerabilities in the infrastructure etc. Requirement Validation: This phase analyses the extent of fulfillment of the security requirements for implementing e-Governance organization by the corresponding security policy and the implemented security infrastructure. Change in the service goal, operational environment, and technological advancement may lead to a fresh set of security requirements and thereby, triggering a new cycle of the Security Engineering Life Cycle.

RECOMMENDATION

The authors recommend structured approach to security design to be adapted to the e-Governance framework and clear-cut guidelines be prepared by the governments before taking up any important interactive e-Governance project. The security design should be integrated with the system analysis and design for the project.

REFERENCES SECURITY ENGINEERING LIFE CYCLE

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It is important to note that the e-Governance security need is dynamic rather than static and depends on the operational dynamics. Thereby, the process of designing and deploying an information security infrastructure is a continuous and dynamic process. Often, the change in needs is frequent. In order to be sustainable under such frequent changes, the process has to be developed from a life-cycle approach. This observation leads to the concept of Security Engineering Life-Cycle. The Security engineering life cycle consists of the following phases (Fig. I): Security Requirement Specification and Risk Analysis: The first phase in the Security Engineering Life Cycle collects information regarding assets of the organisation that needs to be protected, threat perception on those assets, associated access control policies, existing operational infrastructure, connectivity aspects, services required to access the asset and the access control mechanism for the services. Security Policy Specification: Security Requirement Specification and Risk Analysis Report as input and generates a set of e-Gov security policies. The policy statements are high-level rule-based and generic in nature and thereby, does not provide any insight to system implementation or equipment configuration. Security Infrastructure Specification: This phase analyses the Security Requirement Specification and the Security Policy Specification to generate a list of security tools that are needed to protect the assets. It also provides views on the location and purpose of the security tools. Security Infrastructure Implementation: The organisation, in this phase, procures, deploys, and configures the selected security infrastructure at the system level. Security Testing: In this phase, several tests are carried out to test the effectiveness of the security infrastructure, functionality of the access control mechanism, specified 62

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[Backus 2001] Backus, M. , “e-Governance in Developing Countries”, International Institute of Communication & Development (IICD), Research Brief No. 1, March, 2001. [Bhattacharya, 2003] Bhattacharya, J., “Middleware And Technology Standards For e-Governance”, IBM India Research Lab, Research Report, March 2003 [Nath, 2005] Nath, V. , Digital Governance Initiative, www. DigitalGovernance.org. [PWH 2003] Information Security: A Strategic Guide for Business, ProcewaterhouseCoopers Global Technology Centre, November 2003. [Sengupta, 2005] Sengupta, A., Mazumdar, C. and Barik, M.programmes., “e-Commerce security – A life cycle approach”, in Sadhana, Journal of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, India, Vol. 30, Part 2 & 3, April/June 2005, Pages 119-140. [Tapscott, 1999] Tapscott, D. and Agnew, D. , “Governance in the Digital Economy: The Importance of Human Development” in Finance and Development, IMF, Vol. 36, No. 4, December 1999.

Anil K. Kaushik is working as a Scientist in e-Security Division of Department of Information Technology (DIT), Ministry of Communication & IT, Government of India.

Prof. Chandan Mazumdar, has been teaching Computer Science & Engineering in Jadavpur University for 23 years.

Parthasarathi Banerjee, is the Director, National Institute of Science, Technology & Development Studies, New Delhi, India, psb_nist@yahoo.com

www.egovonline.net

The Global Access Point to e Infrastructures www.beliefproject.org

BELIEF-II BELIEF-II is a project funded by the European Commission under the FP7 capacities programme. Kicked-off in April 2008, the project will span over 24 months with the aim of supporting e-Infrastructure projects in order to maximise synergies between research, scientific and industrial communities in specific application areas. Building on the successes achieved in its first phase, BELIEFII has the strategic objective of coordinating the communication of the results achieved by all the e-Infrastructure projects, thanks to the organisation of networking activities and to the promotion of the worldwide initiatives which could be of great interest for the future potential users. As coordinator of the International e-Infrastructure communication, BELIEF-II will: • Make sure e-Infrastructure projects work in synergy with one another advancing in the same direction of the national initiatives so to have a fruitful interaction and a mutual cooperation; • Reinforce the relevance of e-Infrastructures worldwide, thus helping sustain their successful development and exploitation globally;

July 2008

•

Develop stronger co-operation links with emerging economies, specifically in Latin America, India and South Africa. In order to achieve these goals, the project will provide a communication platform that will, at the same time, allow the eInfrastructure projects to manage their contents, communicate their activities to the users and to the public, and have a unique access point to find out more about e-Infrastructures. The new networking platform will be launched in August 2008 and, combined with an empowered by the digital library, it will become soon the one-stop-shop for the global e-Infrastructures community. Interactions and synergies will be supported also by a series of high profiled international events such as 2 eConcertation meetings, 2 Brainstorming Workshops and 3 International Symposia gathering major decision-makers, top researchers, scientific policy-makers and industrial organisations and focusing on a future framework for a common agenda for e-Infrastructure research in the world. The first International Symposia will take place in January 2009 in India. For further information visit www.beliefproject.org or contact info@beliefproject.org

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October 2007

WHATS ON

10-11 JULY 2008 8th European Conference on e-Government Ecole Polytechnique, Lausanne, Switzerland http://www.academic-conferences.org/eceg/eceg2008/ eceg08-home.htm

JULY 26, 2008 International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications Porto, Portugal http://www.icete.org

22-24 OCTOBER 2008

23 - 24 OCTOBER 2008

e-Challenges e-2008 Conference Stockholm, Sweden

4th International Conference on e-Government 2008 RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

http://www.echallenges.org/e2008/

http://www.econference.com.au/4th-InternationalConference-on-e-Government-2008.html

AUGUST 26, 2008 Security 2008 Conference and Exhibition Sydney, Australia http://www.securityexpo.com.au/

OCTOBER 22, 2008 4th International Conference on e-Government Melbourne, Australia http://www.academic-conferences.org/iceg/iceg2008/ iceg08-home.html

AUGUST 27, 2008

11-13 NOVEMBER 2008 Wireless and Digital Cities 2008 Barcelona, Spain http://www.epractice.eu/document/4835

International Symposium on Telecommunication Tehran, Iran

NOVEMBER 13, 2008

http://ist2008.itrc.ac.ir

Network Enabled Capability Exhibition 2008 Noida, India

SEPTEMBER 3, 2008

http://nec-exhibition.com

3rd International Conference on Legal, Security and Privacy Issues in IT Prague, Czech Republic

24 - 26 NOVEMBER 2008 TranSec India Expo Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai, India

http://www.lspi.net

http://www.transec.com

SEPTEMBER 25, 2008 2nd International Conference on Methodologies, Technologies and Tools enabling e-Government Corfu, Greece

NOVEMBER 26, 2008 The 12th International Exhibition in Vietnam on Telecommunications and Information Technology / Vietnam Electronics 2008 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

http://conferences.cs.unicam.it/metteg08/

OCTOBER 18, 2008 GCC eBanking Forum Dubai, United Arab Emirates

http://www.2456.com/VNC

http://www.datamatixgroup.com

17-19 APRIL 2009 15 OCTOBER 2008 Secure Infrastructure Workshop Paris, France http://www.epractice.eu/workshop/FASTeTEN

65ov}

July 2008

29-31 July 2008 Pragati Maidan, New Delhi , India www.eINDIA.net.in

3rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD2009) Doha, Qatar http://www.ictd2009.org

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