Public Private Partnerships: May-June 2005 Issue

Volume I issue 3, May-June 2005

The inside-out approach to e-Governments PAGE 6 Sri Lanka’s e-Government strategy PAGE 9 In focus: Estonia PAGE 16 The ‘effectiveness’ quotient of PPPs PAGE 25

The bimonthly magazine on e-Governance

knowledge for change

ISSN 0973-161X

Public Private Partnerships www.egov.csdms.in

CONTENTS

Editorial

Agenda Public-Private Partnerships: The inside-out approach to e-Governments by Jim Hagemann Snabe

Notebook e-Government as a part of Sri Lanka’s overall development strategy by Rohan Samarajiva, Ayesha Zainudeen

EKVI (e-Krishi Vipanan) by Rakesh Shrivastava, Col. P M Das, A P S Solanki

In focus: Estonia by Joe Thomas K

Commentary Implementing e-Governance despite the digital divide by Awdhesh K Singh

The ‘effectiveness’ quotient of Public-Private Partnerships by Shekar Nair

The TED conference on e-Government by Johann Gamper

Features

| May – June 2005

Book review by Vikas Kanungo

News review

Interview: Vivek Atray

Facts and data

About town

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EDITORIAL

Volume I, issue 3 May – June 2005

Editor Ravi Gupta Policy Expert Vikas Kanungo Assistant Editor Joe Thomas K Designed by Deepak Kumar Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Web www.jtwebsolution.com Editorial and marketing correspondence egov G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India Phone: +91 120 2502181-87 Fax: +91 120 2500060 Email: egov@csdms.in In Singapore 25 International Business Park #4-103F, German Centre Singapore 609916

Where’s the C? Outsourcing is not a new phenomenon, and India is no stranger to such arrangements in diverse fields. Partnerships and outsourcing models in the form of Public-Private Partnerships or PPPs are here to stay in the times to come, especially in the issue-area of e-Governance. The onus of sharing competencies is on the two groups of service providers who stand to shape the deployment of e-Government across the world – the ‘Public’ and the ‘Private’. Clearly, this is a big responsibility. However, though innocuous, the omission of the ‘C’ in the aforementioned construct is certainly worrying. The ‘citizen’ as a recipient of services is clearly amiss in the whole scheme of things. Does anyone look at their absorptive capacity for information and services? Is the process of deployment ipso facto inclusive of citizen viewpoints? At the PPP level itself - do these arrangements have goals that outlast the life of the partnerships? Clearly, more than redefining a terminology, the process needs to be re-understood. We have tried to understand the different aspects to PPPs with this issue. Thankfully, the Public and the Private were extremely forthcoming with the minutiae. We would like to involve the citizen-as-a-user perspective in the issues to come - not only a feedback in terms of complaints and attendant problems, but as a strategic input for planning and implementation of e-Government initiatives. So here’s inviting more stakeholders to egov…let the ideas flow, as does the ink!

Printed by Yashi Media Works Pvt Ltd New Delhi, India Ravi Gupta egov does not neccesarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in the magazine are those of the contributors. egov is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred, directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided.

ravi.gupta@csdms.in

egov is published with the support of GIS Development (www.GISdevelopment.net) © Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, 2005 www.csdms.in

| May – June 2005

AGENDA

Public-Private Partnerships: The inside-out approach to e-Governments To many governments, partnering with the private sector in e-Government is like navigating in uncharted waters. Yet, this could be the most effective way for governments by adopting an inside-out approach where the government can lay the foundation by using an open platform through private partnerships and build upon it The private sector has played a significant role in revolutionising the way we work and communicate today. Investment in telecommunications infrastructure projects alone with private participation is estimated to have topped USD 210 billion in the developing world over the 1992-2002 period1. By definition, a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is a contractual agreement between a government entity (public sector) and a for-profit corporation (private sector). Together, these entities agree to provide services to the public by combining their assets and skills and share the risks and rewards. Traditionally, PPP has been applied to core infrastructure oriented projects or public works such as water, highways, and bridges to name a few. The maturing of ICT and its dominance since the dawn of the century has posed one question to governments worldwide: how to partner with the private sector in e-Governance. Other challenges range from financing e-Government projects to technological independence. The increasing demands for information and higher service level expectations constrained with limited budgets have added to the complexity of such initiatives.

The landscape today The impact of the Internet and telecommunications as a medium to access and disseminate information has changed the world politically and geographically. For instance, worldwide mobile phone subscriptions increased from 32 million in 1998 to 1.4 billion in 2003. About 23 percent of the world’s population is ‘connected’, according to the International Telecommunication Union2. The quantum jump in 6

the availability of affordable communications is a catalyst for information dissemination and the counter demand. A world without boundaries operating in a 24/7 environment is a reality for every country. Countries big and small have realised the importance of operating across time zones to stay afloat in global markets. Observing and learning from peers is the model of the day as opposed to building from first principles or in isolation. Bringing transparency in government processes is not a new agenda anymore; today, it is an expectation. The transparency now goes beyond political boundaries where peers and/or global powers are constantly watching each other.

Across governments and countries, there are a common set of core processes that may, in principle, be identical.

The ‘Yesterday’ syndrome The pace of government modernisation is only likely to increase. This has put significant pressure on governments to review, reengineer and deploy citizencentric services at a faster pace than a traditional public sector core sector projects cycle. It is no stretch of imagination if one were to state that ‘all projects were to be completed yesterday’. In addition, organisational transformation and retooling the workforce to conform to this new paradigm is a challenge governments will continue to face.

The inside-out approach During the dotcom era governments had to rush to the Internet world to display their involvement and commitment to this new medium and adopt it as the new channel for interaction with constituents. Governments worldwide already have several e-Government initiatives in place today. These range from simple information dissemination to complex transaction oriented systems for critical functions such as budgeting, tax and revenue, or social services. This may have resulted in the imposition of a new layer of interface on existing infrastructure and complex business processes residing in islands of technology or processes. The support costs of this approach continue to increase and will be of serious concern. Inability to adopt or implement new business processes, and scale up to future demands is one of the major risks in this approach. Another major challenge for governments worldwide is ‘collaboration’ across different government entities. This constraint deprives the administrators of leveraging the economies of scale such www.egov.csdms.in |

as procurement across ministries or departments, sharing information across agencies for public safety, or even effective collection of taxes. Governments will be expected to integrate at a local, state or central level, and the need to adopt a uniform infrastructure strategy and subscribe to a common platform that becomes the foundation for future building blocks is real. This view of a ‘common platform: a layer above the infrastructure providing core services, open to integration and build upon’ is a reality today and gaining momentum in the industry. Subscription to this concept and strategy is likely to make current and future initiatives of governments a reality - within budget and on time. This strategy termed as the “insideout” approach with emphasis on building the core foundations inside and expanding outwards is the most viable approach in today’s changing landscape and will provide the best returns on investment. The fundamental concept here is to separate the business processes layer from the network, hardware, databases and operating systems that can be grouped as the ‘infrastructure’. The infrastructure continues to get efficient and affordable and is available practically in the form of a commodity. Replacing or swapping some of these components in real-time is possible today and will only get smarter as we progress. The layer that controls the business processes is of concern and importance today. Across governments and countries, there are a common set of core processes that may, in principle, be identical. These include planning and execution of budgets, managing the human capital, ensuring a fair and transparent procurement, efficient collection of taxes, and providing basic services to constituents such as registration and payment of fees. The implementation aspects of these processes may differ from country to country and are addressed through localisation - yet the fundamentals are common and could be based on best practices. These core processes are key targets for a ‘Buy’ approach for prime reasons such as proven and tested processes with options to adapt to the local requirements. There could be additional processes that are specific in nature and may be required to be built and integrated | May – June 2005

with the core processes. The advantages in this approach are obvious when a common platform strategy is adopted: • A platform proven and available to all • A platform that offers a standard set of services that could be readily used • A platform open by design and technology to facilitate integration • A platform that supports integration and development of custom processes. Managing the portfolio of business applications and adapting them to changes in a cost effective manner is the key to successful initiatives by governments in future. Let us examine additional issues faced by governments today and how partnerships on an inside-out approach could be of importance.

The right budget Budgeting for e-Government initiatives is a relatively new territory for administrations. “How much does it cost for the right solution?” is the basic question on the administrators’ mind. However, the key question ought to be “What is the right solution?” The traditional budgeting cycle coupled with changes in the technology and pricing of solutions and services adds a level of uncertainty to the outcome and the adequacy of requested budgets. Defining scope of implementation in eGovernment oriented services is a bigger challenge to administrators as compared to the core sectors.

Bringing transparency in government

processes

is not a new agenda anymore; today, it is an expectation. the best value technologies and solutions for their constituents. However, technologies have changed rapidly in the past and may continue to change. Hardware has transformed from specialised goods to a commodity. Is the public sector model adaptable to dynamic pricing models and landscapes? Subscribing to a platform that is based on open technologies and enables reuse is a significant step towards the best value for money acquisition.

Build or Buy dilemma When it comes to the business solutions layer, organisations small and large are faced with the same question - Build or Buy? The immediate reaction would be “Why build if you could buy?” This is true in a majority of the cases except for specialised processes that may require custom development of solutions. Implementers need to ensure that adequate expertise and talent is available locally to adopt and implement the ‘Buy’ solutions.

Managing the risks Investing in the most effective technology It is imperative that governments adopt

Risk management is the core element in government-led technology initiatives. Anticipating risks and planning

accordingly continues to be a major challenge. Risks could be in the form of gaining acceptance, staying within the budget envelope, retooling the workforce, changing the work culture and finally planning and scaling for an unprecedented success if all goes well.

Measuring Return on Investment (ROI) Governments today are moving towards results and performance-oriented measurement. The key challenge is how to measure ROI in public sector and make it meaningful enough to adopt and replicate the successes or ensure that failures are rectified in future initiatives. Unlike private sector, ROI has different flavours in public sector such as Political, Operational and Social ROI that makes it more challenging to measure.

Selecting the right partner Given the above challenges, the crucial question is how does one select the right partner. The conventional methods of “lowest cost” or “best value” may not be applicable in all cases. Intangibles yet important are factors such as the vision, long-term strategy, and staying power in

Partnership is all about sharing the risks and the rewards. 8

turbulent markets that may influence this decision.

Enrolling Private Partnership Today, the dividing lines between public and private sector are blurred due to the nature of integration of processes in the value chain. As an example, a constituent conducting business with the government using a portal is unaware of the series of events that occur behind the scenes and the entities that are involved in the process. These entities could be financial institutions, suppliers, NGOs collaborating with the government based on a variety of private public partnership models. Traditional project oriented approach for private partnership in e-Government has had limited success so far. Changing technology, evolving business processes, ownership, sustaining the economic model of the partnerships and measuring the ROI for both parties have been some of the issues in this approach. The argument here is to propose a partnership between the industry and governments on a scale that has a long lasting and positive impact on the future of constituents and economies of countries. A common operating platform that is committed, funded, continually innovated, supported by the private sector and subscribed by the governments could be the most successful form of partnership that can be envisioned. Economic exclusion and digital divide has been of concern in developing countries. Building a robust eco system around

such a platform may have a long lasting socio-economic impact on the government and the industry. The eco system provides opportunities for small local firms to integrate with the leading industry players, adopt new skills, enhance the human capital and provide affordable technical expertise to governments. The larger the eco system the more positive will be the impact and the ability to steer collectively the refinement of the platform in the right direction. Concerns that are expressed in this approach include being locked into a technology or paying a premium to subscribe to such a platform when compared to open source freeware. A partnership of this scale has distinct advantages. The subscribers, the platform providers and service providers are all stakeholders and should be able to leverage their roles and ensure a balance. To many governments, partnering with the private sector in e-Government is like navigating in uncharted waters. Yet, this could be the most effective way for governments by adopting an inside-out approach where the government can lay the foundation using an open platform through private partnerships and build upon it. After all, partnership is all about sharing the risks and the rewards. References: 1 Financing ICT needs in the Developing World: Public & Private Roles, February 2005 Report published by the World Bank. 2. ICT Statistics, 2003, International Telecommunication Union

Jim Hagemann Snabe Head of BSG Financial & Public Services, SAP AG. Jim can be reached at jim.hagemann.snabe@sap.com (Hanno Klausmeier and Shanti Namballa, SAP Public Sector Industry Development, also contributed to this article)

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NOTEBOOK

e-Government as a part of Sri Lanka’s overall development strategy In 2002, the-government of Sri Lanka embarked upon a broad development strategy, with a focus on services. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) were identified as one of the key drivers of national integration and economic growth. The eSri Lanka Initiative (eSL), which was designed in 2002-03, was intended to ‘take the dividends of ICT to every village, to every citizen, to every business and transform the way Government works … [to] develop Sri Lanka’s economy, alleviate poverty, and improve the quality of life and the opportunities for all of our people’1 . e-Government services were seen as critical to the success of eSri Lanka. It was thought that these services, provided in all three official languages, would anchor an array of information, interactive and transactional services that would be produced by government, private, civil society, and individual actors. Language standardisation and the development of low-cost payment mechanisms, among others, were seen as enabling conditions for decentralised e-Commerce activities in Sri Lanka.

It was believed that eSL could create the necessary conditions for IT-enabled services. eSL is therefore a comprehensive, integrated programme that has several components ranging from the construction of the broadband backbone to the development of e-Leadership.

Why e-Government? Notwithstanding the e-Government services made available by decentralised initiatives such as online passport and visa forms and national examination results being posted online, Sri Lanka’s progress in e-Government services has been limited to informational services thus far. Interactive and transactional services are few, if any.2 e-Government is one of the key components of eSL, through which seamless interactions among government entities (G2G), government and citizens (G2C), and government and businesses (G2B) would be facilitated. Automation of internal government activities and processes such as the development of a government wide area network and computerisation of public financial systems, as well as external transactions and interactions such as the centralisation and computerisation of government procurements, establishment of government call centres, etc., are all features of eSL.

e-Government has a double significance in the context of eSL: 1. It can enable the streamlining and automating of government. Sri Lanka has one of the largest public sectors in South Asia, with more than six persons out of 100 working for government. Government-citizen transactions are tiresome processes often involving waiting in lines, and being shuffled from one department to the next. The opacity of the processes and the discretion that is embedded in it leaves room for middlepersons and rent seeking. Simple transactions such as issue of a passport involved more than a dozen steps. Clearly, the way that the Sri Lankan government operated needed to be reengineered, incorporating ICTs into the processes of government operations. Transparency, accountability, and efficiency would be increased and citizens would be able to access government services from any part of the country. A citizen living in Trincomalee should be able to download and submit a passport application without needing to travel to Colombo. At the most, she/he may have to travel to Colombo to collect it once it is ready. Ideally, citizens should be able to access government services from multiple points, from where the query will be directed to the right place – where ‘no door is wrong.3 ’

The Govi Gnana Service: eSL taking the dividends of ICTs to Sri Lankan agriculture markets. Electronic bill boards display up to the minute price information in Sri Lanka’s largest produce market; price information is also disseminated in real-time through the Internet as well through an automated voice solution from any phone in local languages. | May – June 2005

2. To catalyse the implementation of other elements of eSL. Rather than focusing on e-Commerce (something that the private sector should develop), given the right conditions, implementing an e-Government strategy would create pressure to get the necessary infrastructure in place – nation-wide backbone network, rural access points, enabling laws, low-cost payment mechanisms, Sinhala and Tamil standard fonts, etc. – as well as complete the necessary regulatory reforms. Most 9

backbone access is needed in order to provide universal e-Government to citizens. Once these infrastructures are in place, the foundations for e-Commerce and IT-enabled services would be in place. Furthermore, rural and urban users who would be attracted to the VGKs for utilitarian purposes would also start using the Internet for broader reasons. The higher levels of communication, information retrieval, publication and transactions that would ensue would provide the traffic volumes that would bring the broadband networks to break-even sooner.

From e-Government to development

Skewed Distribution: Provincial Share of Population, gross domestic product and fixed telephone connections (Source – Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka, Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2003 significantly, e-Government would support the rollout of the two envisaged regional telecommunication networks (RTNs) - one serving the Deep South quadrant of the island, and another serving the North East quadrant. The second stage would fill in the gaps in coverage. Keeping in line with the market-oriented nature of eSL, the networks would be constructed by the private sector. In order to induce the private sector to participate in this manner, certain prerequisites need to be satisfied: a. Regulatory reform is needed. b. Inhibitive capital costs have to be overcome4 (this could be looked after by ‘smart subsidies’ disbursed through a least-cost subsidy auction5 ). c. Private operators need to be assured that once the infrastructure is built, they would have business. The provision of e-Government services would enable all of this. The government would be an anchor tenant for the Vishva Gnana Kendras or VGKs (a network of telecentres), with a commitment of one e-Government kiosk in each Grama Niladhari (GN) division (the lowest level of the administrative structure), or at least in each local government area. The VGKs would be provided with bandwidth from the RTN operators. Additionally, a voucher scheme would also stimulate demand for services at the VGKs by citizens. e-Government is just one part of the puzzle. There are other essential elements for the success of eSL. In addition to infrastructure there is human resource development, institutional capacity building, local content development, and market development and investment promotion policies to encourage private sector participation in the ICT sector. Each element is in some way dependent on one or more of the others. Without the e-Government element, the other elements may not succeed, and vice versa. For instance, e-Government is needed to stimulate demand for nation-wide backbone access, but at the same time, ubiquitous 10

Taking a look at Sri Lanka’s economy and assets, it is clear that the Service sector is where the future lies for Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka does not possess significant exportable natural resources; its agricultural exports are not the most competitive; and the main industrial export (garments) relies on the international quota system. Furthermore, many of its exports rely heavily on import of raw material. It has no comparative advantages in agriculture or industry, for the most part. What this means is that rapid wealth creation and employment generation rests on the Service sector. While agricultural and industrial exports (especially niche market exports) can and should be encouraged, the engine that would take Sri Lankans out of poverty is Service exports. Currently, the sector is the largest component of the Sri Lankan economy but constitutes low-productivity activities. The major export is housemaid services to the Middle East and East Asia. Needless to suggest, a shift to higher-value-added services is essential. The premise of the design of eSL was that improved performance in the ICT sector would boost performance up the value chain, enabling greater value addition and comparative advantages. The presence of a cost-effective, state of the art network, a comprehensive and functional e-Government system in addition to a globally competitive ICT workforce throughout the country was expected to reduce the need for companies to have a physical presence in urban areas - companies would now be able to locate in rural areas and take advantage of lower costs. The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry is exemplary of this strategy; the most familiar manifestation of business process outsourcing is a call centre, where a www.egov.csdms.in |

group of people with telephone headsets answer calls from customers on behalf of a firm, using computer-based information systems. There are many forms of BPO, some that require very high levels of skills. The key elements are the reliance on computer-based information systems, telecommunications, and specialisation. BPO activity started in the early 1990s in the American Midwest, in Ireland and in India. By the late 1990s, India, particularly Southern India, had become a major BPO supplier. But Sri Lanka, despite its similarities with Southern India, missed the BPO bus. Thanks to the monopoly on international telephony effectively granted to the incumbent upon privatisation in 1997 together with the absence of redundancy in international telecommunications supply and flexibility in pricing and service options, BPO business options bypassed Sri Lanka. It was only in 2003, after the government ended the incumbent’s exclusivity by issuing licenses without numerical limit, that BPOs started looking at Sri Lanka. The adoption of a liberal reform strategy was integrally connected to the infrastructure and investment components of eSri Lanka. The HSBC regional resource centre that began operations in 2004 was Sri Lanka’s first highprofile BPO operation. The fact that it obtained its international telecom capacity from VSNL Lanka, a new international operator licensed in 2003, is evidence that telecom supply was a key inhibitor. The growth of the new industry can be seen by the increase in the capacity carried by VSNL Lanka: 3 mb in February 2004; 45 mb in February 2005. The positive image created by the peace moves of the Wickremesinghe government was obviously supportive, but that alone could not explain the absence of BPOs prior to 2003 and the subsequent momentum. What does BPO business mean for Sri Lankans? It means higher wages and working conditions superior to those in government and most private sector offices. It can be somewhat repetitious, and does not allow for slacking. Most likely, a young person would not want to spend his or her entire life in the BPO industry, but it provides a good foundation for a job elsewhere or for starting a business. One major limitation is that most BPO jobs require fluency in English, an area where Sri Lanka has a shortfall. But again, niche applications exist where, for example, accountancy or financial analysis skills matter more than English. | May – June 2005

Such kind of ‘Mode 1’ services trade, where the buyer and the seller stay in their own countries, is far superior to the sale of ‘Mode 4’ services, where the Sri Lankan service providers have to go to the seller’s country to sell their services (e.g. the export of housemaid services). It allows service suppliers to stay close to their families; more of the money that they earn is spent where they live, providing more business to others and growth Unwired Sri Lanka: fibre backbone, end 2003. for the overall (source – Sri Lanka Telecom) economy. The main reason for export industries clustering around Colombo, despite its high land prices and rent, its congested roads and the higher wages demanded by workers, is the lack of adequate infrastructure in the regions. The quality of electricity is not very good in Colombo, but still the blackouts and voltage variations are worse in the outer regions. The fibre optic cables that provide high quality and ultra reliable telecommunications (recall that in the BPO business, a telecom interruption means the cessation of business; and that in some BPO activities the quality must be such that the customer feels that the service representative is talking from next door), simply do not exist outside the Western and Central provinces, and portions of the Northwestern and Sabaragamuva provinces. The rest of the country is served by microwave links, with post-conflict areas dependent on satellite. Even domestic call centres (Sinhala and Tamil language option) operate within Greater Colombo mainly due to infrastructure problems outside these areas. But the reengineering of government initiative of the eSri Lanka programme could take the lead in moving these jobs, outsourced and managed by the private sector, out to the rural areas once adequate infrastructure is available. This would generate jobs in rural areas and increase disposable incomes that would in turn create more demand for ICT services, among others. Without developing ICT infrastructure and capabilities in these regions, such new IT enabled services would be another development opportunity that would further exacerbate the disparities of the Western Province and the rest of the country. Therefore, the rural telecom networks component of eSri Lanka was seen as a critical element in its overall success. 11

Bank team, made substantive contributions. The views expressed in this article are those of the senior author, who bears responsibility for any errors. Reference: 1

eSri Lanka: An ICT Development Roadmap (2002),

Government of Sri Lanka 2

‘Getting from dysfunctional government to e(ffective)

government: Mapping a path in Sri Lanka’, International Journal of Regulation & Government, 4(2), Pages 171-85, Samarajiva, R. (2004). 3

The Connected Republic: changing the way we govern,

Badger M, Johnston P, Stewart-Weeks M, and Willis S. (2004); San Jose: CISCO Systems, Inc. Available online at <http://www.cisco.com/en/US/about/ac79/wp/index.html>, last accessed on 12 December 2004CBSL 4

‘Getting from dysfunctional government to e(ffective)

government: Mapping a path in Sri Lanka’, International Journal of Regulation & Government, 4(2): Pages 171-85, Samarajiva, R. (2004). 5

The eSri Lanka strategy is intended to position all the people of Sri Lanka to participate effectively in a global economy using their comparative advantages. It is intended that the enhanced ICT infrastructure, including, but not limited to, cost-effective broadband networks throughout the country, will position not only service industries but also the high value-added niche producers in agriculture and industry to participate effectively in the global marketplace. The BPO industry, where the associated telecom liberalisation actions have already shown results, shows that results that can be achieved. These opportunities are not limited to ITenabled services such as BPOs only. ICTs are becoming increasingly embedded into the operations of most industries, shaping the way that people do business; the cost savings on communication and labour that are envisaged would induce more and more large companies and businesses that rely heavily on ICTs to relocate to these low-cost areas, having profound impacts on the country’s development.

Conclusion The eSri Lanka design is embedded in a vision of Sri Lanka as a modern trading nation. ICT infrastructure was seen as a key component of the value chain of many industries (services and others). Without ICT infrastructure, neither production nor consequent supply to the global marketplace would take place. Unless the ICT infrastructure and services are low-cost, high quality and flexible, they would not be conducive to the development of globally competitive products. eSri Lanka was designed to remedy this problem and make the entire economy more competitive. The e-Government services within it were designed to yield benefits above and beyond the direct outcomes in the form of ‘priming the pump’ for e-Commerce services, and enabling the shifting of reengineered government services away from the over-endowed urban centres to the chronically under-developed regions, creating jobs and wealth that could in turn create demand for ICTs and other goods and services. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the World Bank Conference, e-Transformation: Opportunities in Government, Public Institutions and Finance, 16-18 March 2005 in New Delhi, India. The design of eSri Lanka involved many people, too many to comprehensively mention here. Then Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe and then Minister, Milinda Moragoda provided the overall vision and strategy. Eran Wickramaratne, the first Chairman of the ICT Agency and Nagy Hanna, the leader of the World Bank team and Ritin Singh, member of the World 12

Ibid

Rohan Samarajiva Professor Samarajiva established LIRNEasia, the Asian affiliate of LIRNE.NET, in September 2004 in order to build Asian-based ICT policy expertise as well as help shape the policy and regulatory frameworks of the Asian ICT sector. He can be reached at samarajiva@lirne.net.

Ayesha Zainudeen Ayesha Zainudeen is a researcher at LIRNEasia. She is also currently co-authoring a book on rural ICTs with Rohan Samarajiva. She can be reached at zainudeen@lirne.net.

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NOTEBOOK

EKVI (e-Krishi Vipanan) Regulated agricultural markets or ‘mandis’ in Madhya Pradesh, India are set to revolutionise the very system of agricultural marketing. Gone are the days when a farmer used to come to the mandi and was forced to sell his crop even when he knew that the crop was not being valued correctly. Now a farmer is empowered with the information that enables him to make informed decisions as to when and where to sell. In other words, now he can decide on the mandi where he wants to sell his crop, even demand more prices in the same mandi, or refuse to sell at all if not given the right price. All this has been made possible by the unique initiative called e-Agricultural marketing or e-Krishi Vipanan (EKVI), which arms the farmer with the information of prevalent rates in mandis. And this is just the beginning. The project has a sweep of benefits for all stakeholders - farmers, traders, mandis, and the government. The EKVI Project involves automation of the Mandi Board Head Office, seven regional offices, 229 mandis and their associated sub-market yards and Inter-state border check posts i.e. ‘nakas’ across Madhya Pradesh in India. The data generated at mandis with regard to agricultural produce, sale, etc. is captured ‘online’ through Smart Card terminals, transferred to computers in mandis, and transmitted on a communication network to the associated Regional Office and Head Office via VSAT. This information is then accessible at specified nakas (and a few other points) for verification of documents on a 24/ 7 basis. The system workflow is clearer from Figure 1. In the state of Madhya Pradesh, the agricultural marketing framework is unique and consists of two distinct sets of measures: 1. Development and regulation of primary markets i.e. mandis 2. Regulation of markets through a series of legal instruments. Both these functions are so performed by the activity centre i.e. mandi, that they are complimentary to each other, ensuring on the one hand fulfilment of the provision and objectives of the Madhya Pradesh Krishi Upaj Mandi Act, 1972, and instilling faith of the farmers in the system for getting fair returns | May – June 2005

for their produce. This necessitates efficient, transparent and diligent working of the mandi office so as to facilitate prompt availability of information, reports, analysis to the users and seekers, and to empower the farmers with the latest information on the rates, arrivals, etc. in neighbouring state/ national mandis. In terms of pure service value, this also means prompt calculations of arrivals and actual sales, various taxes payable by the traders on the actual purchase made by them, reconciliation of bank accounts, issuing and reconciliation of transit permits issued, etc. is made available. To augment agricultural marketing in the state so as to ensure that transactions are transparent, prompt, farmer and trader friendly, the Mandi Board desired to computerise mandi activities through the networking of mandis and the Mandi Board, to eventually achieve true e-Agricultural Marketing in Madhya Pradesh. With most activities being complex, and with huge volumes, it was not possible to have total transparency and be effective without automation of the activities. This, it was felt, would not only improve the effectiveness of trading in the mandis but would benefit the farmers, traders and the government in collection, processing, analyses and dissemination of information, policy making and revenue collections. The processes and procedures followed in mandis are primarily dependent on paper-based receipts and other documents. In ‘season time’ when the volume of transactions is high, the task of reconciliation of the paper documents becomes an enormous task for the mandi employees. This situation is further made difficult, as all the registered traders are required to deposit their statement of purchases, as per the mandi laws. During the pilot project and in the initial roll out of the project there had been substantial increase in the collections of mandi fees going to the government. The rates of various produces in the neighbouring mandis and the National mandis are displayed in the mandi display system through the information collected (again from different mandis) by the project itself and through scanning of available information with sources such as the National Commodity Exchange (NCDEX), among others. All of this is helping the farmers to reach at conscious informed decisions to sell their produce. The system is also helping in quick issue of transit permits (for transportation of agricultural produce) and its reconciliation at various Interstate check-posts (nakas), thus ensuring that the agricultural produce is not transported without a valid permit. All financial transactions are reconciled with banks on a day-to-day basis. The entire essential ‘management information’ is made available to the management of the mandis, regional offices and HO of the Mandi Board periodically as specified. The implementation of this project has

The infrastructure so developed would eventually lead to ‘grainless mandis’ – as similar projects would obviate the need for movement of produce from the farmer’s premises to the mandis. 13

Figure-1 EKVI System Workflow

been helpful in integrating other private initiatives like ‘e-Chaupal’ by ITC as well.

Strategy Adopted With Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) being the most accepted approach for fast track projects in order to conserve public resources and get the best technical support in the ever-changing technology scenario, EKVI is being rolled out by the vendor on a Build, Own and Operate (BOO) basis. The Madhya Pradesh Agency for Promotion of Information Technology (MAP_IT), which conducted the study, was retained as consultant to the project to give continuity to the ideas developed during the study in their capacity as catalyst and facilitator for the project. MAP_IT recommended, taking into consideration the complexity of the system, the appropriateness of the project to be executed on a BOO basis. The Mandi Board accepted this. Executing the project on a BOO basis has meant that barring the software, the intellectual property right of which would be of the Mandi Board, all activities from

Madhya Pradesh State Agricultural Marketing Board (also known as Mandi Board) is a corporate body established under the provisions of M.P. Krishi Upaj Mandi Adhiniyam 1972 and is a three-tier organisation The regulated markets are in the nature of physical and institutional infrastructure at the first contact point for farmers to encash their farm produce and marketable surpluses. The organisational structure, network spread and business volume of the Mandi Board comprises 229 Mandis, 231 Sub-Mandis, 7 Regional offices having 6 million Farmers with 70,000 licensed traders. Normal annual arrivals are in the order of 12.5 million tons valued at INR 150 billion. 14

hardware deployment, networking, maintenance and upgradation of hardware/software, disaster management, manpower for running the system, generation of reports, analysis, outsourcing the service, etc would be the vendor’s responsibility. The returns i.e. user charges for the vendor from the project is in terms of a certain percentage of the mandi fees collected, and is sufficient for the viability and sustainability of the project. After a comprehensive selection process the Consortium consisting of SQL Star International Ltd, New Delhi, Zoom Developers, Bombay, and iSmart International, Bombay, was chosen as the vendor for the project.

Features of the System In addition to mandi transactions, the system covers a host of other mandi activities viz. financial accounting, payroll and establishment, engineering, MIS at all levels, elections in the mandis, and naka operations. The EKVI system follows the distributed computing model, wherein the data in the mandi is captured and stored locally. The EKVI software is developed in Hindi with an option of English and also is smart card and web-enabled for both i.e. text and graphics browsers with utmost security and back-up measures. The Hindi version is also run in the Windows environment. The software is versatile for future upgradation, compatible to present and future hardware, user–friendly with security measures complimented with firewalls etc. The software is developed in Visual Basic and is SQL server based. The software for smart card is developed in CARDOS. VSAT is used for connectivity for receiving and transferring of data, reports etc. from the market yard of the mandi with a leased line backup. In case of sub-market yards communication transfer is either through the LAN, leased line or VSAT. This project is also resilient for disaster management and backups with an independent server located outside (near Delhi).

Lessons Learnt 1.

Public–Private participation on a BOO basis in IT is a reality. The user charges concept is a sustainable model and works out without huge investment from the government. The BOO model in IT also creates employment opportunities for locals in their own state near their homes which also helps www.egov.csdms.in |

Madhya Pradesh Agency for Promotion of Information Technology (MAP_IT) is the nodal agency for undertaking IT related tasks in the state of Madhya Pradesh. A consortium consisting of SQL Star International Ltd, New Delhi, a public limited company and Zoom Developers Pvt Ltd, Mumbai and iSmart International, Mumbai, was chosen as the vendor for the project. the vendor to get human resources at reasonable rates. 2. ICT can be deployed effectively even in villages for the benefit of stakeholders. The VSAT-based communication network being established in 400 locations all over the state can be used for educating the farmers on new techniques of farming, use of fertilizers, weather forecast, issue of disaster warnings to any part of the state to help bring quick responses to the victims of disasters.

Present and future The EKVI project is now in the process of roll out - initially in 63 Class ‘A’ and ‘B’ mandis in Phase-I. This has been made possible after the successful completion of the Pilot Project in one of the largest mandis at Indore that has varied agricultural produce with large volumes of trade, one associated regional office, one associated naka, and a Mandi Board Head Office. All other mandis would be covered in Phase-II and Phase-III, subsequently. The importance of the agricultural sector, and the competitiveness induced through such a market-led IT-based models is envisaged to trigger a cycle of higher productivity leading to higher rural incomes and better farmer risk management – thereby making the sector capable of meeting future market requirements. The infrastructure so developed would eventually lead to ‘grainless mandis’ – as similar projects would obviate the need for | May – June 2005

Benefits to the Farmers • Availability of latest information on rates, arrivals etc. in various state mandis. • Choice to decide when and where to sell • Facilitate contract farming • Sell the produce from doorstep through e-trading • Reduction in losses due to transportation & handling Benefits to the Traders • Transparent procedures • Single window disposal • Reconciliation of daily sales, accounts, transit permit • Availability of rates in various mandis would help in offering better rates to farmers • Transportation losses reduced due to e-agricultural marketing Benefits to the mandis • Instant reconciliation of accounts, transit permits, receivables and payables. • Effective monitoring of activities • Facilitates implementation of contract farming • Ensures transparency in operations Benefits to the Government • Speedy collection, analysis and dissemination of information • Improved tax revenue collection by collation of valuable data. • Instantaneous access even to remote locations through VSAT connectivity. movement of produce from the farmer’s premises to the mandis. It would also pave the way for farmers to arrive at well-informed decisions based on the trends in national and international markets. The project can easily be replicated in all states of India where Hindi is used as the official language (including educationally and economically backward states), especially since the project is run on a BOO basis and no initial expenditure is required to be made by the exchequer. In other states in India and abroad where Hindi is not predominantly used, the software would require interface change. The software also has an English interface, which allows the project to be replicated immediately. Needless to say, implementation has to be carefully monitored and guided, and the success of Public-Private Partnerships, as in this case, should be considered as a useful model for implementing similar projects elsewhere.

Rakesh Shrivastava Chief Executive Officer MAP_IT, Bhopal.

Col. P M Das Sr. Consultant, MAP_IT, Bhopal.

A P S Solanki Joint Director (MIS), M.P. Agricultural Marketing Board, Bhopal.

NOTEBOOK

In focus: Estonia There is more to Estonia than the famous Kuressaare Castle, Tallinn’s Old Town, or even the Vana Tallinn (Estonian aperitif). Estonia has been making leaps in its own way as an information society. The e-Governance Academy (eGA) is a young and active institution that has been involved in various training/capacity building initiatives, and consulting/research activities in order to facilitate successful deployment of e-Government initiatives. It was honoured with the ‘Best Foundation of the Year 2004’ award as a public recognition of its efforts in e-Governance by Monika Jõela, Programme the Estonian government. egov brings Manager at the e-Governance you this exclusive interview with Academy in Tallinn, Estonia talks Monika Jõela, the Programme Manager about the academy, Estonia and at eGA. e-Governance in Europe. Q: The tagline of the institute ‘Good governance is good, e-Governance is better!’ is smart. What has been the motivation for setting up an academy such as yours in Estonia? A: Estonia became an EU member state in 2004. It is regarded as one of the best manifestations of the leapfrogging developmental potential of ICTs. With a GDP per capita of one-third of the EU average, Estonia has a wealth of knowledge and experience in a wide range of IT policies, programmes and projects. The main motivation to establish the academy was to share Estonian experience and ICT knowledge with other countries. Our mission is to train and advise leaders and stakeholders in using ICT to increase government efficiency and improve democratic processes with the aim of building open information societies. Q: Please tell us about the birth of the institute, the people behind it, and the challenges encountered from then till now? A: The eGA is a non-profit organisation initiated in 2002 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Open Society Institute (OSI), and the Estonian Government. The core people who established the Academy have been playing an important role in the shaping of an Estonian information society. For example, Ivar Tallo, the Director of the Academy, was previously a foreign policy advisor to the President of Estonia, and author of Public Information Law. In the beginning there were few people who worked for the Academy full time. With increasing demand for activities, eGA has been steadily growing. Activities are carried out in cooperation with professionals who have planned, implemented and managed various e-Government initiatives. Today eGA actively involves more than 30 top-level ICT experts from Estonia Q: What are the programmes/courses/trainings on offer? A: eGA has extensive experience in research, training and consulting top civil servants.

Training and Consultancy - Sharing ICT Knowledge •

The Academy offers a regular policy course to stress the importance of having in place the ‘right’ national policies and strategies in the field of information society in order to achieve meaningful impacts in real life and to fully realise the leapfrogging potential of ICTs in the country’s overall

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development and competitiveness regionally and globally. The training programme specifically addresses various forms of public-private partnerships among key stakeholders, shows how the general public should be involved, and emphasises the importance of the political will required to ensure much-needed continuity and consistency during the implementation of adopted policies and passed laws. The Academy also provides trainings on demand. The regular training course is just one of the available options. Together with Harvard Law School, eGA organises the iLaw Eurasia Programme a five-day, intensive course designed for advanced policy experts from countries in Eurasia. The goal of the Programme is to bring representatives from government, the private sector, and civil society together for focused, expert discussions covering global best practices and policy dilemmas. In many instances the Academy is faced with concrete demands for know-how to build particular programmes, projects, or requests for evaluation of strategic papers. The Academy tries to satisfy the requests providing adequate advice and best experts in the field. At present eGA is implementing the Tiger Leap project in Georgia that helps to develop the IT infrastructure of schools, including support for establishment of Internet connections. Also in-depth cooperation is going on with the Macedonian Republic where eGA has provided valuable advise on the establishment of the National ICT Strategy, and has helped to develop an e-Model concept for local governments. During the execution of the aforementioned consultancy and training projects, the Academy discovered a strong demand for united training-consultancy services. In the beginning of 2004 the e-Governance Academy started to develop the project ‘e-Ambassadors’ that would include training in the destination country combined with consultations on specific issues of particular systems. www.egov.csdms.in |

Areas of Research Research activities are becoming more and more important in the light of growing demand for contemporary knowledge in the changing field of ICT. To be able to provide high-quality training and consultancy services, eGA has initiated and offered its partnership to several research initiatives.

ICT and Corruption The primary objective of the project is to contribute to the efforts in reduction of corruption all over the world. The Project stresses on stimulation of networking, and sharing and exchange of knowledge and experience in the fields of corruption research between developed and undeveloped countries. The e-Governance Academy aims to harvest the solutions that are already working and bring those to the attention of decision makers in countries with high corruption and low ICT penetration. The outcome of the project is an ICT toolkit for reducing corruption and a training course based on the toolkit.

Free/Open Source Software The primary objective of the project is to stimulate use of information technology and e-Government development in Eastern Europe, Central and Western Asia through wider and more knowledgeable application of Free/Open Source Software (FOSS). Public sector, municipalities, and other organisations are constantly looking for possibilities to improve the quality of the services they offer. These circumstances have forced organisations to spend a great deal of money purchasing commercial software. By using Open Source solutions, they would be rewarded with a significant reduction in their expenses for buying and maintaining software.

BEGIX-Balanced e-Governance Index Within the framework of a ‘Balanced e-Government’ project, the Bertelsmann Foundation has developed a web-based instrument, BEGIX, for the self-evaluation of administrative and government units. The balanced e-Government scorecard (BEGIX) serves in recording and evaluating various dimensions of e-Democracy and e-Government. The aim of the project is to extend the use of BEGIX as a benchmarking tool to the European and broader international level. In addition the tool is planned for use for benchmarking in the countries of the Commonwealth of | May – June 2005

Independent States (CIS) and southeastern Europe.

e-Democracy e-Democracy is a wider research direction for the e-Governance Academy. A two to three day introductory course on different aspects of e-Democracy is being developed with our partners. The project involves research into eDemocracy around the world aiming at producing a handbook of simple e-Democracy practices. Q: What sort of participants has the institute attracted? There seems to be an East European focus. Do participants from around the world also attend? A: In the beginning eGA’s primary geographical focus was the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the Balkan region mainly because of the similarities the countries have had in the past. We have discovered that Estonian experience is also relevant and beneficial to other countries with different historical backgrounds and systems. One of the goals is to broaden the academy’s activities to Africa and Southeast Asia. Successful projects have already taken place in Namibia. During the two years eGA has conducted e-Governance trainings for more than 300 senior civil servants from 26 different countries (Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Georgia, Great Britain, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, Senegal, Serbia and Montenegro, Sri-Lanka, Tajikistan, Ukraine, USA and Uzbekistan). Q: What are eGA’s plans in partnering with reputed institutions for various events/training. Any long-term collaboration efforts? A: For the present UNDP, Open Society Institute and the Government of Estonia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding and are providing financial resources for the Academy’s operations. This kind of collaboration has enabled eGA to conduct the regular policy course free of charge for the participants. These three parties have committed to support the academy up to 2005. eGA has also developed successful on-going partnerships on a project-basis with Harvard Law School, Knowledge Society Management Institute of Law University, Hansard Society of Great Britain, NISPAcee (Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central Eastern Europe), among others. Q: Clearly, the Open Society Institute, UNDP and the Government of Estonia have partnered in a valuable manner. Tell us about the vision or plan they have for the academy? A: eGA has been very successful in coordinating with different donor initiatives. The multilateral cooperation has been successful because of the coincident mission of each partner: • Estonia sees its role in international cooperation as an active partner in building effective civil societies in transition countries by disseminating Estonia’s positive experience, harnessing its experts and development tools. • UNDP sees its role in supporting democratic governance practices through e-Governance tools and instruments. • The Open Society Institute aims to shape public policy for promoting democratic governance and open information societies. Together with donors and recipient countries eGA identifies issues to be addressed, determines opportunities and develops foreign-aid programmes and project plans. Open Society Institute and UNDP are giving their inputs to the project priorities with a good overview about the local capacities and needed developments. After 2005, there is a need to extend the eGAs scope and mission. 17

Facts and figures about ICT development in Estonia • • • • • • • • • • •

52 percent Internet penetration 80 percent of all businesses connected 89 percent of population are mobile phone subscribers (Eesti Telekom AS, September 2004). 67 percent income tax declarations filed online (2004) 68 percent of internet users conduct their everyday banking via Internet 50 percent of citizens have ID cards 100 percent of schools connected 100 percent of public sector connected 52 free Public Internet Access Points per 100 000 people Cabinet meetings have been changed to paperless sessions using a web-based document system. 1st in Central Europe e-Government rankings (Economist Intelligence Unit)

UNDP will continue with the financial support for the academy, and the Open Society Institute will start cooperation on a project basis. Other partners are welcome to join and support the Academy’s work with promoting the values of good governance, to diminish the participation costs for low-income countries, and to expand professional and geographical coverage of its activities. Q: To continue from my earlier question, how would you rate your Government’s support in this regard? A: The Estonian Government has been one of the initiators of the Academy. We were recognised as the Best Foundation of the year 2004, and previously we were nominated as the best performer of the ICT field in Estonia. Such kinds of recognitions from the government, private and NGO sector are very supportive and give us strong enthusiasm to continue with our activities. More concretely, the Estonian Government has provided us financial resources each year, and with good cooperation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs we have been able to implement some important projects with the help of Estonian Foreign Aid. eGA is one of the main executors of the Estonian Government’s International Foreign Aid and Cooperation Strategy. Q: What has been your experience of the problems facing countries in East Europe that are dealing with e-Governance deployment? Would you be throwing a word of caution or guidelines for countries in the South that are ambitiously undertaking e-Governance projects? A: Usually the direct problems are related with infrastructure – sophisticated online public services count little if people cannot access them. Many problems are related to legal frameworks – there are several examples where the regulatory framework, instead of enabling, decelerates the innovation and the use of ICTs. What I personally have been discovering is that in many countries there is still a lack of motivation or awareness about the power of ICT. The only way to increase it is to start to take the first steps; motivation would increase with every positive result. For instance, when a person can complete an online service in five minutes instead of many days or weeks, he/she never wants to take the paper route again. In Estonia one of the driving forces of information society development was e-Banking – later it was much easier for the public sector to provide online services for citizens as they were familiar with procedures, and trusted the online environment. Every country should have a clear vision and strategy for e-Governance projects. Speedy implementation can sometimes harm the cost-effectiveness of the projects. Wise coordination is very important; certain questions are better 18

decided and implemented centrally in order to ensure data exchange and interoperability. Estonia has some invaluable negative experience in that regard where we did leave the development in the hands of local government but have now realised that it would have been much cheaper for the society if some IT related questions would have been decided centrally. Q: Tell us something about Estonia and the progress it has made in this area? A: Estonia was the first country with paperless government sessions. The Estonian public sector and schools are connected to the Internet, and it is even possible to order beer by SMS! Estonian success is based on balanced e-Governance development. Lot of efforts were made to build the infrastructure and enable free access to citizens. Now every public library has a free Internet access point. The high numbers for Internet use in Estonia are largely correlated to the early adoption of the Internet in the higher education sector, research, and existence of a developed telecommunication network. The important factors that have assisted the development of information society in Estonia (concluded by our ICT experts) have been: 1. Building up of modern infrastructure; 2. ‘Tiger’s Leap’ project in computerising schools and universities; 3. Adopting regulations for information society; 4. Government IT-programmes; 5. Collaboration between the government, private and non-governmental initiatives; 6. And lastly, luck! Q: You were here in India in March. How do find the initiatives in this area in India? Any particular project that has impressed you? A: I am very grateful that I had an opportunity to participate in the World Bank’s e-Transformation conference in New Delhi, March 2005. I discovered there are many initiatives India should be proud of. The presentation about India’s National Action Plan was very inspiring – very concrete plans with defined priorities. I really do hope that the vision of the action plan “All government services accessible to a common man!” will motivate all the stakeholders who are responsible for the implementation. Thank you indeed for your time, and best wishes for the future. Joe Thomas K www.egov.csdms.in |

COMMENTARY

Implementing e-Governance despite the digital divide Government plays an important role in the growth and development of a country by promoting high levels of welfare for citizens, ensuring socio-economic cohesion and supporting the functioning of a competitive market environment. It is engaged in a wide range of activities from education, healthcare, and social security to protecting consumers and safeguarding the environment. ‘Private’ efficiencies also depend largely on the efficiency of the government administrations and the public sector. Government administration and the public sector are today at a crossroads, facing challenging economic and social conditions, institutional change and the profound impact of new technologies. As per one study conducted in the United Kingdom 1 , public confidence in the ‘civil services’ has fallen from 46 percent in 1983 to just 17 percent in 2000. In the same period, the confidence in legal systems has fallen from 58 percent to 22 percent, and confidence in the Parliament from 54 percent to 14 percent. The plummet in commoners’ faith may be attributed to the fact that now government services are increasingly compared with the services provided by the

| May – June 2005

private enterprises, which are improving much more rapidly than the public sector’s. The improvements in government services are much below the expectations of people. In the era of globalisation and the Internet, governments are under tremendous pressure to perform more efficiently to fulfill the expectations of citizens. International finance and technology also flow into the country that has better and efficient systems of governance2 . Good practices in many countries show that electronic government is a powerful means to deliver better quality public services, reduce waiting times, improve cost effectiveness, raise productivity, and improve transparency and accountability.

Digital divide and e-Governance e-Governance may be defined as the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in government to promote more efficient and effective government, facilitate more accessible government services, allow greater public access to information, and make government more accountable to citizens3 . The present approach in delivery of e-Government services is quite similar to e-Commerce, and is often referred to as “e-Business Strategies for Government”4 . In the present approach, government services are delivered through the Internet ignoring the fact that extreme digital divide exists today among the citizens of the world - around 90 percent of the people in the world do not have access to the Internet. Internet users constituted merely 1.11 percent of the population in Africa while the percentage was 24.4 percent in America, 21 percent in Europe and 42.72 percent in Australia in 20025 . As per the International Telecommunication Union estimates6 India had only 0.72 PCs and only 0.4 Internet users per 100 inhabitants in the year 2002. Further, the Internet is usually accessed through computers (desktop or notebook), which are quite expensive for most of the people. The setting up of Public Internet Kiosks needs hardware, construction of computer rooms, and allied investment. Moreover, running and maintenance costs of kiosks are very high, as at least one person has to be deployed to operate the kiosk. In addition, one needs an Internet connection, telephone/ broadband connections, and electricity to access the Internet. The cost of accessing the Net is still very high in most of the countries. Thereafter, rapid change of technology necessitates change of IT equipments, machines and software every 4-5 years, which implies large maintenance and replacement costs. Language is another barrier in using the Internet, as almost 90 percent of the websites are in English - a language not understood by more than 75 percent of the world’s population.4 In order to gather useful information from the Internet one needs considerable training and expertise, which is expensive and time 19

of India (TRAI)7 , mobile phone users have risen from mere 0.3 million in 1996-97 to 12.6 million in 2002-2003 (April 2002 –March 2003). Mobile phone users doubled in just six months to over 23 million from April 2003 to September 2003. The number of telephone connections in India has crossed 100 million (close to 10 percent teledensity). The spurt in the demand for mobile phones in recent times has the potential to bridge the digital divide.

Learning from the private sector

consuming. The free flow of information on the Net, particularly explicit adult material, is also one of the major hindrances in the path of the public ‘acceptance’ of the Internet. Then again, factors like economy, education, and culture (along with the aforementioned factors) make the adoption of the Internet quite difficult in most of the developing countries. The present strategy to popularise the Internet and e-Governance is by improvement of infrastructure (such as telephone density, power supply, roads, etc.), providing education, training the citizens to use the Internet and computer systems etc. However, all these efforts require huge resources, which is scarce in poor countries. Even after the necessary infrastructure is established, people cannot use the Internet till their economic level improves considerably and they get comfortable with ICT. The economic development process is time consuming which means that the citizens of poor countries will not be able to take the full benefit from ICTs for a long period while the developed nations enjoy the benefits of ICTs. Developing countries are thus trapped in a vicious circle today. The bridging of the digital divide is an expensive and long-term process. Countries are still struggling with providing basic necessities like housing, power, telecommunication, roads, etc to people. Under these conditions spending money on e-Government projects and development of its infrastructure might appear to be a luxury. However, if the digital divide is not bridged, developing countries may miss the bus of Information revolution as they did at the time of the Industrial revolution - and that can only bring further disparity vis-à-vis developed countries. Therefore, developing countries need an out-of-box solution to partake in the benefits of the IT revolution. Already mobile phones have emerged as a popular medium for communication in the last decade. As per the data provided by Telecom Regulatory Authority

Good practices in many countries show that electronic government is a powerful means to deliver better quality public services, reduce waiting times, improve cost effectiveness, raise productivity, and improve transparency and accountability. 20

The private sector is always on the ball in innovating cost effective and popular solutions based on the local factors. Governments stand to learn valuable lessons from private enterprises instead of reinventing the wheel, or learning from the e-Government practices of other countries that credibility of the government. In a mixed economy, such as in India, there are already many private players including MNCs who are making optimum use of ICTs in their business processes. Learning from them could be extremely useful for the government. ICTs have revolutionised the functioning of banks in the last decade. Competition has ensured that even public sector banks use the latest and best technology to survive in the market. For example, banks are not only providing their services through the Internet, but are also exploring alternative channels such as: • Anywhere Banking: Most of the banks are now fully computerised and networked. Therefore, it is possible to operate from any bank branch. • ATMs: Banks are using ATMs for providing various services to their clients like cash withdrawals, cash and check deposits, electronic transfer of funds, ePayments, ordering for checkbooks. • Call Centres: Some bank services can be accessed over phone such as an order for bank draft, checkbook, application for and sanction of loan (phone banking). • Mobile Banking: Customers may know the account balance and access many services through their mobile phones. • Drop Boxes: Banks have installed drop boxes at convenient locations for collection of dues, checks etc.

Recommendations The developing South need not wait for the digital divide to be bridged. The following www.egov.csdms.in |

strategies may enable them to move ahead on the path of e-Governance immediately. (a) IT Compatible Laws: The present laws were drafted for a manual system, which needed manual decision-making and discretion. These laws need to be changed in accordance with the requirements of the new technologies to expedite decision-making. For example, banks could provide loans over phone by accepting computerised decisions instead of going through bank officials, something that is still not permitted in public sector banks due to legal hurdles. Laws are needed to recognise SMS-based filing of police complaints, authorisation for payment of government dues, change of address, application for government benefits, etc., as also similar requisitions over phones, voicemail, fax, and email in addition to the existing methods. (b) Public-Private Partnership: There are many ways in which the government and the private sector could work towards their mutual benefit. For example, the eSeva 8 scheme implemented by the Government of Andhra Pradesh, India involved self-help women groups for providing various e-Government services. Indian Customs department has, since 1995, involved private agencies like CMC for managing data-entry for import and export declarations filed by traders9 . The department provides the space and infrastructure to CMC, which runs the data entry centre and charges INR 60 per page of data entry that is equally shared by the partners. Some other useful models could be: · The government could allow private sector-run government offices where only one or two government officers may be posted on ‘Cost Recovery Basis’, to perform statutory functions. Indian Customs has already allowed the private sector to operate Inland Container Depots (ICD) for customs clearance of goods at any place. The custodian pays the salary of the customs officers10 (the private sector charges the traders for their business). This also reduces the salary bill of the government since the government employee is paid by the private sector. • The private sector can provide railway tickets similar to the airline tickets through the Internet. | May – June 2005

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Private Internet kiosks (PIKs) can help importers and exporters to file their customs documents directly through PIKs without the need to file these documents themselves. Collaborations with banks can help the filing of customs documents as well as tendering payments of duties either through the Internet or from banks in a much more friendly and comfortable environment. (c) Multi-platform Approach: e-Governance should not only limit itself to the Internet but must include all the mediums of ICT - from fax machines to wireless palm pilot - to facilitate the daily administration of government11 . Many people feel more comfortable in communicating through handwritten letters in their native language rather then typing the text in English. They may be encouraged to write handwritten letters and send by fax to either a common government number or to the fax of the specific department. The fax letter can be scanned and forwarded by email to the respective department. The department can then digitise the letter in English and prepare a text file, which can then be processed in the routine manner. Similarly citizens can also be allowed to send their correspondence orally by getting their message recorded in the voice recorder/ answering machine of the department. The department can prepare a transcript of the voice file and process accordingly. The decision of the department can also be communicated to the citizens through different modes of ICT such as fax, SMS, email, voice message, or by post as per the choice of the citizen. Law must be amended to include all means of communication as a legal document. (d) Unified Government Offices: This concept is similar to the ‘anywhere banking’ concept of banks. At present all government departments work independent of each other - a citizen has to often approach many departments for getting his work done. Some of these departments may be located near to his home while others may be located in far off places. Once each department is networked individually, they can be networked with each other. Thereafter, the citizen can approach any one government department nearest to his place for getting information and conducting transactions of government business. The citizen should be able to submit his application, requests, and complaints to any government office, which can be electronically transmitted to the concerned department instantly. The receiving government department can take appropriate action on the document and send the order/

A Call Centre of a Company 21

If the digital divide is not bridged, developing countries may miss the bus of Information revolution as they did at the time of the Industrial revolution - and that can only bring further disparity vis-Ă -vis developed countries. permission to the concerned government office. The local government office can also help citizens in downloading the forms, providing information, and filling up the forms. (e) Mobile Government (m-Government): Many governments have already started using mobile phones to provide e-Government services to their citizens. For instance, the government of Malta is providing a number of e-Government services under the category of m-Government12 . The service enables the citizen to receive notification of acknowledgements, status-change of customer complaints, information of court deferment, notifications for license-renewal, examination results, and notification for Direct Credit Payments from the Department of Social Security, among others via SMS. The public will also be able to avail services like acquiring birth, marriage or death certificates from the Public Registry, paying for the same via mobile telephone, and having them delivered at home; ascertaining bus schedules; notification of job opportunities to individuals who have selected specific areas of employment; reporting incidents or relevant information to the police force, receiving notification of social security credit advice, and even electoral voting information! (The Sheffield City Council), via SMS. (f) Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS): Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS) are extensively used for common and structured transactions like knowing information about ticket reservation, knowing the bank balance, authorizing a transaction, knowing the position of an application or complaint, and authentication of user for secured transactions. The Indian Railwaysâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; information service on confirmation of tickets, positions of trains, etc. is operated on the IVRS21 query system. (g) Public Information Kiosks: an information kiosk is a personal computerbased device that provides an interface medium between users and a service/

A Mobile ATM of ICICI Bank 22

information provider. Public Information Kiosks (PIK) are installed by governments to provide information, self-service, and customer convenience to the citizens. Kiosks in public places provide new, convenient points of interaction between government agencies and the public, besides bridging the digital divide by allowing Internet access to the hitherto disadvantaged populations. PIKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s can also provide drop box facilities to drop letters/ payments for any government department similar to the ATMs of the Banks. (h) Government Call Centres: Many Citizens may find it much easier get the desired information by help of Government Call Centres (GCC) similar to the private sector and MNCs. The user can get information by dialling the GCC and choosing from the standard menu options in different languages. If the query is not covered in the standard menu of IVRS, the citizen can choose the operator/executive for answering the queries. If the query is simple, the executive may search the information from the government website and provide information to the user orally or via SMS or Voice mail. The executives can also allow the user to carry out financial transactions subject to identity verification over oral instructions. If the query is specific or not available on the net, he may forward the call to the expert of the concerned government department. The information could then be provided to the citizen either immediately or with a deferred timeframe. Similar queries could be registered with the GCC, and replies sent to the user through SMS, Voice mail, or by post. (i) Mobile Government Offices: Many banks have started the concept of mobile ATMs located in Mobile Vans, which help the citizens to transact right at his/her home at the specified hours. ICICI bank launched its mobile ATM service in December 2002 1 in Mumbai, India. The mobile ATM was connected to the central database of the bank through GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) technology, which enables real time information exchange through wireless media, and can perform all the functions of a bank branch. The government can employ similar mobile offices, which would be connected with the network for delivery www.egov.csdms.in |

of the services to the remote villages of the country. The citizen can conduct their transactions (government) from the mobile offices right at their village.

Conclusions The world is passing through the era of IT revolution. The use of ICT is necessary for private as well as public sectors to reduce costs and improve services. However, due to many reasons like lack of infrastructure, education, and economic backwardness, developing countries are facing the digital divide and are unable to reap the fruits of this revolution. In this article many methods are suggested based on the lessons learnt from the successful application of IT in the private sector, and successful e-Government initiatives. Inspired initiatives could provide the benefits of e-Governance to every citizen despite of the digital divide. e-Governance would attract more foreign investments and technologies to these countries to improve their economies, and gradually bridge the digital divide. References: 1 ‘eGovernment, Ready or Not?’, BT Government, Issue 1, July, 2000. 2 World Customs Organization (2004) URL: http:// www.wcoomd.org

3 ‘Most eGovernment-for-Development Projects Fail: How Can Risks be Reduced?’, Richard Heeks (2003)., URL:http://idpm.man.ac.uk/publications /wp/igov/igov_wp14.pdf 4 eGov: eBusiness Strategies for Government, 2001, Holms Douglas, Nicholas Brealey Publishing London 5 Internet Indicators 2002, International Telecommunication Union Available at http:// www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/at_glance/Internet02.pdf Accessed 29 March, 2005 6 Internet Indicators 2003, International Telecommunication Union Available at http:// www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/at_glance/Internet03.pdf Accessed 29 March, 2005 7 Recommendations on Unified Licensing by Telecom Regulatory Authority Of India (TRAI) available at http://www.trai.gov.in/Recomodifiedfinal.pdf Accessed 22 November, 2003 8 Eseva website, URL: www.esevaonline.com 9 Public Notice No: No. 69/2004 Dated. 29/07/ 2004 issued by Bangalore Customs URL: http://nitpu3.kar.nic.in/blrcustoms notice_69_2004.htm 10 Setting up of ICDs/CFSs: URL: http://www. ieport.com/Customs_manual/manual_23.htm 11 ‘Delivering Social Justice, Equality and Growth to All Citizen Through E-Governance’, The Australian Electronic Governance Conference 2004, 14-15 April 2004, Melbourne University, Australia, Singh, Awdhesh Kumar & Sahu Rajendra. URL: http://www.public-policy.unimelb.edu.au/ egovernance/papers/32_Singh.pdf 12

Government of Malta. 2003. URL: http:// www.mobile.gov.mt/ 13 ‘ICICI Bank unveils mobile ATMs‘, The Hindu 13 December 2002. URL: http://www.blonnet.com/2002/12/13/ stories /2002121300431000.htm

Awdhesh K Singh is an Additional Director, Directorate General of Systems and Data Management, Customs and Central Excise, New Delhi, India. Awdhesh could be reached at aksinghirs@rediffmail.com

Editorial Guidelines egov contains articles and features on e-Governance and related issues. Authors are requested to follow these guidelines while sending their articles to egov.

Research Articles/Features: Manuscripts reporting significant original research should be between 2500-3000 words. It must contain an abstract of the article of maximum 500 words.

Book/website reviews: The word limit for reviews of book/ website is 1500. Mention the title, name of the author(s), name of the publisher, year of publication, price and number of pages and also send

| May – June 2005

the cover photograph of the book concerned in hard copy or in TIFF format with resolution at least 300 dpi. Books on e-Governance related themes, published from year 2002 onwards, are preferable. In case of website, provide the URL.

Reports or Notes on conference/workshop/ seminar(s): Reports or notes on conferences, workshops and seminars on eGovernance or related fields must be 1500-2000 words in length. Mention the theme, venue, date, and name of the organiser(s). Please supply relevant photographs. The conference held in the past two months of the

forthcoming issue are preferred. Provide the URL of the organiser’s website or a link to the papers. The Editor reserves the right to reject, edit and adjust articles in order to conform to the magazine's format. No remuneration is paid or charges levied for contributions. All correspondence should be addressed to The Editor egov G-4, Sector 39 NOIDA (UP) 201 301, India Tel +91 120 2502180-87 Fax +91 120 2500060 Email egov@csdms.in 23

COMMENTARY

The ‘effectiveness’ quotient of Public-Private Partnerships The introduction of Information Technology (IT) has affected many noticeable differences in trying to fulfil everyday needs for both the rural and urban community. Rail ticket bookings are probably the most visible example. The Regional Transport Offices (RTO) have computerised their registration procedures. Ration card processes take minimal time due to computerisation. Farmers can browse through the Internet and search for state-ofthe-art farming techniques and even market prices. IT also paves the way for research in any given field. Even small shops and offices are now installing computers with some homegrown software. In the context of India, in particular, investments in e-Governance have been rising. The Government of India invested INR 15 billion in e-Governance initiatives in 2002. By the end of 2004 the spend on e-Governance was up 23 percent and touched an estimated INR 22 billion. Clearly, the jump in expenditure towards these projects is a major push for initiatives within the country as well as a vital indication of the efficacy of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).

Need for e-Governance in India e-Governance is one way of making India a stronger force to reckon with. Through e-Governance, and more specifically through effective PPPs, one could reach people at the grassroots level and start building from there. When you empower a person by providing her/him with solid ground to stand firmly on, you make them more self-sufficient and responsible. Making them aware of their potential is the first step towards their empowerment. Funds, technology and services are tools that help them move forward. Technology needs can be provided locally by the private sector. The benefits of doing so have been tried and tested to show effective results in other countries as well. There can be a synergy achieved between the private and public sector that contributes to growth - the government acts as the regulator and sets up an infrastructure, and the private sector acts as the provider of technology to create that | May – June 2005

infrastructure. This combined synergy leads to productive solutions. The IT task force report calls for a yearly export target of USD 50 billion (INR 2000 billion) in IT software and services by 2008. Recognising that IT is a ‘frontier area of knowledge, and a critical tool for assimilating, processing and effectively promoting all other spheres of knowledge’, the task force report calls for a national campaign for universal computer literacy. According to the report, the Government intends to promote IT in rural India, use Indian languages for computers (localisation issues), and promote indigenous technologies. More recently the spread of e-Governance initiatives has had a positive impact on the quality of governance, though their number and reach is still limited. In the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh, some 30 info-kiosks run by local soochaks, or operators, make available over a dozen government services, records and certificates to people in and around 600 villages. Similarly the computerisation of land records in several states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh has made it easier for people to obtain key documents with ease.

Public-Private Partnerships Funding, a key issue in e-Governance projects, becomes easier when the public and private sector come together. NGOs can play a valuable role in mobilising social support for universal education and for creating the right teaching material and environment. e-Governance should be used to promote private-public sector partnerships in developmental work and to test delivery mechanisms. It is already being applied in various administrative works and has proven to be cost-effective. Even before formally adopting the Tenth Five Year Plan in 2002, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said, “We have to forge public-private partnerships in the widest possible range of activities in both physical and social infrastructure to leverage private sector resources and skills for development”. In his speech the PM urged all concerned Central and State ministries and the National Development Council (NDC) to participate in the task force. There is a lot of stress being placed on these partnerships because of the value addition they provide to people, and ultimately, to the economy. Some of the important issues that need to be addressed with regard to PPPs are: 1. The various models for public-private cooperation The government and private sector must meet regularly and discuss appropriate models suited for a particular scenario. There has to be a thorough weighing of ideas, brainstorming and judging of the pros and cons of any suggested model. The model must favour effective development, short-term and long-term, and at the same time be viable and cost-effective. 2. The role that the government should play for facilitating the private sector to rapidly develop Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Once a project is initiated by the government, it must have complete support and backing by the government. The regulatory body of the government must ensure that policies and procedures are well defined and properly implemented so as to encourage the private sector to do business in an effective manner. There must be clear levels of accountability and transparency to deter misuse and mismanagement of the defined policies and procedures.

known to the people who would be most affected - the poor. Otherwise it might come across as just another government initiative to them, and they would lose out on what is really taking place. By explaining to them and making them understand, one could get their confidence, which is a very important ingredient in the ‘development’ potion. Another challenge is to make people understand how this new technology would help them help themselves. Yet another challenge is to convince communities that their standard of living would be improved through these solutions. This might seem tough, with India being the land of extremities.

Last word

The strength that private partners bring to the table is in providing cost-effective and intelligent solutions for the implementation of needs related to e-Governance. 3. How private sector initiative and enterprise could be encouraged and channelised for achieving maximum benefits In terms of providing technological services, there is no dearth in the private sector. With so much competition, there is an increase in the quality of these services, which would ultimately be best for the people. Also, nowadays there are so many entrepreneurs with some ‘big idea’ or the other. By taking advantage of these abilities and capabilities, countries such as India could stride forward into the future. Moreover, with over 70 percent of the populace residing in rural areas, there could be good Return On Investment (ROI) for private sector companies if they provide the government and people with their cost-effective products and services. 4. How private sector companies could collaborate with each other to achieve winwin situations Partnerships within the private sector stand excellent chances to be fruitful in providing better products/services. The outcomes possible as a result of these collaborations could range from better quality products, cheaper prices, to constant innovation. These factors also make the private sector a stronger force to deal with. Private sector enterprises have had more experience with e-Business models than the government. The government can benefit from their experiences - successes as well as failures. The possibilities are endless.

What we need to do is bridge extremities, and the only way to do that is to make both extremes meet halfway. Any kind of development leads to change - in institutional operations, people’s lifestyle and attitude. While some may be ready to embrace these changes, many remain sceptical and often doubt the effectiveness of such radical change, even if they are for the better. Hence, the changed processes would have to be properly understood, accepted and adopted to ensure effective development. The strength that private partners bring to the table is in providing cost-effective and intelligent solutions for the implementation of needs related to e-Governance. This writer is optimistic about India being self-sufficient in technology, and the government being supportive or focused on rural development. The potential for the rural community is limitless and the opportunities for the private and public sector to make measurable changes together are huge. e-Governance will stand to be the catalyst or tool to accentuate the growth of the rural community. Needless to say, the private players would be there.

Challenges in e-Governance Enterprising e-Governance projects present their own set of challenges - unique and otherwise. One of the inherent problems of such initiatives is the problem of employment. With the advent of computerisation, manual labour has taken a beating. Over 70 percent of people live below the poverty line, and there is an estimated change of about 250 million jobs due to new technology being installed. The most glaring challenge to setting up a system of effective e-Governance is awareness. After an idea or plan is conceived, it becomes imperative to make it 26

Shekar Nair President, India Technology Operations, Network Appliance. Shekar can be reached at Shekar.Nair@netapp.com

www.egov.csdms.in |

COMMENTARY

The TED conference on e-Government Electronic Democracy: the challenge ahead (TCGOV 2005) The TCGOV 2005 international conference on e-Government was held from 2 – 4 March 2005 in Bozen-Bolzano, Italy. The conference was initiated by the working group, ‘Towards Electronic Democracy’ (TED) of the European Science Foundation and was jointly organised by the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, the Municipality of Bozen-Bolzano, the TED Working Group, and the IFIP Working Group 8.5 – Information Systems in Public Administration. Approximately 100 participants from more than 20 different countries including Australia, South Africa, USA, and Brazil attended the TCGOV 2005 conference that was hosted by the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in the new Aula Magna. The conference addressed a large spectrum of issues that are relevant and have to be investigated for a successful transition from the traditional form of government to a new form known as e-Government. The organiser was particularly interested to stress on the technical aspects of e-Government and the need for contributions from the field of computer science for e-Government. This orientation was also reflected in the composition of the Programme Committee. A total of 92 scientific papers from 26 different countries were submitted to TCGOV 2005. Each submission was evaluated by at least two reviewers, mainly members of the Programme Committee. The reviewing process was very selective, and only 28 contributions were accepted as full papers for presentation at the conference, and publication in the conference proceedings. Springer published the conference proceedings in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series.

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Security aspects for e-Government services Two sessions were dedicated to the issue of ‘improving citizen participation and policy making’, an emerging area within e-Government that seeks to enhance democratic processes and provide increased opportunities for individuals and communities to be involved in governmental decisions. One session covered more technical investigations and results. Macintosh et al. discussed the use of weblogs to support democracy at the local community level. Berntzen et al. examined policy evaluation from a local politician’s view, i.e., what web-based tools are useful for policy evaluation, and what kind of information do these tools provide? Steinmann et al. investigated whether and how GIS applications could improve citizen’s involvement and participation in decision-making processes. The second session covered different e-Democracy experiences from Switzerland, Germany, and China. The paper by Chappelet et al. provided a classification of interactive tools for e-Democracy and discussed the use of such tools in Switzerland. Roeder et al. presented a case study from the German city Esslingen, where an Internet-based tool for e-Participation has been used in the public budget dialogue. Lan discussed China’s experience in the transition from e-Government to e-Democracy where fiscal transparency played a crucial role. Two sessions were on ‘government application integration’, which is an extremely important technical aspect on the agenda of e-Government research. The well-known one-stop-shop paradigm requires the integration and orchestration

Focus areas The main focus was on the following topics: • Improving citizen participation and policy making • Government application integration • Semantic web technologies for e-Government | May – June 2005

TCGOV 2005 was a valuable contribution in this direction to help shape and form a more informed e-Government community and to advance research in this field. 27

of back-office services within and among different public administrations. The paper by Gortmaker et al. analysed the requirements for a reference model for process orchestration. Two papers proposed different architectures for service integration, one following a peer-to-peer approach (Contenti et al.) and the other one adopting a marketplace metaphor (Mugellini et al.). Two case studies concluded this topic. Li et al. presented a paper on building an e-Government solution in Shanghai that is based on grid technology. The case study by Meneklis et al. showed the use of the ISO RM-ODP Standard for the development of open distributed systems in the context of the IST eMayor project. Another rather technical session, and closely related to the integration issue, was about the use of ‘semantic web technologies for e-Government’. The paper by Costilla et al. presented a legislative ontology that has been developed for and is now in use in parliamentary management system. One presenter argued that dissemination of information is important for democracy and that the use of dynamic taxonomies could dramatically improve an effective and timely dissemination and search process. Apostolou et al. described a software engineering environment for e-Government services which is heavily based on the use of ontology. The fourth main topic was about ‘security aspects for e-Government services’ that is equally important for e-Democracy. The proceedings included three contributions that presented new approaches to deal with security issues in the context of e-Polling, e-Voting, and inter-organisational workflows, respectively. The paper by Dimitriou et al. presented a methodology that could be applied in electronic voting and provided more complex ballot options than current systems. Bruschi et al. presented a simple protocol for an accurate and anonymous e-Polling system. The last paper in this session by Breu et al. proposed a new approach for a model-driven software development process of security-critical inter-organisational workflows in the context of web services. The programme was complete with contributions on decision support system on the web, managerial and financial aspects of e-Government projects, political and societal implications, and e-Procurement. Apart from the full papers, 17 contributions were selected and accepted as poster presentations at the conference and for publication in the poster proceedings, published by Trauner Verlag, Austria. The selected poster papers addressed various aspects of e-Government and e-Democracy, ranging from more fundamental research work to practical applications and best practice experiences. The papers posters were grouped under the following six areas: • Improving citizen participation and policy making, • Political and societal implications, • Knowledge management and intelligent systems, • Cross-border services and inter-organisational services, • Access control to information and services, and • Best practice experiences and case studies. The technical programme included three keynote presentations, given by leading researchers and experts from the field: Prof. Roland Traunmüller from the University of Linz, Prof. David Basin from the ETH Zurich, and Dr. Thanassis

e-Government has become a very active research area in the last few years and promises to revolutionise government and its interaction with customers. Yet there is a long way to go, and the community is still only at the beginning of a consolidation phase. 28

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Chrissafis from the European Commission, DG Information Society, Unit e-Government. The main conference was accompanied by two parallel events: • The 2nd eBZ Workshop on e-Government organised by the Free University and the Municipality of Bozen-Bolzano on 3 March 2005.

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The objective of this workshop was to bring together people mainly from different local government organisations and technology providers and to discuss concrete e-Government problems, strategies, and solutions from a more practical perspective. Two presentations gave an overview about strategies and future plans in the field of e-Government of the Municipality of Bozen-Bolzano and the provincial government, respectively. The next three presentations were dedicated to best practice experiences from different cities: on-line transactions and services in South Tyrol, personalised eGovernment and virtual consulting in the City of Villach (Austria), and the interconnected City of Siena (Italy). The workshop concluded with a presentation of PEOPLE, one of the largest national eGovernment projects, followed by a retrospective analysis of ‘eBZ – Digital City’, a strategic e-Government initiative between the Free University and the Municipality of Bozen-Bolzano. A European Union clustering event about Secure Information Processing in the Public Sector for small and medium sized government organisations organised by the 6FP project eMayor on 4 March 2005. The objective of the event was to bring together the knowledge and experience gained from other 6FP projects, to explore potential synergies and to identify interest from the European research

The conference addressed a large spectrum of issues that are relevant and have to be investigated for a successful transition from the traditional form of government to a new form known as e-Government. community in the technological aspects of secure e-Government services. The event addressed a number of specific problems and questions that have to be investigated for secure e-Government services including - organisational goals and problems, legal issues, policies, standards, technical problems, and proposed research issues. Representatives from eight different European Union research projects covering various security aspects attended the clustering event and brought their individual and project experience and knowledge into the discussion.

Conclusion e-Government has become a very active research area in the last few years and promises to revolutionise government and its interaction with customers. Yet there is a long way to go, and the community is still only at the beginning of a consolidation phase. TCGOV 2005 was a valuable contribution in this direction to help shape and form a more informed e-Government community and to advance research in this field. Quite literally this was, according to this writer, one of the very few instances in conference attendances where an ‘electronic badge’ was used - aimed as a hint to stress the importance of smart cards for the implementation of e-Government solutions. The badge served as authentication to access computers, and could be used to pay in the University Cafè for the duration of the conference! This writer appreciates the initiative and mentorship taken by the TED Working Group – in particuJohann Gamper lar Wolfgang Polasek – for the TCGOV 2005 conference. It is exJohann is Assistant Professor at the Free tremely important that similar activities University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy since are organised in the future in order to October 2003. He can be reached at advance research and practice in the gamper@inf.unibz.it. challenging and important fields of e-Government and e-Democracy.

GIS Institute Page 29 Ad | May – June 2005

BOOKS

Book review Government@net - new governance opportunities for India Kiran Bedi, Parminder Jeet Singh, Sandeep Srivastava 2001; Sage Publications India Pvt ltd, New Delhi 374 Pages; Price INR 320 ISBN 0-7619-9569—2 (US- PB); 81-7829-054-5 (India- PB) “Bringing the Internet and governance together means bringing the greatest technology of our times to bear on the most fundamental concerns of our Society” - (Quoted from the book) Government@net authored by the country’s known IPS officer Dr. Kiran Bedi, along with another IPS officer Parminder Jeet Singh, and Sandeep Srivastava, CEO of IYCworld.com is an excellent effort to present the opportunities offered by Information Society Technologies in reforming the process of governance. The language of the book is so simple that even a layman having no technical background can also understand the need for ICT usage in the process of governance. Additionally, the book also portrays the Internet as a great democratic tool and an economic enabler. Though the book was written in the year 2000-2001 and we have seen great changes in the fields of Internet and e-Governance arena since then, the authors have been able to provide a holistic view, at least theoretically, as to how the use of Internet may emerge as a compulsory mechanism for efficient and participatory governance processes. The only caution to the readers is that they should check up the latest figures wherever statistical data regarding usage and applications of Internet is provided in the book. The book has been organised into 14 chapters. The first two chapters provide an introduction to the Internet in a very philosophical manner describing Internet and governance as meant for each other by their very neutral democratic nature and sheer enormity of size, thus enabling the realisation of “me government” wrapped around the personal needs of the citizens rather than wrapped up as per the wishes of governors. In the first chapter, the authors have described the history of evolution of communication technologies and their role in shattering the age-old control systems. After discussing the problems of access of information needs of the citizens for providing effective feedback for government, control and efficiency issues for governments, the authors have presented Internet as the solution to these issues. The authors describe the present system as the stopgap governance that responds only in emergency situations, and see the opportunity in ICTs to change the situation forever. The third chapter explains the power of the Internet and the advantages of using Information Society Technologies for governance. Chapters four and six discuss local knowledge communities and citizen centric governance while chapter five is dedicated to describing the opportunities for government intervention 30

in areas of basic needs. Chapters seven through 11 describe how government agencies can use the Internet innovatively to deliver services to the citizens. Chapter 13 is regarding the roadblocks and challenges governments are likely to face while moving on the path of e-Government. The last chapter is dedicated to tie up the thoughts presented in the entire book to develop a possible future approach for India. The authors in their introduction to the subject have stressed that e-Governance would actually mean more governance (e-Democracy) and not less governance. The book provides a holistic and effective framework of e-Governance. Says Dr. Bedi, “Governments are needed to provide services and e-Governance will make it possible to give prompt, honest, and visible service”. Quoting an example from her own area of work i.e. Indian Police Services, Kiran Bedi explains that if an aggrieved citizen wants to lodge a first information report [FIR], he need not go to the police station but file it on the Internet. This would take away the power of the police officer to refuse to file a FIR, which is so often the case. According to co-author Sandeep Srivastava, “e-Governance is a government structure which is efficient and effective and is duly controlled by its citizens”. The titles of various chapters of the book are very interesting and present the entire gamut of e-Government technologies, intricacies, knowledge management and other areas in a very simple manner comprehendible by readers with a non-technical background. The book takes the best practices from all over the world. Experiments like the Warna Wired Village Project in Maharashtra, the Gyan Doot Project in the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh, Friends Project in Kerala and many more are using Internet not as an elitist medium but as a social phenomenon that has the power to touch the day-to-day lives of every Indian. The book inspects the constraints that define the present government systems, and attempts to explore how new Internet-based ICTs can remove these constraints and offer opportunities for the delivery of government services to all sections of the society. Vikas Kanungo www.egov.csdms.in |

BOOKS

Books received Promise of E-Governance: operational challenges Edited by M.P. Gupta 2004, Tata McGraw- Hill Publishing Company Limited, New Delhi, India 560 pages, Price INR 575 ISBN : 0-07-058359-5 Promise of e-Governance is an edited volume comprising papers prepared for the International Conference on e-Governance (ICEG 2003). The conference was held at IIT Delhi. Edited by MP Gupta, the volume is a superb collection of 71 case studies from around the world. The book is divided into six major sections: • Government-to-Citizen Relationships • Government-to-Business Relationships • Government-to-Government Relationships • System development and framework • Experience sharing • Experiments Each of the sections has a mixed-bag of authors. The first section tackles e-Governance and basic citizen-issues, and explores what challenges electronic governance faces, what benefits it purports to bring to the ordinary masses, issues of administrative reforms, citizen’s as customers, citizen identification systems, among others. There is a chapter on analysis of successful e-Governance programmes in India, the Community Information Centre project in the Northeast, Health security aspects in | May – June 2005

the United States, the Malaysian Income Tax model, and a discussion on the issue of digital divide in India. The segment on ‘Governmentto-Business Relationships’ discusses Public-Private instruments for implementation of e-Governance, how e-Governance can be enriched with the experiences of e-Business practises (as a powerful tool for developing countries), and management challenges for government organisations, among others. The ‘Government-to-Government Relationships’ segment discusses various issues – from process reengineering,

The eclectic backgrounds that inform the book make for valuable information sources for every category of public, private and civil society stakeholder. extending genetic algorithm concepts to organisational transformation for e-Governance, capacity building imperatives, organisational performance evaluation (DIT), to knowledge management-based e-Governance. A largely technical segment on ‘System Development and Framework’ follows this, which touches upon a study on the implementation of e-Government in Israel, risk management issues, systems development, sustainable technology models, database design issues, and several case studies of projects being implemented in various parts of the country. ‘Experience sharing’ deals with challenges faced in deployment of e-Governance initiatives, attractiveness of Citizen Service Centres, experiences from pilot projects in Malaysia and India (Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, New Delhi), and the possible leverage that crime investigation could get with e-Governance in place. The last

segment titled ‘Experiments’ discusses several successful experiments like the Property Registration Information System Module (PRISM) implemented in the Indian state of Punjab, ‘e-Praman Patra’ or electronic issuance of certificates in the Mandla tehsil (sub-district administrative unit) of Madhya Pradesh, the e-Suvidha package designed for Community Information Centres in the Northeast, the Haryana Land Records Information System (HALRIS), the Lokmitra project in Himachal Pradesh, the e-Grama information gateway in Orissa, among others. Overall, the book is an exciting compilation. The eclectic backgrounds that inform the book make for valuable information sources for every category of public, private and civil society stakeholder. Though at times, segments such as the one on the case study on ‘Indian “tech managers” at work’ may appear out of sync with the general tenor of theoretical/empirical and case study oriented coverage in the other segments of the book. However, as all of the content was based on conference presentations, the general outlook of the book is that of a jukebox of various articles on various issues. MP Gupta does make an effort to closely slot the articles into neat categories, which are not all delineated and crisp as they could have been. Nonetheless, all credit is due to MP Gupta for this brave and conscious effort to put together such a resource.

The Government Executive Series eGovernment Leadership - Realizing the Vision April 2002, Accenture In its third annual survey of e-Government leadership, between 7 and 18 January 2002, Accenture researchers in 23 selected countries accessed and assessed the 31

websites of national government agencies to determine the quality and maturity of services, and the level at which business could be conducted electronically with government. The result is a superb research report, which, though dated, provides an excellent assessment of the progress made and status-quo update for each of these 23 countries. Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States were studied. 169 national government services across nine major service sectors - Human Services, Justice & Public Safety, Revenue, Defense, Education, Transport & Motor Vehicles, Regulation & Democracy, Procurement and Postal - were investigated. The report begins with a lucid segment on ‘Methodology and Definitions’. Services are categorised into the ‘Publish’, ‘Interact’ and ‘Transact’ options available with each government service. The country-progress is identified as falling in the following categories: Innovative Leaders: High number of mature services offered online. Visionary Challengers: Solid base of services online; generally showing some development in Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Emerging Performers: Show a large breadth of services, but at lower levels of maturity and have significant opportunity to grow through maximising the potential of online services and developing their CRM capabilities. [Two measures were used to determine the e-Government maturity of the countries in the research: Service Maturity and CRM] Prior to discussing individual country updates, there are seven segments that are basically overviews of the progress made in taking up e-Governance initiatives and the change in perspective and performance of most governments studied in the research assignment. The ‘Executive Summary’ for instance is a comparative exercise of maturity levels of countries (both service maturity and CRM adoption). The chapter on ‘Realizing the Vision’, traces the path from the 32

‘publishing information’ stage to the present stage where visions for e-Government have matured, and there is an sense of appreciation for the need of managing implementation challenges. It highlights delivery of tangible benefits to citizens, mark e t i n g

A superb research report, which, though dated, provides an excellent assessment of the progress made and status-quo update for each of these 23 countries. government services to improve service usage by citizens, monitoring progress of e-Government programmes, partnering with the private sector, as areas that need are increasingly becoming the focus areas for various e-Government initiatives. Then there is a segment titled ‘Governance Comes of Age’ that, as the title suggests, discusses the shift in understanding of e-Governance as something beyond a techno-centric activity. It looks at how, increasingly, barriers between operational departments and structures in government are beginning to give way to a ‘whole-of-government’ approach, how there has been a rise in the creation of Chief Information Officer (CIO) portfolios, and how private players are being involved at every level of programme planning and implementation, among others. ‘Customer Relationship Management - From Citizen to Customer’, discusses the importance of recognising and adopting techniques that would up the citizen focus of e-Government programmes. ‘Leading Edge Practices’ is an attempt to identify leading

e-Government practices in key areas viz. Human Services, Revenue, Postal, Education, Justice & Public Safety and Democracy. The report also showcases a sample-set of portals which offer e-Government services in the various sectors identified earlier. The privacy / security issue is an absolute requisite to any successful e-Governance initiative – something that builds up user confidence as well. The segment titled ‘The Security and Privacy Imperative’ discusses precisely the sense of urgency that data protection and individual privacy issues have acquired across countries and across rankings. The final segment, before the country updates are discussed in detail, is ‘uGovernment: The Next Wave’. The segment suggests the direction that electronic governance is set to take over the coming years – a shift to low cost, seamless mobile technologies (wireless, television, voice and silent commerce). Under discussion is the concept of uCommerce (an extension of the eCommerce business model), which, according to Accenture, is all set to revolutionise the way services are delivered in low-cost wide-reach formats. However, the survey identifies that the tempo of pick-up of uCommerce by governments has been slow. The rest of the report deals with indepth updates for every country under study. The report discusses overall maturity (both depth and breadth of services), vision summary, standout websites/portals of e-Government initiatives, and rank (past and present) for every country under consideration. The study has immense value for its lucid albeit limited handling of methodologies in evaluating e-Governance performance of different countries. Though the book does not lay claim to comprehensive worldwide coverage, the fact that South Asian countries do not figure in the exercise keeps comes across as missing. Clearly, governments across the world have initiated several projects that are well placed in such a comparative exercise. The book has informational value and is definitely a resource to have. One complaint, however, is that more pages could have been devoted to the methodologies used in evaluating e-Governance initiatives. www.egov.csdms.in |

NEWS REVIEW

India

MCD goes for online registration of civic complaints

user needs to send a message in a particular format to a specified number, after which he would get a reply that would carry details regarding the ticket availability status. Following this, the user will have to send the debit card number from which the amount will be debited.

The Chief Minister of New Delhi, India, Sheila Dikshit, inaugurated the computerised public grievances redressal system of the Municipal Corporation of New Delhi (MCD). The system has been developed by eGovernment Foundation, set up by Infosys. Srikanth Nadhamuni, Managing Trustee of the eGovernment Foundation, Bangalore, said that a system of this type would have cost USD 2 or USD 3 million if developed for private use. The citizens of Delhi can now lodge complaints by logging on to the MCD website http:// www.mcdonline.gov.in or sending an email to complaints@mcd.com. Every complainant would be provided with a number through which he can track the status of his complaint. The system would soon be integrated with MCD projects scheduled in different wards.

World Bank offers USD 500 million aid The World Bank has agreed in-principle to provide USD 500 million financial support for India’s National e-Governance Plan (NEGAP) over a period of four years. The multi-pronged project is expected to empower rural citizens, improve government effectiveness, and promote private sector growth. The announcement was made at the | May May––June June2005 2005

concluding session of the NEGAP workshop with states and Union Territories held in the Indian national capital, New Delhi, recently. Mark Dutz, Senior Economist, Finance and Private Sector Development - South Asia Region with the World Bank, said that the government had initiated a dialogue with the World Bank for support for the e-Governance plan. In January, the bank’s management gave an in-principle go ahead for USD 500 million financing in the first phase, with a clear understanding that if there is a need and absorptive capacity, it would be willing to upscale the support. NEGAP is aimed at improving the quality, accessibility and effectiveness of government services to citizens and businesses with the help of ICT. The scheme will cover 10 main areas, including land records, property registration, and transport and revenue collection amongst others.

Indian Railways to launch SMS-based ticket booking service

The Railway Minister of India, Lalu Prasad Yadav, also announced the launch of call centres under public-private partnership to provide faster and updated information on rail services.

e-Gram project to connect over 6000 villages The Gujarat State Panchayat Minister, Bhupendrasinh Chudasama informed the state assembly that over 6000 villages will be linked through computer by March 2006 under the e-Gram project of the Gujarat government. He also said that as per the December 2004 figures, the government had already connected 567 villages under the project. The government has issued various documents such as birth and death certificates, Below Poverty Line (BPL) certification, application forms, etc., and many others would be made available through the computer in each and every village under the project, he added.

Railway tickets can soon be booked using short messaging service (SMS) in India. Encouraged by the response to its earlier service of ticket bookings through the Internet, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), which manages Railways’ Internet booking service platform plans to launch SMS-based ticket booking service. The mobile-phone 33

e-Governance solution for drug control department The Chief Minister of Hyderabad, India, Dr YS Rajasekhara R e d d y , recently, released a CD comprising an e-Governance solution for the drug control department. Commenting on the project, the minister remarked that e-Governance ensured transparency, while saving time and energies for stakeholders in getting information and downloading applications. Besides providing comprehensive information on various issues related to the subject, the CD comprised details of 336 court judgments.

Manipur on its way to e-Governance The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has submitted a project report for computerisation of all government departments in the Indian state of Manipur. The project report is awaiting the approval of the state cabinet for its implementation. Once, it gets the permission of the Cabinet, the departments concerned would be allowed to take up the computerisation work.

Q&A with Vivek Atray Director IT, Chandigarh administration Chandigarh, with its vibrant character and excellent facilities, is emerging as a major Information Technology Centre. e-Government is a significant aspect of the IT Policy of the Chandigarh Administration. The two most significant e-Government initiatives of the administration in this direction are Sampark and Jan Sampark citizen service centres. With a very sound IT and e-Government policy, the beautiful city is all set to be a virtual city as well. When did you start planning for the eGovernment initiatives and what are the achievements so far? e-Government services were envisaged during the conceptualisation of Chandigarh’s IT policy itself. The planning of citizen service centres by the name ‘e-Sampark’ was started in 2003. PricewaterhouseCoopers were appointed as the consultants to formulate the concept of e-Sampark centres in 2003. Based upon the recommendation of the consulting agency, and deliberations within the department the plan was executed. The first e-Sampark centre was dedicated to the citizens of Chandigarh in November 2004. Now Chandigarh has five such centres and three more will be operational by June 2005. Did you get support from the government for your initiative? What about the support from within the department i.e. employees? The support from the government has been excellent. Most of the departments under the Chandigarh administration did take up the initiative in a positive manner and followed the directions. However, there has been some resistance from some departments. This was expected and we were prepared for it. Whenever you try to bring ‘change’ in government, there is bound to be resistance from some quarters. But in the long run, I am sure we will have all the departments under the initiatives - both in terms

of online services as well as backend automation. What services are available through the citizen service centers? The following services have been integrated and offered from Sampark Centres for the people: • Payment of Taxes • Payment of Water & Sewerage Bills • Payment of Electricity Bills • Payment of Sticker/Postal Challan • Issue of Bus Passes • Issue of Senior Citizen Cards • Issue of Disability Identity Cards • Issue of Birth & Death Certificates • Space Bookings • Tenant Registrations • Domestic Servants Registrations • Passport Applications • Payment of Telephone bills Do you think you will be able to provide all the services to all sections of the society through these eight service centres? This is just the beginning. The response so far has been encouraging. In order to include all sections of the society, the administration is now planning additional citizen service centres called Jan Sampark centres. The government is planning to put up 50 such centres (at least one in every sector). These will be small centres, acting as citizen help-desks in addition to providing other administration and government services (for instance, finding the availability of beds in a hospital). The key services will continue to be provided through e-Sampark centres. Additionally, we are planning new and innovative services for the weaker sections of the society, including migrants, through Jan Sampark centres. The citizens will be able to perform transaction-based operations, and avail information and facilitation services through the Jan Sampark centres. We are hopeful that we would be able to cover most sections of the society through these initiatives. www.egov.csdms.in |

Will the citizens be able to avail the government services online through the portal as well? The transaction-based services cannot be availed online as yet since a mechanism to receive payment is being worked out. We are hopeful that we will soon be able to enable this as well. However, this is the general trend that even where online payment facility is available, citizens prefer the physical service centres. The information and facilitation services are available online and citizens can avail these services through our portal http:// chandigarh.nic.in.

Besides providing citizen services, how much use of ICT is being made by the administration for their own operation and planning? Chandigarh administration uses ICT for internal operations as well as planning the development work in the city. We also use GIS for planning and have the digital map of the entire city with datasets relating to various attributes.

How do you ensure data security and authentication for your e-Services? The application is being maintained by SQL whereas the server for the services is hosted and maintained by the National Informatics Centre. They are taking adequate measures for authenticity and security of the data.

In that case, how do you ensure the maintenance of these centres, and what about the long-term sustainability of the centres? At the moment, around 55 000 transactions are carried out through these centres on a monthly basis. We pay around eight rupees (INR) per transaction to the vendor who maintains the centres. This translates to INR 4 00 000 per month and 50 00 000 per annum approximately. The payment is made by Chandigarh administration. I think the administration can afford this at the moment to provide services to its citizens. Once the number of transactions reaches a critical mass, we are planning to have additional services such as payment of mobile bills and other such services, provided by the private vendors, through the centres. The revenue collected from the vendors would be used for sustaining the centres in the long run.

As you are providing citizen services relating to many departments, how do you ensure immediate action by different departments? The Chandigarh e-Government initiative is one of the few projects where compliance by various departments is ensured through exhaustive Service Level Agreements between the Sampark centres and the departments. Besides this, we have been able to automate backend operations at seven out of the 12 departments that are responsible for public dealings. These departments have been integrated with the online portal as well - thus making it possible to even track the status of transactions performed by the citizens. Do you have an online grievance redressal mechanism in place with the facility to track the status of complaints? The email-based system for lodging complaints is in place at the moment for the Municipal Corporation. Citizens can also lodge the complaints at all the citizen service centres as well. The full online grievance redressal mechanism is not in place as yet. We have got the software for complaint registration and monitoring developed, and will soon be implementing the online grievance redressal and monitoring system. | May Mayâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;â&#x20AC;&#x201C;June June2005 2005

Do you charge citizens for the services provided through these centres? No, we do not charge any fee for most of the services provided to the citizens.

Finally, what is the current strategy of the Chandigarh administration in terms of e-Government as well as other plans? We are committed to make Chandigarh the best-governed city - as the ideal destination of investment for IT companies. The city has all the ingredients of being the IT hub of India, and has also been ranked amongst the leaders in e-Readiness in the country. Our current focus for e-Government is on targeting the areas of inadequacy for upcoming initiatives so that we can provide world class services to the citizens, and efficient administration and business services to the IT industry, which is now looking up to Chandigarh.

Students to get electronic identity cards The Municipal Corporation of New Delhi (MCD), India, has decided to distribute computerised identity cards to 900 000 students. This is part of MCDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ambitious programme to make its schools online. MCD has already introduced computeraided education. All 1850 schools would be linked with each other online. Each school will have a unique identity number. This process will be implemented from 1 July 2005, when the new academic session starts. After completing the computerisation of schools, the civic agency will issue electronic identity cards to all 900 000 students.

Maharashtra government cuts costs with OpenSource The Maharashtra government is increasingly opting for Open-Source software over licensed ones provided by technology giants like Microsoft. In the past few months, OpenOffice - a free downloadable package of commonlyused applications like spreadsheets, word processing and email - has become the official choice for thousands of desktops across the state, and is expected to save the exchequer approximately INR 900 million in license fees. Recently, the Maharashtra Police headquarters too went in for the free operating system GNU/ Linux with OpenOffice. Similarly, the 35

Cabinet soon. While the basic objective, as defined in 1975, will remain the same the contours of the new roadmap are expected to undergo a major modification in the changed social and economic context of the times.

Bardhaman first in rural e-Governance Election Office is using a bilingual voterlist search system developed by free software activists, while corporate open sources like Red Hat are providing software for the government’s treasury management, citizens facility centres, and land record management.

Bangalore utility payment services go online The Karnataka government has rolled out its latest e-Governance project, Bangalore One (B1), to provide integrated services to people under one roof including utility payments. The ambitious project, conceived during Microsoft chairman Bill Gates’ first visit to Bangalore in November 2002, has been designed on a build-operate-own-transfer (BOOT) model for computerising government-to-citizen (G2C) services.

Punjab first to adopt online Value Added Tax system The Indian state of Punjab became the first and only state in the country to implement a working online Value Added Tax (VAT) system to facilitate online processing of VAT accounts and returns. 36

Disclosing this recently, DP Reddy, Excise and Taxation Commissioner, Punjab, said that the achievement included 100 percent coverage of 11 digit Central VAT complaint TIN (Tax Payer Identification Numbers) to all the 1 53 000 registered dealers in the state who opted for the VAT system, and setting up of the infrastructure, development of the software, periodic reviews of the progress, and an audit tool for all the critical components in the system by experts.

Indian Government’s Twenty-Point Programme on e-Governance 30 years after it was first prepared in 1975, the Government of India is once again restructuring a draft cabinet note on the Twenty-Point Programme (TPP), a long-term vision document to revitalise e-Governance in the country. The TPP-86 is presently in operation. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, which is piloting the initiative, has sought comments and views from various ministries in preparing the note, which would be placed before the

West Bengal in India is all set to implement the country’s first rural e-Governance pilot project in a southern district of the state. The project to be launched in Bardhaman district will bring every village council there under its network. The project is being launched by the West Bengal State Wide Area Network (WBSWAN), which was initiated in August 2001 for providing a computer networking backbone carrying voice, video and data over Internet across all 18 districts to facilitate e-Governance. West Bengal is now firmly entrenched on the IT expansion map of India with its capital city Kolkata emerging as one of the fastest growing IT hubs for MNCs.

Local language fonts arriving soon In an effort to enhance penetration of computers and the Internet in the country and carrying IT to the masses, the Indian Government is planning to make it mandatory for original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to load fonts in 23 Indian languages in computers to facilitate language computing. The Minister for Communications and IT, Dayanidhi Maran, said after inaugurating the Electronics and Information Technology Exposition (ELITEX) in Delhi www.egov.csdms.in |

Online facility for registering names in Tamil Nadu

technology, the government has decided to help set up ‘internet clubs’ in various schools.

that lack of local language computing is a hindrance in the proliferation of computers and the Internet. According to the minister, the Government has to keep in mind that in India less than five percent of the people speak English and therefore they need to make these fonts freely available in their respective mother tongue. He also said that his ministry had released various Tamil language fonts, e-mail client in Tamil, OCR, spell checker, dictionary (English-English-Tamil) and (Tamil-Tamil-English), Tamil typing tutor, etc. in the public domain for use by the masses on 15 April. It is expected that all Indian languages would be covered in the next one year. The government would be launching the initiative in 22 other languages, and plans to finish the entire process in six months.

Uttar Pradesh set for e-Literacy drive The Uttar Pradesh Government would be carrying out a major exercise to ensure that all its employees are e-Literate by 2007. In an attempt to achieve the target, the Government would use a slew of incentives and disincentives. The proposed incentives and disincentives would depend on the level of proficiency achieved by an employee. The endeavour would be part of the Government’s IT literacy enhancement programme. In a bid to help pupils learn the skills of information | May May––June June2005 2005

Website on urban property for UT Chandigarh SF Rodrigues, the Governor of Punjab and the Administrator of Chandigarh, recently launched the official website of the UT Chandigarh Estate Office (http:// www.sampada.in) to improve the Government-Citizen-Interface.

Naresh Gupta, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Tamil Nadu, India announced recently that for the first time all eligible voters whose names do not appear in the draft rolls, can apply online after the rolls are published in the coming months. According to the revised schedule, draft rolls would be published for the 39 Assembly constituencies, covered by house-to-house enumeration on 16 June 2005. This includes Chennai and five other corporations. In the remaining 195 constituencies, where summary revision has taken place, draft rolls would be released on 10 May for non tsunami-hit areas and on 26 May for tsunami-hit areas.

Sri Lanka

ICTA launches Rural Knowledge Centres He called for a major IT initiative, which would become a tool of good governance through participatory, transparent and accountable systems. According to Rodrigues, the Sampada project is unique in many ways compared to other e-Governance projects in the country as it showcases a combination of several objectives such as increasing internal efficiency (e.g. Smartgov project of Andhra Pradesh and Indian Customs), and putting urban property records online (e.g. Bhoomi project of Karnataka for rural properties). Additionally, it would improve the efficiency of the system besides giving people access to all relevant information.

The Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) has announced that its Rural Knowledge Centres are up and fully functional. Five locations in the Badulla district, Glananor, Heeloya, Welimada, Bandarawella and

Koslanda of Sri Lanka now have fully equipped telecentres with 24hour/128 kbps Internet connectivity via VSAT. The Rural Knowledge Centre project (Formally called Vishva Gnana Kendra project), part of the Global Knowledge Centre (Nanasala) Project, is one of the several projects implemented under the e-Sri Lanka Initiative through ICTA under the leadership of the Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Greece

Trikala becomes e-Trikala The Greek Vice Minister of Economics, C Folias, announced Trikala, a Greek city, as the first digital city in Greece. Trikala would finish its first phase of development by the middle of 2006 with funding from the Greek Information Society Framework Programme. The digital city ICT applications aim to improve everyday life by simplifying public transactions, reducing telecommunication costs, and delivering new services related to the local way of life. Those ICT applications also offer new methods to enable citizens to participate in policymaking, and help ensure local government and public authorities as guarantors of the local society’s proper operation.

Australia

e-Visas for students Starting this admissions season, students headed to Australia for higher education would be able to get e-Visas (electronic clearance and issue of visas). 38

and computers. Between them, Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, France, Morocco and Nigeria contributed USD 2.4 million to the fund.

Linux in South Africa On the sidelines of an ‘interview programme’ in the Indian city of Bangalore recently, Henry A S Ledlie, Director (India), International Development Programme, stated that e-Visas would significantly reduce the time-span for grant of visas by the Australian government. He further added that the new e-Visas would be available for students seeking admissions, from the next academic year, in July 2005.

Africa

‘Digital Tax’ to bridge digital divide The presidents of Algeria and Senegal have backed a plan asking wealthy nations to tax their cities’ investment in technology to buy mobile phones and computers for poorer nations. The voluntary ‘digital’ tax would contribute to the United Nations-sponsored Digital Solidarity Fund, created to promote democracy and economic development in developing countries by bridging the digital divide between rich and poor nations. The fund, which was launched in Geneva, Switzerland, recently, has already collected USD 5.3-6.6 million to be spent on technologies such as mobile phones

The Southern Cape’s Knysna municipality last year was looking to increase the reach and functionality offered by its collaboration solution, keeping in mind the commitment it had placed on using open source in its future technology roadmap. After considering numerous options, the solution chosen was Novell GroupWise, running on a SUSE Linux server. This decision not only allowed the municipality to keep to its goal of using open source and complimentary closed-source solutions, but also allowed the municipality to meet the budgeted capital it had allocated to this project. Completed in a short two weeks, this migration has astounded the municipality, has proven that Linux is enterprise ready, and has given the municipality the motivation it needed to migrate to Linux and open source software completely in the next two years.

State government of Benue to launch its website soon In Western Africa, the Benue state government would soon launch its website to make information about the state available at the doorstep of every individual or nation in the world. Disclosing this, the Governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Tahar Agerzua, said that the habit of relying on freelance journalists by some media organisations as a way of getting information would soon be a thing of the past. He also said that the website would have the name ‘www.benuestate.org’, stressing that the www.egov.csdms.in |

state would ensure that the website maintains up-to-date information on critical issues of local and intern a t i o n a l importance. He further said that the website would purge the problem of accessing photographs and other information on public office holders in the state.

Italy

Italy moves forward on e-Government project

would be finalised by December 2005. Similarly, the Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry has invested USD 930 000 in the UNDP trust fund in Albania for its e-Government project. With these international initiatives Italy has brought some cohesion to previously disjoint efforts run individually by several international organisms.

China

e-Government through IP telephony

At ‘Euromed ICT’, the conference for European Mediterranean countries on IT, the Innovation and Technology Minister of Italy, Lucio Stanca, placed that Italy was advancing in the e-Government Initiative for Development realised by the Technical Unit of the ministries by partnership with agencies such as UN, the World Bank, the InterAmerican Development Bank and the Development Gateway Foundation of Washington. Held in Ireland on 10 and 11 April 2005 the conference is promoted by the European Commission in Dundalk (Ireland). Currently, the Italian government is funding e-Government projects in various countries, including Jordan and Albania. The project in Jordan is being implemented in collaboration with UNDP via a trust fund of USD 488 000 set up by the Italian government and | May May––June June2005 2005

network will be based on products from the Nortel enterprise data portfolio, including Nortel’s Ethernet Switch, Ethernet Routing Switch, and Backbone Link Node Router. It will also include IP telephony solutions.

Media highlights Jinjiang eGovernment project Jinjiang City in Fujian, China has attracted extensive media coverage following the completion of the first phase of its e-Government project. The country’s top news programme, China News, along with popular Chinese news portals http://www.Tom.com and http:/ /www.sina.com/, have given extensive coverage to the city’s efforts to improve administration through the use of technology. China News reported that Jinjiang’s e-Government system combined Internet and networking technologies with administrative reform. A key benefit reported was increased transparency in the public decision making processes.

Dubai

The city of Longkou in China’s coastal province of Shandong is going to avail eGovernment facilities through IP telephony and data solution. The city authorities are looking to securely roll out new content to Longkou’s 620 000 residents using new IP infrastructure from Nortel. The residents of Longkou can have online access to e-Government services such as e-Voting, e-Booking of municipal facilities, and employment support through this new network. Officials say that Longkou is the first smaller level city in China to set up an e-Government solution. The Longkou e-Government

Dubai e-Government to enhance the quality of its e-Services Dubai e-Government is striding up its endeavour to increase customer adoption Read more news www.egov.csdms.in

and enhance the quality of its e-Services, in its drive to transform Dubai into an ‘e-Society’. Speaking at an e-Government event being held in Dubai recently, Business Process Re-engineering Consultant, Al Bastaki highlighted some of the key achievements of Dubai e-Government. He said that they have achieved the reinvention and simplification of government processes by eliminating red tape and reducing bureaucracy. He further said that over the years they have enhanced the quality of services rendered for the public, ensuring transparency, integrity and accountability in their operations. Currently, they offer more than 1600 online services through their user-friendly portal. They are constantly opening new channels of communication with various government departments to maximise their operating efficiency and productivity, Al Bastaki added.

to provide reference/role model for local authorities interested to implement various innovative e-Government programmes.

World Pehin Dato Paduka Awg Hj Hazair maintains that the development of local ICT companies in the past five years from 2001 to 2005 has shown an increase according to statistics. Eighty ICT companies including joint ventures with foreign ICT companies have been registered in the country.

European Commission goes for its own Internet domain name

Malaysia

The European Commission has said that the new Internet domain name ‘.eu’ will be up and running by the end of 2005.

Brunei Darussalam

USD 950 million for Bandar Seri Begawan Roughly USD 950 million have been allocated by the government for the e-Government initiative in Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei Darussalam, under the 8th National Development Plan for ministries and government departments. This figure was revealed by Pehin Dato Paduka Awg Hj Hazair bin Hj Abdullah, Permanent Secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office during the launch of the ‘1st Technology Update Seminar’ held at the Ministry of Finance. He further said that up to March this year, about 199 e-Government projects had been approved for implementation by the e-Government Executive Committee costing about USD 742 million or 80 percent of the total allocation. The government has identified the need for 1500 skilled workers in ICT to implement and maintain the e-Government systems. 40

Valuable experience sharing Coming up in June is a commendable effort by EU-Ipoh Virtual City (EIVC), a project co-funded by the Asia IT&C Programme of the European Commission and jointly promoted by the Ipoh City Council (Malaysia), City of Vienna (Austria), Danish Technological Institute (Denmark) and Dublin Chamber of Commerce (Ireland). The ‘Best Practices of E-Government & E-City: Vision, Innovation and Opportunities conference from 13 to 16 June 2005, in Malaysia aims to showcase the various good practices of e-Government in EU countries. During the conference and technical workshop, the participants would be exposed to proven ICT solutions, working models and best practices of e-Administration service. e-Government experts from EU and Asia will share their knowledge and experience on innovation in e-Administration services, which aims

The commission says the move will allow businesses and individuals to create a EUwide identity on the Internet. It has taken six years for the idea of ‘.eu’ to become a reality - a legal agreement was signed last month. It will join generic addresses such as ‘.com’ and ‘.org’ as well as national ones like the British ‘.uk’ or the German ‘.de’. The commission says the new domain name should be particularly useful for companies that operate across the European single market, giving them a pan-European identity on the Internet.

NEWS REVIEW

is compiled

from various online resources and print publications. www.egov.csdms.in |

FACTS AND DATA

Online preparedness Country results - online sophistication

Country results - full availability online

Source: Online availability of public services: how is Europe progressing? Web-based survey on electronic public services, Report of the Fifth measurement, October 2004. Prepared by Capgemini for the European Commission Directorate General for Information Society and Media (www.Capgemini.com) EU (15)+ EU (25)+ EU (10)n

Percentage of GovernmentSites Offering Online Services by Region of world 2001 2002 2003 2004 North America 28 41 45 53 Pacific Ocean Islands 16 14 17 43 Asia 12 26 26 30 Middle East 10 15 24 19 Western Europe 9 10 17 29 Eastern Europe -2 6 8 Central America 4 4 9 17 South America 3 7 14 10 Russia/Central Asia 2 1 1 2 Africa 2 2 5 8

E-Government Ratings by Region North America Western Europe Eastern Europe Asia Middle East Russia/Central Asia South America South America Russia/Central Asia Africa

2001 51.0 34.1 -34.0 31.1 30.9 30.7 30.6 27.7 23.5

2002 60.4 47.6 43.5 48.7 43.2 37.2 42.0 39.5 41.4 36.8

2003 40.2 33.1 32.0 34.3 32.1 29.7 29.5 32.1 28.6 27.66

2004 39.2 30.0 28.0 31.6 28.1 25.3 24.3 29.9 24.1 22.0

Source: Global E-Government, 2004 by Darrell M. West, Center for Public Policy Brown University Providence, Rhode Island, United States | May â&#x20AC;&#x201C; June 2005

ABOUT TOWN

This section lists upcoming conferences, exhibitions, and other public events for the benefit of our readers 9 – 13 May 2005 GTC WEST 2005 Sacramento, California http://www.govtech.net/gtc/?pg= conference&confid=197

1-2 June 2005 Web-Enabled Government Washington DC, USA http://www.e-gov.com/events/2005/ we_gov/ info@e-gov.com

12 May 2005 7th Annual Government Computing Belfast, Northern Ireland http://www.kablenet.com/ke.nsf/ EventsSummaryView/00517130E9A4134 C80256FB6005C3AF4?OpenDocument

13-16 June2005 International Conference on Best Practices of E-Government & E-City Vision, Innovation & Opportunities Malaysia http://www.eivc.org/

15-17 May 2005 Government CIO Summit Hilton Head Marriott Beach & Golf Resort, Hilton Head Island, SC http://www.fcw.com/events/cio/

14-15 June 2005 ‘e-Government in Practice’ Middleton, Co. Cork, Ireland http://www.sera.ie/Conf%20Notice.pdf

15-18 May 2005 National Conference on Digital Government Research Atlanta, GA, USA http://www.dgrc.org/dgo2005/ 19 May 2005, e-Democracy, e-Participation: what role for the Regions? Brussels, Belgium http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/ 4085/5743 23-24 May 2005 Gov UK IT Conference London SW1V, U.K. http://www.publictechnology.net/index. php?module=PostCalendar&func=view& Date=20050523&tplview=&viewtype= details&eid=70&print=antonia@eurotechforum.com 24-27 May 2005 6th Global Forum on Reinventing eGovernment Toward Participatory and Transparent Governance Seoul, Korea Republic http://6thglobalforum.org/eng/ main.aspforum6@mogaha.go.kr

15 June 2005 The Government IT Summit Seattle, Washington, USA http://www.fcw.com/events/itsummit/ 20-23 June 2005 EEE’05- The 2005 International Conference on e-Business, Enterprise Information Systems, e-Government, and Outsourcing Nevada, USA http://www.world-academy-ofscience.org/WCAC2005/ws/EEE 21-22 June 2005 Government Computing Exhibition and Conference London, U.K. http://www.gcexpo.com/

17 August 2005 itsGov Technology Showcase: Technology Buying at Year-End Washington DC, USA http://www.itsgov.com/ 19-22 September 2005 GTC East 2005 Seventeenth Annual Government Technology Conference Albany, New York , USA http://www.govtech.net/gtc/ ?pg=conference&confid=230 20 September 2005 IDeA e-champions network annual conference and exhibition 2005 Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster http://www.idea-knowledge.gov.uk/idk/ corepage.do?pageId=1700346#annual2005 e-champions@idea.gov.uk 3-5 October 2005, Conflux THE E-GOVERNANCE CONFERENCE India International Centre New Delhi, India http://www.egov.csdms.in/ paper1.php [conference details] http://www.egov.csdms.in/ paper2.php [call for papers] 3 - 5 October 2005 CollECTeR LatAm 2005 Talca, Chile http://ing.utalca.cl/collecter/papers.php

27-30 June 2005 IADIS International Conference e-Society 2005 Qawra, Malta Island http://www.iadis.org/es2005/

10 October 2005 eGovernment Conference 2005 An IDG Event Rome, Italy http://careers.idg.com/www IDGProducts.nsf/0/b0799a03066941 cb00256fea006afa0b?OpenDocument infoevents@idc.com

13 July 2005 London e-Government Conference 2005 London, U.K. http://govnet.co.uk/london/

19-21 October 2005 eChallenges 2005 Slovenia, Austria http://www.echallenges.org/2005/ www.egov.csdms.in |