egov June 2013

ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON E-governance Omar Abdullah Hon’ble Chief Minister, Jammu & Kashmir

` 75 / US $10 / ISSN 0973-161X

June 2013 | VOLUME 09 n ISSUE 06 n ISSN 0973-161X egov.eletsonline.com

Feroz Ahmad Khan Minister of State (Independent Charge) Information Technology, Science & Technology; Government of Jammu & Kashmir

Jammu & Kashmir

Taking New Strides in e-Governance

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

Knowledge Exchange

SRINAGAR 2013 23-25 May, 2013, The Lalit Grand Palace, Srinagar

eGov Magazine

Mohammad Iqbal Khanday Chief Secretary, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

IT agility. Your way.

second grid June 2013

Contents grid name

74

issue 6 n volume 09

10 in person

Feroz Ahmad Khan

in person

Vimal Wakhlu

Additional Deputy Commissioner, Jammu

14 GOOD GOVERNANCE

Technology as the enabler of Good Governance

26 Inclusive Growth

Leapfrog into the Future

Minister of State (Independent Charge) Information Technology, Science & Technology, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

Chairman & Managing Director, Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd

30 e-Gov initiatives

16

60

Cloud & Virtualisation

in person

Suresh Kumar Principal Secretary to Government, Home Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

18 in person

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

24 in person

Sheetal Nanda Additional Secretary to Government, Power Development Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

28 in person

Krishan Ballabh Agarwal Principal Secretary, Higher Education Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

in person

Bimal Raj

CEO, Smartlink Network Systems Ltd

e-Governance in Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board

34

VMware in India

38 Food Security

Transparency in Public Distribution System

66 in person

Basharat Ahmad Dhar

Managing Director, Jammu & Kashmir State Power Development Corporation Limited (JKSPDCL)

42 Good Governance

e-Governance How can we make it a Success?

46 Mobile Governance Time for JK Pulse

47 SSDG

Bringing government to the citizen’s doorstep

68 in person

Suresh Chugh Additional PCCF/Director, Department of Ecology Environment and Remote Sensing, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

70 Art & Society

Balwant Thakur

Regional Director, Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Ministry of External Affairs

48 Secure Gov

Security Operations Centres (SOC)

50 e-Gov Initiatives

JaKeGA – Improving Lives through e-Governance

54 Transportation

e-Governance Services at Regional Transport Offices in Jammu & Kashmir

56 e-Gov initiatives

e-Governance By National Informatics Centre (NIC), J&K

32

72

in person

in person

Sustainable Tourism

Deputy Commissioner, Jammu

IT initiatives of J&K state

Umang Narula Chief Electoral Officer, Jammu & Kashmir

4

40

in person

Sushma Chauhan

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / June 2013

Ajeet Kumar Sahu

62 Tourism

64 Good Governance

Creating a “Real Khushal State” through e-Governance

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ow the Government of Jammu & Kashmir has geared up to put e-Governance initiatives in the state on a fast track mode. In April, 2013, the State Data Centre (SDC) was inaugurated in Jammu. While inaugurating the SDC, the Minister of State for Information Technology, Feroz Ahmed Khan, said, “We have setup a SDC for supporting e-Governance initiatives in J&K. The centre has been setup by the IT department under the National e-Governance plan (NeGP).”

There is no doubt that the state of the art data centre will give further fillip to the e-Governance initiatives that are being implemented in the state. It will serve as a secure base for hosting and managing e-Governance applications of different departments. Before this State Data Centre came up, the myriad departments in the state had to work through their own setup of servers, but the global safety norms could never be implemented in these. The new SDC is expected to serve as a solution to lot of challenges that were there in the path of e-Governance in the state.

The present issue of eGov magazine is a special on the e-Governance initiatives that are being taken in J&K. During the creation of the issue, we interacted with many key officials in different government departments. The officials understand that during the initial stages of the development of e-Governance in their departments, they need to have meticulous planning and efficient execution. Any failure at any level of the project conceptualisation, planning, maintenance and execution can turn out to be a bottleneck in the success of e-Governance.

The interviews and the articles that we have carried in this issue of the magazine provide us with a view of the thought process with which e-Governance is progressing in different departments. During our meetings with the young employees of JaKeGA, the implementing agency oforf e-Governance in J&K, we were told many times that it is was only through the rise of IT industry and effective e-Governance systems that J&K could become a “Real Khushal State” again. The idea that quality of people’s lives can improve through IT industry and e-Governance has certainly taken root in J&K. This special issue of the magazine will be launched at the eGov Knowledge Exchange Forum at The Lalit Grand Palace- Srinagar on 23-24 May 2013. If you are at the event, you could be part of the first group of individuals to read this special edition of eGov on Jammu & Kashmir. The agenda of the event is the same as that of this issue of eGov. The event has been designed to put the spotlight on e-Governance in the state.

We hope that the Forum on 23-24 May and this special issue of eGov magazine will serve as a catalyst for more e-Governance initiatives to be implemented in J&K.

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Jammu & Kashmir

e-Governance takes root in Jammu & Kashmir

T

he ongoing Internet and ICT revolution has led to the development of means for faster and better communication, efficient storage, retrieval and processing of data and exchange and utilisation of information. Today it is possible for government departments to easily process and tabulate data for more effective and quick decision making.

It is also true that the proliferation of Internet enabled devices has led to the rise in awareness amongst citizens about their rights and there is substantial increase in the expectations from the government to perform and deliver. In fact, the entire paradigm of governance has changed.

In Jammu & Kashmir, there is massive spurt in the usage of Internet based services. This is true especially of our younger generation. People today expect government services to become available at the click of the mouse, just as it is in many other parts of the world. To match the expectations of the public, the Government of Jammu & Kashmir has launched a renewed drive for e-Governance.

Many new initiatives are being taken. The State Data Centre was inaugurated last month. The State Wide Area Network is in the offing. Majority of the departments are making efforts to put their data and services online. We expect to have a major change in the way the state provides myriad services to its citizens. People will be able to access most common requirements like availing of certificates, applying for licenses, passports, participating in tenders, etc., from the comfort of their home or office.

To highlight the number of e-Governance initiatives that are being taken in Jammu & Kashmir, the eGov magazine has come up with a special issue. This issue carries a comprehensive coverage of the work that is being done by the different departments in the state. The officers who are heading the different departments have presented their views on what is already being done, and, more importantly, on what should be done in times to come.

This issue of eGov is set to be unveiled at the eGov Knowledge Exchange Forum, which is being organised at Srinagar on 23-24 May, 2013. If you are there at the event, you could be one of the early readers of this issue of the magazine. As you turn the pages of this issue of eGov, you will get a feel of the giant strides that the government of Jammu & Kashmir is taking in the e-Governance space.

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

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special issue

In Person

Feroz Ahmad Khan

Minister of State (Independent Charge) Information Technology, Science & Technology; Additional charge of School Education, Medical Education, Youth Services and Sports, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

Peace and

Prosperity Through IT “We want to develop IT industry in the state not only for creation of proper e-Governance framework, but also for creation of new jobs for the local youth,” says Feroz Ahmad Khan.

In conversation with Anoop Verma

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A

long with your studies, you were active in many extra-curricular activities during your school and college life. Tell us about the period of your life when you were a student.

While I was a student, I never thought of joining government service or politics. Even after completing my graduation, politics had not been my ambition. However, from the very beginning, I dreamed of working for social causes and providing help to the weaker sections of society, particularly to those who are residing in the Ladakh region, where I belong. I got involved in social activities while I was still in my teens. I was active in student union work and I made some contributions in battling orthodoxy and enriching the life of several individuals. During my college days I volunteered several times to provide assistance to people irrespective of their caste, creed, colour or religion. My college education had filled me with the idea that peaceful co-existence and communal harmony are most important. As spokesperson for the Student Association, I worked for strengthening the relationship between the executive body and student members. I coordinated and organised all kinds of fruitful activities for the students. I used to participate in the inter-state debate competition. I was very much interested in cricket during my college days and several times I was nominated the man of the match. I was an active student, and I also developed an interest for swimming, yoga, volley ball, archery and trekking. I have won many tournaments in traditional archery. Drawing and painting were also of interest to me. I participated in several drawing and painting competitions during my school and college days.

How did you enter politics? Tell us about your political journey so far.

Before entering into active politics, I was working as Project Officer in an International NGO called “Save the Children Fund,” which was active in Kargil district. I worked here for more than 7 Years. I was also associated with few other NGOs that are working for improving the state of education, human rights, rural development and for helping downtrodden people in general. During the course of my work for NGOs, I had to enter into confrontation with many powerful people and departments. While working for safeguarding the human rights of the people, I often faced threats from powerful people, but I continued to do my work. I advocated the cause of the people by writing for various papers, journals, magazines and by organising seminars and conferences. In 2001, panchayat elections were held in the state and I was elected unopposed as the sarpanch of the village Silmo in Kargil district. This is how my political career started. I served as sarpanch for close to two years. In 2003, I was elected unopposed as the Councillor for Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council. Then in 2008 I became affiliated with the National Conference and was once again elected unopposed for the same post. In October 2008, the assembly elections were declared, and the party high-command asked me to contest. So in December 2008, I filed for nomination from the Zanskar Constituency as a National Conference candidate and won the election. I was the MLA till 15th January 2013.

After that I was inducted in the council of ministers and given the independent charge of Science and Technology, Information Technology Department, I was also given the independent charge of School Education, Medical Education, Youth Services and Sports.

In Person

As an MLA and a Minister in the State Government, what are the main issues that you would like to focus on? In your opinion what are the main problems and challenges that the people of this state are facing?

In my opinion, the most burning issue for the state is unemployment. Once we are able to solve the problem of unemployment, the other problems will automatically get solved. The problem is that we have a very small private sector in the state. The youth are totally dependent on the government to get jobs. But there are only limited productive jobs that the government can provide.

For tackling the unemployment problem, a large private sector is a must. The government has now started several programmes to help people who want to be self employed or start a small business. In our state, there is big scope in areas like animal husbandry, sheep husbandry and poultry farming. We are trying to promote such avenues for self-employment and small scale industries.

IT industry can be a big source for jobs. But as of now we don’t have any major private sector IT players in the state. Now the government is coming up with incentive schemes to encourage large IT companies to set up their development centres in the state. We are trying to encourage a closer interaction between the large IT companies of the country and the youth in the state, so that our young population becomes acquainted with the developments that are happening in the area of IT. In the times to come, the IT Department in the state will come up with a host of measures to encourage IT industry in the state.

Tourism is already a well-developed industry in the state, but it needs to be promoted internationally for better outcomes.

Many states in the country have come up with IT Parks where large and small IT companies can set up their bases in a more convenient manner. Are you planning to develop IT Parks in the state?

We are already working for the development of few IT Parks in Srinagar and in other parts of the state. As of now we are not having enough response from the major IT companies, but we are sure that eventually everyone will realise the great potential for IT that Jammu & Kashmir has. The state is now working to develop its IT policy. Once IT Policy is in place, the private sector will find it easier to set up its develop-

Feroz Ahmad Khan June 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

ment centres in the state. Recently I had held discussions with the Commissioner IT about taking the IT Parks to other districts in the state so that everyone is able to equally benefit from the development that takes place.

Being an MLA and a social activist, you get the chance to meet a lot of people in the state.

What kind of feedback are you receiving from the people about IT in general? Are the people in the state enthusiastic about IT? Nowadays most people realise the benefits that can be drawn from IT. The youth in the state has definitely warmed up to IT. However, the state is yet to develop its own IT policy and that is why the bigger IT companies are unable to set up their bases here. There are hardly any private sector jobs in IT, so the youth is studying other subjects, which they think will lead them to good government jobs. The scenario can change once the private sector in IT gets developed, as it will lead to the creation of many new non-governmental jobs.

Establishment of IT Parks The Department has identified Land at Ompura, Budgam, Kashmir for establishment of IT-Park. The land is being transferred from the Industries and Commerce Department to Information Technology Department for the purpose. Further, the Department is also pursuing the matter for IT Intrastructure creation under various GoI Schemes like ASIDE and CBIS inSrinagar and Jammu Cities. The Department is expected to enter into an MoU with the Industries and Commerce Department

Is the IT Department in the state taking any initiative to ensure that the people in the state have easy access to the best possible trainings in Information Technology?

We are keenly focussed on the aspect of training our people in Information Technology. We are encouraging the development of public and private institutions for imparting training to students and other sections of the population.

“In my opinion, the most burning issue for the state is unemployment” In a poor country like India, many deserving students are unable to gain digital literacy as they cannot afford to buy laptops or tablets. Some states are now coming up with policies to distribute free laptops and tablets. Do you think that we should have similar initiatives in Jammu & Kashmir?

In my opinion, we should start distributing free laptops and tablets. But such a policy is yet to be drafted. We are also working for taking broadband to all corners of the state. In places like Kargil, which have a difficult terrain, we are trying to connect the schools with Block Headquarters. We have already provided broadband and computers to the schools from our CDF (Constituency Development Fund).

We will be providing free laptops to the students who can’t afford it.

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The IT Department is closely monitoring the training of the employees in various government departments. In Srinagar and Jammu we have our institute where recently more than 100 KAS officers got their training in Information Technology. Currently we have sent a proposal to the Planning Department for creation of institutions where students can get trained in IT.

What is the situation of e-Governance in the state? What are the ways by which there can be an expansion in the scope of e-Governance? e-Governance will not be able to fully develop in the state until we make IT as a priority sector. We have to have in place a seamless system of connectivity between different government departments in all parts of the state. We will also have to make it easier for people to access the web based facilities from different government departments. For

instance, sitting in Secretariat in Jammu or Srinagar, I should be able to interact with district or block level officials in Kargil and in other parts of the state. Once this kind of system has been developed, then we can proudly announce that we are now having e-Governance in Jammu & Kashmir.

We need to develop lot of systems before a proper system of e-Governance can become a reality.

What is the situation of connectivity in Ladakh?

In Ladakh the connectivity is not good. In few areas there is connectivity through BSNL’s network, but mostly the Ladakh is not properly connected. Usually this area remains out of contact with the outer world. But we are hopeful that things will improve in near future.

Now the IT Department in the state has started working vigorously for implementation of lot of critical e-Governance systems. The State Data Centre (SDC) is ready. The implementation of the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) is underway. How do you see the developments in e-Governance happening in the times to come?

I think that the IT sector is growing at a fairly fast pace. It is a good thing that it is growing like this. We are here to ensure that the growth does not falter due to any reason. The change that will come due to developments in IT and due to e-Governance can lead to huge benefits for the people. The SDC and the SWAN projects will contribute towards bringing the government closer to the people. I see lot of good things happening in the state with e-Governance becoming a reality. With proper deployment of IT, the people in the state will finally be able to enjoy the fruits of peace and prosperity.

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e-Gov GOOD GOVERNANCE initiatives

Technology as the enabler of

Good Governance Today, e-Governance is no more an option or something to be experimented with.

It is an important tool for transformation. The people in the country realise this and that is why are seeing a massive popularity of the e-Governance initiatives that have been launched Mohammad Iqbal Khanday, Chief Secretary, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

A

s enablers of e-Governance, the Information and C o m mu n i c at i o n Technologies (ICT), serve as tools for transformation and change. Today, such technologies have become deeply embedded into the socio-economic fabric of our society, and the role of e-Governance is gaining impetus to facilitate the seamless availability of critical Government to Citizen (G2C) services.

We are now living in an era of global technology convergence mechanism where telecommunications and Internet technology with all media, text, audio, video, graphics, animation, and video is coming together, in a seamless manner. Every service is delivered on a common platform and yet it is possible for the user to choose any combination together or separately as he or she desires.

Technology is leading to significant social and cultural changes within organizations, which have been originally structured to perform separate functions and responsibilities. Convergence, that takes into account the roles being performed by government, private sector, civil society, with each contributing resources and services, becomes the founda-

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tion for maximising the opportunities enabled by the new ICT driven environment for national development.

started working and State Wide Area Network (SWAN) is on verge of being rolled out.

In my opinion the ICTs are a key and inseparable part of the contemporary governance.

There is no denying the ubiquitous role of ICTs in our society, from the way we communicate, network and interact, to the way in which we learn, play, and conduct business or access government services.

State Government Departments have already taken various innovative steps to promote e-Governance and have drawn up a roadmap for IT implementation and delivery of services to the citizens online. Every department in the State is making renewed thrust for taking their work online. The idea is to enable the people in the State to access more and more government services through the online route.

In order to answer the most challenging question of ICT-driven or ICT-supported governance the departments have to make a call to initiate.

Ideal would be to start with the ICT support and then to make it completely ICT driven.

Major initiatives in J&K

Launch of new interfaces

The Government of Jammu & Kashmir is now giving lot of emphasis to using ICT for improving the systems of governance. We are extensively promoting the use of IT in managing the government`s internal processes. The State Data Centre (SDC) in Jammu & Kashmir has

With the intent of enhancing the scope of e-Governance in the state, the State Government has established the Jammu & Kashmir e-Governance Agency (JaKeGA) which is taking initiatives with the strong and highly technically backing of competent members

Mohammad Iqbal Khanday

GOOD e-GovGOVERNANCE initiatives

The Planning department J&K has taken a leap by initiating the JKPULSE m-Governance tool

of the State e Mission Team (SeMT) setup by Government of India. The agency supports the line departments to design, deliver and administer e-Governance projects by providing the necessary administrative, financial, legal and technical framework in the State.

The applications that are being implemented in Jammu & Kashmir are generally geared to providing G2B, G2C and B2C services. Large section of the State’s population, especially our younger generation, is digitally literate. So we expect a good response to the e-Governance

State Data Centre in Jammu

initiatives that we are launching in the different departments. Currently there are some concerns relating to tele-connectivity and Internet connectivity, but we are working on these areas and in next few months there is going to be substantial improvements. With the setup of major infrastructure projects like SDC, SWAN, CSC, SSDG, etc., the state would be in a much better position to facilitate e-Governance.

One area where e-Governance has already started playing a beneficial role in the state is e-Procurement, which is bringing lot of transparency and efficiency to the way in which various government departments procure goods and services. This system is ensuring complete anonymity of the participating suppliers, even to the buyers, until the bid are finally opened on the platform. These improved processes have eliminated subjectivity in receipt and evaluation of bids and has reduced corruption to a significant extent.

No alternative to e-Governance In my opinion, today there is no alternative to e-Governance because we are witnessing a quantum rise in the expectations that people have from all branches of the government.

Today the country is going through a phase of churning; the civil society is demanding more and more from the government, and the government in turn is trying its best to live up to the pulls and pressures of the rising expectations. I would urge government servants to cope up with these rising expectations and demands through e-Governance.

The Planning department J&K has taken a leap by initiating the JKPULSE m-Governance tool which is basically a Project Monitoring Tool where the officers are carrying real-time inspections and the MIS enables the Administration to have a close look at each site. With the success of this project we have initiated the extension of this tool to other departments as well. This will not only bring in transparency but also would encourage the officers to adapt such user friendly technologies. e-Governance, which is creation of digital governance systems, is all about creating better governance systems in society. The digital tools and technologies help us in meeting the rising expectations of the public in a very big way. A symbiotic relationship between government departments and private sector is a must for development of better e-Governance systems.

It is only with such partnership we will see good governance.

June 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

Suresh Kumar

Principal Secretary to Government, Home Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

e-Governance

for better services to citizens

e

Governance has gained a lot of traction in rest of the country. In J&K also we are seeing lot of developments in this area.

Please tell us about some key e-Governance initiatives that are being undertaken by the Home Department in the State.

Suresh Kumar sheds light on some of the key e-Governance initiatives that he initiated when he was in the Urban Affairs Department. He also talks about his vision for e-Governance in the Home Department where he is currently posted

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We have taken many new initiatives to promote of e-Governance in the state. The IT Department in the state has developed lot of new infrastructure for facilitating e-Governance in various departments. I would say that the governance in J&K is on the cusp of change; new technologies are leading to vast improvements in efficiency and transparency. One major initiative that the Home Department is undertaking is concerned with the issuance of passports. Due to the past problems of militancy and insurgency, we have a rather lengthy system of passport issuance. Even though the population of the state is not very large, we receive lot of passport applications. Every year close to 90,000 passport applications are handled by the state.

We have made the IG CID the nodal officer for passports. So the passport office sends the hard file to the CID office, from where two

In Person

separate files go to the district SP and to the district CID office. When both the reports are received, and the verification done at state CID is also fine, then the NOC for passport issuance goes to the passport office. This process can take anywhere between 3 months to more than a year. Now we are trying to make this system online, to improve transparency and cut down on the time. The entire data of the applicants will be put online and different agencies will be able to access the data in seamless and orderly manner. They can then file their reports instantly through the online system and the same report can be sent online to the passport office.

The Home Department has also been taking initiatives for streamlining the way by which gun licenses in the state are being issued. Please tell us about it.

We are now in the process of streamlining the system of issuance of gun licenses. Such licenses are issued at the district level. The District Magistrates issue the licenses and they intimate the Home Department through hard copy files. We are now putting in place a web based system to improve efficiency and transparency. The website is already ready, and soon we will be able to put all the weapon licenses in each district online. The local SP and other officials can provide their reports regarding the threat perception and other factors through the online route. Sitting in my office, I will be able to view how many arms licenses have been issued by which DM, and how many of these licenses have been referred to the Home Department for extension of jurisdiction or renewal. The online system is now in final stages of development, and the major issue before us is to find ways of incorporating it with the huge amount of legacy data.

You have done considerable amount of work on e-Governance in your previous department, which is the Housing & Urban Development Ministry. Please tell us about it.

During my tenure in the Urban Development Ministry, I tried my best to use technology for providing better and timely services to the citizens. We put in place a system for online

registration of death and birth certificates.

The certificates can be issued to the citizens through the online system. We also developed a system through which building permission status can be tracked online. Earlier our municipalities used to manually maintain their accounts, but now we have developed an online system for accounting. The software and the application for accounting are very versatile, as it can generate balance sheets and other things at a single click. The online system has led to vast improvements in the efficiency and transparency of our accounting procedures. You can go to the website of the Housing & Urban Development Department, http://jkhudd.gov.in/, to have an overview of the e-Governance initiatives that have been undertaken in that department. Through this website, it is possible for you to have all kind of important information from various municipalities. We have created a system of “SuperUser” in this website. This system allows a

website. The online data is available to the citizens at the click of a mouse and they can authenticate in a convenient and seamless manner. I keep meeting citizens who tell me that their lives have become really easier with the coming up of this online system for birth and death registration.

Your online system of tracking of the status of building permission is also very popular in the State. Please provide us the details of this system.

Earlier people had to come to the office of the municipality and submit their application for building permission. The application would include the details of engineering and architectural designs, land ownership data, revenue related data and few other things. Based on this application the municipalities would create five or six sets of files to be sent to various offices, which are concerned with verify-

“Governance in J&K is on the cusp of change; new technologies are leading to vast improvements in efficiency and transparency” senior official to gain insight of the work that is being done by the various municipalities.

All the services have been integrated with the SMS gateway. If any citizen has provided his or her mobile number, they will be able to get SMS updates on their application status.

What kind of response is your on online system for registration of birth and deaths seeing from the public side?

We are seeing fairly high amount of response.

Earlier people were forced to travel to the municipal office to have the births and deaths in their family registered. We have integrated all the hospitals and nursing homes with the online system, so whether the birth takes place in home, in hospital or a nursing home, the applicant can avail of the certificate through the online gateway. The system is fairly secure, as at the time of discharge the incident of birth or death is recorded at the hospital itself and the data is automatically captured by our

ing the land title and other norms. Applicants had to come to the office many times to get their work done. So now what we have done is create a system where an applicant has to come to the municipality only once. On arrival he is given an automatically generated seat, and he gets a unique reference number. All his documents are scanned and the data is uploaded on a central server. After that the data is sent to the different government departments.

The citizen gets an SMS confirming that his application has been uploaded and sent to the concerned departments. In future the citizen can track the status of his application through SMS or through online systems. If you go to the http://jkapp.ulb.gov.in website, you will find that it is very easy for citizens to log in and find the necessary information regarding their application. All that the citizen needs is his reference number, and date of filing his application. Corruption has gone down to a large extent ever since this e-Governance system has been implemented.

June 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

17

In Person

Bipul Pathak

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In Person

“e-Governance is

for the people, by the people, of the people” Bipul Pathak

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

W

hat is the status of the State Data Centre project in Jammu & Kashmir?

The State Data Centre (SDC) in Jammu & Kashmir is complete. The final acceptance testing has also happened and now the data centre is ready for hosting the applications of various government departments. Some government departments have already migrated their applications to the data centre; these applications have been used as a part of the testing process. The other departments are in the process of migrating their applications to the data centre, because it requires a certain amount of testing to be done before all the applications can be made fully functional.

This can only be done over a period of time. In my opinion, in near future, we will be migrating all the government applications belonging to various departments into the State Data Centre. As the CCTNS project is on verge of starting, we plan to host it directly in our State Data Centre. We believe that e-Governance is for the people, by the people and of the people. For its effective implementation basic infrastructure like SDC is a must.

Many times it has been found that the SDC is ready but we don’t have enough applications to run

on it. What steps are you taking to ensure that the SDC is fully utilised.

The state of Jammu & Kashmir has

To address this situation we are tracking different departments in the state, because many departments continue to do their work on their own infrastructure. At times, they host their applications on multiple data centres, sometimes they use the NIC data centre, sometimes they create their own data centre, or they work on servers. Now our team is going around and speaking to different government departments. We have made them aware that the data centre is now available and they can use it to host all their applications in a safe and secure way. We would assure them of good connectivity all the time. The uptime of their applications hosted in the SDC would be much higher in the state-ofthe-art data centre that has now become available.

The good thing is that majority of the government departments in the state are now realising the benefits that can come from the SDC and they are eager to have their applications migrated to it.

The benefits of SDC cannot be fully reaped if the State Wide Area Network is not commissioned.

What is the status of State Wide Area Network?

In case of State Wide Area Network, somehow in Jammu & Kashmir, the process of bidding started in 2010, but it had to be called off because at that

now geared to put the e-Governance initiatives on a fast track execution mode.

The state has gone through some difficult times due to cross border terrorism and insurgency, but now all these are left behind and the state government is leaving no stone unturned to make the state “Real Khushal” again. Many new e-Governance initiatives are being launched to enable common citizens to avail of government services in a timely and seamless manner

June 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

19

In Person

point of time it was thought that it is better if the System Integrator and the Bandwidth provider are integrated in the same Request for Proposal (RFP). The RFP was redesigned and floated last year and now we have already closed the bid process and the evaluation has also been done. Now the competent authorities within J&K are about to approve of that bidding process and then we will have to approach the government of India for final funding. So we are at the last stage of selecting the vendor and getting the work on SWAN started. In my view, the final approval of the Government of India should come in the month of end of April 2013. After that the process of implementation of State Wide Area Network will take off, and in not more than 6 months time, SWAN should be operational at the DHQ and the State Headquarters level and at many of the blocks also, that are easily accessible. You are aware that many of the Blocks are situated in remote areas, and the state of J&K is mountainous. Also some of the areas are located close to the line of control. So we require certain special measures for implementing the SWAN. It also becomes costly for our private partner to implement in those areas. In such areas we are envisaging that a little bit of more time would be required to establish the point of presence up to block level of these areas. But in all probability, by December 2013 we are hopeful that about 80 percent of the area in the State will be covered by the State Wide Area Network.

This will help us a lot in starting G2C kind of services, because the data centre is ready by now and with SWAN we are going to have a very seamless kind of integration for providing of several landmark services.

We are having the system of two capitals in the Jammu & Kashmir. Srinagar is capital city for six months and Jammu for six months every year. If we had e-Governance in all the departments the important papers of the government could be stored online and they would not have to be transferred physically from one city to another. Don’t you think this will result in huge cost saving for the government?

It will. We are now endeavouring to create a culture of online work in the State. In IT Department we have already taken the initiative of archiving the records electronically. A pilot project in this regard is already on in the IT Department. In the Higher Education Department also we have started this kind of project for archiving of the records. This way we will be

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“Through the Knowledge Management Portal government departments will be able to share knowledge for mutual benefit� able to save lot of costs that are involved in transporting all those files from one place to another physically. Many of these files do not need to be kept in the physical form, as these are only for archival purposes. The electronic records kept in an authenticated way are as good as physical files. Please also remember that in Jammu & Kashmir we have already issued the Electronic Service Delivery rules, and under these rules we can also mandate that if the digital files are authenticated under the digital signature of an officer of a particular rank, then those files are as good as physical files. As the process of digitising the files has just started, it will take some time to fully develop it.

You have also started a Knowledge Management Portal for the government. Please tell us about it.

This is the Knowledge Management Portal for

the government of J&K. You see many times the government departments do significant amount of research and analysis work in any particular area. At that point of time, the work might seem of lesser importance, but the outcomes of that work might play a significant role in some other areas of the project. If we can take full advantage of the knowledge that we keep on generating, there can be significant impact on the functioning of the government policies and procedures. So through this Knowledge Management Portal government departments will be able to share knowledge for mutual benefit. The knowledge will be shared between officers who are working in the field, in the various departments, in the secretariat or elsewhere. This knowledge sharing online, document sharing online, will surely lead to better understanding amongst the departments. It will improve their understanding of one another and facilitate a smoother functioning in the

In Person

government. We have already started work on this portal, and we are sure that in six month’s it will be up and running. This project will also serve the purpose of putting the spotlight on the successful projects of any particular department so that it can be replicated in other departments. If implemented properly, the Knowledge Management Portal can be a game changer for e-Governance in the state.

When you are putting so much of government data online, then you also have to be concerned about the issue of cyber security. What kind of cyber security measures are you implementing to ensure that government data that is being put online is safeguarded from malicious attacks?

Cyber security related concerns are there all over the world, but many advanced countries have already moved their work in the online space. Even in our own country, a large number of states have started using IT systems in a big way. The standards for secure transactions and security have been set by the Government of India. Online transactions are now fairly common in government departments, banks, private companies and the end users.

Of course, we need to have adequate cyber security systems in place, while we continue to bring more and more of our work in the online domain. The systems that are being developed in Jammu & Kashmir will have the same level of security that the government departments in other states presently have. The State Data Centre and other hardware facilities are completely secure.

What is the level of digital literacy in Jammu & Kashmir?

Are you taking adequate capacity building measures to ensure that there is sufficient digital experience for e-Governance to really take off?

For e-Governance to succeed there are two levels of digital literacy that are required. One is that the government departments should have sufficient digitally trained manpower to run the applications and provide the necessary services to the citizens. The second level of digital literacy has to do with the training of the citizens in computers and Internet. After all, it is the citizens who are going to use the online

services from the government, so if they are digitally literate, they will be in a better position to take advantage of all the measures that are being taken. In my opinion the perception that the people in Jammu & Kashmir are less digitally literate, is a mere fallacy. People in this state, especially the younger generation, are well versed in the use of computers and Internet.

Even in remote and rural areas you will find large number of people who are digitally literate. The only problem is that we have not been able to penetrate all areas of the State in terms of the State Data Centre, the SWAN and connectivity related issues. Once these facilities are fully operational, you will find e-Governance gaining popularity in the state within no time.

To give you an example, we are now implementing many online services in the management of electoral rolls and generation of voter ID cards.

Once they are rolled out, there is going to be huge number of takers for these services.

One way by which we can measure the popularity of e-Governance in any state is by taking a look at the Khidmat Service Centres. How popular are the CSCs in Jammu & Kashmir?

In Jammu & Kashmir, the Common Services Centres are called the Khidmat Service Centres.

A large number of these Khidmat Service Centres are viable because of the extra B2C services that have already been rolled out. We are yet to roll out any G2C service through these Khidmat Service Centres. We are now close to rolling out five to six G2C services. I would also like to inform you that the Village Level Entrepreneurs, who are running these Khidmat Service Centres, are eagerly waiting for these G2C services to get rolled out. The real purpose of these Khidmat Service Centres will be achieved when G2C services are being offered through them to the common citizens of the state. But the thing is that many of these Khidmat Service Centres are making reasonable sums of money through B2C services that have to do with payment of utility bills and few other things.

How long will it take for the bulk of G2C services to get launched in Jammu & Kashmir?

Most of the G2C services will start operating once SWAN is in place. But currently with alternate sources of communication we are trying to launch several applications for health

department, elections department, employment department, labour department and few others.

e-Tendering is known to bring a lot of transparency in the functioning of the government.

What kind of work are you doing in the area of e-Tendering? e-Tendering is one of the most successful e-Governance projects in Jammu & Kashmir.

Unfortunately the success that we have achieved in e-Tendering is not well known to people outside the state. Most departments in the state are now using the e-Tendering system. The Urban Development Department, the Public Works Department, the Irrigation Department, and many other departments are tendering through e-Tendering.

This is resulting in lot of transparency and is also bringing substantial reduction in the operating costs of these departments. Participation in tendering through e-Tendering in the state is now universal. No one can be stopped from participating in a government tender, because it is an e-tender.

In Jammu & Kashmir in particular we have had some issues regarding Facebook. At times government departments have to block some malicious links on this social network. In your opinion should government departments get involved in blocking Facebook pages, or should just ignore the few malicious links that crop up?

These social media platforms have the power to work like dominos. Any wrong information posted in these social networking sites can lead to a lot of law and order problems in sensitive states like Jammu & Kashmir. Blocking of certain pages on Facebook is not confined to India only. Many countries in the world have been blocking Facebook pages from time to time to guard their national interests. Malicious comments posted in Facebook can hurt the religious sentiments of certain group of people.

In such cases, there is no alternative except for blocking of these pages. Ultimately we are living in a society where we can’t grant anyone to enjoy total freedom of expression for abusing anybody. In public interest, certain curbs have to be placed on freedom of expression. The freedom of expression means that people have the right to express themselves in a civilised manner.

June 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

21

special feature

Trimax

Executing landmark projects for better e-Governance T

rimax IT Infrastructure & Services Ltd., set up in 1995, is engaged in the end-to-end deployment of Managed IT Services and Solutions. Today, Trimax is a 156.8 million USD enterprise, headquartered in Mumbai, India with 13 offices, 600+ support locations and over 1600 employees. It is an ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 27001 certified organization. It has a CMMI Level – 5 DEV V1.3 certification too.

Trimax clientele includes companies from various industries like BFSI, Transport, Government, small as well as large enterprises. The service offerings broadly include Managed IT Services, Data Centre and Cloud Services, specialised and customised solutions like Transport Solutions, Turnkey Solutions and Application Services. Till date, the company has serviced over 900+ customers all over India. From starting out as an IT Infrastructure provider to offering end-to-end Managed IT Services & Solutions, Trimax’s evolution has been linear as well as lateral. Trimax has proven expertise in handling large and complex projects, having managed critical projects for various State Government bodies.

Surya Prakash Madrecha Chairman & Managing Director, Trimax IT Infrastructure & Services Ltd

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / June 2013

“We are an IT Services & Solutions company. Our core competence lies in the areas of Managed IT Services, Data Centre and Cloud Services, customised industry specific solutions, turnkey solutions and application services. Having managed critical projects for numerous State Governments, we have by now proved our expertise in handling large and complex projects. We are constantly enhancing our strengths in the application and the mobility space. We are creating many new applications in the transport space and other areas,” Surya Prakash Madrecha, Chairman & Managing Director, Trimax IT Infrastructure & Services Ltd”

Trimax

special feature

Trimax’s USP lies in its high quality service levels and assurance and pricing models which are flexible and have a partner approach, thus providing ample cushion to manage finances.

One forefront of establishing Data Centres Trimax has a good track record for setting up stateof-art Data Centres in the country. The company has set up 31 Data Centres for a leading insurance company in India. Trimax also been chosen to operate these 31 Data Centres for five years. The state-of-art Data Centre that the company

The State Data Centre in J&K The Data Centre is part of the State Government’s ongoing IT initiatives for making all government services accessible to common man. The State Data Centre provides the following key functionalities: • Act as the central repository of the state • Provides secure data storage • Enables online delivery of services • Enables a citizen information/services portal • Includes a state intranet portal • Supports remote management and service integration

Few of Trimax success stories • Trimax has developed and implemented Electronic Ticket Issuing Machine based Ticketing System, Online Reservation System & RFID Smart Card based Pass system for leading State Road & City Transport Corporations across India.

• It has set up and manages a 1,20,000 sq feet Data Centre for ITI Ltd. It has also set up 31 Data Centres for a leading Life Insurance provider in India. It is currently setting up the State Data Centre for J&K government.

• Trimax has implemented the Integrated Excise Management System and integrated the working of the three departments of Rajasthan State Beverages Corporation Ltd (RSBCL), Rajasthan State Ganganagar Sugar Mills (RSGSM) and Rajasthan Excise Department.

• Trimax is implementing the State Wide Area Network for the state of Rajasthan, thus connecting the District & Block headquarters with the State headquarters.

• Trimax provides Managed Network Services to leading private as well as nationalised banks in India.

• Trimax has provided cost effective FMS support for IT Infrastructure to erstwhile Sparsh (now Serco), a leading BPO in India.

• Trimax is responsible for the supply, installation, configuration and implementation of Core Banking Solution in all the 102 branches and offices of ODCCB, a District Co-operative bank in the state of Maharashtra

operates and manages for ITI Ltd. is located in Bangalore in an area of 1,20,000 sq feet. The company has also launched its own Tier III Data Centre in Airoli, Navi Mumbai.

Due to its wide experience in building, hosting and co-locating Data Centres, the company has been chosen to establish the State Data Centre (SDC) in Jammu & Kashmir.

Trimax will be providing the operation and support related services to the SDC in Jammu & Kashmir for the next five years.

June 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

23

In Person

Sheetal Nanda

Additional Secretary to Government, Power Development Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

The Dream of

Fully electrified J&K

“At the moment the percentage of electrified villages in Jammu & Kashmir stands at around 90-95 percent,� says Sheetal Nanda

P

lease provide us with an overview of the work that you are doing to make the state self sufficient in Power?

We are trying to bring about an increase in the power generation of the state. The state has the capacity of 20000 MW identified but all of that capacity is not harnessed. The second step is to reduce the losses i.e. transmission & distribution losses and commercial losses. We are now using IT in a big way to curb such losses. The Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (R-APDRP) is being actively rolled out across Jammu & Kashmir.

What is the main focus of the R-APDRP in J&K? The focus of the programme is to reduce aggre-

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gate technical and commercial losses in power distribution and management across state utilities. Under the project we are establishing reliable and automated systems for sustained collection of accurate baseline data for Jammu & Kashmir Power Department, as well as enhance adoption of Information Technology in the areas of energy accounting. This will help the government to reduce AT&C losses, outages and interruptions, thereby increasing consumer satisfaction. We are establishing a Data Center, a Disaster Recovery Center, a Customer Care Center and an integrated solution is being rollout across the state. The integrated solution comprises of core Utility application modules like meter data acquisition, energy audit, metering, billing, collections, GIS, new connection and disconnection and dismantling.

What kind of electrification has happened in the state under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY)?

Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) is actually for de-electrified villages.

Under RGGVY, a village should be classified as electrified if electricity is being used within its revenue area for any purpose whatsoever.

At the moment the percentage of electrified villages in Jammu & Kashmir stands at around 90-95 percent. Majority of the villages in all 14 districts are now electrified. As J&K is a hilly area, where houses are situated over large distances, it is not possible to have every house in the villages electrified. However, the panchayat area in all the villages is already electrified.

What is your opinion on electricity situation in the state?

We are working to improve the electricity situation. Currently in summers we are facing

lot of shortage in Jammu and in winters in Srinagar. Around 30 percent of the hour there is power cut. This will improve only when we are able to improve the generation capacity and curb the losses also. At the moment we are having huge losses. Currently we are facing problem with the system of billing. The bills are not accurate and so the government has to forgo revenues. We are now trying to have the electronic meter systems because in RAPDRP it is a mandate that we have to have tampered proof electronic meter. It has not been decided yet, but it is possible that the government may decide to take all domestic consumers to remote billing system.

Nowadays the power transmission is happening through smart grid in many parts of the world. Are you planning to bring smart grid technology to J&K? We do have offers from few companies to go for smart grids on pilot basis in certain areas of the state, but we are yet to take a policy decision in this matter. First of all we have to improve our system of generation, transmission and distribution, only then we will be able to take full advantage of the smart grid technology. .

Bulk of electricity in the state is coming through Hydro plants.

While this kind of generation is good for environment, it is dependent on the weather cycle. Are you planning to go for thermal plants?

During winters the generation of our hydroelectric stations goes down to 25 percent. For setting up of a thermal plant, we have applied for coal block allocation from the Government of India.

3

Power

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Inclusive e-Gov initiatives Growth

Leapfrog into the Future The author is one of the leading inventors of Cisco Systems with 57 patents.

He received Karnataka’s highest civilian decoration, the Karnataka Rajotsava Award, for social work in 2012 Aravind Sitaraman, President, Inclusive Growth, Cisco Systems

I

n the last 2000 years of history, India, as a cultural nation, was the leading economy owning a very large portion of the world’s wealth for 1500 years. For the next 300 years, India was the second largest economy. Just as everyone goes to the United States these days for technology and education, scholars, students, businessmen, and traders flocked to India. After 150 years of colonization, at independence in 1947, India had less than 1% of the world economy.

From that point, India has slowly clawed itself out of this desperate situation and is poised to realize its old glory of being a developed and leading economy. From an aid-dependent economy, India is now a food exporting country. From a social and economic basket case, it is now the largest democracy in the world with vibrant independent institutions. According to several analysts, India will be the youngest nation in the world, with the largest working population, for the foreseeable future.

Such a demographic dividend is once in a millennium opportunity. If the country were to exploit this resource, the nation will easily be the most prosperous one for a long period of time. By the same measure, failing to address the aspirations of the youth will lead to largescale social, political, and economic instability.

For India to realize its dream of becoming a developed nation by 2050, it has to vastly enhance livelihood generation, education, and healthcare.

26

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While majority of the people live in rural areas, the majority of the precious resources are in the urban areas. Master trainers, educators, and doctors prefer to live in urban areas where they can access livelihood, education, and healthcare for themselves and their families.

On an average, the country has 1 teacher for 40 students and 1 doctor for 1700 citizens.

Averaging numbers and including quasispecialists doesmake the number respectable; but even then, these numbers are way below internationally accepted norms for developed nations. In many areas, there is 1 teacher for 500 students and 1 doctor for 25,000 citizens.

Only 15% of our youth get college degrees and only 2% get technical certification. About 75% of engineering graduates and 85% of liberal arts graduates are unemployable; not because our youth are stupid but because we do not equip them with livelihood skills. Alarmingly, if we do nothing, the country will have close to 500 million unemployed youth by 2030.

How can we address such challenges? Some suggest that we need to increase the number of teachers, master trainers, and doctors. Surely, this must be done but would that automatically translate to them moving to rural areas where the majority of the population lives?

Obviously, the answer is no. Some want to force these specialists to go live in rural areas.

This will only create a flight of the qualified to other parts of the world where they can have freedom of choice. Therefore, it is imperative that we look at this problem from a completely different perspective.

It is no longer sufficient for India to play catch up to developed nations. We need to look for ways by which we can leapfrog into a new world of prosperity. For this to happen, India has to embrace technology. In 2000, the country had 5 million cell phones and one of the worst tele-density in the world. Today, we turn on 13-16 million cell phones per month and have one of the highest tele-density in the world. This transformation has brought in large-scale prosperity.

Similarly, India has the opportunity to adopt technology to deliver teachers, master trainers, and doctors to remote areas of the nation. I believe that networking is the technology that can help us leapfrog into the future. The country has already invested in 1.5 million route kilometers of fiber and is now looking to invest about Rs. 40,000 crores to bring at least 1000 Mbps bandwidth to each gram panchayat. Using high-definition video as the medium of communication delivered from a secure cloud, we now have the opportunity to have rural populations collaborate with urban specialists on skills development, education, and healthcare. Can this work?

In the last two years, we launched several pilots with several state governments in some of the most remote places in the country. In Karnataka, we launched education and skills pilot. In Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, we launched a healthcare pilot. Kerala, always the leading indicator for the country, implemented a specialized network for skills development in its ITIs. Bihar is choosing to use networking technology to train Auxiliary Nurses and Midwives. A

Inclusive e-Gov initiatives Growth

Aravind Sitaraman

premier private educational institution like Oakridge Schools has chosen to connect various schools in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Haryana to virtualize its teachers. A premier private skills development like NTTF has chosen to connect its training centers in Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu to virtualize its master trainers.

With over 600,000 student hours of education, we see large reduction of absenteeism and drop-out rates in schools. Children now score more marks in their exams and the failure rates have declined seriously. Parents are ecstatic that their children learning through vernacular language can also speak in English. Working with Teachers Foundation, a specialist NGO to train teachers, we have used the same network to train about 300 rural teachers in English.

In the last 6 months, we also launched remote skills development through our partners Global Talent Track and SGCA along with Government ITI trainers. After over 30,000 student hours of training, many of the youth in ITIs, retiring Army soldiers, and orphaned youth in Kerala, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu have secured jobs much better than they originally anticipated. Trainees learnt vocations such as auto-mechanics, carpentry, and fashion design to sophisticated accounting software packages. They learnt to be entrepreneurs.

They even learnt advanced networking technology through the same mechanism.

In the last 14 months, we facilitated over 47,000 specialty and super-specialty healthcare consultations in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. Villagers in very remote Primary Healthcare Centers are able to consult with specialist government hospital doctors in district hospitals as well as RxDx Super Specialty hospital in Bangalore.

While several lives have been saved, we see that women and children take advantage of such a facility the most.

We have also been able to use the same network to train Asha workers, educate pregnant women, and identify Severe Acute Malnourished children. Wouldn’t this be apt vehicle to improve our abysmal infant and maternity mortality rates and lack of nutrition of our children?

Networking technology provides a spectacular opportunity for India to address the crucial deficits in civilian society that is impeding growth. Instead of following the west to use networking for social networking and instant messaging, India can use the technologies for social development and communication. It also presents the nation a great opportunity for its Information Technology companies to develop new applications that can be exported to the next 3 billion people who will join the networking world this decade.

Embracing networking technology will bridge the urban-rural divide and bring inclusive growth to the masses. It will also create new opportunities for the nation to leapfrog into a knowledge economy and lead the world in technology as it did for millennia.

June 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

Krishan Ballabh Agarwal

Principal Secretary, Higher Education Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

Higher Education at High Altitudes “J&K is known for its natural beauty throughout India. In education also the state can excel,” says Krishan Ballabh Agarwal

Krishan Ballabh Agarwal 28

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In Person

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that the new institutions adhere to certain quality benchmarks? hat is the mandate of the Higher Education Department in J&K?

See the higher education department is basically concerned with education beyond 10 plus two level. It deals with the education at the graduation, post-graduation and research level through the degree colleges and through the systems of the universities. The mandate of the Higher Education Department is to ensure that all the deserving students have access to quality infrastructure for education. The education that is being imparted is modern and geared to make the students ready for taking jobs in popular industries.

It has often been found that students coming out of universities are lacking in skills that are required by our industry. What steps are you taking to ensure that our education system is capable of making our students job ready?

Higher education has two dimensions in it – one dimension is concerned with research and training, while the other is basically about vocational training, which is related to employment related aspects. If you are talking about vocational education, our focus shifts mainly to engineering and medical colleges. In J&K we have the National Institute of Technology in Srinagar. We have a State engineering institute in Jammu. We also have few other universities in the State. Some of our universities and colleges are providing a good degree of job related training. We have medical colleges in Jammu and in Srinagar. However, we are currently offering very few medical seats in the state as compared to the demand. I completely agree with the idea of there being a closer coordination between the industry and the educational establishment. There ought to be a continuous evaluation of the courses that we are teaching. The courses that do not lead to any job related outcomes should be phased out within a reasonable span of time. This is my opinion.

There is obviously the need of having more and more engineering and medical colleges, but creating such institutions is not an easy task. What can be done to ensure

Today J&K is witnessing a unique phase of huge investment in infrastructure sector. Major railways projects are being undertaken. The construction of national highway, which entail large amount of construction work, is being undertaken in the state. There are power projects and bridge projects coming up. Under the Prime Minister’s Gramin Sadak Yojna, we are having a huge investment of more than `10,000 crore for construction of roads in the rural areas. Unfortunately, the state does not have engineers in sufficient numbers. Therefore there is need of establishing new engineering colleges. Just new colleges won’t do, we also need to recruit quality teachers.

What is your view of the role that private sector can play in higher education? Do you think that PPP projects should be encouraged for driving better education outcomes?

I would like to tell you that our Minister for Higher Education has recently announced on the floor of the assembly that we will be opening

ism related aspects, but also for education. We need to do lot of introspection to learn about the issues that lie at the core of our educational establishment. Even currently the education that is being offered in the state institutions is to a large extent at par with what the students get in other parts of the country.

J&K is a hilly state, many citizens are residing in far flung areas.

What kind of technologies are you using to ensure that the students in every part of the state are able to access quality education?

We want to impart education in the far-flung and remote areas. Such areas are often difficult to reach; even if teachers are posted here they are reluctant to go to their institutions. So we are taking the initiative of promoting e-learning. With the help of high-speed connectivity and suitable hardware and software solutions, teachers based in Srinagar or Jammu can reach out to students anywhere in the state. Recently we have established an e-portal for our library. Out here many free of cost books are available for our teachers and students. Some

“The online system for admission and examination is the need of the hour“ up our engineering education sector for both the public-private organisations and fully private organisations. Besides this we will also be taking new initiatives for opening new engineering colleges in the government sector. In my opinion, we should encourage private investment in key areas of education like engineering. The government must endeavor to establish new institutions, but the field must also be left open for the private institutions.

What kind of initiatives can be taken by the State government to bring improvement to the quality of education being offered in our higher education institutions?

J&K is known for its natural beauty throughout India. In education also the state can excel. I am fully convinced that with the right kind of efforts, the state of education in J&K can be improved to a great extent. The state can be home to the best educational institutions.

This place can be famous not only for its tour-

institutions in the state are equipped with good quality digital labs to enable teachers to teach latest technology courses easily. Some of these labs need upgradation and we are doing that. Currently we are undertaking a major e-Governance initiative in the Higher Education Department. We would also like to have a paperless office in near future.

Online systems of admission and examination have become very popular in many parts of the country. Are we developing such systems in J&K? The online system for admission and examination is the need of the hour. We have a large number of colleges in the private sector. There have been complaints that the number of teachers is less and the requisite infrastructure is not in place. But I think the real challenge lies in final assessment through some sort of an online examination system, whereby we can provide gradation to the private institutes, rather than witch-hunting them often in the name of some facilities being deficient.

June 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Good e-GovGovernance initiatives

e-Governance in Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board To provide better services to pilgrims visiting the cave shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi, the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board (SMVDSB) has launched a number of e-Governance initiatives Navin K Choudhary, Principal Secretary to Hon’ble Governor of J&K; CEO of Amarnath Shrine Board & Vaishno Devi Shrine Board

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hri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board (SMVDSB) launched its first informative website in the year 1999 after acquiring the domain www.maavaishnodevi.org. Later on, in the year 2003, SMVDSB decided to re-launch its new website with the online services and Payment gateway Integration with Citibank.

After acquiring a dedicated server in USA for hosting the official website, SMVDSB decided to re-design, up-grade and re-launch the official website www. maavaishnodevi.org. Since the year 2012, the following services are being provided through the online system: • Room Booking • Donation • Poojan • SSVP • Helicopter Services • Yatra parchi • Attka Darshan The new website of SMVDSB is having HDFC payment gateway facility with Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protection installed on it for safe and secure online transactions.

The new website is very dynamic, user friendly and interactive. It provides wide rage of information to the devotees visiting the holy shrine of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Ji. It also provides information regarding the Tenders, Advertisements and Donation schemes in SMVDSB. For wide publicity of Tenders, SMVDSB has also acquired a portal from Tendercity (Indiatimes) group.

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Navin K Choudhary

New initiatives Various other initiatives that have been taken over the years to bring more comfort to the pilgrims include the following: • Installation and Management of Exchange Server for E-mail accounts on the domain maavaishnodevi.org. Viz. heldesk@maavaishnodevi.org, admin@maavaishnodevi.org & online@maavaishnodevi.org . These E-mail accounts are being used for interacting and providing information to the devotees.

• Acquiring and management of 100 e-mail accounts on the server hired from M/s Rediffmail for better inter-office communication between various units and officials of SMVDSB. • Web based Mini-YRC application for providing free Yatra Registration facility at various counters viz. Vaishnavi Dham, Saraswati Dham, Niharka and through various Hotels in Katra.

• Web based Yatra Parchi Module for providing Yatra Registration facility at various counters viz. Airport Jammu, Vaishnavi Dham& Saraswati Dham.

• Setup of Yatra Management System (YMS) for better management of Yatra Registration at YRCs and Verification Systems at Banganga (Parchi Check Post).

• Digitalisation of Board meeting Software viz. designing of more than 45000 pages and integrate them with the index pages for easy visualisation/printing.

• Installation and commissioning of PVC ID Card System for printing of secure ID cards for Staff and Donors.

• Installation of Video Conferencing System at Central Office.

• The System division has been efficiently providing I.T training from time to time. IT training has been imparted to more than 1000 officers/officials of Shrine board till date. Study/course material for training has also been printer and made available to the Officers/Officials of Shrine board for reference.

Good Governance e-Gov initiatives

Software used in SMVDSB i) Yatra Management software. ii) Salary Software. iii) Tally Software for Accounts. iv) Store Management Software for management of various stores. v) Bhojanalaya Management software for management of various Bhojanalayas. vi) Fair Price Software. vii) Room Reservation software at the various locations. viii) Priority issuance software. ix) SSVP Software x) Individual Poojan. xi) Legal cases management software. xii) Estate wing software. xiii) Shops Database management software. xiv) SSVP Token issuing software at Room No.04. xv) Yatra Group Number system software at yatra parchi check posts Bhawan at Bhawan.

Hardware in SMVDSB • Installation and maintenance of 280 Computers and 177 printers.

• Installation and maintenance of 07 servers along with server applications.

• Installation and maintenance of more than 35 router, switches, E1 converters and hubs etc.

Internet Services in SMVDSB • 10mbps (1:1) Internet Leased Link at SMVDSB from M/s Bharti Airtel Ltd. • 04 Mbps (1:1) Internet Leased Link at SMVDSB from M/s Reliance Communication Ltd. • 3G Internet Data Card has been made available to the various units on the track for fast inter office communication.

• Installation and Management of Proxy Servers for providing Internet services to various units in Katra and Bhawan.

Networking at SMVDSB Establishing of Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) at Central office, YRC, Niharika, E&R, Banganga, Bhawan, Vaishnavi Dham, Saraswati Dham, ES and NES. 2 Mbps # Details of Locations for inter-connectivity.

Future Projects • Introduction of Heavy Server for better management of IT activities in SMVDSB. • Comprehensive networking of all establishment of SMVDSB. • Software up-gradation in various units of SMVDSB.

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2 Mbps (E1) connectivity link between Central Office and Bhawan.

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2 Mbps (E1) connectivity link between Central Office and Niharika.

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2 Mbps (E1) connectivity link between Central Office and Parchi Verification Counter, Banganga.

4 2 Mbps (E1) connectivity link between Central Office and Stores, Banganga.

your daily cup of hot tea with hot

e-governance news! log on to egov.eletsonline.com

June 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

Umang Narula

Chief Electoral Officer, Jammu & Kashmir

Technology for Flawless Elections

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&K is a border state with a hilly terrain, so it must be challenging to conduct elections here. Tell us about the initiatives that you have taken for conducting smooth elections.

In J&K, there are 6 Parliamentary seats and 87 State Assembly seats. Elections are conducted according to the Representation of the People Act, 1950 for Parliament and the J&K Peoples Representation Act, 1957 for the State Assembly. The basic initiative that we have taken has to do with the electoral role management. In J&K, the situation is somewhat different as compared to what it is in other states. Here the entire electoral roll is in Urdu language. This led to some difficulty for us, as we could not adapt our existing software for this language. Now we have developed a special font through which the electoral roll can be digitised in Urdu. The Electoral Roll Management System (ERMS) enables the Chief Electoral Officer to maintain ‘Electoral Roll’ (Voter List) of the state in a standardized and uniform database as specified by the Election Commission of India. This has facilitated an effective and error free Election process in the entire state, witnessed during the elections to J&K State Assembly in 2008 and the Parliament in 2009.

What are the key benefits of automation that you have carried out?

“We have introduced computerisation at every level with the aim of providing a number of services to the electors of the state,” says Umang Narula

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The Electoral Roll Management System (ERMS) enables the CEO to maintain the complete electoral roll of state. Automa-

In Person

tion has reduced the manual work, time and expenses, streamlined the operation and hence increased efficiency, transparency and productivity. It has also facilitated publication of accurate and timely electoral rolls and EPIC cards.

You have also introduced a system through which new voters can enrol themselves online. Tell us about it.

The online system of enrolment is proving quite successful in J&K. This is basically an e-filing facility. Any person, who wants to enrol himself as a new voter or make a modification in his earlier enrolment, can go online and fill up an online form. The form will come back to us at the backend and get processed. The entire process of new voter registration or an addition, modification or deletion is done through the digital medium only. The online applications reach the field officers who can approve or reject the request on basis of facts and documents.

The online system has led to the electoral rolls in the state becoming very secure. No one can make any changes in the electoral roll without putting in their digital signatures and every activity is monitored and recorded. We are also putting our entire electoral roll online on our website. The electoral roll can be accessed in both English and Urdu.

Mobile telephones have now become a tool for empowerment of citizens. In what ways is the election department using this technology for citizen’s benefit?

From this year, the election department in J&K has launched a number of SMS based services. If you want to know the status of your application, you can SMS a particular number. Through SMS you can find your EPIC card number, the details of your booth level officer and of the local police station. The entire online process is very transparent, new voter names appear on the website, so that everyone can see who is being added in any particular constituency.

In many areas of the country, there have been complaints about fake electoral rolls. What are you doing to ensure better electoral roll management?

We have developed software for de-duplication of data. We operate databases under the instruc-

The Electoral Database Management System in J&K has the following major roles to play for the creation and maintenance of electoral roll: • Digitisation of Form 6 - for addition of new voter, Form 7 - for objection on inclusions and deletions, Form 8 - for corrections / modifications and Form 8A - for transposition within AC. • Keeping track of every citizen’s application /claim.

• Data transfer or uploading to centralized database location.

• De-duplication and searching of data/ record.

• Assignment of work to enquiry officers (by ERO) for received applications / claims for each part in each AC. • Processing of application (by ERO) after reporting of enquiry officers (acceptance/ rejection/ further clarification).

• Integration of Mother Rolls with Supplementary Rolls.

• Printing of a Part’s header page, electoral roll and MIS reports.

• Conversion of photographs from picture format to binary format and merging with alphanumerical data.

• Printing of Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC).

tion of Election Commission of India. As of now we are not allowed to share the database with any other entity. Our own software is proving quite useful for detecting duplicate data.

We have also been able to detect and rectify a number of junk errors. We are also doing latitude longitude mapping of all polling stations.

J&K faces problems of militancy and some other across the border incidents.

How difficult is it to conduct elections in the state?

On the whole we are managing the task of conducting elections quite well. Then there are many things in the backend that are needed for elections. For instance there is need for adequate security. The polling stations have to be managed well through good transportation systems, communication systems. Every district will have this. For maximum benefit such facilities have to be centralised. We have created a small data centre for ourselves here to run all the applications that can facilitate a smooth conducting of elections.

It has often been found that some candidates spend more money than they are entitled to.

What kind of monitoring system should be in place to ensure that such incidences do not happen?

The financial rules for the conduct of political

parties are laid down by the Election Commission of India. The Election Commission has observers on the ground to ensure that political parties and candidates do not overspend. So I don’t think this is a problem area. The rules and systems are already in place.

These days the people who vote in elections are generally from the poor class. The middle class is not voting and the upper class is not voting. Are you sending any message to mobilise voters?

We have an ongoing programme through which we are reaching out to the younger generation in urban areas. We are trying our best to make them aware of our democratic system. We are also asking them to enrol in the voter list.

To make youngsters register themselves in the voter list, we are tying up with the colleges. This ensures that those coming out of colleges are also registered voters. We are using the modern media to reach out to the voters. We have coverage in TV, radio and print media.

What is the percentage of average voters’ turnout over here?

Voter turnout was quite good. I think it exceeded 60 percent in the last Assembly elections. Recently we had the panchayat elections where the turnout exceeded 96 percent.

June 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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e-Gov Cloud initiatives & Virtualisation

VMware in India Balaji Rao, Director – Sales, VMware India & SAARC

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leader in virtualisation and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era, VMware established a presence in India in 2005. Today the company serves about 3,000 customers, employs some 2,000 staff and works with 100 partners.

Over the last eight years, offices have been opened in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad and Colombo in Sri Lanka, with R&D centers in Bangalore and Pune.

VMware recently also announced a multiyear investment of $120 million for a new R&D facility in Bangalore incorporating stateof-the-art premises, and which will accommodate 2,700 employees when ready in 2014.

VMware’s R&D operations in India make a significant contribution to the company’s portfolio of virtualization and cloud computing products, all designed to help VMware customers navigate the journey to a new era of IT. Developers in Bangalore and Pune contribute important components of VMware’s key technologies – the software-defined data center, hybrid cloud and end-user computing.

Growth in cloud usage in India The 3rd annual VMware Cloud Index, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting in October 2012, revealed a surge in cloud usage in India where half (50 percent) of respondents in the country stated that they had already adopted cloud solutions or approaches – a 25 percent growth over last year. An additional 30 percent of respondents declared that they were planning to deploy cloud solutions within the next 18 months, highlighting the growing cloud opportunity in India.The study also revealed that 54 percent of senior IT professionals surveyed in India consider cloud computing as a top business priority.

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Balaji Rao In India, while 80 percent of respondents believe that cloud computing will help enable their organizations to reduce IT costs, 82 percent believe that cloud computing will help them optimise their existing IT management and automation capabilities. Data privacy, legacy or “loss of control” (64 percent), integration with existing on-premise systems (62 percent) and security (60 percent) are the top barriers to cloud adoption in India.

Growing adoption of cloud solutions by the government sector Governments across the globe are dealing with new mandates and changing requirements from a diverse population -and are expected to deliver these services on reduced budgets – and India is no exception.Governments need innovative ways to improve and modernize IT to handle these challenges and virtualisation and cloud computing are the key.

Government organisations that work with limited funds are always looking at lower

costs and increase efficiencies, while improving transparency and improving public services.

A few areas that government organisations can benefit from cloud computing include: • Reduction in high capital expenses & lower operational expenses (power, real estate, maintenance) • Improvements in manageability allow ICT staff to be redeployed, while maintaining or expanding capabilities • Improved agility and responsiveness • Better processes that bring about transparency and consistency in the delivery of services VMware solutions help governments transform their IT departments into efficient, flexible enterprises that can respond faster to the needs of policymakers, agencies, and constituents while reducing IT infrastructure and operating costs. Virtualisation provides government organisations with an evolutionary path to cloud computing that preserves existing IT investments, security, and control.

Govt. departments can rely on VMware to: • Reduce datacenter and capital costs by as much as 60 percent • Cut the operating expenses around end user computing environment by up to 50 percent • Reduce time spent on routine administrative tasks by about a third • Reduce power, cooling and real estate needs to cut energy costs by up to 80 percent In India, VMware is seeing a growing adoption of its solutions by the government and public sector undertakings. It recently announced that the Government of Maharashtra has selected its virtualisation and cloud infrastructure technology for its MahaGov Cloud. MahaGov Cloud is an initiative by the Directorate of Information Technology (DIT), Government of Maharashtra to provide Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) to various state departments for their

Cloud e-Gov & Virtualisation initiatives

VMware’s vCloud Suite, unveiled at VMworld® 2012, is an integrated solution for building and managing a complete cloud infrastructure that meets IT’s most critical needs. vCloud Suite fulfils the promise of the software-defined datacenter by pooling industry-standard hardware and running each layer of the datacenter as software-defined services. It creates pools of servers, storage and networking with dynamically configurable security, availability and management services which can meet the needs of any and all applications.

Built-in self-service portal and catalogue, policy-based infrastructure and application provisioning and

e-governance initiatives. The Government of Maharashtra has deployed VMware vSphere and VMware vCloud Director to virtualise the state datacenter, which hosts the MahaGov Cloud. VMware was chosen after an extensive evaluation conducted by the Government of Maharashtra.

VMware’s three growth priorities for 2013 At a Strategic Forum for Institutional Investors earlier in March this year, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger outlined the company’s strategy, revealing more details about the company’s plans to deliver the software-defined datacenter expand its hybrid cloud offerings and empower the multi-device era.

In 2013, VMware will execute against three growth priorities: Redefining Infrastructure: The SoftwareDefined Data Center Through the software-defined data center VMware will extend the benefits of virtualisation to all areas of the data center – network, security, storage and management.

Through the softwaredefined data center VMware will extend the benefits of virtualisation to all areas of the data center – network, security, storage and management automated operations management help to complete the picture.

The Software-Defined Data Center is a unified data centre platform that provides unprecedented automation, flexibility, and efficiency to transform the way organisations deliver IT. Compute, storage, networking, security, and availability services are pooled, aggregated, and delivered as software, and managed by intelligent, policy-driven software. Self-service, policy-based provisioning, automated infrastructure, and application and business management complete the picture. The result is a data centre optimized for the cloud era,

providing unmatched business agility, the highest SLAs for all applications, dramatically simpler operations, and lower costs.

Delivering the Hybrid Cloud VMware also announced its plans to extend the software-defined data center with a hybrid cloud service offering that will allow its 500,000 customers to reap the benefits of the public cloud without changing their existing applications while using a common management, orchestration, networking and security model.

VMware expects to launch VMware vCloud® Hybrid Service™ later this year and intends to make it available through its existing channel, working with its extensive partner ecosystem to accelerate customers’ journey to the cloud.

Empowering the MultiDevice Era VMware recently unveiled the VMware Horizon Suite, a comprehensive platform for workforce mobility that will connect end users to their data, applications and desktops on any device without sacrificing IT security and control. With updates to VMware Horizon View and VMware Horizon Mirage, as well as a new product, VMware Horizon Workspace, the VMware Horizon Suite will enable IT organisations to empower users with a secure, easy-to-manage virtual workspace that delivers a consistent, compelling experience across devices.

VMware Horizon Suite connects end users to their data, applications, and desktops on any device while maintaining IT security and control and lowering TCO. By transforming technology silos into centralised services, IT can improve operational efficiency, security, and agility through policy-based management across the organisation. Moreover, end-users get a consistent experience across devices – in the office, at home, or on the go VMware Horizon Suite is a comprehensive platform for workforce mobility that connects end-users to their data, applications and desktops on any device without sacrificing IT security and control. It is comprised of three products – VMware Horizon View, VMware Horizon Mirage, and a new product, VMware Horizon Workspace. The VMware Horizon Suite allows IT organisations to empower users with a secure, easy-to-manage virtual workspace that delivers a consistent, compelling experience across devices.

June 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Enterprise e-Gov special featureof Vakrangee

Aspiring to be a leader in e-Governance space Commitment to e-Governance We are the only player in the e-Governance area who has the capability in the design/development / deployment of software application along with hardware and network commissioning. We also have large capabilities in the grass-root level enrolment of citizens under inhospitable and hostile conditions. As all the e-Governance projects now are based on outcome based models, our unique capability across the spectrum gives us the unique advantage of going solo on all Mission Mode Projects the Government of India. We are geared to execute all kinds of projects under the e-Governance action plan. The next three to four years will be full of action for Vakrangee Softwares Ltd.

Commitment to CSCs The Common Service Centre is a system that will completely transform the way government deals with people. Now instead of citizens visiting Government offices located in district or zilla headquarters, they can visit nearby Common Service Centres and seek a single window service for getting multiple tasks done.

The scheme envisages one Common Service Centre for every six villages, thus making their presence ubiquitous. Apart from the G2C, the CSC will also serve a mix of B2B and B2C services, making it a kind of a Village TouchPoint. Vakrangee has taken on a pioneering role in the implementation of the CSC scheme.

In Rajasthan, our CSCs are doing very good business. Our strategy is to aggregate more and more G2C , B2C and banking services into CSC network.

Commitment to Aadhaar It is one number that has a several life changing applications. - It will be the bedrock of all

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April 2011, several months behind the others.

But while we started late, we implemented at a scorching pace. Vakrangee agents could be found in the Andamans, in the littoral islands of Lakshadweep, in the South, the East and the North of the country. They worked with a missionary fervour, achieving numbers that were considered difficult if not impossible.

Today the results are out. Vakrangee is ranked as one of the largest implementer of Aadhaar in terms of data uploaded and total Aadhaar numbers generated.

Commitment to ePDS

Pradeep Kumar, CEO – Government Business, Vakrangee Softwares Ltd, speaking at the e-Maharashtra summit in Mumbai e-governance implementations, as it gives each Indian resident a unique identification number that will specify the entitlements he/she is eligible for.

• It will stop leakage of precious government resources by enabling direct transfers of subsidies and entitlements.

• It will transform the security scenario, and bring accountability to the system.

• It will drastically reduce the leakage in the financial system.

• It will enable the implementation of the Citizens Charter and facilitate institutional monitoring.

• It is the world’s biggest biometric database, even in its first phase.

The first phase for the implementation of Aadhaar began in September 2010. Vakarangee Softwares Ltd started in implementation in

Feeding a population of a billion plus people is an immensely challenging task. The Government of India has been distributing food grains at affordable prices to the people of India via 4.5 lakh Fair Price Shops spread across the country.

According to the planning commission estimates, more than 150 million families purchase commodities at Fair Price Shops through the year. Yet this is a system that is prone to leakages, resulting in the much needed grain finding its way to open markets to be sold at higher prices.

Fixing this leakage and ensuring the distribution of the grains to the rightfully entitled population is the task that the government has decided to undertake with the help of ICT as a tool.

The Government rolled out the Haryana and Chandigarh Smart Card Based Ration Card programme in the year 2008. The project involved the setting up of IT infrastructure at more than 300 offices of the Food and Supplies Department, along with 10,000 Fair Price Shops across the state. Vakrangee is solely carrying out procurement of POS (Point of Sale) machines, development of POS software for issuance of rations to citizens. Apart from this, Vakrangee is also undertaking massive data digitization across the state to build a database of all the citizens.

Food Security

Transparency in Public Distribution System Mohammed Abass Dar, Commissioner / Secretary to Government, Consumer Affairs & Public Distribution Department, Government of Jammu and Kashmir

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he State is obliged to ensure food security to every citizen. But food security can only be there if the State can ensure that food is available at affordable prices. Reformative steps have to be taken for improving the delivery system.

Only reforms can ensure that the leakages/ pilferages are minimised. The experiences in some States have shown that the ePDS projected are advisable and fructuous.

The Consumer Affairs & Public Distribution in J&K is charged with the responsibilities for timely supply and distribution of foodgrains and Essential Commodities in general and specifically, to people living in far flung, remote/ inaccessible areas. Functional issuance/management of Ration Cards, distribution of foodgrains, enforcement and regulation of essential supplies and prices/market control always remains the focus of attention.

The State being food consuming and deficit, very less quantities of wheat and paddy gets procured. We lack a proper mechanism for procurement as the volume of procurement is small. Whatever the foodgrains are required, same are being arranged through FCI and for further distribution through State Agency.

There is a set procedure for lifting, storing & transportation of the foodgrains up to the point of services at Sale outlets/Fair Price Shops.

Transportation is being carried out through Government owned State Road Transport Corporation.

In view of the topography of the State of J&K, many areas remain cut off with no road connectivity during winter months due to heavy snowfall. Thus the State has established a mechanism for dumping sufficient quantity of foodgrains for a period of six months well in

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Mohammed Abass Dar advance in already developed storage facilities.

Right on 15th October of every year, required advance storing is completed and there is no question of shortages. That is how the State ensures the food security and the availability even in remote and inaccessible areas.

To overcome the problems of pilferages/ leakages in the system besides placing of Vigilance Committees/ display of lists of Ration Card holders, scale of foodgrains along with price lists, the State Government has empowered and involved the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in receipt & distribution of foodgrains, issuance of Ration Cards, elimination of bogus Ration Cards and overall supervision and monitoring of functioning of Sale Outlets/Fair Price Shops.

J&K Public Service Guarantee Act, 2011 is a milestone in ensuring timely issuance of Ration Cards. Accountability in implementation of all these applications, helps in managing the transparency in the Public Distribution System (PDS).

By virtue of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, Government of India, passed on directions for shifting to ePDS (end-to-end computerisation) to all the States, a step with the mission to ensure

complete transparency in the system of food distribution right from lifting (FCI godowns) to delivery point of Sale Outlets/F.P. Shops.

Instructions/guidelines are continuously being conveyed by the Ministry of Food & Public Distribution and constantly monitored. Other Departments have also been roped in like NIC, Information Technology to help out the State.

Like other States, the Project ePDS (end-toend computerisation) formulation and submission had been taken well in time. An Apex level Committee headed by the Chief Secretary and Project Management Unit (PMU) headed by the Secretary CA&PD has been constituted to carry forward the mission mode project. Under Supply Chain Management component, the creation of database of storage godowns, PDS agencies, Fair Price Shops and hosting thereof on State information portal stands already completed within timeframe. Presently, digitisation of Ration Cards and creation of beneficiary data has been taken in hand through the State Information Technology Department and is under progress, which is expected to be completed within timeframe. For setting up of transparency information portal and grievances redressal mechanism, the toll free numbers have already been installed and Departmental websites launched. Training of the officials down to the level of Area Inspectors has already been conducted.

Funding for the Project is yet to be made available by the Ministry of Food & Public Distribution, however, the State Government had set the process of ePDS and is progressing.

Followed by the procurement of hardware, the FPS Automation shall be taken and expectedly to be completed within timelines of the Ministry and the whole system of ePDS shall be made functional. Definitely the ePDS with support of other electronic gadgets at different relevant steps shall help out to control the pilferages/ leakages, to a large extent.

In Person

Vimal Wakhlu

Chairman & Managing Director, Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd

Moving towards a networked world Vimal Wakhlu

G

ive us an overview of the work that TCIL is doing in India and abroad?

TCIL is a Government of India Enterprise which is engaged in talking India’s expertise in telecom and IT to the other developing nations of the world. The company is in operation for around 35 years, it was set up in 1978, and it has conducted operations in 80 countries including the whole of Africa, Middle East, Asia, and Far East. TCIL has been involved in some projects in the United Nations and in Europe. Company’s core competence is in the fields of Switching, Transmission Systems, Cellular services, Rural Telecommunication, Optical fibre based backbone transmission systems, IT & Networking Solutions, Application Software, e-Governance, 3G Network, WIMAX Technology and also Civil construction projects. In the recent past, TCIL has diversified into infrastructure projects, such as those on infrastructure.

Tell us about the Optical Ground Wire (OPGW) projects that you are executing in Algeria.

TCIL is executing large OPGW Projects in Algeria for replacement of ground wire of the HT transmission system with OPGW under live line conditions on existing 40 nos 220 KV power transmission lines.

These 220KV power transmission line cover a total distance of about 3000 Kms

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In Person

and pass through terrorist infested areas in mountains, forests and deserts of all the 42 wilayas (districts) spanning Algeria. OPGW stands for Optical Ground Wire. The characteristic of the Optical Fibre is that there is no effect of high voltage induction on the data being transmitted through the Fibres. Hence this characteristic of the Fibre is exploited to transmit the data along the high power transmission lines.

TCIL is well known for implementing complex projects.

Tell us about some of the most important projects that you have implemented.

We have implemented a complex network project very recently. The project entails the establishment of a virtual connectivity network between India and Africa. The successful commissioning of this Pan African project is a great honour for TCIL. With the execution of this project, TCIL has developed core competence in the emerging Tele-education and Telemedicine domains. As of 31st March 2012, 48 member countries of the African Union have signed the agreement with TCIL for participating in the Pan African e-Network project, and TCIL has already commissioned the system in 47 countries. There is a telemedicine medicine project we have established again in these 48 countries and the experts from India are able to advice their counterparts through this. Doctors

Landmark Telecommunications Projects by TCIL • Rehabilitation of Telecom systems in Kuwait after Gulf War. • Emergency Restoration of Telecom Network in 11 Provincial Capitals for MOC • Myanmar Post & Telecommunications project for implementation of 12000 lines for Cor DECT System and OFC Transborder Link • SDH Optical Fibre ring network in Mauritius.

• Feasibility study of Regional African Satellite communication System (RASCOM) on behalf of ITU. • Local Switching, Access Network and Jn Network, Transmission, Subscriber Line Management System for Zimbabwe.

• SDH M/W system for Ethiopia.

• WLL project in Madagascar.

• Operation and maintenance of GSM Network for Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

• OPGW project for Sonelgaz, Electricity Authority of Algeria • EASTWEST SDH OFC project in Nepal.

• Consultancy for building of Telecom Network based on DWDM Technology for GAIL. • GSM Cellular Network in Bhutan • FTTH Project in Kuwait

TCIL is also doing some work for the NOFN project. Please tell us about it.

Even though Telecommunications is the domain identified with TCIL across various geographies it has worked, it has also developed expertise in the field of Post & Telegraph, Police & Defence, e- Governance, Banking & Insurance, Oil and Power through successful project executions. TCIL had also been appointed as Consultant for National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) Project to formulate a basic report on the project, covering techno-

“4G will witness higher uptake than 3G, as the latter has not been able to promote data services” can directly see their patients through the telemedicine network and diagnose their illnesses.

The Telemedicine network provides connectivity of telemedicine set-up of CARE Hospital, Hyderabad with two Telemedicine centres in Ethiopia, which enables the Indian medical specialists to provide on-line medical consultation to the doctors in the tele-medicine centres in Ethiopia. In the present network, Black Lion Hospital at Addis Ababa and one remote hospital in Nekempte have been chosen to receive Telemedicine services from the CARE Hospital, Hyderabad.

logical options feasibility, network architecture, network operation, implementation planning, interconnection and inter operability issues in a multi-operator scenario. The report has since been submitted to the Core Team. On successful completion of the project, TCIL has been designated as Project Management Consultant by the High Level Committee for the execution of NOFN Project.

What are the projects which you are doing in J&K? In J&K we are primarily involved with capacity

building work. We have trained many people in project management skills. Before that we have laid optical fibres for IRCON which has been extended up to Baramullah. We have also installed towers for Doordarshan in Kashmir in number of locations. We have done some optical fibre projects even for BSNL apart from IRCON. The problem which the country is facing right now is that the project management skills are missing the result is that the projects are facing delays, cost over runs and quality. If you want people to become conscious about it, you have no option but to go in for project management. So basic idea of this was familiarising people.

In your opinion what is the business potential of 3G. What kind of expectations do you have from 4G? 4G will witness higher uptake than 3G, as the latter has not been able to promote data services. 3G services are a passing phase in India, where as 4G will offer improved streaming for services such as video-on-demand, which will encourage users to opt for them. Globally, 4G has been launched in several countries. In India, long term evolution (LTE) advanced networks hold the promise to reduce the energy demand from telecom networks in rural areas, as base stations operating on this technology have significantly lower power requirements, which can be met through a small solar panel. This will reduce dependence on the erratic grid supply at rural sites.

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Good Governance

e-Governance

How can we make it a Success?

“If we remove “vernance” from e-Governance only e-Go is left. And one of the important causes of failure of e-Governance is EGO,” says Dara Singh Bali Dara Singh Bali, Additional Chief Executive Officer, Jammu & Kashmir e-Governance Agency, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

D

ealing with Government is usually complicated, slow and confusing.

Government typically is associated with complex hierarchies, elaborate procedures and slow decision making. It is not going to be easy to get government systems systematically on to an information technology platform.

Most difficult of all is the task of getting employees to embrace the new systems and to modify embedded attitudes at work. Once this is addressed then any kind of systems or technology can easily be implemented.

Today people hesitate to go to any government office because they feel they wouldface harassment. If they are spared this ordeal, if citizens can sit back at home and interact with government departments through online systems, then that would be a great achievement. Implementation of such online systems for governance will lead to transparency and accountability also. Citizens will be able to enjoy efficient and improved delivery of services. There can be robust monitoring mechanism and an effective way of grievance redressal also.

Failure as stepping stone to success In spite of efforts put in by government, the successes in e-governance projects are yet to be achieved. As there is a famous saying, “every failure is stepping stone to success”. I have been in the field of IT in the State from the beginning and I would like to share my experiences regarding various issues, challenges and successes. The reasons for failure of e-Governance projects are anything but technological. Technology solutions are available and developed for any problem. But as they say, it is not the machine but the man behind the machine that leads to success or failure.

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Dara Singh Bali

Good Governance

Achieving the benefits of e-Governance may not be easy, as it goes far beyond mere computerisation of government processes. Its successful implementation poses technical challenges and it requires a fundamental change in the working environment and strategic outlook of the government. Essentially we face the challenge of re-engineering the government processes and functions; we also need to address the related issues of new responsibilities for civil servants, businesses and citizens.

The main success of the project depends on the skill and expertise with which it is planned and conceptualised. It is often felt that government departments shy away from spending a few lakhs in preparation of project plan for e-Governance projects worth hundreds of crores. And at times unskilled individual decides the plan and the plan fail. The plans are made without clear objectives, unclear roles and responsibilities.

There are no parameters for financial controls.

Areas like risk assessment, feasibility assessment, prioritization and strategy are not covered.

The cause of project failure is often over-ambition. The project consultants generally promise the moon to the departments. They expect that whatever they suggest will be implemented in government. They don’t realise the fact that the government has its own limitations. There are procedural and departmental constraints; there are also the legal constraints and at times even constitutional constraints. Sometimes consultants without knowing the ground reality propose solutions which are redundant, not practical and even not achievable. As a result their reports lie in the shelves of government offices catching dust. There always exists a vision and reality gap between what is proposed and what can be implemented.

The initial over expectations created by consultants leads to difficulties in managing customer expectations later. The reality and vision gap is the step towards e-Governance failure.

Successful e-Governance Implementations It is often sited that the project has failed because the staff at the lower level is not ready to adapt to the computerised environment.

However, the successes of computerisation in Railways, Airlines, Posts and Public Sector Banks have proved otherwise. Therein the Dara Singh Bali staff at the bottom is also using computers and the changes are very fast. Then why are the changes in various government departments not taking place ? It is because of the top lead-

Motivated to achieve success Motivated group is a pre-condition for the successful implementation of e-Governance. Ideally, a combination of technical skills and intimate knowledge of the organization is required for successful design and implementation of e-Governance systems. There will be a need therefore to guide motivated group who can bridge the gap between management and technology. For this to happen there should be intensive interaction programs for giving exposure to senior and middle levels of management. These programs have to be organised through various competent agencies which shall focus on the following subjects: i. Trends in Technology ii. Case studies of states undertaking large scale computerization. iii. Office automation, data base management tools and presentation tools. iv. Project Management software. v. Networks and internet tools. vi. Telecommunications

ership. The departments in government are mostly headed by individuals who are near retirement. Majority of the senior range officers have just few years in service and therefore they are not keen on any new initiative or a reform process. This has been happening for many years. They are lovers of status quo and they develop resistance to change.

With no support from the top leadership the e-Governance projects do not get necessary encouragement leading to failure Further even if one secretary brings in some reform, there may be a succeeding secretary within a short period, who might end up bringing back the British way of working. Further, at times there are individuals with vested interest who try to de-rail the projects. At time the leadership appointed for project coordination is having inadequate skill which leads towards e-Governance project failure.

Most of the e-Governance projects are individual driven. There are even statements and suggestions by various government departments that the tenure of e-Governance project leaders should be fixed for the timeframe of the project.

But the approach of individualising the projects is not appropriate and leads to project failures. The project leaders who institutionalise projects are better project leaders than anyone else. The projects which are driven by individuals die after the individuals leave the organisations. But projects which have been institutionalised would stay for long period. Further, unless the back-end integration of systems takes place, the front end efforts may not lead to any success. The integration of various departments, supporting applications and databases is a must for effective front office results. The true e-governance application will be

achieved only when the front office is integrated with the backend application. Creating front offices without any back office integration is another cause of e-governance failure.

Any business model which is not self-supporting is never everlasting like we have seen in case of CICs of the State. The same applies to e-Governance projects as well. The government subsidised/funded projects may sail through for some time but in the long run may not sustain themselves. The projects actually require a business case, wherein even the private partners can participate and take the responsibility of the project’s success.

The problem of “EGO” If we remove “vernance” from e-Governance only EGO is left. And one of the important causes of failure of e-Governance is EGO. Herein ego is not only of the individuals but of government departments as well. At times the line departments do not cooperate with the IT Department; they are often of the opinion that the IT department is interfering in their own departmental functions.

There may be even conflict amongst various departments for the subject allocation of e-Governance. All these lead to a lot of EGO clashes and at times failure of e-Governance implementation.

And in case a junior officer hurts the ego of a senior officer then he may be even thrown out, leading to jeopardised e-Governance.

The concept of PPP is often misinterpreted to mean Public money for Private Partners. In fact the projects where the private partners are dependent on government money are not true PPP projects. True Public Private Partnership is an equal investment of private partners in government projects. This partnership may be June 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

43

Good Governance

in form of manpower, technology, resources etc.

However various groups interpret that by involving the private partner the government is draining public money to private partner. Therefore care must be taken on proper implementation of such partnerships. A failure in associating with a right partner may lead to project failure.

The annual budget allocation for any head in government lapses at the end of each financial year. Further, if funds allocated in one year remain un-utilised it is very difficult to get funds under the same head in the next financial year.

Majority of the government departments who have IT funds allocation therefore spend a lot of funds on purchasing of hardware in the end of financial year without realising that the hardware purchased will be required in future or not. This race to spend funds without purpose defeats the purpose of many e-Governance initiatives. The project runs into cost overshoots because of purchase of unnecessary hardware.

The hardware becomes technologically outdated by the time the application is developed.

The budget utilisation syndrome is therefore another cause of e-Governance failure.

Visualising large complex centralised projects may also lead to project failure. Such projects not only take long time to implement but because of their cross departmental linkages are difficult to implement. Projects which spread over various levels of Government are further complex and complicated.

Who gets the credit?

Everyone takes credit for success and no one takes responsibility for failure. There are e-Governance projects which may end up in some bottlenecks and at time are handed to new teams.

New teams, instead of building already fallen system, generally start a blame game for the previous team. The first team blames the second and the second the first. The blame games ends up in complete failure of the project.

Electronic mail is a good starting point for launching employees on to computerisation.

The use of email would therefore be encouraged and all employees should eventually be provided access to email facilities. This would also help the transition from the paper based government of the present, to an electronic government of the future. This will really have a great impact on the mindset of the employees who are still far behind in Information Technology.

For introducing Information Technology on a large scale in Government it is advisable to first

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Avoiding project failures We can avoid project failures if we keep following factors in mind: i. Understanding requirements. ii. Defining projects scope iii. Defining the deliverables iv. Teamwork a) Developing the Goal Oriented Team b) Training for the team v. Leadership vi. Business and technical knowledge vii. Commitment and involvement from team members viii. Negotiation skills ix. Vendor management x. Risk taking capabilities (Proper Disaster / Risk Management)

take up in-house capability building. The approach to introduction of Information Technology in government will therefore revolve around a radical structuring of all apex organisations apart from extensive training of staff at all levels.

An attempt has to be made to systematically identify officers having good understanding of Information Technology, who could form the core of department system design teams. These individuals could act as prime movers for the process of computerisation in different departments. This will also minimise the need for hand holding once computerisation is taken up.

Awareness programs are also needed to be conducted for all other level employees. These programs would be aimed at removing feelings of insecurity and technophobia in the minds of the employees. Any employee or section of employees who would show interest in acquiring computer related skills, deserves to be provided encouragement.

Fighting Delays There are ample studies that most large projects never complete on time or even fail. This can happen due to delays, which in turn lead to cost over runs that are multiple times the projected amount. This further causes dissatisfaction and de-motivation amongst the team members who deploy it and of course the final users of the project. So whether you like it or not, missed deadlines, cost over runs and dissatisfied users are a part and parcel of your life if you are heading a project. They are the parts of the package and one can minimise them using the right project management practices.

The main reason why a lot of projects fail is bad

planning. So your work starts by creating a proper plan. Usually, this would comprise of the project’s definition, a detailed work program and how it will be managed. It is like setting up a network. You would start with a broad definition of what kind of network you want to setup, followed by a detailed lay out of the network map, and process of laying it out. You will then put in the necessary resources, define its scope and allocate responsibilities to the team that will manage it.

The e-Governance projects should be properly conceptualised and planned. If required, help of an external agency may be taken. While defining the scope of the project the situation on the ground may be considered and efforts must also be taken to ensure to understand the limitations in which the government operates. The top leadership should be highly motivated for the project. The efforts should be to concentrate on Governance than on IT component. The consultation should be spread over all stakeholders and proper timelines should be kept.

Efforts should be to institutionalised the projects than individualise it. The projects should automatically continue even after the individuals leave.

Government must respect innovation and protect the reformers. The politics of e-Governance must be avoided and it should be ensured that there are no blame games. Radical and big changes must be discouraged and sudden surprises must be left out of scope of e-Governance. Efforts should be there to have right public private partners who may lead to e-Governance success.

The role of the State IT departments is to encourage and facilitate e-Governance and act as a change driver; establish the IT infrastructure including the data centre, network and the CSCs for use by other government departments; build generic and application software for use by multiple departments; act as the technology consultant to government departments and build standards and meta data.

J&K on the right path Now J&K is going in the right direction, given that under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), State Data Centre (SDC) has been established. The SDC is one of the core infrastructure components that will lead to consolidation of services, applications, and infrastructure to provide efficient electronic delivery of G2G, G2C, and G2B services. SDCs will act as mediator and convergence point between open unsecured public domain and sensitive government environment and it will also provide services for governments’ own functioning.

Mobile Governance

Time for JK Pulse Government of J&K is implementing diverse e-Governance projects for empowering the citizens living in far-flung areas of the state Shafqat Bashir, Principal Consultant (Head SeMT), Government of Jammu & Kashmir

G

overnment of J&K started an initiative called JK Pulse to monitor ongoing projects using mobile technologies on open platforms.

This application has been developed on open source Android platform and is being used by field level officers, currently in five districts.

The rollout of the JK PULSE for the BADP program was done in December 2012, initially for the two remote pilot districts of Rajouri and Poonch. The telecom connectivity in these districts is not very good; hence it was challenging to rollout this application. There were many sites where there was no connectivity.

In order to make the project a success the IT department provided in-house support to these districts and facilitated the rollout.

Empowering the citizens When the Village Level Worker clicks the picture, the application geo tags and time stamps the picture. The VLW has the option of entering

In this way, the information that takes days (at times months) is available instantly to concerned officers. There is no need for any paper based reports thereby making one vertical of government functioning paperless. Further, reports can be generated which shows pictures and all comments associated with every visit, which clearly shows the progress of a particular project.

First implementation of the project was done for Border Area Development Program. It has been rolled out in five of the 11 border districts.

Remaining six border districts will be rolled out in due course of time.

Benefits of m-Governance Shafqat Bashir any text (comments) if he wants to. The application then uploads it to central server. The update is now available to every user higher up in hierarchy. BDO (or first level reviewer) gets a notification of upload on his dashboard. He has the option to add his inputs to the upload.

Similarly, other officers up in the hierarchy have the option to add their inputs on the upload.

Features of JK PULSE application a

system once the device enters a zone where

Inspecting officer can click photographs

connectivity is present automatically.

of the location and can give real time comments and status report of the scheme. b

c

the Access level is secured i.e. user of one

Tags (Location coordinates) and Time Stamp

block/ district is unable to enter into other

(Date and Time) so that there is minimal

block/ district. Level1 - Lowest Level, Level2

chance of status tampering.

– BDO/AE etc, Level3 – DC and Level4 – Director BADP/Sr. Administration.

The Picture / Status once captured by the f.

There is a provision of backward

delete or modify.

communication where the Upper level

The connectivity challenges are addressed

officers can send messages to the lower

as application works in ofline mode as well.

levels in case there is a priority for the task.

The inspection report gets uploaded in the

46

The levelled hierarchy is maintained where

The Pictures are embedded with the Geo

inspecting officer are out of his control to d

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Adoption of m-Governance is always a challenge; most of these electronic solutions which are initiated don’t make the grade due to the lack of interest of the people who would use the application or due to the little Government backing for the same. The Government of J&K has moved one step ahead in this domain also where a Government Officer has been issued to monitor the Border Area development schemes through the mobile application (JK PULSE).

With the success of JK Pulse in BADP, IT Department has extended the program to include the inspection of Khidmat Centres. JaKeGA team has been provided with all infrastructure for this purpose. They travel to a Khidmat Centre, click the picture of VLE in front of the Centre and record their comments. As for BADP, JK Pulse app geo tags and time stamps the picture. Once closed, the picture is uploaded and is available to higher management instantly. Over a period of time, this data can be used for various decision support systems considering that Khidmat Centres are going to be the service delivery points for all e-Services.

The well being of Khidmat Centres will be critical at a time when projects like e-District would be rolling out their services in full swing.

This project can be extrapolated to any other department in a very short time with customisation.

SSDG

Bringing government to the citizen’s doorstep Munish Chandan, Senior Consultant, SeMT, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

S

tate Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) is a unique scheme for empowering the citizens. It will lead to effective e-Governance, and thereby bring positive change in the way the citizens interact with the government departments. The change here is not small; rather it is a paradigm shift.

The traditional old manual system is giving way to a more efficient and transparent electronic system of governance.

The SSDG has been formulated under the National e-Governance Plan of the Government of India. It is envisaged that State Portal (SP) along with State Service Delivery Gateway (SSDG) will be developed and implemented so that citizens are provided with outlets where they can access the services under a single interface mechanism in the form of the Portal. Core infrastructure components of the state like SDC, SWAN, etc and the related application and computing Infrastructure will be leveraged through the CSCs for the ultimate benefits of the citizens.

Vision to ease out the Manual process The primary focus is to provide easy, anywhere and anytime access to Government Services (both Information & Transactional) thereby, reducing number of visits of citizens to a Government office, reducing the administrative burden and service fulfillment time & costs for the Government, Citizens & Businesses and reducing direct interaction of citizen with the Government and encourage – “e” interaction and more efficient communication.

Munish Chandan

ments about having everything transparent and accountable is a major hurdle. In some officials there is resistance to acclimatize to the new technological trends which are indeed much easier to use. Connectivity is another bottleneck, in certain cases connectivity issues get aggravated due to rough terrain.

State has made advances in building the SWAN which will undoubtedly be the lifeline of these G2C Services. The digitisation of the legacy data is also a challenge and is to be looked into seriously. Lastly the core infrastructure components have to be in place before the dream of complete e Service cycle is complete.

Mileage and Distance so far

Force to Move things

J&K has started late; whereas many states are well ahead and have many services operational, we are still to get our first G2C e-Service through SSDG. Currently 7 e-Services have been developed for 3 departments - Health, Social Welfare, and Employment. We have carried out the ground work by building the capacity of the officers by providing them necessary gap infrastructure and hands-on on these Services and process flows. Now the task remaining is of the porting of the gateway application in the State data centre post getting the STQC compliance and then the launch is not far.

The soft /test launch was initiated just in two districts; one block each, and the progress is commendable - in just a couple of months the transaction count is over 1200. The next set of the services to be selected would be from the Public service Guarantee Act of the J&K State and the vision is to have as much as 30 services operational within next 2 years with complete integration with the departmental

Strong Administration in the IT department has been a blessing and most of the things have moved in last couple of years only. Further noteworthy consultancy to the state administration at various levels by the SeMT is ensuring appropriate balance between costs, risks, long term and shortterm benefits and is facilitating effective decision making. The department is working hard on the digitisation of legacy data of many departments through the local empanelled companies. The cloud ready SWAN and Data centre would ensure the reach of these services to the remotest corners of the state with minimum effort.

Once a robust architecture and practically improvised and stable system on the delivery of e Services is at hand the plugging in of the other departmental services would be easy. To conclude it would be pertinent to mention that the leap of the state towards e governance would not have been possible without the strong administrative push and the combined zeal to see J&K performing as one of the top states in IT & eGov domain. If continued, the day is not far when we would be proudly sitting on top on the country’s eGov pyramid.

Hurdles in the way The trepidation in certain government depart-

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Secure Gov

Security Operations Centres (SOC) Dalvinder Singh, Senior Consultant, SeMT, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

S

ecurity Operations Centres (SOC) enable operators to analyse threats, generate early warnings, prepare intervention programmes and manage crises. Security Operations Centres form the heart of any security infrastructure where data is fused, events correlated and warnings issued.

Security entails multiple pillars, such as Information Privacy, Confidentiality, Integ-

rity, Authenticity, Non-Repudiation and Availability. With the inherent complexity involving multiple partners, agencies, registrars, users; multiple access modes with unparalleled number of data records; one needs to have a holistic approach for identifying and addressing security concerns. The security approach emanates from the scope of the entire eco system and would directly influence the security landscape for assets and/or information.

Security is critical for this ecosystem, It seeks to manage risks on a continuous basis

Key Responsibilities of Information Security Governance and Compliance Office should include: Design security policy framework (including policies, processes, procedures) Log collection, monitoring and correlation of all audit trail events Design security compliance framework Conduct vulnerability assessment, penetration testing and application security testing • Conduct Information Security Review and Evaluation of any new system • Component/ technology being commissioned into customer network • Conduct security review of any changes to the existing Infrastructure • Drive and Impart Information Security Training & Awareness Sessions.

• Define Risk Assessment Methodology and associated templates. Conduct information risk assessment on critical assets • Document security baseline standards for all system components • Define, measure and report security metrics • Define and maintain IT Disaster Recovery strategy. Create DR test plans and conduct DR tests on a regular basis • Define audit roadmap, conduct security audits, all third parties/partners of customer and provide results in a dashboard • Take inputs from fraud detection engine and integrate these alerts into overall incident management framework • Coordinate primarily with Cert-In and other such nodal government agencies to handle fraud incidents • Monitor possible external threats to the customer Eco-system, provide advisory information, recommendations and manage implementation changes to mitigate such threats.

• Regularly review new security best practices, technologies, standards and advise customer • Undertake Forensic Investigations into Data breaches to ascertain root cause and provide recommendations on the necessary changes to People, Process and Policies accordingly. Provide Expert witness for judicial purposes • Define and advise security controls for customer infrastructure by virtue of being identified as Critical ICT Infrastructure under the provisions of IT Act 2008 • • • •

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Dalvinder Singh and in a more sophisticated, systematic and professional manner. Towards achieving this, one should intends to further strengthen its Information Systems Security by setting SOC for continuous review, monitoring, and mitigation of IT risks, threats and vulnerabilities.

Designing, building, and managing SOC can dramatically improve the ability of an organisation to recognise in a timely manner and take necessary action to safeguard itself against malicious information security events.

A SOC can also assist in ensuring organizations leverage the full value of the often expensive investment in security technology and meet multitude regulatory compliance requirements.

Approaching the challenge across the full scope of People, Process and Technology will ensure the SOC is up to the task of effectively and efficiently recognizing and responding to malicious events.

e-Gov Initiatives initiatives

JaKeGA – Improving Lives through e-Governance Information Technology is having enormous influence on the lives of the people. It has revolutionised the nature of human interaction and has become a prime tool of effective governance. Information Technology is now close to becoming the most important driver for government services Saima Shafi Mir, Project Manager, Jammu & Kashmir e-Governance Agency, Information Technology Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir Imran Sufi, Project Manager Jammu & Kashmir e-Governance Agency, Information Technology Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

T

he Jammu and Kashmir e-Governance Agency (JaKeGA) was formed under the Information Technology Department in J&K to function as an intrinsic arm of the government with a mandate to drive e-Governance in the State. The primary objective of the JaKeGA is to design, deliver and administer e-governance projects by providing necessary administrative, financial, legal and technical framework in the state. JaKeGA also facilitates the establishment of e-service centres

throughout the state through suitable publicprivate partnerships to ensure that the public gets the desired information and e-services at their doorsteps. e-Governance is a way of taking governance to such a high level that people can access all kinds of government services from the comfort of their home. The time is now for a major launch of e-Governance initiatives in J&K. This is because, the people in the state, especially the youth, who are the major proportion in the state are very techsavvy. They use the internet like any other commodity of daily use. It is the mandate of JaKeGA to do all it can for creating an environment that is conducive for e-Governance implementations.

State Data Centre, Jammu

Saima Shafi Mir Vision of Digital Governance The employees of JaKeGA are motivated by the vision of bringing ease to the life of common citizens. We recognise the fact that through the effective use of ICT, we can make governance easy, cost effective, and save lot of tax payer’s money. The people in J&K are politically aware; they like to keep a close eye on the way in which they are being governed.

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e-Gov e-Gov initiatives Initiatives

e-Governance will bring more transparency and people will feel more empowered. When effective e-Governance is there, lot of misconceptions that people have about ministers and officials will get removed.

Under the dynamic leadership of Shri Bipul Pathak, Commissioner/ Secretary, Science & Technology and Information Technology Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir, all the employees of JaKeGA hope to create many new e-Governance services for the good of the people.

The government of India has initiated the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) for achieving the vision of e-Governance in the country. The NeGP aims to make all Government Services accessible to common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets. This will ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability. The basic needs of the common man can be met in more affordable manner. NeGP also provides support to the e-Governance initiatives being taken up by the Central and State Government Departments (including Local Bodies).

NeGP is an ambitious programme of the Government of India aimed at improving the quality, accessibility and effectiveness of government services to citizens and businesses with the help of Information and Communication Technology. It is a national level initiative which proposes rapid deployment and scale-up of select “Mission mode Projects”, creation of national IT backbone for fast, reliable & efficient connectivity, data storage & access and Common Service Centres for delivery of citizen services, creation

State Data Centre, Jammu

e-Governance plan (NeGP). The data centre has been developed as a reliable and secure infrastructure for hosting and managing e-Governance applications for the different departments and deliver services quickly and effectively.

State Data Centre (SDC) is one of the important elements of the core infrastructure for supporting e- Governance initiatives in the J&K state. SDC will provide many facilities like central repository of the state, secure Data Storage, Disaster Recovery. The most important data set of National Population Register (NPR) will also be stored by the Information Technology Department in this data centre.

State Data centre is equipped with SAN storage, Blade servers, offering dynamic scalability as their demand grows including security related requirements and uptime of the highest order.

Common Service Centres Imran Sufi of Internet portals for 24x7 access to government information and services.

Building New Infrastructure J&K has taken a leap into the digital governance with the establishment of the State Data Centre. Jammu & Kashmir State Data Centre (SDC) was inaugurated in April by Hon’ble Minister of State, Information Technology Department Shri Feroz Ahmad Khan. The centre has been setup by the Information Technology Department under National

The Common Service Centres (CSC) are the front-end of e-Governance plan as these centres are the access points for citizens to e-Governance services. Under this scheme, over 1109 CSCs are being rolled out, and spread across all the villages of the State. The location of the CSCs has been strategically planned and spread in such a manner that each village will either have a CSC within it or close to it. Usually one CSC is there to service a cluster of 6 villages.

The CSC scheme is to be implemented in a PPP framework. The J&K Bank is the agency in J&K that has been entrusted with the task of rolling out the CSCs. The target was to roll out 1109, out of these 801 CSCs have already been rolled out. Given our difficult terrain, dispersed population and difficult political-socio conditions, the rolling out of 75 percent of the CSCs is also a great achievement. The village level Entrepreneur- the CSC operator is the touch point for a common man.

In order to successfully roll out e-Governance projects, it is essential to meet the demands for connectivity. As part of the e-Governance plan, the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) has been envisaged as the converged backbone network for providing data, voice and video communication throughout the state and is expected to cater to the information communication requirements of all the departments.

With the development of SDC, the creation of SWAN for connectivity, and the proliferation of CSCs, the future of e-Governance can only be bright in the state.

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e-Gov initiatives

Upcoming Projects from JaKeGA KM Portal Visitor Management System Government of Jammu and Kashmir, through IT Department, intends to have a Visitor Management System to keep track of the visitors coming in out of the secretariat premises. The software would be hosted in the State Data Centre and accessible through Intranet. The system should have the capabilities to extend the same over internet and share database.

Features of the proposed Visitor Management System (i) Registration of visitor through online system along with the photograph (ii) Generation of a visitor slip which will have the photograph of the visitor along with other details like name, department to be visited etc. (iii) It should auto-detect the face of the visitors who have already enrolled/ registered. (iv) It should have the facility to deny entry to visitors who have been black listed. (v) Should be able to generate various customized reports like Daily visitor report, Department wise visitor report, visitor frequency report etc. (vi) Should be able to accept images and detect them in case a live match is found. This would be helpful to detect the terrorists and other wanted people by the police/ security agencies. (vii) The system should be able to detect minor changes in the face like person with beard, moustache, turban; etc should be recognized as the same person.

GAD Cabinet Records Computerisation General Administration Department (GAD) of Jammu and Kashmir intends to digitize the cabinet records (More than 3,75,000 pages approximately) of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Jammu and Kashmir e-Governance Agency (JaKeGA) will be implementing the project for GAD. The entire project has been divided into two parts. Part I consists scanning and digitization of cabinet records currently lying with GAD. Part II would consist of providing Client Name with web based Document Management and Retrieval software. Total of 50 concurrent users are likely to use the application software. However, the application should have capabilities of enhancing the user base.

Key objectives of this project are (i) Scanning and digitizing of cabinet records lying with GAD. (ii) MIS reports for monitoring Work In Progress of digitization process. (iii) Scanning and image assisted data entry software for digitization of documents being generated on a daily basis. (iv) Retrieval and Archival through a web based Document Management System (DMS). (v) Secure and User Role based access to DMS. (vi) Audit Trail for Efficient monitoring & control. (vii) Effective internal information exchange. (viii) Building a knowledge base. (ix) Save physical document storage space.

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Government of Jammu and Kashmir, through IT Department, intends to have a knowledge management portal wherein all the departments can share content like orders, circulars or other documents like research reports, reference material etc that may be of value to their respective department, to other departments or to general public. Sharing should be restrictive and moderated as publishing unwanted content may lead to embarrassment to one or more departments.

General public shall have a view of public documents without having the need to log into the portal. General public will not be able to add any documents to the portal. Government officials will be allowed to post documents and they will be allowed to classify the documents. Depending upon classification, the document will be available either to the respective department, or to all departments or to general public.

It is therefore proposed to have a knowledge management portal wherein user access will be controlled by secure login ID and password. The portal would be hosted in the State Data Centre and accessible through internet as well as Intranet.

Knowledge Management portal shall offer a centralised place to organize the assets and share to all users across office locations. The KM repository shall comprise of Document, Articles, Newsletters, notices, research reports, reference materials etc.

Authorized users will create and manage the KM articles. All KM contents will be based on taxonomy (categorization) framework and also will pass through workflow review and approval process.

The final content will be published in the portal.

The solution shall manage complete lifecycle of electronic record management system. It will allow users to categorize the repositories and classify the records. The records manager will manage government records from the capture and authoring of documents, to their processing, management, archiving and final disposition. It will support records in any format from source-applications-created as well as human-created electronic record, powerful indexing, searching and disposal capabilities that allow users to quickly archive and retrieve records.

working Enterprise for e-governance of e-Gov

Team JaKeGA

From Left to Right: Adil Amin Bhat, Computer Operator; Imran Khan, Analyst (IT); Khem Raj, Financial Advisor; Imran Sufi, Project Manager; Saima Mir, Project Manager; Bipul Pathak, Commissioner /Secretary IT, Chief Executive Officer ; Dara Singh Bali, Additional Chief, Executive Officer; Hina Khan, Analyst Finance; Parminder Singh Wazir, Analyst (IT); Farooq Ahmed Nazir; Hamid Ahmed

Team SeMT

From Left to Right: Vishal Mahajan, Consultant; Dalvinder Singh, Sr. Consultant; Munish Chandan, Sr. Consultant ; Shafqat Bashir, Principal Consultant ; Bipul Pathak, Commissioner / Secretary IT; Dara Singh Bali, Additional Chief Executive Officer; Tania Sultan, Consultant; Nimisha Abrol, Consultant ; Shahnawaz Rashid, Consultant

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e-Gov Transportation initiatives

e-Governance Services at Regional Transport Offices in Jammu & Kashmir The Transport Department in J&K has taken several steps to enable efficient e-Governance services in the transportation sector Mehraj Ahmed Kakroo, Secretary to Government, Transport Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

Mehraj Ahmed Kakroo

S

ituated at the Northern part of India and bordering Pakistan, China and Afghanistan, J&K state provides a corridor for booming Indo– Pakistan Trade. In the absence of railways and waterways in the state, the road transport system serves as the primary means for movement of people, goods and other essential supplies both within and outside the state. Hence, computerisation to bring about modernisation and efficiency in the transport sector is not only important, it is also crucial to the overall progress of the state.

Vahan and Sarathi are standardised software applications developed by NIC to meet the twin objectives of Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) for adopting standard data formats and software for vehicle registration and driving licenses so as to build a national register of vehicle and driving licenses and simultaneously provide e-services to citizens through various District Transport Offices (RTOs) located across the country.

The importance of “ready to access� databases of Vehicles and driving licenses for law enforcing and investigating agencies is immense. The state also has a sizeable market for used vehicles from other states giving rise to apprehension of stolen vehicles or otherwise involved in other crimes finding their way using forged documents. The services provided by National Registry (NR) will go on

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e-Gov Transportation initiatives

SAARTHI The integrated Solution for License related activities SAARTHI is a comprehensive system for all the activities related to issuance of Driving License by RTOs. The software enables the processes at RTOs involving issuance of Learner’s License, Permanent Driving License, Conductor’s License, and Driving Scholl License etc.

Services through SARATHI • Learner License • Issue of fresh Learner’s License • Renewal of Learner’s License • Duplicate Learner’s License Driving License • Issue of fresh Driving License • Renewal of Driving License • Change of Address in Driving License • Additional Endorsement in Driving License • Change of name in Driving License • Duplicate Driving License Conductor License • Issue of fresh Conductor License • Renewal of Conductor License • Change of Address in Conductor License • Duplicate Conductor License Driving School License • All the activities related for the issuance, renewal of driving school license Services to Citizen • Information Query • Application Status Tracking Online Application Submission

VAHAN Services •

•

•

•

•

•

Vehicle Registration • New Vehicle Registration • Renewal of Registration • Transfer of Ownership • Change of Address etc.

Permit • Issue of National & Interstate Permit • Renewable of Permit Taxes • State – wise tax calculation & Payment Fitness • Issue of Fitness Certificate • Renewal of Fitness Certificate Enforcement • Issue of Challan • Settlement of Penalty Amount Services to Citizen • Application Status Tracking

VPNoBB Connectivity has been provided for uploading of daily data and Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) is used for data replication and consolidation from various RTO/ ARTO to the central server over secured network connection.

• Online Application Submission & Processing • Online Issuance of National Goods Permit • Online Renewal of National Goods Permit

Technologies VAHAN: The application runs in a client server mode. In the client server mode the database exists on the server machine.

• Database – VAHAN supports many databases, but in J&K MSSQL server 2000 and higher is being used.

• Client – This is the GUI layer of the application, which interacts with the clients by means of forms SARATHI: Uses VB6 as front end and MS SQL server database as backend.

VAHAN: The integrated Solution for Vehicle Registration

long way in mitigating such threats by allowing Registering Authorities to verify the vehicle credentials before granting registration. Likewise, prospective buyers too can verify the details online before deciding to buy such vehicles.

VAHAN VAHAN is a highly flexible and comprehensive system that takes care of all the burdensome activities of Vehicle Registration, leaving the Transport Department to deal with more important business issues.

The J&K State Transport Department is governed by both Central Motor Vehicle Regulation (CMVR) and State specific Motor Vehicle Regulation (State MVR). Consequently, VAHAN was conceptualized as a product that would capture the functionalities as mandated

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e-Gov e-Govinitiatives initiatives

e-Governance By National Informatics Centre (NIC), J&K Abhay Kumar, Technical Director & State Informatics Officer, National Informatics Centre, J&K

N

IC, through its ICT Network, “NICNET”, has institutional linkages with all the 22 district centres as well as many other important offices like Raj Bhawan, Chief Minister’s Officer, High Court and Chief Electoral Officer among others. NIC has been instrumental in facilitating improvement in government services, wider transparency, promoting decentralised planning and management, resulting in better efficiency and accountability to the people.

e-Courts The e-Courts Integrated Mission Mode Project is one of the national e-Governance projects being implemented in High Courts and District/Subordinate Courts. In J&K, the project covers the two wings of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir, 22 District Courts and 54 Taluka Courts. The G2C services include status of pending cases of every court to be available on-line; web-based public access to cause list and case details; instant issue of certified copies; facilitation counters in every court complex for filing of cases; issue of certified copies & case information; production of victims & witnesses through video conference; service of notices & summons of higher courts by electronic means; e-filing of cases in all courts; availability of digitally signed court orders and judgments on the Internet (http://indiancourt.nic.in; http:// jkhighcourt.nic.in). At 19 District Courts, infrastructure, computer hardware and LAN has been installed and made operational whereas 28 of the identified 41 services have been initiated at 19 District Courts. Out of 54 Taluka Courts, services have been initiated at 13 courts. At the

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Registration, Check post computerisation, Trader Certification and Enforcement modules are in progress.

e-Governance in Urban Local Bodies

Abhay Kumar remaining 41 Taluka Courts, hardware and LAN installation is in progress.

Transport Department (Vahan and Sarathi) The Transport Department is computerised under the ‘Comprehensive e-Governance solution. Vahan and Sarathi software have been developed based on Central Motor Vehicle Act as all the provision of J&K State Motor Vehicle Act has also been incorporated in the software. Under this project all the 22 RTO/ ARTO offices of J&K have been computerised (http://jaktrans.nic.in). All the modules of ‘Vahan’ and ‘Sarathi’ have been implemented.

The services include Issuance of Learner’s License, Driving license, Conductor’s License and Issuance of License to Driving School, Vehicle Registration, Renewal of Registration, Transfer of Ownership, Issuance of Permits, Fitness and Enforcement. So far, 6,80,000 New Registrations 1,10,000 Fitness certificate, 6,00,000 Backlog Data records Digitised and 2,50,000 Driving Licenses issued. New initiatives include SMS Based Service, Dealer Point

Services provided by National Informatics Centre in e-Municipal project include Online Issuance of Building Permissions Utility, Online Registration & Issuance of Birth and Death certificates utility, Online Grievances Registration and Redressal System, Online Personnel Information System, Web based Double Entry Accounting System, Web based Court Cases Monitoring System and a Web Portal containing exhaustive information about the organisation. The services mentioned above are rolled out in all the 84 Urban Local Bodies of J&K including two corporations (JMC & SMC) and 27 ULBs mostly district HQs were covered in 1st phase. In phase II all the remaining ULBs were taken up. Use of Mobile governance by introducing Server based SMS to citizens and authorities and the Concept of Dashboard (http://jkhudd.gov.in) for higher authorities for monitoring each and every activity of all the Local Bodies on day to day basis are some other features of the system.

e-Procurement/e-tendering (GePNIC) GePNIC (http://jktenders.gov.in) converts tedious procurement process into an economical, transparent and more secure system.

Application caters to the Process of Online Tender publishing, bid submission, bid Opening and Award of Contract to help bring in transparency in the Tendering process. The services offered by the above application are

e-Gov e-Govinitiatives initiatives

primarily for the benefit of bidder community enabling them to appear at par with all other bidders irrespective of location as per the eligibility of bidders for bidding for a particular tender. The project is successfully implemented in PMGSY, PWD, JKPCC, Housing and Urban Developing department, Power Development Department, Health and Medical Education, PHE, I&FC. The Current Status of the Tenders floated and their value is that so far the cumulative value of Tenders is 8,353 for a Tenders value of `3,949.98 crores.

GPF Computerisation GENPROFIT has been designed and developed

by NIC, J&K for Funds Department J&K for the computerisation of subscriptions made by the employees of J&K Government with the Fund Office. This helped in transforming the Fund organisation into a user friendly office by making it transparent by dissemination if information through web portal http://jkfunds. nic.in. It was listed as core project in the budget speech of Hon’ble Finance Minister of J&K in the year 2011. It is classical example of Government Bissne Progress Engineering. Data of more than 3,00,000 personnel is available online.

Modernisation in J&K Police Department The initiatives include Video Conferencing Network between DGP office and all SSP offices, Website of Crime Branch at http:// crimebranchjkpolice.nic.in, Challan Monitoring System developed for J&K traffic police (http:// jktrafficpolice.nic.in), Surveillance software for Jammu & Kashmir State Vigilance Organisation to keep record of all Complaints/Enquiries / FIRs/Challans which have been registered in Vigilance Organisation (http://jkvigilance.nic.

in). SMS based Complaint Receiving System, as a supplement to Dial 100 for the general public of Jammu City in which a citizen can send a SMS based complaint to the PCR Jammu. e-hospital software comprising of OPD, IPD, Casualty, Billing, Admission and Discharge modules has been successfully implanted at two district Hospitals at Jammu and Srinagar whereas its replication in 04 CHC and 10 PHC is in progress. Other version of e-hospital i.e.

HMIS is functional at 04 Major hospitals of Kathua since 2011. Implementation of stores, OT and blood bank modules is in progress.

Mother Child Tracking System (MCTS) to track the registration of pregnant women in Rural areas for mother’s ANC (Anti Natal Care), PNC (Post Natal care) and child’s immunisation has also been implemented in all health institutions in J&K. The data collected is uploaded on the National Portal of MCTS. Details of more than 3.5 lakhs pregnant women, 2.0 lakhs new born babies, more than 3700 Active ANM (Accredit Nurse Midwife) and more than 11000 Active ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) is available in the database.

The TreasuryNet has different modules for performing the following business in the Treasury: Receipts, Payments, Stamps & Pension.

The transaction details are captured as per Six-tier account classification. The Monthly reports like Day Book, Cash Book, General Cash book, Major Head wise Expenditure & Receipts (Madwars), Schedules are generated by the software. The Treasury system also maintains Budget & Cash Control register.

JK Revenue Administration using Computerised Energy Billing Software. Computerisation of Energy billing a total solution for Power Development Department, J&K to generate & distribute the Electricity Usage Bills to consumers in various categories like Domestic, Commercial, Municipalities, Agriculture, Industries etc. The application software has been successfully implemented at all Sub Divisions of PDD in J&K. Electricity Bills of more than two lakh consumers are being generated using software developed by the NIC J&K.

National Animal Disease Reporting System (NADRS) NADRS is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme being implemented by Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying & Fisheries (DADF) through National Informatics Centre. NADRS involves a computerised network, integrating both MIS and GIS, which links each block, district and the State/UT headquarters in the country to the Central Disease Reporting & Monitoring Unit (CDRMU) in the DADF at New Delhi. In J&K State there are 158 NADRS Nodes (2 Directorate Level, 22 District Level and 134 Block Level Nodes). VPN connectivity to 85 nodes has been provided whereas 10 nodes are reporting Disease information on daily basis.

Integrated Finance Management System (IFMS) J&K

Computerisation of Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution department (e-PDS)

Under Mission Mode Project it has been envisages that “Integrated Finance Management System (IFMS)” an open source based software having 03 main modules i.e. Treasury Net, Budget Distribution System (BDS) and Cyber Treasury will be implemented by the Finance department J&K. TreasuryNet an online application for the computerisation of Treasuries in J&K has been implemented at District Treasuries (09) of Jammu and Srinagar in pilot phase. Its replication in other districts and muffisail treasuries is in progress.

NIC J&K has been designated as implementation agency for the implementation of e-PDS software. Computerisation of CAPD has been divided into two components i.e. end to end Automation of PDS Supply Chain Management and FPS automation and Digitisation of beneficiary database. Common Application Software for Computerisation of CAPD activities which include allocation orders generation and supply chain movement of commodities, digitisation of ration cards, online card management, FPS management is under implementation stage.

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special feature

Comtech

Local Company with Global Vision “We do not want business purely on basis of being a local company; we would like to have business opportunities because we are capable of doing good work,� says Sheikh Imtiaz Ahmad, CEO, Comtech Info Solutions Pvt Ltd & Comtech Institute of Technology Sheikh Imtiaz Ahmad, CEO, Comtech Info Solutions Pvt Ltd & Comtech Institute of Technology

T

ell us about Comtech. What kind of work is the company doing in J&K and rest of India?

Comtech, founded in 1997, is basically a team of IT professionals, educationalists, who are very experienced in executing digitisation and e-Governance related projects. Initially we began as a training institution because at that time we did not have proper training institutions which could provide low and high end training. The first project that we successfully executed was of digitisation of electoral rolls. This was the first time that the electoral rolls in the state were digitised in J&K. Comtech was one of the main agencies behind the project.

When the Election Commission started its EPIC card projects, we were awarded the work of 15 assembly segments. We have generated about nine lakh EPIC cards.

Comtech is also making efforts to expand its operations to other parts of the country. Please tell us about it.

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this work was good for our company. We are glad that we were able to execute this project with complete perfection. Basically this project involved the digitisation of birth and death records in Srinagar municipality. Lakhs of data had to be digitised.

Sheikh Imtiaz Ahmad, CEO, Comtech Info Solutions Pvt Ltd & Comtech Institute of Technology We have expanded our operations to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar; now we are trying to expand to Haryana and Rajasthan. In UP we have two districts Bareilly and Pilbhit; here we are engaged in generating Aadhaar numbers. In Bihar we have been awarded three districts. We have

completed the Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) in 2011. Here we deployed thousands of operators.

You did the work of computerisation of the birth and death records in Srinagar. What was the experience like?

The experience of doing

What percentage of your revenues is coming from e-Governance?

Almost 70 percent of our revenues is coming from e-Governance related work. Around 30 percent of our revenues come from trainings. We have been accredited to the National Council for promotion of Urdu language; here a student can type in Urdu and also in English.

J&K is a border state with a hilly terrain. What kind of challenges do you face in doing your work here?

My organisation was established in 1997 in J&K. During the initial stages of our existence, we were totally dependent on revenues coming from training. But now that the

Comtech

special feature

lot of positive response from various government departments.

Rukhsana Imtiaz, Chairperson, Comtech Group, receiving award from His Excellency, the Governor of J&K, Shri Narinder Nath Vohra government has started focussing on e-Governance, we have found new avenues for growth. Now

things are much better for small companies like ours, we have been waiting for such a situation to

develop for many years.

Government is the main purchaser of our solutions, and we are having

Do you think that the Government in J&K should come up with special policies for helping the local companies like Comtech?

Government has already come up with the industrial policy although that has not been implemented fully.

We are hopeful that the government will continue to take initiatives for providing new growth opportunities to local players. However, we do not want business purely on basis of being a local company; we would like to have business opportunities because we are capable of doing good work.

Masood Wani

Director Business Development

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In Person

Bimal Raj

CEO, Smartlink Network Systems Ltd

Networking Technologies for better e-Governance

G

ive us an overview the work that Smartlink Network Systems Ltd is doing in India?

What are your main focus areas?

Established in the year 1993, Smartlink is one of India’s leading networking companies. The main aim of Smartlink is to prop the Indian market in the field of Network Infrastructure.

Pioneer in the field of active networking, the company offers an integrated value proposition from design and development to sales and marketing, and service and support. The Company has a robust product portfolio and a nationwide reach through its network of national and regional distributors, resellers and system integrators.

What kind of competition are you facing in the country in the area of networking products?

I would like to say that we are perhaps the only manufacturer of networking products in the country. There is immense value to the manufacturing that we are adding. The Indian market faces lot of challenges related to environmental conditions and bandwidth. We are using the local factors into account so that our products are optimized for local networks. If you look at the products being offered by some of the Multinational companies, you will find that these have a tolerance level of around 30-35 degrees, whereas our products have a tolerance

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Bimal Raj, CEO, Smartlink Network Systems Ltd, provides an overview of the work that his company is doing in the area of e-Governance

In Person

Under your DIGILITE brand, you are offering motherboards. What kind of response are you seeing in the Indian market under this brand?

The company has introduced a new brand for motherboards under DIGILITE. We have a significant competitive edge with its cost effective manufacturing, its brand building expertise and strong distribution. DIGILITE is one of the fastest selling motherboard brands in India.

DIGILITE offers strong and localized supply chain of component products to ensure just in time for customers, dedicated tech support at BIOS & design level, follows robust Intel & AMD roadmaps with latest products available across point of sale. One of the strengths of DIGILITE brand of product range is its strong channel base of National Distributors/Regional Distributors across India.

Debraj Dam, VP – Strategic Business & Partner Alliance, Smartlink Network Systems Ltd

DIGISOL Strengths • • • • • • • •

Over 150+ product offerings and vast range Core Technical Expertise in the Networking Industry Nationwide Presence with Experienced Sales team Time tested and Loyal Exclusive Distributors across India Excellent Infrastructure with own Manufacturing plants Over two decades of Manufacturing Experience Excellent Service & Support through DIGICARE 24x7 Tech Call Support

level of up to 50 degrees. Hence our products are most suitable for government departments and private companies that are operating in the country.

enterprise. Last year we did lot of engagement with the government and other PSUs. We are finding lot of acceptance in this space.

Tell us about your brand DIGISOL.

What kind of business potential do you see in the e-Governance space?

With our brand, DIGISOL, we have set new benchmarks within the Converged Communication solutions. Our legacy of developing conscientious products further bestows the coveted competitive edge. Having discerned the precise requirements of our customers, we have developed and are in the process of developing a wide-ranging product portfolio under the DIGISOL brand. Under the DIGISOL brand we have developed a wide ranging product portfolio which ranges from Wireless &Broadband Routing to Switching, IP Surveillance and VoIP. Our focus is to build DIGISOL as a brand that caters to the needs of the Indian

e-Governance is certainly an area where we see a lot of potential to grow. We can add lot of value in this space. With the amount of localisation that we can do, it becomes very easy for us to make a mark in the governance space. We understand the technological and other issues that are there in the country, and we are capable of delivering the best results even when the conditions are adverse. Currently we are doing lot of work for the SMB segment, which includes lot of smaller PSUs, smaller local bodies and other organisations. An almost 60-65 percent revenue comes from Second and Third tier cities. Last year we saw 120 percent growth in our revenues.

In India the IT companies find Government to be very challenging customer due to red-tapism, nepotism, high legal formalities and other issues.

How are you managing these challenges?

Those challenges are there, but we have no alternative except to keep working. The issue of policy paralysis and delays in decision making is also an issue. We are concentrating on the SMB section because the decision making is faster in this space. The thing is that India is home to huge talent in field of IT, we need to develop this talent so that India can further improve its position in the field of IT. Our development team is currently working on developing products for 4G technologies. We see great future in this form of connectivity.

You are also operating a service division. Tell us about it.

The service division of Smartlink, known by the name of DIGICARE, offers after-saleservices. We offer best of the class integrated service and support, which consists of RMA centers, DIGICARE Technical Assistance Centre (DTAC) and Direct Service Department (DSD). DIGICARE has evolved most efficient, skilled and professional state of service infrastructure. It has 18 Direct RMA/ Service centers and 46 Service Partners across the country.

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Tourism

Sustainable Tourism Atal Dalloo, Commissioner/Secretary to Government, Tourism Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

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s a tourist destination, Jammu & Kashmir is firmly established on the tourism map of the country. The diverse potential of the state in areas of leisure, adventure, heritage, culture and eco-tourism make it a 360 degree destination for tourists from everywhere in the world. The three regions of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh offer landscape and experiences of continental proportions.

The tourism department undertakes promotional activities by way of participation in international and national travel marts, organizing of festivals and sporting events, release of advertisements and printing of publicity material. Tourism related infrastructure is also put in place at established as well as new resorts and tourist arrivals in all three regions of the state have shown an upward trend during the last few years, but a policy has to be in place that factors the impact of tourism on environment as well.

Myriad tourist attractions A policy taking into account the interests of both, environment and tourism, is particularly relevant to a state like ours. In J&K tourist attractions are primarily natural – alpine pastures, lakes, gushing streams, meadows and valleys; even our much revered pilgrim sites are nestled in fragile environments. Tourism Development is double edged sword; on one hand there is this demand for bringing more exotic places onto the tourism map, but this also leads to construction of roads, making available power and water and creation of infrastructure like hotels.

You can’t have development without tampering with the environment in one way or other.

The tourism department is sensitised to this issue and tourism projects are being implemented only after the required Environment Impact Assessment Studies. Master Plans are

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Atal Dalloo

A policy taking into account the interests of both, environment and tourism, is particularly relevant to a state like ours also being formulated for tourist resorts. The department is also awake of the issue of waste management, particularly in tourist resorts and at hallowed pilgrim sites, as it affects the entire eco-system, including water quality, Health and Sanitation.

Safeguarding the Environment The movement of “Sustainable Tourism” in our part of the world will come to a zero if we don’t invoke stake holder participation. The private sector has to pitch in the movement in a pro-

active manner. The J&K Tourism Department has also been involved in various Capacity Building Programmes to sensitize the service – providers about the environmental needs and also educate them about the benefits of preservation of natural resources.

The Department was one of the pioneers in the state in incorporating Information Technology with the launch of its official website (www. jktourism.org) in the year 2003. The mobile application of the website is being launched soon as the department feels that more and more people are using smart phones and tablets to access the internet. The website is also being made more interactive by way of adding features for online application for registration of tourist trade units with a payment gateway as well. Various forms as well as incentive schemes will be available for download soon on the website.

Even in its publicity endeavours, the tourism department has trapped the potential of the web and launched social media campaigns through Facebook and twitter which have evoked good response. The Department is willing to incorporate e-governance tools to improve its own efficiency and also to reach out to people in a better manner.

Tourism

Good Governance

IT initiatives of J&K state Khem Raj, Financial Advisor/Chief Accounts Officer, Information Technology Department, Civil Secretariat / Treasurer, Jammu and Kashmir e-Governance Agency

e

Governance is a very unique concept for the J&K. As vast areas of the state are hilly, there exist problems regarding electricity, road connectivity, transport, banking, telephone, health and school education. The people have to cover long distance to avail these facilities. In many areas people have to cover long distances even to deposit telephone bill. For issuance of date of birth certificate, permanent residence certificates, SC/ST certificates, ration cards, payment of wages etc. they have to travel to the towns and cities.

Once we have proper e-Governance in the state, lot of problems, that the people residing in far-flung areas face, can be reduced. e-Governance can be of particular benefit to the poor people residing in the far-flung rural areas. It will save their time, money, energy and help them to improve their socio-economic conditions. The chances of corruption and exploitation would also reduce.

There is a great challenge before the IT department, but we are hopeful that all these difficulties will be overcome under the dynamic leadership of hon’ble Chief Minister, Janab Omar Abdullah, the Hon’ble IT Minister, Janab Firoz Ahmad Khan, and Sh. Bipul Pathak, Commissioner/Secretary to Government of J&K. All of them are well versed with IT knowledge and are working hard to implement the e-Governance projects in the state.

The State Data Centre has been setup in the state. The project has large scope to collect the data from various departments of the state and store it safely. Many departments are coming forward to get their connectivity to avail the delivery of information and data. The other projects like State Service Delivery Gateway, Common Service Centre, State Wide Area Network, e-District funded by the government of India, are also under implementation.

The Department of IT / JaKeGA are providing necessary financial and technical support as a facilitator to the agencies / vendors who are executing the e-Governance projects. The State e-Mission Team from central government is also working for consultancy in this regard.

After implementation and completion of the projects the doorstep services would be easily available to the citizen of the state and faith of the public in the government will increase. The successful implementation of e-governance projects depends upon the security scenario of the state if we do it well, it will generate the revenue and reduce the wastage of time, bring more transparency and accountability. The new era of development

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Khem Raj

shall take place as difficulties of people shall be removed by efficient delivery of government services at their doorsteps.

The IT department has already imparted training to the middle level KAS officers through project management/e-Governance life cycle training under the capacity building programme. The training of more employees of the finance and revenue departments is under consideration. Such training will be of help for digitalisation of revenue records.

WiFi has been implemented in the civil secretariat Jammu and IMPA Jammu/Srinagar to increase the efficiency in office functioning. Department has also implemented a mobile based project monitoring application under BADP. e-PDS is also being implemented by the department.

Aman Technologies

special feature

A Few have the Courage to Take the Path Never Followed Aman is synonym for peace. Due to insurgency and militancy in J&K during that period peace was the most needed thing. The organisation was setup to provide “Solutions for Peace” Inderpal Singh, CEO, Aman Technologies

A

man Technologies is one of the leading Solution providers of Information and Communications Technology products and services in Jammu & Kashmir.

Wireless connectivity, Cyber Security, UNIX implementation, ERP implementation in Government, Education, Defense, Data Center, Software solutions, Networking, Services and other implementations of the sort are the areas of expertise of Aman Technologies. The organisation has Proclivity to make good and sturdy relations with clients.

The owner’s vision is to lead as “Technology Centric” and to provide customers a clear and concise perspective towards their requirement.

The portfolio encompasses end to end IT solutions right from the hardware to software to high end IT solutions. It mainly entails Desktops, Printers, Power Solutions, Storage devices, Servers, workstations, thin clients, IT Consulting, Networking Architecture, after sales service, Software supply, Development and customization, Digitization, GIS, Web Development, Video Conferencing, Wi-Fi solutions and other related ICT products and services.

The expertise in the ICT field which the organisation has gained over the years has always enabled the company to enhance the applications

of ICT for delivering government services, exchange of information communication transactions, integration of various stand-alone systems and service between Government-to-Citizens, Government-to-Business, Government-to-Government as well as back office processes and interactions within the entire government frame work. All this has always helped the company make the government services available to the citizens in a convenient, efficient and transparent manner.

Aman Technologies is the authorised and associate partner of preeminent companies like Wipro, Wep, Motorola, Dell, ACER, HP, IBM, Intellisys, Sun Micro-systems, Cyberoam, Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, APC, Uniline, E&C, Emerson, CISCO, Dlink, Digisol, AMP, Avaya, EMC, Redhat, SCO, Canon and others. The maturing partnership with these companies has helped to create talented manpower and a structured approach towards business and services. With the partners and technology the company is capable of providing solutions and services for all ICT needs of an organisation.

The Road to success has never been easy as apart from working hard and having a dedicated workforce, the people have worked during

Inderpal Singh CEO, Aman Technologies drastic weather conditions, during the peak of insurgency and civil disturbances. The company has always focused upon congruent and cogent commitment with customers and are dedicated to their customers which comes as a support to the philosophy Singh keeps in mind for his business – Customer is King.

The company has been highly recognised for its tremendous and consistent performance which has many a times come up in the form of awards. ISO 9001:2008 certification for sales, services and solutions (Software, Hardware Solutions & Network Integration), Certification of Excellence for the category “War Horse Award” in 2005, Best partner of Wipro across the country in 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007, Dataquest award for best IT organisation in J&K year 2002, 2003, 2008, CRN top three solution providers in

Non – Metro (North) in year 2009, 2011 and 2012. Selected

by DQ week as the country’s top 100 System Integrator in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, Selected by CRN as country’s top 100 Solution Providers in IT for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011, Appreciations of the projects and works undertaken for various organisations in J&K are some of the awards and recognitions received by the company.

“My wife Parveen Kaur is my constant source of inspiration” says Inderpal Singh. He enjoys his family man status as much as his career. He loves spending time with his kids – Amanpreet and Tavleen and his daughter – Dhihum Kaur. Singh says “I spend quality time with my kids and family. This is how I unwind.”

His children feel the luckiest to have him as their father. They come across their father’s school and college friends who call him a genius and very talented, come across a large number of people regularly who respect him for what he has done in his career and for the transformation he initiated in the state by bringing IT into the state of J&K since 80’s. The next generation of Inderpal Singh wants to join the organisation and bring in new level of expertise and technology to the organisation to enable them to serve the people of J&K better.

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In Person

Basharat Ahmad Dhar

Managing Director, Jammu & Kashmir State Power Development Corporation Limited (JKSPDCL)

Harnessing Power of Rivers

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BOOT basis through a tariff based competitive bidding process. The corporation is also pursuing the development of geothermal project in Pugah valley of Leh, Ladakh.

hat is the mandate of the JKSPDCL? What is your vision for next

The bulk of the power that you are generating is based on hydroenergy. But generation of hydro electricity entails construction of large dams, which can have environmental consequences.

What steps can you take to minimise the environmental damage?

ten years?

JKSPDCL was established in 1995, by the Jammu & Kashmir government to achieve the objective of expeditious development of hydro power. The Corporation was incorporated to takeover, execute, complete, operate and maintain all power stations and power projects of the State. The assets of all the power projects in the State, both existing and under implementation were transferred to the Corporation. JPSPDCL is working to plan, promote and organise an integrated and efficient development of electric power in all its aspects. Our work involves the investigation, research, and preparation of preliminary feasibility and detailed project reports. After that we undertake construction, generation, operation and maintenance of power stations and sale of power thereof. We are also involved in construction of transmission lines and ancillary works for timely and cocoordinated supply of power. In next 10 years, the state will see significant changes in its power scenario. We may be a surplus state too.

Many parts of the country, including J&K, are suffering from acute power shortage. What kind of projects is JKSPDCL undertaking to make J&K selfsufficient in power?

The Corporation presently has 20 hydroelectric projects with installed capacity of 758.70 MW

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“The problem with hydro electricity is that it has a long gestation period and it is captive intensive, but in the long run, hydropower is most environment friendly and cheap,� says Basharat Ahmad Dhar, Managing Director, Jammu & Kashmir State Power Development Corporation Limited (JKSPDCL)

located in various districts of Jammu & Kashmir including 450MW BHEP. The Corporation has Gas Turbines based on HSD with installed capacity of 175 MW at Pampore near Srinagar.

In accordance with the State Hydel Policy, 2003 JKSPDC has allotted 10 small HEPs with a total capacity of 110.50 MWs under IPP phase-I. The State Government is presently reviewing existing State Hydel policy, 2003 for project implementation from 2-100MW to make it more investor friendly and thus attract investment and expertise from private players in the sector on a large scale. J&K State took lead of a mega hydro power scheme on tariff based competitive bidding process which was one of the achievement for us. J&K is the first State in India to award 690 MW Ratle HEP (mega hydro power project) on

The problem with hydro electricity is that it has a long gestation period and it is captive intensive. But the overall costs of running a hydro-electricity project is much less, so in the long run the electricity generated turns out to be much cheaper. Environmental issues are also there. We have to divert some portion of the river and this can lead to depletion of water down the stream. But we take adequate safety measures to ensure that this does not happen. We release minimum flow to maintain the environmental balance. According to the guidelines of Ministry of Environment and Forests, we have to release 20 percent of the flow in the lean season and 30 percent of the flow in monsoon season. In the catchment areas we have to go for catchment development works.

One important problem we face is related to the generation of muck. During construction of dams lot of muck gets excavated. This has to be scientifically disposed. We follow all the important guidelines to ensure that the muck does not become a problem.

JKSPDC has developed many landmark projects in J&K. In your opinion what is the most

In Person

Panorama of Baglinhar Dam

landmark projects that you have executed?

We are really proud of the Baglihar Dam, which is also known as Baglihar Hydroelectric Power Project. This is a run-of-the-river power project on the Chenab River in the southern Doda district of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.

This project was conceived in 1992, approved in 1996 and construction began in 1999. The project is estimated to cost USD $1 billion. The first phase of the Baglihar Dam was completed

Tell us about the technology that you have deployed to ensure efficiency in the operations of second stage of the Baglihar project.

The Baglihar Hydro-Electric Project – Stage-I and Stage-II, each of 450MW installed capacity were envisaged as run-of-the river schemes, governed by the Indus Waters Treaty to exploit the hydro power potential of River Chenab.

BHEP stage-II Power House cavern is 180m

“We take adequate safety measures to ensure that there is negligible environmental damage” in 2004. With the second phase completed on 10 October 2008, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India dedicated the 900-MW Baglihar hydroelectric power project to the nation. The project started commercial generation of power from 2009. The power plant has generated 10724.06 million unit of energy by the end of August 2012.

u/s of stage-I Power House Caverns. The Power Intake for Stage-II project has been constructed along with the intake of Stage-I, as it would not have been practical to construct the same at later stage without stopping the Stage-I Power house. The inlet to the intake consists of two rectangular openings 10m x 7.5m with a 5m thick intermediate pier. The energy at the Bagli-

har project is being evacuated through 400 KV double circuit transmission line from the station switchyard to Kishanpur station on Northern Grid. The transmission line has a length of 67.93 kilometre and it has 215 towers.

What has been the environmental impact of the Baglihar Hydroelectric Project?

After the construction of the project, the surrounding area has got a fillip in the overall development in terms of trade, employment, housing, roads, and communication, education etc. This has led to lot of benefit for the local citizens.

T&D losses are fairly high in J&K, how do you plan to counter it?

As we are a power generating company, we won’t be able to do much about T&D losses. I believe that the Power Development Department is working on this issue. For historical reasons, there has been delay on this account. Our losses have been pretty high. I believe that the power department has gone in for unbundling of transmission now. Hopefully, this will be accounted for. Also, the policy decision of 100 per cent metering is being implemented rapidly everywhere.

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In Person

Suresh Chugh

Additional PCCF/Director, Department of Ecology Environment and Remote Sensing, Government of Jammu & Kashmir

Safeguarding the Natural Environment

“In India the concern for environment protection has not only been raised to the status of fundamental law of land, it is also coupled with human right approach,� says Suresh Chugh

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In Person

J

ammu & Kashmir is well known for its pristine environment. What kind of role is the Forest Department playing to ensure that the environment is safeguarded?

You see, the mandate of the forest department in J&K is very large. Our mandate has two main components, one is environment ecology and the second is remote sensing. We are the nodal agency for the state for all remote-sensing projects. For safeguarding the environment, we work by taking we are looking after all the environmental impacts of various processes that are going on to hit the industry, healthcare, pollution and the other part is that we are also creating environmental parks. We have been rehabilitating certain areas where there is lots of degradation. In one case we have rehabilitated the mud that comes out of the project - river valley project - to a single place and developed it into a beautiful park. Similarly, we are creating another park near the river bed, the whole area is wasteland and we are developing environmental park with an educational billboard. It is different from other kinds of park.

What is your view of the status of environment in the State of Jammu & Kashmir?

Degradation of the Environment caused by polluted atmosphere has tremendous impact on our day to day life and amounts to violation of Right to life. In India the concern for environment protection has not only been raised to status of fundamental law of land, but, it is also coupled with human right approach. It is now well established that it is the basic right of every citizen to have a pollution free environment with dignity. Population is no doubt increasing and this is naturally putting more pressure on our natural resources like water, firewood, land and everything else. Despite these factors, it is still a matter of pride for us that we are able to maintain forestation at generally the same levels for past few years. This is a green state.

Almost 50 percent of the state’s area is covered with forest; beautiful conifer forest exists in large parts of the state. The state is blessed with wonderful climate patterns; we have tropical, subtropical areas here in Jammu and temperate

areas in other parts of the state. In Ladakh we have a cold desert. So there is a wide variety in the vegetation patterns of this area.

Is illegal mining of timber a problem in the state? What kind of ICT solutions are you using to monitor the forests in the state of Jammu & Kashmir?

There is illegal cutting of timber in certain pockets. But there is no such organised smuggling. We are taking all the necessary measures to curb the menace. Lots of people have been put under bars under the Public Safety Act and Forest Act. ICT has a very important role to play as far as conservation of natural resources is concerned. We are using IT solutions based on PDAs and other systems to monitor and report on the status of our forests. There are number of challenges. The first challenge is related to the trained manpower that is required. Mostly we train people on the job,

to use that mud somehow. You need to store the mud in an area where it does not come in contact with the water bodies. Later on you can use the mud to develop a park.

These days there has been rise in awareness about environment in people. Do you see similar trends regarding environmentalism in the state?

People are very conscious here because around 60 percent of people are directly concerned with the agriculture and forestry. They are growing trees on their own. Lots of trees are coming up even on the agriculture lands, so agro forestry is doing very well in the state. The environment is also being helped by the fact that the state is blessed with pleasant weather. Yes in certain areas there are the problems. Recently we had done a study on pollution in Jammu Tawi River. The water in Dal Lake is not as clean as we would like it to be.

Now we are trying to build STPs (Sewage Treat-

It is still a matter of pride for us that we are able to maintain forestation at generally the same levels for past few years we also hire people from the outside. We are also giving training to people in other departments. For instance, we are working closely with the Wildlife Department.

The Forest Department has also been responsible for building a number of environmental parks.

How is it different from Normal Park?

There is fundamental difference between the Normal Park and Environmental Park. The normal park is any plain area with a sheet of grass.

The same thing is also there in the environmental park, but there is also an additional factor. An environmental park also has an educational component and a rehabilitation part. We are using the waste land for creating environmental parks. But if the land you have is a riverbed, then it is difficult to grow plants in that area. A riverbed can be full of boulders. It is difficult to rehabilitate such an area.

Similarly, if there is pollution because of dump of river valley projects or there is tunnelling going on and they are bringing out the mud then you have

ment Plants) all around the lake to prevent dirty water from entering it. Dal Lake is the most iconic part of Srinagar, without Dal Lake you cannot imagine Srinagar. Lot of construction activity, like construction of roads, is also taking place in the state. We are using GIS based systems to evaluate the impact of such construction.

Your department is also operating a Remote Sensing Wing. Tell us about the tasks being performed by this department. Also tell us about your data centre.

This Remote Sensing Wing is entrusted with the task of generating GIS Database on natural resources for developing efficient Decision Support System (DSS) for sustainable development. This Wing has undertaken about 45 projects assigned by various departments/organizations. Our Data Centre has been inaugurated recently by the CM. It is basically a DST project from government of India on a 70-30 basis. Seventy percent fund will be given by the central government and 30 percent will be given by the state government.

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In Art Person & Society

Balwant Thakur

Regional Director, Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Ministry of External Affairs

Art as a tool for Social Change Regarded as an icon of Indian cultural identity, Balwant Thakur was conferred the highest Indian honour for art, culture and music, the Padamshree award, this year.

Born on 25th of December 1960 in the hilly village of Bakkal in district Reasi of J&K, he grew up singing and dancing with traditional performers. His father Hari Saran Thakur was a patron of traditional performers and he had also represented the State at many national events.

Balwant Thakur was greatly inspired by the artistic activities of his father and at a young age he decided that he would devote rest of his life to art and culture

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Balwant Thakur

Art & Society

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oday you are regarded as an icon of Indian art.

You have achieved this status despite making a humble beginning in a small village. Tell us about your journey as an artist.

As my father was a patron of traditional performers, I had good exposure to arts during my childhood. Art is something that came naturally to me. There has never been a time in my life when I have not been impressed by it. After completing my primary education in village, I shifted to Jyotipuram, where I studied till 12th standard.

As Jyotipuram was a metropolitan town, it gave me exposure to a broader expanse of culture, and enabled me to acquire leadership qualities.

I joined an evening group, and began to assist them in their allied jobs like publicity, backstage work, house management, etc. Slowly I gained enough confidence to form a group called ‘Seven Stars’ with six of my friends; we staged plays like ‘Sabhya Saanp’ and ‘Kanyadaan’. Later I shifted to Jammu and graduated in Business Management and Economics from MAM College. During this period I started writing for Radio Kashmir, Jammu, and presented talks, short stories, poetry, and short plays in their Yuva-Vani service. I con-

mark on the artistic space in the first year of its existence. We surprised everyone by winning the State Academy award for best production ‘Chauraha,’ which I had directed. After that we further strengthened Natrang by producing and directing successful plays like ‘Neeli Jheel’ ‘Nanhen Kandhey Nanhen Pair’ ‘Singhasan Khali Hai’ and ‘Rang Nagri’. In 1984-85, I wrote two plays ‘Ek Sangharsh Ka Ant’ and ‘Yeh Laash Kiski Hai’, the later won best short play award in many All-India play competitions. By this time I had already made a mark in Punjab, Himachal and Haryana by winning best director awards in the All-India cultural competitions. After that the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, selected my play ‘Kaun Nachaye Naach’ for the North Zone theatre festival held at Chandigarh.

For last few years, I have been giving my fulltime to theatre, which has always been my main passion, and I have also launched few new projects under Natrang.

You have served as the Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art Culture and Languages. What were your key achievements in this position?

In 1995, I was assigned the task of reviving the cultural life of Jammu & Kashmir, which was then passing through problems related to militancy and other issues. I joined the State

“Theatre has immense power to bring positive changes in the society” tinued acting, directing and writing plays for the inter-collage competitions. My ultimate ambition was to do post graduation in dramatics, but I was forced to join LLB (professional) to fulfil the aspiration of my parents. Three years in the University turned out to be a turning point in my career. I worked hard and managed to bring top honours in Dramatics for University of Jammu in Zonal and National events.

The establishment of Natrang was obviously a turning point in your career. Tell us about the work that you have done through Natrang.

I started Natrang in 1983 with the help of some of my colleagues from theatre in order to attain a degree of creative liberty. Natrang made a

Government as Secretary of Jammu & Kashmir Academy of Art Culture and Languages. This is an organisation of 317 employees and is primarily responsible for the development of art, culture, languages, literature, and arts education of the state. During my eight years of service, I gave shape to over 3000 programmes including many National and International events. I also brought top honours for the state and made a history by winning best Tableaux award five times in eight years during the Republic Day Celebrations in New Delhi. Today I look back at the years that I have spent as the Secretary of Jammu & Kashmir Academy of Art Culture and Languages with some amount of satisfaction. But it is also true that art is everlasting service, you have to keep working to achieve even better results.

You have started an initiative called ‘Theatre for a Social change.’ Do you believe that through effective use of theatre and other artistic mediums society can be transformed?

That is what I believe. Theatre has immense power to bring positive changes in the society.

If used properly it can bring revolutions. We must learn from the developed countries which have perfected the way of using these mediums to raise the intellectual levels of their citizens.

You see, in the city of St Petersburg, in Russia, there are over 200 theatres; in comparison, our towns and cities hardly have any theatres at all.

In most of our towns you can hardly find one or two theatres, and even those would be in a defunct state. How can you expect theatre to change society for the better, when we are not doing enough to promote such arts in the country? What we need right now is a political will to promote intellectual initiatives in the country.

How you can expect theatre doing wonder and miracles to change the mindset of the society.

We need to promote literature, visual art, and performing arts, which unfortunately we are not doing currently. For instance, in 2010, we took a major initiative to revive the dying cultural tradition of Kashmir. Involving over 1000 traditional Bhand Pather performers, with the help of eminent playwright Moti Lal Kemmu, we brought together twenty prominent Bhand Pather groups spread over the entire length and breadth of Kashmir Valley and trained them in new techniques of production. The resultant work became very popular throughout Kashmir.

Currently, you are serving as the Regional Director of ICCR-Jammu Chapter. Tell us about the work that you are doing for art and society in this position.

Our mandate at the ICCR is to take India to the world and bring world to India. Through our cultural initiatives we strive to bring nations together. With the coming of ICCR in Jammu, the people of this city are being exposed to the best aspects of world culture.

We are having series of International performances in Jammu and I am sure that these will broaden the vision of our spectators. Such exposure also helps our artists to develop a global vision and gain an insight into the latest trends in international arts.

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In Person

Ajeet Kumar Sahu

Deputy Commissioner, Jammu

Digitisation of Land Records

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he people in different parts of the country, including J&K face problems due to the land titles not being very clear. It is expected that the digitisation of land record system will solve these problems. What steps are you taking to ensure that the digitised data is easily available?

We recognise the problem of land records in some cases not being very clear. There are various reasons for this. The digitisation of land records is a national project. We have started work on that in Jammu & Kashmir. The operations have already commenced in several tehsils of Jammu district. We are also trying to take the data online.

On many occasions the disputes regarding lands arise due to emotional attachment that people have with their ancestral property. There could be lot of social issues involved in land disputes. How are you dealing with such problems?

“In my opinion once digitisation of land records has been accomplished, it will bring lot of positive changes to the lives of the common property holders,� says Ajeet Kumar Sahu

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Ultimately all land related disputes have to be resolved through government policies. We can’t allow ourselves to be swayed by emotions and we have to implement the law of the land in deciding land related issues. In my experience, the land related issues are most critical in Jammu, as compared to what we have in other parts of the state. Various concerned departments are already working to resolve all these issues and we are devoted to implementing all

In Person

the decisions that get taken by the departments.

Land issues are difficult to solve, but we are able to find a solution in most cases.

You have adopted several e-Governance measures when you were a DC in Poonch area.

Please share with us the details of these initiatives.

We have undertaken two major initiatives in Poonch. We had established a control room through which the Deputy Commissioner can be in contact with the citizens 24X7. In case the deputy commissioner is not available, all the grievances are recorded. We also took the initiative of having a public grievance monitoring system. The system was created by NIC. The system enables us to register all the grievances through unique numbers, so that they can be easily monitored. Most of these grievances could be addressed in a very easy and seamless manner.

What kind of response did your system of registering grievances in digital format receive from the public?

The response was quite good. It is a fact that people do not want to visit our office on a regular basis. They can work from home and there by avoid spending money that is generally required for travelling. They can also save their valuable time if they record their grievance. The citizens will be more satisfied if their grievances are recorded quickly and are also resolved.

You have been quite enthusiastic in implementing the J&K Pulse solution. What kind of impact is this solution having at ground level?

J&K Pulse is the latest mobile based application introduced by the J&K government. It is available on the Android operating system.

The main benefit of the project is that it can capture the details of any project that is being executed. The captured image is geo tagged in real time and is uploaded on to a secure central server. This software is proving to be very useful

Talking specifically of Jammu, in your opinion what is one particular project that will benefit this place most?

During my current tenure, I plan to focus in a big way on the digitisation of land records in Jammu. In my opinion once digitisation of land

J&K Pulse is the latest mobile based application introduced by the J&K government for monitoring projects that are being implemented in far flung areas, where there is no Internet connectivity, only mobile connectivity is there. The pilot projects have already been completed in Poonch and Rajouri. We are in the process of implementing it in Jammu as well.

records has been accomplished, it will bring lot of positive changes to the lives of the common property holders. The digitisation project has already proved very successful in Bengal, Bihar and other states. In Jammu also it will lead to lot of benefits.

It is obvious that people have lot of expectations from someone who is sitting in your chair. How do address the challenges of meeting the expectations of so many people?

I understand that people have lot of expectations from anyone in my position. But we need to create a system through which so many issues can get resolved in a timely manner. Without technology it is not possible to address so many grievances. So the technology and e-Governance are the way forward.

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In Person

Sushma Chauhan

Additional Deputy Commissioner, Jammu

e-Governance at grassroots

records. The capacity building work has already begun. And we have also started sensitising the government officials and other stakeholders about the new system of maintaining the land records.

Before this you were the SDM of Akhnoor. This is a border area, where development might be difficult.

So what is the situation of education, electricity and other such important needs?

There are no such issues in Akhnoor. The area is blessed with ample numbers of government schools, private schools and the parents are well aware of the importance of educating their children. Akhnoor is very close to Jammu, so it is not a remote village. People in Akhnoor can also avail of the amenities that are available in Jammu.

It has often been the case that the people of the state find it difficult to get hold of a Permanent Residence Certificate (PRC). What are you doing to solve this issue?

“We should do everything possible for reducing the effort that the common man has to make for acquiring anything,” says Sushma Chauhan

J

&K is a mountainous and border state. What are the main challenges that you face in discharging your duty in this state?

The main challenge that we face is the same as what it would be in any other part of the country. Land is at the centre of many disputes. Our challenge is to help people find a legal avenue for resolving their land related issues. We are taking steps to digitise our land records. Once this has been accomplished, the property rights will become clearer and things will become easier for the land owning class of people in the state.

How much time will it take for the land reforms to be completed in the state?

It would be difficult to attach the timeline to this, but I can assure you that we are working to quickly achieve the objective of digitising the land

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As do we aware Jammu & Kashmir is the only state in the country where the citizens are issued a PRC Permanent Residence Certificate. A PRC is given to a citizen who is a permanent resident of the state. A permanent resident means someone whose ancestors have been living in the state since 1944. So we have to go back to three generations in order to investigate a citizen’s PRC. You cannot be employed in government job in the state if you don’t have a PRC certificate. Now we are bringing e-Governance to the way in which the PRC certificates are issued. There will be a single window where the citizen has to submit all his documents.

These documents can then be digitised and sent to other departments for their feedback and approvals. In next six months we will be in a position to rollout the project in Jammu.

As an IAS officer, what is your vision for your department? What would you like to achieve for the people?

In one line I would say that the dream and desire of this office and that of our Deputy Commissioner is that we should do everything possible for reducing the effort that the common man has to make for acquiring anything. Today a citizen’s life is invariably linked to the state. So the state has to conduct its operations smoothly to ensure that the citizen gets all the benefits that he is entitled to in an easy and seamless manner. We need more technology in governance. It is only technology that can bring transparency and efficiency in our system of governance.

PSE Summit

Recognising Contribution of Public Sector Enterprises in the Indian Economy

July 05, 2013 | Shangri-La’s - Eros Hotel, New Delhi Key People Associated with Our Initiatives

Shankar Agarwal Additional Secretary, Department of Defense, Government of India

Rakesh Tandon MD, Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation

S P S Bakshi Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Engineering Projects (India) Ltd

Anil Kumar CMD, Bharat Electronics Limited

Jaiveer Srivastavaa CMD, Hindustan Prefab Limited

N Ravi Shanker CMD, Bharat Broadband Network Limited

A K Balyan MD, Petronet LNG Ltd

Anil Srivastava CMD, Pawan Hans Helicopters Limited

Dr Medithi Ravi Kanth CMD, Projects & Development India Limited

A K Garg CMD, Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited

Ansuman Das CMD, National Aluminium Company Limited

R P Singh Chairman, National Highways Authority of India

Sudhir Vasudeva CMD, Oil & Natural Gas Corporation

K Vijayanand MD, Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation Limited

J Satyanarayana Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communication and IT, Government of India

O P Rawat Secretary, Dept of Public Enterprises, Ministry of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises, Govt of India

Arvind Mayaram Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India

R K Upadhyay Chairman cum Managing Director, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited

K L Dhingra Chairman & MD, ITI Limited

V P Agrawal Chairman, Airports Authority of India

D C Garg CMD, Western Coalfields Limited

B Venkatesham MD, A P State Housing Corporation Limited

Arup Roy Choudhury CMD, National Thermal Power Corporation

Vishal Dev CMD, Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation

And many more...

Organisers

For Sponsorship Enquiries Contact: Nayana Singh, nayana@elets.in; +91-8860651642, Kartik Sharma, kartik@elets.in; +91-8860651635

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