Indian IT Secretaries - The torchbearers of change : November 2005 Issue

Volume I issue 8, November 2005

ISSN 0973-161X

Role of e-Government in overcoming bureaucracy in transitional countries PAGE 20 LOKVANI: An (e)ffort to (e)mpower citizens PAGE 32 e-Governance implementation in Government of Pondicherry - a holistic approach PAGE 36 The first Asian monthly on e-Government

Indian IT Secretaries

The torchbearers of change

Himachal Pradesh

Pondicherry

Bihar

Page 18 Interview G. D. Gautama Principal Secretary IT, West Bengal

knowledge for change

Uttaranchal

Page 29 Interview Shahid Khan Director, Income Tax Systems, GoI

Delhi

West Bengal Jharkhand

Orissa

Page 23

Conference Report

www.egov.csdms.in

CONTENTS

The first Asian monthly on e-Government

QUOTES

13 The torchbearers of change Citizens have high hopes from state IT secretaries of India and the job is not less challenging. IT secretaries from 10 states speak their mind at Conflux 2005.

“The role of intermediaries has to be given prominence within e-Government strategies... such intermediaries could come from the private, public or voluntary sectors and I believe they have a big part to play in delivering citizen-centric government.”

- Ian Watmore, Head of e-Government, UK

In Practice

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Changing face of India’s Income Tax Department Interview: Shahid Khan

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Role of e-Government in overcoming bureaucracy in transitional countries Prof. Dr. Abbasov A.M and Dr. Gulmammadov R.H.

LOKVANI: An (e)ffort to (e)mpower citizens Amod Kumar, Amarpal Singh and Amit Shukla

Commentary

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Country Focus Azerbaizan

Rural information, knowledge

Regular Features

6 News Review 47 numbers 23 Conflux 2005 Report

and services – trends and approaches S. Janakiram

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Popularising e-Governance services Archana P. Nagvekar

Regional Focus

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Creating a connectivity backbone for rural Bengal Interview: G. D. Gautama e-Governance implementation in Government of Pondicherry (GoP) - a holistic approach Dr. V. Prithiviraj | November 2005

49 50

About Town Facts and Data

“Transformation is required for not only the services and business processes, but also for the mindset and culture at different levels of the government” - Howard Dickson, Chief Information Officer, Government of Hong Kong

“What emerged from e-government are predominantly projects and programmes concerned too much with technology and too little with change, too much with improving access to services, and too little with achieving back office efficiencies” - Glyn Evans, Chair, Socitm Information Age Government Group & Director of Business Information, Birmingham City Council, UK

Read the magazine online at

www.egov.csdms.in 3

EDITORIAL

Vol. I, Issue 8

November 2005

President M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief Ravi Gupta Assistant Editors Anuradha Dhar (New Delhi) Isa Seow (Singapore) Sub-Editor Dipanjan Banerjee Designed by Deepak Kumar Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Web www.egov.csdms.in Editorial and marketing correspondence eGov G-4 Sector 39 NOIDA 201301, India Tel: +91 120 2502181-87 Fax: +91 120 2500060 Email: info@egov.csdms.in Printed by Yashi Media Works Pvt Ltd New Delhi, India egov does not neccesarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in the magazine are those of the contributors. egov is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred, directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided.

Share, Share, Share or we will be nowhere!

What was once being said for ICT4D projects in India, is being said for the e-Government space as well! India is a country of pilots (pilot projects), with no aeroplanes to fly! e-Government projects in India are too many. But every department is a ‘champion’ on its own in this complex, fuzzy and glamorous world of e-government.

We had a glimpse of this situation in the recently concluded mega-conference - Conflux 2005. While there were around 150 papers presented at the conference from various district, state and central government departments; research institutions; academic organisations; NGOs and the private sector, there was a clear felt need for a knowledge sharing platform, where all these learning could be documented, shared and crystallised. There were several responses coming like ‘I never knew that this thing is happening in this department’ to ‘can you help build a similar system as yours in my state’ etc.

By an estimate of NASSCOM, the government IT spending is staggering (at least

by Indian standards) USD 1 billion (Rs. 4,000 crores) per year. With the imminent launch of the approx USD 3 billion (14,000 crores) National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) by the Government of India, this spending is poised to grow fast. There is a danger that islands of success in department, geographies and isolated champions would be again created. The need to ‘bare’ and ‘share’ both the good and bad experiences of producing successful e-government projects will be required in a big way. Conflux 2005 was an effort in this direction to create a ‘Community-ofPractice’ in the e-Government domain so that this emerging and exciting field of knowledge reaches out its true practitioners and potential stakeholders.

The Conflux 2005 saw the participation of several IT secretaries in the country to share a single dais and share the problems and opportunities they are encountering in their respective states. It was perhaps for the first time that the e-government community got to listen and deliberate with the IT secretaries on a collective basis on a public platform. This gave many new perspectives to the e-Government scenario in the country and perhaps gave the rare peep into their minds. Read more about it inside!

Hope you enjoy this issue and don’t forget to provide your frank feedback to us!

egov is published in technical colloboration with GIS Development (www.GISdevelopment.net)

Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in

© Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, 2005 www.csdms.in

| November 2005

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e-Government

INDIA Right to Information Act comes into force in India The pathbreaking Right to Information Act (RTI), giving legal rights to people to seek information from the government and curb corruption, came into force in India, on 12th October, placing India among the 55 countries to have such legislation. The Act was passed by the Parliament in the last budget session and got presidential assent on June 15. It is aimed at bringing about transparency and accountability in the working of public offices. The new law, would not be applicable in the Jammu and Kashmir. The passage of the Bill would create opportunities for the people of India to participate meaningfully in the democratic governance.

The centre has to appoint a Central Information Commission, which will consist of a Chief information commissioner and central information commissioners. Senior retired Indian Administrative Service officer from Jammu and Kashmir, Wajahat Habibullah, has been appointed the Chief Information Commissioner. To ensure that the information sought is provided quickly, the Act makes it obligatory for the Public Information Officer (PIO) to provide the information requested for, as permissible under the act, within 30 days. The authorities are required to respond to queries in as little as 48 hours, if it is a matter of life and liberty.

The Bill exempts security and intelligence organizations from the Bill’s purview.

Another remarkable feature is that the provisions of this Bill shall have overriding 6

effect in the event of any conflict between the provisions of this Bill and the Official Secrets Act, 1923, or any other law for the time being in force.

Mizoram adopts e-Governance The Mizoram government has set up a state-of-the art infrastructure hub. The eGovernance project venture, funded by North Eastern Council (NEC), aims to share information through a multi-core fibre optic connectivity between all secretariat buildings including Raj Bhavan, Assembly house, and the Chief Minister’s office, with more than 500 nodes.

As informed by the state Information Technology (IT) deputy secretary that the state’s -governance centre is fully operational including online tendering information, office automation procedure, intranet for Mizoram government, messaging services for Mizoram government’s employees and an official government website. The project was completed at the cost of Rs 375 lakh.

Apart from the connectivity to the government employees, 360 high-tech personal computer systems would also be distributed among them.

Village panchayats to be computerised in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu government proposes to computerise all 12,618 village panchayats in the current year. Till date, 1,113 village panchayats have been provided with computers. They were covered in the first phase of the computerisation programme launched by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa last October.

The second phase, scheduled to be taken up shortly, will cover 5,409 village panchayats. Orders have been placed with the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu Limited (ELCOT). Last week, it informed the Rural Development department that the supply would be made by the first week of November. Apart from around 5,400 panchayats, the Local Fund Audit department will be computerised. The cost is estimated at Rs. 28 crore.

In the first phase, 385 panchayat unions, 29 offices of Assistant Directors of Panchayats in the districts and the Directorate of Rural Development were also covered. The total cost was Rs.10.37 crore. Funds for the two phases have been provided from the 11th Finance Commission grants. The proposal has been sent to the Government for sanction of about Rs.32 crore to cover the remaining 6,096 village panchayats.

The ELCOT has been sounded for making available the computers. An elaborate training programme is being given to panchayat presidents or officials. A Webenabled software, designed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), in consultation with the Comptroller and Auditor General, is being used for maintenance of accounts of Panchayat Raj institutions.

West Bengal prepares e-Governance roadmap West Bengal government said that it has roped in Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, to prepare a vision document and roadmap for effective implementation of e-Governance schemes. The institute would prepare the vision document for 2005-10 focusing on the aspirations and needs of the masses, particularly the rural populace.

The government was planning to network all the 3,354 gram panchayats in West Bengal within the next three years for providing e-Governance services. The state government has also proposed setting up of citizens’ service centres at each gram panchayats. Eight gram panchayats in four districts have been selected for pilot projects, he said.

However, the list of services to be offered www.egov.csdms.in |

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and prices charged were yet to be finalised.

University of Madras goes for eadministration The University of Madras has gone for a total e-solutions package that will cover all academic departments and administrative offices. The Rs. 85.94 lakh project, the first for a south Indian university — Osmania University in Hyderabad and Anna University have only partial packages — will be implemented by HTC Global Services Ltd, a Singaporebased firm.

the chairmanship of Secretary, DIT with senior representatives from Government, NASSCOM, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), etc. with a mandate to approve, notify and enforce the Standards formulated by various Working Groups and to oversee that they are in accordance with international practices in this regard.

Director (e-Governance), DIT will be the convenor of the Apex Body.

National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been entrusted with the task of originating white papers on all the desired standards which would serve as discussion papers for Working groups to develop the standards. The Working Groups with members from DIT, Associations, Industry, Academia, representatives from Central & State Government etc will be constituted with the approval of DIT.

The project will be implemented in phases, starting with the examination system and then move across to distance education centres and finance. All university departments will be interconnected.

The approved standards by the Apex Body will be released on the web by Standardization Testing & Quality Certification Directorate (STQC). STQC will further ensure conformance & certification (where required) of these standards.

The University is also going for a virtual university jointly with the universities of Mumbai and Calcutta and evolving an e-learning curriculum for undergraduate courses.

Jharnet to connect 4500 government offices by June

DIT establishes mechanism for evolving standards for e-Governance Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India which is driving the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) had constituted a Core group on Standards to arrive at an Institutional Mechanism and Processes to be put in place and recommend key areas for standardization.

Some of the key priority areas of immediate concern that have been identified for standardization are Technical Standards, Localisation Standards, Quality & Documentation, Security Standards, Meta Data and Data Standards for various application domains.

An Apex body has been constituted under | November 2005

All the offices of Jharkhand government in India will be linked through a statewide communication and information network ‘’Jharnet’’ by June next year.

Jharnet will connect about 4500 state capital, district and block level government offices by the end of this financial year. It would function as an information super highway for the state government and would satisfy all the information needs of the state, besides allowing access to the other nodes which will work as the dissemination points of information.

Municipal bodies in Kashmir go online The Kashmir Urban Local Bodies have gone on air with their departmental website www. ulbk.org, making seven municipal bodies accessible through internet and connected to the Directorate

Urban Local Bodies.

The website besides containing details of s o c i a l infrastructure including educational institutions, Health institutions etc., locals could apply for building permeation and deposit tax on line. The website would contain detail’s of the development works under execution in a particular are tender notices etc.

India govt inaugurates computerisation of Judiciary programme Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh inaugurated a Five-Year National Programme for Computerisation of Judiciary. Technology and a scientific approach could contribute significantly to improving the justice delivery system and ensuring better court services. The plan, aims at complete automation at the registry level, the digitisation of law libraries and court archives, and installation of video conferencing facilities in court complexes.

Cisco-VSNL tie-up for broadband in India Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) has announced the deployment of India’s “largest broadband network “ using Cisco Systems’ end-to-end solutions. This is part of VSNL’s objective to provide enterprise and broadband customers with bandwidth of between 10 mbps and 100 mbps capacity.

The first phase of deployment which will connect one million subscribers in six months across eight of the largest cities in the country, and will cost Rs 500 crore, most of which will be spent on Cisco’s solutions. As VSNL already has a domestic network of 36,000 km of lit fibre, largely consisting of owned capacity, Cisco’s broadband solutions will be overlaid on this wherever broadband is to be deployed.

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ASIA Pakistan launches online tax return facility

The government of Pakistan has introduced electronic filing of income tax returns. The new e-service is available at www.cbr.gov.pk, launched by Central Board of Revenue (CBR). The necessary forms for filing tax returns can be downloaded from the CBR’s website and, once filled, returned to the CBR by e-mail.

In order to avail of the facility, taxpayers will need to obtain a digital signature from the National Institutional Facilitation Technologies, for which there is a charge of PKR 5,000 (around EUR70). The government said online filing of tax returns was aimed especially at Income Tax Practitioners and Chartered Accountant companies, who file multiple returns on behalf of their clients.

Amendments have been made to government legislation to give legal recognition to electronic returns and to allow tax practitioners who file multiple returns on behalf of clients to only obtain one digital signature.

Dubai launches Mobile and e-Permit portals The municipal government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has announced the launch of its new Mobile Portal. The portal is a specially designed version of the Dubai e-government portal, www.dubai.ae that is available to users of mobile phones and PDAs. Services have been made available in categories of traffic, Islamic affairs, financial information, travel booking, Dubai information, and entertainment. Among 8

the information available via the portal are visa information, prayer times, stock market updates and television schedules.

Users can also avail of services such as booking flights, traffic fine payments, and currency converters.

Dubai’s Civil Engineering Department (CED) has also launched an ePermit that aims to make the building permit process more efficient and easier to use for engineering consultants. This site allows engineers who register their details to submit online applications for building permits for projects that fall under the auspices of the CED. Engineers can track the progress of their applications via the portal, and applicants will receive feedback on their submissions following assessment by the CED and the Environment, Health and Safety and Fire Protection departments.

Brunei launches four e-Government projects Of the 13 projects that have been earmarked for over BND40 million (EUR19.6 million) in funding by the government, four were launched for the Ministry of Religious Affairs. These are are the Infrastructure Networking and Data Centre, the Zakat Management System, the e-Islam Information Kiosk and the Islamic Information System (SisMi).

The data centre will house all of the ministry’s servers, the Zakat Management System is an IT system that will aid in the collection and distribution of tithes, the SisMi will develop systems and applications related to the task and responsibilities of the ministry, including the development of a new website and the e-Islam Information Kiosk project will involve the placing of 18 kiosks offering

information in strategic locations such as mosques, government buildings, the hospital and the airport.

Philippine agriculture to get ICT help Four agencies of the government have collaborated to offer modern technology through ICT to farmers.

The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development-DOST, DAP, PhilRice-DA and the Department of Land Reform (DLR) recently signed a memorandum of agreement on the use of ICT for the enhancement of the agricultural technology to the sectors concerned.

Designed for the farmers, fishermen, extension workers, researchers and agricultural businessmen, the program called “Knowledge Networking Towards Enterprising Agricultural Communities” or K-AGRINET is focused on the e-extension or e-learning modules about rice production and other farm related topics.

This will be given through Web-based information services.

Chinese government boasts of a 100 million strong Internet user community China happens to be one of the fastest growing online markets in the world.

Latest reports claims that the country now boasts of more than 100 million netizens.

Most of these users are on advanced Internet connections like the ones based on ADSL broadband Internet service. The information was released by the Optical Telecommunications Committee of China Telecommunications Society. The finding based on the 16th survey into the development of Internet in China reveals that there are 53 million broadband subscribers, most of whom are Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) clients. The survey also came out with the interesting finding that 17 per cent of surveyed users were not satisfied with the connectivity, while 40 per cent were only found to be moderately satisfied. www.egov.csdms.in |

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software, including China, South Korea and France.

WORLD

e-Tendering in Ireland on rise

US citizens’ satisfaction with government improves The federal government continues to show a gradual upward trend in online citizen satisfaction, as the aggregate satisfaction score improved quarter over quarter and year over year for the third year in a row. According to the latest findings of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI, www. theacsi.org) special report on federal government’s online performance, the egovernment sector is gaining on several fronts but still faces considerable challenges.

The Index aggregate satisfaction score increased 1.2% for the quarter to 73.5, which represents a 3.2% improvement from September 2004 and shows that online government maintains an upward trend even as citizens’ standards continue to rise. This increase parallels the yearover-year increase of 4.7% in the ACSI’s annual e-business measure released last month. The ACSI e-business index measures portals, search engines and news and information sites, categories that are comparable to most government sites in the Index. A total of 13 federal websites achieved satisfaction scores of 80 or above this quarter – a superior score for either private or public sector — while four sites were rated below a 60.

European Commission sets up biometrics portal The European Commission has launched a public information portal on the subject of biometrics, a technology that is becoming increasingly popular in the context of e-Government services.

Biometrics involves the use of technology to recognise unique biological traits, such as fingerprints; it can be used as a means of authentication with regard to e-services, passports and ID cards, as well as in efforts to fight terrorism and | November 2005

www.europeanbiometrics.info

organised crime. The European Biometrics Portal’s stated aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of biometrics activities in current and future EU Member States. The site provides news and event information, access to in-depth assessments of successes and failures of specific projects, and references and links to policy statements, along with an area for discussion forums. The portal is also open to scientific and policy contributions from governments, industry and civil society authors.

Peru seeks to promote open source software The government of Peru has approved legislation that would oblige public bodies to consider open source software alongside proprietary software when procuring IT equipment or systems. The Peruvian Congress passed a bill that prohibits public institutions from purchasing IT systems that tie users into any particular type of software or that “limits information autonomy.” Under the legislation, public bodies would also be barred from having a predetermined preference for any kind of software, whether proprietary or open source. Bids from IT suppliers would be formally assessed based on cost and suitability to the circumstances, with the results of the evaluation to be made available online providing there was no threat to national security. Congress voted unanimously in favour of the bill, which must now go before the president, who will either sign the bill into law or send it back to Congress for modification. If the bill is passed into law, Peru will join a growing list of countries who have recently begun promoting the use of open source

The number of companies using the government’s e-tenders website has increased by 62 percent in the past twelve months. Usage figures from the Department of Finance, which manages the e-Tenders site, reveal that there are now over 27,000 companies registered on the procurement site, where as much as EUR100 million worth of business is conducted each year. The average number of visitors to the site each month has grown by over 62 percent year-on-year.

July 2005 was the busiest month for the site; during the month some 96,000 users visited the site. Previous figures had indicated that a large number of SMEs believed that the e-tenders system was most beneficial to larger companies. These new figures are good news for the Department of Finance, which has been running a year-long campaign to boost awareness of the e-tenders website, particularly among small and medium sized companies.

Kenya prepares for e-payments Government suppliers in Kenya are set to be paid electronically under a new egovernment initiative approved by the Cabinet, according to a report in the Kenya Times newspaper. Payments to suppliers will be processed online and lodged to suppliers’ bank accounts over the Internet, saving the government billions of shillings in reduced paperwork. The move is part of a broader e-government programme that will see e-mail replacing the letter as the official channel for government communications. All of the main government offices have been equipped with Internet access in anticipation of the rollout of e-government. It is hoped that, within a year, citizens will be able to avail of online services such as passport renewal and ID card applications.

Read more egov news www.egov.csdms.in 9

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ICT for Development

Commodity Suchna Kendra gets launched in Maharashtra In an attempt to link the traders across the Indian state Maharashtra with each other, Comodity Suchna Kendra hub has been launched at the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC), Pune. With this 290 APMCs across Maharashtra got place in the digital map. The idea is to furnish national and futures commodity prices alongside India’s first Composite Commodity Futures Index, Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX)-COMDEX, on a real time basis to all the APMCs hooked to the Pune hub.

HP Labs launches vernacular keypads in India

can be extended to any Indic script. It is compatible with various editors, databases, search engines, and mailing and chat applications. These keyboards were earlier pilot tested in rural kiosks in District Pune.

telecentre.org ready to get launched Set to launch in World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in November 2005, telecentre.org, a public/ private partnership programme housed at Canada’s IDRC. It intends to support activities that would benefit grassroots telecentres as well as to deliver services and resources that connect and nurture the telecentre movement globally.

The idea is to use communication to help the people who make telecentres “work” to collaborate in solving problems, sharing resources, and - in general supporting each other. Telecentre.org will also undertake research, social marketing, and awareness raising designed to help policy makers, funders and others who understand the development potential of telecentres.

India to help Africa bridge digital divide

With a total headcount of 700 across its six labs globally and operations in India for the past three years, HP Labs (HPL), is all set to roll out vernacular keypads in the domestic market as also a system to capture, store and redistribute educational programmes from television along with printable data in quality format. These vernacular keypads are called Gesture Keyboard and were launched in an eGovernment conference Conflux 2005 on 17th October.

This Gesture Keyboard (GKB) is a penbased low-cost device that can be used to input text in local language. HP has developed the device for Devanagari and Tamil scripts and the same technology 10

India will assist the African Union in facilitating tele-education and telemedicine across the 53 member countries through the project, to be called the Pan African Network Project (PANP).

The PANP will also put in place a communication network, including video conferencing facilities, providing connectivity to all heads of State Government in the African Union.

Village phones for farmers in Uganda Faced with the challenge of improving communications among grassroots farmers in the Kayunga district in Central Uganda, Information Communication Technologies for Africa Rural Development (ICTARD) has distributed village phones which form a key part of the information and communication

system there for the farmers helping them to plan their crop production and gain access to markets. The farmers themselves have maximized the use of the village phones to access market information from any part of Uganda. They use locally developed SMS services to send and automatically receive updates on market prices. Because of this, farmers no longer have to wait for buyers and middlemen who con them.

Tele medicine service for remote India A pilot project aiming at the difficult and remote areas of the Indian state Himachal Pradesh has been sanctioned by the Centre for introducing tele medicine service in the Shimla, Chamba and Kinnaur districts from next month.

The people living in these districts would receive medical attention without visiting the Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital in Shimla. The experts sitting in this hospital will be able to examine the patient through this service. The facility to consult other specialists in PGI Chandigarh will also be available through a tele medicine network already established between Shimla and Chandigarh based institutions. *In collaboration with i4d (www.i4d.csdms.in)

www.egov.csdms.in |

Oracle helps Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation exceed revenue collection by 39%

Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation

Copyright Š 2005, Oracle. Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Retek are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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Geo-Informatics

GIS/GPS to track garbage trucks The Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) in India has decided to adopt a three-pronged strategy, including building of a scientific sanitary landfill at its dumping site of Jawaharnagar, to tackle the solid waste generated in the twin cities. Introduction of new and large capacity garbage trucks, more dumper bins and improving communication facilities of its sanitary staff are among other steps announced by MCH. Garbage trucks would soon be fitted with GIS/GPS systems for tracking and more efficient movement. To begin with, Jawaharnagar site would be levelled properly and waste will be dumped in a more ‘orderly’ manner with internal roads to prevent it from being spread over a large area. To carry the garbage, three new 25 tonne capacity trucks would be pressed into service next month.

Food inspection in Sharjah to use electronic maps Armed with the new PDA advanced system, Sharjah Municipality inspectors are all set to conduct their examinations of various outlets selling food including supermarkets, restaurants and groceries to safeguard the health of consumers. The equipment has entailed an estimated cost of half a million dirham. The main objective of using the device is to ensure the safety of the food items offered for sale in the emirate of Sharjah. The PDA device will ensure the quality and the safety of various food items offered in the market. The device features electronic maps that will facilitate the job of the inspectors in determining the locations of the food outlets and the other outlets that needs to be inspected. The PDA device will also ensure that all the outlets selling food items are regularly inspected.

He said in the last few months a number of supermarkets and restaurants were closed as they were found violating health norms and selling unsafe food items.

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The device will also enable the inspectors to strictly ensure the safety of food available in the market. The device will also help us in preparing comprehensive and accurate inspection plans in the future. Through the PDA the inspection of each outlet will take less time and will be more flexible than before that will save the time of both the inspectors and the owners of the inspected outlets. It will efficiently contribute in completing the inspection in less time and make it easier for the inspectors to keep track of the outlets they have already inspected and the other outlets that still need inspection.

Population and Socioeconomic Atlas of Nepal Recently the Population and Socioeconomic Atlas of Nepal was published.

With 210 maps on 10 different themes related to social, economic and demographic indicators, the atlas offers graphic versions of data from the 2001 census, dissecting Nepal into crosssections viewed through a host of parameters. The atlas will be a very useful tool for geographers, development planners, policy makers and researchers.

Jointly conceived and produced by the Survey Department and Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) with support from the EU, the main objective was to present demographic socio-economic indicators based on the last census.

Kenya turns to digital mapping to fight crime The Kenya government has embarked on a multi-million shilling project to create detailed digital maps of all the major urban centres in the country, showing street locations and landmarks. The project, to be completed in the next three years, is expected to boost the government’s efforts in improving security by helping the police respond to crime and distress calls faster. As part of the current project, the Survey of Kenya managed to reclaim old maps of Kenya’s towns held by the British Museums. The cost of the countrywide project is still undetermined.

The digital maps can only be useful to security forces when existing anomalies in the structural aspects affecting major urban centres are addressed. He said that the main contentions are street naming and the accuracy of information on entry and exit points in different parts of the country.

India to launch RISAT configured for disaster management India would launch Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT) configured for disaster management by the end of next year.

RISAT with all weather capability would be launched onboard PSLV. Other planned remote sensing missions include Oceansat-2, a follow up to operational IRS-P4 (Oceansat-1). A Disaster Management Support System was also being evolved involving space images and communication system. It would be a multi-agency mechanism with real time network and nationwide data base about suceptible regions. For efficient disaster management that includes different phases, mitigation and preparedness, response and recovery and relief, information in terms of quick and clear view of the situation holds the key.

ORSAC to telecast EDUSAT programme in Orissa schools The Orissa Remote Sensing Application Centre (ORSAC) has submitted a proposal to telecast EDUSAT programme in 1000 schools across the state. The programme would be shown in 600 Primary and Upper primary schools and 400 High schools by this year. The Centre has agreed to allow the state government to utilise Rs 22 crore from the existing funding under Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) for implementation of EDUSAT programme in 1000 schools. ISRO and Department of Science had already communicated decision to establish EDUSAT Hub in ORSAC building and provide 10 SIT free of cost. *In collaboration with GIS@development (www.gisdevelopment.net)

www.egov.csdms.in |

COVER STORY

The torchbearers of change Citizens have high hopes from state IT secretaries of India and the job is not less challenging. IT secretaries from 10 states speak their mind at Conflux 2005.

F

irst of its kind, IT Secretarys’ Conclave at Conflux 2005 brought together IT secretaries from different states of India to speak and interact in an open forum, discussing their state level execution of mission mode projects mentioned in NeGP. There were deliberations on issues ranging from absorptive capacity of the employees, technical support and capacity building issues, vendor selection based upon central framework and decentralized institution, availability and planning for creating infrastructure for implementing Mission Mode Projects (MMPs), State Wide Area Network (SWAN) to non availability of skilled personnel. Ways to ensure interoper-ability between different departments, experience sharing among states were also some focal issues that were discussed.

The panelists included S.N. Tripathi, Secretary IT and Panchayati Raj, Orissa, R.S. Sharma, Principal Secretary IT, Jharkhand, G.D. Gautama, Principal secretary IT, West Bengal, Prakash Kumar, IT Secretary, Delhi, Sanjeev Chopra, IT secretary, Uttaranchal, Rajesh Gupta, IT Secretary, Bihar, Dr. Prithviraj, Director IT, Pondicherry, Sanjeev Gupta, Secretary IT, Himachal Pradesh. Presentations were also made by J N Singh, IT Secretary, Gujarat and Narsing Rao, Secretary IT, | November 2005

Andhra Pradesh before the conclave, highlighting their state level plans and initiatives in e-Governance.

All the panelists in their own articulate fashion explained the gap areas and leading initiatives of their State.

One key lesson, which was raised unequivocally, was the need to initiate learning and sharing of successful practices among the States. There should be some mechanism in place so that the states could learn from each other, was highlighted by all the panelists.

The forum also stressed on the dire shortage of efficient people in government and the need for capacity building of employees.

Introductory remark The introductory remark was delivered by the moderator of the session, G.D. Gautama. He said that though India has emerged as a leader in IT space and as a knowledge super power but at the same time there is a huge digital divide and only a very small percentage of our skills are getting replicated to the ground in terms of service to the citizens. “I personally believe that this is not the kind of justice we are doing to our country as a whole” and he went on to say that the bulk of the problem lies with government itself because of its stroke mindset and

resistance to new technology. At the same time he also appreciated the efforts taken by different state governments towards e-Governance. He was hopeful that situation would improve and “the way India has emerged as knowledge super power, similar kind of diligence we would see in e-governance too.”

Ram Sewak Sharma Principal Secretary, IT Government of Jharkhand He focused on four crucial issues related to his state. “My state was created 2 years back. We have had some advantages and disadvantages. Absorptive capacity is certainly an issue specially among the states which are not so advanced in using ICT. People still feel doing things the old way is the good way. There is a need for a very intensive training for our people. In the limited time of 2 years we have tried to have two in-house training centres for our employees as they prefer not to go out for training anywhere.”

Talking about outsourcing, he said, “outsourcing is a fashionable word now but there is a limit to outsourcing. How much can you outsource? There should be atleast a critical mass of people who are competent, professional, know their job and have that kind of drive and vision in your department.”

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COVER STORY

“The way India has emerged as a knowledge super power, similar kind of diligence we would see in e-Governance too.

”

– G D Gautama Principal Secretary, IT Govt. of West Bengal Moderator of this forum

He highlighted the limitation of efficient people in his department in Jharkhand, “I don’t have them and my colleagues would agree that there is a huge constraint at the state-level in terms of institutional capacity. NeGP seeks to fulfill that gap and hopefully it does succeed.”

A very common complain, which he also referred was the transfer of persons heading the e-Governance project. “You need champions in each department to carry forward those projects and if you transfer the champion, the project is doomed. The whole process has not become institutionalised as one would like it to become. Therefore it is still individual driven. Instability of tenure of people involved in e-Governance is definitely a matter of concern but I am not sure how much this forum can do about it.”

Prakash Kumar Secretary, IT Government of NCT of Delhi He cited some major issues related to sharing of experience and application software among departments and states.

“We made a product called In-house tender notice information system, which is being used by Government of Jharkhand, Department of Post. In fact we had send an offer letter to all the states that if they are interested they can use. If more people will collaborate, large number 14

of tender notices will be available at one point and all this will be automated.” He talked about how repeated efforts and money are being put in by different departments to develop a similar application.

Giving the example of e-Procurement, he said, “In a state each agency is going for e-Procurement. Who is benefiting?

The vendors. Because they will be charging more. If we all pool in together like Brazil has done – for all the 3 levels of government all the procurement is done through one web-based software which means huge opportunity for vendors, they economise, registration charges are less, overall everbody benefits. Here each one is going separartely – every state, National Informatics Centre, Railways, Municipal Corporation of Delhi, etc.”

He highlighted that Delhi government has put all the e-Governance projects of the state and related useful information in a database. Thus creating a valuable resource, which could be shared among the other states. He suggested similar such initiative should be taken up by Dept. of Information Technology (DIT)and other states too.

He stressed on the fact that the government should retain IPR of the products developed for them. “Mostly when we get customized software developed for us, we give IPR rights to the vendors. If we take care of that we will

be able to share this kind of application software amongst ourselves. Rather than everyone spending money on the same product.”

He showed concern over capacity building of senior people who understand and adopt projects. “There is a huge shortage of such people who are heading bureaucracy different departments in appreciation of different projects, adopting, running and operating it. We have to probably wait for another 7-8 years till people of my seniority are here to take up such projects.”

“In NeGP, there are some mission mode projects but apart from them there are many more projects, where a lot of work has been done in different states.

The need is to put them all together so that those who have not started those projects can adopt them, learn from them and proceed further. For example Personal Information System (PIS), accounts and HR - every department is using different software. For PIS, your payment system goes for a six because you are using different application softwares in different departments. We are concentrating more on MMPs. These are small projects, which we need to think about too. There should be one software for the entire state and it has to be dynamic in nature. If you develop a product let it be compulsory for everyone to use it. DIT should also be looked into this.”

Sanjeev Chopra Principal Secretary, IT Government of Uttaranchal Mr Chopra, who has been recently posted in IT Department gave a point-of-view how other departments look towards IT. “Lets look at the life when I was not in the IT department. The fact is that the other departments do not own IT. IT is not mainstream. In the few weeks that I have spent in this department, I am very clear that there has to be multiple champions across the line in all the departments finding IT for making life easier and simpler for them. We should ask ourselves – how as IT secretaries we could make life within the government easier, for our colleagues trying to implement IT? If we can make the work of other secretaries and other collectors easier, more professional, more transparent and more meaningful by www.egov.csdms.in |

COVER STORY

implementing IT but handing we will get many over your job more converts to him. When to our cause you a buy CD otherwise it is worth 85 lakhs looked down and you find upon not only as the file corrupt vendor driven but or not respondalso as IT ing, the original department suspicion is driven. Having proved by the built this system that the confidence Ram Sewak Sharma Prakash Kumar S N Tripathi government Jharkhand Delhi Orissa among other fellow does not departments, the know what to job of change management is very do a lot. In another project Shikhar, we buy.” irrelevant.”

Thereafter, he suggested that there are providing Master’s level courses.”

He also reflected that many Differing to what Mr Sharma said that should be system software auditing firms innovations have been done already by lack of many competent people in his “who will certify that software we are many states. Lot of it has to be learnt from department is a limitation, Mr Chopra buying are audit complianced and assures each other, what we haven’t done so far. said, “It is an advantage that we do not it contains what is supposed to be As stated prior by Mr. Gautama that have a large department in IT. Smaller delivered”. there lies an attitude problem with the departments are an advantage rather With regard to the developments in government officials, Mr Chopra than being a disadvantage. Larger the Orissa, he informed the participants, “It is emphasised that it is more than a question of attitude. “If technology is available, if If we can make the work of other secretaries and other technology is simple and affordable, people will lap them. This is a great myth collectors easier, more professional, more transparent that we have to break that IT barrier, which is impossible. If we can and more meaningful by implementing IT we will get show that by adopting IT, you can pay many more converts to our cause otherwise it is looked your bills online, take it to remotest corner of state and bridge digital divide as we down upon not only as vendor driven but also as IT have done in many places. Then as an IT department we would have performed a department driven. very important service. I have not seen resistance to IT in that sense but I feel we have not been able to get other department, there are more man not that we are lagging. We thought departments convinced about the fact management problems.” we would first take up the content that we are doing it in their best interest. development, then take up the There is a major communication failure of S.N. Tripathi connectivity issues, then talk about the IT department vis-á-vis other Secretary, Panchayati Raj and IT computer systems and communication we Government of Orissa departments in the government.” thought we would leave for these kind of He went on to highlight a few of He added a flavour of humour to his conferences. Today all 6234 gram Uttaranchal’s strides in e-Governance. speech recounting some of his very panchayats in Orissa are giving their Uttaranchal is taking up a project Aarohi. interesting experiences and talking about monthly return online in a computer We have done it with Intel and we have the bureaucratic problems, which exists environment. All 314 rural bodies are been very successful at that. We have in the government. He pointed out the drawing their salary through web-enabled computers and computer training to all pain areas as he said, “Even buying package, they are doing their day-to-day children from class 6th onwards and we computer is a uphill task. When I accounting in a stand-alone package and have been able to train 25,000 teachers in negotiated with a particular vendor, he putting the entire report of 82 schemes on Uttaranchal so far. Few days back I was gave me a discounted rate. Another the daily basis, which is accessible to looking at the presentations of children colleague of mine sent it to enquiry saying each citizen. My blocks are covered on from Pithoragarh, Uttarkashi, the kind of since he is buying them for so low, there Internet, where they are using emails.” projects they can come up with it lets us must be ‘something’. When you start He highlighted the need of feel that given the right sort of selecting the vendors for writing your standardisation of various applications infrastructure, opportunities, people can software, you are not buying a solution while saying, “My colleague was talking | November 2005

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COVER STORY

Sanjiv Chopra Uttaranchal

about e- Procurement Delhi experience and we have just started conceiving this idea.

If we can standardize this, let it be through any agency. Let the vendors association find out some certification. If you buy this, this is type of service delivery you will get. This is the optimum and floor price.”

He also informed that they rely on NIC to implement and support their State’s e-Governance projects and went on to say that things also get delayed due to NIC.

Rajesh Gupta Secretary, Department of Science and Technology Government of Bihar He said despite of the fact that Bihar is a very challenging state and is under President’s rule for past few months, they have been able to do some wonderful work in certain sectors. For example, in Commercial Tax department with the help of NIC they have developed very good monitoring system and in high courts they have computerised the entire case system.

A citizen can see the status of a particular case online. He also informed that decision has been taken to engage

Rajesh Gupta Bihar

Sanjeev Gupta HImachal Pradesh

National Institute of Smart Government (NISG) as a consultant.

Sanjeev Gupta Secretary, IT, BT and S&T Government of Himachal Pradesh He highlighted a very key aspect regarding the flexibility of the states to carry out certain activities beyond projects those are listed in NeGP. He spoke on the issue of absorbtive capacity of the employees, “I think we are really underestimating our employees/ our colleagues if we feel that they don’t absorb whatever knowledge is imparted to them. I think what is important is that from absorbtive capacity, it has to evolve into a capacity to deliver. So we have to talk about the capacity building of the endusers. When I say end-users, I mean the people who are going to deliver these services across the counter. Why do we outsource front end services in the Common service centres because we are not confident that our Class A assistants who are delivering those services in manual systems will delivered when it would come to working on a computer, taking a print-out. I strongly feel that

There has to be a judicious mix of decentralisation and centralisation. I would like to urge to Department of Information Technology (DIT) that while a centralised approach should be in a form of a broad framework, states should be allowed to have their own say when it comes to actual implementation.

16

V. Prithviraj Pondicherry

capacity building as given in the guidelines floated by DIT is very important. But the fact remains that they need to get trained in drafting an EOI, RFP but at the same time people who are going to use IT at the front end should be thoroughly trained and it should be an integral part of an e-Governance initiative.

By outsourcing we are increasing the cost and making those people sit idle.”

He also stressed on the fact that there should be some flexibility with the states in the case of undertaking e-Governance activities. “In NeGP, certain projects have been identified as State Mission Mode projects. I strongly feel that there should be flexibility with the States. There are quite a few activities, which other states, like Himachal Pradesh, would like to undertake. For instance MIS, Call centre for grievance redressal, answers to queries of villagers and farmers, eLearning, GIS for planning and development works, monitoring of works, physical and financial progress, public distribution system and of course capacity building of the employees.

Therefore the activities should only be only listed in the Guidelines and State governments should be allowed to increase the scope of activities.”

On whether there should be a decentralised framework he said, “there has to be a judicious mix of decentralization and centralization.

I would like to urge to DIT that while a centralized approach should be in a form of a broad framework, states should be allowed to have their own say when it comes to actual implementation. For example, Why Remote Access Server (RAS) is not being allowed in SWAN? I www.egov.csdms.in |

COVER STORY

Key Recommendations X There is a need for intensive capacity building of government officials at all levels. In-house training options should be explored more rather than always sending officials outside the city or state.

X There is a requirement to hire more competent and skilled people in government to execute e-Governance projects.

X Instability of tenure of people in e-Governance and frequent changes is a matter of concern.

X Political support for any e-Governance program is a very crucial factor.

X There should be more sharing of experience and knowledge among the states. It could be done through eLearning platform also.

X States should develop and maintain a database of all their respective e-Governance projects and its related useful information, which could then be shared with other states.

X There is a need of standardization of applications across different departments. There should be a mechanism whereby application software developed by one department could be shared by other departments and states too. Retaining the IPR rights with the government is one way.

X Apart from mission mode projects (MMPs) mentioned in NeGP, there are many other small projects, which are required to be done at the State level. There should be some flexibility with the states to undertake e-Governance activities independent of those mission mode projects.

X Standard project reports should be made by DIT and shared by all the states.

X There should be some system software auditing firms, which could certify the software bought by government from vendors.

X There is a major communication failure of the IT department vis-á-vis other departments in the government. There is a need to convince other departments to own IT.

feel RAS is critical in any mission mode operation. So local variations and innovations must be permitted.”

He reiterated the fact once again that sharing of knowledge among the states is very important. “It is very important that whatever we are doing in different states should be shared amongst ourselves first.

Why do we need a consultant for technology? Prakash has taken out a book, which describes all the e-Government projects of Delhi Government. Other States need to do a similar thing as well. I came to know a few things about Orissa here, which I did not know. With all the Panchayats being wired and data being exchanged centrally is a news to me. Now if such things are exchanged among the states and any software we get developed, IPR should be with us and we take a permission that we would like to share with other states, it should be permitted.”

Talking on the issue of project reports, he said, “There is also lot of emphasis on preparing budget reports, carving out a framework for departmental roadmaps, defining process reengineering. Now when areas have been | November 2005

so clearly defined some of which are governed by central laws, why can’t be standard project reports be made by DIT and be shared all the states. Why should all the states spend their money on the same reports repeatedly? For example land records, motor vehicle registration, a standard project report will almost work throughout the country. I strongly feel that this replication of work is not only wastage of government money but also efforts put in for making those reports.”

V. Prithviraj IT Department, Pondicherry He also stressed that Process Standardisation to be very important and the e-Governance forum should take it up and standardize the process and share with different states and UTs. Giving some key insights of e-Governance initiatives in Pondicherry, he said, “we did a small project at Pondicherry called OPDI, where we looked at standardisation and integration of various processes. This organisation process documentation can serve as an

important document to empower the stakeholders i.e. the government employees. Tomorrow if you want to do change management, capacity building, process reengineering, there is an excellent document which can be put in front and can take up from this point and do it more effectively. Another interesting thing what we have tried to reengineer in SWAN guidelines is a disaster recovery network using VSATs.” He also informed that they are looking into Open Systems and Open Standards in a big way. On sharing of practices among the States, he suggested an e-Learning kind of advocacy could be taken-up for e-Governance to be shared among the States.

At the end of the discussion and comments made by the State IT Secretaries, questions were raised by the audience participants regarding the lack of coordination among the IT departments of the States, the issue of continuity of the IT initiatives, promotion of the small entrepreneurs for developing IT applications and on the requirement of the flexibility of DIT guidance.

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REGIONAL FOCUS WEST BENGAL

Creating a connectivity backbone for rural Bengal Owing to the fast progress of the state of West Bengal in recent years in IT and e-Governance services, it is now being counted as one among the leading states in e-Governance along with Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. West Bengal is now all set to implement India’s first rural e-Governance pilot project where connectivity will go upto the panchayat level in a southern district of the state, Burdwan. egov talks to Dr. GD Gautama, Principal Secretary IT, West Bengal Government (www.wbgov.com) to find more about the state’s key Dr GD Gautama, Principal Secretary, Department of Information Technology Government of West Bengal

What are the key initiatives taken by the government of West Bengal in e-Government?

We believe that Information Technology (IT) has no meaning unless the benefits of technology percolate down to the masses. We have taken various initiatives in the area of e-Governance. There are nine departments, which are spearheading this initiative in a very aggressive manner.

These are land & land reforms, panchayat and rural development, health and family welfare, school education department, pollution control board, transport department, consumer affairs department, agriculture department and municipal affairs.

Also, Government of India has sanctioned Rs 68.95 crore (15.2 million USD) to take connectivity right up to the block level (341 blocks). Burdwan district has been chosen as a model for the whole of the country, where the connectivity will go right up to panchayat level and Rs 4.85 crore (1 million USD) has been sanctioned for the project. The connectivity is vital for e-Governance, because unless there is a backbone infrastructure, any initiative of Information Technology cannot reach the people. We are planning to complete the project by June 2006.

What have been the key achievements of West Bengal in terms of e-Governance?

Our three main initiatives include the 18

achievements in e-Governance and its future focus.

Telemedicine project. Under this project we have a referral hospital and a nodal hospital in Calcutta, which are connected to districts in far flung areas and patients get advice from the doctors in Calcutta.

18000 patients were treated last year. At present this project is in 4 districts and it is going to be rolled-out soon. The Department of IT, Government of West Bengal received the Bronze Icon award for Telemedicine project in year 2004 and the Skoch challenger award for e-Governance in 2005. We also got an order to implement this project in Tripura.

Digitisation of the land records is another project. 97% of our land is fully digitised. The state comprises of 341 Blocks and 42,309 mouzas. The land records and cadastral maps have been computerised for all the 341 Blocks and 42309 mouzas.

Another initiative we have taken is the computer literacy programme. We are targeting 9000 secondary, higher secondary schools and Madrasas to be covered under this programme. Already 500 schools have been covered - mostly in rural areas. We have started this programme under public-private partnership with NIIT, Wipro and IBM. This year 2500 schools are going to be covered in this programme. 1 million students are going to be targeted this year.

We plan to cover the entire State in the next 3 years time. Microsoft and Intel will

impart teachers’ training programme from this year.

Compared to other States, where do you see West Bengal in e-Governance?

The kind of penetration we are making, is reasonably well. More importantly, the bulk of developments have been recent.

It is a matter of pride as I maintain that in IT and services, we are growing at a huge rate close to 74 %. Very soon we will be positioned very-very high.

Is there any complaint-redressal system online in West Bengal?

Different departments have done that, like Pollution Control Board but not all of them. They would be doing it soon. The citizens can file on line pollution complaints at http://emis.wbpcb.gov.in and interact with the Pollution Control Board for redressal of their grievances.

The Industrial Units can file online application for ‘NOC’ on the Portal.

The interactive Portal guides on procedures and policy. The citizens can access latest environment information on www.wbpcb.gov.in. The daily air quality data is uploaded on this website. The Portal is developed on ‘Open Standards’.

Do you think West Bengal has been getting equal support along with other states by the Centre?

Union IT minister has already said that West Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh www.egov.csdms.in |

REGIONAL FOCUS WEST BENGAL

and Gujarat are the leading states. We are satisfied with the support we are receiving from the Centre.

What are going to be your main focus for next few years?

Our focus will be on creating a connectivity backbone and an agri portal.

The agriculture portal is intended to cover all the aspects of the rural economy in the state – useful information to people, farmers, fishermen, artisans etc. Around 20 departments of the state government are involved in compilation and updation of the information on the portal.

www.wbgov.com

The portal would provide needful information on government & panchayat schemes for people including weaker sections of society, information on land, fisheries, crops, seeds, fertilizers, technical inputs, best agricultural practices, meteorological data, prices of seasonal crops, fisheries, agri-marketing etc. The Agriculture Portal shall serve the needs of rural work force as a single window source of information for their day-to-day requirements.

Moreover we have planned for an education portal for a single window source in education sector namely higher education, school education, technical education and mass education etc.

This education portal will have inventory of the educational institutions with information on courses (including correspondence & vocational), eligibility criteria, admission procedures, forms, results, job searches etc.

West Bengal Mission Mode Projects would be: • Land Records • Property Registration • Transport • Gram Panchayat • Commercial Taxes | November 2005

• • • •

Treasury Agriculture Municipalities Police

What is your view on using Open Standard Technologies in government (Linux/ OSS)?

We are open to new technologies. This is totally dependent on comfort and user friendliness of the application. We have adopted LINUX application in our Pollution Control Board, fund monitoring in Panchayat and Rural Development and to some extent in Tourism. We are also encouraging Open Source culture at the grass root level when we have introduced Open Source in CLTP(Computer Literacy Training Program) curriculum.

What are the key challenges you are facing in implementing eGovernment projects?

The key challenge is the mindset of people. Some other are: • Lack of education in end-users • Lack of network reach • High cost of hardware • Lack of localisation • Lack of IT related culture For successful implementation of the Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) under the NeGP, the policy enablers and the creation of ‘State Wide Area Network’, ‘State Data Centres’, and ‘Capacity Building’ are at the core.

All the aforesaid endeavours in the right direction would ultimately converge to establish sustainable and advantageous ‘Citizen Service Centers’ in the rural areas to bridge the digital divide.

How is West Bengal government encouraging public-private partnership in e-Governance projects?

West Bengal government has already decided to implement the extension of the WBSWAN network project through a PPP model and also under the NeGP programme’s Common Service Centers, 8 blocks have been identified in different locations for test run of various citizen centric services. IT has notified “Technical

Committee” to guide the implementation of the extension of the WBSWAN network project in the state through selection of the appropriate private partner through the process of competitive bidding.

What are the Citizen Service Centre/ Telecentre initiatives being taken up in West Bengal?

• The DIT, GOI recommends in the National e-Governance Plan to set up the Common Service Centres (CSCs) in the premises of the Panchayat Samities and the Gram Panchayats.

• The P & RD Department has selected 8 GPs in 4 districts (Hooghly, Jalpaiguri, Burdwan and Bankura) to start the pilot project of CSC. • ‘GRASSO’, (Gramin Sanchar Society), an NGO, has been selected by the Department of Panchayat & Rural Development to share their valuable field level experience in establishing the citizen centric Information Centres.

What are the approaches of West Bengal Government in terms of business process re-engineering (BPR) and capacity building while proceeding towards e-Government?

Under the NISG, Government of India has provided the State Government some names of the empanelment vendors who would implement the entire NeGP programme for the State. Very soon the shortlisted vendor would be conducting a System requirement study for all the departments and come out with a Business Process Re-engineering solution for the entire State Government set up.

The State recognises the vital role that training and capacity building has to play in each of these MMPs. Capacity building initiatives to be undertaken to cover all departments and levels.

The Administrative Training Institute (ATI) has been designated as the nodal agency for the same. State level Steering Committee is being constituted to guide the Capacity Building programme in the state.

Under the Capacity building program, the State Government has already been allotted 5.3 million Indian rupees this year.

19

COUNTRY FOCUS AZERBAIJAN

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become a part and parcel of our daily life by penetrating all spheres of human activities. As a result, a new field of economy i.e. ‘information economy’ has been established in developed states with more than half of the working population currently involved in information-based production. Both Government and private sector are applying ICTs in various spheres of life including management, education, healthcare, business, banking and thereby providing higher living standards for citizens. The rationale behind this is bound with a set of following values indicating a direct link between ICTs and human rights. These value sets are depicted as under: • Globalization: Web technologies enable any individual to get any type of information from any place in the world. However only 14% of the world’s population currently has access to Internet. 70% out of them are residents of developed nations. Due to objective reasons there is an obvious information shortage in the outsider countries in the field of ICT access.

• Distribution: Ideally, all users have equal right for authorized information.

However, given the realities of ongoing globalization, unequal development of cyber space and ICT facilities is bringing about dependence for majority of nations on the knowledge-based economy (this process is accompanied by brain drain, cheap workforce, compulsory enforcement of Western standards, heavy competition market etc.)

• Transparency: Any individual with proper access to ICT may become a source of information. However, the problem of tremendous digital divide existing among the nations created abrupt inequities both within nations and among individuals. For instance, in the countries with transitional economies large portions of population in remote areas and low income groups are completely deprived of these opportunities by virtue of a number of objective and subjective reasons such as underdeveloped ICT infrastructure, low level of incomes, high unemployment, expensive technical means, shortage of national program modules, language barrier, etc.

• Absence of limitations: Unlike other forms of mass media the capacities for electronic information storage and transmission are unlimited. However inalienable rights for access and dissemination of information are being violated in overwhelming majority of the countries, including nations with wellestablished democratic traditions. This is done through pieces of legislation contradicting provisions of international conventions and passed with a view to getting Internet under control on the pretext of information security. This factor is furthermore tangible in the countries with poor democratic traditions and lack of political will to reforms.

• Interactivity: Any individual upon his/her own will may become both source and user of information. However, poor development of information society, low level of ICT, ambiguous attitude towards democratic values supported by information technologies, gender imbalance, abuse of existing situation for personal and political purposes have led the countries in transition to the danger of undermined national values, xenophobia, cyber-racism, cyber-crime and finally cyber-terrorism.

• User control: Each user is free in selecting information and affording degree of confidentiality to the information to be disseminated. However, limited resources for electronic information (databases, knowledge bases and field bases), shortage and low speed of access points to the network, low computer awareness of the bulk of population, poor level of computer skills create 20

Azerbaijan

Role of e-Government in overcoming bureaucracy in transitional countries

serious impediments for a large part of the population in developing countries to fully benefit from these opportunities.

The possibilities to benefit from these opportunities provided to a certain extent in developed countries, led to a greater democracy and transparency in the state and society relations and created possibilities for development of digital and information-based societies. E-government as the guarantor for human rights’ observation and advocacy in these societies, is considered a part and parcel of the ICT-based economic management and human development across the world.

It serves for the following main goals common to all the countries of the world: • Improved public services • Enhanced flexibility of the state and government agencies • Reinforced legal system and enforcement of law • Rapid development of economic fields with higher priority • Improved living standards of low-income groups • Increased public scrutiny of the administration Due to specific features, typical of each society, there are no universal models or assessment criteria for electronic government in transitional societies. Since the level of economic progress remains as the major index for a nation’s development, it would be appropriate to measure the degree of potential for e-Government applications through this www.egov.csdms.in |

COUNTRY FOCUS AZERBAIJAN

very index. The countries with transitional economies deserve a special attention in this respect since these societies are facing greater problems with human rights due to their social and economic realities. These problems may be generally presented as follows: • Violations of social and economic rights • Graft and corruption • Shady economy • Economic crime • Bureaucracy in public service • Lack of legal awareness • Dominance of personal priorities in relations between government officials and individuals • Artificial secrecy regarding activities of government authorities • Lack of suffrage comprehension • Insufficient promotion of pieces of legislation adopted • Insufficient use of electronic media • Lack of mass public use of the ICT • Lack of confidence in administrative bodies due to artificial impediments in relations between the state and the society According to research, given serious problems in this field faced by transitional economies, information technologies should be urgently promoted in a comprehensive manner in economic, social, cultural, scientific, technical, legal and ethical spheres with a view to implementing e-government ideas aimed at enabling each individual to fully exercise his/her right to access and disseminate information.

So far majority of countries in transition declared their determination to benefit from the ICT possibilities by creating e-government system as an important tool for human rights protection and human development. However, activities undertaken in this respect have so far been primarily spontaneous and the whole process was featured by some common peculiarities in transitional countries. First, the idea was implemented in a very slow and heavy-handed manner in all the countries undergoing transitional period. This was probably due to the fear of possible backlash.

Second, very specific political infrastructure of the states in question significantly weakened political will to e-government foundation, which is one of the major preconditions for success. On the other hand, the very nature of socio-political infrastructure made the forces of internal resistance to this process unavoidable. | November 2005

The transitional societies tend to use the ICT services primarily in the major public spheres such as education, healthcare and government authorities.

These services are dominantly provided through the web sites owned by the government authorities.

The Azerbaijan Scenario Azerbaijan has clearly expressed its position on this matter on the highest governmental level during the Geneva Summit. This decision is backed up by Electronic Azerbaijan program currently implemented on the national level.

Economic and political stability featuring domestic situation in Azerbaijan for last 12 years is instrumental for successful implementation of the programs of this type. With the most dynamic development rate in the region, Azerbaijan has a significant potential for furthering the use of information technologies. Integration into the world community is the foremost priority for the nation at this moment. To accomplish this, creation of an e-government network appears to be of vital importance.

The National Strategy for Developing Information and Communication Technologies in the Republic of Azerbaijan in 2003-2012 (http://www.nicts.az) adopted in 2003 identifies the major leitmotiv for the works to be undertaken in the country for the decade to come. It should also be noted that so far Azerbaijan has been the only country of the South Caucasus to adopt a national program of this type. As a follow-up from this policy, the idea of drafting a national ICT program was brought about by the State. This resulted in adoption of the National Program for Development of Communications and Information Technologies in the Republic of Azerbaijan for 2005-2008 (http://www.mincom.gov).

As of July last year, the project on creation of the National E-governance Network was launched in collaboration with United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Implementation of this project furthermore increases the possibilities of government agencies to better benefit from ICT. More than thirty per cent of ministries and government agencies in the country have official web pages. Since 2000, the government agencies are served free of

“With the most dynamic development rate in the region, Azerbaijan has a significant potential for

”

furthering the use of information technologies.

charge through gov.az domain. Web pages of government agencies primarily contain information on the agencies’ missions, institutional chart and duties. Meanwhile, some pages already provide various documents and charts of official services offered to users. Development of Internet in Azerbaijan dates back to 1995 with an approximate number of users reaching four hundred thousand at the moment.

Online communication network of the State Customs Committee in the Republic of Azerbaijan operates in real time format providing communication between the capital and 34 outlets scattered all over the country. This appeared to be the first practical implementation of the Broad Area Network in Azerbaijan. The State Social Welfare Fund together with the World Bank is currently working on ICT application for three spheres, such as retirement payments, social support and jobs database.

As a result, both in the capital city of Baku and in majority of countryside areas, 21

COUNTRY FOCUS AZERBAIJAN

Over the past five years, UNDP Azerbaijan has developed a portfolio of e-governance programmes valued at USD12.2 million, making it one of the largest mainstreamed e-Governance programmes of UNDP anywhere. Direct government cost sharing accounts for 50% of all projects, while third party cost sharing is on the rise, currently at 14%.

Source: http://www.un-az.org/undp/DOC/egov/index.php

pensions are paid by means of cards. The system of Broad Area Network is also being currently created at the Ministry of Taxes. The Ministry’s web site is capable of providing rapid response to clients’ queries. The State Agency of Standards, Metrics and Patents started reforming its activities in compliance with the international ICT standards. The system of electronic payments is getting furthermore prevalent with the National Banking Transfer System currently operating in online regime.

With a view to increasing transparency of student admission process, the testing system has been used in the country since 1992. This involves application of the most up-to-date computer technologies for automatic check-up. Since transparency of election campaigns is the major indication of democratic processes in the society, automated information system for elections has been in use since 2000. The main feature of the system in question is rapid and reliable information exchange between the Central Election Committee and countryside polling stations.

To better identify the area distribution and structure of population, as well as to get and update other types of necessary information to be provided to natural and legal persons pursuant to legal provisions, creation of the National Register (databank) was initiated in 2004. The Register is supposed to comprise data on all citizens of the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as foreign nationals and stateless persons permanently residing in the country.

Since, degree of media freedom is among the main indices of a country’s democratic development, mass media constitutes one of the most important accomplishments of the ongoing democratic processes in Azerbaijan. Access to Internet has substantially increased the opportunities of media to obtain and disseminate information. In the meantime, availability of media web sites enabled large groups of population to reflect from the issues discussed and get rapid response on them. All together this provided a strong impetus to formation of electronic media in the country.

Steps have also been undertaken in the field of upgrading national legislation on the ICT. So far the Laws on Electronic Signature, Electronic Documents, Law on Electronic Commerce and Law on Telecommunication have been adopted.

This created an enabling environment for further development of e-Government.

In addition, some activities are also being conducted in the field of distant learning as well. In fact, Azerbaijan is a leading country of the region in this regard.

As far as human resources for ICT are concerned, the country’s position on this issue had been clearly expressed at the Geneva Summit through the motto “Let’s Convert the Black Gold into Human Gold”.

Currently, a number of projects have been conceived and undertaken in Azerbaijan with support from World Bank. These projects are aimed towards developing government-to-government (G2G), government-to-private (G2P) and government-to-citizen (G2C) type of telecommunication networks. Some of these are – Technical Assistance to Institutional Building 2 (ongoing); Pensions and Social Support (ongoing); Technical Assistance to Poverty Analysis and Capacity Building (ongoing); Development of Education Sector (ongoing); Energy Transmission (discussed); Facilitation of Commerce and Transportation (discussed).

22

Nowadays, one can surely say that Azerbaijan succeeded in creating necessary conditions for a consistent ICT development.

The process of cooperation both within and between the government, the private and the NGO sectors is going on and this is one of the major preconditions for sustainability of eGovernment. It was this cooperation that triggered a very active involvement of UNDP for ICT development in Azerbaijan. With this momentum, Azerbaijan has a real chance to become a leading state in ICT development in the Caspian region and reinforce its advanced role in advocating human rights by successful implementation of e-Government programs. In addition to this, international ICT conferences like - BakuTel 2004 and Global ICT Conference on Digital Divide and Knowledge-based Economy (Problems and Solutions), recently hosted by Azerbaijan is another sign of ongoing developments that are happening in the field of ICT.

Prof. Dr. Abbasov A.M abbasov@mincom.gov.az

Dr. Gulmammadov R.H. sesh-rg@mincom.gov.az Ministry of Communication and Informational Technologies, Republic of Azerbaijan

www.egov.csdms.in |

17 - 19 October, 2005 The Grand New Delhi

CONFERENCE REPORT Introduction It is a well-established fact that information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play a vital role for governments and public sector organisations to deal with modern challenges of development and contribute towards boosting economic growth and improve overall quality-of-life. In order to achieve this, it is essential to drive good governance through effective e-Government initiatives with appropriate change management strategies, state-of-the-art technology and sustainable public private partnership models.

The Event In order to address these emerging issues of e-Government and create a level-sharing platform for easy exchange of knowledge and ideas among various stakeholders, the Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) in collaboration with Gover nment of National Capital Territory of Delhi, Department of Information Technology (Government of India), UNDP and Danish Technological Institute recently organized a three day international conference, titled Conflux 2005: The e-Government Conference, held between 17thto 19th October 2005 in New Delhi, India.

The Program Spanning over three full days of activities, the conference covered as many as 9 plenary sessions, 19 technical sessions and a well laid-out exhibition running throughout all days. With pre-lunch keynote sessions and post-lunch parallel tracks scheduled for each day, a plethora of issues pertaining to multiple aspects of e-Government were meticulously deliberated, discussed and debated by the speakers as well as the audience.

Participation The conference witnessed a participation of nearly 500 delegates representing various Indian government departments, multilateral and bilateral agencies, academic institutions, non-governmental organisations and the IT industry.

A staggering 64 percent of the participants represented various government departments and public sector organisations, 23 percent were from the IT industry and consulting firms and 13 percent from non-profit organisations and bilateral/ multilateral agencies.

www.conflux.csdms.in

Conflux 2005: 17 - 19 October, The Grand New Delhi

CONFERENCE REPORT Keynote Sessions Marked by eminent speakers from the government, academia and industry, the keynote sessions of the conference had a series of interesting deliberations on multitude of issues, relating to present challenges and opportunities of e-Government in India, as well as abroad. Out of 30 odd keynote speakers of the conference, 14 distinguished speakers from the Indian government, 7 from IT industry, 3 speakers from non-profit/ developmental organisations and 6 international speakers from countries of Asia and Europe. The opening keynote session termed - the ‘Vision Session’, had an impressive speaker list comprising senior Indian bureaucrats including - S. Lakshminarayanan, Secretary, Inter-State Council Secretariat, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India and Wajahat Habibullah, Chief Information Commissioner, Central Information Commission, Government of India, along with key representatives of IT industry like Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM and Peter Moore, Managing Director-Public Sector, Microsoft Asia-Pacific & Greater China. The central message that emerged out of this session reinforced the growing realization for a need to develop an information society that encompasses all aspects of human development, particularly in relation to public sector reform. Other keynote sessions that followed over the three days were equally engaging, dotted with distinguished speakers presenting on themes such as - Indian e-Government initiatives, International e-Government perspectives and Emerging e-Government trends. Some of the eminent keynote speakers of these sessions were – R. Chandrashekhar, Joint Secretary, e-Governance, Ministry of Communication & Information Technology, Government of India; Prakash Kumar, Secretary-IT, Government of NCT of Delhi; Dr N Vijayaditya, Director General, NIC, Government of India; J. Satyanarayana, CEO, National Institute of Smart Government, Hyderabad; Jeremy Millard, Head, e-Governance, Danish Technological Institute; Ian Swann, Vice-President, SAP AG; P. I. Suvrathan, Addl. Secretary, DARPG, Government of India; P D Sudhakar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India; P K Agarwal, Joint Secretary (Marketing), Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India The emphasis of most of these speakers was on a greater need for focusing on the aspect of governance through technology, rather than on technology itself. This quintessential message that came out was almost unequivocally resounded across all sessions of the conference and largely consented among a large section of the audience.

Parallel Sessions Each day of the conference had two series of parallel sessions that emphatically touched upon 14 distinct thematic areas of e-Government. A variety of perspectives emerging from a wide range of speakers across government, private and the development sector made for a good hearing and a unique learning experience. The broad spectrum of topics covered through these sessions were rightfully pertinent and suitably relevant to the present developmental needs of e-Government in India as well as abroad.

Some of the themes covered in these sessions were • • • •

National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of India State e-Governance Plan of India e-Panchayat e-Health

• • • •

e-Agriculture Citizen Service Centres (CSCs) Content Management Cyber Laws

• Technology & Innovations Apart from this, some special sessions were conducted by like Government of NCT of Delhi, USAID, UNDP and Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, which showcased select e-Government case studies and initiatives being under undertaken by them.

These special sessions were • Delhi e-Government Initiatives (Govt. of NCT of Delhi) • e-Governance in Urban Local Bodies (USAID FIRE-D Project) • UNDP ICTD projects (UNDP) • Right to Information (Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative)

IT Secretarys’ Conclave Probably the biggest draw of the entire event was the IT Secretarys’ Conclave.

Being organised as an exclusive evening session of the second day of the conference, the Conclave, witnessed a thorough brainstorming among 8 state representatives.

Accentuated with intriguing discussions, cross cutting issues of e-Government implementation and planning, along with the challenges and success stories of each state were openly shared and analysed. A comparative evaluation of state initiatives emerged out of these discussions that proved to be highly informative and intensely enthralling. Questions, criticisms and appreciations flew thick and hard as the session gave way for an open floor discussion involving the members of audience. Ending on a high note, the Conclave laid foundation for increased cooperation among the member states with the purpose of taking forward their individual e-Government initiative and ushering into a new era of development.

Exhibition The exhibition of Conflux 2005 brought 11 different exhibitors from the government and industry, who showcased a wide range of products, services and initiatives in the domain of e-Government. The impressive exhibitor list included those of Government of NCT of Delhi, Government of Jharkhand, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC)-Bangalore, Solutions Exchange (UNDP), along with renowned industry players like HP, Intel, Ernst & Young, Gilat Satellite Networks, WYSE Technologies and Comat Technologies.

www.conflux.csdms.in

Some of Our Key Speakers....

S. Lakshminarayanan Secretary, Inter-State Council Secretariat, Ministry of Home Affairs,GoI

Dr P K Mohanty Director General & Executive Director Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad

Wajahat Habibullah Chief Information Commissioner, Central Information Commission, GoI

Ashis Sanyal Director (e-Governance)

Kiran Karnik President, NASSCOM

S. Abbasi Director MoCIT GoI

Peter Moore Managing Director (Public Sector), Microsoft Asia-Pacific & Greater China

Maxine Olson UNDP Resident Representative in India

R. Chandrashekhar Joint Secretary e-Governance, MoCIT, GoI

Roger Finan Director, Regional Office for South Asia, IDRC India

Prakash Kumar Secretary-IT Govt. of NCT of Delhi

Rohit Kumar Country Head-Public Sector Microsoft India

J. Satyanarayana CEO National Institute of Smart Government Hyderabad

Sanjay B Lollbeharee Deputy Director Ministry of IT & Telecom Govt. of Mauritius

Jeremy Millard Head, e-Governance Danish Technological Institute

Dr K M Baharul Islam UN Economic Commission for Africa, Uganda

Ian Swann Vice-President SAP AG

Maniam Kaliannan Faculty University of Malaysia

Guru S Malladi Senior Manager Ernst & Young

P. I. Suvrathan Addl. Secretary DARPG, GoI

Sharat Bansal Head IBM Consulting

P D Sudhakar Joint Secretary Ministry of Panchayati Raj GoI

MoCIT, GoI

www.conflux.csdms.in

Prof V S Ramamurthy Secretary Department of Science & Technology GoI

C S R Prabhu Deputy Director General NIC, MoCIT GoI

Dr K Subramanian Deputy Director General NIC, MoCIT, GoI

Renu Budhiraja Director MoCIT, GoI

R Raghunandan Joint Secretary Ministry of Panchayati Raj GoI

S S Khan Director (IT) Deprtment of Income Tax GoI

Dennis Pamlin Policy Advisor WWF Sweden

J N Singh Secretary-IT Government of Gujarat

Puneet Gupra Country Manager (Government Sector) IBM

Narsing Rao Secretary-IT Government of Andhra Pradesh

Dr N Vijayaditya Director General NIC MoCIT, GoI

Ajay Sawhney Joint Secretary Dept. of Personnel & Training

P K Agarwal Joint Secretary, Marketing Ministry of Agriculture GoI

P Ravindranath Director - Government & Public Affairs HP

Amitabh Pandey Group GM (IT Services) IRCTC

Deepak Bhardwaj Director (Technology, Quality, Corporate Policy & Standards) Corporate Technology Group Intel Inc.

GoI

R N Padukone Senior Deputy Director General (Strategic Planning) BSNL

R Ramakrishnan Director-Public Sector Solutions, Public Service Hub SAP South Asia

Ajay Gupta Lab Director & Director-Mobility Solutions HP Labs India

Satish Kaushal Country Manager IBM India

Chetan Krishnaswamy Head (Public Affairs, Policy & Programs) Intel India

Dr Anurag Srivastava Business Head (Consulting Services) Wipro Infotech

www.conflux.csdms.in

Participant’s Feedback... “

It was a pleasure meeting you all in Delhi at Conflux 2005. I enjoyed the interaction very much

”

– Dr G D Gautama, Principal Secretary, Department of IT, Govt of West Bengal

“I enjoyed interacting with you all and very much touched by your hospitality.”

“

Greeting from CDAC, Bangalore. It was a great three days conference at conflux 2005. I would like to congratulate the whole team for conducting such a beautiful event. Wish you all the best for such events in the future too.

”

– Mainak Sarkar, Business Development Executive, Product Promotion Group, CDAC, Bangalore

– Dr Baharul Islam, United Nations Economic Cooperation for Africa

“Your team deserves a big pat for the great success

“Thank you so much, it was a useful and well organised conference”

you had in Conflux 2005. We all enjoyed the deliberations and presentations

”

– J S Sandha, CEO, Jagriti e-Sewa

– Ranajn Dwevedi, Project Manager, World Health Organisation

“

good wishes to you and your entire staff for the lovely show put up during the conduction of Conflux and Digital Learning 2005.

I acknowledge my thanks to CSDMS for giving me an opportunity to share and exchange my views about cyber laws... Conflux 2005 has indeed been a great success, and particularly for me, a great learning experience.

– Avik Banerjee, Knowledge Scientist, Dolcera

– Kamal Dave, Advocate & Legal Advisor, Supreme Court of India

“It gives me immense pleasure to extend my heartfelt ”

Organisers

”

Co-organisers

Our Supporters...

Our Sponsors...

Platinum Sponsors

Gold Sponsor

Knowledge Partners

Silver Sponsors

V-SAT Partner

Innovation Partner

Associate Sponsors

www.conflux.csdms.in

IN PRACTICE

Changing face of India’s Income Tax Department Under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of Government of India, the Income Tax Department of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has initiated one of the major e-Governance initiatives of India. Under this initiative, the entire department along with the gamut of services that it offers has been automated through a system of web-based, singlewindow, 24X7 service delivery model.

In order to achieve an all-round e-Governance capability, the department has taken up a three-pronged approach to develop its electronic infrastructure. This involves three major components: (1) e-Delivery of Tax Payer Services (2) Augmentation of Departmental Computer Infrastructure (3) Setting up of Tax Information Network (TIN) Since inception of online services through the department’s official portal (www.incometaxindia.gov.in) there has been an overwhelming response with nearly 5 lakh visitors visiting the portal each day.

Each component of IT infrastructure of the Department of Income Tax deals with a specific set of services under them. In turn, all these components and their constituent services are integrated with each other for achieving complete automation.

(1) e-Delivery of Taxpayer Services: In case of ‘e-delivery of tax payer services’, 8 distinct services have been identified. A schematic illustration of such service modules has been shown as under: • Dissemination of Tax Related Information: The official portal of the Income Tax

| November 2005

Department acts as a single-point source of all tax related information for citizens.

A wide range of information covering Tax Laws, Acts, Rules, Regulations, Tax filing procedures, Notifications, Circulars, House property and Capital gains taxes, Tax deduction and rebates, Depreciation rates, TDS rates, Forms, Due dates, Tax Commissioner jurisdiction, International Taxation, as also customised and personalised taxpayer specific announcements and e-mail alert facilities are provided on-line for registered users. In addition, taxpayers can avail the facility of using web-based Tax calculator and free-downloadable Return Preparation software – Sampark 2005 and e-filing software – Suvidha from the Department’s portal.

• Dissemination of Taxpayer Specific Information: Taxpayers can avail limited access to view personalized tax-related information on the Internet. Currently, taxpayers can get on-line information relating to their PAN, track status of their PAN application (using application acknowledgement number), download Challan forms for tax payment with pre-printed PAN and check transaction status of tax payments made through banks.

• PAN & TAN Related Services: A major portion of PAN and TAN related services have been made on-line and simplified by outsourcing certain services to external agencies like UTITSL (UTI Technology Services Limited) and NSDL (National Securities Depository Limited). PAN application centres have been set up in over 500 cities for facilitating operations on a national scale. Application for PAN and TAN can be filed online, along with facilities of tracking application status, availing fee-based ‘Tatkal’ (Immediate) services for PAN/TAN allotment and requisition for correction in PAN/TAN. According to the latest figure as on June 27, 2005, around 3.91 crore of PAN cards have been issued and the average waiting time for applicants is below 10 days. Moreover, all PAN/TAN related information and services could be availed through a call centre ‘Aaykar Sampark Kendra’ (ASK), at the number 0124 – 24380000.

• Preparation of Returns of Income: Non-business taxpayers can make use of the free Return Preparation software called ‘Sampark’ to prepare their return online or download the program to do it offline. This software is updated every year to include the relevant changes in Tax laws and make return filing easier.

• e-filing of Returns of Income: Starting from July 2005, taxpayers assessed at any one of the 60 stations on the Tax Information Network can avail the facility of efiling their returns either through approved e-Return Intermediaries or directly (subject to fulfilling eligibility criteria for individual taxpayers) under ‘digital signatures’. In order to encourage on-line filing of Returns the Department has adopted a policy of processing e-filing on a priority basis.

• e-Payment of Taxes: Payment of taxes have been simplified by introducing epayment mode through Online Tax Accounting System (OLTAS). Under this system taxpayers can pay taxes electronically using net-banking facility of authorized banks like – IDBI, SBI, Central Bank of India and Bank of Maharashtra. To facilitate 29

IN PRACTICE

Q&A Shahid Khan, Director, Income Tax Systems, Government of India Shahid Khan is leading one of the major & challenging computerisation projects of Government of India, to restructure Income Tax Department.

He is member of Empowered Committee on computerisation in Income Tax Department and Chairman of Steering Committee on Tax Information Network (TIN).

Mr. Khan takes time out of his busy schedule to talk to egov team about Department’s commitment to switch over completely to a computerised environment.

Did you face resistance from the employees for the changes introduced while computerising the tax Department and providing the services electronically?

Income Tax Department had carried out an organisational restructuring in 2001 for work in a fully computerised environment. At that stage all associations of officers and staff were taken into confidence and their views were incorporated in the restructuring proposal. Therefore, all employees associations are committed to work in a fully computerised environment. However, subsequently when Kelkar Committee Report recommended outsourcing of noncore functions, certain reservations were expressed by the staff side to outsourcing of data entry and some other low end jobs. The department has been making an effort to

convince all sections of employees that outsourcing of noncore jobs will not affect their service conditions. Instead it will enable them to apply themselves to high skill jobs relating to tax investigation, widening of tax base and recovery of arrears etc. by using more sophisticated automated techniques.

What are the key initiatives to be implemented in the next phase of Tax department’s e-Government project?

The department is moving to centralised architecture. For this project, consolidation of regional databases into a single national database and linking all Income Tax Offices in 510 cities to this national database through IP-VPN network is undergoing. These are expected to be rolled out by June, 2006.

How are you planning to create awareness about the e-delivery of tax services?

This is being done mainly through publicity in media, and interactions with Institute of Chartered Accountants, representative bodies of business and taxpayers organisations.

An awareness campaign for mandatory e-filing of TDS returns by corporate and government deductors is currently being carried out through various channels.

To what extent do you think the tax reforms will help in increase of revenue for the department?

Direct Tax revenues have been showing an increase of over 25% per annum compounded for last three successive years.

Such high buoyancy is to a substantial extent attributable to tax reforms and the policies relating to switch over to a computerised environment.

What kind of measures are you taking to ensure security and catch tax frauds? Are you planning to use data mining techniques for achieving the goal?

Phase-III of Computerisation programme, which is currently under implementation, includes effective security measures to prevent unauthorised access and to protect privacy of information.

this process, new and simplified Challan forms (ITNS 280, 281 and 282) have been introduced having fewer columns and single copy sufficiency, as against four copies needed earlier. Details of this process is available at the TIN website (www.tin-nsdl.com).

• Computerised Processing of Returns/Refunds: All Returns are being processed on computers to reduce the time taken for sending taxpayer’s returns or refunds.

Currently, Returns are being processed in less than 4 months time from the time of filing. Over 2 crore returns were processed during F.Y. 2004-05, resulting in issue of more than 39 lakh refund cheques. Faster processing of returns has also improved time-efficiency of taxpayer service and lower interest outgo on refund for the Department. This has also facilitated in creating a database system called ‘Computer Assisted Selection of Cases for Scrutiny’ (CASS) needed for identifying cases for scrutiny, identification of stop filers and supporting data for decision making on tax policy issues. In addition, electronic credit of refunds to taxpayer’s bank account has been introduced in 12 cities across the country.

• e-filing of TDS and TCS returns: TDS and TCS return mechanisms has been 30

automated and e-filing has been made mandatory for Corporate and Government deductors, using legal provisions. Free return preparation software for TDS and TCS returns have been provided on the website of TIN. 760 Facilitation Centres have been set up by TIN in 265 cities for receiving applications for allotment of TAN and e-TDS/TCS returns. Till June 27, 2005 a total of 13, 96, 150 TANs have been allotted while 1,11,357 e-TDS return particulars have been received.

(2) Augmentation of Departmental Computer Infrastructure: The second component of process automation initiative of the Department of www.egov.csdms.in |

IN PRACTICE

The schemes for mandatory e-filing of TDS returns, creation of party-wise electronic TDS accounts, electronic filing of Annual Information Returns of high value financial transactions are designed to eliminate tax frauds relating to bogus TDS certificates, false claims of tax credit and identification of persons dealing with high value financial transactions but not paying their due taxes. Use of data warehousing and data mining techniques are part of Phase-III. The department has already introduced a scheme for Computer Assisted Selection of cases for scrutiny based on their risk potential.

What are your services committed under NeGP? How do you compare the initiatives of your department under NEGP mission vis-Ă -vis other departments?

Under the National e-Governance Plan Income Tax Department is committed to provide electronic delivery of all services for all normal/routine tax related responsibilities of taxpayers. Most of these services are already in place as described earlier.

Income Tax department is now forcing the large corporates, government, Chartered Accountants and Advocates to file TDS electronically by law. What made you take this step? What kind of reaction are you receiving from the tax payees?

The Income Tax Act requires corporate and Government deductors to file their TDS returns only in electronic mode. The basic reason is that TDS contributes over 45% of direct taxes collection and is in the range of about Rs.60000 crore currently.

The deductors are required to file their TDS returns giving particulars of the persons on whose behalf of tax has been deducted. These returns used to run into hundreds of pages in the case of large deductors. Most of these deductors were maintaining their accounts in computerised format but had to file their TDS returns in paper format. Besides, they are also required to issue paper TDS Certificates. Such TDS Certificates are then enclosed by the deductees with their returns of income based on which credit was given by Income Tax Department.

There were several instances of fraudulent claims of refunds based on false/forged TDS Certificates. Therefore, it was

Income Tax involves setting up of ž (i) a National Data Centre (NDC) (ii) an All India Virtual Private Network (VPN) The National Data Centre will act as a central information warehouse for all Income Tax offices across the country. It is supposed to house data servers dedicated for Income Tax Department and accessible for registered and authenticated users. In order to supplement the National Data Centre and provide its connectivity to multi-location Income Tax offices, a nation-wide Virtual Private Network is under development for interlinking all Income Tax offices of the country. | November 2005

decided to fully computerize TDS functions so that deductors can upload electronic data of their TDS returns in a convenient manner, the same data can be used by the Dept. for ascertaining correct deduction and timely deposit of TDS by the Deductors.

It will also enable the Department to generate electronic TDS accounts of each deductee who can be given access to view his account through TIN. Once the system stabilizes it will be possible to eliminate the requirement to enclose TDS Certificate with the returns of income of the deductees.

What has been the expense of computerisation so far since the start of the initiative and what are the plans for future?

Are you getting the return on investment made for computerisation by the department?

The actual expenditure on phase-III so far is of the order of Rs.100 crore. This is mainly because actual outgo on VPN and National data centre is spread over next 5 years and has yet to be incurred. Part of the services e.g. PAN, e-filing of TDS returns etc. are being met through user charges. In our set up it is not possible to isolate the benefits arising out of computerisation and quantify them with reasonable degree of accuracy.

With e- services of Tax Department in place, which is the target segment that would be most impacted?

The main target population is of those annual and potential taxpayers who are willing to comply with the tax laws but are unable to do so because of complicated paper based procedures, requirements to go to Income tax offices/banks/ professional tax consultants etc.

Does widening of the number of return filers add to the revenue?

The answer depends upon the methods used for widening of tax base. It is our view that once information relating to high value financial transactions is received from various agencies through Annual Information Returns, and is collated and utilised for widening of tax base, the results will positively impact both the number of taxpayers as well as the revenue.

(3) Setting up of Tax Information Network The Tax Information Network (TIN, www.tin-nsdl.com), which forms the backbone of e-Governance initiative of the Department of Income Tax has been set up and hosted by NSDL. TIN acts as a repository of information relating to: (a) Tax payments (through OLTAS) (b) Tax deductions from TDS returns (both electronically as well as on paper (c) High value financial transactions coming through Annual Information Returns Under OLTAS (functional from June 1, 2004) nearly 11,900 branches of 32 designated banks authorized to collect direct taxes are transmitting information of tax payments online through TIN. The TIN is also facilitating in e-filing of TDS / TCS returns, digitization of paper TDS returns and storage of information with respect to deductees available in TDS returns for widening of tax base, using PAN as the principal identifier. Apart from this, TIN has also initiated e-filing of high value financial transactions. The information base generated through these returns would be used for improving tax base and developing an intelligent system of tax information for multi-criteria, multi-level scrutiny and search.

31

IN PRACTICE

LOKVANI: An (e)ffort to (e)mpower citizens Lokvani is an innovative model of Citizen Service Centres (CSCs) implemented in district Sitapur in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is a self sustainable solution, wherein the existing cyber cafes are being leveraged to act as franchisees, benefiting the citizens, the administration and the kiosks operators. “Lokvani� in Hindi language means the voice of the people. Lokvani is a publicprivate partnership e-Governance program, which has been initiated with the combined efforts of both the district administration as well as the National Informatics Centre in district of Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh. Lokvani has tried to fulfil a commitment to the people in providing them with transparent, credible and accountable systems of governance.

The conventional administrative mechanisms are constrained by their inability to reach out to most of the citizens. The only way out of this issue is to use technology effectively to make governance more approachable for citizens.

Government offices have traditionally been the only dependable source of information regarding various schemes. As a result, the process of obtaining the birth, death, domicile, caste, income and other certificates, has been marred with red tapism and bureaucratic hassles. Citizens have had no other option other than personally visiting the District headquarter/ Tehsil for government related work and/or getting their grievances addressed.

In Sitapur, the citizens had been allotted a specified time span of two hours within which they could interact with the District Manager. This caused a great strain on the system and therefore very few grievances could be addressed satisfactorily.

Generally district administration officials in India have a very large population base under their purview. Hence, without the deployment of ICT, the task of managing the services becomes insurmountable. But prior to Lokvani system the infrastructure was abysmally inadequate due to a very limited number of computer systems and non-existential computer networks.

Another factor contributing to the perceived inefficiencies in governance has been the inability of the administration to effectively monitor the government officers. Again, ICT can be a tool to address this drawback.

Operational model of Lokvani The Lokvani model has been formulated keeping in mind the three key stakeholders – (a) the citizens, (b) the government and (c) the IT entrepreneurs/Kiosk operators.

Essentially, since the IT literacy (and also any form of literacy) is very low in Sitapur, hence the kiosks form an interface between the IT enabled government and the IT illiterate citizens. The key players in the model are as follows: Government A society by the name of Lokvani was constituted at the district level to implement the project autonomously to reduce some of the bureaucratic pressures. All the financial decisions have been under the purview of the society itself. The rationale for such a framework is that the budgets of small districts have a limited scope for extra expenditure and the process of getting finance is a long drawn out one.

The Lokvani society meets its recurring expenses from the money received from the registration of kiosks, short term and lifetime membership fees. The initial 32

costs for setting up the society were also negligible as the hosting services was provided free of cost by the National Informatics Centre.

IT entrepreneurs / Kiosk owners The key achievement of the solution is its selfsustainability and long-term financial viability.

Lokvani kiosk centers are set up in the existing cyber cafes and computer training institutes.

This has ensured the financial viability and long-term sustainability of the kiosks due to an alternate source of stable income. The conversion of existing cyber cafes/computer training institutes into Lokvani Centers was a key factor driving the financial success. This step ensured that extraneous capital was not a vital requirement for the solution. The society signed contracts with existing kiosk owners for the purpose of registering them as Lokvani franchisees with only a nominal annual fee of INR 1,000.

The kiosks are run by IT entrepreneurs.

A typical kiosk has an Internet enabled PC, a printer and a webcam. It also has a CD ROM drive. Some kiosks also have a power backup (typically, power is available 5 hours a day).

Kiosks earn profits through the income generated from various services of Lokvani provided to the citizens. One complaint generates a minimum income of INR 20 for the kiosks. A single complaint needs an investment of INR 10 for registering, INR 5 for its printout and INR 5 for retrieval of the current status. In addition, the kiosks can also generate some extra revenue by providing disparate facilities like computer education, computer typing, digital photography, Internet access resulting in cross sales.

Citizens The citizens are the reason as well the force www.egov.csdms.in |

IN PRACTICE

behind the solution. Although, the kiosk owners and the government seem to be the driving force, it is the citizen who finally is the target audience. The citizens form the customer base for which the model has been designed.

The citizens save tremendous amount of opportunity cost and effort in getting government services. In an economy riddled with poverty, it is an enormous burden on the citizens to forego daily wages to obtain government services. Therefore, with the Lokvani system, the citizens are the key beneficiaries and it is ensuring the continuation of the system by putting pressure on the government, based on the response from the citizens.

Services offered by Lokvani Lokvani system has empowered the citizens by generating awareness towards their rights through a seamless flow of information. It is an outstanding manifestation of the “right to information”. The services offered by Lokvani encompass a wide range of government departments (Department of Public Grievances, District Administration, Development Department and Department of Land and revenue). The services offered by Lokvani are (a) Grievance and Petitions, (b) land records, (c) tender service, (d) employment services, (e) information related to government schemes and (f) information about government services.

Lokvani grievance and petitions services This is the most popularly used service of the Lokvani system as of now. This service allows citizens to register and then track the status of their petition via a nearby Kiosk centre. The complaint is then transferred to designated officials, who can read but cannot modify it. It has many unique features including one, which enables the citizens to follow up on their complaint on the mobile phone.

Another salient feature is the color coding of complaints to ensure a prompt and satisfactory reply. It begins with the complaints being coded white, which automatically transforms into yellow if the petition remains unresolved after a period of 10 days. Lastly, in the event of the expiration of the deadline date, they are coded red otherwise the complaints are coded green and disposed off.

Various functionalities provided are: • Status of complaint • Officer wise summary of all complaints • Summary of all Complaints • Date wise Received Complaints • Centre wise sent Complaints • Date wise marked Complaints • Date wise modified Complaints • Date wise disposed Complaints Land record system Information about the type of land, list of villages and details regarding the allotment of land in villages is available online in the local language. Individuals can view the land records through just a nominal payment. In the case that the information regarding a particular land record is not available online at the kiosk centre, the applicant gets to receive it within a stipulated period of 5 days by speed post.

Tender services Notices regarding the tenders and their terms and conditions are published under the Lokvani Tender Service. The forms are also available for download. Interested contractors can send the filled tender forms through speed post to the concerned offices. Results and comparative charts of all bids are displayed on Internet within 24 hours of allotment.

downloadable application forms for job seekers. Detailed information regarding the financial help provided by the government under various self-employment schemes is also available.

Information relating to Government schemes The data of various schemes funded by the Central and State Governments through various Developments and Social Welfare Departments is accessible via Lokvani.

Application forms for social schemes like Old Age Pension Scheme, National Family Benefit Scheme, Professional and Vocational Education, Loan for the Physically Handicapped, Loan for the Development of Small Scale/Handicraft/Cottage industry are made available for download. Citizens can down load these forms and submit them through traditional methods.

Information about development works Lokvani also provides a list of developmental programs which are running under various departments like Educational Department, Jal Nigam, Electricity Department, Food and Civil Supply Department, Social Welfare Department, Public Works Department, Revenue Department and other Development Departments. It also provides information about the people who have received employment under the National Food for Work Scheme and allotees of homes under the Indira Awas Yojana. Information about the development work done under various schemes like National Food for Work Scheme, Member of Parliament Development Scheme, and Member of Legislative Assembly Development Scheme is also available online. Detailed information about the food allocated to Kotedars and other agencies is also freely available.

Single window system Lokvani Single window system deals with the filing of application for Birth, Death, Income, and Domicile Certificates at the Kiosk centers.

These certificates are received after the due completion of the verification process. It has been introduced on a trial run basis.

Benefits of the Lokvani system Employment services The Lokvani system provides information on all vacancies in the district as well as 34

Some of the key benefactors of the Lokvani system are. www.egov.csdms.in |

IN PRACTICE

Above picture depicts the summary of complaints filled by citizens under Lokvani Grievance Service.

Moreover teachers can view their GPF account detail at any kiosk. Previously, they had to wait weeks end for their account details.

Online tender services have significantly reduced the preexisting monopoly of some influential contractors. Results and comparative charts of all bids are displayed on Lokvani within 24 hours of the allotment. This has drastically abated the likelihood of illegal negotiations after the allocation of tender.

Government Before the implementation of Lokvani, there existed no easy method of checking the time taken by an officer for solving his assigned complaints. This encourages a lackadaisical approach and dereliction in solving problems. However in the new system, the officer is assigned a fixed period of 15 days within which he has to redress the issue. This strict schedule has dramatically increased the efficiency and accountability of officers. Moreover the District Magistrate and the citizens can access the progress report of the work by any officer. Transparency brought about by the easy availability of information on land records has reduced the possibility of land scams.

Life Cycle of the Grievance System

Citizens Citizens can easily obtain pertinent information from the kiosks that are conveniently located in every block and in a few villages as well. Unlike the traditional method, people are not required to visit the district/ tehsil headquarter and as a result save on precious time, money and effort.

Filing of grievances and their follow up has also been streamlined. In a 7 month period approximately 21,000 complaints were filed by the people and out of which more than 80% complaints were resolved amicably. Citizens can receive disposal reports and can track the status of their filed complaint without personally visiting any government officer.

Computerization of land records has precluded the dependence on the Lekhpal for furnishing the official documents. Citizens can access information about various government schemes and their preconditions through kiosks. They can also obtain the list of persons who are benefiting under various schemes. | November 2005

Kiosks Kiosk operators are earning extra money besides their regular income, without any extra investment. This has caused the number of registrations to climb up drastically. Apart from this their earnings from their staple business also went up.

There are 42 uniformly distributed kiosk centres at the block and tehsil level.

Hence each and every one of the level benefits from Lokvani model. This is a highly desirable Amod Kumar feature which although quite hard to achieve, can be single handedly District Magistrate, Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh attributed to the success of any amodkumar71@yahoo.co.in e-governance solution.

Amarpal Singh The Lokvani project has successfully showcased a paradigm District Information Officer, Sitapur that can be incorporated by other upset@hub2.nic.in administrative organisations. It has Amit Shukla also proved that a low literacy rate and financial constraints is not a Oracle-HP e-Governance Centre of barrier for implementing a successful Excellence, India e-Governance project.

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REGIONAL FOCUS PONDICHERRY

e-Governance implementation in Government of Pondicherry (GoP) a holistic approach Introduction Over the last few years, the Government of Pondicherry (a union territory of South India) has been doing enormous preparatory work towards large scale implementation of e-Governance. Under this effort, a model has been positioned based on user’s perspective management (i.e. a non-technical, self explanatory documentation of processes, procedures, rules and all other references) parallel to the generally followed information system implementation roadmap (i.e. creating information system architecture, Functional Requirement Specifications (FRS), System Requirement Specifications (SRS), Development of enterprise application etc.)

Development of this model has been done by taking in cognizance the situation of many organizations, who in the long run are facing a situation of going back to the square one, for not taking a view of information system through the user’s perspective and instead, judging by the user’s requirements through information system.

Encompassing the aspects of time tested management and organisational functions is of paramount importance for success of any e-Governance project.

Presently these are getting subjected within information system, leaving very little scope for improvements involving actual users.

The details followed (as under) will try to explain the much desired strong foundation that should be put in place within an organisation before embarking into any ambitious e-Governance initiative.

2. Process standardization The management model envisaged requires stringent process standardization. The processes, based on time-tested management functions (viz., planning, organizing, coordinating, directing, controlling and reviewing) should be related to time tested organization functions (viz., Services, manufacturing, marketing, personnel, material and finance).

Comprehending e-Governance: • • •

e-Governance aims towards brining out transparency in Government processes. e-Governance works on one-to-many and many-to-one relationship between people and government departments. e-Governance provides a holistic approach for better governance, rather than just developing applications from an operational view.

Conceptual approach of Government of Pondicherry: • •

•

•

A problem identification centric approach rather than a solution centric approach.

A domain driven system featuring continuous improvement within the processing systems parallel to information system and its continuous customization.

A research based empowerment of departmental managers and staff in deriving best results out of the automation, instead of driving a fast track automation to give results.

A conceptualized management model for visualization of end results of e-Governance and its after effects.

Goals set forth 1. Managers’ empowerment This is the most important and vital human factor involved in e-Governance transformation. The departmental managers and staff should be adequately empowered, oriented and trained to create requirements by and for themselves and hence create a path of continuous development.

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3. Comprehending Departmental Processing Points Within an organization, under every function or department, the work generated at one point, is processed at different points, following a decision made on conditional points, based on review, leading to enforcing control points. This should work as a cycle and continue throughout the organisational process.

4. Comprehending Integration Spectrum These may relate to processes and activities within a single department, as also between individual departments Services Integration: Involving transit of products and services, movement of goods and similar such actions.

Financial Integration: Involving fund transfer, excess cash transfer, consolidation of accounts and related actions. www.egov.csdms.in |

REGIONAL FOCUS PONDICHERRY

Personnel Integration: Involving transfer of employees and other activities involving human resource management.

Material Integration: Allocation and movement of materials and allied activities.

5. Comprehending Productivity Spectrum The productivity spectrum can be measured on the basis of parameters such as - Cost control, Incentives, Project monitoring, Waste control, Value analysis, Performance budgeting and many more that can be taken care of.

6. Comprehending Emergency Spectrum In wake of the recent Tsunami disaster, government departments have additional requirements for comprehending emergency situations born out of disasters. Different case studies need to be analysed and understood for addressing such requirements.

7. Comprehending Audit Requirements Internal Audit plays a major role in the government sector. This should become an integral part of e-Governance. System Audit should take its root from the internal audit. Audit under e-Governance will become very complex as far as understanding is concerned. Re-designing and reinventing for non-compliance observations is expensive and time consuming. Over time the entire user department will become dependent on the IT department for audit.

There comes the need for empowerment of the users, rather than by the IT department who are not at all concerned with the actual work.

The starting point The basis for discussions deliberated so far requires a comprehensive organization process documentation, involving creation of the entity’s structure, processes, process subjects, process actions, rules, events and integration of all of the above.

The documentation should act as an: • Analysis base, for identifying the requirements of each structural element • Integration base, for providing link between elements through documents and action flow • Auditing base, for evaluating and continuous improvement

• •

•

In addition, It should act as an enabler to evaluate, analyze and implement existing and emerging management and system concepts.

The process documentation should reflect a process design from user perspective, which will help government departments to manage or review either an in-house application development, external development, project monitoring, functional specification requirement planning and freezing in order to avoid any future ambiguity or executive exodus and most importantly to review large scale software development and integration in time bound manner.

These documents should become a reference base for Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP), e-Procurement (Supply Chain Management), Workflow, Organization modelling, Object based designing, Process Reengineering, System Audit, Total Quality Management and Quality Auditing.

Why process documentation is often ignored?

In spite of the tremendous benefits that process documentation provides, the 38

inhibiting factors for both user managers and system managers are identified as under: time-consuming, elaborative and complex integration, difficulty in comprehending intricacies, lack of user-friendly methodological approach, apparent similarity with ISO 900X documentation standards (the prescribed standards for documentation of organisational procedures for quality certification) and general identification with process modeling and case tools (which are essentially oriented towards software project management.)

The Organization Process Documentation and Integration (OPDI) Adopted in GoP In order to provide an answer to the problems discussed as above, an Organization Process Documentation and Integration (OPDI) has been designed for Government of Pondicherry. Developed by Centre for InfoBusiness Systems (CIBS) – this unique methodology is providing the required management model that meets the set goals.

The methodology OPDI is not that simple and at the same time not very difficult. Only a clear-cut methodological approach and comprehensive procedural analysis is required. Apart from this, time factor and the complexities of crossfunctional process linkages are the other critical factors that are to be effectively taken care of. www.egov.csdms.in |

REGIONAL FOCUS PONDICHERRY

Process standardization Every organisation requires certain process standards to be adopted as a base for setting up OPDI. In order to achieve this, the processes, based on time-tested management functions (viz., planning, organizing, coordinating, directing, controlling and reviewing) should be related to the time-tested organization functions (viz., manufacturing, marketing, personnel, material and finance).

process documentation, there is bound to be some hesitation when it comes to transforming it within the organisation perspective. This happens primarily due to the onus of responsibility and the amount of work involved in it. Thus, there should be a conscious effort to bring all of them towards the organisation administrative stream and build up a common commitment level.

The other imperative is the commitment of top management. In fact, the commitment of functional and business managers and that of the top management is mutually interdependent. The intention for commitment from both sides should be clear, such that there is no scope for performance of one function to be competing with the other, resulting in enterprise performance falling prey to business competition.

Process documentation OPDI puts in black and white what is happening inside the organization. It should cover the various ‘units’ where the processes are performed and under each unit, the various types of ‘functions’ that are being carried out. Following this, there should be departmental details and the sections where the actual work is performed. In addition, there should be detailing of processes, followed by process subjects and process actions. As applied to e-Governance, the ‘units’ are the secretariat, the departments, collectorate, panchayats and blocks.

However, this is only the first stage of process documentation and it has to be much more comprehensive in order to meet the organisation outlook. Details of various external events affecting each process, the types of issues and requirements that the process action has to address, the business rules on which the actions are to perform and the procedural steps through which the action is effected should be made explicit.

Process integration The documentation should encompass integration issues between processes of an individual department, between multiple departments, between functions and between units. The connectivity actions and document linkages should identify this integration. Once these connectivity points are clearly identified at process action level (reflecting the organization process integration) the same becomes the organization info-structure.

Commitment required In order to make OPDI successful, every organisation is required to address the issue of ‘staff commitment’ towards establishing and maintaining it. This is because, although every user individually agrees in principle for a need of organisation | November 2005

Expandability Sustenance and expandability are the two forewords of any organisational management. This depends on continuous improvement in performance of the organisation through Process Re-engineering, System Audit and Quality Management.

The OPDI should therefore take care of the Process Re-engineering requirements by evaluating units, functions, processes and actions so as to ascertain the level of value addition and take appropriate steps for correcting redundancies. The documentation should further take care of the system audit, covering performance of the organisation through various internal audit and management reviews. It should also take care of compliance check for ISO standards or any other international quality standards, as applicable.

In a nutshell OPDI seeks to provides • • • •

An effective convergence of both management and system requirements A base for continuous improvement through re-engineering, auditing and quality auditing Understandable by any user with regard to process flow and integration elements of the organisation A bridge towards comprehensive and quick organisational automation

Current status As of now, the OPDI has been implemented in the Department of Planning and Research of Pondicherry. The re-engineering exercise has been conducted and some of the process standardization which are arrived at for the department are Input Collection Process ; Input Consolidation Process ; Approval Process ; Finalization Process ; Circulation Process and Modifying Process. The benefit of this process standardization would apply for each and every department and this runs parallel to the Information System approach which is currently being carried out.

Conclusion The whole approach of OPDI is to build capacity by creating a users perspective information system framework towards standardization of internal processes in Government of Pondicherry. To accomplish this, the need for thought process and development oriented effort is equally recognized, along with specification processes and result oriented approach.

Dr. V. Prithiviraj Director Department of Information Technology, Government of Pondicherry

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COMMENTARY

Rural information, knowledge and services – trends and approaches This article presents the trends, approaches and a vision for the development of rural information, knowledge and services in developing economies.

Provision of information, knowledge and electronic based services are increasingly being recognised as essential elements to promote economic growth and reduce poverty. Recent advances in information and communication technologies, (ICT’s) especially computers, electronic networks and Internet based applications have raised increasing expectations in many developing countries as a means to empower poor people, enhance skills, increase productivity, improve participatory decisionmaking processes (from grass-roots to international level), bring about institutional changes, coordinate development efforts, improve governance at all levels and provide timely delivery of government services and promote understanding and tolerance among diverse population within and between countries. These demands have led to the emergence of a variety of rural information, knowledge and eservices operated and managed by individuals, groups, communities, public and private enterprises and public-private partnerships.

However, the progress in ICT based applications especially for the rural sector has been uneven and slow in many developing countries – due to the following constraining factors: • Low levels or no computer literacy • Lack of locally relevant content in local languages • Unreliable, intermittent or no power • Limited or no connectivity • Low affordability, and • Low or not yet the priority for investments in ICT aimed at poverty reduction as there are more pressing needs to be met Moreover, integrating ICTs in country development strategies and poverty reduction strategy papers of many developing countries has been uneven and has not been given adequate importance. Competing demands on scarce resources and lack of adequate evidence based models have further slowed the progress in bringing the fruits of modern ICTs’ to a large majority of the world’s rural poor.

Second trend: Changing ICTs – from single to multiple integrated systems A convergence of ICTs is rapidly occurring – in which the traditional “stand alone” means of communication and devices– such as telephone, radio, television, are being integrated into complex multi-media systems through the integration of data, voice and video – and becoming faster, cheaper and increasingly complex. However, in most of the rural areas, traditional forms of communication continue to be the main sources of communication and affordable. This necessitates broadening the commonly accepted definition of ICT to imply “computers, internet and world wide web” – but to view them as tools that help build human network, increase public awareness and provide access to information, knowledge and services for the use of people and consisting of a range of communication media and devices, such as print, telephone, radio, television, video, audio, computer, internet, remote sensing, GIS, RFID, and technologies on the drawing boards. There is a need in the rural sector therefore, to utilise and build upon existing traditional communication technologies – which are presently available

Emerging trends in rural information, knowledge and services: There are three basic trends emerging in the area of rural information, knowledge and services. These are First trend: Increasing demand for more holistic information, knowledge and services The information, knowledge and service needs are changing from simple, single discipline to complex multisectoral and multidisciplines. Information or knowledge or services is being desired, demanded and needed in almost any of the disciplines and subjects.

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COMMENTARY

and affordable by most of the rural population, while different models of sustainable integrated systems are being tried out which offer the promise of being scaled up.

This integration has made possible the development and establishment of “one-stop centers” where citizens could access a variety of information on government regulations, laws, functions, etc.; obtain services such as payment of utility bills, taxes, get or renew licenses, permits, registration etc.; and conduct on-line business and transactions.

The degree and the level of sophistication of these centers varies with how well the Information Technology Infrastructure has been integrated with appropriate back-end support systems, functioning legal and regulatory institutions for enforcement of contracts and obligations between trading parties, promoting fair competition between telecommunication carriers and service providers and level of skills and leadership at all layers. It is encouraging to notice the development of a large variety of rural information, knowledge and service centers, in various stages of development in many rural parts of the developing world, providing telephone services, E-mail, fax services, etc. to on-line transactions and video conferencing.

Third trend: Changing nature of Investments in ICT’s There is a growing trend towards the provision of professional information technology services – such as outsourcing, network management, custom programming, adaptation and localisation of software, call center operations, systems integration, web development, etc. In addition, many governments are replacing paper-based processes and manual systems by web-based and automated systems (for example land records and titles, vehicle registration, business licenses, etc) in an effort to increase transparency, improve efficiency and to be “citizen centric”. This requires a well coordinated interoperable IT infrastructure across different ministries and layers of Government – from national to the local level – and changes in institutional behavior and attitudes to develop new forms of Government to citizen service (G to C) relationships.

The common theme which is emerging, therefore is that Information, knowledge and services – especially for the rural population | November 2005

are becoming complex, basic needs, global and increasing in demand.

Present situation

Vision Given these trends in the evolution of integrated IT systems and supporting institutions, it is possible to realise the vision of Interconnected rural information, knowledge and service centers within and between countries tailored to meet the multi-sectoral and multi-disciplinary information needs of the rural population.

Future situation

What we hope to see in the years ahead are: •

Integrating ICT strategies in Country Assistance Strategies and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers of developing countries • Information and knowledge considered as basic needs and factors of production • Inter-operability, common technology infrastructure and standards which are well coordinated across and within ministries from national to local levels • Increased role of universities, academies, research institutes, local population,etc to develop and share local content in local languages • Increased role of public sector to provide ICT connectivity to central nodes in rural areas to stimulate private sector involvement, investments and to provide value added demand driven services • Universal adoption of freedom of information laws • Protection of Intellectual Property Rights of the poor – and indigenous knowledge as a marketable asset • Development of information and knowledge markets at the local level • More robust evaluation methodologies to evaluate impacts of investments in ICT aimed at poverty reduction And use of a variety of simple to complex ICTs aimed at the evolution from a present situation, where there is plenty of relatively less expensive and abundant data and information, scarce and expensive knowledge and wisdom to a future situation, where there is plenty of less expensive, readily available wisdom and knowledge; relevant information and useful S. Janakiram data - essential for decision making and improving the lives Champion, ICT for Rural of the poorest sections of the Development, e-development and society. .

Sustainable Agriculture Systems, Disclaimer: The findings, interpretations and conclusions of this paper are author’s own and should not be attributed to the World Bank, its management, its Board of Directors or the countries they represent.

Knowledge and Institutions Thematic Groups, The World Bank ramjanakiram@gmail.com

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COMMENTARY

Popularising e-Governance services This article traces the whys, and suggests how e-Governance services can be made more attractive and usable to the end citizen for whom they are meant. In short this article suggests ways to “market” e-Governance services, sans the money! e-Governance seems to be the new mantra of politicians, bureaucrats, developers and implementers alike. E-Governance calls for a SMART government, i.e. simple, moral, accountable, responsive and transparent government. Towards this end the government departments everywhere in India seem to be jumping the “E” bandwagon with a vengeance. Lots of systems have been designed, developed, implemented and installed at the user department. However after the initial euphoria of the project launch, no one seems to give two hoots to the e-Governance software. It is not because India lacks in high quality software. We have ample software talent. The problem lies, in not popularising the e-Governance service adequately among the bureaucrats and the citizens.

A very good example of bureaucratic ‘U’ turn in the recent past is the ‘Right to Information Act’ (RIA). The RIA is a highly empowering act for the common citizen, in the sense that it allows a citizen access to whatever is happening inside the government. The government machinery is hence supposed to be made completely transparent. But there is a spoke in the wheel! The bureaucrats have managed to remove the file noting from the ambit of the RIA. A file noting is the green room drama before any government order/act/bill is passed. Why should a file noting be made visible to the public? If the bureaucracy does not clear a very popular decision, the public would like to know why. This is not only empowering for the public, but empowering for honest bureaucrats as well. Government departments all over the country are slowly and steadily showing up in cyberspace.

Putting up departmental information, and wiring government departments in accordance with the RIA is a huge e-Governance project. And computer professionals all over India would have spent a lot of time and effort to study, analyze, design and develop the project. Dynamic web pages would have been developed, so that individual departments can post information without hassle.

Now that the file noting is to be excluded, majority of the data pertaining to the functioning of a government department will not be uploaded. What we may get finally is just static pages. This is the classic case of initial hype but enthusiasm dimming down later.

When deploying e-Governance projects, problems have to be tackled at two levels, one at the bureaucrat level and second, at the citizen level.

•

Lack of after-installation support.

Let me innumerate some ways by which a software professional may overcome the above problems:

Tackling mental blocks •

• •

•

•

•

•

•

•

The bureaucrat When faced with the prospect of implementing e-Governance systems, software professionals are faced with two main categories of problems: 1. Mental blocks among government officials – It can be of following types: • The fear of being transparent • The fear of losing control if matters are transparent • The fear of being pulled up for inaction • Hence the fear of being termed incompetent • Overwhelmed by new technology • Fear about data security, whether a computer can be relied upon to hold sensitive and important information.

2. Technology related problems – It can be of following types: • Lack of adequate infrastructure • Technology idling 44

•

• •

•

Have an eye for bureaucrat who are dynamic and open to change, willing to adapt to technology trends, are sincere and honest.

These officers should be the resource persons.

This will also help you to network and “infiltrate” an otherwise impermeable government establishment.

Have confidence building sessions as often as possible, with the officers and the supporting staff.

Impress upon them that Computers are here to aid them and not to “replace” them.

Impress upon them that, an e-Governance service will be for the benefit of the citizens, by providing SMART service.

Impress upon them that a government servant is also a citizen and stands to benefit equally as non-government servants.

Impress upon them that, a SMART government is largely in the good books of the common citizen.

Mental blocks in using technology can be removed by making the e-Governance service, user-friendly and less overwhelming.

Fear of data security can be removed by taking adequate precautions at the software and hardware level.

The users should also be associated and made responsible for their data.

They should be as involved as possible, and should be encouraged to undertake important system administration activities like backup, retrieval etc.

Finally to successfully remove mental blocks, one needs to be innovative and resourceful. www.egov.csdms.in |

COMMENTARY

Tackling technology problems • • •

• • • •

Infrastructure should be in place well in advance of commissioning of the project.

However care should be taken that there is no “technology idling” period.

Lack of infrastructure during implementation will lead the project to loosing steam midway; hence it is important that, the implementers should pursue purchase of requisite hardware vigorously.

After-installation support is important both from the hardware vendor as well as from the software developer.

Renewal of maintenance contracts should be done on a timely basis.

A non-existent after-installation support can lead to major roadblocks in the smooth usage of the project and can stop it dead in its tracks.

Software for one government department is mostly developed by another government institution/agency that too mostly free of cost. And whatever is free does not usually carry any value. Most government departments are reluctant to incur recurring costs by hiring computer personnel to take care of their long-term post installation, software and hardware maintenance needs.

The citizen e-Governance services are meant for the people. And the success of any eGovernance project depends on how well it is popularised and “marketed”. It is a general experience that the main problem faced by the bureaucrat i.e. “mental blocks” is non-existent as far as common citizens are concerned. As long as the service is efficient, fast and reliable people do not mind embracing technology with open arms. Consider the case of “land records”. The “record of rights”, obtained at the click of a button, is far better than one obtained by doing copious rounds of the local government office. Following are some strategies that can be used in popularising e-Governance services.

Giving wide media coverage Whenever an e-Governance project is launched the implementers should give it wide coverage in the local media, like newspapers, television and radio. The benefits of the service, its salient features as well as it limitations should be enumerated. A simple instruction set should be specified for users of the service. This could be distributed as pamphlets. For e.g. a service could be a single window system for paying all kinds of bills (like e-Seva in Andra Pradesh).

Trying innovative methods Among the rural populace of India who have very little access to television and cinema, the media for entertainment can be as rustic as: 1. Street theatre 2. Puppet shows, and 3. Stage shows at the local festival.

People identify and greatly enjoy these forms of amusement. Why not exploit the popularity of these traditional methods of entertainment and use them as a medium to advertise, market and popularise e-Governance services. Another method could door-to-door advertising and distribution of pamphlets.

Religion plays an important part in the lives of most Indians. And the local priest has a tremendous influence on the populace. The co-operation of religious heads can be sort to popularise e-Governance services.

In places where access to people is difficult like remote villages in the Bangladeshi water-shed, NGO’s like the Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha have come up with innovative ideas to reach the people. Boats! These boats are actually mobile classrooms, equipped with computers running on generators or solar energy.

Accessibility is by way of mobile phones. The children unable to go to school because of the heavy monsoon attend school offshore. Not only that, these mobile classrooms educate farmers in methods of sustainable farming methods, while the 46

e-Governance services are meant for the people.

And the success of any e-Governance project depends on how well it is popularised and “marketed”. biggest beneficiaries still remain women and children. In Nepal NGO’s, are making use of the local cable T.V network to surf web pages on the request of the local populace.

Similar innovative methods could be used to take e-Governance services to the people.

Holding workshops When the government first decided to used the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) for polling, workshops were held in easily accessible public places on how to operate the EVM for the benefit of the public. This happened much before poll day, and helped to reduce the awkwardness of voters in using EVM’s. Similarly whenever a new eGovernance service is introduced, similar workshops should be held in public places demonstrating the benefit and the method to use the service.

Conclusion Good governance is one, which is in tune with the pulse of its people. A SMART governance is one that goes “E”. And even smarter governance is one that popularises it e-Governance services, makes sure that the benefits reach its various actors, i.e. the bureaucrats and its people.

Archana P. Nagvekar Scientist National Informatics Centre (NIC) Goa, India archana.nagvekar@nic.in

www.egov.csdms.in |

numbers 45

per cent of Internet users in Britain consider the Net as a useful means for helping people express their concerns to government.

40 22

different steps are required for businesses to manually enforce a contract through Indian courts.

percent increase has been registered last year in the number of online taxpayers in Singapore.

41 48 100,000

percent of regular Internet users in Canada have rarely or never used any e-Government service.

percent of regular Internet users in US have rarely or never used any e-Government service.

100

million Euros has been allocated by the Spanish Government for implementation of the intelligent ID card project, scheduled to be completed by 2007.

Dirham of fines and fees has been collected by Dubai Municipality over the last six months through the Government’s e-Pay system.

60

percent of e-Government initiative all over the world (including developed nations) fails or fall short of their desired objectives.

Source: 45 - http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk

41 - http://www.accenture.com

60 - http://www.gartner.com

40 - http://www.ifc.org

48- http://www.accenture.com

100 - http://www.mir.es

100,000 - http://www.khaleejtimes.com

22 - http://www.accenture.com

| November 2005

47

Editorial Guidelines egov is a monthly magazine providing a much needed platform to the voices of various stakeholders in the arena of e-Government, apart from being a repository of valuable information and meaningful discussion on issues of e-governance in general, and egovernment in particular – both to the specialist and the generalist.

Contributions to egov magazine should be in the form of articles, case studies, book reviews, event report and news related to e-Government project and initiatives, which are of immense value for practitioners, professionals, corporate and academicians.

We would like the contributors to follow these guidelines, while submitting their material for publication.

• Articles/ Case studies should not

•

•

•

•

exceed 2500 words. For book reviews and event report, the word limit is 800.

An abstract of the article/case study not exceeding 200 words should be submitted along with the article/case study.

All articles/ case studies should provide proper references. Authors should give in writing stating that the work is new and has not been published in any form so far.

Book reviews should include details of the book like the title, name of the author(s), publisher, year of publication, price and number of pages and also send the cover photograph of the book in JPEG/ TIFF (resolution 300 dpi).

Book reviews of books on e-Governance related themes, published from year 2002 onwards, are preferable. In case of website, provide the URL.

•

The manuscripts should be typed in a standard printable font (Times New Roman 12 font size, titles in bold) and submitted either through mail or post.

• Relevant figures of adequate quality (300 dpi) should be submitted in JPEG/ TIFF format.

• A brief bio-data and passport size photograph(s) of the author(s) must be enclosed.

• All contributions are subject to approval by the publisher.

Please send in your papers/articles/ comments to: The Editor G-4, Sector 39 NOIDA (UP) 201 301, India Tel +91 120 2502180-87 Fax +91 120 2500060 Email: info@egov.csdms.in

Advertising Opportunities in egov Magazine!

I would like to explore the various advertising opportunities for my organisation, for the purpose of growth in terms of sales and brand present. My details are mentioned as below:

Government Decision Makers

Let

...and You bridge the distance

Name .......................................................

Organisation ............................................

Designation ..............................................

Address ....................................................

City ...........................................................

State ........................................................

Pin Code ...................................................

Phone .......................................................

Mobile ......................................................

Fax ...........................................................

Email .........................................................

Date .........................................................

I would like to meet with someone from egov team Please send me your advertising kit containing all necessary details Please mail and fax this form to egov CSDMS, G-4 Sector 39, Noida 201 301, U.P. India Tel +91-120-2502180-87 Fax +91-120-2500060 Email egov@csdms.in Web www.egov.csdms.in

Note: Printout of this form is valid submission.

48

www.egov.csdms.in |

ABOUT TOWN

This section lists upcoming e-Government conferences, exhibitions, and other public events for the benefit of our readers.

9-11 November 2005 Government Technology Africa 2005 Johannesburg South Africa http://www.terrapinn.com/2005/govtechza/

December 12-13, 2005 Massachusetts Digital Government Summit Boston Massachusetts http://www.govtech.net/events/ conference.php?confid=247

15-17 November 2005 GTC Southeast 2005 Fifth Annual Government Technology Conference Atlanta, Georgia http://www.govtech.net/gtc/?pg=conference &confid=253

Government Health IT Conference Washington DC, USA http://www.fcw.com/events/ghit/

24-25 November 2005 Ministerial eGovernment Conference Manchester, UK http://europa.eu.int/information_society/ activities/egovernment_research/minconf2005/ index_en.htm

Wisconsin Digital Government Summit Madison, Wisconsin USA http://www.govtech.net/events/ conference.php?confid=252

April 24-28, 2006 2nd International Conference on Information & Communication Technologies: from Theory to Applications - ICTTA’06 Damascus, Syria

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId= IDC_P8554

3rd International Conference on e-Governance (ICEG) Lahore Pakistan http://web.lums.edu.pk/iceg2005/

4-7 January 2006 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 39) E-Government Track Kauai Hawaii

30 January-2 Febuary, 2006 GTC Southwest 2006 Seventeenth Annual Government Technology Conference Austin, TX

Management Development Program on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Development Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

ECEG 2006: 6th European Conference on e-Government Marburg, Germany http://www.academic-conferences.org/eceg/ eceg2006/eceg06-home.htm

May 15-19, 2006 Government Technology Conference West 2006 Sacramento, CA USA http://www.govtech.net/gtc/index.php/ GTCWest2006

June 6-9, 2006

EGov Summit London, UK

June 26 - 27, 2006

http://www.egov.worldtradeco.com/

December 8, 2005

The 4th ACS/IEEE International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA-06) Dubai, UAE

http://www.govtech.net/events/ conference.php?confid=300

April 27-28, 2006

7-8 March 2006

http://www.iimcal.ac.in/edp/ edpProgrammeDetails.asp?ID=410

Fusion 2005 Honolulu, Hawaii

http://ictta.enst-bretagne.fr/ index.php?PAGE=callforpapers.php

4th International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security (ACNS’06) Singapore

http://www.govtech.net/gtc/?pg= conference&confid=276

December 3-4, 2005

http://www.iqpc.com/cgi-bin/templates/ singlecell.html?topic=592&event=8611

eGovernment Conference 2005 Copenhagen Denmark

http://www.ctg.albany.edu/conference/hicss/

Novenmer 29, 2005

E-Government Evolution 2006 Canberra, Australia

8 December 2005

9-11 December 2005

17-18 November 2005

March 28-29, 2006

March 8-11, 2006

http://www.cs.utk.edu/aiccsa06

http://acns2006.i2r.a-star.edu.sg

International Conference on Mobile Business (ICMB) 2006 Copenhagen, Denmark http://www.cbs.dk/forskning_viden/ fakulteter_institutter_centre/institutter/ oekonomi/inf/h_jreboks/arrangementer/ 1151309100_icmb_conference_2006

Tell us about your event at info@egov.csdms.in | November 2005

49

FACTS AND DATA

Hall of shame!!

According to the Corruption Perceptions Index 2005 by the Berlin-based organisation Transparency International, the world’s least corrupt country is seen as being Iceland and the countries perceived as most corrupt are Bangladesh and Chad.

5 least corrupt countries Iceland Finland New Zealand Denmark Singapore

5 most corrupt countries Chad Bangladesh Turkmenistan Burma Haiti

Corruption is rampant in majority of Asian countries

•

• •

•

•

More than two-thirds of the 159 nations surveyed in Transparency International’s 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) scored less than 5 out of a clean score of 10, indicating serious levels of corruption in a majority of the countries surveyed.

India has been given a score of 2.9 and ranks 88 in this list.

159 of the world’s countries were included in the survey on a scale of 0 to 10 — the cleanest being 10 and the most corrupt being 0.

Though the Corruption Perception Index does not give the complete picture, it provides a reasonable idea of the level of corruption in the country. The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks countries in terms of the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians. It is a composite index, drawing on corruptionrelated data in expert surveys carried out by 12 independent reputable institutions. It reflects the views of businesspeople and analysts from around the world, including experts who are locals in the countries evaluated.

The CPI focuses on corruption in the public sector and defines corruption as the abuse of public office for private gain.

The world picture

Source: Transparency International, 2005. Web: www.transparency.org

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