eGov Magazine - May 2013

ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON E-governance ` 75 / US $10 / ISSN 0973-161X

Prithviraj Chavan, Chief Minister, Government of Maharashtra

May 2013 | VOLUME 09 n ISSUE 05 n ISSN 0973-161X egov.eletsonline.com

Rajesh Aggarwal R Chandrashekhar Secretary, Department of Former Secretary, Information Technology, DeitY and DoT Government of Maharashtra

MAY 9-10, 2013, MUmBAI

Dr Ajay Kumar Joint Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India

Swadheen Kshatriya Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Revenue and Forests, Government of Maharashtra

T C Benjamin Additional Chief Secretary, Public Health Department, Govt of Maharashtra

Medha Gadgil Principal Secretary, Home, Government of Maharashtra

VL Achaliya Principal Secretary, Law and Judiciary, Government of Maharashtra

eGov Magazine

Steering e-Inclusive Economy

J K Banthia Chief Secretary, Government of Maharashtra

Knowledge Exchange

SRINAGAR

may 2013 second grid

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issue 5 n volume 09

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J K Banthia

Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration, Maharashtra

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Executive Director, MTNL

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Additional Chief Secretary, Public Health Department, Government of Maharashtra

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Swadheen Kshatriya Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Revenue and Forests, Government of Maharashtra

Secretary, Department of Cooperation, Government of Maharashtra

43 in person

Madhukar Chaudhari

Commissioner, Co-operation & Registrar, Government of Maharashtra

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V L Achaliya

Dr Santosh Bhogale

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Secretary, Relief and Rehabilitation, Goverment of Maharashtra

Kiran Bhagwanani

Chief Executive Officer, Dimension Data India Limited

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Medha Gadgil Principal Secretary, Home, Government of Maharashtra

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / May 2013

Chairman, Airport Authority of India

14 online security

Safeguarding the Interests of Banking and Credit Card Users

36 egov report card

RC…R Chandrashekhar… the Crowned Prince of e-Governance

56 UIDAI

A fascinating journey for Aadhaar

Undersecretary and State Nodal Officer, Aadhaar, e-Office & e-Tendering, Government of Maharashtra

28 Milind Mhaiskar

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Rajgopal Deora

24 Principal Secretary, Law and Judiciary, Government of Maharashtra

V P Agrawal

Peeyush Aggarwal

State Election Commissioner, Maharashtra

T C Benjamin

in person

Mahesh Zagade

Chief Secretary, Government of Maharashtra

Neela Satyanarayanan

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Shahid Ali Khan Minister of Minority Welfare and Information Technology, Government of Bihar

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May 2013 issue 5 n volume 09

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2nd Annual

Steering e-Inclusive Economy May 9-10, 2013 - Taj President Vivanta, Mumbai

Knowledge Exchange

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

PSE Summit

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Persuing Development of the Modern Indian Economy with a Human touch June 21, 2013 | Le Méridien, New Delhi

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I am happy to learn that second edition of eMaharashtra State e-Governance Leadership Summit 2013, a two-day conference to be held on 9th and 10th May, 2013 at Taj Vivanta, Mumbai, is hosted by the Directorate of IT (DIT), Government of Maharashtra. Exclusively dedicated to e-Governance in Maharashtra, the summit aims at bringing together two arms integral to the success of e-Governance – Good Technology and Good Governance.

Prithviraj Chavan

Technology has proved its benefits for governments across the world and we wanted to reap the many advantages offered by an e-government to its citizens.

The state envisions the use of technology for an e-inclusive society. Maharashtra is today leading the country in Adhaar enrollments and has taken a step further to implement direct benefit transfer schemes working in partnership with banks.

The success of all e-Governance in the state has been due to the importance given to Marathi language in all our projects. Recently, we have also set up a centre for excellence in Marathi Language to promote and popularise the use of Marathi for e-Governance in the state.

The state envisions the use of technology for an e-inclusive society. In this special edition, the articles highlight the many achievements of the state in use of technology for good governance. I am proud of the progressive steps taken by each state department in Maharashtra that have set the pace for access to information, interaction and decision-making between government, citizens and businesses in a friendly, convenient and transparent manner.

I extend a warm welcome to the delegates of the conference.

(Prithviraj Chavan)

in person

After ensuring success of its cloud platform and state of the art state residents data hub, the Government of Maharashtra is now having one of the largest implementation of e-Office(Digital Work Place Solution) project in the country,� says J K Banthia.

In conversation with Rachita Jha

J K Banthia 10

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In inperson Person

J K Banthia

Chief Secretary, Government of Maharashtra

Building an

e-Inclusive state economy

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hat have been the key achievements of Maharashtra in implementation of e-Governance? Compared to other states how do you position Maharashtra in adoption of e-Governance?

Government of Maharashtra has always been in forefront of service transformation through use of technology, or e-Governance. It has consistently featured at the top of the pyramid and adjudged as ‘Leader’ in e-Governance in the “India : eReadiness Assessment Report” published by Department of Electronics & IT, Government of India. Our efforts have taken us to the position of leadership and now we are continuing our efforts to reach greater heights. The state is committed towards using e-Governance to provide integrated, efficient and transparent service delivery to the citizens in a systematic and holistic manner. e-Governance has brought ease of functioning, agility and transparency in various state departments, wherever it has been implemented.

Tell us about the e-Governance policy that the state has developed.

Maharashtra is one of the first states to have formulated a comprehensive e-Governance policy.

Government of Maharashtra, through this policy is ensuring that eServices become a mandate for each department and our services offered to citizens in a uniform and standardised manner.

Today, Maharashtra has erected a strong infrastructural base for success of e-Governance in every tehsil of the state. This includes State Data Centre, State Wide Area Network, SETU Centres, MahaeSeva Kendra and Sangram Kendra in rural areas. Through this all the Governmental services and applications are being made available at the doorsteps of common people. We have

also formed a joint venture called Mahaonline, which delivers standardised e-services to citizens through various delivery channels, such as CSC and Sangram Kendras. It is the first state in India for leveraging the Aadhaar platform for overall improvement in service delivery through implementation of State Resident Data Hub (SRDH) at State Data Centre.

The state is a national leader in terms of Adhaar enrolments.

How will the state government, districts and citizen benefit from this massive roll-out plan?

The state government is one of the leading States in Aadhaar enrolment, and more than 5.65 Cr. residents have been enrolled so far and UIDs generated for more than 5.14 Cr. residents. The State Government is envisaging maximum enrolments to be completed by Dec 2013. With more than 4500 UID kits presently working in the State and 2000 more kits in the final stages of buying, We are very much on track to meet our targets.

The government as well as the citizens will benefit immensely once we start linking the service delivery of various beneficiary schemes with UID. The process has started on a pilot basis in 6 districts with 12 schemes identified by Govt. of India and more and more districts and schemes shall be added in due course. This would enable the State Government to identify and remove duplicate and bogus beneficiaries and help bring the genuine beneficiaries who have been left out due to lack of identity into the mainstream. Additionally, it will help bring in Financial Inclusion and help citizens get their benefits directly into bank accounts.

Direct Benefit Transfer is a key e-Governance policy of the central government. How do you see this scheme? What is the status of DBT in Maharashtra?

We have started implementation of DBT in 6 pilot districts for 12 schemes from 1st Jan 2013.

Out of 3.2 lakh beneficiaries in these districts for the 12 schemes, UID seeding and linkage

with Bank Accounts have been completed for more than 80,000 beneficiaries and UID linked payments have been made for more than 11,000 beneficiaries. The State Government has adopted a systematic approach towards implementing DBT, which has been appreciated by UIDAI. To check the correctness of the bank accounts and its linkage with UID, the State Government has devised a mechanism to pay One Rupee each into such accounts. The details of successful transactions are maintained, and actual benefit transfer takes place into bank accounts of beneficiaries after successful completion of transfer of Re 1. The State Government has decided that linkage of UID with department data and UID linked payments shall be done in districts after they reach 80 percent coverage of UID. This would ensure that genuine beneficiaries do not face hassles in getting UID linked services. We are very confident that by Dec 2013, most of the districts would reach 80 percent coverage, and the State Government would be in a better position to launch UID linked services. However, in the meantime, lot of preparatory work is going on including standardization and cleaning of databases, seeding of UID numbers with department data, digitization of data etc., which would ensure timely and systematic adherence to DBT. State is devising the uniform and tested platform for payments in these schemes through banks and NPCI. Such Implementation shall weed out the bogus and the benefits will be transferred through all electronically verified by system which is linked with UID. Voter ID list, Ration Card Data, etc are also in process of linking with UID for benefit transfer to citizens, which shall help make the Government system more robust and exploit-free.

Recently there was a fire mishap in Mantralaya. How can a paperless or e-office benefit the departments in case of disaster management. How many departments have adopted e-office and what are the key May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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challenges in implementation of the same.

Digitization of files at Mantralaya had already started in 2010, with scanning of all closed files.

After the fire mishap, we have increased the speed of digitization of files, by issuing work orders to additional vendors for scanning. We have also extended our data entry Rate Contract to the scanning vendors so that indexing and uploading happens at a good pace. eOffice is our step forward into an era of paperless administration. e-Office is a Digital Workplace Solution that replaces the existing manual handling of files and documents with an efficient electronic system. Being an electronic system, all the data is being stored digitally and servers have regular backup and Disaster Recovery systems are in place. In addition, this being a web based application, people can access it from anywhere on VPN continue working while at offsite.

While eOffice implementation is helping us primarily as the disaster management, it also aims at significantly improving the operational efficiency of the Government by transitioning to a “Less Paper Office”. As a result, effectiveness of government responses to citizens will improve and turnaround time to meet the demands of the citizen’s charter will reduce. This will help the state administration in resource management and in improving the quality of administration. Last but not least, it will bring accountability and transparency in the system. Currently all departments of Mantralaya have completed the prerequisites and are ready to use eOffice. About 2100 and files and 7800 receipts have been already been created in eOffice. As on date, 28 departments are using eOffice. We have also started eLeave module of eOffice, which will is an electronic leave management system. We are adding more modules such as eTour, KMS which are integral part of eOffice suite. eOffice at Mantralaya is one of the largest implementation in the country. Considering the number of users, departments and different levels of users, transformation from paper based office to a paperless office for a set up like Mantralya is a challenge. We have overcome those by continuous training and by providing dedicated support from eOffice team. Each departmental nodal officers are working on the transition plans to migrate all physical files into electronic mode and then migrating those to eOffice.

It is usually said the eGovernance is limited in its reach to the last mile regions of a state.

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“Today, Maharashtra has a strong infrastructural base for ensuring success of e-Governance in every tehsil” However, there has been a lot of focus by Maharashtra to make e-Governance an inclusive agenda upto the district level. Please share your views on these initiatives.

In order to make e-Governance an inclusive agenda at the district level, the concept of Divisional & Guardian district consultants has been implemented. e-Governance Consultants have been deployed in each of the 35 districts in Maharashtra, a ‘Guardian District Consultants’. The primary intent and objective of the deployment of the consulting team is to support the DIT initiatives at the ground level and embark on various IT initiatives required to be proposed at the local administrative level. The key responsibility of the consultants is to liaison between the Divisional Administration teams and the State IT Team (Directorate of Information Technology) in order to ensure the success of eGovernance Projects at last-mile level. The Divisional and District consultant concept is helping the e-Governance initiatives in solving many of the challenges at being faced in implementing e-Governance initiatives at the District Level, like lack of IT awareness amongst officials at field department & district, escalation of issues to appropriate channels to eliminate bottlenecks etc. This initiative has

also brought into limelight some really good work being done at the district collectorate level and such e-Initiatives are now being replicated across state, so that citizens in other part of the state also benefit from them.

What are leading technologies that will transform governance process in any State and why?

Please share with us a tech tool that has fascinated you the most?

We have taken up eOffice (Digital Work Place solution) project in big way, which will transform the functioning of any government office completely. We are also strongly emphasising on use of Maps and GIS for many eGovernance Applications. Business Intelligence and Data Mining will go a long way in unlocking value in the vast data like UID Enrolments, Electoral Roles and Ration card data. Mobile governance will be the next frontier, like Apps, mOffice (Mobile eOffice), SMS based user-interface, location based services etc. Alternative input methods like touch, speech, device-location will also play a major role in transforming the way citizen interact with e-Governance programs. Personally, I am fascinated by various Apps that are being developed on mobile platform for government projects.

In Person

Online Security

Safeguarding the Interests

of Banking and Credit Card Users The banks claim that they are providing their customers with hassle free online security for banking and credit card. But we continue to see rise in numbers of online frauds

O

n February 25, 2013, aspecial court of the Information Technology (IT) Department of Maharashtra, presided by Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra, directed the Punjab National Bank (PNB), Pune, to pay Rs 45 lakh to Manmohan Singh Matharu, who has allegedly lost his money in a cyber crime called phishing attack.

A Landmark Judgment While passing the landmark order, Rajesh Aggarwal commented that Pune police are “not sensitised to cyber crime... the majority of credit card and net banking fraud cases in Maharashtra is from Pune city.�

On August 23, 2011, `80,10,000 was allegedly transferred fraudulently from the account of Poona Auto Ancillaries Private Limited with PNB, Pune. Managing director of the company, Manmohan Singh Matharu found his account allegedly hacked. According to the case, around 40 transactions of `2 lakh each had been made, and another transaction

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Rajesh Aggarwal sheds light on the various issues that banks and financial institutions must address in order to safeguard the interests of their customers. In conversation with Anoop Verma

Online Security

Rajesh Aggarwal

Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra

“We must

encourage the use of plastic money” The judgements that you have passed in the cases of online banking frauds have struck a chord with many users of banking and credit card services. Tell us about the issues that led you to come up with this landmark judgement.

Today the cases of net-baking fraud and credit card fraud are becoming quite common. You go to an ATM machine, and without your knowing the vital details of your card get copied. After that the fraudster creates a cloned card based on your data and siphons off your funds. Someone gets hold of your username and password, and they can basically empty your entire banking account.

Such cases are on the rise in the country.

People are approaching various forums, but they are failing to have speedy resolution to their cases. At times they approach consumer forums. Sometimes they approach banking ombudsman and sometime they approach police station. There are various sections under which the victims of online fraud can approach the adjudicating officer.

About 12 or 13 years have passed since the IT Act came into being, but we still don’t have much clarity about whom the people, the victims of online frauds, should approach in case they suffer a financial loss. When I was looking at all the cases before me, I learned that my predecessors have passed two-three orders, but these were based on some kind of compromise arrangement between the bank and the customer. So in the basic sense of the term, we don’t have a clear judgement.

Only three years ago, the Tamil Nadu IT secretary had passed judgements in two cases as adjudicating officer, but these were stayed at that time by the cyber appellate tribunal. So

effectively, these issues were not appealed in High Courts and Supreme Courts. Now this series of 13-14 judgements probably will lead to some sort of case law.

As you have stated in your judgement, in USA there is a law that the maximum penalty to the consumer is limited to $50. Why do not we have that kind of law over here?

There are two-three issues in this. I have intentionally put on record what other countries like USA are doing. You see,global international banks, which are operating out of India, claim that they are following the best banking practices, but this is one international pro-consumer best practice that they are not yet following in India. Now under Section 46 and other associated sections, I cannot really direct the bank to go for insurance. Maybe, it is for RBI and others to really tell banks to have some pro-consumer measures in place. Insurance is one of the pro-consumer measures. Banks and other financial institutions have the wherewithal to follow thesecases to the logical conclusion; common man lacks the time and the financial resources. The common man needs to be supported, especially in cases where the IP happens to be fromoutside the country.

Your judgement has been well received by a large cross section of the society. But what is its legal validity? Can it be challenged? Are the banks making any effort to challenge it?

I don’t know! It is up to the banks. I have passed some orders against banks, telecom companies, etc. Now it is their right, their

In Person

of `10,000 had been made, leading to a total financial loss of `80,10,000.

After a complaint was filed, money to the tune of `37.6 lakh, transferred to different accounts, was frozen by the bank. The cyber cell of Pune police initiated a probe. Following the interim order of the special court, the PNB reversed this money to the complainant.

In his order, Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra, states, “Criminals used accounts of PNB opened on fake papers to defraud the complainant. This indicates the bank has been very lax with KYC norms.”

Taking a view on the quality of investigation carried out by Pune police, the order has this to say, “After a lot of prodding by me, the police teams went to Gujarat, Kathua, etc., and recorded statements... they had many leads (IP addresses, ATM and CCTV footage etc) which could have been further pursued, but this has not been done. The crime is a well-planned conspiracy by many persons... all of them are roaming free... such a big cyber crime was not even reviewed by the Pune Police Commissioner or even the DCP, which indicates that Pune police are still not sensitised to cyber crimes.”

The order by Rajesh Aggarwal also takes note of the mistake that has been made by the complainant. The order states that the complainant has share part of the blame as he responded to a phishing email, and did not subscribe to the extra secure corporate services being offered by the bank.

Banks are failing to protect information In all, the special court of the Information Technology (IT) Department of Maharashtra, presided by Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra, took cognisance of 13 electronic frauds across the state. The special court came to the conclusion that various banks have failed to the personal information of the customers.

In one case, the ATM was left unmanned and in another a duped customer was treated with contempt allegedly because he was speaking in his mother tongue. Pravin Bhatkar, who does not speak English, struggled to communicate with a bank representative who, the order notes, treated him with contempt. The order says, “I would request HDFC top management to sensitise its officials and staff that poor, lower middle-class, May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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Online Security

prerogative, to either accept the judgement or to challenge it in competent forums. As of now there is a vacancy in the cyber appellate tribunal,so in all probability they might go to the high court, if they want to appeal.

What is your vision for online security for banking and credit card users in the country?

What kind of system should we have so that the banks are also not victimised by fraudsters and the interests of the common users are also safeguarded?

I would begin by saying that it is in the nation’s interest that the use of currency becomes less and less. We have to engineer a rise in the usage of plastic money, credit and debit cards, netbanking, etc. But while going electronic, you have to ensure that there is a well-designed security system in place. Again the security system has to be balanced against the cost-benefit ratio. Across the world, banks basically take into account the amount of money that they are losing due to credit card

mother tongue-speaking customers should not be looked down upon.”

Pravin Bhatkar had complained of misuse of `1.94 lakh on his credit card. His account showed a debit towards the recharge of mobile accounts he didn’t hold. He got his credit card deactivated as the bank started to send him non-payment notices.

or online banking frauds, and to protect such losses from happening, they invest in security.

RBI has issued guidelines regarding international use of credit cards;it has been advised that banks should use chips rather than magnetic strips. All these systems have to be in place. Security is like a cat and mouse game.

The criminals keep mastering new ways of breaking or bypassing the security systems, so you have to constantly evolve and upgrade your systems.

Some banks have started offering high credit limit to their credit card users. The numbers of transactions happening in India are really small. So do people need such high credit card limits?

You cannot generalize the credit card limits.

There are many credit card users who conduct very high value transactions. The generation of young executives are earning high salary, but they don’t even carry a Rs. 100 note in their wallet. They just have a bunch of credit cards. The younger generation is now shifting

In another case, the mobile had stopped working because telecom companies had issued duplicate SIM cards that the consumers hadn’t asked for. In one case the complainant managed to uncover more details than the police did.

The orders passed by Rajesh Aggarwal takes note of banking practices abroad, particularly Section 909 of the Electronic Fund

to plastic money. So you can’t generalise the issue of credit card limits; ultimately the limit has to be based on the needs of the user and the analysis of the card issuing bank.

In Maharashtra what kind of initiatives are you planning to deal with the menace of online frauds.

We are working with NASSCOM, Data Security Council of India and the police to strengthen our cyber police stations. We are trying to provide adequate training to the cops who are manning these police stations.

The use of technology for investigation of cyber crimes has to be encouraged.

In Maharashtra, if there is a credit card fraud, should the victim contact you directly?

There are multiple options available for the victims. On our website http://it.maharashtra. gov.inthere is a provision of filing online complaints for online frauds. In every state, the IT secretary is designated as adjudicating officer under Section 46 of IT Act.

Transfer Act of the US, under which customers are insured against e-frauds beyond $50.

In his order, Rajesh Aggarwal says, “It is quite sad to see global banks operating in India proclaiming very loudly that they are following best practices, but not giving Indian customers the same level of protection that they offer abroad.”

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in person

Neela Satyanarayanan State Election Commissioner, Maharashtra

e-Voting should be regular practice

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hat are the challenges faced by the election commissioner in providing a safer election mechanism for the democracy??

Neela Satyanarayanan, State Election Commissioner, Maharashtra speaks on the efforts of the State Election Commission to ensure safe and happy voting

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There are different stakeholders and different components of an election. Voters are one of the stakeholders. The most important component of the elections is the privacy of the voters. Voters list is another component. A lot of people complain that their information published in the voters’ list is incorrect. Third component is polling centers. Every year there is addition to the population, so new polling centers have to be created for this addition in the population and the voters have to be correctly informed about their polling centers. Political parties are other stakeholders. Many times we receive complaints from the parties that the votes casted for one party go to the account of another party. To address this problem we have upgraded our Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) with new security features.

For parliamentary and assembly elections, we use the voter list shared by the Chief Electoral Officer of Maharashtra under the Government of India supervision. The State Election Commission conducts the elections of the Municipal Corporations, Zilla Parishads and Gram Panchayat across the state. So we have to break this list down according to wards with keeping in mind that the voters would not face any difficulty in terms of location of the polling

In inperson Person

booths and other related factors. The State Election Commission has to take care of these issues while preparing for elections to ensure that the elections are a happy and pleasant experience where voters would want to step out of the house and go for polls.

While deciding about the polling centers, we have to think of trivial yet important issues to ensure comfort of the voters. To avoid long queues outside the polling booths, we have increased the number of booths. Earlier the voters allotted to per booth were 1000-1200, we have reduced this number now to 800 so that voters would not need to stand in the queue for a long time. We also prefer keeping the polling booths on ground floors to avoid inconvenience to elderly, ill and disabled voters. In certain unavoidable situations, where polling booths are kept on upper floors, we make arrangements for Palakis. Besides, we also have to make provisions for basic necessities like drinking water and toilets.

To make voters easier to find directions to their polling centers, we have displayed maps on our website. We also have deployed a call centre and a helpline on which voters contact to find out related information. Through such initiatives, we ensure that the elections are a comfortable experience.

We are also making efforts to bring in e-voting; however because of security issue we have not yet introduced it. I would like e-voting to be a regular practice in Maharashtra.

What was your vision while transforming from conventional to the digital era?

My vision was to minimize corruption and unwanted practices in the elections. I want to present a more comfortable and pleasant experience to the voters.

The laws are implemented as per the election rule book. We wanted everything to be voter-centric. Digitalization has increased accessibility to voters and reduced the possibility of wrong-doing.

For example, we have published on our website the affidavits filed by the candidates at the time of elections. Anybody can see it and learn about the candidates. We also have published newspaper coverage of election so that voters can stay updated about the elections and their candidates.

How do you leverage ICT tools, like mobiles, software, web portals to create awareness among voters?

In addition to our website, we are using SMS

“Digitalization has increased accessibility to voters and reduced the possibility of wrong-doing.� service to mobilize voters on the day of poll.

We tell them it is poll day and your vote is very precious to us, please come out and vote. This service is available in both Marathi and English.

This has proved to be a good success as a lakhs of people come to vote.

What is your roadmap for e-voting?

In the initial stages, we are trying to introduce e-voting for the officials on the election duty. This will include the polling centre officials, police, guards and government officers. Officials on election duty, most often, cannot cast their vote as they cannot be physically present at the polling booth allotted to them. I want to begin with these personnel to implement e-voting in the state.

How e-voting mechanism will work?

First, we will register all the voters opted for e-voting. Once a voter chooses to cast his/her vote through e-voting, they will be removed

from the list of the voters casting their votes at the polling booth. A mobile van equipped with a highly secured computer and connectivity will reach the polling centers where the staff on election duty can cast their vote.

Security is the most challenging part of e-voting. Considering the sensitivity of the vote, it must not leak or misused either by lure or by intimidation.

Considering the needs of the e-voting system in Maharashtra, which voting system in the world you find most suitable?

Election mechanism of each country has its own advantages and disadvantages; it has its own political set up. We have designed a system that suits our environment. Election system in India has its own challenges. This is why we have to go by our condition and accordingly design an e-voting pattern.

What is your vision for next five years?

I want the elections to be fair and free. I will be happy if e-voting is introduced on village level as well. I am sure that voters will find it comfortable to go to nearby kiosks to their home and vote.

In 2012 elections we did another experiment of setting up polling booths in large residential complexes. We had set up polling booths at societies with more than 1,000 voters. We received a very positive response from the voters. We are planning to expand on this idea.

May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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in person

T C Benjamin

Additional Chief Secretary, Public Health Department, Government of Maharashtra

From primary to tertiary healthcare

T

oday ICT has become an inseparable part of healthcare. What are the ways by in which Public Health Department is benefiting from the usage of latest ICT solutions?

T C Benjamin, Additional Chief Secretary, Public Health Department, Govt of Maharashtra, provides an overview of the IT initiatives that have been undertaken by his department. He also talks about his dream of providing better tertiary healthcare to all. In conversation with Nikita Apraj, ENN

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Public Health Department is one of the largest departments in the state as far as number of staff is concerned. We have more than 65,000 employees at various levels dealing with delivery of health services across the state. We have three levels of service delivery. At the primary level, we have Sub-Centres and Primary Health Centres. At the secondary level, we have Rural Hospitals, Sub-district Hospitals, Women Hospitals and District Hospitals. At the tertiary level, we have Super Speciality Hospitals. Since we have a large number of employees, we have adopted e-Governance for effective functioning. We use software for monitoring the posting and transfers of medical staff. Postings and transfers are difficult to track unless we have a system in which we can capture data on real-time basis. We have developed an online system for requesting transfers and paperwork is totally avoided as far as submission of requests for transfers are concerned.

Likewise, information regarding availability of doctors across all healthcare institutions is readily available online and it is updated every quarter.

Other information like availability of staff, Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), medicines and details regarding construction related activities of health institutions being undertaken by the department are also available online. Recently, the department has introduced an online software that assists the doctors to evaluate physically challenged persons at the District Hospitals and

In inperson Person

thereby avoids any human error in the process. The software certifies the extent of disability and issues online certificate or rejection note as appropriate.

What kind of e-Governance initiatives have been undertaken under NRHM in Maharashtra?

National Rural Health Mission was launched in 2005. The mainstay of the mission is to protect and track health of the mother and the child from conception to the time when child is around five years old. Various milestones are associated with prenatal and post-natal period and various inputs are required during this period for effective tracking.

Around 22 lakh deliveries happen in Maharashtra every year. To track this we use Mother and Child Tracking system (MCTS). Through MCTS, our Auxiliary Nurse & Midwives (ANMs) register the pregnant women on MCTS card, which gets computerised on MCTS portal. The unique number on MCTS card becomes the identification number of each pregnant woman for further tracking. We also have created an application for around 59000 ASHAs. ASHA members are not our employees; they are village level activists who are given incentives for various activities such as ANC checks, facilitating deliveries, immunisation and Family Welfare services. An online ASHA application has been developed for tracking the personal information, training, performance and payment details of all ASHAs in the state.

Saving the girl child is one of our most important concerns. The PCPNDT (Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques) Act bans pre-natal sex determination. With the use of an online application and associated analytical reports, we are able to monitor the performance of the Sonography Centres and can also record the purpose of Sonography tests. We have the data of all the Sonography centres across the state registered with us. Any pregnant lady coming at the Sonography centre is required to fill the ‘F’ form. The purpose of performing a Sonography test is declared in the ‘F’ form which is now filled online. At present, we have 6041 Sonography centres registered in the software and so far 10,45,675 ‘F’ forms have been filled online.

What initiatives has the Public Health Department taken to improve its presence in tertiary healthcare?

Over the years, the department has been dealing primarily with communicable disease like Dengue, Flu and Cholera to name a few. While

we are equipped and adept in managing them, we are not geared up to the desired level to provide tertiary level treatment, especially noncommunicable diseases. Today, non-communicable diseases such cancer, diabetes, etc. are claiming much more lives than communicable diseases. Our involvement in this segment is very minimal. For cancer treatment, we have only Tata Memorial Hospital that provides comprehensive treatment. We hardly have any such facility in Vidarbha, Marathwada or other parts of Maharashtra. That is the reason that we plan to set-up establishments treating non-communicable lifestyle diseases in these regions.

There are no facilities to deal with geriatrics problems i.e. problems related to old people. Palliative care means taking care of an old person who may be ill and dying at hospital or at their home.

Looking after this population becomes a major concern for the public healthcare system. World Health Organization too has recognized this as one of the prime objectives of healthcare delivery

of Below Poverty Line citizens to quality medical care for identified specialty services requiring hospitalization for surgeries and therapies or consultations through an identified network of healthcare providers.

The RGJAY provides each beneficiary a cover of Rs. 1,50,000 through insurance. The scheme provides reimbursement through insurance for 972 surgeries/therapies/procedures along with121 follow-up packages across 30 identified specialized. We pay to the insurance company a premium of Rs. 333 per annum per beneficiary family. Through this scheme, we have been able to undertake 47000 surgeries.

The scheme has become extremely popular among the beneficiaries and we are planning to roll out the RGJAY in the entire state.

The private hospitals have mushroomed all over the country. What is your view of the contribution that is being

“We want to set-up establishments for treating non-communicable lifestyle diseases” system. We have done very little in this area.

There are few initiatives started in palliative care in Vidarbha area. We have trained nurses and doctors for handling and dealing with old patients not only through the required medication but also the desired counselling. We are very keen on helping these patients to reduce their suffering while they approach death. I would like to set-up the institute of Palliative care where nurses and doctors can be trained. The need is to sensitize them about this issue. This institution would be set up in Mumbai, most probably at Tata Memorial Hospital.

Maharashtra was the first state to roll out Jeevandayee Yojana for BPL patients which was later adopted by the central government. Tell us about it.

If a poor person needs tertiary healthcare for ailments related to heart surgery or a brain surgery, s/he cannot afford it. To support such needy patients, the Government of Maharashtra started Jeevandayee Yojana in 1997 which used to provide Rs 25,000 for surgeries.

Now we have successfully implemented Rajiv Gandhi Jeevandayee Arogya Yojana (RGJAY) in eight districts of the state to improve access

made by private hospitals in Maharashtra?

In Mumbai there are about 53 private charitable hospitals. On inspecting all of these hospitals we found that many hospitals were not complying with the rule of reserving 20 percent of their beds for the poor patients. Hospitals are also supposed to keep aside 2 percent of their income in the form of an ‘ Integrated Patients Fund’ which many of them were not adhering to. Few hospitals do not pass on the concessions in fees offered by surgeons to the poor patients. Besides, as per the ‘Charitable Act’ items such as food, bed charges, linen, OPD charges amongst others are not to be billed to the poor patients. However, some hospitals are found to be charging poor patients for these items. On the other hand, we have given hospitals many concessions in the form of land, extra FSI, exemptions in customs duty and income tax. We have offered concessions to the hospitals because they are expected to provide certain free services to the poor people. We appeal the private charitable hospitals to be socially responsible. Another possible recourse is to withdraw some of their concessions, though we have not done it so far.

May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

21

in person

Swadheen Kshatriya

Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Revenue and Forests, Government of Maharashtra

Demystifying Land Records

e

Governance has gained lot of traction in Maharashtra during the last few years. Many new initiatives have been taken. What is your vision of e-Governance in revenue department?

My vision for e-Governance is that the revenue department and all offices under the revenue department should move towards attaining e-office. The best example today of e-office is the Collector Office of Sindhudurg. It has reached to a stage of completely paperless governance.

All collector offices and tehsil offices should be completely integrated into this system. My vision is that all the collector offices and subdivisional offices and even the revenue department in Maharashtra should move in that direction. However, I accept the fact that this is a long process, but I am sure it will spread to departments and offices across the state. We are focusing on the e-Governance measures which

Swadheen Kshatriya, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Revenue and Forests, Government of Maharashtra, sheds light on how he is leveraging ICT for clean and clear land records. In conversation with Nikita Apraj, ENN

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In inperson Person

will provide immediate relief to the citizens.

We have finalised software – e-Chavadi and e-Mutation. Both these software have been approved by the IT department and are now ready to be rolled out for the implementation in all districts of Maharashtra.

Tell us about the software being used by your department. In what ways are these solutions enabling you to improve efficiency and transparency? e-Chavadi enables a talathi to make use of a laptop for providing records of rights to the land owner. It facilitates several other activities like mutation, correction of records to be carried out instantly. We have around 12,600 talathis and approximately 8,700 of them are now using laptops. The e-chawdi software was developed by a talathi himself.

He prepared the first software and called it the talathi-mitra. It became very popular among talathis. I am very happy that large numbers of newly-recruited young talathis are very comfortable using information technology and e-governance.

We have conducted pilot for the last one year on the e-mutation. This pilot was successful and has given us confidence that we will be able to implement the e-mutation across the state. Basically e-mutation involves simultaneous online real-time changes in land record. Any transaction, in terms of sales, in terms of change in ownership will be recorded in the revenue and as well as the registration. For example, if somebody goes directly to the registrar’s office and he finds that such a transaction has taken place, information is immediately transmitted to the revenue department.

Brief us about the e-Mojni initiative?

Earlier you had to wait to know when your land will be measured. You would be concerned about who will be coming to measure the land and at what time. At times when our staff went to measure land, the land owner was not available and therefore the result was not satisfactory. e-Mojni enables you to know when your land will be measured.

When you apply through e-Mojni, immedi-

ately you receive information about the day on which the land will be measured. It also informs about the time as well as the officials who are going to come to measure the land.

Even the mobile numbers of these officials are informed to the applicant, so that in case a particular date or time is not convenient for that person, he can request for a change. We have also started using Electronic Total Station Machines (ETS) that measures the land much faster and in a more accurate manner.

ETS can measure accurately radius of about 5 kms. That has enabled us to measure the land more accurately.

“My vision is that all the collector and sub-divisional offices along with the revenue department should move to e-Office” You have also undertaken digitalisation of land records.

What are the main benefits of this scheme?

Yes, we have undertaken a major programme this year for digitisation of the land records and village maps. The old records are very valuable records, but due to heavy usage and daily wear and tear they are in a delicate condition. We are making use of modern technology to scan all these records and digitize these maps. Most importantly, all these records will be made available in the public domain. We are planning to set up kiosks at Tehsil offices, Collector offices, Sub-divisional offices where all the scanned and digitized records should be available to the citizen on a touch-screen. We want to

demystify the land records and we want to make it available to the citizens.

Revenue department is undertaking re-survey of the land.

Tell us about more about that.

We want the modern technology to carry out re-survey of land. The last land survey in Maharashtra was carried out 80-90 years back and thereafter no resurvey has been conducted. There is a huge difference between the old records and the reality on ground. This has been a cause of many litigations, disputes and mutations. We want to make the land records clean and bring about clear titles. We are planning to launch e-Survey programme. We have completed a pilot project in the last six months and on the basis of experience that we have gained in the pilot project, we are very keen to launch a state-wide programme which will be done in phases. We want to begin during the current financial year and for that we will be needing lot of technology solutions and modern technology solutions.

Districts covered in the phase I and its time period will soon be declared. The government is convinced about the necessity of the re-survey.

We are studying various types of technologies that are available for carrying out such survey.

Considering the spread of the state and constraint of the time-period, we need a technology that is much faster than other technologies.

At the same time it has to be accurate because land is such a precious commodity that a slight mistake can become a big problem. Survey should have been conducted every 30 years.

Maharashtra is blessed with different types of geographies, so we will be using different technologies as per the need of a particular geography. For example, we don’t need minute measurements in the large areas of a dense forest. But in terms of measuring cultivating lands and residential lands, an EPS-GPS solution will be helpful.

How citizens are responding to e-Transactions?

The citizens are very happy about the speed and ease e-transactions has brought in. The number of certificates, public redressals that through use of information technology is great and we will continue to make use of ICTs to deliver better services to the people.

May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

23

in person

V L Achaliya Principal Secretary, Law and Judiciary, Government of Maharashtra

Speedy justice

through e-Governance

“Independence of judiciary is a basic feature of our constitution. For smooth, efficient and effective functioning of justice delivery system, it is imperative to have a conducive infrastructure and suitable work environment,” says V L Achaliya, Principal Secretary, Law and Judiciary, Government of Maharashtra

T

ell us about the e-Governance solutions that have been launched in your department.

In my opinion, e-Governance in Maharashtra is much more developed than any other state in the country. That is my view. During the last 7-8 years a significant part of the government work has been computerized. Currently we are in the process of introducing a system that will enable citizens to come at the filing counter with a pen

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drive or CD and lodge a writ petition. Even if the citizen is filing through paper, we have a system for digitizing the information and ensuring that it gets circulated quickly. We have the system of electronic staplers, which can automatically staple electronic pages and separate them as per the requirements. I would say that the entire credit for the successful execution of this project goes to the IT Department, which has been very proactive in implementation.

may want the case to be listed and the other person may not want it to be listed. As the current system does not have a human interface in it, it ensures that there is impartiality in the listing of cases. Illegal activity is minimised through this system. We have changed several rules and regulations regarding the court fee and now even the e-payment is accepted which was launched a year back. The NIC has a tie up with the registrar of IGR office.

Can you shed more light on the e-Governance system that you have implemented?

The e-payment system has been recently launched. Are you facing any challenges in it?

The main idea behind the system is to make it possible for the other side to respond in an easy manner when the court issues a notice. The response can be filed through e-file in a CD. The thing is that the world is moving at a very fast pace, every organisation is keen to adopt a paperless method of working, as it not only saves time, it also leads to considerable savings in terms of costs. The paperless system in our department makes the task of lawyers simpler. They can access every kind of their data in e-form after the implementation the centralised scheme. The record of all cases at High Court is being digitised. Suppose a person filed writ petition and wanted to see the other side of the reply then that is also available on the internet. The high court judgment can also be found on the internet. All the judgements given by the hon’ble judges are uploaded to the server and converted into PDF, which is available .in public domain.

Acceptability is a problem. Sometimes people don’t have bank accounts. There are also issues related to training of the staff. The people need to have confidence in the e-systems. But over a period of time these issues will get resolved and people will develop better comfort levels with technology.

Are you seeing some kind of efficiency in the disposal of cases ever since the new system came into place?

IThe current system reduces human interference and leads to more transparency. On many occasions we have a situation where one person

Technology is changing very fast. What kind of technological changes do you see happening in your department in times to come?

We are working with a vision of having every employee in the department trained in latest technologies. They will be provided digital signatures, and scanners. For the actual implementation the overall mindset has to change.

Unless people are forced to accept the new technologies things are not going to change.

The process has already started, and the entire credit for that goes to the IT department. The pilot project for digitisation of data has already started. We have replaced the older laptops of the judicial officers with new ones. We have a video conferencing facility, which enables officers to have an interaction or key discussions from their districts.

in person

Balaji Rao

Director-Sales, India & SAARC, VMware Software India Pvt. Ltd.

Efficient governance through virtualisation

P

lease provide us with an overview of the operations that VMware is having in India.

Currently we are having about 2000 people in India. 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 centres in Bangalore and Pune. So we are in fact spread all across the country. The development work that we are doing in India has global impact. A lot of development work that is being done in India has a global impact, because the software products finally get sold in the global market. Currently we are planning to expand the Bangalore facility to further improve the scope of the work we are doing in India. The company has announced a multiyear investment of $120 million that includes a long term lease for a new 420,000 square foot building in South Bangalore, currently under construction. In fact, VMware’s India-based R&D and support operations are second in size and scale only to those at the company’s headquarters located in Palo Alto, California.

VMware’s R&D operations in India make a significant contribution to the company’s portfolio of virtualisation 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 centre, hybrid cloud and end-user computing.

Taking specifically of Maharashtra, you have been for the MahaGov Cloud project. Please tell us about the work that you are doing in this area.

The Government of Maharashtra has selected VMware virtualisation and cloud infrastructure technology for its MahaGov Cloud. As you must know, the 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 e-Governance initiatives. The Government of Maharashtra has deployed VMware vSphere®and VMware vCloud Director®to virtualize the state datacenter, which

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In inperson Person

VMware Factsheet Corporate

Customers

VMware Ecosystem

• VMware was founded in 1998 • Headquarters: Palo Alto, California, USA • More than 13,800 VMware people at the end of 2012 • Revenues for 2012 were $4.61 billion, an increase of 22% from 2011.

• International revenues grew 22% to $2.38 billion from 2011.

• Revenues for the first quarter were $1.19 billion, an increase of 13% from the first quarter of 2012.

VMware has more than 500,000 customers today • 99% of the Fortune 100 • 99% of the Fortune 500 • 99% of the Fortune 1000 • 100% of the Fortune Global 100 • 99% of the Fortune Global 500

• • • • • • • • •

Total Partners: Over 55,000 partners Technology Alliance Partners: 2,200+ Solution Provider Partners: Over 50,000 Service Provider Partners: 9900+ EMEA Partners: 28,000+ APAC Partners: 10,000+ Americas Partners: 21,000+ VMware Certified Professionals: 93,000+ More than 200 certified VMware vCloud Powered Services in 30 countries

providing. Currently VMware holds 80 percent market share in the virtualisation space.

Our solutions are being adopted by many governments around the world. With limited budgets and a growing need for services, the governments need a more flexible and costeffective model for computing – one that allows them to operate more efficiently and respond faster to emerging needs. Our cloud solutions are helping governments transform their IT departments into efficient, flexible enterprises that can respond faster to emerging needs, while reducing IT infrastructure and operating costs. Virtualisation provides organizations with an evolutionary path to cloud computing that preserves existing IT investments, security, and control.

India and elsewhere that they should go for our products.

hosts the MahaGov Cloud. Our company has been chosen after an extensive evaluation conducted by the Government of Maharashtra.

I would also like to inform you that VMware deployment has helped the Government of Maharashtra lower the cost of hosting, improve the management of the state datacenter infrastructure, and drastically reduce the time required to provision infrastructure for various state departments. This has encouraged state departments to host their mission critical applications on the MahaGov Cloud, making it the only government cloud in India that is running a production environment with a high volume of servers and applications.

What are the key solutions that you are providing to the Government?

Virtualisation is the key solution that we are

VMware is the leader in virtualisation and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs.

With 2012 revenues of $4.61 billion, VMware has more than 480,000 customers and 55,000 partners

Selling to Government must have its own set of challenges?

Tell us about the challenges that you are facing in dealing with the government departments in India.

The challenges that we face in India are of different type. If you look at some of our competitors in India, you will find that the price that they are offering is very low, but that is because their quality is not good. The government always procures through a process of tendering, and this makes it important for us to work hard for establishing our credentials. When we are able to show a good proof of concept and when we are able to show the benefits of virtualisation along with that the disaster recovery and security management, we are usually able to convince the government departments in

What kinds of products you are having for the defence sector internationally? How do you see the Indian defence market evolving in the next few years?

The nature of the datacenter does not change when we are in defence sector. However, the nature of the applications can change; there will be lot of simulation and there is a lot of war gaming that happens. In some of the countries we are on top of submarines because there is so little space available and we have the ability to provide a completely secure solution, where if one server goes down the other takes-over immediately without any time lag. You don’t even know when one server goes down and the other becomes active. We are currently working to make that solution scalable. We are interested in the defence sector for a number of solutions that we can provide.

How does VMware see the Indian market?

India is a very important market for us. As I already said, we have our second largest development facility in Bangalore. We are committed to pursuing the huge opportunity for our solutions in India’s fast-growing and maturing market, as companies harness our technology to help them achieve the agility needed to compete in dynamic business arenas at home and overseas. We are also eager to work with the Central and various State governments in the country.

May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

27

in person

Milind Mhaiskar

Secretary, Relief and Rehabilitation, Goverment of Maharashtra

Braving

the disasters

P

lease provide us with an overview of the work that the Relief and Rehabilitation Department is doing?

The State of Maharashtra by the virtue of its geographical location and demography is vulnerable to a host of natural hazards. Urbanization and growing importance of cities like Mumbai in terms of economy has made the city susceptible to manmade disasters as well. Hence today preparing for disasters though mitigation and preparedness as well as responding to disasters in a proactive manner has become extremely important.

The Relief and Rehabilitation (R&R) Department is in charge of providing relief to the affected in times of a disaster and also in rehabilitation of people from vulnerable areas after a disaster. The disaster management unit of the R&R department looks at reducing the effects of a disaster through capacity building, mitigation and preparedness by means of various programs and initiatives in the State.

The R&R dept is also coordinating the drought relief measures today in the State through providing water, fodder and compensation for agricultural losses in the affected areas.

Tell us about the State Disaster Management Plan.

What new initiatives are you planning to take?

The State Disaster Management Plan has been prepared in four volumes.

It has been prepared taking into account the vulnerability of the State based on past occurrences of disasters. We are currently in the process of revamping the State Disaster Management Plan based on the guidelines of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

The State Plan was prepared on before the NDMA guidelines were issued. Hence currently the plan is being revamped in association with the Centre for Disaster Management, YASHADA. The idea is to make the plan on the basis of a scientific Hazard Risk Vulnerability assessment of the State and make it much more user friendly and effective.

Please tell us about capacity building programmes you have undertaken at ground level to cope up with natural disasters.

It is necessary that you KNOW disasters to ensure that NO disasters cause

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Milind Mhaiskar Milind Mhaiskar, Secretary, Relief and Rehabilitation, Govt of Maharashtra speaks about how his department is preparing to face natural and manmade disasters in conversation with Nikita Apraj, ENN

In inperson Person

huge losses to people and property. For this it is imperative that awareness about disasters is created among the people. The Maharashtra Disaster Risk Management program has been started in all the districts in the State.

The thrust of the programme is on capacity building, institutional strengthening and awareness generation through various programs, creation of search and rescue teams, and orientation of PRA members, government officials in Disaster Management etc.

Under the programme trained human resource support is provided to the districts in the form of district disaster management officers who support the district administration in carrying out all these activities related to Disaster Management.

Apart from this, the National School Safety Program is being initiated in the earthquake prone districts of Pune and Satara to build capacity of schools against earthquakes through awareness generation. Also workshops are being carried out by the Indian Meteorological Department on Hydro-meteorological and Geological disasters in the vulnerable districts in the State.

You are planning a Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) in the event of Railway Motormen’s strike in Mumbai. This situation is very peculiar to the city and can serve as fertile ground for a disaster. Please elaborate on this.

The local trains are the life-line of Mumbai city. Majority of the city’s population uses the local trains to commute to their offices and back. Together the central, the harbour and the western railway lines transport lakhs of people every day. Hence in times of a railway strike, the whole city comes to a standstill.

In times of the evening especially, such a strike leads to heavy congestion on the roads leading to large traffic jams as the road infrastructure cannot handle such huge numbers of people suddenly commuting using roads.

In such situations, it becomes problematic for essential services like the ambulances or the fire brigades to commute. Hence the Disaster Management Unit of the Relief and Rehabilitation Department is coordinating the preparation of a SOP for such situations with the traffic police and other concerned departments like the transport railways, MCGM etc. The SOP involves a communication protocol and staggered dispersal of crowds.

“the disaster management unit of the R&R department looks at reducing the effects of a disaster through capacity building” What steps you have taken to fight against man-made disasters like chemical, nuclear or radiological attacks?

These disasters primarily fall under the domain of the Home Department. However, an SOP for dealing with terrorist attacks using CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) agents has been prepared by the districts and the State Level. Also the department coordinates with the Tarapur Atomic Power station and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) in preparing for offsite plans for the power station in times of a crisis at the plant site.

How you are planning to ensure the safety of pilgrims at places of worship such as upcoming Mahakumbh at Nashik?

The Nashik Sinhasta Kumbhmela is going to be held in 2015. We had sent teams of officials from our department as well as from Nashik to the Mahakumbh at Allahabad to study the arrangements made there for the Mahakumbh and how the good practices used there could be modified to suit the scenario at Nashik. Also we

are coordinating with the Nashik District Collector for preparation of plans for the Kumbh.

Also a team of the NDRF will be deputed at the site for the duration of the Mela.

What new initiatives are you planning to be able to fight disasters in a better way?

The department is in the process of creation of a state-of-art Emergency Operations Centre and Unified Coordination Centre at Mantralaya and also in the districts. The purpose of the creation of this centre is to ensure optimum coordination amongst all agencies in times of a disaster for effective response and to obtain last mile connectivity for intervention in disasters.

Also we are in the process of taking up medical preparedness programs throughout the State to train medical workers and citizens to respond in terms of basic medical aid in various disasters.

The Disaster Management Unit is also in the process of setting up a state interagency group with various NGOs and CBOs to ensure that in times of a disaster, the right relief reaches the right place and there is no duplicity of relief efforts.

May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

29

in person

Pradeep Kumar CEO, Government Business, Vakrangee Softwares Ltd

Setting new

New milestones in e-Governance

e

Governance space has seen a lot of developments during the last few years.

Vakrangee has made a name for itself by managing number of large size e-Governance projects in a timely and efficient manner. Tell us about your experience of working in the e-Governance area.

While executing projects for the government, we are mainly focused on two areas – systems integration (SI) projects and citizen centric projects. In fact, e-Governance has led to expanding opportunities for Vakrangee. We are executing number of projects such as CSC and BCA in about 50000 locations in our last mile Touch-Point business, wherein we, as the interface between Government and Citizen, deliver the government services to the citizens using state-of-art technology. We have ventured into the CSC business in the pursuit of expansion of our Touch-Point Business. Now, our centres at the gram panchayat level in Rajasthan and Punjab are delivering numerous G2C and B2C services such as Land Record, Election I-Card, NREGS Card, Cast/ Domicile/Birth/Income Certificate etc. at the doorstep of the citizen. We take pride in the fact that our systems are making it possible for citizens to access various government services

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Pradeep Kumar

In in Person person

without having to visit any government office.

As far as the System Integration Projects are concerned, I would like to mention the IGRS Maharashtra project. As we have successfully implemented it. Then we are also doing an end to end smart card based PDS project for the government of Harayana. We are also providing the point of sale terminals at 9,000 fair price shops. After doing UIDAI enrolment, we are actually providing smart card based ration cards. In this, all 55 lakh households in Harayana will finally have biometric ration cards.

What kinds of biometrics have been captured for your ration card project?

The biometrics being captured are the same as what is being done under Aadhaar. In fact, it is an Aadhaar based project. First AADHAR enrolment is done and then the biometric ration card gets processed. This project is already rolled out in the four blocks of Harayana. As of now we have covered more than one lakh fifty thousand families. This is the largest automated PDS project in the country.

We are also part of the NPR data digitisation project execution. Through this the data of all the citizens is being digitized. We have done a major share of that project. Our focus is brining excellence in execution. We bring tremendous amount of efficiency into the projects that we execute, when it comes to delivering results we are far ahead of all our competitors.

PDS Haryana Vakrangee Softwares is a pioneer in the e-governance domain and brings together all the hardware, software and on ground activation required for successful launch and management of e-governance initiatives. It has the experience, expertise, capability and capacity to handle large scale, nationwide implementation of e-Governance initiatives

Tell us about the CSC project that you are having in Rajasthan.

We started the CSCs project in Rajasthan; we got the project awarded in the month of June last year and the State Government had given us one year of time to execute it. I am glad to say that we have managed to complete the rollout of the project in just first four months. All the

projects are now running successfully. We devote so much of time to make sure that the projects rollout on time and as per the client determined SLAs. Take the example of UIDAI project, on paper it seems to be a mere enrolment drive, but in spirit the UIDAI initiative is great scope. It is about ensuring that every citizen in the country has access to benefits from the government, it is about ensuring that student scholarships and senior citizen pensions get directly delivered to them in their villages through their AADHAR linked bank accounts. We have done more than 3.5 crore enrolments for UIDAI in the country.

In Maharashtra we have done close to 60 lakh enrolments. For last four months we have been the number one in the country when it comes to Aadhaar enrolments and generation.

You have also engineered the concept of Mega Centres for enrolment. Please tell us about it.

Aadhar MobileVan

To facilitate faster AADHAR enrolment of beneficiaries of 26 schemes under Direct Benefit Transfer we have also done some innovations like mega centres. This innovation has been done in close coordination with the Department of Information Technology in Maharashtra. Shri Rajesh Aggarwal, IT Secretary, Maharashtra, is an inspiration behind this project. Under mega centres we setup large number May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

31

in person

Aadhar Camp

of kits at a single location. 10 to 20 kits are there to ensure that people do not have to waste their entire day for standing in queues. We have done this project in Mumbai and Thane. Now we have been asked to launch similar centres in Pune and Nagpur also. In Mega Centres 2000 to 3000 enrolments can be done in a single day. We have also come up with mobile enrolment van for senior citizens and differently-abled people.

The government in centre and in different states are now concentrating on creating an environment for financial inclusion. What kind of work are you doing in this area?

In financial inclusion we have been awarded Common BCA contract for 2 clusters covering 3 states for launching initiatives related to setting up ultra small branches of all the public sector banks through BCA model (Banking) in every panchayat. Maharashtra is one cluster and Rajasthan and Delhi combined comprise the second cluster. We will be providing doorstep banking and direct benefits transfer. Apart from banking services, we are also adding other services like payment of LIC premiums, Rail ticket booking, and services related to passport, UIDAI enrolment and others.

There have been some question marks about the profitability of

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Our Vision is to emerge as the first choice, end to end e-governance & ITeS Solution provider in India and Global Market by efficiently serving the requirements of the Governments as well as the private sector Industries such as Telecom, BFSI, Retail, Utilities and Transport.

the CSCs and the BCs. What is the impact of CSCs and BCAs in your profitability?

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.

In what verticals are you seeing maximum growth?

We have recently received the RBI mandate of deploying at least 15000 White Label ATMs. White Label ATM means an automated teller machine that does not linked to a single bank.

These ATMs will provide services for large number of banks. We see lot of potential in this areaAlong with the rural Banking business .

Executing projects for the government must have challenges of its own. At times the decision making is slow, the directives are not clear and there

are other issues as well. How do you manage all these challenges?

What can the government do to enable companies like Vakaranjee to deliver better results?

First of all, we must have a serious intent for delivering results. Lot of challenges need to be addressed. At times companies face challenges as certain companies are unable to imbibe the spirit of the project. They just intend to finish the work as soon as possible so that their job gets over soon without bothering about the intended outcome for citizens benefits. They fail to understand that every project is also about transforming the model of service delivery. Yes, we do have challenges when some of the SLAs are very impractical to meet, but we always try to satisfy our clients. But our focus is always on delivering good results on the ground. The satisfaction of clients is our first objective. We say what we believe and we deliver what we say!

Do you have any plans to expand your business abroad?

The Indian market is really huge. There is no dearth of market opportunity. Size and scalability, which is available in India, is nowhere else. However we are always on the lookout for lucrative business opportunities abroad .Recently we have completed Land Records digitisation project in Philippines.

In Person

Medha Gadgil

Principal Secretary, Home, Government of Maharashtra

We plan to

expand PMS state-wide Please elaborate on the ways by which video conferencing is proving helpful.

There is no doubt that this is proving to be a very helpful solution; we have been using it for the last 4-5 years now. This has helped us save a lot of cost. We have installed monitors in jails and the court premises. An under-trial prisoner has to appear in the court of law multiple times. This also has saved a huge manpower because the under-trial prisoners require security escorts. Apart from video conferencing, we are also promoting the use of Skype and other such conferencing tools for saving even more costs. Solutions such as Skype do not require much investment. Besides video conferencing, we are undertaking modernisation of prisons by installing CCTVs for enhancing security.

What infrastructure you have installed for video conferencing?

Medha Gadgil, Principal Secretary, Home, Government of Maharashtra, provides her views on Prison Management System (PMS). In conversation with Nikita Apraj, ENN

I

n your opinion what are the main challenges of handling prisons. What are the ways by which ICT is being used to address these challenges?

Currently we have to handle a total of about 22,000 prisoners. This number includes both under-trials and convicts. We have 43 different Jails in all over the state. It is a major challenge for us to ensure that all the prisoners are housed in suitable prisons. The major difficulties are usually related to the court appearances of the under-trail prisoners. It is natural that every under-trail wants to appear in court as he wants his case to be decided in a speedy manner. While taking prisoners to court we have to ensure that there is adequate police escorts. At times it so happens that police escorts are not available as there are multiple duties. They have to attend bandobast, festivals, etc. So we came to the conclusion that a good solution for this would be to adopt technology. Now we are facilitating the trail of prisoners through video conferencing in prisons and courts.

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We have computer system and monitors installed at both the places - in the court and in the jail. Both the places are connected through internet connectivity. A prisoner can appear before the court by sitting in the jail.

This solution has been accepted by the court as well. The use of technology will bring in greater efficiency, everything even in the inventory management.

“Besides video conferencing, we are undertaking modernisation of prisons by installing CCTVs for enhancing security�

How Prison Management System will help in managing prisons?

The Prison Management System will be very shortly implemented in all the jails across the state. Manual prison management is proving a challenge for us due to complexity and sensitivity of the task. At present, jail officials have to perform a lot of tasks manually which will be replaced soon by the Prison Management System.

There are issues like calculating parole, entitlement of a prisoner which is done manually at present. Once the prison management system is installed we will be in the position to do such tasks through computers. We have started it in the Arthur Road jail; we faced some glitches which we are rectifying. We are planning to install PMS in this financial year in other jails as well.

in person

Dr A B Pandey

Deputy Director General, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)-West, Government of India

Action begins

on direct benefit transfer ries’ database and also in their bank account have begun these will facilitate the releasing Aadhar based payment to citizens. Our pilots have begun for actual direct benefit transfer in Maharashtra’s six districts that include Mumbai, Mumbai Subarban, Pune, Nandurbagh, Wardha and Amravati. We are also going to further add six more districts within next month as part of the second phase of action.

Significant progress towards Aadhar-based authentication and deployment of micro ATM’s has happened. As compared to last year, we are in a better position to demonstrate the online usage of Aadhar-based authentication, where on a micro ATM kind of a device people can Maharashtra government has developed a self seeding module wherein any resident can seed his data related to PDS, NREGA among other schemes either through SMS or through Web. This is the first example of real use of SRDH in the country. Dr A B Pandey, Deputy Director General, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)-West, Government of India tells us more

H

ow has the state progressed in terms of UIDAI in the last one year?

In Maharashtra, now we have covered almost 6 Crore population for Adhaar enrollments, also the Maharashtra government and other registrars have planned to complete 90 percent of the population under Adhaar by March 2014.

In addition, the direct benefit transfer schemes have also started particularly in the scholarship schemes so seeding of UID in the beneficia-

the benefit with the UID’s therefore one person can open only one account. He cannot get multiple bank accounts and cannot have multiple identities and get multiple benefits. India is getting ready for e-transactions and that will play a key role in bringing transparency in the government functioning.

Tell us on the plans to implement direct benefit transfer based on Adhaar numbers in Maharashtra?

In the state, the scheme will be run in total 12 district of Maharashtra where there will be a direct benefit transfer of government schemes through UID benefit account. Some of the

“In next one year we will achieve a kind of saturation and a lot of Government schemes can be linked with the UIDAI” put their finger prints and also give their UID numbers and then in few seconds the person can get authenticated. So this is now fully in production. We have a unique system called e-Aadhar where people can go online and put their details and moreover they can also print their Aadhar. Maharashtra has now a state of the art state residents data hub, the first state to implement innovative usages of it including SMS and Web based Self seeding, resulting in usage by departments for delivering citizen centric services.

How do the Adhaar linked accounts weed away bogus beneficiaries?

If the benefit was earlier going to get bogus now that we have linked with the UID and to the bank accounts then naturally bogus person cannot have a UID. Plus because we are linking

schemes of Government where also the Aadhar is been linked include one of LPG subsidy, wherein we are working with the oil companies and so every gas cylinder account is linked with the UID and as and when the government decides to give cash subsidy to the LPG cylinder holders, the beneficiaries can gain the benefit. We are also working with the banks so that the people’s bank accounts are linked with the UID so that anyone can be the beneficiary of any scheme and as an when the Government decides to give cash benefit through bank account, then the benefits can flow to the Aadhar-linked bank accounts. With all these initiatives gaining steam as we progress ahead, we hope in next one year particularly in Maharashtra, we will achieve a kind of saturation and a lot of Government schemes can be linked with the UID so that people are able to get these benefits in a very easy manner.

May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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In Person

Mahesh Zagade

Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration, Government of Maharashtra

Protecting

Consumer Interests What are the main issues that come up when you are regulating the sale of drugs?

The FDA Maharashtra has won the Gold Award from the Government of India for its initiative to regulate the drug licenses in the state. The various pharmacies are engaged in selling prescription and non-prescription drugs.

So it is a must that the sale should be conducted under the supervision of registered and qualified pharmacists. The pharmacy shops are one of the major stakeholders in the supply of medicines. Once a doctor prescribes a particular medicine, it needs to be dispensed by the pharmacist by understanding its end-effect on human body or mind. It is his duty to confirm crucial things

“Drugs touch the life of every human being”

“Food and Drug Administration in Maharashtra is the prime agency for consumer protection,” Mahesh Zagade, Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration, Maharashtra

I

Is the WHO certification applies to the food also? n your opinion what is the mandate of Food and Drug Administration. What are the primary challenges that you are facing in the department?

Food and Drug Administration in Maharashtra is the prime agency for consumer protection. The department handles two essential kinds of commodities that are used by the citizens on a daily basis - food and drug. As per the mandate of the constitution food has to comply with parameters specified by the Food Act and Food Safety and Standards, 2006.

As far as drugs are concerned, this is a very specialized field; it touches the life of every human being. The challenge is to enable every citizen to access quality drugs at affordable prices. The FDA uses a strong science-based approach to accurately detect and assess health risks of various drugs and food, and set appropriate standards. It also enforces statutes relating to food, drug, and cosmetics, and protects the welfare of the consumers. It seeks to strengthen ties with scientific world, the health care providers and the regulatory communities, both nationally and internationally.

36

like the age, disease of the patient, prescribed dosage of the medicine. Any lacunae in this can cause harm to patients. The second important factor concerns drugs with expired usage date. Such drugs are not supposed to be sold in the market. Drugs that are proven adulterated or not of standard quality have to be recalled from the market. If any product has to be sold in international market, it must have a WHO GMP certification. Now the FDA in Maharashtra is the only department that is authorized to issue WHO GMP certification in India.

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / May 2013

With the help of National Institute of Smart Governance (NISG) based at Hyderabad, we have developed a pan India software for the registration and licensing of food. The pilot project for this software has been implemented in Mumbai and Thane district. We are now rolling it across the entire state of Maharashtra and in some other states. Over 100 percent registration licensing will be online in food also.

How do you monitor the entire online process of regulation of food and drugs?

The online system is proving to be very efficient. It can automatically tell you how many applications have been received and who has paid for those applications. It also brings lot of transparency. If there are any delays in the system, these can be monitored at a pan India level. In the next phase we will be integrating the online system with Maharashtra pharmacist council. Even geo tagging is something that we can plan for which would make it possible for people to access the names and addresses of the registered pharmacy in their area.

sap awards

SAP Ace Awards for public Services 2013

1. Jury members (from left): M Moni, Director General, NIC; Prem Narayan, Director, JNNURM, Ministry of Urban Development; Ashis Sanyal, Former senior director, DeitY; Dr M P Jaiswal, Chairperson (Process Renovation Projects) MDI, Gurgaon; Dr Govind, CEO, National Internet Exchange of India

2

1

3

4

SAP ACE Awards for Public Services is an annual event to recognize the excellence in usage of SAP in Public Services. Sizeable number of entries was garnered across 12 listed categories, which highlighted the enthusiasm of public sector companies engaged in providing timely, adequate and accurate services to citizens. As a part of the diligent, independent and impartial process, the assessment of all nominations was completed by five jury members. The eminent jury panel evaluated the received nominations and decided on the final winners. The winners’ were awarded at a glittering ceremony on 8th March, 2013 evening in The Oberoi, New Delhi.

2. Special Recognition in Utilities - Generation —Bhavnagar Energy Company Ltd, Gujarat 3. Best Run Award for Urban Local Body — Bhopal Municipal Corporation, Madhya Pradesh 4. Best Run Award in Procurement — Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, Maharashtra 5. SAP Special Recognition (First Public Utility to Implement SAP and Increase Adoption Across Processes) — Chhattisgarh State Power Distribution Co Ltd, Chhattisgarh

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / May 2013

5

sap awards

7 6 8

9

6. Best Run Award in Innovative SAP — GAIL (India) Limited, New Delhi 7. Special Recognition in Utilities Transmission & Distribution —Punjab State Power Corporation, Punjab 8. Special Recognition for Innovative use in SAP — The Singareni Collieries Company Ltd, Andhra Pradesh 9. Best Run in Innovative use of SAP —Centre for Railway Information System Freight Maintenance Management

10

10. Special Recognition in Procurement — Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Ltd, New Delhi

11

14. Best Run Award in Utilities — ­ Transmission and Distribution — West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited, West Bengal

11. Best Run Award for SAP use in PSU — Gujarat State Fertilizers & Chemicals Ltd, Gujarat

15. Special Recognition (Pre Procurement Process) in Procurement: Indian Navy

12. Best Run Award in HR & Payroll — Centre for Railway Information System: Integral Coach Factory, Tamil Nadu 13. Best Run Award in Finance — Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd, Gujarat

12

13

14

May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

39

in person

Rajgopal Deora Secretary, Department of Cooperation, Government of Maharashtra

Improving People’s lives through

Cooperative Societies

W

hat is the importance of Cooperation department in Maharashtra?

The truth is that half of the population of Maharashtra is directly or indirectly involved with the cooperative movements. So for Maharashtra it is important to ensure that the efficiency of the cooperation department is very high. Whatever development you see in the rural Maharashtra can be linked to the cooperative society movements, either in the form of sugar factory, dairy or any other area.

What role is the Department of Cooperation playing in regulating cooperative society movements?

You must be aware that the registration of the Society is done by government cooperative department. The situation is same as what we have in Company Act, where the companies get registered. In case of cooperatives, we have the Cooperative registrar to serve the purpose of registration. Apart from that we have day to day regulation, supervision of the cooperative society. Earlier some 10 -15 years back, monitoring, supervision and regulation of society was really high, but now with the extensive expansion of cooperative society the regulation has actually come down. This happened for various reasons. Large numbers of societies have expanded all over the Maharashtra, there is significant diversification in the activities and as the number of officers with the department is limited, we are unable to regulate properly. Now with economic liberalisation, all the sectors, including the co-operative sector, are being liberalised.

Recently the cooperation act was been amended for the first time since 1965, so what are the highlights of the amended act?

The amendment is in line with the 97th constitution (amendment) Act, which identifies formation of the society as a fundamental right. The new bill envisages transparency and professionalism in the functioning of cooperative societies. It also aims to bring in democratic control in cooperative societies in the state. The amendment proposes to cap the maxi-

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The cooperative movement in the country is so vast that it covers the entire life of the individual,� Rajgopal Deora, Secretary, Department of Cooperation, Government of Maharashtra

In inperson Person

mum number of members of the committee of a cooperative society at 21, of which, along with other reserved seats, two would be reserved for women. The term of office of an elected member of the committee and its office-bearers would be five years from the date of their election. As per the new set of rules co-operative societies will have upper cap on the strength of the committee members. The changes in the rules make it mandatory for the cooperative societies to set up an in-house grievance redressal forum to resolve the issues of the sector.

forming of cooperative societies in Maharashtra has become a fundamental right, there will be more challenges in regulation of cooperatives. I mean we have to come up with a proper system for controlling and supervising the many new cooperatives that are bound to come up. This is a major challenge for us. To ensure that there is efficient implementation of the new cooperative act we need to deploy the best solutions from IT. Only solutions from IT can enable us to control and regulate the cooperative movements, which involves almost half of the state’s population.

What challenges is your department facing in handling vast area in Maharashtra?

What kind of solutions from IT are you looking for?

In fact we are now associating with organisations like KPMG and others to develop new applications. One master application is currently underdevelopment, and probably in the next two – three months it will be ready for implementation. In the department itself there has been a huge expansion in the deployment of IT initiatives. People are now using computers extensively for accessing emails.

With e-Office being there, we are now able to conduct the department’s work through e-files, which are more efficient.

The cooperative movement in the county is so vast that it covers the entire life of the individual. Even in area of residential issues, we have the housing society, in case of manufacturing, we have a dedicated society. So there are societies for all aspects of a person’s life. We have cooperative departmental store, dairy milk, sugar industry and other areas.

The cooperatives are really very expansive space.

During the last few decades the cooperative space has undergone monumental expansion. Now that

3

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What is your feedback about e-Office ? In what ways is it improving governance in the state?

In the department we are actively using e-Office. This leads to much needed efficiency and transparency. The people working in the department are getting secure email ID and digital signatures to handle e-files. We have by now processed a significant number of e-files.

However, as with any new system, we are facing quite a few challenges in effective implementation of e-Office.

There are issues related to network, compatibility, hardware support and software.

The availability of trained manpower is also an issue. We have regular meetings with the officials from NIC; they are providing us new solutions to take care of the problems that are coming up. In another one year, we could have a system where officials working on small palmtops which will be able to process files. In fact, we already have a vibrant video conferencing facility at the department. This facility is proving to be very useful, as it enables us to conduct conferences with field level officers in a timely and seamless manner.

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May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

41

in person

Peeyush Aggarwal Executive Director, MTNL

Mumbai on

Information HiGHWAY vice at a very competitive rate. MTNL has largest share of Landline and Broadband in Mumbai.

MTNL is also going to provide major network connectivity to Government of Maharashtra for its surveillance project, one of the major projects related to a smart city.

Please share with us your vision on how best can cities run on an information highway - using broadband technology?

Passionate to bring fibre-optic powered broadband to every home in the state, Peeyush Aggrwal, Executive Director, MTNL shares his views on technology and more.

W

hat has been the role of MTNL in making Mumbai a smart city? Please share with us some key highlights of technology installations and its impact?

MTNL has been the incumbent telecom service provider in the city of Mumbai. It has been the lifeline of Mumbai and continues to be so even now. It has a very robust and reliable network in the city with 2.15 lakh fibre KM already laid in the city and is available almost everywhere. It has always ingressed latest technology with changing times from electromechanical switches to State of Art digital switches and now providing FTTH, IP based and NGN services. It has provided first 3G network to the city and best broadband ser-

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egov / egov.eletsonline.com / May 2013

Excellence in key development areas for a smart city has an ecosystem of strong human capital, social capital and ICT infrastructure. Smart city has to be intelligent, attractive, effective, adaptive, efficient and most important should be integrated. The information highways have to play a key role in the integration for various attributes. The free WIFI zone across all areas of the city is the key and challenging requirement which is feasible under PPP (Public-Private Partnership) model.

There is an economic divide in urban-rural India. National eGoveranance Plan of India aims to use technology as a bridge to the divide. Tell us your views on the impact of the national Fibre Optic Network planned for the country?

In order to have sustained higher growth rate, rural India has to vibrate. Major economic trigger now has to come from rural potential.

Government of India has planned fibre connectivity at Block / Panchayat level through USO fund, through its arm BBNL which will provide robust connectivity at village doorstep and will be open to all service providers. The divide will be narrowing in coming years. Rural population which is largely unbanked, will have banks.

Aadhar which is a core for rural trigger can ride on this connectivity. This initiative will provide

extensive mobile and wireline connectivity in rural India. This has a potential to convert our village to e-village.

Tell us on the latest carrier Ethernet switch routers - making Mumbai the first city to have this technology.

The Carrier Ethernet Switch Routers (CESRs) that would be installed soon by MTNL are designed as a state-of-the-art technology by IIT Bombay and manufactured by ECIL. The hallmark of any switching, routing and transport equipment is its service bearing capability. The CESR equipment speaks of a 1-microsecond port-to-port latency. The low latency implies the ability to give deterministic delay and hence provides carrier-class services. The low-latency also implies that the CESRs are excellent from energy consumption perspective. In addition to the Carrier Ethernet service paradigm the CESRs also provide support of the optical transport network (OTN) technology that enhances reach and provides error-free communication. Services can be set up in the CESR based network in the city of Mumbai from 1Mbps to 10Gbps in increments of 10Mbps including leased lines. With these CESRs in MTNL network, we will be able to create a smarter city.

Public services such as infrastructure, infrastructure monitoring, security, surveillance and healthcare services can be offloaded to the CESR based network at attractive price-points.

Please share with us your dream project for Mumbai city Fiber-to-the home providing 100 Mbps bandwidth at every home has been very close to my heart. It will use Home Gateway linking data, electric appliance, home energy equipments, portable terminals, security systems, etc. within home in a network for comfortable, ecological and quality lifestyle.

in person

Madhukar Chaudhari

Commissioner, Co-operation & Registrar, Government of Maharashtra

Strengthening the Cooperative movement

through ICT

P

lease give us a brief overview of job of Commissioner for Co-operation & Registrar.

CC & RCS plays an important role in an agro-industrial economy and particularly so in the sphere of rural credit. The activities of the office of the CC & RCS, which is under the Department of Cooperation, Marketing and Textiles, Government of Maharashtra, are associated with the rural finance and Primary Agricultural Cooperative societies, Banking including District Central Cooperative Banks, urban Cooperative Banks, Industrial Cooperatives, and also Housing Societies which are governed under the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act 1960 and Rules 1961. The CC & RCS is entrusted with the administration of the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Act, 1960; and enforcement of the Bombay MoneyLenders Act, 1946 and the Bombay Warehousing Act, 1959 and the Rules made there under.

Cooperation is an activity of the people. It is a self-generated, voluntary, self-sufficient activity.

The objectives and regulatory functions of the Commissioner are to undertake all the functions related to the administration of the MCS Act 1960 & Rules 1961 - including Registration of Cooperatives, Supervision of Cooperatives, Statutory Audit, Inspection of Cooperatives, Amendment of Byelaws, and Elections of Cooperatives. He has to undertake

44

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / May 2013

Madhukar Chaudhari, Commissioner for Co-operation & Registrar, Government of Maharashtra, talks about the ways in which ICT is helping in strengthening the cooperative movement in the state. In conversation with Nikita Apraj, ENN

in person

all the developmental functions to nurture the Cooperatives including the implementation of: (a) the Govt. Schemes for assistance, e.g. providing to the Cooperatives the government share capital, the government loan, the government subsidy, and the government guarantee, as per the prescribed beneficiary selection criteria, (b) the Capacity Building Programmes for members and other stakeholders.

Maharashtra is one of the major States in India where cooperative movement is widespread and has a long history. Cooperation plays an important role in the economy of Maharashtra. There are more than 2.25 lakh

cooperative societies. We have also encouraged the use of Unicode to carry out communications in local language in order to reach citizens in even the remote parts of the state. People from various spheres need to have easy access to financial status of various types of Societies, Banks and therefore we have compiled huge data in this connection, of all such societies which will certainly prove useful to the citizens

In your opinion how is ICT helping the Commissionerate in delivering services to the people in a more efficient manner?

“We have encouraged the use of Unicode to carry out communications in local language in order to reach citizens in even the remote parts of the state” cooperative societies in Maharashtra. Registrar being a friend, philosopher and guide of cooperatives has to perform various tasks and monitor whole cooperative movement.

What kind of challenges do you face in managing Commissionerate for Co-operation & Registrar?

With the huge setup of 2.25 lakh cooperatives across Maharashtra, and also employees nearing ten thousand and still growing, the queries and issues need to be addressed while performing the Regulatory role. With large variations across different kinds of cooperatives and its spread across the State with varied climatic and geographic conditions, the problems and its optimum resolution needs to be worked upon very closely conducting regular assessment and performance reviews of societies.

What IT and Communication tools have you leveraged to address these challenges?

The official website of the Commissionerate is LIVE and has recorded over 1.71 lakh hits during past 3 months. All communications pertaining to citizens are published on the website.

For Quicker communication we have started SMS service wherein we update all our official information docment regarding any important/ urgent/crucial communication that comes from higher authorities. The same is being extended to

Communication to citizens and other bonafide stakeholders has become easier and quicker with the web-portal. Using various analytical tools has boosted decision making and trend analysis. All our officers are connected through individual logins on the website. This web space provides a platform for our officers to share crucial data within acceptable time frames.

Interactive web based module has been introduced to citizen to pose their queries and suggestions. This feedback is proving fruitful.

of MS-Office in day-to-day activities, use of available official infrastructure provided by State Data Centre to establish GoM and Cooperation as a Brand.

What is your roadmap for diffusion of IT in the Commissionerate for Co-operation & Registrar?

We are currently working on the Cooperative Society Information System in a phased manner which will help us in having a thorough view of all the Cooperative Societies as per the ideal parameters laid by apex committees. This will be a complete MIS module that will be made available to the citizens for knowing more about a particular cooperative society and help them take a sound decision to safeguard their interest. CSIS will enable us in trend analysis and forecasting the various actions required while monitoring the cooperatives and performing the regulatory role effectively.

Society Login Space is created and implemented. Auditor list is available on the Commissioner’s Website and is regularly updated. Here the societies can choose from the available auditors and perform the mandatory audit on yearly basis on the laid principles. Many such operational modules are planned to help the cooperatives in performing their desired tasks easily.

We are also moving towards e-Office, wherein majority of the activities performed in

“CSIS will enable us in trend analysis and forecasting the various actions required while monitoring the cooperatives and performing the regulatory role effectively” Tell us about the capacity building programmes that you have undertaken to ensure that the department is able to use ICT in a productive and efficient way.

Regular trainings are imparted to staff across Department of Cooperation. These trainings extensively include use of Marathi Language for Communication in Unicode for the communication to reach the remote areas of this state. Various other initiatives include imparting trainings to staff across the state in a phased manner for optimum use of in-built functions

the Commissionerate will become online and quicker sharing of files and best practices will be possible. Conducting examination of “Government Diploma in Cooperation & Accountancy” is planned to go online and applicants from all parts of the state will be able to apply for the same from their hometowns through various Citizen Service Centers under the Setu Samiti leveraging the common infrastructure laid down by Government of Maharashtra. Use of Social Media for interacting with the citizens is also on the prime agenda. It includes introducing an official Facebook page of Sahakar Ayukta shortly.

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in person

Vijay Singhal

Sugar Commissioner, Government of Maharashtra

Sugary Side

of e-Governance rural Maharashtra. Being a part of the Sugar sector, the Commissionerate of Sugar has an important role to play in the development of the socio-economic landscape of the state.

The Sugar Commissionerate, Pune essentially exercises the powers and performs the functions of the Registrar of sugar co-operatives in the State under The Maharashtra Cooperatives Societies Act 1960. The role of the Sugar Commissioner is both Developmental and Regulatory.

What are the challenges in managing Sugar Commissionerate?

Vijay Singhal, Sugar Commissioner, Government of Maharashtra, gives an insight into e-Governance initiatives launched by his Commissionerate. In conversation with Nikita Apraj, ENN

P

lease give us a brief overview of job that is performed by the Sugar Commissioner.

The sugar industry plays a major role in the economy of Maharashtra. It has been the nuclei of economic and social growth in

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Sugar industry sees a turnover of Rs. 30,000 crores annually. It is a huge sector with Sugar factories spread across the vast geography of the state. There are 202 registered co-operative sugar factories in the state, which are owned and run by farmers. And there are 66 private sugar factories erected in the state. Apart from producing various varieties of Sugar, Sugar factories also produce various By-Products including Ethanol, Bagasse, Molasses, Ethers etc. Many Sugar factories also have co-generation plants attached to them.

Governing these large entities is an arduous task that requires leadership, vision, co-ordination at different levels, ability to understand problems faced by the industry in their everyday operations. Maintaining and regularly updating database of various information related to these entities is a huge task.

Also, efficient communication between Sugar offices as well as with the factories across the state is required.

Information about factories, various schemes proposed by Government, important Govern-

ment Resolutions, Court Judgments etc need to be readily available to various stakeholders of the industry. Also, it is important for Commissionerate to provide appropriate mechanisms for farmers to convey their issues/grievances to the Government.

Another major challenge faced by Sugar Commissionerate, especially in last few years, has been the protests by ‘Shetakari Sanghatana’ demanding higher prices for cane. Also, the issue of sick co-operative sugar factories is essential to the survival of co-operative sector in Maharashtra.

What IT and Communication tools you have leveraged to address these challenges?

To address these issues, Commissionerate has planned an e-Governance initiative across all offices in the state. As part of this initiative, a new web portal of Sugar Commissionerate has been developed at ‘www.mahasugarcom. gov.in’. It contains information about Sugar, the Sugar industry in Maharashtra, details of the Commissionerate and its various sections, details of all Cooperative and Private Sugar factories in the state including their address and Google maps of their locations.

The website will also carry information related to Sugar department like important Government Resolutions (GR), Circulars, Court Orders, Guidelines etc. This information will be useful for Cane Harvesters, Sugar Factories, Departmental staff as well as industry experts, researchers and the citizens.

The Commissionerate has also implemented a PUSH SMS system for quick and efficient communication between Sugar offices and from offices to factories. PULL SMS system is

In inperson Person

being used to collect daily crushing report from factories in predefined SMS format.

Work is also in progress for development of the Maharashtra Sugar Information System (MSIS) – an application for automating the governance structure of various sections in the Commissionerate and allied offices across the state. The MSIS will have users at various levels – at Mantralaya, at the Sugar Commissionerate and its Regional offices as well as the Sugar factories. Through this software, the department will be able to track various details like Sugar crushing and Production Statistics, Recovery (%) Administrative and Financial details of factories etc. Using these applications factories will be able to submit online proposals for cane crushing license, technical sanctions, expansion and modernization, administrative and financial approvals, various loans and grants proposals etc.

The department is also planning to revive the portal developed for ‘Online Sale of Sugar and by-products’ by SSKs. The total annual turnover of Sugar and it’s by-products is estimated at Rs. 25,000-30000crores. Implementing sugar sale through Internet will help improving transparency in the sugar sale process.

It is also proposed to create a UID Aadharlinked database of members of all co-operative sugar factories in the state. This will enable factories to transfer the member’s cane payment directly into their Aadhar-linked bank accounts. This will result in simplified and quick processing of cane payments to the farmers.

Sugar Commissionerate is implementing a GIS solution. In first phase, all sugar factories in the state have been mapped on the states district wise map. All factory information is available at a single mouse click. In the next phase, village wise listing of factory working area is being marked on GIS maps to denote high and low recovery zones, high production capacity areas, and factories showing good financial performance etc. on the map.

intended recipients in a matter of few seconds.

Also, the PULL SMS system means collection and compilation of daily crushing report from factories has been automated reducing the time and effort required and reducing the possibility of manual errors while compiling the report.

The GIS maps available on the website ensure information of factories like their location, address and contact details, capacity, balance sheet and Audit category etc is available to the common man.

The planned MSIS system is aimed at computerizing the entire operations at Commissionerate and all interactions between Sugar offices and sugar factories in the state. Through this system, activities like application and issuance of crushing license by factories, sub-

ings have covered basic use of computers, scanning and printing, Use of ISM and Unicode standards in data compilation etc. Apart from these, application specific trainings from use of web portal backend, PUSH and PULL SMS system have been organized for both department employees as well as Sugar factory representatives.

As part for Government of Maharashtra’s IT policy, each employees has been given an email ID on the domain ‘@sugar.maharashtra.gov.in’.

The department consultant has also conducted trainings for efficient use these IDs. Tech Saturday is being organized at Sugar Commissionerate and department is also encouraging other offices to extend this initiative. Also a new computer training lab has

“The Online Sugar Sale portal is expected to bring greater transparency in the current Sugar sale process” mission and approval of various proposals, collecting various information from factories will be done through online web-based interface.

The Online Sugar Sale portal is expected to bring greater transparency in the current Sugar sale process. It’ll also ensure that latest information regarding Sugar stock in the state be available on hand for taking important policy decision related to Sugar. Also, the portal will provide a National and International platform for even smaller sugar factories in the state.

The online process will help in increasing the number of participants in the tendering process and will also result in increase in tender revenue. This will help sugar factories and subsequently, the farmers in getting good returns for their cane crop.

How these solutions are helping the Sugar Commissionerate working more efficiently?

What capacity building programmes you have undertaken to ensure maximum use of ICT?

The web portal of Sugar Commissionerate has significantly reduced the number of RTI queries and phone calls for information being received at Sugar offices. It has also ensured availability of information on the go.

PUSH SMS system has ensured that important messages are directly delivered to the

As part of the capacity building initiative, 100 new computers have been procured in 2012 for all Sugar offices in the state. Trainings have been organized at Commissionerate as well as regional offices by Commissionerate’s e-Governance consultant in coordination with C-DAC, Yashada and the DIT. The train-

been setup at Sugar Commissionerate, Pune to provide hand-on user experience to employees.

What is your roadmap for diffusion of IT in the Sugar Commissionerate?

In order for the IT initiative in Sugar Commissionerate to be successful, department has adopted a phased implementation plan. In the first phase, the web portal and SMS PUSH and PULL system have been implemented.

Also, computer infrastructure has been procured and employees have been trained on using computers and email efficiently for daily office work.

In the next phase, department is implementing solutions like MSIS which will completely automate the operations of all Sugar offices in the state. We are also implementing Business Intelligence tools to create dashboards which will have live information on various parameters related to Sugar factories available for ready reference helping in better decisionmaking process.

Department is also using social media like Facebook, Twitter etc. to engage common citizens and communicate openly with all stakeholders and increase participation moving to smart and inclusive governance structure.

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In Person

W

ardha district is the pioneer in rolling out Aadhaarlinked DBT (Direct Beneficiary Transfer) even before all-India DBT roll-out. Tell us about your experience of rolling out DBT. Wardha district came to the forefront of the DB due to three factors: • Wardha’s Aadhaar enrolment was more than 87 percent when the name was included in the list of districts in DBT. • Wardha is also one of the leading districts in Financial Inclusion scheme of the RBI and Ministry of Finance, Govt. Of India, out of almost 13 lakh population, the district right now has more than 10.5 lakh bank accounts.

• It is also a district with good connectivity and innovative spirit. All put together the district is an ideal one for DBT. In fact Seloo taluka of Wardha is the bed of innovation, here the UID enrolment is more than 90 percent. Seeding of various databases was started there. Firstly with Sanjay Gandhi Niradhar Yojana (NSAP), Seloo logged the first end to end transactions of Aadhaar Enabled Payment to beneficiary through Banking Correspondents. The inorganic seeding software specially developed by the district administration and its Setu society technical partner, enabled large number of beneficiaries to be linked with Aadhaar numbers.

Right now Wardha has launched DBT as per the Planning Commission list of 8 Scholarship schemes, Janani Suraksha Yojana and is in the launch pad of MFMS ( Mobile Fertilizer Monitoring system ) of Dept of Fertilizer, Agriculture Ministry, MGNREGA wage payments, LPG DBT subsidy , Kerosene Subsidy and NSAP benefits. With this Wardha would be addressing the entire spectrum of Direct Benefit transfer from cash entitlements to subsidies on goods.

Our vision was to reach the common man with technology and innovation, remove the middleman, simplify the transaction process, reduce the transfer time, and induce some radical Business Process Reengineering and to ensure that the benefits reach the right person.

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Aadhaar

innovations N Nawin Sona, Collector and District Magistrate, Wardha District, shares his experience of rolling out DBT and other Aadhaar-linked services in his district. In conversation with Nikita Apraj, ENN What challenges are you facing in fulfilling this vision and how did you overcome them?

Challenges were many folds. First the digitization of databases was taken up on large scale.

Conversion to Marathi language was an issue, so Unicode was employed. Data cleaning, validation and rechecking were done to ensure fidelity of the database. Systems had to be created where none exists. Secondly, seeding of the databases was taken up using local innovation followed by old school of field verification.

Large success followed. Thirdly, opening of

the bank accounts was a big challenge. With the guidance of Divisional Commissioner, Nagpur Shri B.V.Gopalareddy the bankers were brought on board. ANMs, Anganwadi sewikas were given additional incentives from DIT and UIDAI for opening of new no-frill accounts. More than 45000 accounts were opened within a month.

Next was the capture of UID Aadhaar number into the beneficiary database, the UIDAI DDG Western Region Shri.A.B.Pandey and Secretary DIT, Shri. Rajesh Aggarwal extended all support including access to CIDR

Chief Secretary Jayant Kumar Banthia, UIDAI

In Person

DDG Dr. Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary IT and N Nawin Sona, Collector, Wardha at Aadhaar-linked DBT programme at Wardha

make an end to end payment to JSY beneficiary using CPSMS. Smt.Farzana Pathan became the proud recipient of the first JSY DBT payment. The entire seeding of the bank account with Aadhaar being in place, after the day of the delivery the new mother was given the benefit in a remarkable way.

In the morning the CPSMS transaction was done, where in the Health department officials cleared the e-file for payment by afternoon of the same day and the amount was directly transferred to the beneficiary account.

And then not just stopping at that, with the help of the BC, the Aadhaar Authenticated payment was made through an Aadhaar enabled Micro ATM- where the beneficiary puts her finger, the identity is checked via sim card con-

“Our vision was

to reach the common man with technology and innovation”

and the fledging SRDH for bulk seeding and validation. Next step was seeding the Bank Accounts itself – Wardha’s suggestion included the reopening of UID fields in e-scholarship software, making mass online seeding directly by the beneficiary a reality before the RASF launch. Bank account seeding was continually monitored with all banks. Chief Secretary of Maharashtra , Shri. J.K.Banthia convened a special meeting of the CMD and EDs of various banks to speed up the efforts.

In all more than 7 lakhs of beneficiaries of all services including LPG, fertilizers and kerosene exist, which makes a whopping 53 % of entire district population. Lastly, with all the ingredients in place Wardha started making actual DBT payments.

nectivity to the CIDR server in Bangalore, the identity is authenticated, the Aadhaar Enabled Bank Account ( AEBA ) is made available for transaction, and the benefit of JSY money was paid through the BC directly to the mother.

The experience was electrifying to all involved, because, to see a new mother having financial control over her benefits and her entitlements, barely a day after delivery and getting money straight in her hands was to say the least, very fulfilling to see. Women’s empowerment in the district where Mahatma Gandhi himself stayed I think is what we achieved in a small but significant way through this effort.

What is the current status of UID enrolments and financial inclusion in the district?

You have used CPSMS to upload beneficiary data and make payments. Please tell us more about CPSMS; in what ways will it help in improving the scope of financial inclusion?

As on end of April 2013, out of 12.96 lakh estimated population 11.84 lakh enrolments have taken place, i.e 91 percent. And as for FI 10.5 lakh bank accounts have been opened. The last mile in the enrolment process is underway. Wardha launched Janani Suraksha Yojana through DBT, much ahead of the national roll-out of the scheme. Please tell us about your experience of it.

Yes, Wardha was the first in the country to

The Central Plan Scheme Monitoring System ( CPSMS ) of the Comptroller General of Accounts ( CGA ) was endorsed by the Planning Commission and the Ministry of Finance for making the DBT. In fact Wardha was the first in Maharashtra to use CPSMS for DBT ( its earlier avatar was a financial fund distribution MIS ) . CPSMS has since been dovetailed with APB Aadhaar Payment Bridge and NPCI

National Payment Corporation of India.

CPSMS gives a front end for the transactions and is supported by good interface, transaction logs, security and also is simple to use and integrate with existing systems. I think CPSMS in the long run will be as powerful a game changer as CBS was for banks ; combined with the BDS for budget distribution, online treasury, and CBSand AEBA, we are going to see a revolution. With all these the government authorities are going to do instantaneous and paper free and yet secure fund distribution and payments without delay. Yet there is going to be excellent audit trail.

What are the other applications of Aadhaar that you are working on?

Right now we are preparing for roll out of MGNREGA, LPG DBT, Kerosene, and MFms as well as scaling up of NSAP. The DBT is a misunderstood term in my opinion – direct cash transfer is being done in one way or the other, NEFT etc. But what makes DBT a revolution

“Like SRDH, I

propose to set up DRDH, a district level massive data warehouse of cross linked benefits and beneficiary.”

is the authentication through Aadhaar- beneficiary identification and AEBA. On one hand the beneficiary list is going to get cleaned, no ghosts, no duplicates and no ineligible candidates. On the other hand, the challenge is to reach the correct beneficiary through the shortest means – no middlemen, no delay.

The dream is to make Banking for all a reality- number of BCs are going to be increased, and true DBT will be when Banking goes to the doorstep of the beneficiary. We are also keenly working on RSAF like uses where Aadhaar data would open new avenues in district level.

Like the SRDH, I propose to set up a DRDH, a district level massive data warehouse of cross linked benefits and beneficiary . Linked with a larger tool like GIS on which we are also working on, it would be also a tool for planning and not only execution.

May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

49

In Person

Virendra Singh

Collector and District Magistrate, Sindhudurg

We are

paperless, are you?

P Virendra Singh

Sindhudurg has become the first district in the country to successfully integrate the entire Revenue Administration from Tehsil level to the Collector Office using e-Office. Marching ahead, the district has stepped into era of m-Governance. Virendra Singh, Collector & District Magistrate, Sindhudurg unfolds the success story in conversation with Nikita Apraj, ENN

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lease tell us about your journey from a conventional government office to a paperless office.

The first thing we see when we enter a government office is papers and files, piled high on desks. Physical files have been a part of government since ages. This positively needed a change in the modern era.

The transition from a typical government office and a typewriter-based system to a modern-day office with seamless connectivity and total process integration was a daunting task for the administration. But this was handled effectively with meticulous planning and a steady and persistent approach.

The change started one and a half year ago when we used n-Computing to provide computers to the staff to make them computer-friendly. We made Unicode and emails mandatory. We proceeded in a phased manner for the implementation of e-Office • Business Process Re-engineering • Resource Gap Analysis and covering the gaps • Infrastructure Gaps • Human Resource Gaps • Change Management and implementation Business Process Reengineering (BPR): The entire system was overhauled through the BPR. We identified more than 2300 subjects and graded them into Basic, Primary and Secondary processes. Ideal work flow for each process was documented. Over 25,000 files were consigned to record rooms. All current files with about 11 lakh pages in total were scanned and migrated to e-Office.

In Person

Resource Gap Analysis and covering of the Gaps: The infrastructure and the human resource gaps were identified and filled up in a phased manner to ensure the smooth implementation of e-Office.

Change Management and launching of the e-Office: Effective change management was equally important in creating the best governed office. Change was tackled by following a strategy of continuous training and motivating people.

Selecting e-Office champions helped manage the change by training and personal example.

How did you leverage ICT and support from other government agencies?

The delivery of services to the citizens in a time-bound, effective and transparent manner is not possible without the necessary changes in the fountainhead of the delivery i.e. the government offices from where these services are provided. To achieve this we used the IT extensively.

Before the implementation of the e-Office few major noteworthy IT interventions were undertaken in the district. These interventions changed the mindset of the staff and also put the administration on fast track through effective monitoring mechanisms. Some of the noteworthy ICT interventions appreciated at various levels are1. Tappal (Post) Monitoring system 2. File Journey Management System 3. Weapon License Management System 4. District Planning & Development Council Work Monitoring System.

5. Collector’s Meeting Monitoring system

6. Tree plantation monitoring system 7. Collector’s Note Response System 8. Sindhu-Samadhan Citizen Grievance Monitoring Software 9. Non-Agriculture Permission and Status Monitoring System 10. District Website with citizen interface Use of ICT enabled citizens monitor the status of their applications online or through citizen facilitation centres. The other departments followed the trail by motivation and demonstrations.

Enthusiasm and positive results encouraged the NIC to be more proactive in creating a model of e-Office implementation for the entire country. The Department of IT, Govt

As per a study, on an average • A paper document is photocopied 19 times • Paper files get doubled every 3.5 years • Paper usage in an average office grows 22 percent a year and doubles every 3.3 years which keeps adding new filing cabinets and resources to manage them • A letter has to pass through almost 41 steps and entered in dozens of registers before being answered

• At any given time about 3-5 percent of a large organisation’s files are lost or misplaced • Half of the office’s time is spent in handling paper or manual data entry • Over 92 percent of information is in manila folders • Protecting and preserving the files is another challenge. In an unforeseen event such as fire, no backups are available for the physical files.

e-Office has proved a solution to most of these woes. e-Office is aimed at improving internal efficiencies in an organisation through electronic administration.

of Maharashtra under the stewardship of Mr. Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary steered the e-Office implementation efficiently at each stage.

The continuous follow up from the Mr. Jayant Kumar Banthia, Chief Secretary and Mr. Swadheen Kshatriya, Addn. Chief Secretary, Revenue further facilitated the implementation.

It was a wonderful team effort with constant guidance and encouragement from top that the support from all the agencies came forth.

What infrastructure you have installed and what were the costs incurred?

Covering the infrastructure gaps was one of the major tasks and the infrastructure included the following• Computers for each desk • Power back up UPS for all the computers • Laptops for the Heads of Departments with VPN facility • Heavy Duty Scanners for all Offices.

• Printers for the Central Registry Units • Digital Signatures for all the employees • Internet and LAN connectivity in all Offices • Upgrading the RAM of all old computers to minimum 2 GB. • Training and Data Entry Centres at each Office for continuous training.

Along with the efficient use of existing resources, new hardware was procured through the DIT. The NIC supplied the digital tokens, the software of e-Office with requisite modifiMay 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

51

In Person

cations and the resource persons for a period of 6 months to do the needed hand-holding.

The overall cost of the project worked out to approximately Rs 1.25 Crores including the one-time charges by NIC Delhi.

Transforming to a paperless office was certainly not easy.

How did you manage this shift?

The change management in any large project which changes the set pattern of working in vogue for centuries is not an easy task. We did have our share of problems and issues which were tackled in a planned manner. The switch over to the e-Office was done once the staff was mentally ready.

We ensured that the employee is the focal point of each intervention aimed at change.

Healthy competition between branches and demonstrations had its part to play in change management. We also declared employee of the month with their photo published on the website to encourage the employees to work harder.

How going digital has helped you work more efficiently as a District Collector? e-Office has helped improve transparency and accountability, preserving documents, quick and timely disposal of cases, monitoring pending cases and ascertaining the cause and level of delay, finding the exact location of the letters and files, monitoring of each employee from a single point, appointment and tour planning, effective leave management system and an overall control of office.

This enabled me as District Collector to have closer and effective control over the working

The change management was tackled using the following tools • • • • • • • •

Effective and continuous training ensuring personalised attention to each employee The pattern of training on the basis of existing system so that employees felt least change Identification of e-Office champions at all offices Supervisory responsibility to senior officers More emphasis on the utility to employees and reducing their work burden Using of e-Buddy system to pair up weak employee with knowledgeable one Effective trouble shooting to ensure high morale Preparation of manual of the e-Office in Marathi for ease of usage

of the revenue administration. The facility to pull a file or a letter by the seniors in hierarchy ensures greater control over the work.

The concept of ‘Administration from anywhere’ has become a reality. With the VPN over internet one can clear the files from anywhere.

The system has given the District Collector a magic wand for effective working.

How you have ensured that e-Governance in your district is citizen-friendly?

Service delivery can only be improved with improved functioning of the government offices. Each letter arriving at the office is given a unique number and scanned and stored forever on the system. The citizens can monitor the status of their application using the letter number. No paper gets misplaced or lost.

Parallel e-governance initiatives have decreased the need of travelling to government offices as all information is available on the district website which can be accessed from Gram Panchayat Sangram Centres. Various services

have been made available at the Sangram Kendras.

The increased work efficiency of the employees also ensures quick disposal of the applications and letters, making administration more responsive and citizen-friendly.

What will be your next step towards providing the best e-government to the citizens?

We aim to work out a citizen interface for e-Office to ensure that the citizens know the status and action being taken on their applications and letters.

Our aim is to open up the administration for public in the most effective manner. Also we have ventured into mobile office which is first of its kind to be implemented in the country.

Sindhudurg today has come up as a centre for Administrative excellence and Administrative Tourism and has been the first district to herald the arrival of the two-centuries-old institution of the District Collector into the era of modern Governance.

your daily cup of hot tea with hot

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

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in person

Dr Santosh Bhogale

Undersecretary and State Nodal Officer, Aadhaar, e-Office & e-Tendering, Government of Maharashtra

Mission e-Office

T

ell us about the background of e-office implementation at Mantralaya

in Maharashtra.

On 21st June 2012, in an unforeseen event of fire at Mantralaya, 12 government departments lost a large chunk of their physical files.

Post-accident, the Government of Maharashtra (GoM) expedited the steps for digitization of files and electronic file management. GoM invited proposals from various vendors and assessed the products e-office from NIC and Digigov from TCS. Upon a thorough assessment, e-office was chosen as an appropriate solution for Mantralaya. At that time, e-office was already being implemented in NRHM, Maharashtra.

During the month of July, 2012, GoM held meetings with NIC to discuss about e-office implementation and decided that state would launch e-office from 1st January, 2013. Subsequently on 6th August 2012 a GR was issued with guidelines for e-office implementation. DIT was identified as the Nodal Department for e-office implementation. Steering committee, support groups and task force for e-office were also formed. On 9th August 2012, another GR was issued that all departments of Mantralaya shall start using e-office by 1st January 2013.

In what ways is e-office helping in improving the quality of administration in the state?

Dr Santosh Bhogale, Undersecretary and State Nodal Officer, Aadhaar, e-Office & e-Tendering, Government of Maharashtra, sheds light on the journey of e-office in Maharashtra government.

In conversation with Nikita Apraj, ENN

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e-Office is a Digital Workplace Solution that replaces the existing manual handling of files and documents with an efficient electronic system.

Being an electronic system, all the data is being stored digitally and servers have regular backup

In inperson Person

phase of e-office implementation. These offices were asked to start using e-office from October, 2012. Later, all departments were included in the e-office implementation. All the departments are directed to use e-office from 1st January, 2013 based on GR issued on 9th August, 2012. By 1st January, 2013, 16 departments had started using e-office.

Another Circular dated 5th March, 2013 has been issued by Chief Secretary’s office which has directed to issue all new file references in e-office from 31st March 2013. All the necessary preparatory work has been completed now and all Mantralaya departments are ready to use e-office. All new files and references are now being created in e-office. All old files are being transitioned into e-files.

Few departments such as DIT, Finance and Chief Secretary’s office have stopped accepting physical files.

and Disaster Recovery systems are in place. In addition, this being a web based application, people can access it from anywhere on VPN. Though the main objective of implementing e-office at Mantralaya is to protect the records from disasters such as fire, it also aims significantly at improving the operational efficiency of the government by transitioning to a “Less Paper Office”. As a result, effectiveness of government responses to citizens would improve and turnaround time to meet the demands of the citizens’ charter would consequently reduce. This would help the state administration in resource management and in improving the quality of administration. Last but not least it would bring accountability and transparency in the system.

What challenges did you face while implementing e-office?

Readiness of the staff was one a challenge.

Many users are not acquainted with computers. Another challenge was infrastructure. e-Office, being a network intensive application, would not perform in case of network connectivity issues. Also the number of scanners was less in many departments. Gathering initial data such as Employee Master Data and Organization structures are mandatory for use of e-office. As departments are spread across and lack of dedicated time for e-office activities, there was some delay in gathering this data. Each department has different processes. e-Office being a common product, needs to be customized to serve the purpose of a particular department. Departments need to come up with a transition plan and design their internal business processes. There are thousands of open files in the departments.

Scanning and migrating these files to e-office is a challenge due to large file size and multiple approaches available.

So what initiatives have you undertaken to address these challenges?

A team of about 70 technicians from NIC is supporting the implementation. In December 2012, Office of the Regional Authority of the NIC Certifying Agency has been set up in Mantralaya. This office issues digital certificates which are mandatory for use of e-office. Prior to setting up this office tokens were being issued from Delhi which would consume a lot of time.

Setting up office here has reduced the cost and time lag in issuing the tokens. e-Office training

“Departments such as DIT, Finance and Chief Secretary’s office have stopped accepting physical files” room has been set up in January 2013 with a capacity to train 20 people at a time. This room is equipped with computers, connectivity and facility of hands-on training. So far about 4000 staff at Mantralaya has completed the hands-on training.

To spread awareness among users, we have created e-office manuals and circulated to all departments. A separate section of e-office is set up on Maharashtra intranet. Heavy duty scanners have been issued to all departments to facilitate scanning activities. Scanning stations have been set up in all departments by the scanning vendors to scan the open files. Guidelines for Central Registry Unit (CRU) are being issued to all departments to set up a CRU and strengthen the registry. In order to address the issue of scanning files, DIT has issued orders for heavy duty open file scanners in all departments. In addition, guidelines digitizing the open files are being issued by DIT with help of NIC.

What is the current status of the e-office implementation in Mantralaya?

DIT, CM Office, CS office, Planning, Finance, GAD and Law and Judiciary departments have been included in the first

In your opinion what are ways by which e-office is brining transparency and accountability?

Transparency and accountability have been the significant advantages brought by e-office.

The documents or the files are preserved forever. There are no chances of the files being misplaced, modified or lost. There is an absolute transparency as anything, once written on the file, cannot be changed or undone. The files cannot be kept pending as the system is designed to give feedback and monitoring mechanism. File tracing has become a lot simpler, easier and faster. Users can search and track progress of a file and check the files being worked by their subordinates. Various reports are available to track the progress on any file. Work load of filing, delivering files has been reduced as e-office system takes care of these activities. This will eventually result in less number of RTIs or quicker response cycle to RTIs. This is acting as a single directory of employees, centralized knowledge database.

This will be integrated with other applications very easily. Several GRs, circulars and guidelines which are issued time to time are available to all e-office users at one click..

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UIDAI

A Fascinating Journey Towards Aadhaar Devroop Dhar, Principal Consultant, State eMission Team, Maharashtra & Senior Manager, Accenture Management Consulting

T

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he journey of UIDAI in Maharashtra started on 29th September 2010 with the National launch of the program in Tembli village in Nandurbar district of the State. The State Government has maintained its leadership position in UIDAI, with many firsts and innovations to its credit. The focus has been both on enrolment as well as bringing in innovations centered on UIDAI for citizen benefit.

The State Government brought in multiple forward looking policies in place to facilitate UIDAI enrolment across the State. During the second phase of UIDAI enrolment, the State Government adopted the policy of simplification of processes and systems, and thus removed the requirement of gathering Registrar packets and KYR+ data, which ensured smoother enrolment process. Various NonState Registrars like PSU Banks were allowed to do enrolment during the second phase, which once again ensured citizen convenience in getting to choose from large number of enrolment centers to conduct enrolment. Nearly 6 Cr. residents have been enrolled for Aadhaar in the State till date, which is definitely a strong achievement by the State Government.

stored at the State level, and are available with the UIDAI CIDR only. This helps the State Government in maintaining a lean database, and ensures privacy of data.

Once the SRDH was implemented, data quality was assessed and multiple data quality issues were noted. This gave birth to the concept of USRDH (or Updated SRDH), which is something unique to Maharashtra. The data available in SRDH was cleaned, corrected, standardized and then pushed into USRDH, thus making it a repository of clean and usage resident data. More than 20 error flags were created and the status of the same was maintained in the database.

Once the resident data along with the UIDAI number was available with the State Government, the next step was to focus on seeding of UIDAI data with beneficiary data from various departments.

An automated process was designed to perform the first round of seeding, which can be followed by manual seeding. The automated seeding has been seen to yield nearly 50 percent accuracy, which is a good milestone, considering inconsistencies in data formats across multiple systems.

A notable and significant fact is that the State Government introduced the concept of ‘Self Seeding’, wherein a resident could seed his/ her data with UIDAI through the web or by sending a simple SMS. This concept was well appreciated by various stakeholders and has now been adopted in other places.

Valuable contributions

Launch of new services

The biggest contribution of the State in the Aadhaar ecosystem has undoubtedly been the innovations around Aadhaar. Maharashtra was the first State to implement the State Resident Data Hub (SRDH), which is a repository of UIDAI data of residents, along with their demographic data and photograph. The biometric details like Iris and Fingerprints are not

UIDAI linked services would not be complete without keeping a provision for biometric authentication with the data maintained by UIDAI. Maharashtra was the first State to set up the complete Authentication User Agency (AUA) and Authentication Service Agency (ASA) network on its own to authenticate the users based on their biometric data. Authen-

egov / egov.eletsonline.com / May 2013

Devroop Dhar tication has now been initiated by Stamps and Registration department on a pilot basis and other departments are expected to follow suit.

Pilots for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) have been another interesting yet fascinating drive taken by Government of Maharashtra by using the Aadhaar Payment Bridge (APB). Successful pilots of DBT in 6 districts have ensured that thousands of beneficiaries have availed of direct benefit transfer, wherein their benefits have reached them directly into their respective Aadhaar linked bank accounts.

Considering the momentum gained by the State and the focus on Innovations in UID, the State is definitely poised to maintain its leadership position in the UIDAI ecosystem and bring in further innovations in UIDAI, which can be beneficial to all residents.

financial inclusion

Implementation of DBT in Bank of Maharashtra Bank of Maharashtra was established on 16th September 1935 to cater the banking needs of common people. The Bank has been since then servicing the common man through its 1700 plus branches throughout the country.

P M Khan, General Manager, Bank of Maharashtra, Mumbai City Zone

B

ank of Maharashtra has been implementing Financial Inclusion (FI) directly as well as through Business Correspondents in more than 1500 villages. The FIs is now implemented through all service area villages in rural areas and in allocated wards in semi-urban and urban areas.

Creating awareness Bank has increased awareness amongst the staff members for opening accounts of every household from the service area villages.

Bank employees helped the villagers for filling in account opening forms, collecting KYC documents, getting photograph of the customers. The staff visited the service area villages, arranged meeting of the villagers in Gram Panchayat Office, collected the account opening forms from the villages and opened zero balance accounts in the branch and then delivered the pass books to the villagers in their villages.

Before the Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme was discussed, Bank started collecting the AADHAR Card numbers from the customers and linked the AADHAR card number with core bank account number.

Banking Correspondents Customer Service Provider (CSP) of the Business Correspondent was provided with laptop and a handheld machine. The laptop is connected with the branch and the Customer Service Provider open account with the help of laptop in the village itself. The service provider

visits the specified village on specified day with small amount. The customers deposits their money in their account or withdraw money from their account. This model is implemented where our own employee acted as customer service provider.

Where the Customer Service Provider is from Business Correspondent, he visits village with a small handheld machine (also called as micro ATM). Smart cards are given to the account holders from these villages. The customer operates their account with the help of

smart card through the handheld machine in the village itself.

Both the models are well received by the villagers as they receive the banking services at their doorstep in the village.

DBT through Aadhar Since the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme is proposed to be implemented, throughout the country, we have appealed all the existing account holders to submit their Aadhar card numbers to respective branches, so their existing account can be linked with Aadhar card for DBT. Bank has also tied up with Micro Technologies Pvt. Ltd. for issuance of Aadhar Card numbers to the people, who have not yet registered.

Bank is providing a table space in the branch itself to the technical team of Micro Technologies Pvt. Ltd. The team registers the name of the customers who have not so far registered with UIDAI for Aadhar card. The people approaching for registration, who do not have bank account, their accounts are also instantly opened, as same KYC documents are required for registration with UIDAI and opening a bank account.

So far Bank has linked 5 lakh accounts with Aadhar card numbers. The subsidy (Benefit) amount started depositing directly in to the accounts of the Beneficiaries from the Central Government. Very recently Education subsidy amount of Rs.57.52 crores is credited into 3,76,180 accounts of students in 18 states. This is success of the DBT scheme. Bank has determined to make the scheme successful through its 1700 plus branches.

May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

57

In Person

Kishore Kharat

General Manager-Financial Inclusion, Bank of Baroda

Taking banking to citizen doorstep

“The four pillars of financial inclusion are financial literacy, banking access, product available and operational viability�, says Kishore Kharat.

In conversation with Rachita Jha

H

ow has the approach towards financial inclusion changed over the years?

Over the years, successive economic policies of the government have failed to improve the economic situation of the poor. Today, with financial inclusion we are trying to eliminate all those drawbacks. Currently, most of the country has low level of financial inclusion comprising of close to 80 crore population and includes states such as West Bengal, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and North East states among others. First and foremost drawback was the approach of banks expectations of the beneficiary to come and register for an inclusion scheme. In the remote villages and geographically challenging environment it is bound to result in low turnout as availing banking facility was not of any interest to these people. Lack of adequate technology to handle volume of potential business was also a reason of failure. Now our approach has changed completely, and we are taking a customer-centric strategy by taking banking to their doorsteps. As we believe, the essence of financial inclusion is to ensure that financial services are available at doorstep to every individual at affordable cost.

The second major intervention has been with the product portfolio that is offered within financial inclusion. Earlier most of the banking products that were being offered were slightly

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on a higher cost range and not suitable for rural mass. Our assumption that rural India is devoid of wealth is false. There is significant wealth available; however, there is absence of any reliable source of savings for the rural population. With the arrival of reliable and customized schemes under financial inclusion, and banks going to their doorsteps, the concept of savings account in banks is fast catching pace in rural hinterland.

We are also trying to introduce a credit system for them. In this regard, we have to create the eligibility for borrowing and then only, we bankers will be able to lend money. We are trying to eliminate intermediary and improve efficiency of existing benefit transfers. In all the schemes intermediaries are there. And if banks come in as an alternate option, they have to make themselves available 24x7. These channels are of business correspondence channels, mobile vans correspondence channel and village-level entrepreneur kiosk models. We are also opening small brick and mortar branches with a skeleton structure, which are very cost effective. We are opening ultra-small branches, wherein the officer of the bank visit once in a week, along with the business correspondence agent and there he actually sits with the villagers, give them the confidence, clearing loan applications, discussing their loan requirements, giving them advice.

Tell us some of the customized products that you offer under financial inclusion?

We have different schemes like production credits, investment credits, and consumption credits.

These are the basic three requirements of rural segments. People need loans for land leveling, well digging, so those are the investment credits; whereas production credit means, they want to grow crops there. So crop loans are production credits. Irrigation schemes, fertilizer schemes, which are actually required for production, those schemes were there. Then there is consumption credits, where consumption needs are there, like somebody needs it for house repair, for purchasing vehicles, children’s education, marriages in the family these are all consumption needs for which banks are having loans but people are not aware of it. So our officers are going there and are advising them on all these schemes. This is what is actually a key area under financial inclusion. The approach is not to pull them into the banking system. The approach is to push them the banking services to them.

Tell us some innovative initiatives by Bank of Baroda?

The four pillars of financial inclusion are financial literacy, banking access, product available and operational viability. Today in every nook and corner of the country mobile phones have reached including the poorest and remotest of areas. The advantage of high mobile penetration is being used for banking as well. When we are going to villages our POS machines are connected through mobile technology and these deliver the transaction to real time basis directly in our core banking system. So it has become an extension of banking counter. Our bank has also launched

In Person

mobile vans in the village areas to extend our banking services at their doorsteps. The services include account opening, as according to a study, 66 percent of the people in India still do not have bank accounts. Other include cash deposits, cash withdrawals, loan, term deposit, recurring deposit, we have developed micro-deposit products. The NREGA payments, we are now giving through the banks.

We have also started micro insurance for them.

What is the role of Direct Benefit Transfer and its impact in the banking sector?

Kishore Kharat

The purpose of direct benefit transfer is to ensure that benefits go to individual bank accounts electronically, cutting down delays and pilferages if any. The benefit covers 34 schemes such as scholarships, pensions, subsidies, MNREGA wages etc. Our bank has to ensure the following steps are undertaken in each district for smooth implementation of DBT, these include to ensure each beneficiary living in the service area of the branch has a bank account. Wherever our bank has lead responsibilities, lead bank managers should obtain from the respective district collectors scheme-wise list of beneficiaries along with the bank account details and distribute to all the banks in their district. Wherever the beneficiary already has Adhaar, details should also be collected and seeded into the bank core banking system (CBS). The major benefits of the DBT Adhaar number are UIDAI has been issuing unique identification number called Adhaar number to every citizen, since the identity would be unique, government of India has planned to use said number for distribution of government benefits to ensure it reaches to proper person. DBT will propel speedy implementation of financial inclusion.

Direct credit to beneficiaries’ accounts avoiding delays and pilferages. The saving potential of beneficiaries would improve, as intermediaries would be eliminated. The increased earning would facilitate improved living conditions of the poor. Forge or ghost entries would be eliminated thereby saving government expenditure. This would lead to reducing fiscal deficit and strengthen government allocation of resources. Our bank is fully prepared technologically for Adhaar based payments, UIDAI linkages, village code updation etc.

Now its time to reap the benefits of infrastructure and make FI successful in India.

May 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

59

In Person

Piyush Somani MD & CEO, ESDS

Cloud is

making rapid inroads Cloud architectures can benefit government to reduce duplicate efforts and increase effective utilization of resources, says Mr. Piyush Somani, MD & CEO, ESDS. In conversation with Nikita Apraj, ENN

P

lease brief us about the milestones in the journey of ESDS so far.

ESDS is a leading group of fastest growing IT companies based in UK, USA & India.

We have indigenously developed the concept of a high-specification, carrier-neutral, and fullymanaged datacenter in Maharashtra, and has successfully turned it into reality.

ESDS is focused on offering managed hosting services, managed turnkey, disaster recovery and core banking solutions. ESDS has marked its forefront on the innovation ladder through its unique offerings like eNlight Cloud Computing platform, eMagic - DC monitoring application and Cross-platform DR solution.

ESDS has also completed various e-Governance projects for turnkey datacenter solutions, commissioning networking and computing infrastructure and software solutions in different states across India. ESDS has also developed e-governance applications like ePDS software, eLokshahi - Public grievance redressal software, GIS implementation, student Academic and Profiling software for the Sarva shiksha Abhiyan and others.

The in-house Research and Development department of ESDS has successfully built its own Cloud Computing Platform which is the first intelligent cloud computing platform in the world. ESDS is ‘SAP Certified’ for its Hosting and Cloud services. ESDS got appraised as a ‘CMMI Level 3 Organisation’ for its quality standards and customer service recently.

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How ESDS is helping governments to perform better?

At ESDS, we have designed end-to-end solutions to help government departments and agencies achieve efficiency, cost savings, environmental sustainability and cyber security through a suite of ICT services including application development, cloud computing, datacenter infrastructure setup and operations, business continuity and disaster recovery, data storage and computing.

We have worked closely with State Governments in areas of power, electricity, municipal corporations, and education departments and provided total turnkey solutions. Our best-in-class solutions are driving the growth of the economy and government productivity in these departments.

We offer a highly reliable and secure environment to State Government departments by employing the best and the latest technologies in our datacenter and cloud infrastructure. We offer a range of products and services to improve datacenter performance, and ensure business continuity.

costs and accelerates cost reduction benefit.

Cloud is making rapid inroads.

Datacenters will be brought into the spotlight as more and more enterprises are focusing on moving to cloud-based service delivery models. Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) business models have increased demand for data centers and this

What trends have you observed in data centers worldwide?

Public cloud computing has become an increasingly popular choice for IT services and is also gaining popularity among Smart Phone and Pad users. Cloud computing provides a new service consumption and delivery model inspired

by Consumer Internet Services. It drives down

Piyush Somani

In Person

The Maharashtra State Election Commission’s website is hosted on eNlight Cloud. The 2012 Municipal Corporation Elections in Maharashtra were hit by huge amount of traffic with over 1200 connections at a given point in time. On the day of result declaration, eNlight Cloud intelligently scaled the resources up to 16 CPUs and more than 8 GB of RAM with 13 GB of Bandwidth to support 9.8 lakh hits and thus ensured 100% uptime.

ESDS has built a datacenter for Maharashtra State Power Generation Company for hosting their SAP application. Hardware sizing and system architecture was designed so that each server delivers the desired SAPS at 65% server utilization.

ESDS has provided platform consulting for capacity planning & sizing of the server hardware, storage, network devices & bandwidth

ESDS Headoffice, Nashik

trend will continue in 2013. IT-as-a-service (ITaaS) providers run their cloud infrastructures in datacenters, and demand for high uptime datacenter floor space increases as more service providers enter the market. 2013 will see richer ITaaS offerings at more competitive pricing levels.

“A policy needs to be designed in order to track and measure the progress of any e-Governance initiative�

What new trends do you expect in this segment?

Cloud computing will ultimately be an enabler of ITaaS. Datacenters would no longer be limited to infrastructure and space providers.

Customers would be inclined towards getting a one-stop solution which would comprise of all managed IT services.

Another trend would be seen in the big data analytics. 2014 will be the first year when the majority of workloads would shift to the cloud; 52 percent of all workloads will be processed in the cloud versus 48 percent in the traditional IT space.

Prevention of data from any kind of loss will become of utmost importance. Irrespective of the size of business, includ ing disaster recovery services within system will become an indispensable insurance policy of every IT system.

How cloud computing will improve functioning of government? e-Governance with cloud computing offers integration management with automated problem resolution, manages security end-to-

end, and helps budget based on actual usage of data. At a global level, cloud architectures can benefit government to reduce duplicate efforts and increase effective utilization of resources.

This in turn helps the government going green, reducing pollution and effective waste management.

As government requires a massive infrastructure it is important for government to use cloud computing on long term basis. Government will use the power of cloud to interconnect all state and corporate datacenters for a more effective use of available capacity in a cost effective way.

Please share with us features of some of the notable projects done by ESDS in Maharashtra government. ePDS solution can be used for online monitoring of commodities in real-time, detection and elimination of bogus ration cards, and providing flexibility to citizens to get ration from any shop in Nashik city.

to various Government departments and has also implemented Datacenter infrastructure for PMC, PCMC and MSEDCL.

How do you see progress of e-governance in Maharashtra?

Multiple state departments have enhanced their online presence. e-Services applications are helping in effective interaction between the citizens and government departments. Information collected and stored needs to be processed and analyzed in order to help the government in decision-making.

A policy needs to be designed in order to track and measure the progress of any e-Governance initiative. The push from the central government to give software development and hosting work to national IT companies needs to be re-thought if we want to be on par with other developing nations. Redundant corporate data centers must be needed in order to have all the system more high reliable, always available, and at least 99% survival. e-Governance must also focus on mobile apps since that is the future of ICT.

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in person

Kiran Bhagwanani

Chief Executive Officer, Dimension Data India Limited

Giving IT

a new dimension

D

imension Data is active in more than 50 countries in the world. What kind of work are you doing in India? What is your focus area?

Dimension Data is a specialist IT services provider that helps clients design, build, support and manage their IT infrastructure using our six solution lines viz. network integration, security, data centers, collaboration, performance optimization and Microsoft Technologies. We have been recognized by Gartner as a leader in their magic quadrant for Communications Outsourcing and Professional Services as also a leader in Infrastructure-as-a-Service magic quadrant. We have been present in India for 18 years now and work with some of the biggest enterprises in several industry verticals.

Keeping our client at the centre of everything we do, we are a strategic IT partner for our clients. As the IT consumption model shifts from traditional on-premises IT infrastructure to a hybrid model where some workloads are moving off-premises into the cloud, we are with our clients at every step of this journey by complementing our traditional SI capabilities with new capabilities around cloud and mobility. In the area of cloud, we are both a cloud builder as well as a cloud services provider globally.

What is your view of the Cloud market in India? Are there sufficient takers for your Cloud based solutions and services in India?

Having gone through the hype-cycle, the cloud market in India has evolved over the last few years. The cloud computing ecosystem has

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steadily matured to being enterprise-ready.

Globally, enterprises and Governments alike, have leveraged cloud computing to gain strategic agility, reduce business risks and optimize costs. Cloud can support inclusive growth by providing Governments the platform to effectively deliver the citizen charter. It can also be used to increase interoperability between various Government departments and agencies, reduce redundancy and track/monitor the effectiveness of Government schemes.

Though at early stages, we are seeing increasing confidence levels when it comes to cloud adoption in India as the benefits of cloud adoption are evident. Most of the enterprises have taken the first step to cloud by virtualising their data centre. The next step is to automate the infrastructure provisioning and the management layer for enjoying the full benefits of cloud.

Enterprises have been experimenting with the public cloud for non-mission critical applications over the last 18 months and many of them are now considering putting some of their additional workloads also on cloud. Public Sector Undertakings and Government departments have started building cloud adoption strategies.

We’re seeing strong demand for compute-as-aservice (CaaS), video conferencing, backup and storage, and email services on the cloud.

The truly exciting aspect of our cloud services is that we have built several variants of our Managed Cloud PlatformTM (MCP) to cater to different client situations. These are in the form of a Public CaaS, Private CaaS, hosted Private CaaS (where clients can choose the extent of “shared infrastructure”) and Provider CaaS (for service providers to offer our cloud technology to their clients). We believe with this portfolio, we have the most formidable offering for cloud supported by our global cloud exchange, and this is getting a lot of attention from our clients in India as well.

In most government departments we are having certain sense insecurity about putting the government data on the cloud.

What kind of security systems do you have to ensure that the data is safe in the cloud?

Security is certainly a fair concern, though more of a perceived risk than real. Dimension Data has invested heavily in creating a highly secure environment and follow industry best practices to ensure optimum security of client data at all times. Best-of-breed technology has been used to create a 5 level security architecture that covers over 25 different layers. We have built six state-ofthe-art Internet Data Centres (IDCs) in partnership with BSNL to ensure compliance with data sovereignty laws that mandate data generated in India remains within the physical boundaries of the country. These IDCs are ISO 27001 certified and SSAE 16 and ISAE 3402 compliant, apart from being India’s first Uptime Institute certified Tier III data centres. We have made all necessary investments in ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and availability of client data, at all times. We also openly welcome clients to get our facilities and security systems audited themselves or using external agencies, which we believe is a first and reflects our confidence in the robustness of the investments we have made.

How do you see the e-Governance area in India? Are you providing services to the government departments for e-Governance implementations?

Please provide us an overview of the work that you are doing for government departments in Centre and the States?

We all know India has a complex Governance

In inperson Person

mechanism due to its federal structure. For a country like ours, properly planned and implemented eGovernance initiatives can catalyze the India growth story. Leveraging the use of technology to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the delivery of Government services, eGovernance initiatives in India can help simplify the lives of millions of citizen by electronic documentation and online service delivery and at the same time bring in a sense of accountability and transparency on the part of the Government.

So far, we have worked with certain Government PSUs as well as Defence for our SI solutions such as establishing and managing networked infrastructure, security services, implementing high-end tele-presence systems and data center implementations like server and storage infrastructure.

With the BSNL partnership, we have considerably widened our portfolio and are today hosting several Government projects out of the BSNL IDCs. Besides, we are at advanced stages of engagement with various Central Government ministries, State Governments and Public Sector Undertakings for fully managed hosting services, with the entire IT system (including applications and infrastructure) provided as a service. With a rich technology lineage and a strong global exposure, we are playing the role of a strategic technology consultant in helping Government organisations leverage technology in their pursuit to deliver the citizen charter.

Our current engagements span sectors like Education, Healthcare, eGovernance, Financial Services, Public Utilities and Civic administration to name a few.

What kind of policies should the government come up with to improve the Cloud Market and IT services market in India? Tell us about your expectations from the government.

Governments should play the role of an enabler in addition to being a regulator. National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) was a step in right direction spanning the various requirements of the country at large. The Department of Electronics and IT (DeitY) recently announced its plans to roll out the National Cloud initiative called ‘GI Cloud’. A task force has even been setup to give specific cloud adoption direc-

“Governments should play the role of an enabler in addition to being a regulator” tion and ensure implementation of this initiative. These are encouraging signs. We can take a leaf out of Governments that have already reaped the benefits of successfully using technology to simplify the lives of their citizens. Government should create a panel of technology partners that have the know-how and the capacity to assist the Government in smoother and quicker execution of these projects.

What kind of growth are you expecting in India during the next five years? Tell us about your plans for growth in India.

Kiran Bhagwanani

With a history of 18 years in India and an employee base of close to 1,400 people, we are deeply committed to service the Indian geography. Besides, we have invested in a Global Service Centre (GSC) in Bangalore, one of the 5 GSCs in the Dimension Data world, from where we service and support clients around APAC and a few outside APAC as well. We strongly believe in the India growth story.

This is one of the main reasons behind our Rs 200 crore investment in this partnership with BSNL. This PPP initiative is a testimony of our commitment to deliver the best available services to Indian Government organisations and in turn to the citizens of India. Our combined initiatives with BSNL will provide a new paradigm in the way Indian Government departments and enterprises view and utilize technology. We are already playing the role of cloud change agents in this geography.

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e-Gov

Initiatives

Contribution of Telecom Operators Vital for e-Governance India has experienced considerable economic growth over the last two decades with the implementation of significant economic reforms, especially post liberalization in the 1990s. However, as these reforms took shape and the economy achieved new highs, the Government realized the key to worthy and successful governance was ‘connectivity’, which meant massive investments in ICT, to sustain a burgeoning economy and ensuring its continued competitiveness on the global stage.

T

he National Telecom Policy was introduced in 1994 and has since then undergone major transformation through significant policy reforms, particularly under the National Telecom Policy 1999 which emphasized that, access to telecommunications is of utmost importance for achievement of the country’s social and economic goals. This has been further reinforced in the National Telecom Policy of 2012. It states, “The National Telecom Policy-2012 is designed to ensure that India plays its leadership role in the knowledge intensive global scenario effectively and transforms the socio-economic scenario through accelerated equitable and inclusive economic growth by laying special emphasis on providing affordable and quality telecommunication services in rural and remote areas.”

Access to communications is an important catalyst to realizing productivity and efficiency improvements and thereby making it possible for the benefits of economic growth to be shared. Infact, the Indian government is slated to spend Rs. 368 billion in 2013 on Informa-

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Vishal Rally, Vice President & Regional Chief Operating Officer, (West), Tata Teleservices Ltd.

Initiatives

tion Technology, and telecommunications will account for the largest overall spending.

This will not only support to platform neutral services in e-governance, in key social sectors such as health, education and agriculture that are at present limited to a few organizations in isolated pockets; but also expand the footprint of these services fostering an atmosphere of participative democracy delivery model that is truly citizen-centric. And telecom providers are the significant catalysts of change who help the Government take these very services to the citizens.

TTSL at Play - Proactive in facilitating inclusive growth Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) has always been at the forefront of the telecom revolution in India and spearheaded numerous e-Governance projects across the country to provide improved public service delivery, bring greater transparency in government processes and ensure more effective accountability. With its reach in more than 450,000 towns and villages across the country, and a bouquet of connectivity services encompassing Mobile services in GSM & CDMA, Wireless Desktop Phones, MPLS fibre network, DLC links, ILL links, Wireless Data and Wire line Services, TTSL has abetted government bodies to increase efficiency, improve citizen services, enhance public safety and ensure better governance. It has recently helped the Government set-up over 800 passport offices in B&C class towns, under the Passport Seva Project, a National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) initiated by the Ministry of External Affairs; taking the facility closer to citizens. Also it has enabled online application submission and status checks for passport applicants, making the process transparent, accessible and incorruptible.

Today, the need in our country is to not only to develop the infrastructure but to also effectively use the existing ones with greater efficiency. Energy and Power reforms are at the core of this ideology and critical infrastructure for economic growth. Economic acceleration is greatly dependent on a commercially viable power sector that is able to attract fresh investments but is witnessing worsening financial health. State Electricity Boards (SEBs) are gaining momentum and TTSL has stood up to this national inclusive growth, to be a part of the wave that will bring about this radical change in the power sector. Not only does it provide the hardware, application Software, Connectivity

e-Gov

Initiatives for Maharashtra For Maharashtra government, TTSL has implemented several e-Governance initiatives across the urban as well as rural area and it has fared better than many other states in the country. Today the state is known for making the best aspects of modern technology available to its rural population. TTSL has provided 45 Mbps (DS-3) Internet leased line connectivity to State Data Centre for accessing state government’s web application servers. TTSL’s key initiatives For Maharashtra are highlighted below: 1. MahaOnline - MahaOnline is a unique project that propels Maharashtra’s position in e-Governance initiatives in the country. It integrates the frontend citizen portal with back-end DigiGOV making it the first of its kind of initiative by any state government in India. Citizens in 10,483 rural and 1336 urban localities in Maharashtra are being provided various online services through Common Service Centre’s of MahaOnline. It includes 7/12 extract, Birth and Death Certificate, No-objection certificate, Solvency Certificate.

Tata Teleservices is the preferred telecom partner and provides following services to MahaOnline: 2. Tata Teleservices has been closely associated with City & Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (CIDCO) City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd., and has been its service provider for basic wireline services for CIDCO. Furthermore, all CIDCO offices are connected on Tata PRI, enabling seamless interoffice communication.

3. TTSL has helped BMC offer Hotline services during the emergencies as well as natural calamities. Tata Teleservices “Hotline” solution offered to BMC provides instant connectivity between BMC’s 47 offices & control room.

This unique solution ensures that the contact is established in minimum time without the need of manual dialing which is very useful in dealing with all sorts of emergency situations or a natural calamity.

4. Forthcoming Initiative in Maharashtra: One of TTL’s ongoing engagement is with the state’s electricity board - Maharashtra State Electricity Board. As a part of this initiative to improve the power supply reliability at distribution level and to achieve commercial viability of the state electricity departments TTSL will help the board in establishing its communication systems especially for its AMR systems and provide connectivity for approximately 33000 meters spread across 35 towns.

and control center development for providing the managed AMR services but also allows them to check the status of DT, HT and Feeder meters on the departmental Web portals so that they can redistribute the load to match the demand & have higher efficiencies.

While e-Governance is actively responsible for facilitating inclusive growth in the country, it is hugely supported by m-Governance initiatives that have unleashed the untapped potential of the mobile given the fact that India has the world’s second-largest mobile phone user base with over 929.37 million users as of May

2012. And C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) has created special infrastructure called “Mobile-Seva” for the same. TTSL on its part is aiding C-DAC with a SMS-gateway that it is used for the delivery of SMS-based services to multiple Central and State Government departments and agencies, for government to citizens as well as Government to Government communication. Services via “Mobile Seva” include tracking of the status of applications, sending alerts for transactions and for delivery of services, grievance registration and redressal.

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RC…R Chandrashekhar… the Crowned Prince of e-Governance Ashis Sanyal, Former Senior Director, Department of Electronics and IT

I

t was an early February 2002 afternoon when I received a call from the PA of Additional Secretary (AS) Mr Lakshminarayan, that AS wanted to see me immediately. Wondering about the reason for AS suddenly calling me when I entered his chamber I saw a lean gentleman sitting opposite to AS and they were talking. Seeing me entering the room, AS, without any formal introduction, told that gentleman, ‘so Chandrasekhar, I am posting this energetic officer Sanyal immediately to start your e-Governance team.’

So, he is Mr Chandrasheshar, the new Joint Secretary in place of Mr Subir Hari Singh, I wondered. Mr Chandrashekhar looked at me and taking out the smallest possible ring-bound notebook from nowhere he simply asked me, ‘Sanyal, what is your intercom number?’ And immediately, at that very moment, I understood that he would be different.

Yes, he is different, much more different than this very phrase often explains about a popular brand of tomato ketch-up in TV commercials! Some years later, in a friendly chat after 7 pm (that used to be our preferred time to talk about everything other than e-governance) I told him, ‘Do you know Sir, in my personal norm of rating an IAS officer you get only 3 out of 10?’ He instantly understood that tricky norm and smiled. Indeed, in the team of e-governance in DIT (it was not DeitY at that time), we all felt the same way that RC was different from others in the pride.

We used to refer him, in his back, as RC, not JS(RC) or AS(RC) or SS(RC), which otherwise the usual norm in any government office.

Once I mentioned to him that we learnt a lot

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R Chandrashekhar, former secretary DeitY and DoT, has been a great Patron and a source of inspiration for CSDMS and Elets for many years. We have been enormously honoured and benefitted from his mentoring and guidance in all our activities.

On his retirement from active government service, we are very happy to publish this Profile as a tribute to our long and fruitful association, written on a unique personal note by his former colleague and e-Gov Consulting Editor Ashis Sanyal.

from his professing on e-governance and that’s why we refer to him with his initials as ‘RC’, the custom which is generally reserved for the professors. And it was ‘sustainable’ also as the reference of ‘RC’ was independent of currency of his designation! Somehow this ‘RC’ nomenclature became viral outside the DIT building also and we often used to get demiofficial sms or even we used to encounter personal or telephonic conversation referring Mr Chandrasekhar as ‘RC’, by the people who were outsiders but some way connected to the e-gov team of DIT. It is amazing that even after his moving on from the e-gov area almost 4 years now, among the e-gov practioners who are close to DIT, reference of ‘RC’ in any conversation does not need any elaboration but immediately understood !

How well he managed to deliver the assigned work of e-Governance for the central government need not be discussed in this space and beyond the scope this article also.

But certain pioneering efforts and related facts are amazing. Before his joining the DIT there was very little we could achieve in the space of e-governance. There was a small cell in DIT, christened as ‘Office Automation Cell’, looking after IT aspects of the department itself and

there were scattered activities which used to call for an annual budget of around Rs 5 crores, meant for some e-governance related projects.

And after 7-8 years, when he actually moved on, leaving behind a well-nurtured e-governance group manned by core DIT officers and a large contingent of ICT and management professionals in a dedicated NeGD division, the annual budget for the group donning the e-gov cap was close to Rs 1000 crores which was almost 80% of the entire DIT budget !

But what were the reasons for this almost 200 times increase in the annual budget?

Obviously there came plenty on the table, in a span of first 2-3 years. The pilot replication of successful 3 projects in 28 states, the framework and scheme for 35 State/UT Wide Area Network, 100,000 Common Services Centre at Panchayat villages, 35 Data Centres in each State/UT capital, National e-Governance Plan with its 27 Mission Mode projects and 8 components for the entire country, creation of the NeGP Program Management Unit ( now NeGD, in its new avatar ), e-Gov Capacity Building scheme for the state/UT government officials, State Service Delivery Gateway for each State Data Centre, nation-wide Standards for various elements of e-gov project imple-

egov report card

mentation, e-District projects for all districts, nucleation of National Knowledge Network, all came one after another in a span of 6-7 years, with the superb stewardship of RC. We all worked in a well coordinated planned manner, deliberated, argued and converged to a common cause and delivered the desired output following the way RC guided us. Soon DIT in New Delhi became the pivotal nerve centre for all e-governance activities in the country and annual budget kitty for e-governance group kept ringing. People who mattered in the central governance structure soon took note of all these and it was therefore only a matter of time that RC was crowned by the PM’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration 2007-08 on the Civil Service day held in the year 2009.

I wondered many times what has been RC’s USP in getting so much adoration from all the people he closely worked with, especially in our e-gov team and got the quick answers every time. The first one must be his Godgifted power of listening aptitude. RC has the consummate ability to listen to others’ points of view. Those, who happen to meet senior cadre government officers very often for official business purpose, would immediately recognize this as a rare quality for a person of his stature with rich experience and in helm of affairs for a long period. Among many such occasions revealing this particular aspect of his character, which were personally witnessed by me in little more than 7 years my closely working with him, I am tempted to cite one incident for record. A meeting was going on in his chamber, may be sometime in 2006, when an IT secretary of a particular state, not in agreement with some DIT decision, was trying to convince RC with many flimsy reasons as to why RC should reverse his earlier decision in that matter. The one-sided conversation, after certain time, was almost taking on my nerves, being the only other person present in the scene, but RC became almost a symbol of tolerance for me at that time, not interjecting him even once, while the useless long argumentive monologue deserved that many times. After the arguments got exhausted for the state IT secretary RC simply uttered 2-3 sentences in support of his earlier decision which sealed the fate of the case! At that time I took pity on that cadre officer many years junior to him but after so many years I forgot almost all other aspects of that incident except that practical demon-

R Chandrashekhar

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stration by RC how to remain cool in a situation when you have sufficient reason to lose it!

And what used to be the most preferred time to enjoy and fruitfully use his enormous listening power? We all knew that very well….do gate crash his chamber during his lunch time! Yes, when RC would take his daily home-sent lunch, in the most feasible slow motion with a regimented movement of the spoon and the rice grains and vegetables, one of us would seek that opportunity to discuss with him some critical issue which needed his guidance and decision.

Participating in an official discussion and offering his decision on one side and flipping the pages of the India Today or Economist on the other side, RC would carry out such parallel processing with consummate ease. This used to be almost regular feature in his chamber and lo and behold, many important decisions on e-governance for the country had been taken during RC’s lunch time!

The second USP for RC is perhaps his impeccable acumen how to build a team. At his level he was perfectly aware of the fact that his primary job was to get work done by others. And he used all traditional and innovative methods described in and out in the management coaching manuals written in this regard. In my opinion, motivation was the most important virtue he had planned to use for the team building. In a government ambience, to bring in motivation for the officers to work hard and that too most of the time much beyond scheduled working hours and sometimes on weekends and holidays, is no small achievement. And exactly it happened that way for most of us in the RC’s team for the 6-7 years he happened to be in the helm of e-gov affairs in DIT. In his management manual there were all necessary ingredients which cooked well to yield sustained motivation for well meaning officers in the group; bestowing confidence on the juniors, closely coupled with enhanced liberty to decide and act on issues which can be resolved below his level, absence of micro-management in routine and rudimentary matters, following a participatory approach for junior officers in technology and related matters, even not modifying the draft green sheet notes unnecessarily when it did not warrant so. Indeed we learnt a lot from his ways of managing a team of self-esteemed officers.

Many people did not know that RC, during the period 1957 to 1971, which was in a way the formative years of his educational life and perhaps the pattern of his distinctive character,

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lived in Kolkata, except 4-5 years in between at Vishakapatnam. He passed higher secondary examination as a student of famous 1877-established Missionary Calcutta Boys’ School and graduated in Chemistry (Hons.) from the prestigious Presidency College (now University).

He further received a MSc. degree in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and an MS in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University, USA. Once, in the early days of our association, he confided to me, ‘Ashis, at one point of time my Bengalispeaking skill was better than my Teluguspeaking, but I lost most of that. Try to speak to me in Bengali often, so that I can get back some flair at least’. Since then I followed my mentor’s wish religiously. Even today, in private conversation, I speak to him more in Bengali than English. And on his part he used to apply his Bengali-speaking skill, in official meetings,

The second USP for RC is perhaps his impeccable acumen how to build a team just to restrain me from elaborating any subject more than necessary, by whispering in a very low voice, ’byas, thik aachhe, thik aachhe, aar bolben na’ ( Ok, ok, do not elaborate more ) !

Do all these above mean that nobody had difficult times with RC in the office? Of course that is not true. His impeccable memory many times caused problems to us, especially in regard to our commitments to him on the agreed timelines for finishing assigned tasks.

His PA had the problem because that poor fellow almost forgot his primary task of taking shorthand notes and typing. RC used to type almost all his official notes, even if it is a very lengthy one! Only slippage in that act used to be that he would take the print out only on one side of the green sheet ( presumably he never bothered to learn that trick of both side printing with proper margin)! His office assistant sometime would have harrowed moments to ensure that he reached airport on time as most of the time RC would start from office to catch a flight with minimum possible margin of error. My

personal experience with him as a co-traveler in long flights had been expressly interesting as after few such occasions, he remained the same passive listener to my babbling in the adjacent seat in the flight and I became interested in crossword puzzle and sodoku!

RC started his civil service career with distinction and all of his nearly 37 years of active service in various capacities in his AP State cadre and in central government departments had been notable. It is worth mentioning that RC established the country’s first Department of Information Technology (DIT) in Andhra Pradesh and served it from June 1997 to December 1999. In his own words, ‘I was always fortunate that my seniors, whether a senior officer or a Minister, had exhibited great degree of confidence in me but that filled in me greater sense of responsibility to perform and deliver with best of my abilities’. This is really a statement of substance from a humble champion that should be emulated. He moved from Secretary DIT position to Secretary DoT in the month of September 2010 and in the normal course superannuated on March 28th 2013. But as we see he is far from retirement in letter and spirit. It is definite that in the forthcoming day government of India will find out the best possible way to effectively utilize RC’s enormous knowledge and experience in governance and especially in electronic governance. In his own words, ‘there are possibilities…but now I have decided to take at least 2 months off…will think thereafter’.

However, when some of us, former members in his e-governance team, look back to the time of our association with RC we appreciate that for all of us it was the most memorable period of self-satisfaction, a rare commodity in government eco-system, for which every credit would go this quiet-talking officer and the gentleman.

Mr Rajeev Ratna Shah Sir, you must have brought in many exemplary things to our governance system by your visionary acumen.

But in my opinion your best contribution to the administrative system was, through your sustained effort, having its ups and downs, to hand-pick RC as the Joint Secretary in DIT in 2002, to lay the foundation stone of the comprehensive e-Governance initiatives for the country, which has started showing the most lasting impact on Indian administrative and governance system for the next few decades, for sure.

In Person

Shahid Ali Khan

Minister of Minority Welfare and Information Technology, Government of Bihar

Education

blossoms in Bihar and during that time the situation of minorities was miserable in terms of education, as there was no educational facility. We didn’t have any environment for studies. The Sachar Committee report has also revealed that in Bihar minorities are below the Schedule Caste in terms of education. Hon’ble Chief Minister has a vision for providing better education facilities to the minorities.

We started the scheme for donating money for the 10,000 matriculations then. In the first year of the scheme only 2,627 students in the entire state of Bihar qualified. After six years, the tally has increased to 20,225. This by itself is a proof of the fact that an education environment has been created. Even in Madarsa we have started several education programmes which include training of students through computer. We have also initiated computer training programmes for parents who are illiterate. Bihar knowledge society has been very helpful in the overall development of the minorities. The overall percentage growth of education has drastically increased as even parents have now realized that education is necessary for them.

“The cabinet in the Government of Bihar has passed a bill enabling the creation of private universities,” says Shahid Ali Khan, Minister of Minority Welfare and Information Technology, Government of Bihar. In conversation with Ankush Kumar

W

hat kinds of education programmes are you running for minorities in Bihar?

We came into Government in November 2009

There is still a lot of work to be done in the education of the girl child. What is your Government doing in this area?

The environment has changed as we have started from ground zero but now we are in a better position. If today a person after doing matriculation becomes teacher then we think that his son will be at-least a lecturer. If you are working for minorities then you must realise that the change will not come instantly perhaps it will be seen in the next generation and only then you will be successful.

Once Bihar was known as a state that gave the most civilservants to the country but don’t you think these civil

servants have not done much for their own state?

Things are generally becoming better. If you go to cities like Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, you will find that the majority of the migrants are from Bihar. Most of the coaching institutes have teachers from Bihar. This means that their parents interest to educate their children has also increased. Our Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is also an engineer, he has always focused on education and therefore he has been leading by example. Students see him as their role model which is a big motivation to them.

What are the major schemes that the Government has initiated for minorities in past few years?

We started with the minority scholarship schemes and after seeing the result we decided that whosoever girl will come first we will give her scholarship. This has increased the rate of education among the girls. Other states have now started distributing bicycles to the girls, but this policy was first initiated in Bihar. We have been the front runner and whatever good we do for the girls other states adopt the same. We started talent programmes for minorities so the central Government adopted it.

What initiatives are planning to bringing further improvement in the state of education?

We did not have private university in the state.

So now we have passed a bill through cabinet to have a private University in Bihar. We started IIT as we had just two engineering colleges, we had only 13 polytechnic institutes and now we are starting one polytechnic institute in every state. I would like to add that the girl students in the state are very bright. With the right support from the government, they can do as well as the boys. In fact, I was taught computers by my young daughter.

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in person

Dr Ajay Kumar

Joint Secretary, Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India

making india hub

of global electronics

T

he demand for electronics in India has been increasing over the years.

What steps are being taken to promote the IT industry?

You have rightly said that the demand for electronics is increasing. India is one of the countries where growth in demand is one of the fastest. Electronics has huge strategic implications. For instance, you have the Smart Grid, which makes it possible for a hacker to put the electrical transmission of the entire country at risk. Electronics is also being used for defense, space, and atomic energy sectors. In civilian sector, we can’t think of life without electronics. Therefore on one side there is a huge economic opportunity, and the other side there is a huge strategic need. The demand for electronics hardware is currently about $45 billion and is expected to cross USD 400 billion by 2020. Today in value terms, we are producing less than 5 percent of the demand that we actually have. And unless we increase the manufacturing capabilities, very shortly we can have a situation where our import bill for electronics will be higher than our oil import bill.

Electronics must also be seen from the perspective of job creation. What kind of job creation can we expect from this sector?

The kind of jobs that young India needs can only come from manufacturing industry. Electronics manufacturing industry of $400 billion can provide direct jobs to 28 million people in India. Unless we revive manufacturing in the country, the so called demographic dividend, of young Indians, will never be realized. So we have to make all out efforts to promote electronics manufacturing. One thing that I would like to say is that electronics manufacturing has better chance to succeed than some other traditional manufacturing sectors.

India is already becoming a fairly well-known internationally for our capabilities in IT. We are strong in software and in chip design but we lack in physical manufacturing. If the product is a combination of design and software, we are good in half of it. Lot of human resource is available in the country, so there is no reason why we can’t attain the same kind of success in electronics, as we have attained in IT. “Electronics manufacturing industry of $400 billion can provide direct Department of Electronics & Information Technology, DeitY, Ministry of

With the bulk of the electronics that we see in India and abroad is manufactured by China. Why can’t India have an electronic industry that matches China?

Communications & IT, Government of India

That is what we need to change! China produces about 40 percent of world’s

jobs to 28 million people in India,” says Dr Ajay Kumar, Joint Secretary,

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In inperson Person

electronics whereas 95 percent of electronics used in India is imported. This is due to many factors.

Firstly, electronics is the only sector in the world, which has zero duty. This is like a border-less global market with no duty. In order to manufacture in India, you have to be globally competitive.

In other manufacturing sectors like automotive, there is a huge tariff barrier ranging from 40 percent to 75 percent and in some cases 100 percent, which is put on any imported product. But if it is manufactured in India, it will cost much less.

Naturally, with such high tariffs, there is incentive for manufacturing in India although in electronics sector, this is not possible. The second challenge is the freight charges. If I have to import something I have to pay freight charges but in electronics the chip size is so small that the charge of freight is negligible. The cost of transport is very low for electronics. It is very easy to export from one country to another.

What steps are you taking to enable more electronics manufacturing in India?

A number of steps have been taken as today 100 percent FDI is permitted under automatic route in semiconductor fabs. Government of India is in the process of developing a policy framework to provide preference for domestically produced electronics goods in Government/ Government influenced procurement. Apart from attractive financial and fiscal incentives for capital investment in the projects, Government of India will also provide assistance for setting up of worldclass infrastructure for the semiconductor fabs and its eco-system units. The thing is that despite the best policies of Government of India, we continue to fail to attract investments in electronics sector. This is also due to the Information Technology Agreement, under WTO. Because of this agreement manufacturing has got concentrated in some countries. It is produced in few countries like China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and sold to rest of the world. These countries have developed huge economies of scale. So today there is no incentive for anyone to manufacture in India.

What are the challenges in setting up of semi-conductor wafer fab units in the country?

One of the major challenges in electronics is setting up of a semi-conductor wafer fab. It is a very hi-tech technology. A fab can cost more than $5 billion to set up. And this technology is very fast changing; typically, it changes over a period of 18

Electronics Manufacturing Cluster Scheme Notified The Electronics Manufacturing Clusters (EMC) Scheme has been notified on October 22, 2012 vide Notification No:36(3)/2012–IPHW. The scheme proposes to provide support for developing world-class infrastructure for both Greenfield and Brownfield EMCs.

months to 36 months. The technology is most cutting-edge. Only four or five companies in the world are capable of setting up such units. There has been several attempts in the past to set up a fab in India, but these attempts were unsuccessful. We have tried to set up a fab in the country and did a global expression of interest. It will be a private project but government will provide special incentive of setting up a fab. China has over 100 fabs but we don’t have a single one. We have now formed an empowered committee to find out ways for setting up of the fab in the country. A global expression of interest has also been floated.

If fab units are set up, they can supply to the global manufacturers.

This could be a huge boost for local electronics industry? What is your view on this?

Studies in electronics have shown that wherever fabs have come up, they have resulted in a huge eco-system. We have started a policy to subsidise the companies that are setting up units in the country.

What kind of developments are we expecting from the passing of National Policy on Electronics?

The Union Cabinet approved the National Policy on Electronics 2012. There is potential to develop the Electronic System and Design and Manufacturing (ESDM) sector to meet our domestic demand as well as to use the capabilities so created to successfully export ESDM products from the country. The policy is expected to create an indigenous manufacturing eco-system for electronics in the country. It will foster the manufacturing of indigenously designed and manufactured chips

creating a more cyber secure ecosystem in the country. It will enable India to tap the great economic potential that this knowledge sector offers.

The increased development and manufacturing in the sector will lead to greater economic growth through more manufacturing and consequently greater employment in the sector. The Policy envisages that a turnover of $400 billion will create an employment for two million people.

The government has developed schemes like Modified SIPS and Electronics Manufacturing Clusters. What kind of results are we seeing from these?

Under the EMC, the undeveloped SEZs can be developed in Electronic Manufacturing Clusters (EMCs); specific sectors like LED or medical electronics could develop sector specific EMCs; Avionics EMC could be developed around airports with MRO and other related facilities. Sector specific EMC could plan to provide for common tooling, testing facilities, training facility, warehousing facility, etc., which could make the units within the cluster more competitive. Alternative source of electric transmission to provide greater reliability of power to units could be considered.

Country specific clusters could be thought of like a Taiwan village, a Japanese village or a Korean village. A country specific EMC could plan civic amenities like clubs, restaurants, karaoke, etc., which creates a home away from home for their nationals working in these companies. The most important thing would be the USP of the EMC which makes the EMC different from a typical industrial estate. It is not essential for a SPV to be made before an application under the EMC scheme can be made. A Chief Promoter can initiate action and form the SPV in due course.

Similarly, under Modified SIPS, there is potential to maximize the benefit under the scheme by planning their investments for the next ten years and getting approval of the ten year project.

They do not have to produce financial closure for the whole project. The guidelines provide that financial closure be furnished only for a part of the project. However, by providing investment plan for ten years enables the companies to claim incentives under the scheme for ten years once their whole project is approved. We are encouraging the SEZ developers to explore the possibility of developing Electronic Manufacturing Clusters as ESDM is likely to attract significant investment in future, especially in the wake of the new policies announced by the Government.

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in person

V P Agrawal

Chairman, Airport Authority of India

Flying Colours of Development

“AAI is automating the operations at the airports with state-of-the-art technology so as to bring efficiency and reduce the dwell-time,� says V P Agrawal, Chairman, Airport Authority of India.

In conversation with Nayana Singh

W

hat measures are being taken by AAI for improving connectivity of Airports?

There are whole lot of factors that affect connectivity of Airports including inherent traffic from catchment areas, willingness and viability of airlines to operate regular flights and suitable government policies &incentives like subsidies etc.

AAI on its part has been on forefront, incurring an expenditure of around Rs 12,000 crores during the 11th Plan for development of airports to boost connectivity across India. AAI went about upgrading and modernizing Chennai, Kolkata airports, 35 non-metro airports and 10 other airports across the country.

Out of these most of the airports including Chennai and Kolkata have been completed. With the aim of making Air connectivity affordable and accessible to the people residing in remote/ unconnected area, AAI is making a roadmap for development of low cost regional airports. Plans are on anvil to provide air connectivity in tier II and tier III cities of India by development of low cost airports. In the first phase places having some basic airport infrastructure will be developed and operationalised, subsequently Greenfield airports will be developed.

According to the Planning Commission of India, improving the quality of transport infrastructure is part of the requirement to achieve high growth by 2017. In lines of that, what is the current status of Airport Infrastructure and the roadmap for modernizing Airport infrastructure?

To improve the quality of Transport infrastructure, development of the airports were undertaken both with public as well as private investment. Airports Authority of India the public entity invested heavily mostly from the internal resources to develop more than 50 airports including Kolkata, Chennai, 35 non-metro and 10 other airports in tier2 and tier3 cities.

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Overall investment of AAI during the 11th plan is pegged at approx. 12,000 crores against total spending on airport sector of approx. 36,000 crores.

In private sector Hyderabad and Banglore airports were developed as Greenfield airports with investment of approx.

5000 crores, Delhi and Mumbai were developed through joint venture under PPP model with approx. investment of Rs. 20,000 crores. Some of the other airports in private sector that are under progress and where operations are expected in near future are Gulbarga, Shimoga, Durgapur etc. which are Greenfield airports. Airport authority is also developing new Greenfield airport at Pakyong, Gangtok, Sikkim at a cost of

Innovations by AAI 1. Use of Solar energy for electricity at various airports.

2. Recycling of paper to cater for stationary throughout AAI. 3. Designing low cost airport models.

4. Waste water recycling 5. Reducing separation between the aircrafts to increase capacity in air.

6. Introduction of PBN procedures for operational efficiency.

7. Straightening of routes thereby reducing travel time and precious fuel.

8. Reducing emissions in all phases of flight.

9. Use of eco- friendly self-propelled electrically operated: conveyor belts, towable conveyor belts, fork-lifts, Battery operated: tugs & push back, Ultra Low Floor True Flat Bedded Passenger Carrying Coaches.

10. Use of electronic surveillance for complete path of passenger.

In inperson Person

approx. Rs. 300 crores.

Work has been completed at Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Aurangabad, Agartala, Agra (CE), Bhopal, Chandigarh, Calicut, Dehradun, Dibrugarh, Indore, Jaipur, Lucknow, Madurai, Mangalore, Mysore, Raipur, Surat, Srinagar, Trivandrum, Udaipur, Varanasi, Coimbatore, Ranchi and Bhubhaneswar for expansion of existing Terminal Building. These terminals have modern stateof-the art passenger facilities besides comfortable lounges, user friendly amenities and good ambience.

Work is in progress for New Terminal Building at Khajuraho, Goa and Vadodara and for expansion of Terminal Building at Imphal. New Civil Enclave at Bhatinda is awaiting commissioning.

Construction of New Civil Enclave is in progress at Bikaner and Chandigarh (Mohali Side) and planned at Jammu. Construction of New Terminal Building is also planned at Coimbatore and Port Blair.

There is a proposal for expansion of Terminal Building at Calicut by constructing a new International Arrival Hall, expansion of Terminal Building at Jammu to augment passenger handling capacity and expansion of Terminal Building & extension of runway at Jaipur. In the 12th plan investments of about Rs. 65,000 crores is expected on airport development out of which approx.

17,000 crores will be by AAI and balance through private participation and PPP. 12th plan will envisage investment in upgradation and modernization of non operational airports in tier2 and tier3 airports to improve connectivity and development of Greenfield airports approved by GoI apart from associated infrastructure like MRO, Ground handling, Training etc. .

We plan to initiate work to upgrade about 30 airports in the 12th plan as plans to provide regional connectivity. The airports are all across India e.g.

Raxaul, Portblair in East, Sholapur, Kolhapur, Bhavnagar in West, Hubli,Thanjavur, Agatti in South, Pantnagar, Ludhiana, Ajmer in North and Tezu, Rupsi in North east to name a few.

What has been AAI’s experience with the global meltdown?

AAI was no exception to global meltdown, however, the effect on AAI was less severe and we were able to face the challenge upfront by deployment of effective strategies. It was ensured that projects started in good times were not stalled due to resource crunch faced due to recession. It was also ensured that resources were optimized and essential projMay 2013 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov

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in person

Following IT projects have been initiated by Airports Authority of India for integration of airports and processes at different airports 1. Airport Operations Control Centre (AOCC) at 10 airports: Common Airports Operations Data base (AODB) is planned to drive the Airports Operations Control Centre at each of these 10 airports to provide a platform for the collaborative decision making amongst all the airport stakeholders. AOCC will optimize and automate the airport operations at these airports with state-of-the-art technology so as to bring efficiency and reduce the dwell-time. The central system is to be implemented at the Chennai airport by end of August, 2013.

2. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): The ERP covering the functions of Finance, HR, Material Management and project systems

ects with respect to operations and capacity enhancement were given go ahead while scaling down some of the projects which were not immediately required. AAI took Global meltdown as an opportunity to provide sufficient airport capacity ahead of demand which was required once the demand picked up. Further, AAI was able to maintain its financial performance and showed reasonable profits.

Progress in respect of air connectivity in North East RegionGovernment of India and NEC has given special attention to NER region and the efforts have given rich dividends. Routes dispersal guidelines put in place have resulted in air connectivity to/from 11 airports in the NorthEastern Region. However, some parts of the NER still remain unconnected by air services or partly connected perhaps due to non-availability of suitable type of aircraft Over a period of time, the air connectivity in the NorthEastern Region has grown from 290 flights per week in 2007 to 370 flights per week in 2011.

However there has been a setback off late due to closure of operations by Kingfisher. In addition to scheduled air services, non-scheduled

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across all the locations of India is in progress and the project has gone live w.e.f. 26.03.2013. The ERP project will help in standardizing the processes in the key functions of HR, Finance, Material Management & Project Systems across India in addition to providing unified reporting structure to the senior management through dash boards.

3. No Objection Certificate Application System (NOCAS): The prime objective of this application is to automate and streamline the process of issue of no objection certificates through GIS based application to handle request of general public for grant of No Object Certificate for construction related activities in the vicinity of airports.

This is already in operations.

air services are being provided by North East Shuttle (a non-scheduled operator) with small aircraft. Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd is also providing helicopters services in Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Tripura and Sikkim with subsidy from Central Govt. for carriage of passengers, emergency/medical evacuation, VIP transportation and Tourism. The air

4. Airports Information Management System (AIMS): It provides a total of 14 modules covering all areas of functioning of an airport and is being used for all kinds of revenue billing , MIS reporting about all aspects of airport operations at about 74 airports.

5. GIS Based Land & Asset Management System (GLAMS): This GIS Based application for land and Asset Management is working at 18 airports. All GIS assets are superimposed on the latest satellite image.

6. AAI website: is hosted as www.aai. aero and is being used widely for dissemination of information about the organisation. All AAI tenders, contract information etc. is also being hosted on the website.

bag so far. PPP has allowed for infusing sufficient funds, sharing of risks, enabling faster implementation, improved quality of service, generation of additional revenue streams and improved management. Successful projects have been delivered at Cochin, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai in form of private or JV airports. However the invest-

“AAI took Global meltdown as an opportunity to provide sufficient airport capacity ahead of demand� connectivity to North Eastern region can be further improved by deployment of smaller aircrafts and development of small airports. To integrate the North-Eastern states with rest of the country AAI has embarked upon a plan for developing low cost airports at Along, Daparizo, Itanagar, Tezu etc.

How fruitful and result oriented are the projects undertaken as Public Private Partnership in aviation sector?

The experience with PPP has been mixed

ments have been only at the airports which were already profit centres and there are hardly any takers for tier-2 and Tier-3 airports. Constrained public finances, scale of investments and greater focus on social sectors require greater investments by private sector in airports in smaller cities, however, development at all these airports are catered to by Airports Authority of India from internal resources.

Most of these airports are not commercially viable and private sector eyes these airports only when they are matured enough and financially viable..