E-GOVERNANCE: In Search of a Common Identity

The challenge before the IT industry in India is to pass the

benefits of IT to the average Indian citizen. We are looking at the substantial

percentage of the one billion Indians who have to struggle every day for

amenities, especially as they interact with the government.

One cannot blame the government. The increasing services that

it has been taking upon itself since independence coupled with the sheer

increase in urbanization and population have eroded the benefits of the small

and piece meal governance initiatives. Neither have corruption, the license raj

and nepotism helped to alleviate the hardships that citizens go through, thus

adding to their woes.

India is uniquely positioned as it does not have a lot of

legacy systems to migrate from or to make redundant. Precious resources, both

monetary and human, are not wasted when deploying IT systems in India using

concurrent tools, technologies and methodologies.

This situation allows India to leapfrog a few steps of

technology and come into the new, Internet world. In fact, the Internet comes

across as the only way to address problems of the one billion people in India.

If one thinks of other routes, the cost of the projects would be prohibitive,

leading to sure failures.

Further, IT deployment in the government is rudimentary.

Government departments are islands of information, where, through the individual

initiatives of a handful of young and dynamic bureaucrats, some piece meal

systems have been put in place. Most of these have been of the Cobol, dBase era

(1970s). Often, one comes across computers installed in the departments, only

for printing reports, which the officers require from time to time. IT has not

been used for analytical or business intelligence purposes.

Solutions

What is required is to build a common IT vision and develop

an IT road map. Instead of each citizen-facing government entity spending on

resources to build their own islands of information, a consolidated approach

needs to be adopted to develop a common database. And all these government

entities could leverage from a common IT repository. There are examples around

the world, especially in countries with a colonial background, where a single,

consolidated system is addressing multiple departmental interactions with their

citizens. Our systems are no different as most of the systems and practices laid

down by the British still work here. Some departments are making attempts toward

this and a lot of money is being saved. The citizen is starting to see a

seamless single face of the government, regardless of the department that he is

interacting with. This eliminates all usage of multiple identifiers that each

government department gives its citizens (We all have unique numbers for

electricity connection, telephone, water connection, gas, income tax, property

tax, passport, ration card, driving license.)

Even though we do not have any social security like many

other countries, a unique identifier could be used for a whole host of cross

functions as well as separate government-citizen interfaces. This could be

provided to the citizen in the form of a secure citizen card, similar to the

credit card.

The citizen card could be used to deliver government-citizen

interface activities. This would be unlike the way it is being done today–through

limited government-owned counters that run during fixed timings, that are

concentrated in a few geographical locations. These mean people go through

tedious processes. But the citizen card would allow an interface with the

government from street-side Internet kiosks, which would deliver citizen

services.

This would dramatically improve governance and, more

importantly, provide the ability to the government to reach out to the people,

at no extra cost to them. It would also give the people the convenience and ease

of interacting with the government.

Government action

Seeing drivers withdrawing money for their sahibs from ATMs

is a common phenomenon. And no one has given them any training, neither are they

literate. So the question is, how did it happen? The government must give a

choice to the people. It should provide optional channels to reach out to the

people and allow them to decide on which route to take. If it means that

providing convenience would come at a nominal cost to the citizens, let them be

given the option. Let them pay a small fee and save the time and money that they

are spending today to get such services through the traditional channels of

governance. Or, let them interact with the government in the traditional way.

Unless the citizens have a choice, they are left with no option but to go

through the traditional route. Here, "market forces" will determine

the levels of acceptability of the alternative channels of service. This would

depend upon real-value propositions from these channels to the people. For 50

years we have had a few people deciding on what is right and what is wrong for

the people of India. We have seen where we are in terms of the operating

environment of an average citizen getting government services.

What is required today is a fast decision-making government

engine. It is in its own interest to involve large, stable, IT providers as

partners who bring with them IT project roll-out capabilities. They can also

bring in successful and stable IT deployment, which will make life a lot simpler

for the citizen, reduce costs for the government and help reduce fraud or

corruption. These three objectives being met, India will truly stand tall as a

country not as one which provides skilled IT resources for the rest of the world

to benefit from but one which brings the true benefits of IT to the common man

in India. Only time will tell where we go from here.

TANMOY

CHAKRABARTY is vice president, EDS India