PIL against Bangalore One irregularities admitted by the Karnataka High Court (RTI Act has also played an important role to get information)

PIL against Bangalore One irregularities admitted by the Karnataka High Court (RTI Act has also played an important role to get information)

13^th December 2005.

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against Bangalore One project filed by Mr.Veeresh who runs a non governmental organization called Brashtachara Nirmoolana Vedike (Forum for eradication of corruption) in Bangalore had been admitted by the Karnataka High Court today. The HC had ordered issue of notices to the respondents.

The Writ petition had raised serious issues about lack of transparency and corruption in the award of contract for the Bangalore One project.

Mr.Veeresh is a member of the egovINDIA – yahoo group which advocates true e-governance in India with special focus on benefits accruing to the common man in the form of reduction in corruption. Mr.Veeresh has been in the forefront of a wide variety of anti corruption activities in Karnataka.

Mr. Veeresh is also a member of EKAVI, INDIA RTI and INDIAWBA. Mr. Veeresh has used the RTI Act to get information from authorities.

The list of respondents includes Microsoft Corporation (I) Private Limited, New Delhi, Ram Infotech Limited, CMS computers limited, Government of Karnataka, Government of India, Mr.J.Satyanarayana, CEO of NISG among others.

The main contention of the petitioner is that the entire Bangalore One project was conceived to entrust to the contract to Respondents 3 and 4 (Ram Infotech and CMS Consortium). He had alleged serious corruption in the project.

He had also the legality of prescribing Microsoft technology which is proprietary and costed when open source software was available free. The MoU entered into between the Government of Karnataka and Microsoft had been challenged in the Writ Petition.

The petitioner had raised questions about the involvement of NISG and its CEO Mr.Satyanarayana.

We have received a part of the PIL documents. From out of the that we are giving the following excerpts.

 

V.M.Kumaraswamy,

Moderator, eGovINDIA group.

Excerpts from the Writ Petition:

"The petitioner submits that the entire exercise is intended to award the contract to respondents 3 and 4. The petitioner submits that in this context the e-seva project implemented by respondents 3 and 4 in Andhra Pradesh and the Memorandum of Understanding entered into between respondents 3,4 and 6 to adopt Microsoft .NET platform in the implementation of e-seva project assumes significance. The involvement of 9^th respondent in advancing the business interest of respondents 3,4 and 6 is also explicit".

The petitioner had questioned the legality of the MoU entered between Microsoft and the Government of Karnataka.

"The petitioner submits that the Memorandum of Understanding dated 13-11-2002 suffers from illegalities and infirmities. How and under what authority the 7^th respondent entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the 6^h respondent binding the state of Karnataka is not known. It is also contrary to the Karnataka Act 29 of 2000".

"The petitioner submits that in terms of the Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft, Government of Karnataka has adopted the .NET platform for the B1 Project. Microsoft would provide the required software at a concessional rate as part of its responsibility under the Memorandum of Understanding. It would also provide consultancy to Government of Karnataka and help the successful tenderer.

The petitioner submits that the intention of the Government is clear. The tenderer has to use the software platform provided by the 6^th respondent only. All the major Indian software companies which use non Microsoft software platform are practically excluded. It is intriguing that when Indian companies are gaining world wide recognition in software industry, the Government of Karnataka is promoting Microsoft. Leading Indian companies cannot use their software built on non Microsoft platform. Even if they were to participate in the tender, they are obliged under the tender conditions to buy Microsoft's .NET software and a host of other Microsoft software packages.

The petitioner submits under the heading 'application architecture' it is stipulated as follows: " it is necessary for the bidders to adopt the Microsoft .NET platform. This is mandated in the light of the Memorandum of Understanding between Microsoft and Government of Karnataka, in relation to implementation of B1 Project. This requirement translates to the use of BizTalk Server for Application Integration, IIS for web server and SQL server for database. The bidders can propose appropriate products for other components like firewall, Storage etc., Subject to this requirement, the application architecture for B1 is indicated in this Section.

The petitioner submits that BizTalk server for application integration, Internet Information Server (IIS) for web server and Microsoft SQL server are the proprietary products of Microsoft. Thus the entire contract is conceived to promote the business interest of Microsoft in India in total disregard of national interest. Indian industries in the software field are totally bypassed".

"The petitioner submits that except respondents 3 and 4, none else could satisfy the qualification prescribed, namely completing a similar project for a period of one year in India. Obviously while preparing the tender document , the e-seva project in Andhra Pradesh which was awarded to respondents 3 and 4 was operating in the minds of those who settled the tender conditions. The role of the 9^th respondent as the Chief Executive Officer in preparing such a document raises serious doubts. The 9^th respondent has a definite role in awarding the contract to respondents 3 and 4".

Grounds for the Writ Petition.

The petitioner submits that the Memorandum of Understanding entered into between respondents 6 and 7 dated 13-11-2004 and the contract entered into between the 1^st respondent and the 3^rd respondent dated 20-12-2004 are liable to be declared as illegal and invalid for the following among other grounds.

A: The Memorandum of Understanding dated 13-11-2002 has been entered into in total violation of law. It is opposed to public policy.

B: The government cannot enter into a Memorandum of Understanding to promote the business interest of the 6^th respondent in the manner it has been done.

C: The tender proposal for Bangalore One Project is prepared in terms of the Memorandum of Understanding dated 13-11-2002. The tender proposal itself is thus conceived fraudulently. The entire transaction is vitiated.

D: The entire project is conceived to award the contract to respondents 3 and 4 who in turn have entered into an agreement with the 6^th respondent.

E: The committees constituted for preparing the tender documents and award of contract have only carried out the Memorandum of Understanding dated 13-11-2002 entered into between respondents 6 and 7.

F: The 5^th respondent is not promoting eGovernance. The funds provided for eGovernance are diverted to enrich a few. The 9^th respondent is extending the e-seva project which was commenced in Andhra Pradesh when he was the Secretary to Government to other states. The public statements given by him apropos the role of the 5^th respondent in the promotion of e-governance proves that he is guilty of promoting private business interests in the name of e-governance.

G: The contract dated 20-12-2004 entered into between the 1^st respondent and 3^rd respondent is not a genuine contract to promote e-governance. The contract is brought about fraudulently to enrich respondents 3, 4 and 6 adverse to the interest of the general public and e-governance.

H: The concept of e-governance is misused to promote utility bill collections. There is no e-governance at all. The public are not benefited. True e-governance should help the people to obtain licences, permits, building plans, lay out approvals, social service benefits, rural development scheme benefits etc online using online two way transaction procedure.

I: Microsoft is interested in selling its proprietary and closed software. Even in America, companies such as IBM and Sun Micro Systems have introduced open source software systems. Indian companies who are acclaimed to be within the fortune 500 companies in the world are adopting open source software systems. The Government of Karnataka cannot in the circumstances, in the name of e-governance promote the sale of proprietary and priced software of Microsoft adverse to the interest of Indian companies. In fact the Indian companies have been practically excluded from competing for the tender. It is against public policy and national interest.

J: Indian companies who adopt open source software systems have world wide recognition. In the circumstances, execution of the contract under the Bangalore One project insisting on the adoption of only Microsoft .NET and other Microsoft products is illegal.

K: There is arbitrariness and corruption. The persons involved in promoting private business interests for extraneous consideration should be identified and prosecuted and punished in accordance with law.

L: The manner in which the tender conditions have been contrived to award the contracts to respondents 3 and 4 who in turn have business agreement with the 6^th respondent is fraudulent. There is a design to extend this contract throughout India under the auspicious of the 5^th respondent. Instead of promoting e-governance which is intended to eradicate corruption, in the name of e-governance an illegal contract is entered into.

In the above circumstances, having no other alternative and efficacious remedy the petitioner in genuine public interest is filing this writ petition.

The petitioner has not filed any other writ petition or other proceedings with respect to the same cause of action.

The petitioner therefore prays that this Hon'ble court may be pleased to issue a writ of Certiorari or any other writ or order or direction in the nature of the writ calling for the records relating to the Memorandum of Understanding dated 13-11-2002 entered into between respondent 7 and 9 and the agreement dated 20-12-2004 entered into between the first respondent and the 3^rd respondent quash the same and pass such other orders as the Hon'ble court may deem fit and proper in the circumstances of the case and render justice".

Respondents:

1. State of Karnataka represented by the Secretary to Government,

Department of e-governance,

M.S. Building,

Bangalore.

2. The Director,

BangaloreOne Project,

Government of Karnataka,

Room No. 106, 1^st floor, Gate No.1, M.S.Building,

Bangalore 2.

3. CMS Computers Limited,

2^nd Floor, No. 52, St. Marks Road,

Bangalore.

represented by its Managing Director

4. Ram Informatics Limited,

2^nd Floor, Srinagar Colony,

Hyderabad

represented by its Managing Director.

5. National Institute of Smart Government (NISG),

IIIT Campus, Gachi Bowli,

Hyderabad -500 019 Andhra Pradesh

Represented by its Chief Executive Officer.

6. Microsoft Corporation (I) Private Limited,

The Great Eastern Centre, 70 Nehru Place,

New Delhi 110 019.

represented by its Managing Director.

7. Director,

Department of Information Technology, Government of Karnataka,

M.S. Building,

Bangalore.

8. The Union of India represented by

The Secretary to Government,

Communication and Information Technology department,

New Delhi.

9. J.Satyanarayana IAS., CEO,

National Institute of Smart Government,

IIIT Campus, Gachi Bowli,

Hyderabad -500 019 Andhra Pradesh

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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/eGovINDIAeGovINDIA 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 2500 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.

eGovINDIA's subsidiary groups:

India WhistleBlower Act: The Action Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/INDIA_WBA
 
Exclusive Discussion Group on Judicial and Legal Reforms in INDIA. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JUDICIALREFORMS

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

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 Read this Publication in Dataquest on e-gov corruption. It gives how NISG is handling eGovernance in INDIA. NASSCOM is MAJORITY(51%) partner in NISG. Even NASSCOM is playing into the hands of NISG.

Data quest in its recent issue had written about the corruption in e-Govt.
http://www.dqindia.com/content/DQTop20_05/BestEmployers2005/2005/105090203.asp

The E-governance Muddle

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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NICSTAFF@hub.nic.in  wrote: 
 
> Mr. Umashankar is very right in trying to get the truth of it. There are many such things happening in the name of E-gov during last four years without any tangible social benefits to the common man. Mr Umashankar is a man who has done work in grassroots level and has soiled his hand in doing things for common man.
  
  
  He is unlike others who mostly have been involving themselves discharging their financial and administrative powers only for outsourcing the establishment of networks after network and building organizations/egov-centers which are very easy but very expensive having little significance for common man. No doubt these activities are good for officers to make them IT champion and help them build their shelf image.
  
  
  This has been happening from the year 2000 when in one go we have 30 IT secretaries in states and 60 IT managers in central Governments without having any IT knowledge and experience.

GOI has spent crores of rupees in the name of E-governance. Now we have hundreds of networks like state wide networks and E-governance centres and Organisations like NISG. Since these are already established, therfore, they have to be functional. we know how these are functioning..

  All networks are mostly being used for personal e-mails (not necessarily official mail) without having much for any E-governance applications.
 
Lot of Recurring expenditures being borne by Govt of India for maintaining such networks.
  
  NISG may be section 25 company which can not be given project out rightly by any government agency without having any tender. But NISG bags projects directly from Govt department as single agency and it is surprising to note that NISG, in turn, awards project out rightly to single agency without having any tendering procedure. This is serious issue. Mr Umashankar has reason to raise this issue. We should support his observation.

I am sorry in case some one feels bad about what i wrote. But it is reality that we have to face it sooner or later… Any thing we do wrongly now it will have multiple effect and it will cost government India hugely. Mr. Umashankar has not blamed Mr.Satynarayana personally. May be Mr Satyanarayan has been posted to head an organisation where there is no work at present and has no significant agenda. He is doing it to justify his posting.
  
  Do you all know? when Mr Arun shourie was Minister for D/O Administrative Reforms , Govt Of India, has out rightly rejected the concept of NISG.
  
  Many influential people in India have been establishing organization for their own gratifications but least of them see that these organizations really deliver.

sorry to bother you all
regards
NICSTAFF
_____________________________

Mr Umashankar’s reply to Srivatsa Krishna // http://www.dqindia.com/content/spotlight/2005/105111001.asp

Mr Umashankar's reply to Srivatsa Krishna // http://www.dqindia.com/content/spotlight/2005/105111001.asp

From: <shubhendup@cybermedia.co.in>
To: <vmkumaraswamy@yahoo.com>,
<umashankarc@yahoo.com>
Subject: Mr Umashankar's reply to Srivatsa Krishna
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 12:53:41 +0530

http://www.dqindia.com/content/spotlight/2005/105111001.asp 

The Larger Question

Thursday, November 10, 2005

 I was amused to see the reaction of Srivatsa Krishna in "Counterpoint: Ring-Fencing the Good" (October 15, 2005). He has skirted around the main issue, which is: corruption in the e-procurement/e-governance deal. Instead of giving answers, it has raised more questions. Every Indian citizen who expects honesty in pubic life expects an acceptable explanation from the officials concerned in these allegations. The larger question posed by the chairman of Keonics on the e-procurement scam still remains unanswered, while the corruption dragon had moved on to Karnataka with the same coterie at the forefront. 

NISG, a private limited company, still continues to handle huge e-governance funds of the government, mobilized from sources such as UNDP, while other private companies are not given any such privileges. Promoting Microsoft's proprietary technology in e-governance at a huge cost, when open-source software (OSS) technology is available almost free of cost, raises serious questions too, especially in the light of the developed nations themselves resolving to adopt OSS in e-governance. 

It is imperative that the clouds of doubt on e-governance projects be cleared, as e-governance itself is meant for transparency and reducing corruption. The very fact that someone like me-who had initiated large-scale, process automation-based e-governance initiatives in district administration during 1999-2001-had started doubting the e-governance initiatives at the national level and state level, shows that all is not well with the e-governance initiatives of the nation. 

It is commendable on the part of Dataquest for having taken the pains to understand the true meaning of e-governance. Srivatsa Krishna, IAS, currently has been working with the World Bank in Washington, DC on deputation has aired his personal views. Equally, I have also shared my personal views on the subject of suspected massive corruption in handling funds meant for e-governance. There appears to be a design to monopolize the government's IT spending only through certain chosen companies, using non-transparent means. I have attempted to highlight this irregularity. 

I started my career as sub-collector in Mayiladuthurai (Nagapattinam district) and I was transferred to Cheyyar revenue division of Tiruvannamalai district during January 1994, when I refused to sanction 60,000 bogus cyclone-relief cases.

Then, from Cheyyar, I was posted as additional collector (revenue) in Tiruchirapalli district and thereafter transferred to Madurai (February 1995). While working at Madurai during 1995, I refused to follow the dictates of the then district collector to help siphon off central government funds meant for the rural poor. Again, I was transferred out. This time I moved the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), making serious allegations of corruption in the construction of cremation sheds for the poor. The Madras High court initiated suo moto public interest litigation (PIL) and I was directed to present the facts. I filed an affidavit and on that basis the Madras High Court ordered a CBI enquiry into the scandal in February 1996. Two ministers, several IAS officers, and others have been arrested and charged by the CBI for various offences. The cases are still pending. 

When I questioned the order of transfer and made allegations of corruption, the very same allegation (which is now quoted by Srivatsa Krishna) was made against me before the CAT as well as before the Madras High Court. But the high court ignored those allegations. The truth is that I had earned for the government nearly Rs 15 lakh, by way of interest, by depositing the surplus money of the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), Madurai, in State Bank of India, Madras Main branch during 1995. There is nothing unusual about depositing surplus money in high-interest-yielding deposits. The finance department of every state government does it as a matter of routine with regard to certain earmarked funds. The deposit was in the name of the DRDA (government) and in a government-owned bank (SBI). I used my brother's contact in the process, when he was working in the Tiruchirapalli branch (350 km from Chennai) at that time. For having earned a hefty interest of 11.5% to 13% and an actual accrual of interest to the tune of nearly Rs 15 lakhs, I have been targeted by the accused in the cremation sheds scam as well as by a World Bank official such as Srivatsa! 

It appears that Srivatsa Krishna has easy access to the Tamil Nadu Secretariat's 'strictly confidential' files. Srivatsa is correct that I received a show-cause notice from the current AIADMK government in the beginning of 2004 as to why I deposited money in SBI where my brother was working. This is a confidential issue known only to me and the Government of Tamil Nadu. It is open to question how Srivatsa came to know about this strictly confidential subject of Tamil Nadu's Secretariat. Living in Washington, yet having access to confidential personal information file of an IAS officer in Tamil Nadu Secretariat raises serious questions!

It is a different matter that the deposit was made in Madras main branch of SBI, when my brother was working in Tiruchirapalli (350 kms from Chennai). Srivatsa should also be aware that when I served in Tiruvarur district as its district collector during 1999-2001, large-scale e-governance practices resulted in the district being declared the 'corrupt-free district in TamilNadu' by a group of prominent NGOs in Chennai. I was also declared 'the man of the next millennium among the bureaucrats in India' for e-governance work by the Week magazine in its millennium issue. 

Srivatsa had strongly defended the 'reputation' of IAS officers. I wish I could subscribe to his theory. As a joint vigilance commissioner (1996-97), I had the occasion to look into several files concerning IAS officers. My vigilance 'position notes' submitted to the government would disclose the extent of corruption afflicting politicians, bureaucrats, including IAS officers. Words and deeds should bring out the reputation of an honest officer, not mere gossip. 

As Srivatsa says, Satyanarayana and his NISG are not answerable to the government. This is precisely our concern. NISG, a private limited company, handles crores of rupees of public money. Without the Government of India agreeing to the proposal, UNDP (which is the sole financing agency for NISG) would not have agreed to invest a single penny in the name of e-governance. For that matter, no UN agency can spend its money on India's development unless it gets a case-by-case sanction from the respective ministries in Government of India.

As NISG is a private limited company, it does not come under the purview of the Parliamentary committees, CVC, CBI, or CAG. NISG does not come under the purview of the recently promulgated RTI either. The expected spending on e-governance is to the order of Rs 25,000 crore in the next few years. As Srivatsa matures, he would understand the implications of these words. 

NISG's board cannot enquire into allegations against its own misdeeds, not absolve itself of all the allegations! It would be like acting as judge and the prosecuted simultaneously.

The entrustment of promotion of e-governance to a non-governmental organisation-namely the NISG of which J Satyanarayana is the CEO, and the manner in which e-governance is implemented in the state of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka-requires detailed investigation. I repeat this is my personal view, not the views of any organization in which I am working. 

Srivatsa had also talked about icons in the IAS, in the area of e-governance. India lives in villages. Till date, more than 40% of India's population lives below the poverty line. India has its quota of great icons such as Mahatma Gandhi and Dr Ambedkar. Mahatma Gandhi became an icon because he chose to identify himself with the masses and fought for their freedom. Dr Ambedkar became an icon because he chose to fight for the rights of the so-called untouchables when he could have lived a comfortable life by looking the other way. Among the living, Medha Padkar is a living icon as she chose to represent the tribals who have absolutely no powers. An icon in the field of e-governance should have worked for the upliftment of these masses, using e-governance tools. No one has cared for the widows and the old-age pensioners so far, by using e-governance tools. Although the schemes for these marginalized segments have been in vogue for more than 10 years. There is no e-governance for the upliftment of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes who constitute the worst among the marginalized population in India. There is no e-governance in any of the rural development schemes of the Government of India or in any of the state governments, save for some computerized reporting mechanisms. Bribery, deception, and corruption are part of the lives of these people, who are categorized as 'below the poverty line' in the panchayat registers. Has any icon cared to look at them?

E-seva of Andhra Pradesh or Bangalore One of Karnataka could never come under this category. E-procurement initiative of AP has so many unanswered questions. Real e-governance is yet to be fully spotted in India.

We are not concerned with funds belonging to individuals or private companies. The subject relates to use of public funds to provide e-governance for the welfare of common man. It is a case of trust. When there is an allegation about breach of trust by men entrusted with public money, there should be proper investigation and if it found true, the guilty should be punished. There are attempts to shield the corrupt. The 'Counter point' of Srivatsa Krishna, IAS, only reinforces the resolve to fight corruption more vigorously. 

C Umashankar, IAS Commissioner for Disciplinary Proceedings Salem, Tamil Nadu

eGovINDIA member files Complaint against Mr. Rajiv Chawla IAS., and others in connection with criminal breach of trust and corruption in the processing of centralised e-procurement tender – regarding.

eGovINDIA member files Complaint against Mr. Rajiv Chawla IAS., and others in connection with criminal breach of trust and corruption in the processing of centralised e-procurement tender – regarding.

Before the Hon’ble Lokayukta of Karnataka

Bangalore

S. ANANDA  S/o Shri. Shankarappa, Post Box No. 8512, Bangalore 560 085 Vs. 1. The Chief Secretary to Government of Karnataka, Bangalore. 2. Shri.Rajiv Chawla IAS., Secretary to Government, e-governance Department, Government of Karnataka Sub : Complaint against Mr. Rajiv Chawla IAS., and others in connection with criminal breach of trust and corruption in the processing of centralised e-procurement tender – regarding. I am filing this application in public interest.

I wish to bring to the attention of the Hon'ble Lokayukta about the irregularity and corruption in the processing of tender for centralized e-procurement project. The said tender is floated by the e-governance department headed by Mr.Rajiv Chawla IAS., (Annexure A)

This is a case where the Secretary to Government, e-governance department Mr.Rajiv Chawla IAS., National Institute of Smart Government (NISG), a private limited company formed under the Indian companies Act, 1956, PriceWaterHouse Coopers (PWC), a multinational consultancy agency and C1 India Limited have colluded and framed the entire tendering process only to enable C1 India Limited, to bag the tender for the Karnataka e-procurement contract.

The tender for Karnataka centralized e-procurement project had already been floated with conditions suiting primarily, the consortium participated by C1 India Limited. The applicant submits that KEONICS, a Government of Karnataka undertaking which has been implementing an e-procurement software at an affordable cost in at least 5 departments of Karnataka Government for the past 3 years had been eliminated from the tender process by imposing unreasonable pre qualification conditions.

The applicant submits that equity and rationality demand that an existing player, that too a Government company that had been implementing a similar software solution should also have been enabled to participate in the tender. This had not been done so. The logic of imposing pre qualification conditions in a tender is to ensure that the bidders who are capable of handling the task alone are short listed. Here is the case where KEONICS which had already proved that it is capable of implementing e-procurement solution in Karnataka had been excluded by imposing unreasonable tender conditions.

The unreasonable tender conditions read as follows:

“Pre-qualification Criteria clause 4.5.2 (iv) of Volume II of the RFP states: "The Bidder (single) should have had an average annual turnover of Rs 25 Crores during the last 3 accounting years in IT related operations, as evidenced by the audited accounts of the company (or companies). In case of consortium bids, one of the partners should have had an average annual turnover of Rs. 15 Crores and the other should have had an average annual turnover of Rs. 10 Crores during the last 3 accounting years in IT related operations, as evidenced by the audited accounts of the company (or companies)."

Clause 4.5.2 (v) states :

“The single bidder and in case of consortiums, one of the bidders should be a SEI – CMM level 3 certified company”

      (Annexure B)

Knowing fully well that these conditions would automatically eliminate the existing team combination, viz., KEONICS and their alliance partner, the same had been framed. PSUs/ government organizations do not feel the need to go for the CMM Level 3 certification. Instead, the ISO 9001:2000 certification is obtained as this gives wider spectrum of on-going activities. The officials cannot argue that they had used the tender conditions used for other IT projects, including Bangalore One project, as the e-procurement project is not a new one to Karnataka Government. The present effort is only a refinement of an ongoing project. It is a well understood normal practice that the existing players are also enabled to take part in such tenders. But this had not been done in the present case. There is fraud and corruption in the above deal. The applicant submits that there are ample evidences to support that the above exclusion of KEONICS was not an accidental or bonafide action but an action intended to benefit C1 India Limited. The applicant submits that he had reliable information that KEONICS had objected to its exclusion from the tender process and the same had not been responded to by Mr.Rajiv Chawla IAS., (Annexure C)

The respondents cannot argue that the solution offered by KEONICS is costly or not acceptable as the departments of Karnataka have already been implementing it without any complaint at a cost of Rs.7500 per tender or even cheaper. (Annexure D)

The Committee formed for this evaluation and implementation process does not include the IT / BT Secretary. This clearly indicates the level of manipulation and rigging that has gone into the tender preparation.

The applicant submits that there is a design to plunder the tax payers’ money of Karnataka through the action of Mr.Rajiv Chawla and others by bringing in C1 India Limited which would charge a hefty sum for the e-procurement process directly from the vendors as compared to the KEONICS rates. The applicant submits that in the name of public private partnership (PPP), Mr.Rajiv Chawla and the other respondents herein have planned to hand over the entire revenue collection from the e-procurement process running into crores of rupees to C1 India Limited. On record, these corrupt officials and others attempt to show as though there was going to be a huge saving to government through the proposed PPP route. The fact is that though the Government would not spend money on the proposed centralized e-tender process, it does not mean that the Government is benefiting. The money lost on account of the private partner collecting it directly from the bidders is expected to be huge and the same is a loss to the Government. The entire revenue accruing to the private partner running into crores of rupees is actually the entitlement of the Government. This is chosen to be glossed over by these corrupt officials. If the Government receives the revenue from the bidders while paying a fixed charge to the PPP partner, then the Government would benefit from such huge revenue collection. This had not been done intentionally only to benefit the PPP partner. In order to facilitate this fraud, Mr.Rajiv Chawla IAS., wanted KEONICS which has been providing a cost effective solution to be out of the picture and that explains the unreasonable tender conditions.

The applicant submits that the Government of Karnataka had engaged NISG (National Institute of Smart Government), a private charitable company formed under Section 25 of the Companies Act to assist it in the tender document preparation. NISG is headed by Mr.J.Satyanarayana IAS., who earlier served as IT Secretary in Andhra Pradesh Government. No tender procedure had been adopted before handing over the consultancy project to NISG, which is a private company, not accountable to any Government audit or CBI or CVC jurisdiction. The respondents cannot argue that NISG had offered their consultancy services free of cost and so there is no loss to Government. Because if they had gone for open tender, there may be other professional agencies which might have offered the same on free of cost terms. NISG has no professional experience or expertise in e-procurement. It is a newly formed private limited company. NISG has to necessarily engage private consultants to carry out such projects because it has no in-house expertise to carry out this type of an assignment. NISG had carried out the current e-procurement consultancy contract by engaging the services of PWC only. There is a direct nexus between NISG and PWC to commit this fraud.

Annexure E is the proceedings of the meeting dated 9^th September 2005 which indicates the appointment of NISG as consultant of Karnataka Government for the e-procurement project.

Annexure F is the Consultancy report submitted by PWC to NISG on Karnataka e-procurement project during October 2005.

Annexure G is the copy of Minutes of the meeting of Project Implementation Committee on e-procurement dated 22^nd November 2005 wherein participant serial No.21 Subodh had been shown as member of NISG team whereas the said Subodh is an employee of PWC. This goes to prove that NISG has no technical competence and thus depends on PWC to carry out its operations. The partnership between NISG and PWC is shrouded in mystery. The payment made to PWC towards consultancy charges for this project by NISG is not known.

The applicant submits that NISG has been handling public money received from UNDP, an international donor agency. I submit that the taxpayer had paid for the consultancy services indirectly through NISG and hence the claim of free of cost service by NISG is only a ruse bring in PWC and to ward of healthy competition from other professional consultants.

The allegation is that Mr.J.Satyanarayana IAS., who heads NISG now, had illegally favoured the multi national consultant company Price WaterHouse Coopers (PWC) in majority of contracts handled by him. Dataquest, a leading IT magazine had enquired into the allegations against Mr.J.Satyanarayana and found the allegations substantiated in as much as that J.Satyanarayana had illegally favoured PWC during his assignment as IT Secretary in Andhra Pradesh and also as CEO of NISG. I am enclosing a copy of the Dataquest publication as Annexure H.

The applicant submits that NISG, under J.Satyanarayana IAS., had engaged PWC to act as its consultant in the preparation of the tender documents for Karnataka centralized e-procurement project. PWC had already been engaged by NISG to carry out the same task for other governments such as Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh. The applicant submits that preparation of such tender document does not require the services of PWC repeatedly as the task is the same for all over India. A tender document prepared earlier would have been sufficient. When matters stand like this, NISG in the name of providing free service to the States has been granting the consultancy work to PWC repeatedly thus offering it lakhs of rupees consultancy fee unnecessarily, if not illegally. The money handled by NISG belongs to Government of India. There is a sinister connection between J.Satyanarayana IAS., and PWC. 

The applicant submits that the sinister connection can be understood from the fact that PWC, after acting consultant for AP government had joined the implementing partner C1 India Limited in the implementation of e-procurement project in Andhra Pradesh itself.

Projects such as this one have two components viz., consultancy portion which results in preparation of tender / request for proposal (RFP) document and the second part is actual tendering to choose the vendor for execution of the project. Internationally there is a ban on a project consultant who prepares the RFP from taking part in the implementation. Because, the consultant in such contracts, takes over the Government’s role in preparing the tender/RFP documents. If the very same consultant bids and executes the project, then there is every reason to suspect that the consultant had pre configured the tender documents to illegally favour themselves. This would be a clear breach of trust. The applicant submits that a gross impropriety had been committed by PWC when it joined C1 India Limited in the implementation of e-procurement solution of Andhra Pradesh Government after acting as consultant for preparation of RFP. PWC again committed the same impropriety when it jointly bid for the e-procurement project along with C1 India Limited for the tender floated by National Informatics Centre (NIC), Delhi. The role of PWC in the NIC tender was not consultant but an implementing agency. When they were tender partners for implementation of e-procurement solution for NIC, Delhi, PWC continued to act as consultant for Government of Karnataka and Chattisgarh for the very same e-procurement project. In all these tenders, C1 India Limited had taken part in the tender process based on the tender documents prepared by PWC! This goes against the principles of equity, fairness and logic. The respondents cannot argue that they were not aware of the impropriety committed by PWC because DATAQUEST in its publication dated 2^nd September 2005 had published its research findings and openly questioned the modus operandi adopted by PWC and NISG. Moreover the respondents are directly involved in almost all these projects and thus lack of knowledge cannot be a defense at all.

Dataquest report had brought out the nexus between PWC and C1 India as follows:

“While PWC was a consultant for Government of AP e-procurement project that was bagged by C1 India, the two companies joined hands as partners to bid and bag NIC's e-procurement project recently. All this, while PWC is still working as the consultant responsible for preparing the RFP (Request For Proposal) for the GoK (Government of Karnataka) and GOCG (Government of Chattisgarh) e-procurement projects”.

The applicant submits that there is corruption in the Karnataka centralized e-procurement project. The applicant submits that the respondents have to be prosecuted and punished through ordering an impartial enquiry into the tender rigging.

The applicant submits that the very same Mr.J.Satyanarayana IAS., is involved in the Bangalore One Project and chose the company viz., Ram Infotech / CMS consortium that had already implemented a similar project in Hyderabad. The Hon'ble Lokayukta has been investigating a complaint in this regard.

In the present case also, Mr.J.Satyanarayana IAS., acting as CEO of NISG is deeply involved in collaboration with Mr.Rajiv Chawla IAS., Secretary to Government, e-governance department to illegally favour PWC and its partner C1 India Limited. Both these officials wish to bring in PWC and its partner C1 India Limited which had implemented the AP's e-procurement contract through corrupt and illegal means. There appears to be a direct invisible connection between Mr.J.Satyanarayana of NISG, PWC and its partner C1 India Limited in as much as one can presume that they all represent one entity.

The applicant submits that he had received the following analysis from a leading independent researcher about the current e-procurement tender vis a vis C1 India which is allegedly the favoured bidder of Rajiv Chawla IAS., and J.Satyanarayana IAS.,

“The ITI-C1 bid states that C1's turnover in the last 3 financial years is Rs. 4 cr, Rs. 7 cr, and Rs. 21 cr, thus averaging Rs. 10.66 cr and therefore appearing to qualify. However, it is factually known (see  http://www.eprocurement.gov.in/news/leaderInepro.asp ) that C1's turnover for 31st March 2005 was approximately Rs. 6 crores.

Furthermore, in the MPLUNL (Madhya Pradesh Laghu Udyog Nigam Limited) tender which C1 won late last year, their declared turnover backed by CA certificates was: 2002-03: Rs. 3.65 cr, 2003-04: Rs. 3.46 cr, and 2004-05: Rs. 6.35 cr. An inquiry to the CMD of MPLUNL will confirm this.

Therefore, we can assume that their declared turnover in GOK correspond to 2003-04 (Rs. 4 cr), 2004-05 (Rs. 7 cr), and 2005-06 (Rs. 21 cr). However, GOK bids were submitted on 28th March 2006, and hence the big question is how could C1 have submitted audited accounts for 2005-06?”

If the allegation contained in the above information is true, then C1 India Limited had submitted fraudulent turnover figures to qualify in the bid. The applicant submits that C1 India Limited/ITI consortium had already been qualified in the Karnataka e-procurement tender. The applicant learns and believes that the information received above is dependable and thus the entire project needs to be probed by an independent agency to safeguard public interest.

Grounds

1. The e-governance department headed by Rajiv Chawla IAS., had chosen National Institute of Smart Government (NISG), a private limited company to carry out the consultancy assignment for the centralized e-procurement project without routing through tender process. There is corruption and fraud in the appointment of NISG without routing through tender process. NISG had been shown such favour only to bring in Pricewaterhouse Coopers, a multinational consultancy company through back door method to carry out a huge corrupt deal. There is a corrupt and illegal understanding among NISG and PWC to promote C1 India Limited, a partner of PWC all over India, including Karnataka. The appointment of PWC as consultant for the current project when its partner has been taking part in tenders based on the documents prepared by PWC itself indicates a gross criminal breach of trust.

1. KEONICS, which is a Government owned company has been successfully implementing an e-procurement solution in at least 5 departments of Karnataka Government for the past 3 years. In other words, KEONICS had proved beyond doubt its capability to carry out the e-procurement project. But KEONICS had been denied from participation in the tender illegally through unreasonable pre qualification conditions. There is fraud and corruption in such prescribing unreasonable conditions. An existing Government player had been denied their right to participate in this tender in order to favour C1 India Limited who are partners of PWC which had prepared the tender documents.

1. In as much as there is every reason to believe that there is an unholy nexus between Rajiv Chawla IAS., NISG headed by J. Satyanarayana IAS., PWC and C1 India Limited. The unholy nexus is intended to favour C1 India Limited to bag the e-procurement tender without allowing competitors to take part in the tender.

1. The intentions of the corrupt officials and others is to cause a huge loss to the Government and ensure that the revenue intended for the Government is cornered by the PPP partner, in this case C1 India Limited. This is sought to be achieved by allowing the PPP partner to directly collect a huge service charge from the bidders who take part in the e-tender. Thus, crores of rupees of money meant for government is sought to be routed to the PPP partner without any public interest.

1. PWC, which had acted as consultant in this project through NISG had already been executing e-procurement projects in partnership with C1 India Limited in Andhra Pradesh and Delhi Governments. Thus the entire tender process, using the services of PWC was a ruse to hand over the contract to their partner C1 India Limited. There is apparent cheating, fraud and corruption in the deal.

1. The nexus between J.Satyanarayana IAS., and PWC had been clearly brought out by a leading magazine, Dataquest which had been submitted as annexure herewith. The partnership between PWC and C1 India limited is an admitted fact.

1. Mr.Rajiv Chawla IAS., has a direct understanding with NISG and PWC to commit this fraud and is fully responsible for all the above misdeeds. Mr.Rajiv Chawla had allowed NISG & PWC to manage this project knowing fully well the criminal breach of trust committed by PWC and C1 India Limited by joining hands in execution of e-procurement projects elsewhere.

1. An allegation petition is already pending before the Hon’ble Karnataka Lokayukta against Rajiv Chawla IAS., and J.Satyanarayana IAS., of NISG on allegations of rigging the ‘Bangalore One’ tender to corner the tender in favour of a pre selected bidder M/s Ram Infotech / CMS consortium.

      

Prayer:

There is fraud, corruption and criminal breach of trust in the Karnataka e-procurement tendering. It is prayed that the Hon’ble Lokayukta may call for the original records pertaining to the Karnataka centralized e-procurement project and cancel the tender process declaring it void ab initio. The guilty should be appropriately proceeded against for the fraud, criminal breach of trust and corruption.

Interim relief, if any, sought for:

Pending the detailed enquiry, the Hon’ble Lokayukta may stay further proceedings of the e-procurement tender processing.

Reply from DIT on NISG and CEO of NISG – These are important questions which the nation needs an answer.

Venkat Kumaraswamy <vmkumaraswamy@yahoo.com> wrote:

Dear Mr. R. Chandrashekar
Joint Secretary of eGovernance of GOI and DIT,

You have made the following statement to DATAQUEST on the report.

Replying on behalf of the DIT, the Joint Secretary R Chandrashekhar said that while DIT was not the competent authority to take action on any "allegations" relating to his (Satyanarayna's) tenure with the GOAP, "the facts referred to in the letter relating to his tenure as CEO NISG have already been placed before the Board of NISG and the board has not found any substance in the content of the petition."

Can you write to us who are all on the BOARD of NISG please. Can you provide us with copies of MINUTES of these discussions please.

Are you sure NISG Board did not find anything on CEO of NISG ?
What people are raising is not concern to NISG Board about CEO of NISG ?
Do you think all Consulting Contracts awarded to PWC by CEO of NISG is COINCENDENTAL ? Can you explain to us please ?
DIT is the one which started NISG, YES or NO  ??
DIT and DARPG are Govt. of INDIA entities, YES or NO?

How did you allow NASSCOM to be 51% partner in NISG as eGovernance Secretary of INDIA ? What business NASSCOM has in NISG or eGovernance of INDIA ?

NASSCOM is JUST an Association of all IT - BT - Companies in INDIA. They need to be away from these kind of partnerships. That too with GOI.

We expect responses from you on these questions and to our emails.

E-mail is an efficient and timely communication tool used to carry out departmental activities and to conduct business within the Government of India, with business partners and with citizens. E-mail has become an important component of any office automation system. It expedites exchange of information, speeds up the decision making process and reduces paperwork, resulting in increased productivity, reduced costs and better delivery of services and programmes.

http://darpg.nic.in/Content/Guidelines-emailDec04.doc

THIS I DID NOT WRITE. IT is from GOVT. of INDIA.

Expecting a reply for this,

Sincerely

V. M. Kumaraswamy, MBA

Components of MISSION MODE e-governance approach – Dataquest Panel discussion summary dated 1st March 06

Components of MISSION MODE e-governance approach – Dataquest Panel discussion summary dated 1st March 06

 15-3-06

Dear all,
We have been hearing about Mission mode e-governance projects.
The word mission signifies a lot of things.
Are these aspects happen in the  mission mode projects of Government of India and the States?
Dataquest had invited me to take part in a panel discussion on national e-gov action plan implementation. I spoke on only one aspect, viz., mission mode e-gov: what is it?
I am appending below the opinion aired by me during the panel discussion (using an open source software laptop)

—

Mission mode e-governance – What is it?

The mission of mission mode e-gov:

Empowering the citizens and other stake holders with better, efficient, corrupt free and transparent public services.

Different strategies for Central Government and State Government e-gov projects.

The clientèle of Central government is different from the States. Central Government's interaction with the cutting edge is too minimal. Implementation of central Government e-gov projects is comparatively easier due to the largely affluent nature of the clientèle.

The States have the largest coverage of citizen centric public services, including services to the most needy such a the SC/ST, people below the poverty line, women and other backward classes. More mission mode e-governance projects are needed under the States. Involvement of the States as well as their pro active leadership is too vital a parameter for the success of State specific e-governance projects.

State Governments are the most important partners and also stake holders in such initiatives vis a vis the Central Government which has been spearheading the e-gov movement from the top at present.

Components of mission:

It signifies a missionary approach

Just like the way Mother Teresa worked for the people SELFLESSLY.

Components of a missionary approach:

It presupposes the presence of missionaries who are ready to work SELFLESSLY.

It is voluntary in nature. Nominated persons don't suit here.

No scope for profit motto.

Leading from the front.

Ability to shed ego

Willingness to consult/listen to all segments of the stake holders in an open and transparent manner.

Ability to move with the stake holders, notably the common man.

Missionaries in Government for e-gov:

In the government, mission mode means the presence of missionary like officials at all levels starting from the IAS cadre to the Village officers.

These missionaries are called CHAMPIONS.

Champions from within – Who and How?

Conscious effort to identify the true champion products.

Bureaucrats, by definition are not fit to champion any initiative. There is a meagre percentage of bureaucrats who were missionaries but had joined the civil services. Those missionaries among the bureaucrats who had not shed their original self are fit to lead any mission mode project, including e-governance. This definition is applicable for bureaucracy at all levels, starting from the IAS cadre to the Village officer level.

The champions have to VOLUNTARILY submit for the mission. Nominated persons can never champion any true pro people cause.

Champions from within – the role of National Informatics Centre (NIC)

NIC which had successfully implemented the country's most successful e-gov project, viz., the BHOOMI is yet to be utilised by the rest of the nation for such fruitful and citizen centric initiatives. Even Karnataka is yet to move beyond the BHOOMI with the assistance of NIC.

NIC, with its presence in all the districts of India for the past 20 years is a largely under utilised giant. The Champions need to be sensitised about the presence of this resource for a mission mode approach.

Champions from outside:

1. Civil Society Partners as champions
   Already this has been happening. Unless the Government leads with its own champions, the role of civil society partners cannot be fully utilised.

2. Politicians as champions: Politicians and people's representatives form an important stake holders in the implementation of e-governance, especially mission mode e-governance. A conscious effort has to be made to bring out the champions among the politicians/ people's representatives.

3. Private corporate as champions: Companies such as IBM, Oracle, Microsoft etc., have been championing e-governance for sometime. These corporate bodies have successfully moved the sleeping giant to realise the importance of e-governance. This had come at a huge investment from these corporate bodies. Their profit motive vs. the citizen satisfaction have be harmonised while keeping in view that the Government does not abdicate its role in favour of any corporate body, including any Government company.

4. The media as champion for mission mode e-governance: Media has a great role in championing true e-governance initiatives including mission mode e-gov initiatives. The media has the ability to inform the largest stake holders, that is the citizens, about the e-gov activities.

5. Pressure groups such as egovINDIA or India-egov Yahoo groups: The e-groups have a greater role in moulding the mission mode projects as long as there is a real champion in the helm of affairs in Government. For example, the Chief RTI Commissioner interacts with the citizens directly through the e-gov groups. The e-groups provide a direct view point of the stake holders, notably the common man.

EMPOWRING the champions from within:

This is the most crucial area for a mission mode approach. The champions who had been identified on “voluntary” basis need to be protected. The first protection one expects is security of tenure. The other areas are as follows:

• Milestones for achievement are to be fixed in advance – use of MoU methodology preferred.

• Operational freedom, including financial freedom.

• Authority has to go along with operational freedom. (In government, the lower bureaucracy co-operates only when a person in authority leads. This includes disciplining authority)

• Protection from victimisation.

Empowering the champions from outside:

Missionary approach pre supposes the death of ego. This also presupposes that the “missionary” considers all the champions from outside as important “partners” in the delivery of the mission goals.

The champions from outside can be empowered mostly through open and transparent way of implementation of e-gov action plan. Every iota of information has to be published online. There is no scope for terms such as “proprietary and confidential” in any document or communication from the e-governance desk.

The second method is to initiate extensive and intensive field studies involving the champions from outside. Debates are a part of the process.

An active follow up mechanism is to be commissioned to enable these champions to communicate their views and get feedback from the e-gov missions almost in an online fashion.

The BASIC RULES:

A mission mode approach presupposes 24/7 open channel of communication with all the stake holders.

It is like the death of bureaucratic style in place of Mother Teresa style.

Open source or cross platform applications or proprietary applications to be promoted. A healthy and open debate is also in order.

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

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

Chennai:
Ph: 91-44-52054443

eProcurement Case Background // Govt. of Chattisgarah and Govt. of Karnataka need to watch // FRAUD is going on eProcurement RFP’s of Govt. of Karnataka and Govt. of Chattisgarah // eGovernance Secretary of GOK is MISLEADING Ministers

 Re: [eGovINDIA] eProcurement Case Background // Govt. of Chattisgarah and Govt. of Karnataka need to watch // FRAUD is going on eProcurement RFP's of Govt. of Karnataka and Govt. of Chattisgarah // eGovernance Secretary of GOK is MISLEADING Ministers

WHAT WE ALL NEED TO KNOW about the eProcurement RFP's and TENDER Documents.NISG is CORRUPTING eGovernance in INDIA.

NISG has been reported to UNDP for not following TRANSPARENCY and ACCOUNTABILITY and Right to Information Act 2005 and now UNDP has initiated INVESTIGATIONS on NISG.

NISG and eGovernance Secretaries of each State are hand in hand to select the eProcurement Companies by RFP and TENDER documents to suit particular bidders.

They are trying to eliminate companies which are all ready doing business of eProcurement in diferent states in INDIA by setting HIGH TURN OVER AMOUNTS for the last THREE YEARS in the RFP and TENDER documents.

eProcurement VENDORS should not be setting up DATA CENTERS of GOK and GOC. This should be stopped. It is the STATE's responsibility.

FRAUD, DECEPTION, CHEATING going on in eProcurement RFP's of Govt. of Karnatka "GOK" and Govt. of Chattisgarah "GOC".

EVEN the NEW RFP's and TENDER DOCUMENTS of GOK and GOC are DOCTORED to suit particular companies. RFP's promoting SINGLE VENDOR. The company which is being promoted does not have good presence and name in the open market.

eProcurement Case Background

1. October 2000
Information Technology Act 2000 was passed. Use of 128 Bit SSL & Digital
Certificate made mandatory for ecommerce activities. As per IT ACT 2000 for
any electronic document to be legally valid, it should be digitally signed by
Digital Certificate issued by any Liscensed Certifyign Agency (CA) approve by
Controller of Certifying Agency (CCA).

2. September 2001
Government of Andhra Pradesh (GoAP) Core implementation committee was
formed to implement eProcurement and PWC (Price water house coopers was
appointed as consultant). They were paid Rs. 1.75 Cr for 5 projects, approx Rs. 35Lakh/Project as consultancy fee. Ref. pwc hired as consultant.pdf.

3. Feb 2002
CCA granted license to Safescrypt on 5th February, 2002, India's first CA.
SAFESCRYPT Ltd, a Satyam Infoway company affiliated with VeriSign Inc,
issued the country's first digital signature certificate to the Minister for
Communications and IT & Parliamentary Affairs, Mr Pramod Mahajan, at an
official ceremony here on Wednesday.
SafeScrypt is the first Indian company to get a certifying authority licence for
digital signature from the Controller of Certifying Authorities (CCA). The
company received this licence earlier this week.

4. In Feb 2002,
Department of Public Relation, Madhya Pradesh floated a tender for eTendering,
eProcurement which categorically specified that IT ACT 2000 needs to be
complied and Digital Certificate/SSL/PKI should be used to ensure secrecy of
price bid. No MNC consultant appointed to draft tender document. 5 Companies
participate in the same including Applitech Tenercity.com I Pvt. Ltd (Tendercity),
NexTenders, ITI/Antares, CNet, etc.

5. May 2002
Sometime in May 2002, GoAP floated a Tender for eProcurement software more
specifically eTendering and Reverse Auction engine by Govt. of AP. No mention
of PKI/SSL/Digital Certificate � what was Rs. 35 Lakh paid to then to PWC?

6. Mid 2002
Out of many bidders who had submitted the tender a consortium comprising of
C1 India Pvt. Ltd., Microsoft & Antares System Ltd & Compaq had submitted the
bid. Other bidders included companies like Wipro and consortium of Boradvision
and TCS. Consortium head by C1 India Pvt. Ltd (C1) won the tender. GoAP
approves rate of Rs.4500/Tender (GoAP Pays) & 0.24% of the Tender Value
(winning bidder pays to C1 India Directly)

7. In June 2002,
GoAP enters into a secret agreement with C1 India to do a pilot project and not
the consortium which had won the contract? WHY?

8. On 29 th Jan 2003,
www.eprocurement.gov.in launched without compliance to IT ACT 2000, Digital
Certificate, PKI. GoAP gives lame excuse that since Digital Certificates are not
available, hence the same was not integrated in spite of the fact that first Digital
Certificate was issued to Shri. Promod Mahajan as early as Feb 2002.
What started as a Pilot Project for nine months, gets extended for another 9
month unilaterally in spite of the fact that system did not comply to IT ACT
2000.

9. Jan 2003
C1 India gets a 128 bit SSL Certificate from Verisign for
www.eprocurement.gov.in domain? WHY?
1.) .gov.in domain belongs to only government organizations, how come the same was issued to a private company.
2.) 128 Bit SSL was procured from a US Company, whereas IT Act mandates that it should be procured only from liscensed CA. Why was the same not procured from TCS, Safescrypt.
3.) TCS, Safescrypt would have never issued a 128 Bit SSL certificate to C1 India Pvt. Ltd, as .gov.in domain belongs to only Govt. departments. A US company issued the same without any verification, because they were interested in dollars.

10. March 2003
PWD, Chhattisgarh floats a tender for eTendering with Department of Public
Relations, Madhya Pradesh specifications.
Tendercity, C1 India, Wipro, Antares/ITI, Nex Tener & other 3 companies
participated in the tender. Tender gets awarded to NexTender, a mumbai based
company in spite of Tendercity Being the lowest Bidder.

11. April 2003
C1 quotes to PWD, Chhattisgarh Rs. 1000/Tender as fix service charge
irrespective of Tender Value & No fee to be paid by PWD, Chhattisgarh?
Tendercity shares the same information with GoAP. GoAP calls for a steering
committee and yet no action is taken to revise fee being paid to C1 India i.e.
Rs. 4500/Tender (GoAP pays) & 0.24% of Tender Value (winning bidder pays)

12. July 2003
The first lawsuit under Indian cyber law, Antares Systems Ltd, the Bangalore-
based IT firm, has filed a case against an e-governance project in the Delhi High
Court for alleged infringement of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and unfair
competition. The case has been filed against C1 India Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of
Nasdaq-listed CommerceOne. The Government of Andhra Pradesh and Principal
Secretary, Department of IT and Communications, AP have been arraigned as
parties.
Antares has urged the Delhi HC that C1 India and the AP Government be
restrained from infringing its copyright in its e-tendering software product
Tenderwizard and from relying upon, in any manner whatsoever, the features of
Tenderwizard, said the company's Senior Vice-President, Mr R. Kamath.

13. July 2003
India's First Digitally Singed eTender was enabled by Tendercity for Madhya
Pradesh Poorva Kshetra Vidyut Vitran Company Ltd, Madhya Pradesh Electrictiy
Board, MP (MPPKVVCL, MPSEB,MP). 10 Digital Certificates (TCS) were
issued to contractors across India.

14. December, 2003
Northern Railway floats a Tender for eTendering. C1 India, Wipro/NexTender,
Antares, HCL, Tendercity Participated in the tender. Tender awarded to
HCL/Boradvision Consortium. Rate approved Less than Rs.1500/Tender. GoAP
takes no action and does not revise the service fee it pays to C1 India.

15. Feb 2004
Tendercity writes letter to IT Secretary, GoAP, and Principle Secretary GoAP and bring to their notice that PKI compliance is not there on eprocurement.gov.in and that the eTendering services available at a very competitive rates in open market. No Action taken by the GoAP Officers.

16. Mid 2004
On PWC recommendations, JV option was dropped (JV between eTendering
service provider and Government of AP) and eProcurement services was
continued to be used in ASP model
Why did PWD suggested not to go ahead with JV option? probably because in
case of JV Government of AP would have made a lot of money? Total fee
reimbursed by GoAP & Various Bidder to C1 India in last 3 years is in tune of
Crores of Rupees. If GoAP had procured the software, it would have costed
Rs. 0, because that what C1/PWC quoted to NIC, in December 2004 for
eTendering Software.

17. July 2004
GoAP steering committee meets in October, 2004. Price bid revised to as follows w.e.f. 1 st April 2004 as follows
– GoAP pays nothing � i.e. Rs. 4,500/Tender waived off
– For Tender<50 Cr � each participating bidder pays 0.04% of Tender value or
Rs.10,000/Tender as processing fee, which ever is higher.
– For Tender>50 Cr � each participating bidder pays 0.04% of Tender value or
Rs.25,000/Tender as processing fee, which ever is higher.
– Still the same is very very high compared to open market rates. GoAP Continues with C1 India, when the contract though an illegal contract.
– GoAP accepts non compliance of IT ACT 2002 and yet gives C1 India 6 month
period to make their product PKI enabled, by March 2005. Why, was the project
not scrapped in then and then itself till the PKI compliance was not complete.

18. December 2004
PWC Partners with C1 India for NIC tender for eTendering.
Having played a instrumental role in causing great exchequer loss of GoAP, by
recommending ASP Mode, C1 India reward PWC with partnership for NIC
Tender. C1 ditched PWC (presumably) by quoting Rs.0 as software price to
NIC.

19. 1st April 2005
Digital certificates made mandatory from April 2005. Digital certificate are used
only of Authentication purpose at time of Login. Only price bids are digitally
signed and leaving room for service provider to tamper with technical bids,
document uploaded, etc.

20. Mid 2005
Tendercity alleges of eProcurement scam in one of the reply it filed in Delhi
High Court. The same document is shared with various AP departments, but no
action is taken.

21. 24 thNovember 2005,
Tendercity demonstrate to IT Secretary Shri Narsing Roa, the loopholes and
security defects in www.eprocuremnet.gov.in in person in his chamber. IT
Secretary assures that proper action will be taken against the culprits.
Tendercity gets an invitation from HUDA for demonstration of security loopholes
in the system but the same is postponed by CE after a brief 5 minute meeting.
Reason for postponement not specified. Subsequent meeting doe not take place.

22. 3rdDecember, 2005
Tendercity demonstrates to Principle Secretary & MD APTS the security
loopholes in www.eprocuremnet.gov.in and ideal security features that should be
enabled. Principle Secretary IT&C promise to take the appropriate action.

23. 5th December, 2005
GoAP accepts vide their email dated 5 th December, 2005 that
1.) www.eprocurement.gov.in is property of GoAP
2.) GoAP sees no harm if a 128 Bit SSL Certificate has be procured from USA
instead from a licensed CA as per CCA norms and that too by C1 India. In
layman terms it means a private company owns www.eprocurement.gov.in
3.) GoAP accepts that till December 2005, price bid submitted by 10,000 of
contractors 9800 eTender enabled so far reached the server in readable fashion
without any encryption, but that OK. It's public money and it can go down the
drain.
4.) GoAP accepts that only C1 India can access the Price bid of contractors, as
they are the system administrator and super Admin of the website. Since no
government office has access to database, and generally they are corrupt the
system is secure. As per GoAP, private company which has been given the
custody of Rs.32,000 Cr. worth of eTender price bid security are trustworthy and
walking gods.
5.) GoAP states that C1 India does not access the readable price bid of all
contractors that is there in Database, and which can be accessed by C1 India
anytime from anywhere. GoAP goes on record that since not a single case of
tampering has been raised, there is nothing wrong with present system and they
have full faith on C1 India. They have full faith on PWC, so what if they partner
with C1 India for other government departments.
6.) GoAP does not care about Antares software being illegally used, since the
matter is sub-judice.
7.) GoAP has accepted that the system was so insecure, that had they told the
contactors and public at large about the security loopholes, no contractor would
have submitted the bid and hence all contractors, public, government officers
were kept in dark about the security loophole.
8.) GoAP has accepted that Detached Signature and Server Side encryption are
international practice as per their MNC consultant PWC, so what if C1 India get
the privilege to access the price bid of each and every contractors.

24. 10 th December, 2005
To cover things up, IT Secretary gives a clean chit to Service provider � C1 India
by means of issuing unsigned certificate making a claim that there is nothing
wrong with the system.
__________________________________

Please read this article.

The E-governance Muddlehttp://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

If any of you need any more information, please write to me.

Thanks

Sincereley

V. M. Kumaraswamy, MBA

WHO provided the information to Srivatsa Krishna, IAS is currently with the World Bank in Washington, DC. ?

WHO provided the information to Srivatsa Krishna, IAS is currently with the World Bank in Washington, DC. ?

Is it Srivatsa Krishna former bosses – ???
J. Sathyanaryana of NISG  or R Chandrashekhar of DIT?
Did Government of Tamilnadu provided the information ?

How can Srivatsa Krishna IAS officer working in a World Bank in USA, would know about CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION which is not PUBLISHED nor came up in any COURT PROCEEDINGS of COURTS in CHENNAI ? Who is providing the information to Srivatsa Krishna IAS

The E-governance Muddle – Ring-Fencing the Good – Dataquest response

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

Ring-Fencing the Good Friday, October 28, 2005 http://www.dqindia.com/content/industrymarket/newsanalysis/2005/105102801.asp Counter Point to E-Governance Muddle by Srivatsa Krishna, IAS is currently with the World Bank in Washington, DC. These are his personal views and not of  any organization he is associated with in any form or manner. How can Srivatsa Krishna IAS officer working in a World Bank in USA, would know about CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION which is not PUBLISHED nor came up in any COURT PROCEEDINGS of COURTS in CHENNAI ? Who is providing the information to Srivatsa Krishna IAS

Counterpoint: http://www.dqindia.com/content/industrymarket/newsanalysis/2005/105102801.asp

Main Article: http://www.dqindia.com/content/search/showarticle.asp?artid=74532

 ———————————–

12 | October 15, 2005 DATAQUEST | dqindia.com | A CyberMedia Publication

Counterpoint

India singularly lacks icons. Neither does India know as to how to celebrate its icons. Much of this is true except perhaps in the world of sports, software and movies, where we do cherish our icons. This is in response to “The Egovernance Muddle” by Shubendhu Parth dated September 2, 2005. R Chandrashekhar and J Satyanarayana are not ordinary IAS officers — they are icons of the IAS, the creators of e-governance in India, and are responsible for creating from scratch, projects which have added tremendous value to the everyday life of the harried common man. If they had been born in any other country, like the United States, they would have been held up as national treasures. But, we, rather than applauding their feats, and recognizing how many minefields they had to go through professionally to make them happen, choose the easy path of sending an email or two, writing trash and innuendo hoping that it would substitute for solid analysis which ought to precede an investigative article.

Slaying middle class icons through an unfair and one sided trial by media is wrong and unfair. It is shocking to see that a magazine of Dataquest’s repute can lend its credibility to any sleaze and stoop to such levels.

It wouldn’t be difficult for someone to talk to a few rivals and concoct some allegations against the author concerned or anyone else and write an equally strong article. Will DQ publish that too? DQ must understand that the power it has, comes with a responsibility to use it sanely and not just find a conspiracy theory (and a conspiracy theorist) to fit every story deadline; nor can reporters be allowed to pass off innuendo as analysis, and rubbish as evidence to support it, all to permanently tarnish the reputation of an honest IAS officer. And reputation is the only asset that an IAS officer earns during his lifetime in the service. To allow it to be tarnished at the hands of a cub reporter, who has no clue either how to do an investigative piece, is simply sacrilege.

I have had the singular privilege of working with both these gentlemen for several years. Not once, not on a single occasion, was there a mis-step, or a dubious suggestion or even the whiff of being pliable or favoring anyone. Not once.

These are officers who would rather break than bend. By the way, for the record, I do not work with the government any longer, haven’t been in touch with Mr Satyanarayana since I left India, don’t have anything to do with e-governance anymore and don’t really have to stand up for either of my colleagues, lest someone is quick to dismiss my arguments as brown nosing.

I am doing so, only because I feel strongly about the general principle of ring-fencing the good, and know enough about the person in question, have seen the lifestyle he lives, have observed the decisions he makes from close quarters and the principles he values, to believe that the charges in DQ’s article are simply blasphemous.

Onto the allegations of misconduct:

[First] NISG is not a public sector undertaking. It is owned 51% by India’s best private IT players, and 49% by the government. Those very players whom Dataquest has put up on a pedestal, time and time again (and for good reasons), as national treasures. So Satyanarayana is technically not really answerable to the government, much less to every carping critic. He is answerable to the Board of NISG, which has government nominees, which he himself opted to do, by placing the various charges against him, in front of them. And the Board, in all its wisdom dismissed them as rubbish. A credible reporter would have checked this.

[Second] I have known Pradeep Gupta, a distinguished alumnus of IIT and IIM, and the publisher of DQ, to be a fine gentleman and a tremendous supporter of the IT industry. If all that is needed to be done is to send an email with some make-believe allegations, perhaps titled: “Are you the CEO of Cyber- Media or are you corrupt?” to make a DQ cub reporter scramble to write a piece that can tarnish a sincere and good person’s reputation in print, every business rival will send an email avalanche right away! If an over-enthusiastic reporter decides to act as irresponsibly as he has done now on every piece of gossip that he chances upon, perhaps to beat some other publication to carrying it, no honest IAS officer will everbe able to function in India.

[Third] It is a sad moment for the IAS, that someone like C Umashankar, who is personally known to be not corrupt and who has done some good work in Tiruvarur, has chosen such a medium to attack another service colleague. These allegations have as much credibility as the allegations that Umashankar as Additional Collector, Tiruchirapalli, deposited DRDA funds into a bank, where his own brother was the branch manager! (Incidentally, Umashankar himself has been served a show cause notice by the Government of Tamil Nadu on this and other charges, and jumping to the conclusion that Satyanarayana is corrupt, would be as ridiculous as jumping to one about Umashankar’s honesty before the enquiry is completed). Would it be fair to write off the good work that he did in Tiruvarur if some crank chooses to send an email or two against him, even if that crank is in the IAS or in the media?

[Fourth] Since when was it mandated by the Constitution that the CVC has to Ring-Fencing the Good respond to every piece of trash emailed to him by some cub reporter, which itself is then used as evidence of Satyanarayana’s guilt! Does the CVC have nothing better to do? Whatever happened to the principle of locus standi?

[Fifth] The story is factually incorrect about Umashankar being a member of DIT’s working group on the implementation of e-governance. Another example of factual inaccuracy in the story.

[Sixth] Is NISG under some Constitutional obligation to ensure that it equitably distributes its projects in a socialistic spirit among every Tom, Dick and Harry, who decides to float an IT consulting firm and bid for a project? It is quite natural that there will be firms who will get more projects than some others. Without studying every tender, their terms and conditions, the bidders and their proposals, how can [the author] come to such shocking conclusions so trivially?! Merely because 6 projects went to PWC—why even if all 10 projects were to go to PWC—does it mean that there was corruption involved? It is ridiculous to arrive at this conclusion, prima facie, based on just this and the fact that another IAS officer is saying so!

[Lastly] Just because someone goes for a limited tender, does it mean that there is corruption involved? Why is that route available to administrators at all, in the first place, if using it would be equated with being corrupt? Would any IAS officer ever be proactive or take risks to serve the common weal? And then the very same cub reporter, would write that the IAS is indecisive; that IAS officers do not take decisions, that there are delays in implementing projects of national importance etc. In such circumstances would even the most dynamic IT CEO of India, dare take decisions? And on the side continue to fight all those, from within and outside the system, who have no ‘conduct’ rules, whereas for the honest IAS officer every possible ‘conduct’ rule is supposed to apply? This kind of a thing will happen only to someone who is trying to do something good, not to someone who does nothing at all and is a mere spectator inside the government.

If DQ wanted to truly do an honest investigative piece, it should have found out the reasons for a limited tender and whether they were malafide in any way, shown that tender conditions were manipulated, that they were manipulated by Satyanarayana to favour a particular firm, and that there was a ‘quid pro quo” (as required by law) involved somewhere, to prove his malfeasance. To rely on emails floating around in a chat group as concrete evidence of proof of corruption against someone who has done solid, enduring work, and whose reputation precedes him for 30 years in the IAS as an impeccably honest officer, is a great dis-service to egovernance, to credible journalism and to India, all three of which DQ professes to serve.

It is truly unfortunate that Dataquest has lent its credibility to such allegations, which are blatantly false and that the author has not even tried to do proper research to determine whether they are right or wrong, in an analytical manner- it demeans Dataquest as a magazine. The least the author can now do is to publish an unqualified apology in print, as prominently as possible. In the light of all the facts in this article, we urge DQ to consider this seriously.

Having said this, I do agree with the author’s contention that RFP evaluators must not partner with vendors to form consortiums to bid for other similar projects. It’s a bit akin to what shook the world of auditing long ago when the lines between consulting and auditing functions got blurred in some of the Big Five firms. This is the only sensible point that he makes in his story.

The larger question is: how do we ring-fence the good? We are quick to point fingers at anyone successful—it is almost a national culture of crabbiness.

The only way to do so is to redefine collective security for the good officers in the IAS. An attack against one honest IAS officer, whose reputation precedes him, be it by the Prime Minister or a Chief Minister or from the media must be treated as an attack against all like-minded good IAS officers.

Everyone must unite to surround and ring-fence him, perhaps using methods similar to the civil disobedience that Delhi recently saw during the power tariff hike, to protect him from harassment.

Wouldn’t the press jump to the defense of one of its own kin, if they are attacked? Don’t lawyers go on strike routinely when another lawyer is targeted? Don’t brother judges routinely look after their brethren against false allegations? Why then can’t the IAS do so too? Why can’t the National IAS Association stand up, and ring-fence the good through some mechanism agreed upon? And identify, and weed out the bad? In the process, it would be a first step towards celebrating icons in India.

India needs icons, needs heroes, and desperately at that. Especially from the middle class, so that many more icons can be created, by emulating them.

—Srivatsa Krishna, IAS is currently with the World Bank in Washington, DC. These are his personal views and not of any organization he is associated with in any form or manner.

Dataquest response

The Dataquest investigation and report was  triggered by allegations made by Umashankar  C, IAS, in his mail to NISG CEO J Satyanarana, IAS. But that was not the only  basis.

There was also the petition sent by KEONICS chairperson Manjula Nagaraj P  to the AP CM, asking for an enquiry into  projects handled by Satyanarayna. Our report  was based on these, and on our discussions with the industry and other government  employees.

As a matter of due process Dataquest sought clarifications from Satyanarayna, PwC, DIT and CVC, and their responses  were reported. We requested Satyanarayana  to respond in four days (August 8 to August  12) and not in “24 hours”. Incidentally, in  the electronic media, response deadlines of a  few hours are commonplace. While we did  not get the CVC response till the time of  filing the story, the DIT’s response giving a  clean chit to NISG and Satyanarayna was  adequately accommodated in the story.

On Umashankar’s appointment in the  DIT’s working group on e-governance:

Dataquest has copies of the office memo of January 27, 2005, nominating Umashankar to the working group. And a copy of a letter dated August 12, 2005, reversing this—“it  has been decided that there shall be no permanent  special invitees to the working group.”

On NISG’s obligations and status:

NISG is a Section 25 company. A question that needs to be asked is: why should NISG, a company owned 51% by private sector  players, be given projects directly, without  any tender process? Several bureaucrats told  us they prefer giving projects to NISG just  because it’s the national institution driving  India’s e-governance initiative.

‘Cub reporter’ is not an accurate description of an award winning journalist with 14  years experience, including nine in the Indian  Express and elsewhere. Shubhendu Parth  won the Polestar Award in 2000, headed  CyberMedia News 2003-2005, and has to  his credit significant investigations such as  the Nigeria 419 scam report in Dataquest in  2003, uncovering gangs operating out of Nigeria,  China, Taiwan, et al. His probe led to  the registration of the first Nigeria 419 case  in India, and also caused the Hong Kong  Monetary Authority to initiate an inquiry on  some of the companies. —Ed

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

DATAQUEST

Cyber House, B-35, Sector 32-Institutional Gurgaon,

Haryana 122002 Fax: (124) 2380694

e-mail: mail@dqindia.com

Letters may be edited for brevity and clarity

CIC’s of North East ” MISSION NEKAC 2007 ” – North East KNOWLEDGE Assistance CENTERS “NEKAC”and promote !!!

eGovINDIA, eGovNORTHEAST, IndiaRTI,

E KAVI,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

         ===============================================

April 2nd 2006TO: DIT and NIC, New Delhi
and
NORTHEAST STATES MINISTRY
DONER, NEC, Resident Commissioners,

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

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 more than 3000 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.

The CIC (Community Information Centre) project was started under the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) and was launched in August, 2002 with the help of State Government for extending ICT services to the rural people of the NE Region. The 487 CIC's in the 8 North Eastern States including Sikkim.These 487 CIC's can become North East Knowledge Assistance Centers "NEKAC". This should be done to celebrate the 60th anniversary of our Independence. On this occassion please regularize the jobs of all employees working at all these CIC's.

NE Knowledge AssistanceCentre "NEKAC" has 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.

Every CIC is well equipped with Good Infrastructure including one Server machine, five Client system, VSAT connectivity , two UPS (1KVA & 2KVA), one Laser Printer, one Dot Matrix Printer, one Web Camera, one TV with IRU (for video broadcasting) and are run by two Skilled Person.

CICs are already there in each Block of the District with Govt. provided infrastructure and man power, the CICs can cater to the peoples need in a batter manner than an NGO and also to the Govt�s effort proper implementation of the e-governance program.These 487 CIC's can be used to develop IT Awareness among the masses and pace with the rest of the world like other states of India such as Karnataka where the people are already getting benefits from the projects like BHOOMI. These 487 CIC's should be a part any e-governance program of NORTHEAST and in taking each district in NORTHEAST ahead in this process and in becoming a knowledge power as envisioned in the planning commission�s INDIA VISION 2020 document. CIC's have been providing services and facilities under following categories:-

1. Rural Cyber Cafe.

1. Computer Training Program
2. Online PAN & TAN Card Services.
3. IT support to the Government. (BPL Data Entry, Election Duty.)
4. Distance Education.
5. Public Oriented Service.
6. Online Information Regarding Health, Education, Banking, Railway Reservation & Enquiry.
7. �ASHA farmers� registration. (to facilitated versatile information of agriculture)
8. Unemployed Youth Registration.
9. Regular Weather Report.
10. Public Distribution Report.
11. Market Price Information of Agricultural Commodity.
12. Digital Photography.
13. Online Conference.
14. Software and Web page Development
15. Income Certificates for cultivators/farmers
    
16. Income Certificate for services holders
17. Land holding certificates
18. Certificate copy of Electroal roll
19. PRC for Higher Education
    

Delivering E- Governance Service through CIC:-

  Delivering E- Governance may be defined as delivery of Govt. Services and Information to the Public using Electronic means. Using IT in Government Services is an efficient speedy and transparent process for disseminating Information to the public and other agencies and for performing Govt. Administration Activities.

1. CIC's are in rural remote areas of NE Region. The facility of Satellite based Communication System of CIC's help remote masses in various respects of IT development. After completion of this project, the Ultimate Rural Masses are going to suffer.
2. By the services of CIC's the IT knowledge is gradually developing among rural masses. They are getting Internet services in a minimal cost.
3. The reliable Internet Communication System through VSAT, help students to collect their Information about various examination, results, education information, career guidance, downloading various forms etc.
4. Now through ASHA Service farmer registration and unemployed youth registration brings a great revolution among the rural people in the field of Agriculture, Horticulture, Pisci Culture and Business Marketing. They are getting every day market price list in CIC.
5. All Operators have been served in fix pay since inception of this project. Operators are dedicating their most vital part of life in this job for bringing the IT to the Rural masses. The value of commodities and services has been increased for the last three years. So we on behalf of all CIC Operators would like to request our government through you to give us some incentive from state Govt. as DA / Security of Livelihood. It will give us really encourage doing more hard works.

     The main Objective of Establishing such CIC Centres is to provide Information and Communication Technology (ICT services) to the Rural masses in NORTHEAST. After spending such a huge Amount (nearly 200 Crores), the government have not introduce the services through CIC.

CIC's can provide the following information and this information need to be made available at all 487 CIC's for the benefit of people of NORTHEAST.

1. Information on health plan spending and the new plans on NRHM – National rural health mission is not available on the State Govt. website. These should be made available at all CIC's NETWORK in TRIPURA State for the people in each BLOCK can access the information easily.

2. How each STATE Government is going to spend and allocate FUNDS allotted by Central Govt. to Districts, Blocks and Villages ? These information need to be available at all CIC's for the benefit of People of NORTHEAST.

3. The break up of health spending under various departments say health, allocations to the PHC's, CHC's etc. All of these need to be made available at all 487 CIC's of NORTHEAST STATES.Let us do the following also at CIC's:

Make information to go to the door steps of citizens in NORTHEAST through these 487 CIC's and spread the Knowledge among citizens.

Spread Transparency and Accountability in all levels of Govt. through these 487 CIC's in NORTHEAST.

eGovINDIA and eGovNORTHEAST will be able to join the efforts of all of you in getting NEKAC to be implemented at all 487 CIC's.

If any questions please free to write to me. We will RESPOND !!

Thanks
Sincerely
 
V. M. Kumaraswamy, MBA
Venkatappa M. Kumaraswamy, MBAIn BUSINESS since 1971.

Importance of CICs

Kinkar Bhowmik <kinkarcic@yahoo.com> wrote:

Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 23:27:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kinkar Bhowmik <kinkarcic@yahoo.com>
Subject: Importance of CICs
To: egovindia@yahoogroups.com
CC: jsegov@mit.gov.in, pagrawala@mit.gov.in, ajeervidya@nic.in,
rcc@mit.gov.in, secretary@mit.gov.in, rgilani@mit.gov.in,
asachdeva@mit.gov.in, mmn@mit.gov.in, achakravarti@mit.gov.in,
phadke@mit.gov.in

Community Information centers which are brainchild of NIC, established in August 2000 as a pilot Phase in the North East State of India. Now there are 487 CICs in the North East State. Services to be provided by CICs include Internet Access and E-mail, Printing, Data entry and Word processing and Training for the local populace. In addition, several citizen-centric or Government to Citizen (G2C) services are to be delivered from the CICs. Training of the local population on the fundamentals of using computers and the imparting of basic working knowledge is a major activity in the Community Information Centres. Some such services are

•Birth and Death Registration, Health Booking Service system. Service Facilitation Centre (e-Suvidha) where in different types of certificates issued by Block and District administrations like SC/ST, Marriage etc can be disseminated through CICs. Prices and other market information of Agricultural produce. Information on Educational opportunities. Job portals etc. The number of visitors varies between 20 to 100 a week depending on location of CIC. Many CICs report over 150 visitors/week. They are giving technical support in the various Department of the State Government.

 

Many of the CICs, already operational, charge nominal amounts from users for services which helps them to meet day-to-day running expenses such as consumables, stationery, fuel for the Genset etc.

 

DIT/NIC will continue to provide manpower support to the CICs for five years and NIC will provide technical and maintenance support for this period. DIT/NIC will continue to provide satellite connectivity after five years. The Community Information Centres will then be handed over to the respective state governments. The state governments are required to evolve a viable business model to make the CICs self-sustaining during these five years.

 

It is proposed to use the Community Information Centers for E-edutainment in the future. A select bouquet of channels could be telecast through the VSAT based network, as TVs with other associated infrastructure is already available at the CICs. Other future prospects are the provision of connectivity to Schools, Hospitals and Post Offices in major habitats

 

CICs have an important role to implementation the E-governance project.

 

If the State Government handed over CICs to a private Sector State Government will be loser such as they will be pay the private sector when the state Government take any kind of support/help/any type of work like such as online data entry, (SGRY, ASSP, Gramodaya) data bank of block, various dept. data of Govt, more & more. Most important things is that computerization of various projects of various dept. will be hamper since maximum staff of various dept. are non-technical. When they are facing any problem to run any projects CICs operators are helping them and work is run smoothly. Central Govt. also has a responsibility to help the state government to run the CICs and to run E-governance projects smoothly.

Why CICs will go under Private??????

We need to understand the importance of CICs otherwise we will be the loser.

An IAS officer who established first e-district in the country in 1999, // This IAS officer was REMOVED as Special Invitee, National E-governance Action Plan Implementation Committee in 2005 ?Any reasons ? We all need to look into WHY DIT removed this IAS Officer ? or WHO made him to be REMOVED ? //

An IAS officer who established first e-district in the country in 1999, // This IAS officer was REMOVED as Special Invitee, National E-governance Action Plan Implementation Committee in 2005 ?Any reasons ? We all need to look into WHY DIT removed this IAS Officer ? or WHO made him to be REMOVED ? //

Please look into this and question yourself !!

Tiruvarur e-Governance Project – YEAR 1999 – 30 pages in detail.
Transformation of the India’s first e-district by tech. savvy I.A.S. officer Mr. Umashankar.

https://egovindia.wordpress.com/2006/07/19/process-automation-based-e-governance-implementation-in-core-government-functioning-in-tiruvarur-district-of-tamilnadu-india-2/

_________

An IAS officer who established first e-district in the country, possibly the first in Asia. His e-governance made procedures simpler for the public and introduced transparency in the administration.

No entry for professionals

ANIL DHARKER Sunday, Jun 15, 2003

http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2003/06/15/stories/2003061500170200.htm

Is there any merit in the argument that doctors and engineers need not apply for the IAS?

————————————————————-

Umashankar still cooling his heels

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/2001/07/26/stories/04262232.htm

By Radha Venkatesan July 26th, 2001.

—————————————————————–

Land record systems revisited – October 2003,

http://www.gisdevelopment.net/magazine/gisdev/2003/october/landsr.shtml

C Umashankar
IAS, Commissioner, Disciplinary
Proceedings Salem, Tamil Nadu, India
umashankarc@yahoo.com

An integrated computerised land administration system is still at dream level all over India. The need of the hour in India is to formulate a scheme to integrate the text based land record data with the graphic (map) data. There are serious issues arising out of the above proposition due to the enormity of the task involved.

___________________________________________________________

Why NIC or GOI did not support this effort of this IAS offcier since 1999 ?

Why NIC did not REPLICATE this in other Districts in INDIA with IMPROVEMENTS on what was done by this IAS officer in 1999 ?

Why Mr. R. Chandrashekar did not include him in NISG ?

Why Mr. Brajesh Kumar did not look into this ?

Why this IAS officer was removed as Special Invitee, National E-governance Action Plan Implementation Committee in 2005 ?Any reasons, we all need to look into for removing him !!

Why did Mr. R. Chandrashekar and Mr. Brajesh Kumar formed NISG or recomended GOI to form NISG ?

When did GOI approved formation of NISG ?
When was the CABINET approval was obtained on NISG ?

It looks like formation of NISG is itself in question now !!!

Care to know MORE ABOUT Mr. C. Umashankar, IAS
————————

C. Umashankar IAS., (
TamilNadu, India)
Formerly Member, Special Invitee, National E-governance Action Plan Implementation Committee
Ex-Joint Vigilance Commissioner, TamilNadu

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

Email: umashankarc@gmail.com

Expert opinion on e-governance related issues: http://sugame.com/umashankar

+91-44-52054443 and

+91-94443-82827

————————-

Tiruvarur e-Governance Project
Transformation of the India’s first e-district by tech. savvy I.A.S. officer Mr. Umashankar.

https://egovindia.wordpress.com/2006/07/19/process-automation-based-e-governance-implementation-in-core-government-functioning-in-tiruvarur-district-of-tamilnadu-india-2/

__________________________

A whistle Blower’s tale:

Copy of Madras High Court’s judgement in the Cremation Sheds scam dated 27^th Feb.1995. Mr. C. Umashankar, IAS was the Prosecution Witness Number One.

http://sugame.com/umashankar (Details about Cremation Sheds Scam is here)

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If you need additional Information, please contact or write to:
vmkumaraswamy@yahoo.com and novamed@aol.com

Thanks
Sincerely

V. M. Kumaraswamy, MBA
Fonder and Moderator, eGovINDIA Yahoo group