Treasures of the Earth

The World Bank defines e-governance as the use of information

and communication technologies by government agencies to transform relations

with citizens, business and other arms of the government. These technologies can

serve a variety of different ends: better delivery of government services to

citizens, improved interaction with business and industry, citizen empowerment

through access to information or more efficient government management.

According to a more conservative school of thought, only

those IT related initiatives within government agencies that lead to palpable

and measurable improvement in G2C (Government to Citizens) or G2B (Government to

Business) relations, comprise e-governance.

The Karnataka government’s e-governance initiatives span

this rather broad spectrum — from computerization of the motor vehicles

department and the Common Entrance Test (CET) process to putting up agricultural

planning related data like weather forecast, crop prices etc on the net.

The most impressive Karnataka government project however, has

to do with one of the most difficult areas of e-governance: land records. When

the Prime Minister’s IT Taskforce set out an agenda for e-governance

initiatives at the state-levels, it recommended that land records be the last to

be touched and stipulated a deadline of 2005. Yet, Karnataka’s Land Records

project was not only among the first to be launched, it was also the first big

one nearing completion (it is already operational in 155 of 175 talukas.)

Bhoomi



Karnataka’s Computerization of Land Records System, also known as Bhoomi,

is part of a broader state policy called ‘Mahiti’ that aims to use IT for

rural development. It was started over a decade ago as a central sponsored

scheme in 1991-92. However, the project lay in cold storage for a while till

about three and a half years ago when Rajeev Chawla was posted as additional

secretary to the Revenue department. Chawla, a computer science graduate from

IIT Kanpur, kick-started the process again.

Karnataka has 67 lakh owners of rural land, spread across 177

talukas and nearly 30,000 villages. Together, they account for 20 million

records of rights, tenancy, and certification (RTCs). Says Chawla, "It’s

the sheer size of the database that is the most exciting part of the whole

project. There are 20 million records. Each record has 45 fields. That’s a

total of 70 million fields."

DIGITIZING KARNATAKA: The Salient Facts 67 lakh rural land holders 20 million records of rights, tenancy and certification System ready and operational in 155 talukas, 22 more in the process of validation Records available from over 150 kiosks set up across the state for a charge of Rs 15 per record. Request for changes and updates can also be made from the kiosks A unique biometric security system that uses a person’s (in this case the relevant official’s ) thumb print instead of a password The department has already collected Rs 75 lakh from user charges and is considering ways to make the system eventually pay for itself Finally, hand-written land records to be made illegal to prevent redundancy and fraud

Initially, the revenue department tried to get its officials

at the taluka level to enter the data in each of their talukas. The idea however

found no takers. So Chawla began to hunt around for private data entry operators

(DEOs) in each taluka. By itself, that was no mean task. However, the greater

difficulty lay in trying to ensure that the DEOs had at least a minimal

understanding of what they were doing so as to get as accurate a database as

possible.

To facilitate this, Chawla put all data entry operators

through a rigorous training program. Besides, 9000 village accountants — the

middlemen of the land records system — had to be assured that computerization

would not kill their jobs. They then had to be trained in order to be able to

use the system.

The citizen connection



If rural land holders still had to beg the local village accountant for the

status of his holding or visit the local taluka office 10 times to get his

records, the entire process would have been an exercise in futility. So the

government has set up over 150 kiosks across the state, where at Rs 15, any land

holder can get a legal copy of his holding.

Copies of the new printed RTCs have been sent to land-holders

in rural Karnataka through the 9000 Vas and the process of registering

complaints is now on (these complaints relate to data entry errors, not land

disputes).

The Secretariat LAN project



This is essentially a file tracking system where in any file, letter or

tapal that is sent to any office in the secretariat can be tracked on a local

area network .To begin with, the revenue department across three floors of the

Karnataka MS building has been put on the LAN and 70 officials up the level of

section level officers have been connected to the network. Eventually, the

project hopes to connect all section level officers and their senior across all

the 40 departments at the secretariat. Each person in each file is given a code

number and the file is tracked based on both this code number and the file

number.

About 300 nodes are up while another 525 are in the process

of being installed. By February 2002, the government hopes to have 1000 nodes

connected to the LAN with long term plans of upgrading this to 1600.

Khajane–The treasure



This project essentially involves the computerization of 225 treasuries all

across the state. Karnataka’s treasury payment system handles over Rs 20,000

crores annually. This consists of, among other things, payments to 13.5 lakh old

age pensioners, physically handicapped people, and destitute widows, and 4.7

lakh other pensioners including retired government officers. The government is

in the process of setting up VSAT links for an exclusive treasury network. Since

these treasuries also act as banks for 4500 local level offices, the idea is not

only to have a comprehensive data on money spent, but also to provide proper

checks and balances on withdrawal. The system will, for instance, not allow any

local level official to withdraw more than his budgeted amount for that period.

According to the office of the IT Director, Khajane should be up and running by

March this year.

Other Karnataka government initiatives include among other

things, the computerization of the Commercial Taxes Department and the Motor

Vehicles department beginning with five regional transport offices in Bangalore.

So, is this good progress? Sometime ago, Anderson Consulting conducted a study

on e-governance initiatives across various countries. And while it found that

these initiatives varied vastly according to the maturity levels of each nation,

there was one thing that was common to most — even the most mature countries

have tapped less than 20% of the potential. Critics of Karnataka’s

e-governance initiatives insist that there is little the state has to show for

itself but Bhoomi. They all agree however that Bhoomi is certainly an exemplary

project.

Sarita Rani in

Bangalore