First Cut

Punjab CIC wants paper-free office



The Punjab State Information Commission has decided to adopt modern systems of
management, communication and control in its routine functioning.

The Commisssion had sought assistance from the State's

department of information technology and administrative reforms to design a

state of the art, paper free office for the purpose within a month. The CIC also

expects the Punjab Government to bring online relevant information related to

services from accross departments and institutions in the state.

DQ'S VIEW: The RTI is one of the important tools to 'good

governance' in a country and so is the 'e' and hence it's but natural

that the two should be used in tandem to bring in transparency, accountability

and authenticity in governance. It is important to realize that the three-

transparency, accountability and authenticity-are generally missing in

traditional paper based government office processes. Hence the decision by CIC

Rajan Kashyap assumes importance as it sends the right message across. The RTI,

if implemented properly, could prove a boon for the e-governance initiative

because it would make government process re-engineering using IT tools

imperative. It goes without saying that the deluge of information that can be

asked for can be provided only by using the e-governance base in India.

CBEC Okays RMS



The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has announced

implementation of risk management system (RMS) to ease procedures for customs

and ensure faster clearance of cargo at the ports. What this means is that the

CBEC will now abandon the traditional approach of scrutinizing all consignments

and supporting documents in favor of selective examination of cargo and post

clearance audit of bills.

The move is an important component of the Board's effort to

re-engineer the customs and excise departments and introduce trade facilitation

measures. According to sources, the measures relate to risk assessment based

speedier customs clearance of goods (RMS), accredited Clients Program for faster

delivery (ACP), reduced dwell time under RMS/ACP, e-Banking, e-Auction and

simplified one time registration.

The CBEC has also integrated various networks and database to

ensure real-time sharing of data, allow importers to file their bills of entry

electronically into the Indian Customs EDI System (ICES) network from other

locations.

DQ's VIEW: Kudos to the CBEC for doing away with the

traditional method of scrutinizing all consignments and supporting documents and

instead going for selective examination of cargo and post clearance audit of

bills. Besides bringing greater accountability and much required transparency,

this would also help increase revenue collection, particularly because the

system would practically break the chain of interaction between importers and

custom officials. Not to forget the fact that the new process would also making

filing of documents simple, help in faster assessment and payment of duty,

quicker clearance of goods at Ports and ICDs, besides streamlining the movement

of cargo. This would also mean reduced transaction costs for importers.

The Bandwidth Consortium



In their bid to capitalize on their combined bandwidth
infrastructure GAIL India, PowerGrid Corporation and RailTel have joined hands

to tap the Indian bandwidth market as a consortium. The three companies have

entered into a strategic alliance to share bandwidth infrastructure and work out

a mechanism for infrastructure utilization and business models for division of

revenue, and the cost incurred.

The three companies together will have the second largest

bandwidth capacity after Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). The consortium expects

an eight-fold increase in its revenue from the telecom segment and is hoping to

achieve revenue targets of Rs 1,000 crore. At present, the three public sector

undertakings put together earn about Rs 100 crore from this segment.

The consortium also aims to provide viable alternative to the

government for its e-learning and e-governance programs and may also enter

national and international long-distance in the future. The combined network of

more than 60,000 route kilometre of optical fibre cable of the three public

sector undertakings is expected to grow to 75,000 route kilometres in next 2-3

years.

BSNL to share infrastructure



Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran has informed the Lok Sabha

that private operators will be allowed to share infrastructure set up by the

state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) in rural areas.

The minister said that as private operators have now started

moving out in rural areas the government would allow them access to BSNL's

infrastructure to facilitate better economic viability and speedier roll out of

mobile services across India. "There has been huge demand for BSNL services

leading to shortage of infrastructure. But the PSU has already started

installing more base stations and by January-end next year, the process will be

completed," he said.

DQ'S VIEW: Monopoly is always a bad situation, particularly

if it impacts the government projects. The two announcements mean that the state

governments would now have alternatives for their SWAN roll out. While some

state governments are believed to have been negotiating with the PowerGrid,

RailTel and GAIL for their SWAN projects, not much has come out because none of

these players so far had the reach to match BSNL-something that would be taken

care of by the consortium. Also, the government's decision to share BSNL's

infrastructure with private players would encourage companies like Aksh Broadand

to get into the infrastructure space vital for e-gov. The company has already

tied up with Andhra Pradesh Technology Services and IN.Cable to set up AP Aksh

Broadband, the company driving the state's broadband initiative.

Indo-US universities' network



Last fortnight saw President APJ Abdul Kalam inaugurate the
Indo-US EDUSAT Network of universities, unleashing an era of scientific

cooperation on information sharing for research and development.

Launching the facility through video-conferencing from the

Rashtrapati Bhavan, Dr Kalam said networking through EDUSAT was the first step

towards creating universities that could meet the demands of the knowledge era,

born out of convergence of technologies. Asserting that the Indo-US co-operation

should result in the virtual university system, Kalam said that the whole

purpose of education in a country like India was to develop and enhance the

potential of human resource and progressively transform into a knowledge

society.

The President also suggested that the country's education

system should re-align itself at the earliest to meet the needs of the present

day challenges and be fully geared to participate in the societal

transformation.

e-Notebooks, not bags to schools



When it comes to technology innovation the Indian President

definitely has his way. While giving away the Computer Literacy Excellence

Awards for Schools-2004, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam suggested that heavy school bags

carried by students should be replaced by a cost effective hand held computer

which can be loaded with e-text books, e-Notebooks and e-Workbooks and become a

self learning tool for children. Referring to the schoolchildren's burden of

carrying books to schools, he appealed to the Department of Information

technology (DIT) to develop affordable e-Notebooks in the range of Rs

5,000-12,000.

The President also said the DIT should help the Computer

Literacy Excellence Awards-winning schools to become nodal centres for tele-education

in their respective districts.

DQ's VIEWS: The setting up of Indo-US EDUSAT Network is an

important development that would help researchers in India collaborate with

their counterparts in the US in areas like nanotechnology and energy. The

President's call to replace school bags with e-Notebooks is also praiseworthy.

However, both the developments need to be weighed in the backdrop of UNESCO's

Education For All (EFA) global monitoring report 2006. The report puts India

among the 30 countries unable to achieve adult literacy targets by 2015, due to

the slow pace of progress. Besides the inability to handle education for its

growing population, the country has also not been able to handle the huge

discrepancies



between states; while Kerala ranks on top with its claim of full literacy, states like Bihar and UP
are



down the list with a literacy rate of 50%.

While tying up with best breed universities across the globe

is important for the country, it is also important that we link up the best bred

Indian educational institutes to the smallest school in the remotest corner to

ensure quality education for all. Chhatisgarh has made similar initiative for

its two engineering colleges-NIT Raipur and Bilaspur Engineering College-which

have been linked with IIT Kapur.

As far as reducing the burden of school bags is concerned,

the problem can be better taken care of by bringing about the basic change in

teaching methodology. While the students can use the study material available in

school to learn new things, they can use the materials available at home to

revise and reinforce the learning of the day. This can help cut down on the need

to ferry books and copy to and fro between school and home.

While the President's suggestion has a good intent, previous experiences

have shown that in most of the cases, the mandarins push up such suggestions as

the solution for all similar ills, without realizing whether the solution has a

real use or not in the given context. What about basic education Mr President?

Shubhendu Parth