ICT Policy 2011: November 2011

“Milestone 2011�

Revenue $88b Employment 2.5m

Export oriented Metrocentric

Target 2020 Rural connectivity e-Literacy Electronic Service Delivery

ICT

Policy 2011 Roadmap for India 2020

15-17 December, 2011 | Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar, Gujarat

Cloud Computing Employment 12.5M Revenue 300B

Building the e-Way to Development

T

he government has been quite active on the policy front lately, having released a triad of policy drafts for the ICTE sector – the National Telecom Policy, the National Policy on Electronics and the National Policy on ICT. Together, it is claimed, the policies aim at facilitating “the application of technology-enabled approaches to overcome developmental challenges” and to “harness the power and capability of India in ICT to meet global demand”. Another important development has been the release of the Draft National Framework on e-Authentication that would provide a common set of guidelines for ensuring secure access to government services over a variety of channels.

The combination of Information and Communications Technology and Electronics (ICTE) has the potential to script the journey of India’s future across the various sectors of the economy, besides transforming both the society and the government.

The Draft ICT Policy recognizes the role of ICT as a tool of empowerment. The overall objective of raising total revenues from the IT and ITES Industry to USD 300 billion by 2020 ties well with the targets for the electronics sector laid down in the National Skill Development Mission and the policy direction suggested in the Approach Paper to the Twelfth Plan. We would now need well-thought out plans to attract and promote investments in the sector, with the objectives of taking Indian IT higher up the value ladder, making the industry less export-dependent and encouraging its geographical spread to smaller urban centres.

Leveraging of IT and telecom applications for boosting the structural foundations of the economy would go a long way in realising the potential of 21st century India. The Draft National e-Authentication Framework that is employing internet and mobile communication tools to streamline public service delivery in a safe and transparent mode would go a long way in improving the penetration and acceptability of e-Governance initiatives.

2011 has been an eventful year, where long-established regimes have been brought down and democracy has become participatory as seldom before. The role that new age technologies have played in ushering in these exciting times can hardly be overemphasised. As this momentous year comes to a close, representatives from a cross section of governments, industry, civil society and academia converge at Gandhinagar to celebrate the 7th eIndia 2011. Besides providing an unparalled platform for knowledge sharing and networking, the conclave would offer recognition and awards to those who have devoted their life and achieved their fullest to put the use of ICT into every possible domain and making public life richer, easier and more transparent.

ravi guptA Ravi.Gupta@elets.in

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Contents November 2011

second grid grid name issue 11 n volume 07

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spotlight Helping Scientists Undertake Research EU-IndiaGrid2 cooperative experiments

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event Technology Intervention in Governance The 8th ASSOCHAM International Summit on e-Governance

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event 8 th ICEG and 3 rd KSS – Discussing eGov 2.0 Two-day conference and academic session on e-Governance

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event Internet as a Catalyst for Change

08 | cover story

The Big Indian IT Dream

Key outcomes of the sixth Internet Governance Forum

The introduction of the National ICT Policy (draft) is giving rise to a lot of hope as well as questions as to how it will leverage the whole IT sector’s growth for the economic as well as social empowerment of the country. Whereas the draft policy is just the starting point, it surely makes one aware that the mission has atleast started!

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interview Nivedan Sahani Tata Teleservices VP in conversation with eGov

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04

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Project Update Cross-Border Electronic Access Status review of the e-Passport project

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opinion A CEO for Mumbai?

special feature Online Services in a Safe Mode

A futuristic idea for a leader armed with cutting edge ICT

The National e-Authentication Framework explained

egov / www.egovonline.net / November 2011

further reading Editorial 03 india News 13 industry News 19 world News 33

November 2011 issue 11 n volume 07

President Dr M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief: Dr Ravi Gupta GM Finance Ajit Kumar DGM Strategy: Raghav Mittal Programme Specialist: Dr Rajeshree Dutta Kumar

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partnerships & Alliances Sheena Joseph, Shuchi Smita, Ankita Verma EDITORIAL Divya Chawla, Rachita Jha, Dhirendra Pratap Singh, Sonam Gulati, Pragya Gupta, Shally Makin (editorial@elets.in)

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“How well do we know our farmers?”

The questions raised by Mr Moni are very relavant. Moreover, our farmers cannot read or write in their own language, hence message for them should be audible in the local language.

by DR R P Saxena, Director, IPEC

It is a giant leap and if the power of IT is truly harnessed this is a guarantee to sustainable economic growth. Su tained efforts towards improving anci lary services and capacity to use these computers is required

This a very good article, in India now we have urgent need for betterment for farmers to create a good database.

by Anjum

by Vipin Khanna

It is a timely effort. It is necessary in other flood prone cities of India like Guwahati on priority basis.

Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi, with support of Department of Administrative Reforms, Govt of India and with IIT Delhi as knowledge partners is working on ‘Evolving a citizen-centric e-governance framework’. The effort is based on detailed study and analysis of select ICT/e-governance initiatives already implemented in the country. It is expected to uncover existing gaps between the literature insights on citizen-centricity and its actual implementation and then propose a citizen-friendly and inclusive design approach for e-governance.

by D Barkataki

by Dr Charru Malhotra

“Delhi Geographical Spatial Data Infrastructure Act 2011 to Come by November 15” We should be have a common database to be shared by all the departments so that we can save a lot of resources and have accurate data

by Nagamani

Correspondence egov – G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA–201 301, India Phone: +91-120-2502181-85 Fax: +91-120-2500060 Email: info@egovonline.net

“Bangladesh Uncovers World’s Cheapest Laptop”

“Change yet to be felt by Citizens”

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Owner, Publisher, Printer: Ravi Gupta, Printed at Vinayak Print Media Pvt. Ltd, D-320, Sector-10, Noida, U.P. and published from 710 Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50 Noida, UP Editor: Ravi Gupta © All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic and mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage or retrieval system, without publisher’s permission.

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egov / www.egovonline.net / November 2011

Corrigendum In the October Issue of eGov, the Company Profile of Vennfer carried incorrect information in the achievements section. The correct version is on page 36. The picture in company profile of NIIT Technologies is of Arvind Mehrotra, President-Asia Pacific. The correct version is on page 38. The errors are highly regretted.

cover story

The Big Indian IT

Dream

it-empowerment The introduction of the Draft National ICT Policy is giving rise to a lot of hope as well as questions as to how it will leverage the IT sector’s growth for the economic as well as social empowerment of the country. Whereas the draft policy is just the starting point, it surely makes one aware that the mission has atleast started!

By Sonam Gulati

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ahead

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T

he Indian IT sector is touted as one of the most successful and rapidly growing ones. The Indian IT industry is a US $ 88 billion industry (20102011) with 80 percent of its revenues coming from exports. Also, the sector is one of the main employers of the nation. It currently employs 2.5 million skilled people all over the country.

It is this strong position of the sector that makes it almost indispensable to have a national level framework to define goals, objectives and vision for the better utilization of the success and scope of IT services.

The National ICT Policy (draft) released recently by Kapil Sibal, Minister of Communications and Information Technology aims to “Maximally leverage the power of ICT to help address monumental economic and developmental challenges the country faces.”

The much needed ICT policy outlines various objectives that the government aims to achieve by promoting the adoption and betterment of Information and Communication Technology tools all over the nation and in all the different sectors. This draft of the policy has been released after some rounds of consultation and currently is available on the internet for public’s suggestions/feedback. The underlying important point here is that we now have a base ready on which the colossal IT framework may be built.

The thrust areas of the policy include Though just in draft stage, the National ICT policy makes one thing clear, India is not taking this IT industry for granted and we are certainly nowhere near saturation.

National IT Policy: A panacea for all ailments?

Our aggrieved economy needs that strong push if the alleged US recession is as near as experts say. Seeing that most of the IT revenue comes from exports if the world is hit by another recession India needs to be prepared to deal with it and a large scale policy might give that support and preparedness for retaining grounds in difficult times.

The vision of the policy is “To strengthen and enhance India’s position as the Global IT hub and to use IT as an engine for rapid, inclusive and sustainable growth in the national economy.”

The policy which was initiated earlier this year talks about some high-end goals which if achieved will put India at a permanent place on the world map as a distinguished, IT-enabled economy. Aiming to raise the revenues from IT and ITES industry to $300 billion by 2020 from $88 billion at present, the draft also maintains to mandate provision of all government services through electronic mode within a fixed time frame by enactment of the Electronic Delivery of Services (EDS) Bill.

Kapil Sibal, while unveiling the policy said, “Our objective from this policy is to increase

l To extend NeGP, mandate provision of all government services through electronic mode within a fixed time frame by enactment of the electronic delivery of services bill l To enhance transparency, accountability, efficiency, reliability and decentralization in government and in particular, in delivery of public services l To increase revenues of IT and ITES Industry to $300 billion by 2020 l To make at least one individual in every household e-literate l To formulate fiscal and other policies to attract investment in IT Industry in Tier II and Tier III cities; l To promote innovation and R&D in cutting edge technologies and development of applications and solutions in areas like localization, location based services, mobile value added services, cloud computing, social media and utility models; l To provide fiscal benefits to SMEs and start-ups in the key industrial sectors for adoption of IT in value creation; l To leverage internet, web and mobile technologies for developing new products, technologies and businesses; l To integrate internet-based and mobilebased delivery of services onto a common platform to enable seamless, ubiquitous, secure and personalized delivery of government and non-government services throughout the country; l To integrate Aadhaar, financial and location-based services into this integrated platform to foster an ecosystem for innovation in services. l To create a pool of 10 million additional skilled manpower in ICT; l To leverage ICT for key social sector initiatives like education, health, rural development and financial services to promote equity and quality; l To make India global hub for development of language technologies to encourage and facilitate development of content accessible in all Indian languages and thereby help bridge the digital divide; l To enable access of content and ICT applications by differently abled people to foster inclusive development; l To facilitate adoption of ICTs in key economic and strategic sectors to improve their competitiveness and productivity;

The Union Minister for Communications and IT, Kapil Sibal holding a Press Conference to announce draft National Policy on ICT-2011, in New Delhi

l To strengthen regulatory and security framework for ensuring a secure cyberspace ecosystem

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Industry Voices on National ICT Policy (Draft)

Ramsundar Papineni

“The IT draft policy is an inclusive one and an important step forward with its emphasis on specific technology areas other than IT outsourcing; an area in which India has established its credentials successfully over the last decade.

Over the last few years, we have seen phenomenal progress on mission critical e-governance projects but this momentum needs to be taken to the next level and replicated by all government services to enable rural citizens to harness the benefits of technology and to ensure the last mile connectivity at a grass root level. The success of IT Draft policy requires the government to work closely through public private partnership models and include more citizens in the fold using newer technologies such as broadband,3G, mobile number portability etc.” –Ramsundar Papineni, Director Sales, McAfee India

“The Draft ICT policy released by the Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Kapil Sibal, will definitely open up new opportunities for the IT and ICT sector. The way we look at and gauge the opportunity is increase in mobile apps usage consequent to increase in Smartphones, increase in data access any time anywhere- resulting in business productivity. Looking at the policy from a larger perspective we see a significant increase in the number of IT companies in tier 2 cities resulting in adoption of IT quickly in these cities. Rural India would benefit due to an increased internet penetration. eGovernance reach will increase and thus benefit more citizens particularly rural India.” - Raghu Kumar, CEO, Global Outlook

Tanmoy Chakrabarty

“Government’s policy should focus on use of IT for the common man and not on global marketshare. IT within the government organisations should be made mandatory nd so should be the expenditure on IT for the co mmon man. It is time we started focusing inwards and give attention to use of IT for internal growth and development. The policy designed by the Ministry should have extensive focus on improving service delivery through IT and thus make technology beneficial for the aam aadmi.” -Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Vice President & Head Global Government lndustry Group, TCS

revenues of IT and ITeS (IT-enabled services) industry from $88 billion at present to $300 billion by 2020 and expand exports from $59 billion at present to $200 billion by 2020 and to create a pool of 10 million additional skilled manpower.”

Cloud Burst?

Yet again, the Cloud is in the forefront when it comes to IT adoption future plans. So much has been said about the Cloud yet there is much more still not unveiled. So agreed Naveen Prakash, Prinicipal Analyst, Gartner, “Cloud Computing in India is still in a nascent stage. There is a lot of talk but much more is still to be achieved in terms of adoption and application. India can surely do a lot more in this particular technology.”

The ICT policy clearly laids out Cloud Computing as one of the main objectives for the coming decade- “to gain significant global market share in cloud based technologies,” it states.

On talking with Ashis Sanyal, eGov Consultant on the same, he said, “Worldwide acceptance of cloud computing technologies has slowed down a little bit recently. In India, campaigning for cloud computing by OEMs,

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System Integrators and Service Providers is in a good pace. However, considering the common psyche of the government departments, I feel that good use of cloud computing technologies in Public Sector, sharing of infrastructure, software etc will take some more time.”

Where all is well on focusing on global markets and increasing market share, a little more attention should be put on application of cloud within our own country. “It is time now to look at cloud computing to fast forward IT adoption and deploy more and more applications which will ultimately reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of computing as a whole. It time to focus on the domestic market,” said Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Vice President & Head Global Government lndustry Group, Tata Consultancy Services.

One of the objectives also puts stress on building R&D on technologies such as cloud computing, GIS, Mobile technologies, Language Technologies and more.

Mobility All the Way The policy draft seems to realise the crucial importance of mobility as a technology and as a medium to access services. One of the objectives of the draft are to gain significant market-

share in mobile-based value-added services.

In the Government sector, the authorities are waking up to the capacity and advantages of a better connected atmosphere. Recently, Rajya Sabha has announced that it is planning to go paperless by giving all the members tablets-a huge step towards mobile connectivity. In governance sector, more and more recognition is being given to agile mobility solutions. It is costeffective, quick and demands lesser manual work.

Internationally, telecom is keenly being recognised for not only connectivity but a major facilitator of socio-economic development.

In India alone the telecom market is the most booming with 100 million active mobile internet users projected over the next 5 years, India’s rapidly evolving enterprise mobility (EMM) market is likely to be $1 billion by mid-2015.

Taking these factors into account mobility and VAS are being touted as the next big thing and so is the objective to promote them in the coming years.

As we all know, in our country, mobile phone is the only medium by which we can reach the 1.2 billion population and thus promotion of the same is of the utmost importance. The draft policy also has several mention of mobile technology as well as promotion and development of Value-added services.

It is pertinent here to mention that few months back an exclusive mGovernance Policy draft was issued by the Department of Technology for public consultation. The goals, however much more specific and defined, are somewhere overlapping with the objectives of the ICT Policy. The same was clarified with Abhishek Singh, Director-eGovernance, DIT, Ministry of Communications and Information technology. He said, “The national ICT policy (Draft) is being prepared as an umbrella policy.

We have made provisions for sub-level policies under this one policy for various sectors. If we talk about the mGov Policy it will definitely be finalized simultaneously and promoted for the mGovernance agenda.”

Mobile governance highly depends on various factors and nationwide connectivity is the most important for it. Unfortunately there is no specific mention of how we envision enableing this connectivity in the policy. Also, the importance of mobile as a medium to deliver services has to be formally recognized which will happen when the Electronic Delivery of Services (EDS) Bill will be passed. Agreeing on this note, Ashis Sanyal said, “If EDS bill

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comes through in next 4-5 months time and with the planned 10 years timeline for implementation, then m-Gov policy will definitely get a big push forward. This is because the Draft Bill talks about “multi-channel delivery” of government services and mobile channel is one very important channel of delivery for that purpose. Therefore it is very important for the bill to go through to get the m-Gov policy to get quickly firmed up.”

The Vision The fact that our authorities have realized the importance of IT-enabled economy and taken some proactive steps towards it is a good sign displaying that we are serious to become an ITempowered nation and soon.

The policy has very ambitious objectives and it underlines the importance os IT in all sectors and for the economy as a whole. The policy aims at pushing IT adoption in SMEs and households also. One of the interesting objectives laid down in the policy is “To make at individual in least one every household e-literate.”

This objective portrays a long-term vision of the government wherein they aim to make every household e-enabled. It can be envisioned in a futuristic scenario where there is proper penetration of the broadband and connectivity and after that having one person e-literate will mean more people using e-services in a very effective manner thus more people utilizing the infrastructure that will be laid down now. “If this particular objective is materialized Then as a result there will be less number of commuters in the public transport, less number of two and four wheelers on the road, consequently less environmental pollution, saving of significant opportunity cost, time and effort for every individual, less crowding in the service delivery counters, less frustration for the government officials in meeting aggrieved citizens and so on. The list can be long and all would be towards better quality of life,” quipped Ashis Sanyal.

The policy also highlights the importance of National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) and aims at extending it in the coming years. NeGP has been able to put in place a lot of basic infrastructure for effective delivery of public services via electronic medium. “To extend the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) and mandate provision of all Government Services through Electronic mode within a fixed time frame by enactment of the Electronic Delivery

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egov / www.egovonline.net / November 2011

“It is an umbrella policy, we donot need to mention each and every macro or micro sector in the policy. Agriculture is a sector which will get its due importance in IT adoption and we are already working towards it,” Kapil SIbal, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, on being asked why there is no specific objective pertaining to IT adoption in Agricultural Sector Kapil SIbal “We have tried to include all those sectors in which we currently are not working. It is a holistic policy which will cover everything. In this policy we have provisions of making sub-level policies for many objectives, so one can say that this is one umbrella policy which will have all other policies like mGov, Cyber Security and more,” said Abhishek Singh on being asked about the existence of other policies and will they be subsumed in this policy in coming years

r chandrashekhar Secretary, DIT & DoT, MCIT

“This policy aims at increasing rural connectivity and rural penetration of ict products and services. We also aim to encourage local manufacturing of IT and telecom products keeping in mind the exponential growth we are going to witness in ict consumption in the country” of Services (EDS) Bill” states the policy as one of the objectives.

Abhishek Singh

Hope on the Horizon The market, experts as well civil society have welcomed this move of introducing three major policies this year namely, National Telecom Policy, National Electronics Policy and National ICT Policy. As R Chandrashekhar, Secreatary, Department of Information Technology & Department of Telecom, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology said, “All three are indispensably linked to one another and despite having exclusive policies cannot be viewed in isolation anymore. These are three interconnected sectors and thus government is viewing them together.” All these sectors have proven to be building blocks of our economy and are also together responsible for a lot of domestic development as well as global market share.

Department of Information Technology and Department of Telecommunications have together initiated these policies which are all currently in draft stage. “In India, policies are only a beginning and real challenge is implementation,” said Chandrashekar. Agreed, in our country we might take years for a draft policy to finally get into the shape of a Bill and then get passed in the Parliament and finally comes in the form of an Act, it might seem like a small step to initiate drafts of policies. However, the act that the policies have been initiated and we have moved towards achieving the ultimate goal of becoming a fully IT-empowered economy is itself worth cherishing.

A digitized India is well on its way and we will all witness history being created in front of us when India undergoes this digital transformation or which might be termed as IT revolution 2.0.

news e-Police

india

news

event

Punjab Police Goes Hi-Tech

In a bid to improve transparency and efficiency, the Police Department of Punjab has decided to go digital by this year.

As a part of pilot project, the Department has introduced new concepts of e-investigation, e-beat and e-challan that have been implemented only in Jalandhar, Ludhiana, SAS Nagar Mohali and Amritsar for now.

The use of IT in policing will help increase transparency, said Rajpal Sandhu, DCP (Crime), Jallandhar city.

He added that e-investigation would help in documenting all the evidence where photos and records of criminals will be uploaded on the server.

Mr. Sandhu went on to say that the idea of e-beat will help monitor each constable throughout his patrolling route. The beat officers would be provided with hi-tech mobile phones. The GPS system will help them to stay connected with the SHO and he/she would thus be able to upload and share data/photos through e-mails.

The shared data will remain available for the future references.

As far as e-challan is concerned, the officer told e-gov that records of challans will be digitized and fines would be paid online too.

Office Automation and Imaging Applications Improve Governance

Focusing on the deployment of Office Automation and Imaging Technologies to help in an inclusive and people centric growth of the economy, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organized a National Seminar titled “Empowering Inclusive Growth” in New Delhi on 4th October.

The inaugural session was held by B.K. Sinha, Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development who held that technological applications had led to an

unprecedented increase in the efficiency of government’s operations. He also said that the applications have helped reaching out to millions for several flagship government programs such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and The Unique Identification Authority project.

Dr. C. Chandramouli, Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, mused on increasing effeciency and time shortening function

of the applications. In his opening remarks, Kensaku Konishi, Chairman, CII Office Automation and Imaging Division and President and CEO, Canon India Pvt Limited said that the use of technologies is especially relevant to governmental institutions, given the stated objective of the 12th five year plan is to ensure more transparency in functioning of social sector schemes. e-Gov Magazine was the media partner of the knowledge sharing event.

policy

IT Policy 2011 Aims to Extend NeGP While unveiling the Draft National Policy on Information Technology, 2011; expansion of the National e-Governance Plan has been recognized as a key thrust area. The policy draft of Information Communications Technology (ICT) and Electronics sector was released by Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Kapil Sibal, here in New Delhi, on 7th of October.

Aiming to raise the revenues of IT and ITES industry to rise to $300 billion by 2010 from $88 billion at present, the draft also distinguished to mandate provision of all government services through electronic mode within a fixed time frame by enactment of the Electronic Delivery of Services (EDS) Bill. The policy also pondered over one more area of making at least one individual in every household e-literate.

-Detailed report on page 8

More than 200 Aadhaar Stations in Karnataka District Almost 225 Aadhaar (Unique Identification Number) card allotment stations will soon be set up in various parts of Mandya district in the state of Karnataka. D H Ravindra, Chief Executive of Centre for e-Governance, said

around 18 lakh people will be provided with Aadhaar cards within a short period of time. In the first stage, around 20 to 25 stations will be established in the district headquarters and will be extended to all taluk

headquarters. Later, stations will be established for each gram panchayat, he said.

Explaining how the UID card will be useful, he said, the state government alone can save around Rs 3500 crore by doing away with unau-

thorized LPG and BPL card beneficiaries. A person who has the UID card can identify himself anywhere in the country with his 12 digital numbers. This number will help him to avail benefits of government schemes and

also can be used for multiple purposes he said.

Ravindra appealed to the media to educate people that the service of allotting the UID card is free and that there is no need to employ middlemen.

November 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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news

india

online tax

Manipur Dealers to Pay VAT Online State government of Manipur has recently launched e-service facility to enable payment of Value Added Tax (VAT) and registration through the internet. The facility was launched at a function held at the Taxation office by the Sazad Hassan, Commissioner, Taxation and RK Khurkishwar, Nodal officer, VAT Computerization. Dealers and businessmen of zone I and II who have registered under the Department of Taxes will be able to receive this facility.

The programme has been taken up by the Department of Taxation, GoM under the Mission Mode Project of Commercial Tax (MNP-CT).

The VAT computerization works is a key governance initiative taken up under the National e-Governance Plan by the Commercial Tax mission Mode Programme of the Central government. social media

Click on Facebook to Like Lucknow Police!

After Delhi Police opened up its official page on the Facebook site, now the Lucknow Police have followed the same lead. In a bid to expand its reach to the public, the police force of Lucknow city has come up with a page on the social networking site. The page would serve the public and also redress the grievances online. Lucknow Police could be reached through the site and after investigation, if necessary, an FIR would be registered, said a senior police official.

The official added that the page would be having mobile and landline numbers of all the police stations and senior officers of the city. People can also lodge complaint against erring police officers on the page. The Facebook account is generating encouraging response from the public, he said.

Orissa IT Minister Launches District Website Helping the common citizens and will help one to get information about their district, Orissa IT, Minister Ramesh Chandra Majhi recently inaugurated a new website for Nabarangpur district.

At the inauguration, Majhi said, “The portal will help the common citizens and will help one to get information about the district. One can easily obtain forms, data of the district. Information technology aims to develop human resources, public communication, trade and commerce and reaching technology people’s doors. He pledged the new generation to build a digital Orissa.

Government will help IT reach the common citizen so as to narrow down the digital divide.

Widespread applications of IT would establish a system where the citizens will receive good governance ensuring speed of decisions from a transparent Government through an effective e-Governance System.”

geo-spatial data

Delhi Geographical Spatial Data Infrastructure Act 2011 to Come by November 15 All departments and civic agencies in Delhi would be expected to share information on the status of the projects and also update the capital’s spatial database on a monthly basis - under the soon to come - Delhi Geographical Spatial Data Infrastructure Act 2011. The government is preparing to implement the act from November 15. The database, an interconnected 3D global information system, captures the demographics of the capital and utilities like storm water drains, sewer lines, roads, infrastructure and urban planning projects through secured communication networks.

Geospatial Delhi Limited, with the chief secretary of Delhi as its chairman, will be in charge of maintaining and updating the database. Constituted about two years ago, the company has now sought applications from experts trained in handling the specialized database. It proposes to hire 30 to 40 geo-spatial advisers on contract for one year. The information technology secretary, Rajendra Kumar, said that once the Delhi Geographical Spatial Data Infrastructure (Management, Control, Administration, Security and Safety) Act, 2011, was implemented, all departments would be expected to share information on the status of the projects and also update the database on a monthly basis. Each department and civic agency will have a dedicated section where the database can be accessed and updated.

Better Services to the Pensioners The Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare has been implementing a web based Mission Mode Project namely “Pensioners’ Portal” under the National e-Governance Plan since March, 2007. Under the same, the Department has Centralized Pension Grievance Redressal and Monitor-

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ing System (CPGRAMS) vide which the pension related grievances of various Ministries are forwarded to the respective Ministries/Department for early redressal.

The department with the help of NIC has developed an updated version of CPGRAMS, which is based on integration of the data base of

egov / www.egovonline.net / November 2011

CPGRAMS, under the administrative control of Department of AR&PG and the CPENGRAMS, administered by Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare. Now, the pension related grievances will be combined with other grievances and therefore receipt from multiple sources will

not be there for the Ministries/ Departments.

This will also facilitate disposal of grievances for all Ministries/ Departments who can now log on to CPGRAMS and look into the pension grievances. Earlier they had to log on to CPENGRAMS & CPGRAMS separately.

Project Update

passports

Cross-Border Electronic Access India is on the way to initiate electronic travel documents like biometric passports, e-Visas and other immigration processes are all being revamped.

It is another project aimed at reducing personal interface and corruption. The way we travel will never be the same again

By Sonam Gulati

W

hile much has been said about transforming the current services into e-Services and many have already been through that transformation, passports is one area where we keep hearing a lot of things and yet have not seen much happening.

On one hand, the status is largely ambiguous for the electronic passports or visas, on the other hand even less is known on what the normal passport that we get today will change into. Passport is one document that gives you identity and nationality, both, yet it is one of those documents that are not compulsory to possess. In the case of passport one who needs to travel abroad mostly gets it made. A lot of it is also due to the cumbersome process of getting it made.

As an MMP The ‘Passport Seva Project’ was launched by the Ministry of External Affairs under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), with the aim of delivering passport services to the citizens without any hassles and with wider accessibility and reliability. The project envisaged setting up of 77 Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) across the country, a Data Centre and Disaster Recovery Centre, call centre operating 18x7 in 17 languages, and a centralised nationwide computerised system for issuance of passports. The entire operation will function in a “less paper” environment with an attempt being made to deliver passports within 3 working days to categories not requiring police verification.

This is the ideal scenario which has been kept as a benchmark. Tata Consultancy Servies (TCS) has been the private partner in this undertaking and as per the agreement TCS is to develop the software and will operate the front-end of the ‘Passport Seva Kendras’ but the back-end operations dealing with ‘sensitive information’ will remain in government hands. The project was estimated to cost over INR 1 billion.

All this has come to pass due to current complicated process of getting a passport made, which takes anywhere between 1 month (minimum) to several months. The main reason behind this can be complacency or serious gaps in the process. Noting the problems the citizens are facing the government duly acknowledged it by including it in the NeGP as a MMP. But, all said and done, the MMP is running over two years late since its first deadline was in June 2009.

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“Biometric Why did the government feel the need to have biometric travel documents?

Due to growing security threats and consistently increasing number of illegal migrants the need of a proper mechanism for monitoring and checking on these things came to the fore. We needed a total revamp of the current structure of travel documentspassport, visa, immigration documents etc.

This revamp consisted of three steps as envisioned by the authorities- firstly, how to how to ensure that all visas are unique that is the visas cannot be duplicated and misused. As I told earlier, this step is already in process and biometric visas are up and running in various parts of country. Next step was identified as how to ensure that the passports cannot be forged, this is currently in progress with the e-Passport or biometric passports being processed. Third step is how the information related to a person can be centralised yet not compromised. This step is not a very difficult as through ICT it is conceivable to integrate information in all the different departments like airports, immigration offices, ministries, etc.

So presently we are actively working for biometric passports.

passports

Tanmoy Chakrabarty

Status Quo As part of ‘passport reforms’ a website has been developed which deals exclusively with passport applications. Citizens can also download the form from the website and take a print out of the filled out application form and submit it along with all the relevant documents to the respective passport office. The website has all the details regarding passport application, laws, passport act/rules, FAQs and much more.

Some of the new developments which are citizen friendly include acceptance of forms without attestation of gazetted officers and with cash application fee. The new passport project aims at easing the whole process for the applicants.

In the MMP, the Passport Seva Kendras (PSK) are being developed in 77 districts and their role is to act as passport form collection centres.

Instead of the Passport Office one can go to these PSKs and submit their application for fresh passports, renewal or any such requirement.

The slow pace of work has received a lot of flak

Project Update

Vice President-Government Industry Solutions, TCS

“One has to understand all the implications of such a large-scale project. As of now the project has completed its pilot phase and is undergoing the rollout phase” from all stakeholders as it is running way behind the schedule. TCS, which is the private partner for the project has been in news regarding the delay.

When asked to comment on the same, Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Vice President-Government Industry Solutions, TCS remarked, “The project has been delayed and we are aware of it but one has to understand all the implications of such a large-scale project. As of now

the project has completed its pilot phase and is undergoing the rollout phase.”

The pilot phase as he informed includes establishment of the PSKs in selected 7 districts. “We have already started the PSKs successfully in seven cities- Mangalore, Bangalore, Hubli, Chandigarh, Patiala, Amritsar, Ludhiana.” The delays that occurred have been rumoured to be due to technical defaults.

visas are already up and running and you will see e-Passports also very soon” Who are the main stakeholders and what is the role of private sector?

It is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and TCS is our private stakeholder in the Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) Project. Other stake holders are NIC: Government IT Support for the project, Security Press of India: Printing of all electronic passports and documents, Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs. The role of TCS is developing and managing the front-end operations of the 77 PSKs. All the back-end sensitive work will be done by NIC. It is going to be huge transition for the authorities as well, how well are they prepared? What is being done for the capacity building of the officials at the airport, immigration offices and checking posts to deal with electronic travel documents?

Yes, it is a huge transformation for us and we are aware of the problems that the officials might face initially. The capacity building has been started and is being taken care of by the MHA. Like every new project it will take some time to fully come in process but in time it will become one of the best systems and would help us achieving the objectives laid down.

we are only trying to ensure that the glitches are overcome before it becomes operational and not the other way round.

Amrendra Khatua, Joint Secretary, ConsularPassport and Visa, Ministry of External Affairs You must have been asked the question many times, but, why is the project running so late?

Are there any serious issues being faced?

There is nothing like that, it’s a huge project of over INR 1 billion so there are lot of things to be taken care of. Such large scale projects require many notifications, consultations and approvals. Being said that, I would also say that the project is in its advanced stages and awaiting approvals and nods from various authorities. In fact, as you know, the pilot of PSK project has already started in seven cities. So, yes, we are taking more time but in that

What are the various factors that need to be kept in mind for such huge a project and re-engineering of a whole system?

Selection of software is critical so that the software is protected and no information is compromised.

Another caution factor here is the creation of infrastructure at airports and ICPs. The infrastructure is crucial because it is a new system which will encompass all sorts of new systems and processes.

Integration of information horizontally and vertically is another critical factor as unless there is integration of information the process can become haphazard. So much and more factors are there, small and big, that need to be constantly checked on various stages.

UID Project is the subject of every discussion. Is there a possibility of linking e-Passports, e-Visas with UID since both are based on biometric identification?

Not really. UID is strictly identity whereas passport is nationality and I don’t think we can link it. But again we can’t say about future, as of now, there is no such plan.

November 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

17

Project Update

passports

The latest news which has been announced is regarding developing of three new PSKs- two in Delhi and one being in Gurgaon.

“As far as PSKs are concerned they are being allotted the aim of expediting the process of passport applications and to streamline it. In these PSKs the police verification might also be included. You cannot pinpoint one reason for delay of such large-scale projects. It will most likely be fully functional this year,” said Amrendra Khatua, Joint Secretary, Consular, Passport and Visa, MEA on being asked about the Passport Seva Kendra Project.

“Getting a passport made is one of the major tasks today that we as citizens face. If only the process was made more transparent with less number of stages to it. However, we are seeing positive transition happening through the online application and hope it continues with the whole process becoming more accessible,” said Vijay Parashar, a bank employee.

And then there is e-Passport In simple words, e-Passport is our very own passport with a biometric chip embedded in it to store details such as fingerprints, iris scan or other such biometric proof that is unique to a person. e-Passports are a parallel project of the Ministry of External Affairs and it is aimed to finally replace all the old passports with this new breed in time. e-Passports are being introduced because of various reasons, security, monitoring and upgradation being some of these.

“Due to growing state of security concerns we decided to take help of electronic technology for passports, visas and all such documents.

This decision was taken almost three years back in a interministerial meeting between Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs,” informed Amrendra Khatua, Joint Secretary, Consular, Passport and Visa, MEA. This project is being implemented under another MMP of the NeGP called Immigration, Visa and Foreigners Registeration and Tracking (IVFRT).

In order to modernise and upgrade the Immigration services IVFRT has been identified and included as one of the MMPs to be undertaken by the Ministry of Home Affairs under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). The core objective of this project is to develop and implement a secure and integrated service delivery framework that facilitates legitimate travelers while strengthening security. The project includes 169 Missions, 77 ICPs

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“e-Passports are in the final stage prior to implementation and are awaiting consultations and approvals from various concerned departments and Ministries”

(Immigration Check Posts), 5 FRROs (Foreigners Regional Registration Offices), and FROs (Foreigners Registration Offices) in the State/ District Headquarters. The implementation of this MMP will enable authentication of traveler’s identity at the Missions, ICPs and FROs through use of intelligent document scanners and biometrics, updation of foreigner’s details at entry and exit points, improved tracking of foreigner’s through sharing of information captured during visa issuance at Missions, during immigration check at ICPs, and during registration at FRRO/ FROs. Understandably, e-Passport is a part of this initiative and as of now is in the finals stage of implementation. “e-Passports are in the final stage prior to implementation and are awaiting consultations and approvals from various concerned departments and Ministries, however, biometric visas are already up and running and have been provided to many diplomats as a kind of pilot,” said Amrendra Khatua.

“Five years back the usage of biometrics was not at a very impressive scale. Over time it has increased due to increase in awareness as well as reduction in cost. Today biometrics is a very affordable means for identity management, especially the fingerprint recognition mode.

However, if you talk about government projects like e-Passport cost is never a factor there as security concerns are much more serious and thus affordability is never an issue,” said Ranjit Nambiar, Director of Sales - South Asia, HID Global on commenting the feasibility and affordability of such a project in India.

World View Worldwide, there are many countries who already possess biometric and smart technology enabled systems for tracking movement in and out of the countries.

A very big step in this regard has been the Visa Waiver Program by the United States. This programme enables nationals of 36 participating countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business (visitor [B] visa purposes only) for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa.

The program was established to eliminate unnecessary barriers to travel, stimulating the tourism industry, and permitting the Department of State to focus consular resources in other areas. It is related to biometric passports in a way that as part of the participating countries in this agreement biometric passports and visas are mandatory. As part of this project many countries have developed biometric passports and visas. Out of 36 countries in the VWP some of the South Asian countries are Japan, South Korea, Brunei, and Singapore.

What does the Future hold?

As of now PSKs are being seen as the next development to speed up the process of passport acquisition. In near future though, e-Passports are progressing to become our new reality and asset. e-Passports will enable better monitoring of movement in and around the nation and also ensure a speedy process of travelling. Yes, it will take time to come into action, it will be difficult to transit to electronic documents but once the transition comes through it will be a tool in our hands and make our nation a notch higher on the pedestal of development.

Though there is no specific deadline and as MEA states the projects of this large spectrum need a lot of consultation and approvals even after the major tasks are done and thus sometimes run behind schedule but nevertheless, the future looks quite tech-savvy. What is left to see is what we make of it. Will the project be another unfulfilled dream or turn into a reality?

industry

TCS to Automate Karnataka Treasury Department Karnataka government has signed an MoU with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to roll out Khajane II, a project aimed at bringing greater transparency and efficiency in financial management of the Treasury Department.

The project would be implemented on a pilot basis at 10 centres of the Treasury Department from April 2012 and would be extended to the entire state by 2013.

“The project will benefit citizens in paying their taxes, fees for various services; monitor their contributions to pension funds, and insurance schemes of the state government,” Finance Department Principal Secretary, NV Nagarajan said.

Khajane II will cover about 24,000 disbursing centres of the Treasury Department helping realtime clearance of about 40 lakh vouchers, 80 lakh challans, pension of lakhs of retired government employees and salaries of over six lakh state government employees. It will bring in tighter integration between various wings of government and also network external agencies like the Accountant General’s office, Reserve Bank of India, commercial banks and post offices.

Treasuries and banks will be able to interact online through a secured network and share information.

news

RTI

social networking

Helping the common man file an RTI application in an easier way is soon to be reality, with the state government of Karnataka is planning to come up with BPO for filing the RTI applications.

However, the project for the set up is still awaiting cabinet approval.

CMC Limited, a Tata group company, had won the bid for setting up a BPO for the process and a letter of intent was also given. According to state government officials, the project is a Rs 7 crore project. Companies like CMC Ltd, Mindtree, Aditya Birla Minacs Worldwide Ltd and Wipro had participated in the bidding. Karnataka presently sees around 60,000 to 65,000 RTI filings every year.

The new BPO centre will help a person file an RTI both in Kannada and English.

Under the initiative, anybody can file an RTI application relating to all government departments and corporations in the state over phone.

SAP India announced the availability of ChariTra, an on-demand network created by SAP Labs in India that connects volunteers, non-profits and corporations to work together toward causes and make a difference in their communities. An abbreviation of “charity transformation,” ChariTra was designed and released by the SAP Labs team in India within 90 days. ChariTra enables nonprofits to post their resource needs to a large community of people who want to help make a difference and to mobilize volunteers and resources toward a specific activity. For individuals and corporations, ChariTra allows them to easily find causes that they want to support, connect with non-profits and other like-minded individuals, and share their experiences and outcomes with others.

ChariTra recently enabled over 50 non-profits and thousands of volunteers throughout India’s Joy of Giving week, a nationwide event during which millions of people volunteered their time and resources to many causes.

For example, HOPE child care center needed volunteers and had success using ChariTra to find resources to help.

Initially debuted to the India market, ChariTra will soon be launched globally.

CMC to Build BPO for RTI Filing in Karnataka

SAP Unveils ChariTra, an On-Demand Network for NGOs

Smart ID and Cross Match Bag Approval for India’s UID Program Smart Identity Devices Pvt. Ltd. (Smart ID) has announced that it has been certified as one of the first suppliers of biometric devices for India’s unique identification (UID) program along with its technology partner, Cross Match Technologies.

Smart ID received the Certificate of Approval for Cross Match’s rugged and dependable Guardian fingerprint capture device and the I SCAN dual iris capture device on October 7, 2011. Both systems utilise Cross Match’s patented Auto Capture feature, which quickly captures high-quality images with minimal

operator involvement. The Certificate of Approval, which is valid for three years, was issued after completion of all tests required to demonstrate compliance with the quality requirements of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). The certification body consists of the Standardization, Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) Directorate of the Government of India’s Department of Information Technology (DIT) and the UIDAI. The tests performed by the STQC included the following criteria: Physical & Dimensional, Image

Quality, Environmental (Durability /Climatic), Safety, EMI/ EMC, Security, Functional, Performance, Interoperability, Ease of Use & Ergonomics.

Smart ID along with Cross Match was also the first company to receive the Provisional Certificate

for use in the UID program in September, 2010.

This certificate marked the first step of the certification process and was the prerequisite for the deployment of thousands of fingerprint and iris scanners currently used for the enrollment process of the UID program.

November 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

19

news

industry

India IT Sector High on PC Sales Time to smile for PC makers, as the annual sales figures for 2010-11 annual are pretty close to 10-million mark, according to Industry Performance Review for the Financial Year 2010-11, conducted

by Manufacturers’

Association for Information Technology.

The apex body representing India’s IT hardware vendors found that in the second successive quarter, PC sales saw a double-digit growth of 16 pe cent, Netbooks pegged 0.3 mil-

e-Healthcare

Karnataka District Joins Hands with Cisco to Pilot Remote Healthcare Cisco has announced the launch of its Cisco healthcare solution pilot program to enable remote healthcare for two Primary Healthcare Centers from the district hospital in Shimoga District. The Chief Minister of Karnataka, Shri D.V Sadananda Gowda, and Aravind Sitaraman, President of Inclusive Growth, Cisco, attended the event.

With this project, Cisco advances its Inclusive Growth vision of using technology to bridge the urban-rural gap. Earlier this year, Cisco launched the initiative so that rural communities can get access to essential urban services like healthcare, education, a marketplace and access to public services through technology and bring them into the mainstream economy. Using the network as a platform, these services can bring about transformational change and greatly reduce the urban-rural divide.

Last year, Cisco introduced its healthcare solution in its corporate social responsibility project -- Samudaya -- to enable access to remote healthcare to flood-affected people of Raichur on a proof-of-concept basis. So far, using the medical services of RxDx multispecialty hospital in Bangalore, this technology has enabled remote consultation for over 850 patients.

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egov / www.egovonline.net / November 2011

lion sales for the first time and printer sales recorded double digit growth of 15 percent. The study has given specific findings in Notebook market, Desktop market, Servers, peripherals and Internet.

The annual MAIT Industry Performance Review is a syndicated end-user based study on the IT hardware market conducted by the eTechnology Group of IMRB International since 199697. The study is based on over 15,000 face-to-face interviews with end-users spread over 17 cities, with data projected to the ‘all India urban market’.

e-gov portal

Accenture to Roll out Sikkim e-Gov Portal Leading IT consultancy firm Accenture has been awarded a contract by the Sikkim government to create internet access to government services, streamlining efficiency and reducing administrative functions.

Accenture will leverage its expertise in technology and leading large-scale implementation efforts to create an Internet-based system -- a new communications channel that will enable collaboration by state Departments, standardization of information and increased efficiency of service delivery to citizens and businesses. In the contract the completion deadline is 42 months with effect from September. The portal will facilitate improved delivery of information to citizens and businesses and monitoring of services over the internet. Accenture is a global management consulting and technology consulting and outsourcing company. It is the largest consulting firm in the world.

power

Punjab Power Dept. Goes into Electronic Mode

In a bid to curb redtapism and make operations swift, Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) has switched to electronicmode. All departments of PSPCL have been interlinked with Internet and official e-mail IDs have made of all senior officials.

From now onwards all kinds of official tenders, orders and communica-

tions will be floated online through e-mails and on the official website of the department.

“We have directed all our employees to use official e-mail IDs for any kind of communication.

It would save paper, time and manpower. All employees have been directed to check their e-mails at least twice in a day,” PSPCL Human

Resource Department Director HS Seth said.

“We have decided to use our official website to interact with public and to disseminate useful information among masses.

We have drafted our own IT policy and it will be implemented in full spirits,” he added. As per its new IT policy, PSPCL has decided to upload all circulars regarding opening of tenders, transfer orders and other communications on the website and they could be downloaded anywhere anytime. Internet connections with computer systems or laptops have been provided to most of the senior employees of PSPCL.

special feature

e-authentication

Online Services

in a Safe Mode

With the employment of internet and mobile communication tools, the government is aiming to build a transparent, easy and user-friendly mechanism for rendering public services to the citizens. One of its attempts can be clearly envisioned in its – round the corner - ‘National e-Authentication’ framework

By Inder Kumar

A

s the government feels the need of a model to streamline its critical information exchange, that too in a secure manner, hence, here comes into effect - a model of e-Authentication framework. Planned to be spread out across the nation, the very new model lays down the taking up of technology use for safer transactions and for paperless & seamless exchange of information by using a single dedicated identity profile. The model enables to use a single window system for multiple government services.

National e-Authentication framework is only a means to avail the government services. It serves as a platform between a user (the one who is seeking public services) and the concerned department

What is e-Authentication?

Electronic Authentication (or “e-Authentication”) is the process of electronic verification of digital identity of a user. The user is a person who accesses the government

22

services online or through mobile.

It will be implemented using credentials, each of which is composed of a User ID and Password. It also incorporates

egov / www.egovonline.net / November 2011

one or more methods of authentication to verify the user, including passwords, digital certificates or hardware or software tokens.

(provider of the services). It acts as a policy/ framework that will be presented to various government departments for authenticating their services and enabling transactions in a secure, paperless & transparent manner. It is beneficial both for the public and the departments as well.

According to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of The Centre for Internet and Society, based in Bangalore, “the framework is quite different from other programs falling into the e-governance domain”.

For an example, where objective of the UID was to make citizenship to the government, on the other hand, this framework aims to enable government transactions transparent to the citizen. He added that the single authentication system is going to be very useful and should have support for digital signature for information or services, coming under higher sensitivity level. Having said that many countries have implemented this system, he said that even India should adopt this policy.

e-authentication

Why e-Authentication?

The border question that strikes the mind is what is the need for this kind of framework?

Answering this in an interesting manner, Dr. Rajendra Kumar, Director (Projects) at National e-Governance Division - who initiated the entire cocneptualisation, got this draft prepared and released it for the consultation – says that the need for a platform where one can avail government services with a single login ID and Password and giving citizens an unique experience to avail facilities in a trustworthy & a user-friendly manner resulted in the coming up of the draft.

He added that the other factors considered to devise this framework were bringing more transparency in government services, presenting a cost-effective mechanism to the departments and forwarding a trustworthy platform for transactions. He went on to say that the mechanism would also help improve privacy and efficiency as well.

How e-Authentication Begins The framework begins with the registration of a user. This would be a one-time registration that would ensure the user should be allowed to avail government services. The step would authenticate the user through his/her digital identity and provide a secure way for the users to access the government services via electronic media (mobile/internet). The authentication would be followed by issuance of a credential that will be used in the e-Authentication process. Once the authentication is done, there comes the next step for authortisation.

One time Registration followed by Verifying Identity Loging ID-Password will be Issued Select Transanction Type Now Comes Authorisation Commenting on the step of authorisation, Dr. Rajendra Kumar said, “Authorisation is another level of authentication. It decides the type of service that a user can avail. Authori-

sation is the process of verifying that a known person has the authority to perform a certain operation on a given resource. Authentication, therefore, must precede authorization”.

Authorisation is required for services that come under higher sensitivity level. Authorisation is the last milestone to reach the desired application.

Once Authorisation is Complete Access to Application “According to Draft National e-Authentication Framework, where Authentication checks is this the person he/she claims to be, and authorisation checks what is this person allowed to do.”

How it Secures Sensitive Information?

To define different levels of sensitivity levels for various services and guarding framework for those, Dr. Kumar said, “Different levels of services come under different sets of sensitivity. Therefore, it was decided to put different security levels for the different sensitivity sets.

Higher the sensitivity of a service, higher will be its security level.”

These are five levels of application sensitivity for web and mobile based applications ranging from Level 0 to Level 4 that help secure the information. The Level 0 is the lowest application sensitivity level whereas Level 4 is the highest. Level 0 will not require any form of authentication and will be used for providing public information over the web or mobile. All applications will therefore authenticate users using Level 1 authentication by default.

What about authenticating websites?

However, the task of authentication does not end with the access of application, while delivering the public services through online mode, it is not only important to authenticate the user for her/his identity, but it is also important to authenticate the website that the user is accessing for availing various public services.

Considering the number of phishing attacks that take place over the web every day, the user must be able to correctly identify that the

special feature

website that she/he has opened is actually the right website that it is claiming to be. Lack of appropriate security measures in ensuring the authenticity of websites may lead to the user revealing her/his personal credentials over a fake website, which can amount to severe financial and social losses to not only the user but also to the concerned department whose web interface was imitated for this purpose.

During the registration process, the user selects (or is assigned) a specific image and also some user defined text (optional) with user defined font and colour. The image is one of the potentially hundreds of available images and is intended to help the user distinguish the real web-site from an impostor. The actual process of authenticating the website is split into the following three steps:

User submits username (only) to the website Website shows the personal “watermark” image to verify that site is correct Password would be submitted only if image is correct • The user submits her/his username (only) to the website • The website shows the user with the personal “watermark” image (with text if supplied), allowing her/him to verify that she/ he is at the correct site.

• If the watermark image is correct, the user should enter her/his password to complete the login process. If the watermark image is not correct (or not shown), the user should not proceed as she/he is likely to be at a wrong/phishing website.

On the whole, there are multiple ways of ensuring website authentication with the help of hardware tokens, software tokens, biometrics, PKI etc. However, the need for a particular mechanism can be derived based on the level of criticality of a website as well as the profile of its user base in terms of their capabilities to use such mechanisms.

November 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

23

special feature

e-authentication

“Sensitivity Matrix” for identifying the right level of authentication for web/mobile based service:

Sensitivity Level

Level 0

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

User Experience

No inconvenience

Minimal inconvenience

Minor inconvenience

Significant inconvenience

Substantial inconvenience

Scenarios

Public information

Information with minimal impact in case of theft

Information having social impact but no financial/ security impact

Information having financial/security impact

Information having very high financial/security Impact

Examples

Election Results

Examination Results

Personally Identifiable Information (birth certificate, death certificate, land records etc.)

Financial Information (Bank Accounts), Service Impairment (such as IRCTC website being brought down)

National Security Information (CCTNS, RAW, CBI Cases, etc.)

Suggested Authentication Method

No Authentication required

Username-Password

Digital certificate/soft token for mobile-Username – Password + Q&A

Token along with Username and Password for mobile Username – Password + OTP

Two factor authentication: Biometric + Token / Username and Password

Fraud Management Layer Required

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Source: National e-Authentication Framework Draft

Role of IT Security in e-Authentication The framework would definitely give a boost to the role of Information Technology, where securing the data of different sensitivity level is going to be a tedious task and at the same time this is the domain where IT security tools come in and carry forward the task of the utmost importance.

IT Tools to be used in Authentication: LDAP v3 – Directory l X.509 certificate l Hardware/Software Token and OTP

Talking on the role of IT security, Dr. Kumar said, “managing different levels of sensitivity (in terms of technical development) was a big challenge.”

He added, “the role of IT security tools is very crucial in storing and managing the data in a secure way. The tools would help improve interface between the users and the government.

We are in talks with some corporate players for roping up for IT services.

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egov / www.egovonline.net / November 2011

This is a very good development that would encourage a lot of people, to register and apply for services online, who were earlier used to switch from one window to another, said Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Vice-President, Government Industry Solutions, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

He also said, “As the framework gets its hold, the focus will definitely shift to the need for IT security tools. Commenting on the fact that with the expansion of policy, the sensitive and confidential information will be stored and made accessible, Mr. Chakrabarty added that the center point, while implementing the program, will undoubtedly shift towards the security. The government would be seeking high-end security tools to secure the crucial information that caters to the public but can lead to catastrophic consequences, if falls into the wrong hands. Thus, the role of IT security tools undeniably gets the boost.

The VP also commented on what would be the TCS’s stand, if it is being approached by the government, to employ its technology in securing the framework practice. He responded by saying that we will definitely look forward to the opportunity. We will demonstrate out technology and tools that are rel-

evant to the agenda. We will also showcase our work that we have done in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Reacting to the initiative, Nirmal Prakash, Smart ID, said, “It is a welcoming step. This would do-away with all the frauds and manipulation works that a poor and an illiterate person had to grapple with. Talking on the role of IT security, he said, “Biometric is the best tool for securing the data. It is beneficial even for those who cannot read and write. Moreover, nobody can try to influence the security methodology involved in working of a biometric.

While talking to another private player, involved in domain name registration business, Manish Dalal, Vice-President of Verisign Naming Services, it was found that the framework is receiving welcoming hands. Mr. Dalal went on to say that this is a great step and we welcome this initiative from the government.

The Big Q - Implementation The bigger question comes to our mind is that turning a project like this, that involves citizen participation at a very large scale level, into a successful one is a tedious task. Moreover, its implementation in those areas, where internet availability is absent and mobile connectivity is

e-authentication

almost nil, is going to be a hard-nosed mission for the government and the private players involved in it.

Many fear the implementation could be vague and many predict that implementation would not be horizontal.

According to Social Activist, Shabnam Hashmi, (who is also heading ANHAD - an Indian socio-cultural organization), the major hindrance that the framework may come across is the limited reach of internet. Where just 8 percent of country’s 1.2 billion people have access to internet, how the government will be able to implement it, on a wide scale.

The reach of mobile is very low, such as in the remote areas of country, the scope of access through technology also goes down.

The social worker went on to say that this framework is good in those states that are well developed but how will it be successful in those areas where people do not have the facility of even electricity. However, Hashmi suggested for a simultaneous social transformation and requirement of a uniform and balanced infrastructure development for the successful plantation of the program.

“Where just 8 percent of country’s 1.2 billion people have access to internet, how will the government be able to implement the framework, on a wide scale?”

Shabnam Hashmi Social Worker “The implementation should be a combination of ‘click and brick.’ Where the government has come out with a policy, it should also bring out a supporting infrastructure, for an example, the regulatory body should energize the Common Service Centers.”

Sunil Abraham Executive Director the Centre for Internet and Society

Responding to the question that India lacks wide infrastructure reach to make this policy available in those areas where internet and mobile network is limited, Mr. Abraham said that it is not sufficient for the program to be on paper only, for good implementation there should be a simultaneous development of internet reach and mobile availability.

He expected that the recent Telecom policy

special feature

should come up with more reach of broadband network and cost-effectiveness so that more people could reach the fruits of the framework.

The TCS official went on to comment that very few people have access to internet and mobiles, if we go across the remote areas of the country. Having said that the implementation should be a combination of “click and brick”, Mr. Chakrabarty said, “Where the government has come out with a policy, it should also bring out a supporting infrastructure, for an example, the regulatory body should energize the Common Service Centers through which services can be availed, mechanisms for wide publicity and other effective tools should be employed for the successful run of the program.”

For all pros and cons, the government is all set to implement this, on the other side, even the private players are on the welcoming mode, what left is the general public – who will be the ultimate decision-maker of the success of the service. The status, as of now, is of wait and watch kind, and keeping the fingers crossed, there emerges a sense of hope that another milestone in the e-governance plan may soon be achieved.

RECOGNISING EXCELLENCE IN ICT

November 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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15-17 December, 2011 |

Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar, Gujarat

“e-Governance to me is easy, effective and efficient governance”

Chief Guest Narendra Modi Hon’ble Chief Minister Government of Gujarat

organisers

exhibitors

www.eINDIA.net.in

Co-organisers

Key Speakers at eINDIA 2011

Jay Narayan Vyas Minister of Health Government of Gujarat

R Chandrashekhar Secretary, Department of IT Ministry of Communications & IT Government of India

Shankar Aggarwal Additional Secretary Department of IT, Ministry of Communication & IT Government of India

R S Sharma Director General, UIDAI

Maheshwar Sahu Principal Secretary, Industries Government of Gujarat

Hansmukh Adhia Secretary, Education Executive Chairman, Gujarat Knowledge Society Government of Gujarat

Raj Kumar Secretary, Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs Department, Government of Gujarat

Prof V N Rajasekharan Pillai Vice Chancellor Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)

Prof Sudhir K Jain, Director, IIT Gandhinagar

Introduction eINDIA 2011, the seventh edition of India’s largest ICT event, is being convened from 15-17 December, 2011 at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar, Gujarat (www.eINDIA.net.in). The event is being organised by Department of Science and Technology, Government of Gujarat, and Gujarat Infomatics Limited, along with Center for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) and Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. The State of Gujarat has emerged as a frontline State in the implementation of e-governance policies and projects and setting up of key infrastructure for eGovernance.

Gujarat Government has been keenly focusing on growth and development of new and emerging technology areas. It has been increasingly using the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) to offer citizen based service as per convenient location with an initiative to improve the reach, make services more transparent and reduce response time with reducing costs.

In this background, the organizers of eINDIA2011 saw the State of Gujarat as the ideal platform to host this premier ICT event. It is also a privilege to share that eINDIA2011 is being hosted by the Government of Gujarat, and is co-organised by Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India.

Academic Partner

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platinum sponsor

Why attend?

Meet & Network with key decision makers & experts, bureaucrats & policy makers leaders & stakeholders, service providers & IT vendors, telecom vendors & consulting firms, ICT entreprenuers & NGOs on innovative e-Gov implementations government agencies in the domain of ICT for Governance, Healthcare & Education Engage with colleagues and experts handling similar ICT projects, dealing with transformation and GPR challenges, working on automation of back office processes and integration.

Benefit from extensive & in-depth conference sessions on more than 50 thematic areas in the field of e-Governance, e-Learning, eHealth, eAgriculture and Telecentre.

Witness innovative solutions and cutting edge developments in ICT at eINDIA expo. lanyard sponsor

Conference and Awards Sheena Joseph, sheena@elets.in, +91 8860651644

video conferencing partner

sponsorship & expo Puneet Kathait, puneet@elets.in, +91-8860635833 Fahim Ul Haque, fahim@elets.in , +91 8860651632 Rakesh Ranjan, rakesh@elets.in, +91 8860651635

in person

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in person

Nivedan Sahani

Vice President & Business Head -Tata Teleservices

“Last mile

connectivity is

important in e-Gov�

P

One of the giants of the Indian telecom industry, Tata

lease share your insights on the National e-Governance plan. How is Tata Teleservices involved in the e-governance agenda of the country?

Teleservices has been actively involved in a number of projects being executed under the National eGovernance Plan

We are aggressively participating in the selected e-Governance projects with a clear focus on urban and rural strategy. We are also planning to provide mobile services and customised solutions in the areas of agriculture, health care and education. We would also offer mobile based solutions on Government to Citizen (G2C) basis under the Mission Mode Projects (MMPs).

NeGP is on the right track as far as the MMPs are concerned. The State Governments are pro-active in rolling out departmental applications. However, the end result or the success of the plan can only be measured with the timely implementation of State Wide Area Networks (SWANs) in providing rural connectivity (last mile solutions).

(NeGP). The company is also

How important, in your opinion, is the Public Private Partnership (PPP) for implementation of NeGP?

Vice President and Business

PPP deals, as of today, are being structured in a way that it is only the capital expenditure being put in by the private party, with the little mentioning of how the operating expenditure will be accounted. I support the PPP model because it gives more flexibility to offer appropriate and workable solutions in meeting the customer needs.

The most important factor under the PPP is the involvement and commitment of government (significant in implementing the projects at a faster speed). The bidding process is so structured that one can see the software companies bidding for executing hardware projects.

his perspectives on issues such

working on e-governance projects with a number of state governments outside of the NeGP as well.

In this freewheeling interview with Dr Ravi Gupta and Dhirendra Pratap Singh, the Head of Tata Teleservices shares as the importance of last mile connectivity, Public Private Partnerships, mGovernance and Panchyati Raj

What is your take on the last mile connectivity? As a service provider, what are the challenges faced in its implementation?

Last mile connectivity is an important part of e-Governance initiatives. We need to have a cost effective but reliable connectivity for last mile solution, in order to bring the services at the doorstep of the rural citizens. In terms of challenges, we face some kind of roadblocks during the roll out of networks.

November 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

29

in person

ment; health camps and education resources and schemes.

How mGovernance is playing a critical role in rural development?

According to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the enrollment of beneficiaries can be done on both SMS and mobile based applications.

Daily transaction (muster rolls) can be developed on handheld devices and

Now-a-days, there is another buzzword of GPRS Based Solution in healthcare. How it is changing the scenario?

The solution, on a handheld device, aims to provide an integrated framework for streamlining the day to day activity in National Health Rural Mission (NRHM).

Online data capturing, on a handheld device, is done by ASHA/ANM workers in a localize language. This data is

“PPP models help

produce workable

solutions to meet

increasing demand�

How do you see the role of mGovernance in Panchayti Raj institutions? mGovernance solutions highlight the usage of the mobile/handheld device for two ways communication between the government and the PRI functionaries.

The solutions would also disseminate the information to the PRI functionaries & Citizens through SMS and voice based solutions. Using SMS, information about government services delivery can be monitored by different levels in government and Panchayati Raj. The PRIs and citizens can obtain financial information pertaining to PRIs on a local basis. The Department can inform the various tiers and the levels of government about the financial status and alert fund transfers.

Using SMS , the information on Government service delivery that includes utilities, infrastructure, education and health can be sent to various levels and made available to citizens. Information on government services can be sent by the various governments and same can also be pulled by stakeholders. The services include: lifting status of the food grains under PDS; irrigation related information; new schemes of Govern-

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egov / www.egovonline.net / November 2011

uploaded as a real time on the central server for monitoring purpose. It can also be linked with banking gateway for wages disbursement. Its advantages are - SMS alerts to beneficiary as well once the funds disbursed; daily reports from supervisors of MGNREGS in respect of fund utilisation; workers attendance; for authentication, either finger print of the beneficiary or the smart card based solution can also be integrated with the handheld device.

Voice Based Messages to beneficiaries from department’s end can be sent as: confirmation on their enrolment as a voice message; starting of work; number of days worked by a beneficiary and total wages to be paid. getting personal Born On June 25, 1965 Education Revenshaw College, Cuttack and Indian Institute of Planning and Management Motto of life To work hard and enjoy hard

What is the role of mGovernance in public distribution system?

Voice Messages can be very well utilised in the PDS to inform the beneficiaries about the arrival of ration at the nearest FPS; new schemes or subsidy for the beneficiaries. Any information, to be delivered by the department to consumers, can be communicated by recording the message and then sending to the registered mobile numbers.

collected at the block and district level again and sent to state headquarters where the complete data is collected and appropriate reports are prepared.

This application would automate the process of consolidation and save a lot of effort that was required in consolidation at every level. State governments can monitor the performance on real time report on various parameters such as: early pregnancy is registered within first 14 weeks of pregnancy or not; ANC record for missing ANCs and institutional deliveries.

Please share your views on governance in Disaster Management.

We can utilize the concept of mSecurity in disaster management. SMS Alerts can be sent to citizens in a local language through a web interface from departments end.

Using SMS to send disasters alerts to various levels from the grassroots and also inter & intra governments.

SMS alerts could be sent to the government officials and members of the gram panchayats on the impending disasters such as on a Bird Flu outbreak.

euro-india workshop

spotlight

Helping Scientists Undertake Research A workshop at the APAN32 Meeting in New Delhi will showcase some EU-IndiaGrid2 cooperative experiments By egov Bureau

W

ith an increasing demand of domain specialists, precision scientific instruments and the current global financial situation, it is becoming increasingly challenging for individual research institutes to continue funding scientific projects. It is, therefore, imperative that “laboratories will have to become collaboratories”, conducting experiments, and having access to scientific instruments, datasets, software and hardware tools across the geographical and administrative boundaries.

Thanks to EU-IndiaGrid2, a European Commission 7th Framework project, an environment that virtualizes experiments, data access, data processing and data analysis is now available for European and Indian researchers, providing them access to an array of remote functionalities.

“Cyber technology gives an opportunity to pool resources and collaborate with Indians working in different streams of scientific arena, so that the common man is benefitted” said Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, at the launch of the Indian National Knowledge Network (NKN), at the beginning of the year. The workshop will explore how the pooling of resources is also possible between India and Europe. Through EU-IndiaGrid2, a bridge now links European grid infrastructures via EGI (The European Grid Infrastructure), and Indian grid infrastructures (namely GARUDA, the national grid in India). This collaboration is facilitated by key national and international networks such as GÉANT (The pan-European Education and Research Network), dedicated to the research and education community; TEIN3 (The Trans-Eurasia Information Network), the only internet network in the Asian region dedicated to research and education; and the Indian NKN (National Knowledge Network) which connects research and education institutions across India and allows the sharing of High Performance Computing facilities.

Out of diverse scientific applications that EU-IndiaGrid2 aims to sustain, high energy physics, material science and climate modeling are those where tangible cooperation initiatives have already been set up between India and Europe. Participants will gain insight into showcasing the best examples for the network exploitation for research applications in domains where international collaboration and sharing of e-Infrastructure is valuable.

From Mumbai to Grenoble and return: the remote experiment for collecting crystal X-ray diffraction data The experiment carried out by the Homi Bhabha National Institute was a great example of an extended grid infrastructure used for scientific purposes and of using fast internet access to carry out remote experiments for protein crystallography studies. The experiment “Remote Data Collection Facility” has been

performed at the experimental station on the FIP beam line (French beam line for Investigation of Proteins), which is dedicated to crystallography of biological macromolecules.The FIP beam line is fully automated and has been enabled for remote access from laboratories in Mumbai. Under an on-going collaboration, Dr. Jean-Luc Ferrer at IBS (Institut de Biologie Structurale) / ESRF (European Synchotron Radiation Facility), Dr. M.V. Hosur and colleagues at BARC (Bhaba Atomic Research Centre).

Since the establishment of the Remote Data Collection Facility, fifteen good quality data sets, each comprising of 180 oscillation frames, have been collected on protein samples that are part of the collaboration between Dr. Hosur M. V. at BARC and Dr. Jean-Luc Ferrer at IBS/ ESRF, Grenoble, France. Recently, data on HIV-1 protease substrate complexes has been collected and the refined map shows a clear density for the ligand molecules in the active site. The diffraction data is stored temporarily on a local computer at ESRF, before it is transferred to HBNI computer through FTP. Another advantage of remote data collection is that the younger members of the laboratory can participate and get trained in using the mega facility such as the ESRF synchrotron.

When Europe helps India in understanding Monsoon rains Research into issues such as monsoon rainfall is now based on simulating models which November 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

31

spotlight

euro-india workshop

rely on advanced computing infrastructure (e-Infrastructure) and high-speed networks.

These enable researchers, irrespective of their geographical location, to make swift and accurate calculations and projections based on massive data sets.

Cooperation with Europe under the EUIndiaGrid2 umbrella has enabled the Indian national scientific e-Infrastructure to obtain reliable information about the climate changes on local, regional or global scale. Focusing on Monsoon simulations, the application is an example of optimal use of resources. Professor S.K. Dash and his team of researchers from the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT Delhi, has completed a series of sensitivity experiments on Indian summer monsoon Regional Climate Model version 3 (RegCM3) on the Bangalore cluster of GARUDA and has obtained significant results for the Indian Climate Change research.

“There are many universities in India where young scientists are waiting for using very high amount of data available on Indian climate – explains professor S.K. Dash, IIT Delhi - despite that, they are often limited in their research activities because of the lack of computing power available in their universities. Thanks to the links provided via NKN, our scientists could access other bigger computing systems both in India and Europe to submit their jobs.

IIT Delhi have benefitted a lot from this cooperation established, thanks to EU-IndiaGrid2 project.”

Grid Infrastructures also has the potential to help developing countries in closing the ICT gap empowering a large number of researchers to actively participate in leading edge scientific challenges such as Climate Change.

Running faster towards worldwide challenges: exploiting Euro-India connectivity for the benefit of High Energy Physicians High Energy Physics, through the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) programme at CERN, Switzerland, represents a unique science and research facility which is shared between India and Europe in the field of scientific research in general through the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) project.

WLCG is the largest grid infrastructure worldwide, created to address the data requirements of the LHC (15 million GBytes per year).

India has established a regional WLCG Grid network with two Tier-2 centres, one at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR)

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“IIT Delhi has benefitted a lot from this cooperation established, thanks to EU-IndiaGrid2 project”

in Mumbai for Compact Muon Spectrometer (CMS) and another at VECC/SINP Kolkata for ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), plus a number of Tier-3 centres at various Indian universities and of the Indian Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) aided institutions. The migration of WLCG connectivity to NKN in India and the establishment of the 2.5 Gbps TEIN3 link interconnected to NKN has provided a substantial burst to the activity of Indian LHC research community allowing researchers to full access LHC data, widening their possibilities to contribute to the ambitious physics goals of the LCG program.

At CMS T2 at TIFR almost 10 Billion events have been processed since the beginning of 2011.

More than thousands of terabytes of CMS data has been retrieved and / or transferred at T2 within the last three months. CMS T2 has been specially chosen to be part of LHCONE, the LHC Open Network Environment whose aim is to ensure better access to the most important datasets by the worldwide High Energy Physics community through a collection of access locations that are effectively entry points into the network, and hence improve the data analysis.

The HEP community in India (Government labs and Universities) worked hard to set up the CMS and ALICE detector at LHC, CERN and have collected good quality data sets. The results from the experimental run from both CMS and ALICE have yielded excellent publications in reputed international journals (CMS community has reached a count of 100 papers, all in peer-reviewed journals, out of which 75 are from LHC collision data, 24 from cosmicray runs and one from CMS detector paper).

“Large volume of data (multiple of terabytes) generated from LHC experiments could be transported and distributed easily to all Indian participants through low latency, high bandwidth NKN and TEIN 3 connectivity – explains

P.S. Dhekne from BARC and working at Office of The Principal Scientific Adviser to Indian Government - Being part of WLCG, both CMS and ALICE Tier II centres contributed to process power (over 1000 cores) and storage capacity (over 800 Terabytes) and worldwide HEP community could use these resources very effectively. The experience gained in operation and use of this e-infrastructure has benefited immensely, allowing faster adoption of Grid technology and implementation of many new applications such as Open source drug discovery, Climate Change modelling, and e-classrooms, Cancer Grid, Health Grid etc. in India”.

About the workshop The Workshop on Research Applications of High Speed Connectivity Across Europe, India and the Asia-Pacific Area will be organised

by EU-IndiaGrid2 in collaboration with the CHAIN project (www.chain.eu) and will be part of APAN32 the Asia-Pacific Advanced Network 32nd Meeting, in Delhi.

Addressing researchers, technical experts in ICT, policy makers and project/Institution leaders, presentations will include use cases highlighting the benefits of such connectivity in cases of High Energy Physics - data transfer to and from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN; Protein Crystallography – remote use by scientists at BARC, Mumbai, of an FIP beamline in Grenoble, France.

The workshop will also highlight the potential of India – Europe – Asia grid collaboration for simulations and realtime classroom applications. With the far-reaching potential of Indian – European and Asian grid collaboration including climate change/weather simulations and realtime classroom applications, the status and perspectives of NKN-GÉANT connectivity through TEIN3 will also be examined during the workshop.

world

news

e-services

Facility for ID cards via Internet Thrown Open to Azerbaijani Citizens People in Azerbaijan will be able to obtain an identity card and passport through Internet shortly. Works are under way to provide electronic services under the decree signed by President Ilham Aliyev.

A special system, to be created soon, will enable the Azerbaijani citizens to obtain an identity

card, national passport, various certificates, special permits and licenses via the internet.

In total, the list of services will include 25 types of e-services, the minister added. A total of 35 workers of the Interior Ministry have been dismissed in 43 corruption cases over nine month of 2011.

telecare

Telecare Service in Birmingham City Council to Secure Older, Vulnerable Residents Deploying city-wide telecare service, which is believed to be the first of its kind in the UK, Birmingham City Council expects to beef-up safety and support for older and vulnerable residents whilst maximising their independence.

The telecare service is planned to benefit up to 25,000 people in Birmingham, a city in central England, over 3 years and at a cost of £14 million (€16 million, approximately). It combines a response service with a range of telecare solutions from a healthcare provider, including motion detectors and temperature sensors to support older people and those with long-term needs. By making the strategic decision to extend the telecare service provision to more people, the Council expects to create

a systemic shift towards early intervention and preventative services, to meet growing demand for increasingly personalised care packages.

The telecare service will be delivered across chosen care pathways, which include the reablement of service users, prevention services and assessment. The Birmingham Telehealthcare Delivery Centre will be set up to ensure services are available locally and developed in conjunction with the voluntary sector and an independent Quality Review Board, which will oversee outcomes, quality assurance and milestones.

“Your time is limited” – Steve Jobs “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life” - this was the statement by Steve Jobs, the late cofounder and chairman of Apple who died on 5th October after a long battle with cancer.

The world has lost an innovator who was in fact a great visionary and legend, although his lessons and ideas would always be eternal and everlasting. His innovations and revolution in the electronic world will always make us feel his spirit and enduring bliss.

Steve Jobs will be remembered as one of the most important pioneers of the modern computing age. His vision - for seeing the future so clearly, and turning it into technology that improves our lives, making computers personal and putting the Internet in our pockets, making the information revolution not only accessible, but intuitive and fun - will always be appreciated to the highest. He was a phenomenon who emerged from the sub-culture of the hippie and turned himself into a yuppie who therefore helped shape the modern electronic age. While not an iron horse of business or government computing, the Mac and Apple’s products are at the forefront of citizen-centric computing.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice,” famous words of Jobs.

cheapest laptop

Bangladesh claims to Uncover World’s Cheapest Laptop Laptop costing $130 is the cheapest one across the world, claim officials in Bangladesh during the launch of the capital at a ceremony in the capital Dhaka on October 9, 2011.

The most basic model of the Laptop (named as Deol) is priced at 10,000 taka ($130/£83). The state-owned telecom company Telephone Shilpa Sangstha (TSS) is producing four models of the laptop.

Initially, the laptop will be distributed to various government departments. But later on they will be made available to the public and to tens of millions of students. Ismail said that at the moment Bangladesh is producing 10 percent of the components for the laptop and the rest are imported.

However, the country’s internet connectivity remains poor and critics have raised doubts whether the distribution of laptops alone will help the country to connect digitally. The government has launched an ambitious plan, known as Digital Bangladesh, with the aim of digitally connecting the country by 2021.

November 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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news

world

e-Governance

e-Governance Should be Horizontal, Not Vertical: US Professors Implying that the development of e-Governance should be horizontal, US Professors say that vertical concentration of the web based governance may create digital divide among classes.

Addressing the ICEGOV conference in Tallinn, Thad E. Hall and Jennifer Owens from the University of Utah warned that progress in the field may cause a counter effect, with wealthier and tech-savvy citizens gaining faster and more hassle-free access to public services, but the underprivileged and less educated classes - who actually might depend more

on those services - becoming even more cut off because they lack internet access.

The overall shift of focus to e-services must be accompanied by reasoned policies to reach out to the underprivileged members of society, the researchers said.

The International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV), jointly organized by the Estonian e-Governance Academy Foundation, the United Nations University, and the University of Albany will continue in Tallinn through September 28.

e-Governance

Nigeria Looks at ICT to Bring Transparency in Governance Nigeria is soon to begin work with Federal Government to facilitate the effective use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in creating transparency and accountability in government businesses.

The minister of Communication Technology, Mobola Johnson reiterated the commitment of the new ministry to work closely with the Federal Government to facilitate efficient and effective use of ICT to create transparency and accountability in Nigeria.

The minister who disclosed this in Lagos

while unveiling the ministry road-map to stakeholders at a round table on “Creation of a Digital Economy and Information Society in Nigeria”, said government is the big procurer and utilizer of ICT. Omobola Johnson disclosed that the mandate of the new ministry amongst others include policy development, policy articulation that will ensure a robust ICT industry growth

particularly in terms of social and economy development.

According to the minister, the policy direction intervention of the ministry in the next four years will focus on the areas such as software development, rising awareness and strengthening implementation of intellectual property laws, setting up ICT parked digital havens (equipped with physical serve infrastructure; proximity and access to skill human capital, promoting local software investment in skills to drive ICT forward.

South Korean Officials Head to UAE for e-Governance Classes A team of 17 members left South Korea has left to UAE to learn tips on e-governance. The visitors comprised of officials who hold key positions in the South Korean government, according to WAM. Mohamed Ismaeel, director of operations and production of the e-governance department of the emirate of Abu Dhabi, said: ‘We are happy to share our knowledge in developing the e-government in the UAE. We hope our association brings out the best in e-government for both countries.’

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e-Police

Illinois Pilots e-Ticketing for Traffic Violations

In an effort to make e-ticketing the common practice of the future for traffic citations, Cook County, Ill., is launching an integrated e-ticketing system for traffic violations. Four of the county’s villages are piloting an integrated e-ticketing system for traffic violations in an attempt to steer away from traditional paper-based ticketing. Dorothy Brown, clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, announced the pilot last week. The four villages are Bellwood, Crestwood, Matteson and South Barrington. Another 18 communities are slated to join the project before the end of the year. The clerk’s office hopes the system will eventually be rolled out to every municipality in Illinois — perhaps even Chicago someday.

When a police officer issues a traffic citation through the system, instead of writing out a paper ticket the ticket details are inputted into a Web application on a computer in the officer’s squad car, Brown said. A

printer that’s installed in the car then prints out a receipt for the driver.

After the officer inputs and submits the data into e-ticketing platform, the information is sent to that corresponding police agency, said Bridget Dancy, the clerk office’s CIO. Within one business day, the ticket information as well as the image of the ticket are sent to Brown’s office — where it’s accessible through a Web application and then kept on record, Dancy said.

Prior to the launch, the county only used paper tickets, which took anywhere from five to 10 days to process. Filling out the paper tickets could take more than 10 minutes, whereas the electronic system only takes a few minutes to complete.

Once the system is fully implemented the clerk’s office is projected to save nearly $200,000 each year in printing costs and $438,000 in data entry costs. The system cost $900,000 and the clerk’s office expects to see a return on investment after 18 months.

ASSOCHAM Summit

Technology Intervention in Governance The 8th ASSOCHAM International Summit on e-Governance had experts talking about the need, role and scope of technology in effective governance By eGov Bureau

Kapil Sibal addressing the audience at the 8th ASSOCHAM International Summit on e-Governance

T

he scope of human intervention must be reduced with information and telecommunication technologies playing a lead role to curb corruption in public life and ensure good governance across the country, said Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Kapil Sibal, while inaugurating the 8th ASSOCHAM International Summit on e-Governance.

Though the government is working on a new law to deal with the menace of corruption, only mass adoption of technologies for e-governance and m-governance can improve the quality and speed of public services, he said.

He added, “Much of the talk of corruption that we have had in the recent past will be dealt with through the initiative of Information Technology (IT). What we need to do is to ensure that the scope of human interface

– which is the scope of all corruption – is excluded. IT should play an important role in finding solutions and we are in the process of doing it.

By 2014, every Gram Panchayat in the country will be connected with fibre optic cable and last mile connectivity will be provided through wireless broadband. The true empowerment of people would be possible when government services are made available at the doorstep of every citizen – be it for tax returns, insurance premiums, banking operations or payment of e-bills.

“Increased use of IT will bring transparency and accountability in the system,” said Kapil Sibal adding the government will introduce the Electronic Services Delivery Bill in the next session of Parliament. The Bill is aimed at providing public services by all the government departments in the Centre and states in electronic mode only over the next five years.

event

“Increased use of IT will bring transparency and accountability in the system” - Kapil Sibal

Dilip Modi, President of The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), said the critical pillar of the chamber’s agenda of ‘making inclusive transformation to happen’ is digital inclusion. “e-Governance can bridge the gap between deficits and surpluses in rural and urban India.

With 6 lakh villages in the country, land records need to be digitised. We are quite bullish on the Internet’s potential to provide fair transparent governance structures,” Modi added.

Umang Das, Chairman of ASSOCHAM National e-Governance Council, said the concept offers a unique opportunity to move away from piecemeal reforms to an era of institutionalised transparency.

Hardeep Singh Bedi, Co-chairman of ASSOCHAM National e-Governance Council, said India has 73 million internet subscribers and the figure is poised to grow to 275 million by 2015. The telecom sector has been a key driver for this growth, he said.

ASSOCHAM Secretary General D S Rawat said with nearly 860 million mobile phones in the country, all government websites should be made mobile-compliant. The vision should be to touch and transform lives of citizens through the use of IT, and lead the nation into a globalised knowledge economy.

Other experts said technology intervention could possibly make Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) implementation better for job seekers, common man and society at large.

Mobile technology can be used for applying for job cards, enrollment for work and real time monitoring of work at sites.

Among those present were Jammu and Kashmir’s minister for IT Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, Gujarat’s Additional Chief Secretary Ravi Saxena, B.K. Sinha, Secretary, Rural Development Ministry and Sunil Kanoria, Vice-Chairman of SREI Infrastructure Finance Ltd. eGov was the media partner for this knowledge sharing initiative.

November 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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company profile

Intellisys Technologies & Research

Company Profile INTELLISYS Technologies & Research Ltd, is a high-end global research and development company in the field of videoconferencing, technology enabled collaboration and unified communication space based out of USA, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore. INTELLISYS in the collaboration with NSE.IT (a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India) launched the countries first e-learning Management System “enlitor”. One of the most successful pilot implementation of “enlitor” was for ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) EDUSAT Programme (jointly with HUGHES) which was launched by the then president of India Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in July, 2005 at Trivandrum, Kerala. NASSCOM has listed INTELLISYS in its directory of the most INNOVATIVE IT Companies in the country.

Products and Services Puneet Gupta President- Sales and Marketing

Intellysis’ videoconferencing product Vennfer is an advanced software based video conferencing solution based on a highly sophisticated software engine developed by a core team of international software experts of INTELLISYS. It is a complete IP based video conferencing software solution built on state-of-art Microsoft Technologies as well as Open source platforms that enables real time audio, video, and data communication over LAN, WAN (leased lines, VSATs, VPNs) broadband and Datacard by using TCPIP multicasting technology.

Target Verticals contact Company Name Intellisys Technologies & Research Ltd Head Office INTELLISYS Technologies & Research Ltd, 1 Chowringhee Terrace, Kolkata – 700020, West Bengal, India Phone: +91 33 2223 1468/3478, Fax: +91 33 223 0758, Email: sales@intellisysin.com

Vennfer software is targeted across all verticals as Video Conferencing is a need that exists for all organizations. We have seen strong demand in Government, Education, Telecom, Manufacturing, Energy & Utilities, Healthcare, Banking, Enterprise & SMB. We have launched customized version of the software for a few verticals like Education, Healthcare and Banking. Education software is focused around live virtual classroom, Healthcare is focused on Telemedicine and Banking software is focused on Video Banking.

Major Regional Offices New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru Contact Person Somak Sanyal Website www.intellisysin.com Customer Support/Help line sales@intellisysin.com

Achievements and USP Vennfer is platform independent, display device independent, network independent as it runs on any kind of Network Leased Lines, VSATs, MPLS VPNS, ILLs, Broadband and High Speed Datacards(HSD).

It is a complete IP based video conferencing solution that enables real-time audio, video, and data communication over LAN , WAN (leased lines, VSATs, VPNs) and broadband

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company profile

NIIT Technologies Company Profile NIIT Technologies is a leading IT solutions organization, servicing customers in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. It offers services in Application Development and Maintenance, Enterprise Solutions including Managed Services and Business Process Outsourcing to organizations in the Financial Services, Travel & Transportation, Manufacturing/Distribution, and Government sectors. NIIT Technologies follows global standards of development, which includes ISO 9001:2000 certification, assessment at Level 5 of both SEI-CMMi version 1.2 and ISO 27001 information security management certification. Its data centre operations are assessed at the international ISO 20000 IT management standards.

Products and Services: Application Development and Maintenance (ADM), Enterprise Solutions including Managed Services, System Integration, SAP, eProcurement etc. Cloud Computing, Integrated Platform Services, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

arvind mehrotra president-Asia pacific

Target Verticals • • • • •

Travel, Transportation & Logistics Manufacturing & Distribution Banking & Financial Services (BFS) Insurance Government

contact Company Name NIIT Technologies Ltd Head office B1/ H9, Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area, Mathura Road, New Delhi – 110044 Major Regional Offices: Bengaluru, Mumbai, Noida Contact Person Anil Tikoo, VP – Sales & Marketing, Mobile: +919818977633 Website www.niit-tech.com

Achievements and USP NIIT Technologies was conferred with the “HR Leadership” and “Excellence in Training” Awards at ASIA’s Best Employer Brand Awards 2011 • Three projects from NIIT Technologies were selected by PCQuest among the “Best IT Implementation of the year” 2011 • NIIT Technologies Ranked No.1 globally among IT Outsourcers in Travel Industry Survey in Datamonitor Black Book of Outsourcing survey for 3 consecutive years 2008, 2009 & 2010 • Ranked No. 3 globally among all IT outsourcers in Datamonitor Black Book of Outsourcing 2010 survey • NIIT Technologies was ranked amongst Top 25 Fastest-Growing Process Management Providers, 2009-2010 in its “Market Share Analysis: Process Management 2011” report • Ranked among top 3 globally by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) in the 2010 ASTD ‘BEST’ Awards.

•

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company profile

Smart Identity Devices Pvt Ltd (Smart ID) Company Profile Smart ID provides technology products, services and solutions in the domains of Biometrics, Information & Communications Technology and Smart cards. An ISO 27001 company, Smart ID started its commercial operation in the year 2008. The company’s corporate office is located at Noida having business offices and technical centres all across India.

With its strong sales and support teams and infrastructure, and an exclusive technology partnership with Cross Match Technologies, a world leader in supplying biometric devices, Smart ID has emerged as a preferred supplier of Biometrics devices in India, for both Finger-Print scanners and Iris cameras. The company is the first to be certified by Standardization, Testing, and Quality Certification (STQC) for its range of biometric devices to be used in Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) project.

The company is engaged in the projects like National Population Register (NPR), UIDAI’s UID Enrolment, Public Distribution System (PDS), e- Panchayat, DL/RC, CCTNS, Information Management/Tracker, e-district, e-health, Financial Inclusion etc.

Sanjeev Mathur

Products and Services

CEO

Products: • Petrol ID (Finger –Print Scanner) • I Scan 2 (Iris Scanner) • Smart Enrolment Kits • Smart Card Printing Module

contact Company name Smart Identity Devices Pvt Ltd (Smart ID) Management Team Nirmal Prakash, Sanjeev Mathur, Mahendra Pratap, Ankur Saluja Head office B-37, Polyplex Complex, Sector-1, Noida, Uttar Pradesh Contact person Madhumita Phukan, Head- Marketing Communications, Smart ID, madhumita.phukan@smartid.in, +91-9310066097, +91-120-4720332 Website www.smartid.in Customer Support/Help line number +91-11-26844223, +91 -120-4720300

Services: • A high-quality, secure and durable range of solutions to Central and State Government and PSUs like Data enrolment services that comprise of data collection, data entry of biographic data as well as capture of biometric data such as finger print, iris, face, and also Training, Business Correspondent management, IT services hosting, Project consultancy etc.

• Financial Inclusion services, BC Services, Card-based Payment solutions to Banking and Finance sector • A range of contact Smart Cards & RFID (contactless) Smart Cards for various allocations such as ticketing, toll payment, fuel payment etc.

• USB-type Smart Card solution that allows for authentication, safe storage of personal information, and also convenient & secured financial transaction

Target Verticals Central and State Government and PSUs (e-Governance), Banking, Transportation, Telecom and IT Security

Achievements and USP • • •

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Awarded by Skoch for its project ‘Shiksha Darpan’ for being rated amongst The Top-100 ICT Projects in India during 2011 Ranked among top three UID Enrollment Agencies for least demographic error in 2011 First to be certified by STQC for its range of biometric devices to be used in UIDAI project

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iceg & kss

8th ICEG and 3rd KSS – Discussing eGov 2.0 Two-day conference and academic session on e-Governance sees active participation from Government, private sector solution providers, researchers and students.

Narendra Modi conferred with the highest CSI recognition – eRatna

“Gujarat implementing a new programme – eUrja – to improve efficiency of power plants” – Narendra Modi “Indian electronics imports to outstrip petroleum imports soon” – R Chandrashekhar

By eGov Bureau

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he 8th edition of the International Conference on e-Governance (ICEG) and the 3rd Knowledge Sharing Summit (KSS) were jointly organised by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of Gujarat and Gujarat Informatics Ltd in partnership with the Computer Society of India (CSI) and the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi at the Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad on October 17 and 18, 2011.

The programme was inaugurated by Shri Narendra Modi, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Gujarat, upon whom the CSI conferred its highest honour – eRatna, in recognition of his leadership in adopting ICT for good governance in the state.

In his address, the CM said e-governance was nothing but easy, effective and economic governance that aimed at utilizing technology to bring about improvement in the lives of commoners. He also revealed that the state is in the pilot phase of a new ICT-backed project – eUrja to better manage the power generation and distribution infrastructure.

Other luminaries who spoke at the inaugural included Mr R Chandrashekhar (Secretary IT and Telecom, Government of India), Mr A K Joti (Chief Secretary, Government of Gujarat), Mr R S Saxena (Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Govt of Gujarat) and Prof Akshai Aggarwal (Vice Chancellor, Gujarat Technological University).

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Mr Chandrashekhar emphasised upon the need to focus on promoting hardware manufacturing capabilities, saying soon, India’s electronics import bill would far exceed its imports of crude petroleum. Mr Joti highlighted the e-Governance initiatives taken by the state and Mr Saxena emphasised that all along, the use of IT had been seen as an enabler and not an end in itself.

Sessions on Day 1 deliberated upon issues such as the role of eGov 2.0 in inclusive growth, restructuring governance and best practices for eGov 2.0. One of the key insights emerging from the discussions was that access to technology is not as big a problem as developing applications that can result in productive use of such technologies. The need to adopt a bottomup approach and always keep the end user in focus was repeatedly emphasised by speakers, as was the need for public private partnerships.

Need to adopt emerging technologies such as cloud computing to lower costs and improve efficiencies was also highlighted.

Participants also highlighted the need for creating a compendium of all e-Governance projects so that states could learn from each other and replicate best practices while avoiding mistakes.

The importance of leadership was also highlighted in one of the sessions, with speakers bringing out the importance of a visionary and committed leader in driving change.

Discussions also focussed on importance of emerging technologies such as cloud comput-

ing in lowering costs and improving efficiencies. It was also felt that governments ought to start moving towards a framework for Open Data from a common platform.

Sessions on Day two of the KSS discussed themes such as citizen engagement, blogging and social networks, and security issues in eGov 2.0.

In a highly engaging session on blogging and social networking, issues related to the recent changes in the IT Act 2000 vide new Rules framed in 2011, importance of social media and its role in changing the very nature of governance were discussed. A case study of how the Gujarat Chief Minister’s online presence is managed by a very small core team with the help of volunteers spread worldwide was also made during discussions.

The last KSS Session focussed on security issues in eGov 2.0, and contradictions in the Right To Information Act and the IT Act were highlighted, along with some often-neglected provisions of the IT Act which could put implementing Departments in trouble.

Participants also deliberated upon the issues between the need for security and protecting privacy.

Existing shortcomings such as absence of forensic investigations in analysis of security breaches and increasing sophistication of malware attacks were also discussed.

The ICEG ran concurrently with the KSS and a large number of papers were presented, highlighting ongoing research in e-Governance. At the conclusion of the conference, top three papers were presented with awards while all papers selected for being presented at the conference were recognised with participation certificates.

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IGF 2011

Internet as a Catalyst for Change Key outcomes of the sixth Internet Governance Forum focusing on Internet access, development, freedom and innovations By eGov Bureau

Workshop: Public Sector Information Online: Towards a Global Policy Framework Panelists: Christopher Corbin, Anne Fitzgerald, Waltrut Ritter, Abhishek Singh, Rajeshree Dutta Kumar

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he Sixth Annual Ingternet Governance Forum (IGF) was held from 27-30 September 2011 at the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON), Kenya. The theme of the meeting was: ‘Internet as a catalyst for change: access, development, freedoms and innovation’.

Accessibility and Diversity of Broadband Internet Access The Internet is increasingly being recognised as one of the key enablers of growth and development. The growing recognition that the Internet is a public good is evident from the fact that a number of countries, starting with Finland in 2009, have made access to broadband Internet a fundamental right. As connectivity becomes an ever-more important

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determinant of access to development, and as calls for, and concern towards, inclusiveness in the development process grow stronger, it is pertinent to identify and address the key issues affecting connectivity. It is equally important to then address the issue of access and ability to use information – which is currently handicapped in large measure due to literacy and language-related factors. With this objective the Centre for Science Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) organised a workshop on ‘Accessibility and Diversity of Broadband Internet Access’ at the sixth IGF meeting.

Chaired by Sh N Ravi Shanker Additional Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Government of India; the prominent panel members of the workshop included Graciela Saleimi, instituto NUPEF, Brazil; Klaus Stoll, Acting Executive Director, Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation; Venkatesh Hariharan, Head of Public Policy and Government Relations, Google India;

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, The Centre for Internet and Society; and Abhishek Singh, Director, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India.

Discussions Dr Rajeshree Dutta Kumar, Sr Programme Specialist, CSDMS introduced the session theme by highlighting the importance of broadband Internet access. She stated certain key issues that constrain use of broadband including high cost, connectivity and broadband in rural areas, language in which Internet is organised, access issues for illiterates and visually challenged, control of Internet and root servers, net neutrality and compatibility IPv6.

Graciela Saleimi put forth issues related to broadband internet access in Brazil. She said, “Brazil has 12.8 million broadband connections with an average monthly cost of USD 93.

This accounts for 4.5 percent of the monthly per capita income of a Brazilian citizen, which is much higher as compared to the developing countries which have an average monthly spend of 0.5 percent of the per capita income.

Half of Brazilian municipalities do not have access to broadband connections, which is a critical issue that the government needs to address.”

Klaus Stoll was of the view that digital divide does not exist as the unavailability of broadband mainly exists in areas where there is no awareness and demand. He highlighted the importance of strategic use of Internet across the world.

Talking about policy related issues, which are critical for Internet access, Venkatesh Hariharan said, “There are investments and networks in pipeline which is good news but the governance of those networks, the rule of law, the processes of law that manage these networks is also very important.”

Another critical issue that hampers the accessibility of internet is copyright laws.

Focussing on this, Sunil Abraham said, “A technology solution must be made a legitimate solution, barring all copyright issues, if it offers enough value. We must also look into the patent issues to make it easier for compliance.

Free and open source licenses must also be considered for enhancing access.”

Bringing forward the Indian context, Abhishek Singh said, “The government in

IGF 2011

India is setting up 100,000 kiosks in villages and rural areas, which can provide Internet connectivity in these regions. More than 60 percent of the rural community can access Internet via these kiosks.”

Sh N Ravi Shanker concluded the workshop by highlighting the need for having public investments in making broadband accessible to everyone. “While it is important to drive public investment, it is equally important for the private sector participation to join in the government in the endeavour”, he said.

Open Data: Challenges and Solutions Over 60 UN Member States around the world have now adopted and are actively engaged in implementing public sector information policy frameworks that were first developed by economic regions such as the European Union and

the OECD. The workshop, jointly organsied

by CSDMS and Retired Sole, addressed the approaches that could lead to the formulation of a global public sector information policy framework for consideration and adoption by the United Nations Member States.

Chaired by Christopher Corbin, Independent Researher, Brighton; the eminent panel included Anne Fitzgerald, Queensland University of Technology from Australia; Wey Ward, Consultant from Hong Kong; Abhishek Singh and Dr Rajeshree Dutta Kumar from India. The panelists debated upon the need for a global policy on public sector information.

Discussions Anne Fitzgerald opined that the World is not ready yet for such a policy. “Looking at the map of e‑readiness or information policy readiness of the UN Member States, I think there are

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less than half the Governments that have some e‑Government policy in place. Unless you have these basics in place, I believe it will be very difficult to come up with PSI.” On the other hand Abhishek Singh said that there can be no arguments with regard to the need for an open Government policy across the world. He however added that, “But at the same time we have to work out the roadmap towards reaching that goal. We also have to see the individual situations in various countries.”

Reflecting similar thoughts, Dr Rajeshree Dutta Kumar added, “Although, there is a strong need for open data, I believe that we should also have a provision for a globally consistent framework”.

So while there were mixed thoughts, the need for an open data policy framework emerged a crucial outcome of the workshop.

Industry Voices

Technology to Transform Society some delays and failures, but that is expected in a plan of such large magnitude. Railway reservation system, MCA 21, Stock exchange, Income tax and Customs are some of the success stories under central government. While automation has led to improvement in quality of services, there is enough scope for further improvement by making changes in way the citizens are serviced.

Where do you see e-Governance moving in the coming six to ten years?

Prakash Kumar, Director-Internet Business Solutions Group, Cisco; Former IT Secretary, Delhi

What has changed in the last six years in e-Governance in India?

Experimentation by large number of government departments was streamlined with introduction of National eGovernance Plan (NeGP) that gave right direction and focus in terms of common ICT infrastructure (SWAN/SDC/CSC) and detailed guidelines on eGov application. This has resulted in creation of basic ICT infrastructure, the information-highway on which many applications have started flowing to the people. There have been

Extensive use of ICT will lead to shift of power from the ‘Center’ to the ‘Edge’ i.e. people, making democracy stronger. Technology will enable citizens to participate better in decision making process and in prioritization of schemes and programs. Rapid advancement of technology will also ensure integration of services today delivered by different agencies, providing one view of the government to its people, the real ‘single window’.

The SLA driven delivery will become the norm in next 5 to 6 years.

What all factors have proven to be the major bottlenecks?

Lack of skilled IT personnel with departments and frequent change of officials responsible for implementing the projects have been major bottlenecks. Complex and long procurement process

has been another bottleneck, which needs to be streamlined and simplified urgently.

What are your recommendations on catalysing the execution and adoption of e-Governance and mitigating the digital divide in the country?

State IT departments as well as line departments have been finding it hard to create posts and if created, to attract and retain right talent in a highly competitive market. SeMTs and PeMTs are temporary measures and can be taken as a good starting point but departments needs such people on permanent basis to execute and oversee large IT projects.

The other recommendation would be to make a shift from procurement of compute/storage and application development to procurement of application as a service. Experience has shown that people will adopt a service if it is convenient, easily accessible and the people providing that service are seen as those who are ready to an extra mile to make the service seeker feel comfortable. Making services available through mobile phones or call centers with simplified application process will go a long way in quick adoption of eGov by people. Such measures will also reduce the digital divide because of very high penetration of phones in our country.

November 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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opinion

HIGH-TECH GOVERNANCE

Sanjay Mehta CEO MAIA Intelligence

A CEO for Mumbai?

A power-packed leader, armed with high-end technologies and equipped with new-age mechanisms can fulfil the futuristic imagination for having a CEO for Metros

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here is a discussion on a strong need for a CEO for Mumbai. Let’s assume that very soon Mumbai shall have its own CEO. What shall be the person’s role? How he/ she will drive the city? What all resources he/she shall require to do so?

The Mumbai CEO would be a leader with power and authority to act, and seen to be taking up tasks. The CEO would be chosen by the people, and would be removed by them. The CEO will be accountable to the people he’s supposed to serve. An empowered CEO would be guided by a council of specialists, including one member from each government agency such as MMRDA, MHADA, Mumbai Police, BEST, MSRTC and NGOs. He would be authroised to seek reports from such different authorities.

At the worst of times, when everything goes into paralysis like it happened, disastrously, in July 2005 when there is the lack of power, water, relief, etc, Mumbai CEO will be the most of ‘a trusted face’, the Person In Charge.

How will the Mumbai CEO to be, run the city’s municipal operations efficiently, effectively and economically?

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If given a chance, Mumbai CEO shall have highly diversified tasks in terms of measuring the performance of the services delivered by various government entities, and there is lot of data available to be analyzes & assessed that shall help him take informed decision.

In the last decade or so, Mumbai has grown substantially in terms of population, infrastructure, and economy. Use of performance measurement systems to evaluate how well their operating agencies perform shall be critical for the CEO of any modern city today. The diversity of services, practices and cultures inherent in municipal government complicates efforts to get data on time for taking right decisions. Each operational unit normally has its own idiosyncratic view of an optimal mix of business process, customer relations and human resource practices. CEO of Mumbai shall require a Municipal performance measures which are more federalist in structure than the ‘single business line’ approach most often used in private industry.

CEO of Mumbai shall enter office with a promise to improve city’s municipal operations and it’s connection to the public. A team thus will be needed to develop and put together the “Mumbai

The Mumbai CEO would be a leader with power and authority to act

CEO Dashboard” to track performance of the city’s operating units and make recommendations for improvements. It will help the CEO operate the city more efficiently by moving the focus of city services to outcomes. Just as critical, it shall help CEO make city operations transparent and accountable, which will further improve public perception of the city in showing verifiable, successful results.

A CEO Dashboard would presumably start with measures of performance: overall growth and its sectorial breakdown, plus infrastructure, economy and the like. Trade, industry, population and employment would also be significant indicators. Of course, such measures are available in the various governmental surveys, and various other statistical compilations. How would our hypothetical dashboard data be different? First, they would be more up-to-date and reliable. Second, they would be compiled from the ground up, allowing our ‘CEO’ immediate access to the disaggregated source data.

Suppose manufacturing growth is looking anemic—let’s find out which sectors are worst off, and even whether specific firms are struggling. Even better, one could see how the head office—in this case, the civic

HIGH-TECH GOVERNANCE

bodies that are supposed to put governance into practice—is doing in coordinating and supporting the different parts of the organization. Where is the money coming from, where it is being spent, and does it make a difference? Are those big fiscal deficits worth it, in terms of the bottom line, or do they represent a black hole, swallowing money without leaving any trace?

The success of the Mumbai CEO shall depend on a good dashboard. Structural reforms of the internal organization of civic bodies will make dashboards possible as well as productive. When one focuses sufficiently, the dashboard idea becomes less fanciful. Disaster Recovery Plans dashboard might be a place to start, accompanied by a restructuring of the process of plan formulation, transfers and implementation. If Oracle CEO Larry Ellison can track 20,000 salespeople, tracking Mumbai city is in the realm of the possible. This may sound just like Chandrababu Naidu redux, but that should not be an argument against it—how well it is done is the key.

Much of that exercise will involve policy changes that will please some but not others. It is heartening that more and more policymakers in India understand how to shape economic policies that favor growth and development.

The weak spot remains expenditure quality and policy implementation. Restructuring civic incentives, based on improved information flows, will go a long way towards tackling this weakness.

That is what corporate dashboards are about.

Mumbai CEO can use them too. He can choose to be efficient. It can seriously put its world-class IT industry to work, to make that happen.

The CEO’s team shall include senior managers of city departments, a program manager and IT specialist. The CEO Dashboard will help reinvent the word mayor. CEO Dashboard shall help convert public & city related data into Public Decisions. Dashboard will be additional tool to help Mumbai CEO,buildstrategies for Mumbai to focus on citizen-centric government.

Practically, without the availability of right data at the right time through the Dashboard like presentation layers, Mumbai CEO cannot perform and would be a burden on the city.

Mumbai today faces a yawning deficit, neglected operations, low morale and lacks any valuable management or operational data. For example, after Public Works management estimated 587 potholes in need of repair, the mayor’s ‘Pot Hole Posse’ that was dispatched to fill them found 3,606 in the first three months.

opinion

Mumbai CEO shall have highly diversified tasks in terms of measuring the performance of the services delivered by various government entities

In another example that happened with the outgoing administration, ‘only 33 out of 8,000 employees had been rated less than ‘effective’ on their personal evaluations, meaning that neither departmental nor individual performance was being seriously evaluated.

Mumbai CEO shall work on a set of principles: • We serve citizens, and we care about the outcomes they experience.

• We will be open and transparent.

• We will be effective and efficient.

The centerpiece of the city’s pursuit of these principles would be the new performance measurement system. Its objectives would include providing timely and accurate information on the state of city services and operations; providing management with operating targets and a means to track progress to increase management accountability; and providing a public window into the city’s operating environment to regain public confidence in the city’s competence.

Building Public Performance Measures There are three major challenges to build municipal performance measures versus those for private business. First, local government operations cannot be summarized in a single financial metric; unlike in business, profitability is not a common bottom-line denominator in public services. Second, local governments lack a unified culture; they do not provide a single line of service. ‘Police units have a military culture … Planning departments have a culture akin to an academic institution … Public works functions more like a manufacturing operation.

And third, government information is public, which raises issues the private sector can avoid.

While starting to construct Mumbai’s new

performance management system, the new-age Mumbai team should begin by asking, ‘What do citizens of Mumbai care about in regards to their local government?’

The team shall have to first identify underlying citizen concerns—their ownership of city services as taxpayers and their role as ‘customers’ of these services—the team will have to create an approach for defining outcomes for the new system that will reflect either effectiveness or efficiency. It will have to trim a potentially endless inventory of measures by tying criteria for the system to the mayor’s four key ‘strategic pillars’: • Improve public safety • Improve public infrastructure • Improve efficiency and effectiveness of city services • Create financial stability The performance scorecard that will emerge from this process will be largely outcome focused. The team will have to wary of imposing an operational philosophy. “Let managers manage.” At the end of the day, citizens do not care whether crime is down because training has been increased, or more officers are on the beat, or technology improvements have been made. It is the outcome that matters.

Also recognizing that the nature of municipal operations inhibits the value of financial measures in assessing success, ‘Citizen Satisfaction Survey’ to measure the public’s perception of these outcomes is suggested. This approach represents a huge leap in municipal governance: Being held accountable for citizen perceptions is very different from being accountable for executing a business process.

Although the Dashboard is one of several municipal management initiatives, the similarities and differences relative to those other systems warrant discussion to provide some perspective on the significance and value of the November 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

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HIGH-TECH GOVERNANCE

City’s approach. Although no system is likely to fit without some adaptation many cities seem likely to have similar needs that shall drive officials to develop the Dashboard. In the end, “the CEO Dashboard should make CEO of the Mumbai City more accountable and responsive to its constituents, and serve as an interesting model for other cities.

A city as large as Mumbai certainly has a large task ahead of it when it comes to reporting performance. Of course, city officials can produce key performance metrics (KPIs), that’s not the problem. In fact, thousands of such metrics flood the city management offices every day.

The challenge is how to organize the data into a meaningful presentation suitable for public consumption and understanding.

The integrated performance-related statistics from city’s different organizations shall help Mumbai CEO make smarter decisions by giving them fast access to information about the public’s demands and agency performance. Using these dashboards, Mumbai CEO can anticipate emerging issues and respond more quickly to problems, such as noise pollution complaints.

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BI and Analytics - defined as the extensive use of data, statistical and quantitative analysis and fact-based management help drive decisions and actions - to improve the delivery and performance of public services. Sophisticated analytics are rapidly finding applications in areas such as tax revenue collection, postal services, fraud detection, public safety, and health and human services. Local and regional municipalities, as well as the government, are increasingly adopting analytics. They are as constructive in public service as they are in the commercial sector, where companies have long used analytics as a competitive weapon.

Government agencies can access substantially more data, not only from publicly available sources, such as the Internet, but also from their own systems and those of other organizations. Many agencies are now more capable of capturing clean, integrated and timely transaction data. The data comes from more sources through a wider range of channels - from traffic cameras and under-highway sensors to e-mails and mobile communications handsets. And it’s proliferating at staggering rates.

Organisations also have software and hardware that can better capture, store, distribute and interpret data. There is more processing power on desktops and in data centers. And real-time business intelligence (BI) software, in which automated decision-making systems are embedded in business processes, is rapidly gaining ground.

There’s also more demand for sharper insights and better ways of gathering and interpreting data to inform decision-making. A generation of technology-literate and data-savvy managers is one reason for that demand, which also stems from external factors, like the war on terrorism.

No doubt, that government and other publicsector organizations, much like their commercial counterparts, are looking for bigger benefits from their enterprise systems. Those that substantially outperform competitors over the long term and across economic, industry and leadership cycles - are more likely to value fact-based decisionmaking and to have the skills and capabilities to effectively use analytics. They are twice as likely to use analytics strategically compared with the overall sample and five times more likely to do so than low performers.

case study

Abu Dhabi government

Abu Dhabi Aims for e-Government Excellence Oracle Siebel Shared Government CRM Platform Implemented for United Arab Emirates’ Capital City By egov Bureau

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he Abu Dhabi Government of the United Arab Emirates has set for itself the goal of becoming one of the top five E-governments in the world. It aspires to achieve its ambitions by improving service delivery and increasing satisfaction among its population of 1.6 million people, businesses and its own employees.

IT was seen as a key to success, and so in 2005 the Executive Council of the Abu Dhabi Government set up Information Centre (ADSIC) to own the IT agenda of the Emirate, and implement the E government program. In line with it, we initiated the Shared Government Customer Relationship Management (CRM) program focusing on the collaborative and analytical domains of customer relations across 60 government entities.

Oracle Siebel CRM was identified as the foundation of the technology platform, and Capgemini was selected as the IT services partner to implement the platform that supports the processes and the functions related to the shared CRM. ADSIC hired Capgemini because of its CRM track record, its leadership in the Public Sector, the quality of its technical solution and price

The Solution The solution empowers the government to understand the needs of the populace, anticipate them, and to engage better them. It incorporates survey and campaign management, and reporting using Business Intelligence (BI) tools. Customers can request information, log

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complaints, report incidents, and give feedback, submit suggestions and compliments. Current enhancements include the addition of Executive Dashboards and implementation of location based services.

The Result The Shared Government CRM platform, which handles 7,000- 8,000 cases per month, is now being utilized by 60 government entities, and customers can reach the contact centers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is the first government-wide enterprise system to be hosted in the shared government data center and using the shared government network called ADNET. The solution empowers 60 government departments to collaborate with each other enables the government to proactively reach out to citizens via awareness campaigns or deliver services based on demographic profiles. It also

allows all of Abu Dhabi’s citizens to give feedback, report incidents and request information in a convenient way across multiple established channels such as the Abu Dhabi portal, the Abu Dhabi Government Contact Centre, and at the counter of any Abu Dhabi Government Enterprise (ADGE) branch giving the city’s inhabitants a consistent, hassle-free experience of the government’s services by standardizing and integrating customer interactions across all channels including the web, telephone, SMS, and ADGE counter.

The first two releases of the platform went live in July 2010 and October 2010. Capgemini has supported the platform since July 2010. And, with Arabic language assistance from its systems integrator partner ITQAN when necessary, it has trained ADSIC’s employees in the new technology. Capgemini is now enhancing the processes, functional and usability aspects of the system.

RNI NO. - UPENG/2008/25234

UP/GBD - 71/2009-2011

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