Express Computer (Vol.28 No.3) March, 2017

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EXPRESS COMPUTER AN INDIAN EXPRESS GROUP PUBLICATION

VOLUME NO. 28, NO.3, PAGES 24, MARCH, 2017, ` 75

12 | INTERVIEW Sanjay Jaju, Joint Secretary, Director, National Highways, Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL)

18 | CIO PERSPECTIVE

10 | FEATURE

11 | FEATURE

13 | INTERVIEW

Harmeen Mehta, Global CIO, Bharti Airtel

Public Wi-Fi in India: Opportunities and risks

Urban Local Bodies (ULBs)and state governments beginning to go digital

Gandhinagar becomes the first Wi-Fi capital city of India

ANDHRA PRADESH GOES DIGITAL TO DELIVER INCLUSIVE GROWTH The state has rolled out base level projects like the CORE, e-Pragati and the single file system. Efforts are also on to make Andhra Pradesh the magnate for the best talent from all over the world

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

4 | EDIT MORE INSIDE

EXPRESS COMPUTER

COVER STORY

Vol 28. No. 3. March, 2017 Chairman of the Board Viveck Goenka Sr Vice President - BPD Neil Viegas Editor Srikanth RP* Delhi Mohd Ujaley, Ankush Kumar, Rashi Varshney Mumbai Abhishek Raval

Srikanth RP, Editor srikanth.rp@expressindia.com

The e-state 6| ANDHRA PRADESH GOES DIGITAL TO DELIVER INCLUSIVE GROWTH

DESIGN National Design Editor Bivash Barua Asst. Art Director Pravin Temble Senior Graphic Designer Rekha Bisht Layout Vinayak Mestry, Rajesh Jadhav Photo Editor Sandeep Patil

NEWS ANALYSIS

MARKETING Regional Heads Harit Mohanty - West and East Prabhas Jha - North

9| CA BETS BIG ON INDIAN APP ECONOMY WITH APP ANALYTICS PRODUCT

Marketing Team Kailash Purohit Shankar Adaviyar Ranabir Das Ajanta Sengupta Amit Tiwari Mathen Mathew Navneet Negi Circulation Mohan Varadkar Scheduling Ashish Anchan

AUTODESK CHANGES ITS LICENSING MODEL

FEATURE

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10| PUBLIC WI-FI IN INDIA: OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS

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ed by an enthusiastic Chief Minister in the form of Chandrababu Naidu, the state of Andhra Pradesh has been on an overdrive with respect to undertaking e-governance initiatives.

One e-governance project, which highlights the desire of the state to do better by using data rather than rely on instincts, is the Core Dashboard (CM Office Real-Time Executive Dashboard).

While it is common to see corporates measure every possible parameter to improve their performance, it is rare to see states do that in a transparent manner. The Core Dashboard is one of the most comprehensive data driven initiatives, where the CM can track and measure KPIs from 33 state government departments on a single platform. For example, every parameter (number of streetlights that

Andhra Pradesh is a prime example of a state that is wanting to quickly accelerate its economy using the foundation of technology

are on, ground water levels, rainfall status, employee attendance) can be tracked on a real-time basis. This has already started to make an impact. Press reports claim that the state was able to reduce the impact of the drought in several districts by closely monitoring statistics from the Core Dashboard. The government is also using the Core Dashboard to keep a tab on the medicines distributed at government hospitals, and in monitoring the health of pregnant women in villages

Navneet Negi Mobile No. +918800523285 Email: navneet.negi@expressindia.com CHENNAI Mathen Mathew The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division, 8th Floor, East Wing, Sreyas Chamiers Towers New No.37/26 ( Old No.23 & 24/26) Chamiers Road, Teynampet, Chennai - 600 018 Mobile No. +91 9840826366 Email: mathen.mathew@expressindia.com BANGALORE Amit Kumar Tiwari, Kailash Purohit The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division 502, 5th Floor, Devatha Plaza, Residency road, Bangalore- 560025 Mobile No. +91 8095502597 Email: amit.tiwari@expressindia.com Kailash Purohit Mobile No. +09552537922, Email: kailash.purohit@expressindia.com

and remote areas.

The state is also building the foundation for accelerating and scaling its IT vision. For example, the state has created an enterprise IT architecture called e-Pragati. This is a framework for providing integrated services to citizens covering 33 departments, 315 agencies and 745 services. The state has also understood the critical fact that online services will not take off unless the required infrastructure is easy to access and cost effective. The AP Fiber grid project is a massive step in this direction. The project aims to provide affordable broadband connectivity to every household at a cheap cost. For example, a broadband connection with 15 Mbps speed will be provided for just ` 149.

While it seeks to strengthen its foundation, it is not losing sight of the future. For example, the state was the first to experiment with 'White Spaces', a technology that aims to use unused television spectrum to deliver low cost Internet access. In another first, the state became the first state in the country and one of the very few in the world, when it announced that it is doing pilot projects on Blockchain, for ensuring authenticity of transactions.

While many state governments have launched ambitious initiatives, what makes Andhra Pradesh stand out is its ability to let people of the state evaluate its performance by sharing information transparently, and in pushing its departments to update information frequently. For example, ministries that do not update their data regularly are flagged. Ministries are also rated with a star rating.

Andhra Pradesh is a prime example of a state that is wanting to quickly accelerate its economy using the foundation of technology. It is also a model state for other state governments on how they can leverage technology optimally for the benefit of the masses.

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11| URBAN LOCAL BODIES (ULBs) AND STATE GOVERNMENTS BEGINNING TO GO DIGITAL

INTERVIEW 12 | Technology at the heart of NHIDCL 13 | Gandhinagar becomes the first Wi-Fi capital city of India 14 | Passport Seva Project: An integrated government service 16 | Govt push, deregulation and IT skills are catalysts for digital transformation India is going through momentous digital change

CIO PERSPECTIVE 12 | If I were the CIO of the Republic of India

NEWS ANALYSIS 12 | Mobile app ensures real-time

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Board No : 0120 6651 500, Ext:270 Direct No : 0120 665 1270 Fax No : 0120 4367 933 Mobile : 91-9899707440 Email: prabhas.jha@expressindia.com JAIPUR Prabhas Jha The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division, Express Buliding, B-1/B Sector 10, Noida 201 301, Dist. Gautam Budh Nagar (U.P.) India.

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EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

6 | COVER STORY

ANDHRA PRADESH GOES DIGITAL TO DELIVER INCLUSIVE GROWTH The state has rolled out base level projects like the CORE, e-Pragati and the single file system. Efforts are also on to make Andhra Pradesh the magnate for the best talent from all over the world

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

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COVER STORY

The state recently topped the ease of doing business chart in India and the ‘Single Desk Portal’ can claim a good part of the credit.

According to a news report, In the last 1.5 years AP has been able to clear close to 11,000 proposals. The state is in the process of evaluating 357 projects to the tune of ` 4.5 lakh crore, which can create upto 7 lakh jobs.

Chandrababu Naidu recently urged the Centre to first start the e-Governance and IT related projects in Andhra Pradesh as the state has already developed necessary infrastructure for its implementation. Instead of laying underground cables, under the AP Fibre Grid project, the state has partnered with Cisco to overlay broadband cables on electricity poles. The optic fibre cables have reached 9000 gram panchayats. The Single File System under the

Abhishek Raval abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

“W

hat gets measured gets managed”, so goes the quote from Peter Drucker, the globally renowned management guru. Andhra Pradesh’s CM Chandrababu Naidu has internalised the saying. Right from the CM’s realtime dashboard viz., CORE, tracking which, the CM starts the day, to the exhaustive survey of the state’s 4.5 cr population on more than 70 datapoints, and also having a subtly layered enterprise architecture framework to deliver e-governance services, the recently bifurcated state, seems to be in a hurry to race past other states in delivering ICT enabled governance.

e-Office project is a mammoth work in progress with the objective to convert every government file in a digital form.

best state by 2029. The Government of Andhra Pradesh as part of Swarnandhra Vision - 2029 has constituted seven missions namely : 1) Primary Sector, 2) Social Empowerment 3) Knowledge and Skill Development 4) Urban Development 5) Industries / Manufacturing 6) Infrastructure and 7) Service Sector ICT will be a major building block in accomplishing these missions.

In order to invite the best minds from all over the world, Andhra Pradesh recently launched the Vizag (Previously Visakhapatnam) Fintech Valley, which plans to host an ecosystem to develop new technologies towards achieving the goals the state has set for itself. The Fintech Valley has already launched a Fintech Tower. The intent is to make Vizag, the Fintech capital of India. The government has also

Swarnandhra mission 2029 By 2022, Andhra Pradesh envisions to become one of the top three high performing states in India and by 2029, under the Swarnandhra mission, the aim is to become the

Instead of laying underground cables, the state has overlayed broadband cables on the electricity poles

launched a Blockchain Institute of Technology to assist government agencies, financial firms in Blockchain related implementations. A school of cyber security has been formed in the International Institute of Data Security (IIDT), where an expansive syllabus has been made for short term and long term cyber security course for cyber cops. e-Pragati e-Pragati, the Andhra Pradesh State Enterprise Architecture, is a holistic and tight looped framework to propel the state into a developed state by 2029. It is claimed by the state to be the country’s first statewide enterprise architecture initiative. “We are going with a ‘One Government concept’, which is e-Pragati. It is a platform where all the departments will be integrated.

The platform will be used to deliver

We are also looking at encouraging self-help groups to use a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or an AP bitcoin, as it is much more secure compared to cash J A Chowdary Special Chief Secretary to CM & IT Advisor to Govt. of Andhra Pradesh

Work Management Land Management

e-Procurement

e-Highway

e-office

Project Portfolio Management System

People Hub

IT Application and Infrastructure Management System

Data Centre

e-Biz, Disaster Mgt, Building Permission, EMS...

Dashboards

Land Hub

Cloud

Whole-ofGovernment Perspective

Cross-cutting Services

Sector Promotion

State Portals

Urben

infrastructure

Industry

Service

Social

Social Benefits

Skills

SEVEN MISSIONS Primary

GROUP APPLICATION

Other depts.

And Agencies

Citizen Interface

CFMS

e-Cabinet

Legal Case Management System

HRMS

Entity Hub

GIS Hub

IT Security Management System

Payment Gateway

Unified Contact Centre

AP FiberNet

Language localisation

MeeSeva

IoT Hub

Certificate-less Governance

Disaster Recovery

Productivity

Establishment

Core Data Support

Infrastructure

The CM has a real time update through the CM Office Real Time Executive Dashboard (CORE) to a granular level. For example, the payments of pension to a particular family J Satyanarayana Chairman, UIDAI and Advisor-eGov, Government of Andhra Pradesh

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

8 | COVER STORY more than 700 G2C services,” says K.Vijayanand, IT Secretary, Andhra Pradesh.

A massive survey has been undertaken to collect citizen information to provide targeted services and also to design policies that best reflects the requirements of the citizens.

“4.5 crore population has been surveyed for close to 70 different elements. Data related to their biometrics, family, social, educational background including their co-ordinates, door number etc,” For further sharpening the targeted services, the state is constructing a specific land hub, peoples hub and GIS hub. It will be integrated into e-Pragati.

Real time executive dashboard The Praja Sadhikara Survey Dashboard provides the single source of truth of any citizen from the state. It is entirely powered by Aadhaar. The citizens are provided services according to the details captured in the dashboard.

“The CM has a real time update through the CM Office Real Time Executive Dashboard (CORE) to a granular level. For example, the payments of pension to a particular family,” says J Satyanarayana, Advisor to Government of Andhra Pradesh. It is also enabled by sensors, web services, etc. The data on CORE, among others include real time, IoT based updates on the number of lamp posts working in a particular area of the state; irrigation related, sensor based information on the undergoing 17 reservoir based projects in the state. Additionally, the state is also sitting on quality socio economic data gathered from the Praja Sadhikara Survey dashboard.

The Health and Tracking System, available on the CM CORE has detailed 3.9 lakh pregnant woman in the villages and remote areas. Every household with a phone is listed in the system. The health workers and primary health remain in regular touch with the woman nearing their delivery date and keep ready ambulance/emergency services, food and medicine supply for

them. This can increase the number of institutional deliveries and reduce maternal mortality rate (MMR).

Focus on startups The government has also created a Fintech Valley in Vizag, which is being developed as a self-sustained global ecosystem that aims to host startups as well as established giants. The goal is to create an ecosystem where startups will act as enablers, while established businesses will act as advisors.

The state is offering market access and establishing links between various stakeholders to create a sustainable ecosystem: corporations are offering skill development syllabi to institutions, institutions are providing startups with equipment, and startups are bringing the muchneeded new age ideas. With

The government has created a Fintech Valley in Vizag, which is being developed as a selfsustained global ecosystem government intervention, corporations are advising institutions in areas of Fintech, and creating networks of information sharing that is aimed to benefit all players by filling in gaps of supply and demand. To support startups, the government is providing free infrastructure for six months, free fiber (high speed Internet) connectivity, and preferential market access to facilitate PoCs of the startups.

Additionally, the fund of funds strategy and alternate payments options are being discussed and are expected to be on the books soon. An advisory council consisting of global thought leaders from the Fintech space be headed by Chief Minister Naidu, is being planned to handle funds and

map out intricacies.

“We are trying to enable new opportunities for startups, and thinking of new ways to help citizens. For example, we are planning to have a TV ATM. We want to convert the TV into a digital instrument, so that a farmer who wants to send the money from his bank account to his son or daughter who is studying abroad, can use this TV ATM, instead of going to a bank or ATM outside his home.

He can transact the money through the TV ATM, after doing a biometric authentication. We are also looking at encouraging self-help groups to use a cryptocurrency like bitcoin or an AP bitcoin, as it is much more secure compared to cash,” opines J A Chowdary, Advisor IT & Special Chief Secretary to Chief Minister, Government of Andhra Pradesh.

Product startups that have already received funding will be facilitated by the government to connect with end customers, which would largely be BFSI players and to a large extent, even the government, who could be potential customers for them. “The AP Government will co-ordinate handholding for startups in the services space, via a mentorship programme which will include banks and financial institutions. This will help startups to create a mature product and scale it up. We are also getting partners on board to handhold startups in setting up operations in a smooth and seamless manner. The AP Fintech Valley will act as a facilitator between the Fintech players and the end customer.

On the regulatory side, the SEBI, RBI, IBA have formed a joint committee for Fintech policy regulations. The AP Fintech Valley will guide Fintech companies to get compliant with the procedures formed. IDRBT has come up with a working paper on Blockchain and our role is to work with them to make sure that the Blockchain use cases, especially for the financial services are compliant and are recognized by the industry as a whole,” says J A Chowdary.

The government of AP has identified three major places,

FINTECH VALLEY VIZAG LAUNCHES STARTUP CHALLENGES FOR CORPORATE PARTNERS ◗ The government of Andhra Pradesh is

building a complete eco-system including Fintech start-up entrepreneurs, innovators, incubators, investors and academia. Several Fintech startups including India's largest mobile commerce firm, PayTM, Blocktrust, Knolskape, Transaction Analyst, GMS, ValueLabs have commenced operations at the Fintech Valley, Vizag.

◗ India’s premier banking and financial

institutions such as ICICI Bank, ICICI Lombard, HDFC Life, Bharti AXA and Angel Broking have also associated with Fintech Valley to launch the Fintech Startup Challenge.

◗ ICICI Bank has launched a challenge wherein it is encouraging innovative Fintech solutions for ICICI’s Bank’s banking business. Startups and individuals are invited to develop solutions leveraging the opportunities of digital payments, transfers and remittances. Similarly, ICICI Lombard is inviting innovative IoT solutions that can forecast, detect and monitor risks in real-time and make calculated interventions to decrease risks in logistics, inventory management, property upkeep and factory or plant management. ◗ HDFC Life has invited firms to develop a

solution which can aid in digitization of the acquisition and policy servicing process by enabling transition from physical documentation capture to electronic fulfilment of

for developing IT infrastructure - Tirupati (earmarked for cyber security and IIDT and all other equipment testing), Vizag (where the Fintech Valley is located and many companies have already begun operations, particularly in financial technologies and in other related areas) and Amaravati, the capital of AP (for IT and ITeS).

Betting on the future The government does not want to rest on its laurels, and has hence decided to invest in technologies that will help it give an edge over other states.

The Andhra Government, for instance, has in a first, decided to look at Blockchain technology, for specific areas such as land records.

States J A Chowdary,

data needs. Bharti AXA Challenge has invited firms and individuals to develop a solution to identify adverse selection of lives, where an insurance policy is taken with an intention of making fraudulent claims.

Angel Broking has invited firms to develop a solution capable of doing real time social profiling of customers. Angel Broking is

“Blockchain can now be purpose fit for smart documents especially when they have to be transferred from one application to the other. For example, in land registration, once you register your land, then that same document has to be accessed by the bank before giving the loan and subsequently to many other entities. This is where a Blockchain can be used to ensure that documents are genuine and not tampered with.”

Besides land registration, the government is also looking at the civil supplies department as a test case for Blockchain.

Civil supplies is basically the Public Distribution System (PDS), wherein a certain category of citizens are provided with specific goods or commodities at a low cost.

Every card holder, is eligible to a

looking for a solution that would enable real time social profiling of new and existing customers, on the basis of attributes such as demography, income bracket, age, social data (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) and mobile application usage (e.g. presence on financial applications such as Moneycontrol, Yahoo Finance, etc.).

certain quantity of commodity, depending on the number of family members. Since these disbursements have implications on the state finance and also have a probability of the wrong people getting the benefits, it is important to weed out fake beneficiaries – an area where Blockchain can be used with huge impact.

The state government is also using drones innovatively.

Besides using drones to monitor work done at various project sites, the government is also looking at using drones in sectors such as agriculture, public security and traffic.

It is rare for a state to create an enterprise IT architecture and be a front runner in adopting emerging technologies. By emulating

some of the leading companies in the world, the Andhra Pradesh government has shown the country, the immense possibilities that can emerge, if the vision is backed by strong political will. AP’s CM, Chandrababu Naidu, has been credited with the development and growth of the IT industry in Hyderabad during his first and second term as CM. This time around, under his leadership, Andhra Pradesh could prove to be the model state which showcases how even the performance of states can be measured objectively and information made accessible to every stakeholder. This will have a catalyst effect, and one can expect other state governments to take a cue, and explore the transformational power of technology, as AP has done.

INTERVIEW JA Chowdary, Special Chief Secretary & IT Advisor to the Chief Minister, Government of Andhra Pradesh

There is a big opportunity for India to create content in Augmented Reality

T

he inferior quality of education system and the resultant unemployability of the engineering graduates coupled with the lack of focus on the availability of digital technologies has led the state of Andhra Pradesh to take up initiatives in bringing about a change in this space. In an interview with EC’s Ankush Kumar, J A Chowdary, Special Chief Secretary & IT Advisor to the Chief Minister, Government of Andhra Pradesh, shares the key focus areas for his state, and tells us why he is betting big on emerging technologies such as Augmented Reality and Blockchain What is the focus of your state in terms of technology adoption? Are you looking beyond the traditional approach?

We are currently focusing on Blockchain as there is a huge demand and also a big shortfall in terms of availability of manpower in this field which is evolving. Blockchain is a complex and expensive technology that is known to be a foolproof system to prevent cyber crime and hacking. It’s a big opportunity for young students coming out of the colleges looking for the jobs as the industry is shifting towards this technology. To cater to this demand, we are setting up a Blockchain Institute of Technology in association with some of the global giants in Visakhapatnam. With the growing adoption of automation, financial technologies are growing more than 25 percent annually and that's the reason why many banking corporations today are using advanced technologies.

The banks and other financial institutions are using financial analytics, new age cyber security solutions, and also Blockchain technology solutions.

How do you think these technologies will be beneficial for the students? Has it

already been implemented in some of your departments? areas. The other schools will be in the areas of Artificial Intelligence and With the combination of financial analytics, Blockchain technologies machine learning. So these are the independent schools that will be part and cyber security, we want to open an ocean of opportunities for of the digital university that is coming up at Tirupati. We will not only be students. We believe it will help in creating deep digital technology focusing on the learning and education but we will also have the knowledge professionals. Today we see most of the engineering incubator there. We also have a research program. We already have students coming out of college with just a superficial knowledge which is global research companies setting up their R&D labs at IIIT. not sufficient in getting jobs. To survive globally, we feel these are the emerging areas and What do you think is the biggest roadblock for students need to have deep rooted development and how do you plan to overcome understanding. Yes this technology has already these hurdles?

With the been introduced in two state government The fundamental roadblock is the unavailability departments on a pilot basis — civil supplies and of technology. Unfortunately in the last ten years, combination of land registration. We have already initiated our quality of education system has gone down. As financial analytics, discussions on how this technology can be mentioned earlier, we all are providing superficial Blockchain replicated in other departments. It is important knowledge to engineering students. So, the unskilled for us to first assess the performance in these two workforce which has been the biggest roadblock is technologies and departments and then take a long term approach. going to be overcome by creating the digital cyber security, we It will take around six months if we plan to cover university with the pedagogy which is not driven by want to open an all government departments with this. only the theoretical knowledge. Education should include industry use cases and industry case studies ocean of From an education point of view, what are with the active support of the industry. So we are opportunities for some of the major initiatives? now turning this problem into an opportunity by students We all know how IIIT was established in creating the needed skills and that is going to be our Hyderabad to cater to the need of IT in the early USP going forward. days of the development of Andhra Pradesh.

Today the institute is one of the best engineering What do you think has been the biggest strength colleges in India competing with IITs and the of the state which is helping you to move ahead at students are preferred by many global MNCs. In the similar manner we such a brisk pace? have realized the need of more focused institutions that can work on Our key strength is our leader – Nara Chandrababu Naidu. World deep digital technologies like automation, machine learning, analytics, over wherever I go, everybody recognizes me as an official from the etc. Therefore, we are now setting up India’s first advanced digital state of N C Naidu who was the first to bring the concept of Hi-Tech city technologies university. The first two schools we are starting in the and got some of the biggest global companies to India. So even in the month of February are the School of Cyber Security and the School of case of a startup, when they reach to the venture capitalist, they do not Analytics’. In June 2017, we will be starting other schools called the straight away ask about the business idea. They are more eager to know School of Fintech and School of Blockchain Technology. We will also be the team members and their strengths. Therefore, even getting starting with schools of augmented reality and virtual reality. Most of appointment from the CEOs of the leading companies becomes easier the entertainment, media, education and tourism industry will be when they come to know that I am from the state where the chief swamped by the demand of augmented reality and virtual reality. minister is N C Naidu. It is because of his popularity as the CM who Therefore it’s a big opportunity for India to create content in the AR understands technology so well that we are able to attract some of the mode and that content is going to cater to the upcoming demand in these biggest technology brands in the state.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

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NEWS ANALYSIS

CA bets big on Indian app economy with app analytics product

UNDERSTANDING the need for a product that gives developers insights on how users are engaging with the app, CA Technologies has launched a new solution called ‘CA App Experience Analytics’ Srikanth R P srikanth.rp@expressindia.com

I

ndia is one of the world’s largest app economies, with reports placing India only behind countries like China, US and Brazil, in terms of time spent

by Indians on apps. However, with the fast paced growth in the number of smartphones and the huge digital push by the government, India could in

a few years, surpass established countries.

That said, even as the number of apps downloaded by users grows at a fast clip, it is also a fact that apps are deleted as quickly as they are downloaded, if users are not happy with the experience. For example, a Silicon Valley analyst says that 77 percent of users never use an app again in just 72 hours after they install it. As the number of digital channels grow in

number, it is imperative that enterprises and app developers know the key reasons for any ‘unhappy’ user experiences.

Understanding the need for a product that gives developers insights on how users are engaging with the app, CA Technologies has launched a new solution called ‘CA App Experience Analytics’, that provides intuitive visualizations into the digital user experience giving decision makers real-time actionable insight into buying trends, retention rates, and conversions—enabling them to identify adjustments to apps that can help them retain and attract new customers.

“Today, a firm’s brand value increasingly depends on the touch experience, and the tolerance level is very low. An

Autodesk changes its licensing model AUTODESK HAS moved from perpetual licensing to a subscriptiononly model Mohd Ujaley mohd.ujaley@expressindia.com

I

nspired by the successful transition of software business of Adobe, Intuit and Microsoft – from sale of licenses to an ongoing subscription model – US based technology firm, Autodesk, which has been selling standalone perpetual licenses for its popular software

products has moved to a subscription-only model. As a part of which all its design software like AutoCAD, 3D Max, Maya, Flame are now available on annual and quarterly subscription to its customers.

The company whose softwares are primarily used by architects, engineers, and structural designers to design, draft, and model buildings took

this strategic decision in early 2016 and has recently launched an e-store in India to sell its products. Now, designers, students and engineering professionals can buy Autodesk software online on monthly subscription basis.

As expected, this subscription-based lower cost model, seems to have discouraged piracy and encouraged users to move to Autodesk from other platforms. According to the third-quarter results, globally, the total subscriptions have grown to nearly 3 million, including 2.1 million maintenance subscriptions

app can only be popular if it has great user design, is flawless in execution, and has error free code. If app developers can find out the root cause of uninstalls, they can quickly determine if the uninstall was an issue related to code, infrastructure or design. “With every business growing digital, there is a tremendous need for enterprises and developers to track the user’s journey and identify how people use an app,” says Chris Kline, Vice President, APM Product Management, CA Technologies.

While there is a plethora of APM tools available, most of them deliver huge amounts of information, which leaves enterprises overwhelmed in terms of finding the right insights. Kline says that CA has tried to maintain simplicity by providing app

and 861,000 “new model” product subscriptions.

Company officials believe, some of these people were previously pirating the software and now have a much more affordable option with product subscriptions. So, they have started buying.

According to Pradeep Nair, MD, Autodesk India, buying a software on a perpetual basis was a relatively expensive proposition. The company has now moved everything to a subscription model, so that customers do not buy upfront, they pay for the time that they use it. “Now, the cost of acquiring Autodesk software has significantly gone down.

What once used to cost ` 2-5 lakhs is now available for as low as ` 3000 a month,” says Nair.

Currently, Autodesk in India sells its software through a network of business partners,

APM Product Management, CA Technologies

developers only the required amount of information they need for finding out the root cause of an issue. For example, the CA App Experience Analytics solution provides heat maps and crash analytics reports, that can help app developers quickly find out if the problem of a crash is due to poor application design, code or whether it is simply an infrastructure related issue.

Kline emphasizes that design is the most important component in the success of an app, as it shows enterprises how users use the app. For example, an enterprise can discover through analytics that is more proper to perhaps place a click button for picking a call, in the center of the screen, rather than asking the user to swipe from left to right.

but company executives believe that the newly launched e-store offers an opportunity to scale up its sales in tier-II and tier-III cities. “If you are in Lucknow and you do not know who the Autodesk partner is, in that territory, you can still have access to our software because all you need to do is to go to the Autodesk e-store,” states Nair.

Although, the company does not breakout India's numbers but over the past year, it has increased its focus on India, showing interest in the government's Smart Cities project. “India is a very important market for us and it has been significantly contributing to the company's growth year-on-year. Indian construction, engineering, manufacturing and media firms have been using Autodesk software for many years for better designing, manufacturing better products and creating stunning visual effect,” said Nair.

In February 2016, the company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government of Maharashtra for making its software available to Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the state. So far, more than 2000 users and 2000 SMEs in Maharashtra have taken advantage of this programme. They have started using Autodesk Fusion 360 software, which is a cloud-based platform that helps companies in product development.

“These are the customers whom we never sold to in the past. They have come on-board in the last six months. It gives us an opportunity to explore the unexplored territory,”mentions Nair.

The California headquartered, 3D technology firm, also sees huge potential

in Indian start-ups. It has been running a programme called Entrepreneur Impact Program in which it offers its proprietary software to selected start-ups for free, usually for three years.

Maker’s Asylum of Mumbai, Workbench Projects of Bangalore and Prakti Designs, a Chennai based firm, among others, have participated in this project. “Our focus is on the start-ups that have a social impact with their products and are focused on using design as a differentiator to build better products,” informs Nair.

On the question of why India has lot of startups in e-commerce not in the hardcore engineering or life sciences, Nair said, “Maybe, everybody wants to be the next Facebook, the next WhatsApp or the next Uber. Those stories are better known.” But in terms of hardware, he says, “The good things is that we are seeing some uptake. We have a bunch of examples from our Entrepreneur Impact Program.

For example, there is a company in Chennai called Prakti Design which is making a cooking stove that is designed in a manner that reduces the amount of pollution by about 90%. Similarly, we are working with other start-ups that are having impact on people's lives.”

Going forward, Autodesk is bullish about Internet of Things (IoT). “It is not new from a technology point of view but we are seeing the opportunity to embed the IoT capability into physical things. So, when you build smart buildings you have sensors that help you control light, control temperature, etc.

In the year 2017, we are likely to see more of this,” affirms Nair.

With every business growing digital, there is a tremendous need for enterprises and developers to track the user’s journey and identify how people use an app Chris Kline

This can be particularly useful in cases where the user is operating in a crowded or constrained place, with a phone using one hand only.

Additionally, key usage analytics provided by the tool can also help app creators gain better understanding of the user’s journey across the wide range of digital devices used.

Chris Kline believes that with a fast growing economy, and an exponential rise in the number of digital businesses, India can turn out to be one of the biggest markets for this product. “With a growing app economy in India, we believe that we have a significant market opportunity with respect to this product. India is amongst top-5 focus countries for CA with CA App Experience Analytics,” says Kline.

◗ In February 2016, the company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government of Maharashtra for making its software available to Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the state. ◗ So far, more than 2000 SMEs in Maharashtra have taken advantage of this programme.

◗ They have started using

Autodesk Fusion 360 software, which is a cloud-based platform that helps companies in product development.

◗ Globally the total subscriptions have grown to nearly 3 million, including 2.1 million maintenance subscriptions and 861,000 “new model” product subscriptions for Autodesk

India is a very important market for us and it has been significantly contributing to the company's growth yearon-year. Indian construction, engineering, manufacturing and media firms have been using Autodesk software for many years for better designing, manufacturing better products and creating stunning visual effects Pradeep Nair Managing Director, Autodesk India

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

10 | FEATURE

Public Wi-Fi in India: Opportunities and risks WITH BROADBAND penetration within homes showing limited growth opportunities due to lack of investment, public Wi-Fi will have an interesting role to play in connecting the ever growing data users Ankush Kumar ankush.kumar@expressindia.com

W

ith the advent of smartphones and rise in social media, connectivity is becoming extremely important in today’s world. The Indian youth, business professionals and travelers want to stay connected all the time through their devices, irrespective of their location. This rising trend of 24/7 connectivity along with the Indian government’s aim of developing smart infrastructure where almost everything will be connected through the internet has made public Wi-Fi a necessity.

Wi-Fi has gained global acceptance as a smarter alternative to wired LANs. Today, Wi-Fi facilities are not only limited to metro cities and few tourist destinations but are freely available in coffee shops, airports, train stations, hotels, college campuses and various public establishments.

Opportunities for all At present there are over 31,000 public Wi-Fi hotspots installed in India and industry estimates cite that the number is pegged to grow beyond 202,000 by 2018. However, for India to match the current global average of one public Wi-Fi hotspot per 150 people, an additional 800,000 hotspots need to be deployed. This is certainly not a stretch, as China, with the same population, but with better mobile and fixed line broadband infrastructure has more than one million hotspots.

As the Indian Government aims to provide free Wi-Fi services in top 25 cities across India, Rajan S Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India

(COAI) sees it as a huge opportunity for mobile operators. “This is clearly an opportunity of interest to mobile operators. Over 35 percent of the population of India resides in these major cities of the country. Over 950 million connections have already been obtained by mobile operators.

Increasingly, smart phones are becoming the device of choice for consumers. Given the substantial data traffic that is expected to be generated by consumers, the use of all available spectrum (licensed and un-licensed) is essential to meet the demand. Mobile operators are best placed to design, operate and maintain these Wi-Fi hotspots. As commercial terms are not known at this point, it would be difficult to determine the monetized value of the

Hackers can use an unsecured Wi-Fi connection to distribute malware

opportunity,” says Mathews.

Sanjeev ‘Bobby’ Sarin, Founder, O-Zone Networks believes that there is a big market for public Wi-Fi, “As broadband penetration within the home doesn’t seems to be growing due to lack of investment, public WiFi will have a big role to play to connect the huge growth of data users. Realizing the cost effectiveness of Wi-Fi, the mobile operators in India have also started using Wi-Fi hotspots in public locations for data off-loading to maximize mobile network capacity.”

Sarin further shares that having a single neutral host service provider

One of the most prominent threats while being on a hotspot is ‘The evil twin’. It is a Wi-Fi connection that seems like the real Wi-Fi hotspot of a dine-in, café, etc., but would actually be a replica setup by a hacker Dhanya Thakkar Managing Director, APAC, Trend Micro

that can deploy a shared infrastructure can be beneficial to all - the mobile operators, the venue owner and the neutral host provider.

To meet this need, in the next few years over one million plus hotspots will be needed in public spaces including malls, railway stations, bus stations, airports, hospitals and any place with high footfalls to cater to the growing need of staying connected on the move.

O-Zone, the provider of wireless internet and mobility solutions has seized the advantage by entering into long-term contracts with businesses such as Costa Coffee, Yum Group (KFC, Pizza Hut), McDonalds, DLF, Oberoi Group, thus creating premier Wi-Fi hotspots across India.

Security risks Recently Norton by Symantec came out with Indian findings from the annual Norton Cyber Security Insights Report. As per the insights nearly two out of three consumers (59 percent) believe entering financial information online when connected to public Wi-Fi is riskier than reading their credit or debit card number aloud in a public place (41 percent). Around 70 percent say public Wi-Fi is useful for checking emails, sending documents, and logging into accounts on the go, and 80 percent of the business travelers agree. Around 45 percent of consumers connect to a Wi-Fi network using VPN regularly; others can potentially allow a hacker to steal data as it travels on the network.

Interestingly, half of respondents from the Norton survey believe that they are likely to have their identity stolen after entering account or personal information on public WiFi. However, in order to gain access to public Wi-Fi consumers are willing to give in to actions such as answering a survey question (58 percent), installing a third-party app (35 percent), providing access to files while online (21 percent) or even turning off security software (19 percent).

Altaf Halde, Managing Director South Asia, Kaspersky Lab informs that the same features that make free Wi-Fi hotspots desirable for consumers make them desirable for hackers; namely, that it requires no authentication to establish a network connection. This creates an excellent opportunity for the hacker to get unfettered access to unsecured devices on the same network.

“The biggest threat to free Wi-Fi security is the ability for the hacker to position himself between you and the connection point. So instead of talking directly with the hotspot, you’re sending your information to the hacker, who then relays it on.

31,000 Public Wi-Fi hotspots installed in India

202,000 Wi-Fi hotspots to grow beyond 202,000 by 2018

1

1 public Wi-Fi hotspot

150 P EO P L E

800,000 Additional 800,000 hotspots need to be deployed While working in this setup, the hacker has access to every piece of information you’re sending out on the internet: important emails, credit card information and even security credentials to your business network. Once the hacker has that information, he can - at his leisure - access your systems as if he were you,” says Halde.

He further explains that hackers can also use an unsecured Wi-Fi connection to distribute malware. “If you allow file-sharing across a network, the hacker can easily plant infected software on your computer.

Some ingenious hackers have even managed to hack the connection point itself, causing a pop-up window to appear during the connection process offering an upgrade to a piece of popular software. Clicking the window installs the malware.”

Talking about the security risks

arising from mobile Wi-Fi, Halde explains, “As mobile Wi-Fi becomes increasingly common, you can expect internet security issues and public Wi-Fi risks to grow over time.

But this doesn’t mean you have to stay away from free Wi-Fi and shift to a desk again. The vast majority of hackers are simply going after easy targets, and taking a few precautions should keep your information safe.”

Elaborating on some of the threats in the public Wi-Fi space, Dhanya Thakkar, Managing Director, APAC, Trend Micro shares, “One of the most prominent threats while being on a hotspot is ‘The evil twin’. It is a Wi-Fi connection that seems like the real Wi-Fi hotspot of a dine-in, café, etc., but would actually be a replica setup by a hacker. Such fake hotspots capture a user’s data like passwords, credit card numbers, etc., once their connection is established. If a user gets connected to such a Wi-Fi, their data can be stolen, their PC can be hacked and what not.”

Another critical risk is the latest ‘war driver’. Non-secure wireless networks can be exploited via a war driver by a hacker within the Wi-Fi range. “A hacker armed with a war driver can enter the unrestricted hotspot and breach data on the network. It can be a stranger sitting in a park next to an office, a business competitor roaming around the premises or a disgruntled employee.

War driving threat can cost a hotspot as well as users connected to it huge trouble,” informs Thakkar.

The safeguards The measures to safeguard from such security threats is that the users need to get savvy about Wi-fi hotspots by limiting the type of businesses they conduct on public Wi-fi network if they do not have a way to secure them. “Additionally, the user can also adjust the security setting on their devices to limit who can access their information.

Similar to antiviruses and firewalls, a virtual private network (VPN) is another important tool that users can employ if they want security,” informs Thakkar. A VPN encrypts all the data going into and out of the consumer’s computer or mobile device. This technology completely blocks hackers from accessing data sent over Wi-Fi networks, so users are always protected.

Considering that India is a major internet market and the fastest growing economy, the outlook of public Wi-Fi in the future looks positive despite rising security concerns. Issues like lack of spectrum, network quality and low broadband speed will further push the country to adopt many such innovative alternatives to remain connected.

As broadband penetration within the home is still low, public Wi-Fi will have a big role to play to connect the huge growth of data users Sanjeev ‘Bobby’ Sarin Founder, O-Zone Networks

The biggest threat to free Wi-Fi security is the ability for the hacker to position himself between you and the connection point Altaf Halde Managing Director - South Asia, Kaspersky Lab

Mobile operators are best placed to design, operate and maintain Wi-Fi hotspots Rajan S Mathews Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI)

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

| 11

FEATURE

AMC has encouraged banks, NBFCs to lend to Self Help Groups (SHGs) by using the RTGS medium

Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and state governments beginning to go digital

Yogesh Maitrak The Director, Urban Community Development Department (UCD), Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC)

PMC collects 30 percent of taxes online. Citizen Service Centres are being upgraded to accept online payments.

Rahul Jagtap IT Head, Pune Municipal Corporation

Goa is the first state to be notified to go completely cashless. The plan is being put in place to have a Unified Card Payment System, which will make Panaji, India’s first city to have a centralised card payment mechanism Swayandipta Pal Chaudhari Smart City CEO, Panaji

Service providers should think ahead of the curve to beat the fraudsters, and gain trust of the citizens Ramnath Sonawane Nagpur Smart City CEO

Digital literacy is a crucial step in achieving the benefits of demonetization Sandeep Sehgal Director - Government & Defense, VMware India

MAJOR MUNICIPAL corporations have already taken the digital runway with multiple small steps and plans to takeoff with opportunities for widespread adoption Abhishek Raval abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

I

ndia has witnessed a major digital push in the last couple of years under transformational projects like Digital India, Smart Cities, Startup India, etc. While the past few years have seen the adoption of disruptive technologies like cloud, big data, mobility; the year 2017 will largely emphasise on integrating all these technologies and providing seamless connectivity across all platforms.

The Watal committee appointed in August 2016 to suggest measures to recommend appropriate measures for encouraging digital payments submitted its final report on December 9, 2016. Digital payments to be made within the Government is one among a number of recommendations. While the central government has already kicked off taking decisions to mandate digital payments, the state governments and municipal corporations have already set the ball rolling by accepting payments in digital forms.

The huge push from the Government for accelerating the adoption of digital mediums has certainly helped in a big way. For example, according to statistics available at eTaal, the Government web portal for dissemination of e-Transactions statistics of National and State level e–Governance Projects, the transactions for availing government service electronically have increased by 33 per cent to cross 1,000 crore in 2016. The portal takes into account all e-transactions related to public services delivered from the Government to the citizens across sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, telecommunication etc.

Ever since the government has announced the demonetization initiative, there has been a big push among municipal corporations to go the cashless way. Lucknow Municipal Corporation, for example, recently announced that it will deploy swipe machines across all cash counters to encourage people to pay house, water and sewer tax through debit and credit cards.

Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation, (KDMC), the twin cities based in the outskirts of Mumbai, provides about 103 Government to Citizen (G2C) Services, out of which payments for 15 services have been made online enabled, informed E Ravendiran, Municipal Commissioner, KDMC. All payments made by KDMC either to external stakeholders or to employees should be mandatorily made through digital mediums. The corporation is attempting to bring the rural and migrant population in the mainstream by making them convince to pay through online mediums.

Rahul Jagtap, IT Head, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), said, “Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) collects 30 percent of taxes online. The Citizen Service Centres (CSCs) are being upgraded to accept online payments. The PMC has partnered with NASSCOM for digital literacy. 100 Digital literacy centres known as ‘Light house’ are already operating,” PMC is planning to offer citizen services to facilitate home delivery of various authentication related or other government certificates after

CASHLESS DRIVE ◗ The Lucknow Municipal

Corporation could be the first local body in the country to go cashless gradually for all forms of transactions from next year

◗ All the payments made by Kalyan

Dombivali Municipal Corporation either to external stakeholders or to employeesis are mandated to be made through digital mediums

◗ Pune Municipal Corporation is planning to offer citizen services to facilitate home delivery of various authentication related or other government certificates after processing the requests online ◗ The Ahmedabad Municipal

Corporation (AMC) has digitally enabled many government services like property registration, tax, getting a birth / death certificate etc.

processing the request online.

Currently, the citizens have to physically visit the Municipal offices to get the aforesaid certificates / documents.

Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation, “The banks and card payment (KDMC), the twin cities based in the outskirts providers have their own set of of Mumbai provides about 103 challenges, which should be resolved Government to Citizen (G2C) Services, in order to have a speedy less cash out of which payments for 15 society,” Jagtap said about the challenge faced on the way to services have been enabled online becoming a less cash country.

The Ahmedabad Municipal E Ravendiran Corporation (AMC) has digitally Municipal Commissioner, KDMC enabled many government services like property registration, tax etc; getting a birth / death certificate. “The The NPCI and RBI wants agility in demonetisation order. The security salaries of the Municipal employees is the system, to adjust to different robustness has been given paramount also paid online. Post the requirements that come from time to importance by all the relevant demonetisation on 8th November, the time from other regulators, central agencies. Digital literacy is a crucial AMC has encouraged banks, NBFCs to government and other agencies. step in achieving the benefits of lend to Self Help Groups (SHGs) by “VMware has seen a spurt in the kind demonetisation,” said Sandeep using the RTGS medium. The of changes requested in the Sehgal, Director - Government & transaction charges levied on PoS is a technology platforms after the Defense, VMware India. major deterrent,” said Yogesh Maitrak, Director, Urban Community Development STATEMENT ABOUT OWNERSHIP AND OTHER PARTICULARS OF Department (UCD), Ahmedabad EXPRESS COMPUTER, MUMBAI, AS REQUIRED UNDER RULE 8 Municipal Corporation (AMC).

OF THE REGISTRATION OF NEWSPAPERS (CENTRAL) RULES, 1956 Goa is the first state to be notified to go completely FORM - IV cashless. “The commercial (SEE RULE 8) taxes and other divisions 1. Place of Publication : Express Towers, 2nd Floor should be encouraged to go Nariman Point, Mumbai-400 021 cashless first because they are 2.

Periodicity of its publication : MONTHLY heavily reliant on cash. The 3.

Printer's Name : Ms. Vaidehi Thakar plan is being put in place to Whether citizen of India : Yes have a Unified Card Payment Address : Express Towers, 2nd Floor System, which will make Panaji, Nariman Point, Mumbai-400 021 India’s first city to have a 4. Publisher's Name : Ms. Vaidehi Thakar Whether citizen of India : Yes centralised card payment Address : Express Towers, 2nd Floor mechanism,” said Swayandipta Nariman Point, Mumbai-400 021 Pal Chaudhari, Smart City CEO, 5. Editor's name : Srikanth RP Panaji.

Whether citizen of India : Yes It is also important for the Address : Express Towers, 1st Floor Nariman Point, Mumbai-400 021 financial systems of states to 6. Name and address of individuals : The Indian Express (P) Ltd talk to each other. The public who own the newspaper 2nd Floor, Express Towers, bodies also need to come up Nariman Point, Mumbai 400021 with out of the box thinking to AND overcome challenges.

Shareholders holding more than : Indian Express Holdings & Entp Private In Nagpur, the citizens are One per cent of the total capital Limited, 2nd Floor, Express Towers, using cashless options but the Nariman Point, Mumbai 400021 number is still meagre.

Ramnath Sonawane, Nagpur : Mr. Viveck Goenka & Mr. Anant Goenka Smart City CEO opined on the 2nd Floor, Express Towers, wariness and apprehensions to Nariman Point, Mumbai 400021 go digital but was optimistic : Mr. Shekhar Gupta & Mrs. Neelam Jolly about, cashless payment C-6/53, Safdarjung Development Area options becoming mainstream, New Delhi 110 016 gradually.

“The service providers I, Vaidehi Thakar, hereby declare that the particulars given above are true and to the should think ahead of the curve best of my knowledge and belief. to beat the fraudsters. They sd/should also gain the trust of the VAIDEHI THAKAR citizens by keeping the systems Date : 1/3/2017 Publisher simple, safe and sustainable,” said Sonawane.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

12 | INTERVIEW

Technology at the heart of NHIDCL TO ENSURE MORE transparency and efficiency in its infra development programmes, the ministry of road transport and highway has come up with different portals like ‘Infracon’ and ‘ePace’ to provide all necessary details regarding highway projects. The ministry now aims to integrate its different tech initiatives in coming year. In an interview with EC's Mohd Ujaley, Sanjay Jaju, Joint Secretary and Director, National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL), which is a fully owned company of the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways says that “the future road map would be to integrate all tech-projects together.”

How did the idea of launching INFRACON portal come about and what is the objective of this portal?

In the ministry of road transport and highways, we doa lot of project preparation work and project supervision work. A detailed and quality project report lies at the heart of any good project. This whole activity of preparing a detailed project report is outsourced to external consultancy firms and consultants. These consultants are primarily highway engineers, bridge engineers, safety engineers, quantity surveyor. So far, selection of these consultants were done on a qualitative basis in which 80% weightage was given to technical aspect and 20% marks was given to financial capability. Technical aspects include qualifications, and number of years and kind of experience of an individual or firm. This aspect is very Infracon is a portal subjective and broadly it is wherein based on an individual firms individual's curriculum and consultants vitae or firm can upload their work-profile.

People requirements and exploited this put information method as they out in the public knew that evaluation domain. More process takes a than three lot of time and was highly thousand subjective, and consultants and they were not done in a more than five systematic hundred manner. consultancy firms There were a lot of are already online complaints that on this portal people were fudging their biodata. Today you are a highway engineer, tomorrow you become a tunnel expert, and day after tomorrow you become a different type of expert. To address this challenge, we decided to build a national platform on which we could bring all consultancy firms and individual consultants. This is how Infracon was born. It is a portal that we have created wherein individual firms and consultants can upload their requirements and put information out in the public domain.

How has been the response to the portal? Have you taken any special initiative to bring more people to this platform?

To attract people to this portal, we mulled over questions such as why would a consultant be interested to bring information to this platform. And, the logical thing that came out was that we need to have projects being put out on this particular portal, which meant that the bidding

We have created ‘e-pace’, which is for real time monitoring of all our projects. At the same time, we make use of the e-procurement portal for all our tenders

must happen with this portal. So now we have updated this facility wherein organisations like ours – NHIDCL, or NHAI or Ministry of Road Transport and Highways put out their bids for a consultancy project, supervision project, DPR preparation through this portal.

What is the procedure to apply for project on INFRACON? Basically, an individual or firm will have to register on this website by providing details about them and their firm. The government will put its projects on this portal. The individual and firm can bid for the projects.

They can form a team by having an agreement before bidding for the projects.

Has the portal helped ministry in managing projects?

Absolutely, In fact, now we have taken this project one step ahead. We have designed our database and backend in such a manner that based on the fixed criterion, we are able to get online evaluation done for submitted CVs by a click of a button. Earlier, it used to take us months. And, this has not only improved efficiency, but has also brought a different level of transparency in the whole process of evaluation.

It has been possible because the information that we are collecting is completely objective. It is like converting subjective paper into an objective paper. For example, when we asked a consultant or firm about how many years of experience they have, based on their reply, our backend system through an algorithm can calculate their marks automatically and in the end, we get the total marks.

Technically, this has become the role model in terms of the consultancy reform that we wanted to bring in this sector.

How many consultants or firms have joined so far?

More than three thousand consultants and more than five hundred consultancy firms are already online on this portal.

More than two hundred and fifty odd projects have been bidded out. In fact, we are the first one to start with the evaluation tools. We have completed evaluation of more than ten projects through the portal itself and over a period of time this would become a competency national database for consultancy individuals and firms.

Also, it has opened up a huge window of opportunities for all those who would like to be recognized as a 'key person'. For example, I have the talent but nobody knows me. I am a civil engineer in Dharbanga district but nobody knows me. But now, this is an opportunity for me to come out to this portal to put out information in public domain which people are doing and over a period of time this will also disallow the doctoring of data which is happening rampantly.

Are other departments or corporations of the central government adopting it?

Right now, technically NHAI, NHIDCL and ministry of road transport and highways have adopted it. Possibly, all the projects in future with the ministry will bid through this particular portal.

We have completed evaluation of more than ten projects through the portal itself and over a period of time, this would become a competency national database for consultancy individuals and firms

Has it brought any tangible benefits to the ministry?

Yes, and this portal has huge potential. First of all, it will improve the evaluation. Good quality DPRs will come out and good quality DPRs means good projects and good projects means effectively cost saving and time saving and the second thing would be in terms of overall usage. Once the whole database is available, it will open up a huge window of opportunity for all those who want to work for the sector but were not able to get opportunities.

You have served as IT secretary of Andhra Pradesh.

Do you find any disparity in the adoption of e-governance between the state and the centre?

Obviously, use of technology is indispensable for any organisation, now be it the

government or the private sector. So if you look at the requirement side or the necessity of using technology and e-governance, it is huge.

And especially in a ministry like road transport and highways and its corporation like NHIDCL, the role of e-governance is immense. That is why here at NHIDCL, we went with technology and today, NHIDCL is one of the first Government of India company which is completely e-governed.

We make use of e-office for all our files from start to finish, except for some contract management file, nothing in this office gets done through a manual route. Any order that we issue within the organization is put out online. We have created e-pace which is for real time monitoring of all our projects. At the same time we make use of e-procurement portal for all our tenders that we invite. We have invited tenders worth more than Rs.15,000 crore. All these tenders have been put out online. effectively, the necessity is all there. Even within the state government, there will be organizations which are at some degree of maturity and there are some organizations which will be at a lesser degree of maturity and obviously it all depends upon the principal stakeholders to realize the importance of technology.

So, comparing the two would be slightly odd but the fact remains that the necessity for infusing e-governance or technology is very high.

In Andhra Pradesh, you have a successful e-governance project called Mee Seva. Do you think centralising services to a particular platform so that people can access easily is possible in central government systems?

Central governments are not

the local governments that is why they are central government. There are some subjects which are within the purview of the local municipal corporation. There are some subjects which are in the purview of the central government. So obviously for the central government services, one can make use of integrated portal like the way Mee Seva was designed. For example, for ease of doing business, central government has an online portal called e-biz, which basically integrates all the ministries.

I don’t work in that ministry so I wouldn't know much of it but the fact remains that even at the central government level there are multiple domains or there are multiple departments and integrated portal would definitely help the common citizen, because he would like to transact all his business through a single entry portal. So the necessity of such a thing would definitely would be there but obviously the subjects are different here. So to an extent one would have to treat this whole idea to suit the requirements here in the central government.

What are the top three initiatives that NHIDCL is working on?

We have developed Infracon but now it has become part and parcel of the road transport ministry. Something, similar also happened with the e-pace, we designed it for our needs but it was designed in a generic fashion that it actually became a tool for the entire ministry. So these are the two main applications that we make use of. Our e-Access also is an important initiative. Our company website is fairly a vibrant and dynamic website.

In terms of technology adoption in your organization, what would be the future road map?

The future road map could be to integrate all this together. Right now, we have a lot of projects which are serving their own needs. Some of them are not integrable because they are all in their own home. They are bigger project like INAM-Pro portal which has established its position in a marketplace for infrastructure providers and material suppliers. So obviously, it cannot become part of our system. It is a platform for the external world but some of our internal initiatives, can get integrated. But obviously right now whatever we have done, is good enough to take us to the next level.

Other than technology projects, at what level are some of the core projects handled by NHIDCL? We now have more than 130 projects worth more than Rs.1,00,000 crores which have been assigned to the company at various stages of its life cycle.

Some of them are at the DPR stage, some of them have come to land acquisition, and some of them are actually now at the project implementation stage with contractors. So now we have more than 35 odd projects and about a thousand kilometres of roads and national highways.

We are also doing other projects also for the ministry of road transport and highways. In fact,we are building the automated car parking lot right across in the ministry of road transport and highways because there is a huge parking problem on the parliament street. This is one project that is being done right now. There are projects of bridges and two tunnels which has also been given out. mohd.ujaley@expressindia.com

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

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INTERVIEW

Gandhinagar becomes the first Wi-Fi capital city of India The Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC), of Gujarat, India, recently announced its citizen centric smart services at the foundation launch of the Gandhinagar Smart City.

The project was created in partnership with Sterlite Tech, a telecom major, which has designed, built and will manage the Smart City services project.

Citizen smart services include city wide Wi-Fi, IP surveillance, smart street lighting, environment sensors, digital display, speed and face detection system, automatic number plate recognition system, public address system, smart call centre and a centralized command centre to monitor and control all activities. In an interview with EC's Abhishek Raval, DN Modi (IAS), Commissioner, Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation, shares how smart services will help the government deliver better governance Some edited excerpts:

What are the key components of Gandhinagar's Smart City vision?

Sterlite Tech – Elitecore’s solution has enabled the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC) to enable Wi-Fi services to go-live across 30 sectors of Gandhinagar city with more than 700 Wi-Fi access points. These services are dedicated to the citizens of Gandhinagar making it India’s first Wi-Fi capital city. The Wi-Fi services can be accessed over any device in any of the two ways via online portal and mobile app. Users can avail 30 minutes free access as well as purchase scratch vouchers for premium Wi-Fi access.

The Android and iOS app is available

HIGHLIGHTS ◗ Wi-Fi services covering 75% of Gandhinagar with 750 access points ◗ 13 Public address systems installed to address citizens through loud speakers from control room ◗ Digital signage displaying environmental information across 5 locations ◗ More than 1000 smart lights installed ◗ Surveillance setup across 33 vantage points in the city to monitor criminal activity and ensure safety of citizens

online for free downloads.

Along with offering Wi-Fi services, Sterlite Tech – Elitecore has also enabled installation of other smart city subsystems including IP based CCTV surveillance, smart lighting, face detection, automatic number plate recognition, public address system, central command centre with help desk, citizen mobile app -- supported by a 24/7 call centre.

The free Wi-Fi connectivity enables easy access for citizens encouraging their engagement with the public administration; increase system transparency and service delivery for growth, economic progress and overall quality of life. The launch of Smart City Services in Gandhinagar, has got us closer to realizing the Digital India vision of our Honourable Prime Minister.

What are some of the key benefits envisaged?

With the open sky Wi-Fi connectivity solution, the city has got access to high speed data connectivity and 70% of the citizens are actually using Wi-Fi across the city. With a central command centre and IP based surveillance system, smart policing can come into play. The smart street lighting systems helps in saving lot of energy and the public address system has offered an additional information communication platform for any updates regarding government

initiatives or calamities. Successful campaigns of Swachh Bharat launched using the dynamic digital signage received positive response from the citizens and has helped in meaningful design and implementation of public programs.

Moreover, the technology platform deployed in Gandhinagar Smart City

Project enables usage of right tools for better transportation, socioeconomic development, which in turn leads to better e-governance.

What was the total investment made, and what are some of the key learnings?

BUSINESS AVENUES

The first phase of the Smart City project has been implemented in Gandhinagar with a cost of Rs 22 crores and the entire project has been deployed and made live within a short span of 12 months. Cities often meet the same challenges when they want to implement their plans and strategies (choice on suitable

locations, detailing and feasibility, involvement of owners, citizens and other stakeholders, mobilising funding, maximising impact).The entire project deployment was done with an integrated action plan making the best use of capacity and practical help as per technological deployment need.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

14 | INTERVIEW

Passport Seva Project: An integrated government service business value and RoI (return on investment).

Presently, the technology experts are seriously lacking in the departments. You go to the line ministry or state government, you will not find an IT personnel. Even for writing request for proposal (RFP) and freezing techno-functional requirements, they rely on private consulting agencies. You can't blame the private partner.

Whatever you ask them, they will do. Its upto the department on how focused they are when conceptualising and writing the detailed project report from the AS-IS to the TO-BE stage. I personally believe that if an expertise is needed for a job in a continuous manner , it is always better to hire someone or engage him in a long-term period, because the person who works directly under you and the consultant who provides consultancy are different aspects. There may be a huge difference between improving your own house or improving a rented house. That is why under NeGP, it was envisaged to bring experts to handle Project Management Unit (PMU) in long term assignments.

Over the years, passport delivery services have improved, which in turn has changed the perception of people about the passport division. In an interview with EC's Mohd Ujaley, Golok Kumar Simli, Chief of Technology, Passport Seva Project, shares why the Passport Seva Project (PSP) is a perfect example of an integrated government service Some edited excerpts: What is the learning from the Passport Seva Project?

The most important learning from the Passport Seva Project (PSP) is that it teaches about integrated and collaborative governance. All the key elements of the project such as business model, sustainability, infrastructure, revenue, skill enhancement and service quality have been taken care and synced together. They are in auto-pliot mode. That is why, over the last five years there has been Citizens now feel differentiating connected and change. empowered as Continuous improvement is part of the visible in the passport delivery passport service delivery system.We have system and tried to create a people are happy about it. I digital ecosystem personally feel under the Passport that this should Seva Program be the standard of all the egovernance projects in the country.

Passport Seva Project has been taken as a Mission Mode Project (MMP). Was there any special reason for that?

It was not about any special reason as such but the decision was based on learning from previous experiences. Projects have been happening in traditional ways before too. In

fact, the government had invested huge money in many projects but it was observed that after initial buzz, projects used to go down and they were not successful in the long run in terms of service quality and service assurance. People engagement and inclusiveness was missing.

In 2006-07, when the government decided to setup the core IT infrastructure and run services in a Mission Mode Approach on top of National eGovernance Plan (NeGP), it was decided that Passport Seva Project would be taken as a Mission Mode Project (MMP) with clear objectives and goals.

Over the years, we have ensured sustainability, accountability, transparency, and have worked on process re-engineering and capacity building resulting into service delivery excellence.

Citizens now feel connected and empowered as part of the passport delivery system.We have tried to create a digital ecosystem under the Passport Seva Program.

In fact, to make this project sustainable, a Public Private Partnership (PPP) partner through a competitive bidding process was roped in to invest in this project with bare minimum investment from the government for creation of required facilities, amenities, IT infrastructure and requisite manpower to perform the task of non-sovereign functions. This not only ensures long term sustainability but also helped in creating the requisite infrastructure and system including manpower in record time. It has also helped in creating an accountable and transparent service delivery system by leveraging the information and best available communication technology. The PPP partner only gets the money in the form of service delivery charge per passport only if he delivers the services as per the desired service levels. These critical aspects were missing in the e-government projects earlier but under MMP, they were not repeated and that is

why the PSP is a huge success today.

Baring few MMPs like PSP, UID, IT, we don't see huge success. What is the cause of this disparity in the outcome?

There is disparity in the performance or outcome because of two-three reasons.

First, some departments may feel that by outsourcing the project to a service provider, they can ensure everything in terms of service delivery but in reality, it’s completely different.

In fact, the service provider is the support system and the department must play the lead role right from its planning and conceptualisation stage to its implementation and operational phase. This should not have happened but unfortunately this is the reality with many departments. For example, there are rules, acts, regulations, guidelines for issuing the passport. Do you really feel that this knowledge will be coming from the private partner? Absolutely not! This is the responsibility of the

Departments should get involved with the project right from the conceptualisation stage to freezing of business requirements and defining the ecosystem as a whole

department and the process is a continuous transformation process. The kind of leadership and guidance the ministry has given in Passport Seva Program while engaging the PPP partner, I wish that this could be replicated in other projects too.

Second, when it comes to ICT enablement, it is not only about informing about rules and regulations to the service partner, the departments should get involved with the project right from conceptualisation stage to freezing of business requirements and defining the ecosystem as a whole. For example, service partners create the IT infrastructure and write the code, but the basic workflow and business requirements must come from the department. Also, the application so written should be vetted, tested through a third party certifying agency including the production test by the department users for its business functionality and usability. This can be achieved provided that the department has domain experts who understand both (technical and functional) and are able to match the business process with the ICT system. Today, ICT is not merely a support system but it is sitting in the core of the business and we must ensure that every bit of investment we do in procurement of hardware/software does have a

But the PMU has its own sets of challenges. What is your view on this?

The major problem with this type of setup is related to job security and lack of appraisal.

Lot of young people join the project on contract, but there is no guarantee that they will get extension once their contract gets over which is mostly for 1-2 years. An experienced person will be able to handle it but what about somebody who only has 3-5 years experience. What will he do? He will be jobless once the contract is over. That is why, it is very tough to find quality young talent in this setup. The danger here is that we do not have a good institutional mechanism which ensures the welfare of the staff of PMU setup. Specially, for people who are young and aspiring, always look for their promotion or increment. That is why things are not shaping up.

Tell us what have you done to bring in an digital overreach to the masses as a whole?

The Passport Seva starts with digital. The first touch-point for citizens is digital, when they apply for passport related services through our portal www.passportindia.gov.in . From thereon, we move digitally i.e. right from submission of the application online to cashless payment to the appointment scheduling. The next step is inperson visit to Passport Seva Kendra, the facilitation center created for citizen’s convenience for processing and in-person granting of passport application in a secured and transparent manner. Further, we create a digital file for the citizens for ensuring end-to-end service delivery making stakeholders accountable. The Passport Seva also ensures a paperless flow of the grievances of citizens and feedback mechanism system and providing a wow factor to the Generation-Y by way of empowering them through social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. We also plan to increasingly go the mobile and cloud-way.

We can very well say that we have marched ahead from silos to an integrated and collaborative way, governance to e-governance to m-governance, digitization to over the Internet to digital connect, technology procurement to automation, MIS to analytics to Big Data and finally improvements to inclusiveness to empowerment. mohd.ujaley@expressindia.com

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

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CIO PERSPECTIVE HARMEEN MEHTA, Global CIO, Bharti Airtel, opines, what her top priorities would be, if she donned the role of the CIO of India

H

aving just celebrated our 68th Republic Day, if you just reflect back on what our country has achieved in these years, it humbles you.

Yet if you think about what all is yet to be done, it overwhelms you.

A Republic of India powered by technology The republic of India is in fact the largest “corporate” in the country and if you approach it like that, as a CIO, my job would be to be the best technology Technology can advisor and help the allow the country's government to leaders use the power of pool resources technology to and trace both truly innovate and crimes as well bring the best as criminals possible across state experience, products and borders more services to easily and create the citizens of our country. transparency of Or at least information for that's how I would its citizens by approach it.

having public portals for citizens

Aware citizens lead to a crime free India One of the first things I would like to do is digitise and interlink the police and all other law enforcement agencies and use the power of technology to make India a safe and secure place for women.

Last year, over 3.27 lakh cases of crimes against women were reported across the country. Of these over 1.3 lakh were sexual offences including rape, attempt to commit rape, assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty and insult to modesty of women.

Technology can allow the government to pool resources

If I were the CIO of the Republic of India and trace both crimes as well as criminals across state borders more easily and create transparency of information for its citizens by having public portals for citizens to find out if any predators or sex offenders live in their neighbourhood.

In most western countries,

THE POWER OF TECH

AWARE CITIZENS LEAD TO A CRIME FREE INDIA Technology can allow the government to pool resources and trace both crimes as well as criminals across state borders more easily and create transparency of information for its citizens by having public portals for citizens to find out if any predators or sex offenders live in their neighbourhood

EXPOSE CORRUPTION Create a crowdsourced whistle blowing system that allows people to report corruption they see around them

WIN THE WAR ON CYBER CRIME

ONE ID IS ENOUGH It's about time we adopted a similar approach in India and moved everything to be Aadhaar centric. Your passport, your driving license, your income tax, all your properties, your cars, basically everything should be linked to your Aadhaar number

Personal data is the currency of the Internet economy. And with the mobile now being the gateway to the internet, it becomes critical we ensure everyone has security on their phones

INTELLIGENT TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT Dramatic infrastructure improvements are needed in India and while these will take time, using the power of smart traffic management, intelligent traffic light controls, autonomous intersection movements and smart routing we can reduce this stress considerably and in fact completely eliminate traffic jams.

this information is public and everyone is well aware of their surroundings and who lives there (like the National Sex Offender Public Website in the U.S. www.nsopw.gov). Studies have shown that this open availability of information leads to reduction in crime, heightened awareness in the public and also encourages parents to openly discuss such issues with their kids and make them more aware of their surroundings and people to watch out for.

Expose corruption Best way to end corruption is to fully expose it. I would create a crowdsourced whistle blowing system that allows people to report corruption they see around them and then also use the intelligence from data mining to see which of these are more frequent or higher in relevance to help the law enforcement agencies deal with the most pertinent cases first.

This is actually possible if we digitize all public services, build suitable audit trails and automate all tax / levy collections.

I heard in my last visit to Nigeria that they actually have a similar initiative called TRIMS to crowdsource trade route bottlenecks that was done together with the Ogun state government.

One ID is enough India created history by running the largest national identification number project by creating a centralised database of biometric and demographic data of residents, storing them in a centralised database, and issuing a 12-digit unique Aadhaar number to each resident. Despite 99% of the Indians having an Aadhaar number in India, we still have several other IDs, each of which were created at a different point in time for a different purpose.

You have a PAN Card issued by

The republic of India is the largest “corporate” and as a CIO, my job would be, to be the best technology advisor and help the country's leaders use the power of technology Harmeen Mehta Global CIO and Head Digitisation, Bharti Airtel

the Income Tax Department, a driving license issued by the RTO, the Voter identity card, a passport number, a ration card etc. The biggest issue is that none of these is a comprehensive ID and that you would have used one of the other IDs to get the other one! Unlike Aadhaar which is based on a biometric ID, the rest of them are also easy to fake.

Unlike us, in the US as an example, the Social Security number has become a de facto national identification number for taxation and other purposes.

Everywhere you go, they just ask you your social security number.

It's about time we adopted a similar approach in India and moved everything to be Aadhaar centric. Your passport, your driving license, your income tax, all your properties, your cars, basically everything should be linked to your Aadhaar number.

This would help the government immensely as all spends, purchases, assets, credits and liabilities, taxes everything would be linked to a

single ID making it easy to follow the money preventing fraud, tax evasion, embezzlement, etc.

Aadhaar penetration makes a ripe case for this to happen now in our country.

Win the war on cyber crime When it comes to cyber crime, prevention is by far the best policy. And the only way to do that is through use of advanced cyber security technologies. Last year, the Centre of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), estimated that cybercrime costs businesses $400 billion worldwide!

Today's technology is preventing corporates and intelligence agencies as well as governments from all aspects of cyber crime - from data leak prevention to protection against DDOS attacks, to data privacy.

And with us as a nation moving towards digital payments and frequent use of social media platforms which share information, this becomes even more pertinent.

Most people don't realise that most digital companies that offer services for free, make money by actually monetising data of their customers. Personal data is the currency of the Internet economy.

And with the mobile now being the gateway to the internet, it becomes critical we ensure everyone has security on their phones - whether they are digitally savvy or just a common man trying to search the internet.

Intelligent traffc management According to a recent survey done, Indian commuters spend more time behind in traffic as compared to their counterparts in China, Thailand, the Philippines and Australia. Today, a person travelling a distance of 40 km by a private vehicle during peak hours spends an average of 3.43 hours on the road, as opposed to 1.36 hours in 2011.

And the average speed of a vehicle being driven during the

evening peak hours — between 5 pm and 7 pm — has come down from 42 kmph to 20 kmph. At this rate, by next decade our walking speed will be greater than that of vehicles, unless something changes.

Dramatic infrastructure improvements are needed in India and while these will take time, using the power of smart traffic management, intelligent traffic light controls, autonomous intersection movements and smart routing we can reduce this stress considerably and in fact completely eliminate traffic jams.

Real time mining of this data with automated controls are making this a reality in many smart cities around the world.

City planners can also simulate traffic and congestion patterns to see what designs and road flows work best.

Innovate with technology India has the largest population of software engineers and is the largest software services and business process outsourcing industry in the world.

When India joined WTO in 1995, we agreed to bring our intellectual property legislation into conformity with standards in developed countries.

This led to a lot more foreign investments by competitors in the Indian market and in fact setting up their R&D centres here. Over the last several years, India's participation in the best technical innovations in the world can’t be underestimated.

High time that India invests in R&D for itself to solve the numerous challenges that can propel our country as a nation at the cutting edge of technology.

Whether it is in the field of agriculture, manufacturing, energy, medicine, forest conservation, wildlife protection, environment protection and many other fields, innovations in technology can truly propel our country as a major superpower in the world.

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

16 | INTERVIEW

Govt push, deregulation and IT skills are catalysts for digital transformation There are certain geographical regions that are much more advanced in moving towards digital because they have very good skills base and their governments have made a national initiative to try digital. In case of India, Neil Sholay, VP of Digital, Oracle EMEA says that the Indian market is probably about 12 months behind some international markets, but India has the right ingredients to be one of the leading nations for digital. “You have the government making digital a top priority. They are not only talking about it, they are doing it,” he says in an interview with EC's Mohd Ujaley.

What is the role of the Digital Business for Oracle across EMEA? The Digital Business across EMEA supports some of our most strategic clients like Unilever and Nike and Credit Suisse among others, all the way to some fairly innovative startups. We help companies in building their digital strategy and support them on their journey to become digital businesses.

Our team is a mixture of technical experts, digital architects and design thinkers.

They work with clients to help them design the experiences, the products and the services that they want to launch in a new digital world.

Our core is to assist clients in developing their digital strategy. For example, if someone like Unilever is looking to become more digitally oriented; we can help them develop that strategy, help them figure out the customer journeys they want to go on and create prototype of the products that they want to bring in the market in the shortest possible time.

In India, we are working with IDFC Bank, which is a digital bank, in launching some of their digital services.

What are the key business areas that are going digital?

There are three areas where people use technology for digital. The most highlighted or talked about is the customer experience (CX). But the other areas that are often overlooked are digital operations, which is using digital technology for supply chain management, human capital management and the third area is innovation – like going digital for innovating new products, services and strategies.

When we launched this initiative four years ago, the

market was very much focused on CX, most of the customers wanted a robust CX, but now they are moving ahead. They are realising that along with CX, having a strong data platform or having capability of machine learning is very important. Today we can provide a full technical CX but a large portion of the work that we are doing with clients in EMEA or AsiaPacific (APAC) are actually beyond CX. What Oracle solutions come into play while enabling this digital transformation?

From the CX perspective, we have a range of cloud services like a master cloud, service cloud, sales cloud, commerce cloud. For example, Thomas Cook here in India uses our service cloud to provide in-house customer service. Similarly, companies like Reliance Commercial Financial services are using sales cloud and our service cloud.

If you look at a digital operation, we have human capital cloud to manage, identify, search talents within organisations. It helps in digital recruiting, digital training, digital on-boarding, etc.

We have also got ERP for managing business supply chain management. Finally, we have cloud services like IoT cloud service, integration cloud service, mobile cloud service which tend to be used to manage channels and extend businesses mobility.

Most of the companies have legacy IT investment, so how do they ensure a good balance between on-premise and digital?

There are two pieces of advice. The first, we talked about the concept of bimodal IT

or two speed IT, where you accept that you don't have an existing on-premise infrastructure –some of which

banking industry actually has been just a laggard, now they are catching up.

If you look at a digital operation, we have human capital cloud to manage, identify, search talents within organisations. It helps in digital recruiting, digital training, digital on-boarding, etc. might be moving at a slower speed. And what I mean by that is you might want to change capabilities of that slower speed IT on a daily or hourly basis. Then you have a faster speed IT, which could be used for innovation and the system of engagement where you might want to think about social & mobility, analytics and machine learning. This you need to be able to launch it in a matter of hours, test it, change it, and use it again. So, first piece of advice I would give is to think in terms of two speed or something even multi speed IT. The second thing, I would say, Oracle is unique in this industry. We don't make differentiation between onpremise and cloud and public cloud. So today we can go to a customer, it could be the IDFC Bank or HDFC Bank and say we can help in your transition to the cloud and build a digital

business in the cloud.

How has the digital business for Oracle performed over the years?

I can’t disclose exact numbers, but I can say this that in the first year, we were very positive, we made enough revenue but I think it was paying for the investment which was made. From year one to year two, we more than doubled the business. Year two to year three, the growth has been increasing. I can tell you this that the growth has been scaled up and this is now a business within Oracle that is growing phenomenally.

This business has been successful because within Oracle we have not been a separate business unit. We have not really separated it from the rest of the organisation. We believe that digital is everyone's job in

Oracle, be it a sales consultant, a marketer, a management consultant, an architect or a sales rep. We have trained thousands of people in Oracle to be comfortable talking about digital business, digital transformation. And because of that we have been able to have all these discussions and that's a huge benefit on the amount of business that we are getting around digital.

From a global perspective, how is digital moving?

If you look at it just from a global perspective, there are certain geographical regions that are much more advanced in certain industries. For example, Spain, Nordics and UK have been very adept at moving towards digital business. Now, half of that has to do with very good skills base.

But part of it is because of the governance – the governments

have made a national initiative to try digital.

If you look at India, the Indian market is probably about 12 months behind some international markets, but India is always ensuring a selfkind of growth – it’s growing at a much faster rate than Europe. Even aspects like demonetisation, although that's painful, it is going to drive the incubation much more towards using digital currency and digital payments.

And in the long term that will make India a highly competitive nation.

Now, in terms of industries, utilities are doing very well.

They have been very quick towards digital. The telecom industry has done very well, and so has the hospitality industry and hotels. These three industries are the ones that have been leading consistently. The retail

Why is there disparity in moving to digital?

Some governments have made digital a top priority, and they are pushing for it. Some of it comes down to regulations. If you look at markets that are fairly well deregulated, they have more freedom to experiment and bring more products to the market. So that's one of the reasons why I think the retail banks have found it hard to innovate around digital. Sometimes the regulations made it harder.

Another reason is if you take a region like the Nordics and Scandinavia, they always had an IT culture.

So there is not one single reason for this disparity, but it is a combination of government intervention, regulation, available skills and also some digital disruption that comes to the market that change the bulk of the status quo.

What is your view of India on digital adoption?

India has all of the right ingredients to be one of the leading nations for digital. You have the government making digital a top priority. They are not only talking about it, they are doing it. Things like demonetisation and move towards digital payments and mobile payments are a few examples. Clearly, India has some of the hottest skilled people in the world when it comes to technology skills. I mean that is one of the best exports of India to the world. It has a young population. It has millennials who want to continually live in the digital services world. India has a lot of the right ingredients in place. mohd.ujaley@expressindia.com

India is going through momentous digital change Last year has seen Avaya continue its successful transition into a software and services-led company, with 2016 being the most innovative year in Avaya’s history, featuring 16 product and solution launches. In an interview with EC’s Mohd Ujaley, Vishal Agrawal, Managing Director (India and SAARC), Avaya India says, “As India goes through a momentous digital change, we see immense opportunity for growth in India.”

How was the year 2016 for Avaya in India?

This year has seen Avaya continue its successful transition into a software and services-led company, with 2016 being the most innovative year in Avaya’s history, featuring 16 product and solution launches, many of which were showcased at the recently concluded Avaya ENGAGE. We changed our product mix, made everything available as a software component, and worked towards transforming customer experience. We expanded our innovative product portfolio while driving sales and services growth in both the enterprise and mid-market segments.

We have managed the operational aspects of the business. While investing for the future, today software and services account for over 74 percent of total revenue.

What progress did you make last year?

We shifted our focus on reenergizing and entering newer segments and have built an excellent portfolio for midmarket reach. In the midmarket, we have spread our wings across India. Our onpremise solution IP Office Contact Center (IPOCC), which we have recently launched, is perfect for small and mid-size businesses. Also, government projects have been an important focus for us, 30 percent of our product revenue comes from these projects. We launched the Emergency Response System in alliance with the government of two states, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

We started a DX project with dnata, one of the world’s largest air services providers and a member of Emirates Group to transform its customer experience. Our Avaya Private Cloud Services (APCS) is helping dnata to

create a seamless, personalized experience for its customers and partners.

What would be the key growth areas for Avaya in 2017?

India is a significant market for us, we see immense opportunity for growth here as India goes through a momentous digital change. The Government is playing a major role in driving internet growth in the country through initiatives like ‘Digital India’, ‘Smart City’ and ‘Make in India’.

We have an apt model in place and we believe that our growth (in India) will continue to rise. We believe ‘Experience’ is a crucial element in the new business scenario, it is expected that by end of this year, 90 percent of companies will be competing on “Customer Experience”. We can clearly see that customer

experience is driving every major business decision for most enterprises, and for good reason. Leading with User Defined Experience in the Digital World is very important and it takes

We believe ‘Experience’ is a crucial element in the new business scenario, it is expected that by end of this year, 90 percent of companies will be competing on “Customer Experience”.

experience creating solutions for enterprise clients across every industry. We aim to achieve that with our current portfolio of solutions.

India is moving to a single emergency number and we have been working at enabling that. We also have a 300-college network modernization project in Madhya Pradesh that is underway. It is a project with a huge next generation impact with quite a bit of analytics and artificial intelligence built in the solution.

India’s younger generation is adopting new technology much faster, businesses have the potential to use customer intelligence data for revenue generation through multichannel. That opportunity is growing with many businesses in India leapfrogging to multichannel customer engagement and we enable those with our software and services solutions.

Avaya is redefining unified communications to be a

convenient way to engage, respond, and share. We have expanded our portfolio to address customers’ growing demand for digital transformation, softwarebased solutions and smart analytics, while offering compelling migration paths for both partners and customers.

Also, our new collaboration capabilities enable virtual work groups to share and store information.

How do you plan to focus on emerging technology like Artificial Intelligence in 2017?

With Artificial Intelligence becoming the new consumer

expectation, we are already working with digital disruptors to harness the power of AI to push the boundaries of digital services, and create compelling customer services. Avaya’s R&D team is developing a selflearning “chatbot” solution, capable of holding intelligent conversations with customers, answer queries and resolve customer service issues.

Avaya continues to drive the digital transformation while helping enterprises to evolve digitally and move smoothly in today’s competitive markets. mohd.ujaley@expressindia.com

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

| 17

NEWS ANALYSIS

Mobile app ensures real-time monitoring of rural electrification initiative THE RECENTLY launched GARV-II App incorporates village-wise and habitation-wise base line data on household electrification for all states

Rashi Varshney rashi.varshney@expressindia.com

T

o monitor and ensure transparency in implementation of its rural electrification programme, the Ministry of Power has rolled out the second phase of its GARV app, to monitor day to day progress of power supply in about 600,000 villages in real time.The ministry of power had launched a mobile app—Grameen Vidyutikaran App (Garv app) in October 2015 for monitoring the project. Earlier the app would provide only status of electrification along with photographs of the electrical infrastructure with GPS

coordinates. The GARV-II App incorporates village-wise and habitation-wise base line data on household electrification for all states. In the previous phase, the government’s focus was limited to the 18,452 unelectrified villages.

“In this phase of GARV, we will be mapping households in the app, so that we know that which patches do not have electricity even after electrification of the village,” says TSC Bosh, Executive Director, Rural Electrification Corporation Limited.

As on April 1, 2015, only 18,542 villages remained unelectrified. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech in 2015 announced that these villages will be electrified within

the next 1000 days. The Ministry of Power entrusted the task to one of its corporation, Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) as a nodal agency for monitoring of the project in mission mode to achieve the target within time.

Accordingly, REC Power Distribution Company (RECPDCL), a wholly owned subsidiary of REC, appointed 309 Gram Vidyut Abhiyantas (GVA), who are young rural electrification engineers, at block and district levels across the country to transparently monitor the progress.

On an average, 25-30 villages have been assigned to a GVA for monitoring and each GVA has to visit around 5-8 villages per week depending upon the geographic location.

The app will map households to know which patches do not have electricity even after electrification of the village

For the same, the central government launched a web portal – Garv.gov.in, which shows real time status of household electrification.

Currently, over 11,765 villages have been electrified. In terms of household electrification, only 29% of

households are un-electirifed in the electrified villages. What is also noteworthy is that the updated GARV mobile app can be updated offline, and the saved data is synced as soon as the device gets access to the Internet.The status of villagewise works sanctioned under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) and release of funds to the States for these projects has also been mapped in ‘GARV-II’ to monitor progress of works in each village. Earlier only the district magistrate and other officials could track the progress district-wise and state-wise. Now, with the update, the app is open to public, and anyone can deep dive into village and household wise stats.

Ericsson helps villagers optimise water distribution and raise farm productivity by using IoT USING A WIRELESS sensor network and Ericsson’s AppIOT platform, farmers have been able to increase the yield as well as bring down the production cost with optimum use of raw materials and repeated use of water. This in turn has a positive impact on the water table BV Mahalakshmi

A

fter smart cities, it is now about smart villages. An Internet of Things (IoT) solution implemented in Mori village of East Godavari district run by the Andhra Pradesh government in association with telecommunications major Ericsson is showing the way with the help of connected aquaponics and smart water grid management.

Ericsson’s connected aquaponics and smart water grid solutions integrate sustainable agriculture and aquaculture which help optimise water distribution and reduce adverse effects on ground water. Prototypes like these are scalable and can benefit thousands of villages throughout the country.

“Mori village has been chosen to be developed as the first smart village. The successful pilots in Mori can be scaled up and extended to cover thousands of villages in

Andhra Pradesh and across India,”’ says Anand Varadarajan, head of Ericsson Research, Chennai at Ericsson India. Both the projects were demonstrated following a three-month pilot which was initiated along with the Andhra Pradesh government and UC Berkeley to help improve lives of farmers in and around Mori.

Connected aquaponics solution integrates aquaculture and hydroponics for reuse of the ammonia rich waste water from aquaculture for organic farming and recycle the water back to the aqua farm. Using wireless sensor network and Ericsson’s AppIOT platform; it enables the monitoring of the aqua farm 24×7, thereby enabling the farmers with real-time information. “This enables them to increase the yield as well as bring down the production cost with optimum use of raw materials and repeated use of water. This in turn has a positive impact on the water table. For farmers, all this is enabled via an app on

their mobiles, thereby enabling them to monitor and control their farms remotely,” he says.

The smart water grid

Sensors measure the quality of water, flow of water and levels in the water storage tanks across the villages

management solution has been designed to enable efficient use of natural water resources in the Godavari basin through use of sensors and actuators. The sensors measure the quality of water, flow of water and levels in the water storage tanks across the villages. Actuators are used to automatically open and close the gates of the river flow system to distribute the water as per needs of the farmers.

Such a system helps in better management in flood-like situations. This also helps in regulating the flow of sea

water and prevents it from entering the fresh water system. The entire operation is integrated into a centralised command and control system for efficient management at panchayat, taluk, district and state levels.

“The initial success story of Ericsson connected aquaponics can be understood through testimonials from farmers in Mori who have had the opportunity of experiencing the system and the benefits they derive from a mobile app designed in Telugu that has

been made available to them,” Varadarajan explains. The mobile app enables real-time farm monitoring enabling farmers to take an action precisely when required. This ability to act basis real time information increases the probability of harvesting the full yield to as much as 90 percent, which till now was around 50-60 percent.

Ericsson’s connected aquaponics solution is designed to enable substantial savings on production cost through optimised use of raw materials for maximum yield

as well as recycling 70 percent of the water and additional revenue through organic farming. The initial success of the water grid management has been the possibility of reducing the time to act from two days to two hours. This has been demonstrated in the area around Mori with real time information on the quality of water, flow of water and level of water in the water tanks via a cloud-based application which is accessible to everyone in the hierarchy. This has enabled transparency as well as effective real time governance.

“As we move into the next phase, we will evaluate business models based on findings at the ground level and will have discussions with the concerned stakeholders,” adds Varadarajan. There is a possibility of replicating this model in other states as well.

Ericsson has been at the forefront of the 5G and IoT journey with solutions transforming industry as well as society. For example, it is running a ‘smart metering’ pilot in the utilities space by installing 15,000 smart meters in Assam over the next three years. The solution will offer outage management, reduction in technical and commercial losses, power quality management and net metering. The aim is to reduce network losses and improve system efficiency.

- This article originally appeared in the Financial Express

EXPRESS COMPUTER | MARCH, 2017

18 | NEWS ANALYSIS

Indian startup promises high energy savings through automation of streetlights THE STARTUP has identified a unique niche and has signed more than 130 clients Srikanth R P srikanth.rp@expressindia.com

I

n most cities in India, street lights are installed and maintained by municipalities.

However, due to lack of resources, streetlights are seldom maintained efficiently.

Streetlights are normally switched on and turned off at a predetermined time, rather than climatic or seasonal conditions. Not surprisingly, it is common to see streetlights switched on even during the day in many cities in India, which leads to tremendous wastage of precious energy resources.

As streetlights consume a major percentage of electricity, any electricity saved can lead to massive savings in energy as there are a large number of streetlights in every city or village. An Indian startup, Gmessys Smart Systems, has identified this massive opportunity, and has created a smart switch

called Switchomat, that enables complete automation of switching streetlights on and off.

Explaining the technology behind Switchomat, Balaji Renukumar, MD, Gmessys Smart Systems, states, “The basic idea behind Switchomat is to implement wireless communication technologies with software to enable switching devices on and off from a remote location automatically. For streetlights, we believe that there is huge potential to save anywhere between 15 to 62 percent.”

The idea for establishing this company was born out of the desire for creating energy efficiency products for the Indian power sector.

Balaji is a Bachelor of Technology graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Having worked and lived in Germany for the past 12 years, he has now committed himself to play a leading role in bringing higher energy efficiency in the Indian power sector and the transformation

of the Indian streetlight network into a world-class smart street light network. His work has been recognized with the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India promoting his venture by means of a SEED fund grant of 25 lakh rupees. Balaji masterminded the Switchomat series of energy efficiency products, which was designed and developed by Gmessys Smart Systems in collaboration with German Federal Agency for Energy Efficiency.

Understanding the fact that domain expertise is crucial for improving efficiency, the company has pioneered a new business model in streetlight operations for the Urban and Local Bodies, institutions and establishments that are responsible for the maintenance of streetlights. “ULBs can now outsource the entire streetlight operation to us. We enable the ULBs to manage the streetlight operation and maintenance from a single point of control either within or from outside. We can do it at a cost that is a fraction of existing costs borne by the ULBs,” states Balaji Renukumar.

The solution consists of a 365-day timer pre-loaded with

longitude/latitude coordinates, based on unique sunrise/sunset times for all days of any year. The company currently manages streetlight operation for over 70 ULBs in 10 districts of Karnataka through its head office in Mysore and branch offices in Hubli, Chitradurga and representatives across the state. “Our customers have realized power savings in the range of 12 percent to 62.5 percent and the ROI is about 5 – 24 months,” claims Balaji Renukumar.

The firm has also setup a nation-wide tollfree number through which it provides support to address problems

quickly. A mobile app based console can be used by the company’s staff to manage the streetlights.

The startup has identified a unique niche, which is visible from its growth. The company has more than 130 clients, and is managing close to 20,000 streetlights. The market opportunity is huge, as every city corporation, municipality, gram panchayat and mandal panchayat is a potential customer for the firm.

For streetlights, we believe that there is huge potential to save energy anywhere between 15 to 62 percent Balaji Renukumar MD, Gmessys Smart Systems

Chandigarh set to become India’s first city to have Aadhaar based land titling system

By Sandip Das

T

he country is finally making some headway in resolving the vexed issue of absence of clear land titles, something that has precipitated a mass of litigation and impediments to industrial growth. According to sources, Chandigarh will soon be the country’s first city to have a conclusive land titling system (CLTS), enabled by Aadhaar authentication. Under

the project initiated by Department of Land Resources under the ministry of rural development, all residents in the Union territory will be provided with CLTS guaranteed by the state by June this year.

A host of states including Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Gujarat have also commenced the process for putting CLTS in place, while several others have shown interest in being part of the national project.

The idea is to ensure that once a land is registered against a person, she will get CLTS within 15 days, leaving no scope for ownership dispute. The tehsildar or a designated officer will issue the CLTS certificate online.

The digital land ownership certificate will display a unique land parcel ID apart from mandatory details like site address, name of owner, authorised signatory and name, Aadhaar number and a GIS-enabled map of the property.

In case of joint ownership, the shares of each owner will be mentioned. The digital certificates will also have a provision to show the mortgage- or loan-related information, which would be beneficial for buyers as well as lenders.

The certificate will display unique land parcel ID apart from mandatory details like site address, name of owner, authorised signatory and name, Aadhaar number and a GISenabled map of the property. In case of joint ownership, the shares of each owner will be mentioned. The digital certificates will also have a provision to show the mortgageor loan-related information, which would be beneficial for buyers as well as lenders.

At present, once the property is registered, it takes about six months to one year for mutation or granting of ownership rights over the property. Besides, disputes over land titles linger for between 17 and 20 years in

courts. With the CLTS linking registration and title, disputes can be minimised. Sources said that Rajasthan, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh would soon begin work towards giving conclusive land titles.

In 2008, the government had launched Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP) whose objective was to ensure a system of updated land records, automated and automatic mutation, integration between textual and spatial records, interconnectivity between revenue and registration — to replace the present deeds registration and presumptive title system with that of conclusive title guarantee.

DILRMP was launched by the Centre in August 2008 with the aims of modernising management of land records, minimising scope of land or property disputes, enhancing transparency in the land records maintenance system, and facilitating the move towards guaranteed conclusive titles to immovable properties.

Even though DILRMP was scheduled to be completed in 2016 with a budget of ` 5,600 crore, the project will now conclude in 2021 with an estimate cost of `11,000 crore because of uneven progress across the states.

- This article originally appeared in the Financial Express

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