eGovINDIA Yahoogroup Effect- Submission to NKC

 [eGovINDIA Effect] India lacks co-ordination on e-gov // National Knowledge Commission announces e-governance recommendations // Submission to National Knowledge Commission from eGovINDIA Yahoogroup, on relevance of e-governance in building a knowledge super power,

India lacks co-ordination on e-gov 

National Knowledge Commission "NKC" announces e-governance recommendations
 
Monday, May 08, 2006

BANGALORE: With a view to standardize e-governance across various States, the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) today made public the recommendations its special group had submitted to the prime minister a few months back.

NKC chairman Sam Pitroda today told a press conference here that the ten recommendations it made relate to processes, standards, infrastructure and organization.

“The current e-governance efforts are based on computerizing age-old processes left behind by the British Raj,” said Pitroda.

Besides Pitroda, the NKC comprises industry leaders, technocrats and academics such as molecular biologist Dr PM Bhargava; sociologist Dr Andre Beteille; Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani; Economist Dr Jayati Ghosh and others.

The recommendations have been discussed with the prime minister and the NKC is currently working with the government to implement these.

“We want to make adjustments and fine tune the existing e-governance projects,” Pitroda said.

He said that the private sector would be roped in to develop software, business models and deliver services and information to people. He said that at present, there is no national co-ordination on e-governance.

“Simply digitizing the existing government processes merely adds an additional layer of expense, complexity, delay and confusion.”

On the timeframe for the implementation of the recommendations, Pitroda said that it could take 18 months to three years. He added that no quick results could be expected. “This is the start of a journey and we expect resistance. But people are open and receptive to change. We see a better climate for change now than 20 years ago,” he said.

Addressing the media, Nilekani said that the aim was to have similar standards in the country and make sure the digital divide does not aggravate.

“Information should empower citizens. We are also considering distribution through multiple channels through wide connectivity and also mobile phones.”

The ten recommendations of the NKC are:

-Government process reengineering instead of computerization
-Identify and simplify 10 to 20 important processes and services
-Create common national standards
-Design best practices that can be applicable nationwide
-National infrastructure
-Provide web-based services
-Open Source Software
-Create an empowered Chief Information Technology Officer (CITO)
-New national programs such as Bharat Nirman, urban development initiatives
-Focused Organization

CyberMedia News
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Submission to National Knowledge Commission from eGovINDIA Yahoogroup, on relevance of e-governance in building a knowledge super power,

April 10 th 2006

Dear Chairman and Members of the National Knowledge Commission,

 

Greetings from eGovINDIA yahoo group members.

 

About the eGovINDIA group:

eGovINDIA-Yahoo group comprises of over 3000 members from all over the world. The members of the group have subscribed to process automation based true e-governance which has the capacity to empower the citizens of all walks of life such as the socially and economically downtrodden, women, minorities and people living in far flung areas. 

One of the moderators of the group is an IAS officer (Mr.C.Umashankar) who had commissioned India’s first e-district at Tiruvarur, TamilNadu during 1999-2001 using process automation techniques. The first e-district was rated 20 years ahead of rest of India by Times of India during 2001. The e-champion was chosen the bureaucrat of the next millennium by the Week Magazine in its millennium edition during the year 2000. The e-district continues to transact business using the e-governance systems till date. Mr.Umashankar served as Member (Special Invitee) of the National e-governance Action Plan implementation committee for a while during 2005.

The other moderator Mr. V. M. Kumaraswamy is stationed at Los Angeles, CA, USA. He is a post graduate in Management and has been deeply committed to the creation of a transparent and self confident India.

The group considers it a great opportunity to build India a knowledge super power through the NKC. We would like to put forward our views on e-governance and relevance of e-governance in achieving the knowledge super power status.

 

Relevance of e-governance vis-a-vis building a knowledge super power.

Public administration in India is marred by corruption and red tappism which had resulted in an anomalous situation whereby the laws of the lands are being twisted according to the executive/bureaucracy’s whims and fancies. The underlying problem is the Tottenham system that has been in use all over India since independence. The Tottenham system believes in creating multiple manual records for a single transaction on the belief that if one record gets destroyed, the other original record would come handy. This had resulted in a  situation where the bureaucracy in India works only to feed itself with more and more book keeping work, with hardly any concern for the citizen. The other result is rampant corruption and red tappism in public administration. Certain citizens have become more than equal in India due to these circumstances. This goes against the spirit of the Indian constitution.

Nearly 60 years into independence, India still witnesses a situation where a major portion of its population continues to remain marginalized. The well thought out schemes that were introduced for the betterment of the marginalized population had been thwarted by the vested interests using the Tottenham system which enables secrecy and corruption.  

Naxalism which had been considered a bane has been gradually gaining legitimacy due to the all round failure of the systems.

Corruption and red tappism pose a serious threat to the effort to convert India into a Knowledge super power. Only a self confident nation can become a knowledge super power. The citizens of the nation have to feel empowered to interact with their own governments and its multiple agencies confidently before emanating the same level of confidence in building a knowledge super power. 

e-governance has the magical power to bring about the much awaited change in public administration. All the ills of the Tottenham system can be got over using process automation based e-governance system. E-governance is the only viable route to a transparent governance system.

 

Having emphasised the need for e-governance to act as a foundation to build India a knowledge super power, we would like to focus on certain areas where India has to concentrate to  steer clear of pitfalls in the e-governance implementation.

 

Definition of e-governance:

"Information and Communication Technology (ICT) that empowers the Government, its citizens including the Government employees, weaker sections, women, people living in far flung and difficult areas and the business houses to transact businesses with government and its agencies online 24/7 "

This definition presupposes process automation at every level where e-governance is introduced. There is no scope for window dressing in such a professional set up. Utility bill collection system should not be confused with the process automation system that is being discussed here.

The litmus test for true e-governance is that the system should react at the same speed for a rich man as well as poor man. The same is the case when it comes to literate versus illiterate, men verses women and so on. The so called untouchables (Scheduled Castes) should feel themselves equal to the rest of the Indian citizens at least in their interaction with Government and its agencies online.

Agenda before the nation to achieve true e-governance

Having defined the concept, the egovINDIA group wishes to place its view points on how to achieve true e-governance.

Like any other advocacy groups, the egovINDIA feels strongly for and against certain policies and practices adopted at present by various governments in India, in the name of e-governance. The group considers strongly for any initiative in India that closely matches the above definition and it openly expresses its reservations when such policies are found to be in the interest of certain individuals or corporate only.

 

Requisites for a true take off in e-governance:

1.      Clear Information Technology and e-governance policy frame work from Government of India and respective State Governments.

The first mandatory pronouncement is that any e-governance initiative has to be process automation based system. A process automation system converts the existing manual workflow into electronic workflow with or without process reengineering. Process reengineering usually takes place when the system gets converted to the electronic form.

The resolve expressed by the executive is the most important factor for the commencement and survival of any e-governance initiative. Such a resolve has to be expressed through policy pronouncements followed by concrete rules and regulations.

 

2.      Expected outcome of e-governance initiative to be clearly spelt out before commencement. 

3.      A clear vision plan for the next 15-20 years with well defined and verifiable milestones is necessary.

4.      Objective evaluation of implementation of e-governance based on pre defined parameters to do course correction, if any.

5.      Legal framework to fund the e-governance movement.

6.      Government employees to be the first major stake holders: Involvement of all stake holders in e-governance initiative is essential to make it a success. The prime stake holders are the Government employees who at present handle the public administration using mostly the manual processing method. E-governance has to enable these employees to carry out their day-to-day functions online. The system undoubtedly has to talk their language and  it should provide them a complete solution. It had already been proved in the country’s first e-district that the Government employees are not monsters as depicted. The Government employees are ready to accept  e-governance system  as long as it satisfies their functional requirements with fool proof security and audit trail.

Enabling government employees to switch over to the e-governance system requires careful planning and execution. It is a case of prudent man management. There is a great role for e-champions in making this area a success.  

7.      Involvement of citizens and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in planning India’s e-governance policies.

8.      Qualifications of a CSO to advice and aid Government: It is preferable that the Government should engage the services of the CSOs which had not received any funding from Government for projects.

9.      Need for a Whistle Blowers’ protection Act: A strong e-governance system needs the  backing of a supporting Act such as the Whistleblowers’ protection Act. WBA would complement the e-governance system and make life easier for the citizens and business houses.

10.  Connectivity: Policy and funding for connecting all the 5 lakh villages of India. The Government owned BSNL had proved that it could provide digital connectivity to every nook and corner of the country. It had already achieved this feet by converting the entire analogue lines into digital lines even five years ago. The consumers had rated the BSNL as the most transparent billing company. BSNL’s broadband services (Data one) have been rated excellent by the consumers. Data One services have to be extended to the rural areas without any further loss of time. BSNL has its telephone exchanges touching Blocks and below the block level administrative set up. This is a huge strength on which BSNL can build India’s broadband revolution. All the Government installations, including schools, colleges, government / local body offices, hospitals, primary health centres and police stations  have to be connected using Data one services. BSNL had already proved that the Tax payers’ money spent on its infrastructure is a useful investment in bringing about the telecom revolution. This time, the Government of India has to come forward to fund BSNL for building the internet infrastructure to connect all the villages. Suitable tax holidays and tax concessions have to be provided to encourage the users to opt for the broadband services at the village level. It may not be a bad idea if the Government of India could announce 2006, the year of connectivity. The entire rural India should be broadband enabled within a period of 12 months to enable a quantum leap in knowledge revolution. Unless the rural schools get broadband connectivity, the dream of building a knowledge super power would not materialise. So, the earlier the rural areas get affordable broadband connectivity the better it is for the momentum to build a knowledge super power.

11.  Special treatment for difficult areas: Special provisions should be built for Bihar, North East, Hilly States such as Himachal and Uttranchal and Jammu & Kashmir to enable them to catch up with the rest of the States. For example, Bihar does not have electricity for major portion of its areas. There should be a special provision to provide power generators for the Government installations where e-governance is proposed in Bihar. Solar based power supply systems may also be considered. For these special efforts, suitable additional funding support has to be built into the plans. Similar is the case with North East and other difficult states.

12.  Addressing power problem using notebook PCs: An innovative solution could be thought about by providing notebook computers to the power starved areas with solar power back up systems so that these areas need not bother about investing in high cost power back up systems. The present day notebook PCs match the desktop PCs in performance as well as reliability. The price of the notebook PCs has come down drastically in the recent past. With suitable policy support, the Government of India could make the notebook PCs the default systems for Government offices. 

13.  Policy framework for e-champions within the bureaucracy, at all levels: For the Indian system, the role of e-champions from within the Government is a pre requisite for leading the e-governance momentum. These e-champions have to be identified on voluntary basis, trained and put in charge of strategising and implementing e-governance solutions.

14.  Need for change in civil service rules: Government employment should be thoroughly redefined. At present, the bureaucracy works on the principle of anonymity and secrecy. These principles go against e-governance based system which automatically seeks transparency in every sphere of activity. Anonymity of civil servants, though desirable, would be too difficult to achieve under a transparent system where everyone will be accountable for his/her commissions and omissions in a transparent manner. The rules the Central and State Civil Services need to be overhauled to suit the e-governance  based system.

15.  Women in e-governance: The country’s first e-district had proved that women employees far out numbered men in taking over the e-champion’s role. Similarly, the women beneficiaries outnumbered men in availing social security benefits through e-governance. Hence there is a need to have special focus on role for women in e-governance.

16.  Native language support in e-governance.

17.  Setting up of National and state level e-governance authority in the lines of Election Commission of India: In order to strategise, monitor and carry out course correction exercise, the Government may consider setting up of e-governance authorities in the lines of the RTI Commissioners. The authority should be vested with powers matching the Election Commission of India. At present, the e-governance initiative of the country is handled by a handful of IAS officers which is an aberration.

18.  Adequate representation to SC/STs, minorities such as Muslims and Christians, women, people from rural areas in e-governance committees.

19.  Transparency in all e-governance initiatives.

20.  IT in school education. Role of CSOs such as Azim Premji foundation in providing multi media education for the poor: Schools should be provided with multi media based education material across the nation. This would provide a level playing field to all the students, notably the rural students. India can become a knowledge super power only if it empowers its rural students to come up on par with the urban students.  In this connection, the NKC may consider recognising the role of Azim Premji foundation which has been supplying multi media based study materials to schools in different Indian languages free of cost. Azim premji foundation may be made the nodal agency for the entire nation to sphere head this movement.

21.  Citizen feedback on e-governance activities: There is a need to enable the common man to contribute to the development of e-governance in public administration by keeping a window open for the citizens to send their opinions and suggestions.

 

 

Advocacy areas:

The following are a few areas which the egovINDIA group strongly feels about. The NKC may consider these views while formulating its recommendations to Government.

1.      Focus on urban population or rural population? So far, the e-governance movement had focussed on urban citizens. The notable exceptions are the West Godawari (AP) and Akshya (Kerala) experiments. This is not the logical step to say the least. The population which is more affected by the Tottenham system is the rural poor because the poor do not have any bargaining capacity nor do they have the means to pay the illegal bribes. Today, the rural poor cannot get the Old Age Pension benefit unless they bribe the lower level officials. Nor they can get any government service unless they approach the government officials through touts, that too at a special cost.  Good governance is a matter of livelihood for the rural population whereas it is a matter of luxury for the urban people. The convent English speaking corrupt bureaucracy would always prefer to serve the urban population  because of various factors. Firstly, it provides them name and fame easily through the urban focussed print and other media. Secondly, it provides them illegal wealth or power or both. In the interest of the nation, the NKC may intervene and do the course correction. E-governance has to focus on providing services to the poor first, notably the poor in the rural areas before the same is taken up in urban areas.

2.      Role of private sector partner in e-governance: Should the private sector run the Government services sans the Government or Government servants’ involvement?  This question is being raised increasingly in the light of the replication of Andhra Pradesh’s e-seva in different states in different names. The case of Bangalore One in Karnataka is an example. The e-govINDIA group strongly feels that the private partner should be involved in software development, hand holding support and then maintenance of the software & database. Their role should not be extended to running the services on their own as it has many negative side effects. The first and foremost among the negative side effects is that instead of reducing corruption, such initiatives generate large scale e-corruption. Transparency is given a goby. None of the empowerment factors get enabled through such arrangements. Only the private partner gets empowered with more revenue. Madras University had shown the way for the rest of India by engaging a private partner to develop its e-governance software and then help the university with hand holding for nearly two years after the initial implementation. This is the right way to go. The NKC may study the Madras University pattern and take an appropriate view.

3.      Role of women Self Help Groups (SHGs) as partners for providing Government services. There is a tendency to hand over the utility bill collection operations to a private partner and then call it a great e-governance initiative. Suggestions to hand over such routine yet lucrative revenue bearing tasks to women self help groups had been met with ridicule by IAS officers manning e-governance positions. The group considers it a gross misadventure to leave out the women self help groups. It is the considered opinion of this group that the Government services should be front ended by the women self help groups. In the absence of women self help groups alone, the Governments should look for private corporate partners.

4.      Open source software should be the default software for e-governance operations: Open source software had come a long way to compete and even overtake proprietary software systems. The latest release of Novell Suse 10.0- open source version had been hailed to be a match, if not more than a match to the proprietary windows operation system. Open source movement offers a variety of rich and valuable software packages free. Open source office suite – openoffice.org, open source database system – Postgresql, open source report writing software – ireport,  open source GIS software – OpenGIS , Netbeans for linux for software development, Apache Tomcat, Resin, Jboss etc., provide a great deal of flexibility to the users to configure the e-governance system. Developed countries themselves have started adopting the open source systems and open standards. India needs to spell out a policy towards use of open source systems and open standards in e-governance operations. (It is quite strange that a few State governments and NISG have struck a deal with Microsoft for using Microsoft’s proprietary technology at huge cost. This is not a logical step because Microsoft does not offer any of its software free. Then why such MoUs? There seems to be huge corruption here).

5.      Setting up of open source support and research centres in every district: Open source software enables innovations. For a nation that aims at becoming a knowledge super power, it is extremely important that vital software packages that drive the computer systems should flow freely. Proprietary systems, by default cannot flow freely towards the needy. Only the open source software can be freely used by the research professionals and educational institutions. A GIS software or database software in the normal course costs a fortune. But the open source movement had provided these packages under GNU for free download. This freedom has to be encouraged through appropriate government assisted technical support centres at every district level. The District Informatics office under the control of NIC could be declared the open source support centre. The support centre’s services should be made available freely to the student community and all government offices.

6.       Mission mode projects – is the bureaucracy capable of heading mission mode projects? The term “mission” pre supposes sacrifice and helping others. Currently, the bureaucrats who were utter failures in the field in providing proactive public service to the common man had taken over the leadership positions in e-governance. This is not a healthy trend for building a self confident nation. Bureaucrats, by definition are not fit to head any mission mode projects as they are not meant to be missionaries. The rare exceptions are the missionaries who had joined the bureaucracy. It is time the entire e-governance leadership is handed over to the national and state level e-governance authorities as proposed in the earlier part of this write up.

7.      Indian e-governance effort should not result in a mere market for selling the ready made products of multi nationals: The trend at present has been to encourage development of ready made products and then purchase the same by various State Governments from the same companies. The case of e-seva/Bangalore one and e-procurement are the dangerous pointers. Governments have to acquire the source code and host the source code for free download by other Governments. The citizens also would be enabled to support the Government software packages by identifying and informing the lacuna found in the source code, if any.

8.      Compulsory e-governance in higher education: Our students undergoing higher education should have a first hand experience in using e-governance system during their college days.  This is one of the steps in making a self confident India, marching towards knowledge super power status.

9.      Knowledge commission and higher education – The case for more Deemed Universities and autonomous technical institutions: If India were to supply the global demand for technical manpower, it needs to encourage more private players to commence Deemed Universities. Colleges which had shown a credible trend for 10 years should be given autonomous status through automatic route. The unfortunate trend is that many colleges which apply for autonomous status are forced to wait for years by the State Governments which simply sit over the proposals. The current move to curb the independence enjoyed by the deemed universities is a retrograde step. The Government must allow the market forces to determine the weightage of the Deemed universities. Regulatory agencies such as the Medical Council of India and AICTU had enhanced the cost of education through bureaucratic delays and huge corruption.

10.  The role of NISG.

This paragraph had been withdrawn after detailed discussions. Copy provided at the bottom of the email.

11.  NASSCOM in NISG – role to be defined to save its name.

12.  Cheating in the name of e-governance. The case of n-logue

This paragraph had been withdrawn after detailed discussions. Copy provide at the bottom of the email.

13.  An aberration called Village Knowledge Centre (VKC): The Village Knowledge Centre concept is being pushed without making any assessment. The five star culture driven CSOs have been ruling the roost. The kiosk experiments have failed wherever it had been started. No assessment had been done on these failed experiments. In the absence of e-governance content, the kiosks can at the best act as e-mail centres and at the worst phonographic content suppliers. The NKC may take an appropriate view on this.

14.  Centralisation of e-governance planning by Government of India has to be given up in favour of States taking the lead: As on date, a handful of officials of Government of India have been acting the sole e-governance drivers. This is not a healthy trend for the nation. The National Institute of Smart Government has been formed with an aim to undercut the States.  With NISG under their control, these Government of India officials are able to operate like private agencies, taking over the role of the State governments as well as the central Government. Ideally speaking, the States should be given their due. Funds meant for e-governance should be distributed to the States. Leadership building at State level should be taken up instead of driving the e-governance movement through NISG which has neither any expertise nor legitimacy. The NKC may take an appropriate view on this subject.

 

Dated the 10^th April 2006 at Bangalore.

Signed

Moderator, egovINDIA- yahoo group.

 

Enclosure:

1.      Mail sent to Mr.Sam Pitroda, Chairman, NKC dated 23^rd December 2005.

2.   Book on Tiruvarur e-governance titled “e-governance-the success story of Tiruvarur, the road covered and the road ahead” – 2001

3.      CD-ROM containing video of e-governance camp held in Tiruvarur district.

C.Umashankar IAS., (TamilNadu Cadre)
e-governance expert.Moderator:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eGovINDIA
http://sugame.com/umashankarChennai:
Ph: 91-44-52054443_______________________________________________________________These TWO sections are removed after discussing with Mr. Nandan M. Nilekani  of NKC in Bangalore. This is for both of your file.

The role of NISG. Should a private limited company control the Indian e-governance movement? It is a peculiar happening in India that a private company registered under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act (National Institute of Smart Government) has been controlling the e-governance activities of not only the central government but also many state governments. The states stand in queue before this private company to receive funding assistance for their e-governance activities. This group is of the opinion that NISG had directly encouraged corruption and lack of transparency. It has been promoting certain chosen corporate for the detriment of a host of companies which believe in honesty and fair play. The NKC may take an appropriate view on this subject based on the huge volume of materials written on the egovINDIA group.

Cheating in the name of e-governance. The case of n-logue and Mr.Ashok Jhunjanwalla: In the name of providing connectivity and internet to the rural masses, the women self help groups of TamilNadu and elsewhere are being deprived of their livelihood by a clever business plan played by Prof.Ashok Jhunjanwalla of IIT, Madras. This scam is targeted at the subsidy money received by the women self help groups from Government of India. Though the said IIT Professor knows that a 32 kbps outdated wireless system is not good enough for video conferencing, he has been promoting falsehood only to gain income though business. Mr.Jhunjanwalla is a Director in the company which markets this outdated wireless product. It is to be noted that every district has a District Blindness Control society headed by the respective District Collectors which monitors and supports blindness control. The entire funding comes from international agencies. Thousands of poor people get 100% financial assistance every year through this exercise. Whereas Mr.Jhunjanwalla has been promoting falsehood by stating that his outdated wireless system could provide a solution to the blindness of the people through video conferencing (Tele medicine). What could never be accepted in urban India is being sold to the rural women self help groups using Government contacts/orders with no benefit accruing to the poor women. The NKC may look into this affair and stop the cheating that goes in the name of e-governance.

_______________________________________________________

The Word is Out – India lacks co-ordination on e-gov: NKC

The Word is Out – India lacks co-ordination on e-gov: NKC

Dear Mr.Kumarswamy and Mr.Umashankar,

This credit goes to your tireless effect.Hope It may reflect on todays
cabinet meeting on NeGP plan and its implemention if our political
leader has own capbility.Nation will benift if it takes follows NKC
report which reflect our egovindia ideas.

As Mr.Sam Pitroda says "The current e-governance efforts are based on
computerizing age-old processes left behind by the British Raj,"
"Simply digitizing the  existing government processes merely adds an
additional layer of  expense, complexity, delay and confusion."
"E-governance is more about an opportunity for administrative reforms
than merely about  electronics, IT and infrastructure. If we miss this
opportunity to  reengineer government processes before
computerization, the cost will be enormous,"

It reveal what our Mr.Umashakar did is true e-governance based on
administrave reforms which is mainly cared for weeker section and
empowered the poor.Its not intened the mere computersing the payment
collection  based on british Raj policies.We need visionary like
Mr.Umashakar as Nations IT secretary who crave for true e-governance
but not for commisions.Unfortunately strong corrupt people lobby is
ahead of us and getting showcause notices to honest people and supress
their carrier trhough transfers.You have sent mail to many iit
professors.Most of them got projects from DIT so they have to show
soft corner towards DIT.Infact some professors attended US conference
funded by Microsoft and filled our curriculum with M$ technologies
even at PG level.These people has no moral and sold to M$.They cant
answer  your question.Finally victims are middle class people who
spent money on engg by selling their lands and valuables.
They have to come out and again joined in the courses conducted by
C-DAC.you can see http:acts.cdac.in for more info.each person has to
pay 60k and another 30-40k  towards hostels.Though C-DAC is benifited
from govt funds there is no reservation in admission and agin exempted
from excise tax from this course revenue.Becasue c-dac claims being
govt instution it should get exemption.There is no placement gurantee
and many people have to search outside.the revenue is approx 50 crores
from training.Now at hyd central excise has given two show cause
notice to c-dac reg sales tax on training revenue.
DIT also do royal treatment for u r listed professors  as project
advisory members.So all these professors has to support DIT deeds.If
you want to change all this bad deeds only one solution the BOSS of
DIT should  be honest person.That only happens when people like
Mr.Umashaker will get the Top post in DIT.otherwise expecting from DIT
is day dream.we cant able get reply from DIT using RTI.DIT is
influenced by crooks and Govt should abolish DIT.There is no
contribution to nation from DIT other then urden of corruption.

I pray God to pour blessings in strengthening your powers.

Letter from eGovINDIA to NKC – Portion of the Letter

22^nd December, 2005

Chennai

India

 

Dear Shri.Sam Pitroda,

Greetings.

Creation of National Institute of Smart Government (NISG), a prelude to cheat the nation!

 

 

I have written enough in the electronic media about the NISG and how it had been formed to cater certain vested interests and how it is kept away from Parliament control.

NISG had been formed a special purpose vehicle to usher in a new era in India driven by e-governance. The cause is noble indeed.  
The manner in which NISG had been formed to the detriment of the nation is a serious cause of concern. The proponents of NISG, mostly my colleagues in the IAS have formed it into a private limited company with charitable purpose under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act. What is the contribution of the private sector. It is next to nothing. The entire funding for NISG had so far come from UNDP. UNDP had been apparently manipulated to sign an MOU with NISG to fund $30 millions for promoting e-governance in India!

No UN organisation can invest in India unless the nodal department in the Government of India concurs to the proposal in advance. So, in effect, the nodal departments in Government of India hold the key to the investments proposed by UN agencies. In this case the nodal department is the department of ICT in Delhi. This department had manipulated UNDP to invest in NISG, a private limited company which is not answerable any regulatory agency in India such as the Public Accounts Committee, the CBI or the CVI. What is the need to create such a special purpose vehicle without any controls is a serious question?

And what is the role of National Informatics Centre (NIC), the dream organisation of Rajiv Gandhi if it is not meant for e-governance. NIC , is a wholly owned Government of India organisation with due audit controls. It would be better if NISG is nationalised or the whole task is handed over to NIC.

India needs a clear e-governance policy:

The current IT policy does not cater to e-governance. The need of the hour is to have an e-governance policy for the nation. The process is very important. India needs to spell out where it wants to stand in the area of e-governance, say 10 years from now, 15 years from now, 20 years from now and so on.

What are the areas in which India wants to automate have to be decided and declared well in advance so that the mile stones set could be attempted.

There should be a clear policy on OSS in e-governance too.

India needs a well spelt out policy to support the BIMAR states in the area of e-governance. I can add more to this list but you are a person who can look into the future easily. So I am just leaving this aspect at this. 

Need for administrative reforms:

India has been attempting piece meal administrative reforms so far. We need a path breaking administrative reform, the way the Congress government had brought in the Right to Information Act (RTI). The role of All India Services and State services has to be redefined to suit the current requirements. The colonial hang over which is still there in large doses has to be wiped out. India should belong to Indians. Today the true India belongs to the politicians and bureaucracy only.

 The role of NISG. Should a private limited company control the Indian e-governance movement?

It is a peculiar happening in India that a private company registered under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act (National Institute of Smart Government) has been controlling the e-governance activities of not only the central government but also many state governments. The states stand in queue before this private company to receive funding assistance for their e-governance activities. This group is of the opinion that NISG had directly encouraged corruption and lack of transparency. It has been promoting certain chosen corporate for the detriment of a host of companies which believe in honesty and fair play. The NKC may take an appropriate view on this subject based on the huge volume of materials written on the egovINDIA group.

Above letter Written by eGovINDIA Group to NKC !

India lacks co-ordination on e-gov

India lacks co-ordination on e-gov

National Knowledge Commission announces e-governance recommendations

Monday, May 08, 2006

BANGALORE: With a view to standardize e-governance across various States, the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) today made public the recommendations its special group had submitted to the prime minister a few months back.

NKC chairman Sam Pitroda today told a press conference here that the ten recommendations it made relate to processes, standards, infrastructure and organization.

“The current e-governance efforts are based on computerizing age-old processes left behind by the British Raj,” said Pitroda.

Besides Pitroda, the NKC comprises industry leaders, technocrats and academics such as molecular biologist Dr PM Bhargava; sociologist Dr Andre Beteille; Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani; Economist Dr Jayati Ghosh and others.

The recommendations have been discussed with the prime minister and the NKC is currently working with the government to implement these.

“We want to make adjustments and fine tune the existing e-governance projects,” Pitroda said.

He said that the private sector would be roped in to develop software, business models and deliver services and information to people. He said that at present, there is no national co-ordination on e-governance.

“Simply digitizing the existing government processes merely adds an additional layer of expense, complexity, delay and confusion.”

On the timeframe for the implementation of the recommendations, Pitroda said that it could take 18 months to three years. He added that no quick results could be expected. “This is the start of a journey and we expect resistance. But people are open and receptive to change. We see a better climate for change now than 20 years ago,” he said.

Addressing the media, Nilekani said that the aim was to have similar standards in the country and make sure the digital divide does not aggravate.

“Information should empower citizens. We are also considering distribution through multiple channels through wide connectivity and also mobile phones.”

The ten recommendations of the NKC are:

-Government process reengineering instead of computerization
-Identify and simplify 10 to 20 important processes and services
-Create common national standards
-Design best practices that can be applicable nationwide
-National infrastructure
-Provide web-based services
-Open Source Software
-Create an empowered Chief Information Technology Officer (CITO)
-New national programs such as Bharat Nirman, urban development initiatives
-Focused Organization

CyberMedia News

___________________________________________

E-governance: Panel for implementation soon

E-governance: Panel for implementation soon

DH News Service Bangalore:

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/may92006/state201854200658.asp

The Centre is planning to constitute a high-level inter-ministerial group to implement the recommendations made by the National Knowledge Commission (NKC) on e-governance. Talking to reporters after a three-day consultation on Monday, NKC Chairman Sam Pitroda said the group could be headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

“We are already discussing the recommendations at different levels. The inter-ministerial group, perhaps headed by the Prime Minister, will take shape in the next couple of weeks,” he said.

Mr Pitroda said the NKC recommended some fine-tuning of the existing e-governance system so that it works in alignment with a “new thinking”.

“This is going to be a long process, and there’s no room for quick solutions. These recommendations could take 18 months to three years before reaching the implementation level,” he said.

Co-ordination

Stressing on the importance of a national co-ordination for the e-governance system, Mr Pitroda said e-governance was not about computerising existing processes. “We need to change our basic governance pattern and ensure transparency, productivity and simplicity. We should pick 10 to 20 important services and offer them on the Web and create a common e-governance platform to make it citizen-centric,” he said and added that at present, different states had different ways of implementing e-governance.

The recommendations were based on the report of a special group formed within NKC — headed by Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani — on e-governance.

‘Informed is empowered’ — Mr Nilekani said the Commission, while making the recommendations, had ensured that they didn’t further aggravate the digital divide persisting in the country.

Effectiveness

“The system should be devised to ensure more effective identification of entities, like land and people. By disseminating information through multiple channels — like mobile phones — the system actually empowers the public. The access to information should not be limited to people who have computers,” he said.

NKC ROADMAP

Before computerisation, redesign government processes

Offer services like issuance of birth/death certificates, ration cards on Web

Ensure common standards of operation, across the country

Digitise relevant government data, make it accessible to the public

Provide nation-wide broadband infrastructure

Localise data and services in regional languages

Provide open source software implementations

Appoint Chief IT Officer for each State

Invest one to two per cent of national programme budget in e-governance

Create organisation with CEO to drive e-governance
_______________________________________________________

“Reengineer govt processes before e-gov”

"Reengineer govt processes before e-gov"

Our Bureau / Bangalore May 8, 2006

business-standard

The National Knowledge Commission, headed by technocrat Sam Pitroda, has come out with a blue print on e-governance, aimed at eliminating the British Raj practices in the government sector by reengineering processes and services. "E-governance is more about an opportunity for administrative reforms than merely about electronics, IT and infrastructure. If we miss this opportunity to reengineer government processes before computerization, the cost will be enormous," Pitroda said here on Monday after presenting the recommendations made by the Commission. The report on e-governance was prepared by a special group of the commission, under the chairmanship of Nandan Nilekani, chief executive officer of Infosys. The report was discussed at the Planning Commission and presented to the ministry for communication and IT. A high level committee, headed by the Prime Minister, would oversee the implementation of the recommendations made by the Commission. A result can be expected over the next few years and Rs 5,000-7,000 crore might be spent on e-governance in the coming days," Pitroda said. The main recommendations include reengineering of government process before computerization. It is essential to first redesign government processes with a citizen focus. There should be a replacement of old mistrust and control regime with hassle-free enabling of citizens, businesses, producers and consumers," Pitroda said. The government must identity 10-20 important processes and services starting with birth and death certificates, proof of residence, ration card and ID card. "Each state should implement these processes in concert and learn from each other," Pitroda said. The other recommendations include: computerisation at the national level, a nationwide secure broadband infrastructure and associated hardware, software and hosting facilities with easy access, starting web-based services, use of open source software and open standards, creating an empowered chief information technology officer at the state and central level, implementing new national programmes like Bharat Nirman through e-governance and creating an organisation to ensure that e-governance succeeds.

___________________________________________

Knowledge panel unveils blueprint for e-governance

By Indo Asian News Service

Bangalore, May 8 (IANS) The National Knowledge Commission (NKC), set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last year, Monday came out with a slew of recommendations to usher in e-governance for improving delivery of public services and providing efficient and transparent administration.

'The game plan is to leave behind the legacy of the British raj, which has been perfected by the Indian bureaucracy, with a plethora of new layers and silos, each working within departmental boundaries and pet-priorities,' said NKC chairman Sam Pitroda.

Releasing the recommendations after a three-day brain-storming sessions here on e-governance efforts at the central and state levels, Pitroda told reporters here that a special group, under the chairmanship of Nandan Nilekani, a member of the panel and Infosys CEO, was formed to study e-governance.

'The recommendations have been given to the prime minister for implementation. The prime minister has responded positively. We have also advised the government to set up a high-level committee or inter-ministerial group to monitor their implementation in a time-bound manner,' Pitroda said.

The eight-member panel, consisting of Pushpa Bhargava, Deepak Nayyar, Ashok Ganguly, Jayati Gosh, Andre Beteille, Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Nilekani, prepared a detailed report with inputs from the planning commission, the ministry of communication and information technology (IT) and the administrative reforms commission.

'The NKC recognises e-governance is more an opportunity for administrative reforms than merely about electronics, IT and infrastructure. The recommendations pertain to processes and standards, infrastructure and organisation,' Pitroda pointed out.

Highlighting some of the recommendations, he said the panel envisaged an upfront investment of 50-70 billion ($1.1-1.5 billion) in introducing e-governance across the country.

Though a couple of state governments have already launched e-governance projects, while others are in the process of implementing their own projects, the panel favoured aligning them with the national e-governance programme recommended by it for seamless integration and inter-operability.

'The objectives of e-governance are: to reduce transaction costs and time, improve reach and quality of public services, increase transparency of government functioning and empower citizens, re-engineer processes to increase efficiency and productivity, and ensure the right people get the benefits,' the NKC report stressed.

Advocating a central organization with structures to operate in mission mode, with full autonomy and accountability, the panel said organizational issues related to re-engineering government processes with strong committed leadership, pre-defined deliverables, measurable milestones and periodic monitoring needed to be addressed in order to implement national e-governance programme within the next three-five years.

On evolving common standards, Nilekani said it was crtitical to develop and enforce citizen/business entitlement standards uniformly across all states and central ministries and functions, spanning voting, taxes, certificates, financial products, law-enforcement and welfare for individuals, properties of land, institutions, businesses, etc.

For implementing the national e-governance programme, the NKC has recommended a nationwide secure broadband infrastructure and associated hardware, software and hosting facilities, with easy access at all levels.

The panel also favoured use of open source for software implementation and standards, wherever possible, keeping in view its advantages such as cost-effective solutions, greater scalability and reduce delays caused by repeat tendering.

Copyright Indo-Asian News Service

_________________________________________

NKC writes to Mr. V. M. Kumaraswamy on March 19th 2006 and Mr. Sam Pitroda writes to eGovINDIA Group on April 11th, 2006

Rohan Mukherjee <rmukherjee@knowledgecommission.org> wrote:

Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 19:27:47 +0530 (IST)
From: "Rohan Mukherjee" <rmukherjee@knowledgecommission.org>
To: vmkumaraswamy@yahoo.com
CC: spitroda@knowledgecommission.org, pmbhargava@knowledgecommission.org
Subject: Your E-mail to the National Knowledge Commission

Mr. V. Kumaraswamy
Founder and Moderator
eGovINDIA

Dear Mr. Kumaraswamy,

I am writing on behalf of Mr. Sam Pitroda to thank you for bringing to our
attention (via your e-mail of 14 March 2006) the letter written to him by
Mr. C. Umashankar on 22 December 2005. We would be grateful if you could convey to him that the NKC has formulated a comprehensive national strategy for e-governance, and Mr. Pitroda has been in touch with the Prime Minister since January 2006 regarding the same.

Many of the issues raised by Mr. Umashankar vis-a-vis process automation based e-governance, administrative reform, open source software and the need for ubiquitous broadband connectivity have been considered by the NKC in its recommendations, a draft copy of which will be made available on our website in due course so that various stakeholders and members of the public can provide their comments and suggestions.

We would gladly invite Mr. Umashankar's further inputs on this document at that stage. We are grateful for his valuable contribution, and we look forward to receiving similar communications from him in future.

Yours sincerely,

Rohan Mukherjee

—
Research Associate
National Knowledge Commission
New Delhi, India.

cc: Chairman and Vice Chairman, NKC

______________________________________________________

From: "Sam Pitroda" <sam.pitroda@c-sam.com>
To: "'eGov INDIA'" <egovindia@yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Submission to National Knowledge Commission from eGovINDIA Yahoogroup, on relevance of e-governance in building a knowledge super power,
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2006 19:56:49 -0500

Thank you for your input. I assume you had a great visit with Nandan in Bangalore.We look forward to working with egov INDIA

 and various interest groups in the future.

Regards.

Sam Pitroda

Letter to Mr. Sam Pitroda, Chairman of NKC

Umashankar writes……

23^rd Dec.2005

Dear Mr.Sam Pitroda,

Mr. Kumaraswamy, the founder-moderator of egovINDIA has been on my trail to write to you on e-governance plans in India.

Yes, you are one of the few leaders in the country who can bring about change in e-governance plans. The need of the hour is to make e-governance work for the common man, through the very same government / local body employees. Process automation based e-governance is the only route that can empower a nation in the long run. This had not been recognised by the bureaucrats who lead the movement at this moment. We seek your intervention to do a complete course correction.

I have written a 14 page long write up detailing my views on Indian e-governance scenario. Kindly go through the same and decide about your intervention.

I would like to meet you to discuss about these issues.

Please let me know your convenient time and venue so that I can come to your place and discuss the action plan.

Regards.

Umashankar

————————-

21-3-06

Thanks Col.Sudhakar for the good words.

The copy of the write up had been sent to Mr.Kumarawamy who in his wisdom had published it.

I am sure he means good for me and India.

I have not recieved any reply from Mr.Sam or anyone from the Knowledge Commission. I fogot about the write up.

Now Mr.Kumaraswamy had opened it up.

In fact I was persuaded and followed up by Mr.Kumaraswamy to make this write up. But for his continuous follow up I would not have written to Mr.Sam.

I hope Mr.Sam Pitroda takes time to read this write up and use the views expressed there for the betterment of the country.
The notable thing is the need for common man orientation in all high tech matters.

Regards.

Umashankar

–

044-42054443

9444382827

 

C.Umashankar IAS., (TamilNadu Cadre)
e-governance expert.

Moderator:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eGovINDIA
http://sugame.com/umashankar

Chennai:
Ph: 91-44-52054443
——————————————-

22^nd December, 2005

Chennai

India

 

Dear Shri.Sam Pitroda,

Greetings.

I am knocking at your doors advocating right policies for e-governance and a total pro common man orientation while implementing e-governance solutions It is only the common man who needs good governance more than the rich and the affluent and so it is vital that e-governance should focus more on empowerment of the common man.

Advocacy is an inherent part of evolution. Without advocacy a country would be devoid of vision and development. As a visionary who foresaw the future of India's telecom scenario during late Rajiv Gandhi's period you would understand the term 'advocacy' much better.

Before I get into the details of my brief advocacy herewith, let me introduce me in a few words.

I am C.Umashankar, an IAS officer of 1990 batch allotted to TamilNadu cadre. I belong to TamilNadu too. I took up the civil services to serve the common man. I have not lost focus of the goal till date. I have a passion to see a developed India which is rid of corruption and red tapism. My passion for transparency and integrity had landed me in various postings at a young age. One year in any assignment at the early period of my IAS was a rare feet. At every stage, the goal to serve the common man with honesty and integrity was thwarted by these transfers. This had forced me to blow the whistle during November 1995 when I knocked at the doors of the higher judiciary seeking justice to serve the common man. More details are available in http://www.sugame.com/umashankar under the title “Cremation sheds scam”.

 

In this scenario, the orientation given in the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy, Mussoorie on computer tools enabled me to understand the power of computers in realising the goal of a transparent and developed India. Right from the day I got access to computers in Government I started using its powers for serving the common man. It started in Tiruchirapalli during middle of 1994 when I got the first dumb terminal from NIC's network. We used it to weed out bogus family cards and to issue family cards to the deserving population. The passion continued in Madurai where I was posted as Additional Collector (Development) and Project Officer, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA). Here the PC 486 server with 10 diskless nodes were used to offer the best possible online-across the counter service to the people below the poverty line. This trend was continued when I took over as District Collector of Tiruvarur which is one of the most backward districts of TamilNadu. This backward district, soon was rated “20 years ahead” by the Times of India, Delhi for its breath taking core e-governance activities. It happened between February 1999 and April 2001. Tiruvarur district was declared the first Pilot e-district in India during July 1999. With land records going online, the farmers of this Cauvery delta district had a shot in the arm. Getting agriculture loans using land records extract became easy as the certificates were made available for Rs.10 and 20 respectively. Transfer of land registry became a 10 minute affair. Getting Old Age Pension or Widow pension became a pleasant experience for the poor people. People started respecting the Revenue department for its social service using e-governance tools. Old Age Pension started reaching the beneficiaries within the first five days of the month. Evidences show that the very same district used to despatch this money a good one month later. Schemes such as Accident Relief Scheme and Distress Relief Scheme which were meant only for the people below the poverty line went totally online within a short period during 1999.

The DRDA and its direct executing arms, the Block Offices were provided with a series of automation packages which took away their manual workload. Manually written paper based registers were done away with in all these cases and were substituted with system generated registers. The government employees became the first beneficiary as their work load came down by 50-75 percent. From pendency in government offices, it became a case of nil pendency. Even during the year 2000 the district administration had to alert the field offices to keep at least a few transactions pending so that the visiting delegation could be shown the online functioning. Any surprise inspections usually resulted in Nil pending work. E-governance was simply a boon to this predominantly agrarian district.

The first e-district did another breath taking exercise by taking the online offices to the street through a campaign titled “Power of e-governance”. The online Taluk office functioning was shifted to a public place such a marriage hall on the campaign day and citizens were encouraged to file their application and get the orders within just two hours. Eight such camps were conducted in the 7 Taluk office areas. In each camp, the Taluks could transact work equivalent to 6 months' transactions. One has to see the joy of the poor people who walked in and walked out with OAP/Widow pension/Physically Challenged Person pension/ distressed Agriculture Labourer Pension and so on.

Sadly, the story had ended with Tiruvarur. Elsewhere in the world, such as the 'world' where you are living now, this would have been taken up for replication for the rest of the country. But this does not happen easily in India. India, supported by my colleagues in the IAS had decided to keep Tiruvarur alone “20 years ahead” for a long time to come.

Today, four years after I had left the district, the very same district has been losing its e-governance tools, one by one, not because the users don't want it but because of lack of technical support for maintenance and upgrades of the application software and the hardware. When a client machine goes down, it remains down forever! With so much of money in the hands of the policy makers in India for e-governance, one finds such a sorry state of affairs in the country's first e-district.

In the last four years, I have made presentation about Tiruvarur district's e-governance experience in various fora, including the Government of India's e-governance centre in Delhi, IIM, Bangalore and the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy at Mussoorie. In the presence of India's e-governance policy makers, many live software presentations were held by me in the last four years. Notable among them was the presentation at the Centre for e-governance in Delhi (2001), NISG (2004) and the National e-governance conference at Bhubaneswar (February, 2005). Video magazines depicting the power of e-governance in the implementation of Tiruvarur e-governance had not made much impact with the leaders, though the audience clearly saw the true impact of e-governance with regard to the common man. When the leaders who are supposed to make the necessary moves fail to act, Indian evolution comes to a halt in such areas.

The policy makers, however, are busy looking at commercial proposals put up by multi national corporations who had no idea about Indian governance scenario. Knowledge about Indian governance system and India's rural life style is too crucial to be missed out.

I have stopped making live software presentation cum talk on e-governance in view of the dumb response it had received so far.

I have decided to knock at your doors to highlight this malady apart from sharing my thoughts on open source software in Indian e-governance scenario. As Chairman of the recently set up Knowledge Commission, you have the powers to change the scenario in India, the way you had changed the telecom sector in India years ago.

Having said these I wish to advocate two areas in the following paragraphs:

1. What is the true meaning of e-governance in Indian context? How India should proceed to become a self confident e-governed nation? And,
2. How open source software and Indian e-governance are made for each other in creating a self confident and self respecting nation.

What is e-governance?

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) that empowers the Government, its citizens including the Government employees, weaker sections such as the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, women, people living in far flung and difficult areas and the business houses to transact businesses with government and its agencies online, 24/7 "

Under e-governance scenario, the Government and its citizens/business houses should be able to transact all their activities or at least majority of activities without meeting each other using Information technology tools such as Internet, public kiosks etc.

For example, when a citizen wants to get a ration card, he/she should be able to apply and get the ration card without physically going to the Taluka office. Similarly, when a widow wants to get a widow pension she should be able to get it by applying through the village or block level Internet centre.

Or, a farmer wanting to get a land record extract / cultivation extract should be able to do it without going to any government official through the Internet or public kiosks.

Going to the Government offices and waiting there to get these services should be only an optional choice. The citizens should have a choice of going to the Internet centres or the government offices to get their works done with the Government.

This can be achieved only through the following steps:

1. Government offices should be computerised using online work-flow procedure. That means all the paper based registers have to be given up and all government works have to be carried out only through computers. At least this should happen in areas where e-governance had been introduced.

2. All Government employees working in the areas where e-governance is proposed have to be computer trained and each one should be given user ID and password to operate the system.

3. All these government employees have to be trained in their area of operation in the software.

4. The Government servers should be connected to the Internet/public network so that the citizens and business houses are enabled to access the Government information at any time and also enabled to file all their requests/applications online. The scope for meeting government officials should be reduced to the extent that only where statutorily such physical presence is required they should be asked to meet the government officials.

5. All applications or requests from citizens/business houses should be received only through online procedure using Internet/public access network as medium.

6. STD booths or similar public kiosks should be authorised to intermediate between the citizens and the government. This includes online remittance facility too.

7. India's growing women power in the form of Women Self Help Groups (SHGs) should have a greater say in front ending the Government services online.

 

A similar facility should be made available to the business houses too.

The above definition pre supposes certain vital IT infrastructure such as State wide area network (WAN), a clear policy for e-governance with timelines, recognition of the role of e-champions from within the bureaucracy, budgetary support for infrastructure creation and maintenance and so on.

Open source software and e-governance.

India has entered into the e-governance bandwagon late. The late comer has an advantage too in the IT field as the open source software had matured now. OSS offers not just the operating system but the whole gamut of IT environment, mostly free. This includes top end GIS software (open GIS) and a top database product such as Postgresql. India, in order to remain free and confident, should adopt open source software in the area of e-governance and education. The developed nations have been consciously promoting OSS in their countries. It is time India started this movement. Who else can be a better person than you in spearheading this movement?

The current Indian e-governance scenario – Is India proceeding in the right direction?

During Tiruvarur's hay days (1999-2001), funds were a constraint as e-governance was a new area at that time. Funding agencies such as World Bank, UNDP, DFID etc., were unaware of the initiatives at the field level. Today, the case is different. India is flushed with e-governance funds.

Let us audit how this “problem of plenty” is being handled by my colleagues who are at the helm of affairs deciding the destiny of this nation in Delhi.

The commitment for funding e-governance initiatives of India from leading providers such as World bank, UNDP, DFID etc., as on date is a whooping Rs.25000 crores.

The positive factors:

Funding for State Wide Area Networking

The young IT Minister Dayanadhi Maran had made a huge difference in the area of communication in India. He had announced a policy to encourage setting up of State Wide Area Networking all over the country. Any State which has three or more state level projects would be eligible to get funding under the scheme. This is the right way of prioritising the spending. States which had no inclination towards good governance would not see value in a state WAN and thus even if they are offered this vital infrastructure free of cost, the same would only rust away. Hence the policy to encourage the enthusiastic states which have understood the value of state WAN is perfectly in order.

Over the past 5 years, the momentum had gradually picked up among the States in the area of e-governance. States such as Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Uttranchal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala have been taking active interest. A good State WAN driven e-governance would set examples to the States which had hitherto cold shouldered e-governance / good governance. One has to see whether these fore runner States would act as torch bearers. It is also extremely important for Dayanadhi Maran to persuade the states to set up the state WAN without losing any further time.

You have a great role in this regard. The way in which you had brought STD booths to the nook and corner of the country and making them self sustaining is a case in point. Your own state Orissa has been showered with V-SATs to connect all the Blocks and the Collectorates. Yet e-governance is a far cry there. You have the fire power to motivate the backward states such as Orissa, Bihar, UP, MP and Rajasthan to take up e-governance to achieve good governance. The country is badly in need of a leader who can focus on true e-governance which has the power to usher in good governance, especially in the BIMAR states. The teaming millions of the rural Indian population had been left totally untouched by the e-governance initiatives so far. This segment of rural population can actually taste good governance if e-governance is offered to them. You can make a huge difference here through your capable leadership.

Your intervention would be a shot in the arm for Dayanidhi Maran whose crusade has been lonely so far. 

BSNL's broad band revolution

India has been witnessing yet another communication revolution after the Telecom and mobile phone revolution in the form of broad band revolution. Dayanidhi Maran work up BSNL from its slumber. It was the public sector BSNL which had brought about a qualitative change in the dial up internet arena during the year 2000. On 15^th August 2000, all the BSNL subscribers started getting internet on local call. The urban elites were getting this facility even earlier. But the decision to bring in dial up internet on local call rates all over India was considered a revolutionary concept at that time. Indeed it was revolutionary. It brought about equality among the rural and urban masses all over India. During my stay in Tezpur (Assam), Sabarkanta (Gujaraj), Rajgarh (MP) and East Champaran (Bihar) in the last four years I found that this local internet dial up had indeed provided a darling equality for all citizens in India. This was indeed a path breaking and forward looking decision indeed.

      Yet, the optic fibre lines which were laid by BSNL at crores of rupees of tax payers' money was lying unlit all over India. Nor BSNL was ready to offer these unlit OFC lines to government or private sector for useful exploitation. When I served in Tiruvarur as its DC (1999-2001) the Coaxial Station of BSNL situated across the Collectorate had over 10 OFC pairs were lying idle for future expansion. Hardly a couple of pairs were utilised by BSNL at that time. The irony was that every Block was connected through the BSNL's OFC line at Tiruvarur. This could be the same all over India. There was no policy to offer these lines to Government offices on concessional rates. The scenario had changed in the recent past. Now BSNL has been vigorously advancing the broadband concept all over India. The unlit OFC lines are gradually getting lit. BSNL had brought the cost of the broad band to 1/4^th of the rates which were prevalent prior to its entry.

Yet, there needs to be a minor course correction. Just like the private operators, BSNL has also been concentrating on urban sector where there are more than one private operator vying with one another offering broadband services. What India needs at the moment is to provide the same priority treatment to the rural and semi urban areas as well, the way the dial up internet was offered on local call rates all over India on 15^th August 2000!

Majority of the Government offices and installations are located only in the rural and semi urban areas. For example, the Primary Health Centres, the Taluka offices, the Block offices , Government and private schools and so on. With broadband available at just Rs.250 per month, these government offices and schools can easily afford to acquire this state of the art technology which in turn can bring about a total revolution in the area of e-governance. The schools would be able to use the knowledge that is opened up through the internet. An immediate course correction in this regard is in order.

The second course correction that is required is to provide these lines to all vital State government installations in the rural and semi urban areas such as Collectorates, Taluk offices, Police stations, Government hospitals, Block offices etc., without waiting for an application from the States. This could be done under a national policy where the BSNL should be compensated by the government of India for the one time installation and for the running cost for 5 years. This would connect the entire India's vital installations within a short span of time and act as a prelude to the State WANs. An outgo of Rs.250 per month/ per installation is not too great a cost for the Government of India to bear. This would be one of the most beneficial investments of the National e-gov Action Plan funds.

Corruption in the area of networking

I need your intervention to save the nation at this juncture from being sold to an outdated networking technology. In the name of domestic technology a firm owned by an IIT professor has been selling a grossly outdated wireless technology to Women Self Help Groups (SHGs) using patronage received from Governments. This technology had not scaled up from its original 32 kbps speed for the past 10 years, despite their promise to enhance its bandwidth to 2 mbps during 1996! The world had already moved ahead and today we have 802.11 b/g – 2.4 ghz. based wireless solutions offering bandwidth in megabytes. There is an imminent danger that this outdated wireless technology could be pushed through in the name of connecting the Village Knowledge Centres (VKCs). The person who promotes this outdated technology tried to influence my colleague when we were drafting our evaluation report on this technology for European Commission. We were offered money that would enable us to feel that we would not need money from other sources for the rest of our life, provided we wrote a favourable write up on this technology.

Nether I nor my colleague was interested in illegal money and so we rejected this offer and submitted our report based on facts.

You and Dayanidhi Maran have the prowess to connect these VKCs all over India using the BSNL's DATAONE at a cost much cheaper than the one offered by this IIT professor. BSNL's DATAONE comes with a telephone and offers internet bandwidth at 10 times the speed of the IIT Professor's technology. DATAONE does not require wireless towers or wireless receivers! Your immediate intervention is the need of the day to save the nation.

 

The Village Knowledge Centre concept – a boon or bane?

We see a different kind of promotion in India in the name of rural e-governance. It is christened Village knowledge Centre (VKC) Scheme. The VKC concept is good for the the name it bears but has a gross misleading content. Placing a computer in a village does not bring about automatic knowledge to the rural population nor the private partner who is supposed to supervise these areas can bring about any qualitative change. India is a vast country with varying levels of evolution in administration, life style and so on. The urban India's life style is in tune with the liberalised environment. Here again there is a huge difference between the north and South India. Between the urban and rural India there is an yet another pole apart gap. The rural India still lives within its age old cocoon with caste and superstition leading their lives than technology or modern thoughts. In a developed state such as TamilNadu, a person belonging to Scheduled Caste can never imagine buying a piece of land in the village residential area. The Scheduled Castes have to live outside the village residential area in Colonies, in the direction prescribed by the villagers. One can imagine the situation in the BIMAR states where Raja–Rani feudalism is still practised in all its forms. In such a scenario, a valid question had been raised whether taking 1,50,000 computers to these villages could make any difference?

I have been interacting with the officials of Orissa for the past two years. UNDP had funded such computer assisted kiosks in the rural Orissa and the result is that such computer assisted kiosks have not made any difference in the lives of the rural population. In fact none of the kiosks could break even on operational cost. The reasons are apparent. In India the State Government, with its various welfare schemes and regulatory framework continues to hold importance in the lives of the common man. When the state Governments embark upon a drive to interact with its citizens using online transaction processing e-governance method, these kiosks would have business to take care of their operational cost as well as a profit. When no one talks about transaction processing system in government, these kiosks can only act as show pieces catering to internet surfing and/or pornography. The experience of TamilNadu using a low class wireless technology in rural Madurai had produced the same results. A study conducted by a team from the Madras Presidency College had revealed that all these rural kiosks are using the computers mostly for video game by the children of the SHG leader. If this can be the result in a developed state such as Tamilnadu one has to imagine the rest of India.

Today TV operated video game systems are available in India for under Rs.450 ($10). Then why force the hapless Women Self Help Groups to set up the computer kiosks at huge cost just to play video games?

It is important for the country to study the kiosk experiment that had been conducted in various states by professional evaluators before embarking on the ill conceived rural knowledge centres scheme. 

Your mission in Knowledge Commission can bring about a qualitative change.

The Rural knowledge Centre has some potential to assist the States and Central Government to get data from the villages. For example, the States acquire data from the village health centres and then transmit the same to government of India. There was a view that the States can use these VKCs to acquire data. This could be a good idea from the point of view of the states. But then, the project cannot be called Village Knowledge Centres but can be called Village assistance centres for the state government.

You would agree that such assistance would not be needed if the Government goes for process automation based e-governance touching all areas, including the rural areas. In the long run there is no substitute to process automation based e-governance. Why not initiate steps now? It is not late even now!

In the absence of a debate and a clear focus, the village knowledge centre concept can only result in more business for the hardware manufacturer and Microsoft, the operating software vendor.

The private-public partnership concept in e-governance:

In an ideal e-governance situation, the Government has to be carry out its operations online. Any legacy data capture has to be done through private parters. Similarly, the application software has to be got developed through these private partners. The present government purchase procedures have to be retuned to acquire a private IT partner to not only develop an application software but also implement the same over a period of say, 5 years. After the initial five year period, the organisation could take a decision whether the partnership should be continued under the same terms or not or whether the terms of partnership have to be revised. In such a scenario, the role of the private partner ends with developing the application software and assisting in the implementation. The actual government work is to be carried out by the Government / local body employees only. This enables the Government to acquire the expertise from the private sector while still holding the functions of the government. The Government still can exercise the option of privatising a portion of the front ending services through private partners including the women SHGs. In such a scenario, the Government owns the database, it does the day to day transaction operations and the private sector carries out front ending operations such as collection of applications or revenue. The government will have the option of appointing any number of private partners to front end its services thus safeguarding the nation from monopoly private sector hold in front ending of Government services. This is the logical way to go about implementing the PPP model.

Let us audit how India had fared under the PPP model.

The infamous e-seva model of Andhra Pradesh, without actually providing any online transaction processing services had handed over the government public sector revenue collection services to a single private company using questionable selection procedures. This was followed by yet another blunder by handing over the e-procurement tasks to another private company using yet another questionable routes. The basic purpose of e-procurement can only be bringing in transparency in procurement and prevent cartelisation of the bidders. The cost saving, if any, due to competitive pricing can only be a side issue. When we analyse the AP's e-procurement initiative, what we find is a series of paradoxes. First of all, the selection of the bidder was not done using the open tender route. The consultant who was entrusted with the task had chosen their “partners” to whom the bid papers had to be supplied. So, they supplied the bid papers only to these 20 “partners” chosen by PWC, the consultant. The Karnataka Government company KEONICS was prevented from bidding despite their strong efforts! In the end, the pre finalised bidder who had no standing in the IT business had been chosen in the name of an American company. The name of the American company was promptly withdrawn once the order was handed over to this company – C1 India Pvt. Ltd.

The climax is that the consultant (PWC) had joined C1 India in the implementation of the project!

As a matter of routine, PWC and C1 India jointly bid for e-procurement product all over India now.

The Government of AP had shown a Nelson's eye when C1 India discarded all its consortium partners only through whom it got eligibility to participate in the bid. 

With all this, if the people behind this episode had finalised a good deal for the Government one can be happy. Let us audit the manner in which the contract had been finalised. The Government of AP had agreed to part with .24% of the final tender price as contract sum to the private partner. Materials are available on record to show that the KEONICS, the Government of Karnataka company had offered the same product which had been implemented in Karnataka for a flat sum of Rs.7500 per tender!

Technically, C1 India which has been implementing the e-procurement contract for the past 2 years has been doing the job without any encryption at the client side. Encryption at the server side does not have any impact as the server administrator has every opportunity to back up the plain text before encrypting it. That means all the online tenders have been possibly rigged by C1 India during the past 2 years. With such a serious flaw the system has been still running in Andhra Pradesh at an exorbitant cost which beats logic.

The proponents of the e-seva and e-procurement concepts have been making hay all over India. A highly rigged tender document had been used by Karnataka to remove any healthy competition in their Bangalore One project which is nothing else but another avatar of e-seva of Andhra Pradesh only to bring in the vendor who had implemented the e-seva project in AP. The very same vendor had bagged the project not only in Karnataka but also in Maharashtra. In the whole exercise there is nothing called e-governance. It is a case of front ending of Government revenue collection services which is being misquoted as e-governance. (The Karnataka High Court had admitted a Public Interest Writ Petition against Bangalore One project during December this year).

There appears to be a design to bring in monopoly in the Government revenue collection services all over India using the same tender document only to enable a single vendor to corner the country.

A similar effort is being made to bring in C1 India all over India as the single e-procurement vendor!

You would agree with me that process automation based e-governance system can never result in a single vendor bagging the contract all over India. Because the processes are different in different states and so the specifications would also differ. No single vendor can hope to bag orders in the entire country. It is because the specifications are uniform, that is “bill collection”, the single vendor is able to bag one order after another. It is a different matter that at least in the case of Bangalore One project it had come to light that the tender documents were heavily doctored to favour only one vendor, that is the chosen vendor. To camouflage the illegitimate act, the proponents of the Bangalore One project have classified the Bangalore One tender document “secret and confidential”. A Secret and confidential tender document to choose a private partner to bring in transparency through e-governance! A great irony indeed.

It is my duty to bring it to your notice for action and follow up to save the nation, that the Indian e-governance scenario had been handled by a handful of IAS officers. None of these officers had any background of doing citizen centric services when they served in the field. You would agree that e-governance is basically to usher in good governance and those who take a lead in this area should have an established track record of supporting good governance through pro active administration in the field. None of these three-four officers had any such track record. And so the country's e-governance activities are directed towards a path leading to nowhere. It is a case of a boat without a direction control system.

The trend to create private sector monopoly in government services using e-governance as a bogey portends doom for the urban and rural masses in the long run.

You have the opportunity and power to intervene and set a course correction exercise.

Creation of National Institute of Smart Government (NISG), a prelude to cheat the nation!

I have written enough in the electronic media about the NISG and how it had been formed to cater certain vested interests and how it is kept away from Parliament control.

NISG had been formed a special purpose vehicle to usher in a new era in India driven by e-governance. The cause is noble indeed.  
The manner in which NISG had been formed to the detriment of the nation is a serious cause of concern. The proponents of NISG, mostly my colleagues in the IAS have formed it into a private limited company with charitable purpose under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act. What is the contribution of the private sector. It is next to nothing. The entire funding for NISG had so far come from UNDP. UNDP had been apparently manipulated to sign an MOU with NISG to fund $30 millions for promoting e-governance in India!

No UN organisation can invest in India unless the nodal department in the Government of India concurs to the proposal in advance. So, in effect, the nodal departments in Government of India hold the key to the investments proposed by UN agencies. In this case the nodal department is the department of ICT in Delhi. This department had manipulated UNDP to invest in NISG, a private limited company which is not answerable any regulatory agency in India such as the Public Accounts Committee, the CBI or the CVI. What is the need to create such a special purpose vehicle without any controls is a serious question?

And what is the role of National Informatics Centre (NIC), the dream organisation of Rajiv Gandhi if it is not meant for e-governance. NIC , is a wholly owned Government of India organisation with due audit controls. It would be better if NISG is nationalised or the whole task is handed over to NIC.

India needs a clear e-governance policy:

The current IT policy does not cater to e-governance. The need of the hour is to have an e-governance policy for the nation. The process is very important. India needs to spell out where it wants to stand in the area of e-governance, say 10 years from now, 15 years from now, 20 years from now and so on.

What are the areas in which India wants to automate have to be decided and declared well in advance so that the mile stones set could be attempted.

There should be a clear policy on OSS in e-governance too.

India needs a well spelt out policy to support the BIMAR states in the area of e-governance. I can add more to this list but you are a person who can look into the future easily. So I am just leaving this aspect at this. 

Need for administrative reforms:

India has been attempting piece meal administrative reforms so far. We need a path breaking administrative reform, the way the Congress government had brought in the Right to Information Act (RTI). The role of All India Services and State services has to be redefined to suit the current requirements. The colonial hang over which is still there in large doses has to be wiped out. India should belong to Indians. Today the true India belongs to the politicians and bureaucracy only.

I am closing my thought process at this. I apologise for the rather long write up. Thank you for your valuable time.

I would be happy to assist you in your current effort to bring in changes in the country.

Regards.

C.Umashankar IAS.,

Chennai

044-42054443

94443-82827

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Please read this article.

The E-governance Muddle http://www.dqindia.com/content/search/showarticle.asp?artid=74532

What was expected to bring transparency in government transactions has got mired in a slew of allegations. Dataquest probes the charges made by an IAS officer against his own clan… Shubhendu Parth Friday, September 02, 2005

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E KAVI, E Gov India, India RTI,
Judicial Reforms & India Whistle Blower's Action Group

Facilitating Emergence of  New India:

Based on Values of Transparency & Accountability, E Governance, Natural Justice, Human Rights and Human Dignity 

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I am V. M. Kumaraswamy MBA, is in business since 1971. Founder and Moderator of India's largest e-governance yahoo-group under the title eGovINDIA. You can reach this group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eGovINDIA

India WhistleBlower Act: The Action Group

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/INDIA_WBA

INDIA RTI is a Right to Information in INDIA discussion group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/INDIARTI

Exclusive Discussion Group on Judicial and Legal Reforms in INDIA. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JUDICIALREFORMS

eGovINDIA is a group dedicated to promoting true e-governance in India, consisting of members from all walks of life from within INDIA and the World over. Many State Ministers and senior bureaucrats of India are members of this group. We do have lawyers, social activists, freelance writers and journalists in the group. The group is meant for serious activists only. Casual members are not allowed to join the group. The group is also moderated by an Indian Administrative Service  (IAS) Officer.  As on date, the group has nearly 2700 members.

 

The focus of this group is true e-governance and use of open source technology in e-governance. The members of this forum have a passion to see a truly e-governed India, resulting in transparency and easy access to government services by  the common man, notably the depressed class people (so called untouchables), women and people living in far flung and difficult areas of India.

 

Corruption is a stark reality in India. The recent reports put India in the worst category in corruption index. For the group members, e-governance means less corruption too.

 

The least we expect out of e-governance is transparency.

Thanks

Sincereley

V. M. Kumaraswamy, MBA