Governance: Building a Digital India

Chandigarh Property Records Go Online

The Chandigarh Estate Office has uploaded record of 2,973,3000
properties-residential, commercial, and institutional-on its website www.sampada.in.

The estate office claims that this would help people get
information about any property at the click of a mouse-from the date of
allotment and the date of possession to the description of property, the
execution of deed, the details of installments paid, and the ground rent.
Besides, it would also provide information on transactions of the property,
resumed proceedings, if any, and details of ownership rights. In the next phase
the department also plans to upload details pertaining to rehabilitation
colonies and rehri markets by January 2006. 

DQ'S VIEW: While computerization of property record-commercial,
residential, and institutional-brings in more efficiency in the system, the
initiative taken by Chandigarh Estate Office takes the service delivery one step
further. Availability of all such information on the website would not only go a
long way in cutting through the red tape, it would also make sure that anomalies
if any are identified immediately.

As a next step, the estate office should look towards
communicating small amounts of precise information or reminders about the
installments, property tax, and other payment dues through SMS. As pointed out
in one of the articles in this issue, the rapid growth of cell phones offers an
immediate alternate to the conventional 'computer-Internet' road to e-Gov.

Kerala Expands e-Literacy Program

Riding high on its success of Akshaya project in Malappuram district, the
Kerala government is embarking on an ambitious plan to expand its e-literacy
program to seven more districts.

Under the program, IT training institutes would be entrusted
with the task of training 5,000 entrepreneurs, who in turn would impart training
to nearly 35 lakh families through 1,329 Akshaya e-Kendras.

The state has also chalked out plans of rolling out Internet for
the Masses program in Malappuram soon. The program aims at providing 10-hour
training to one lakh people on the use of e-mail, chat and other aspects of the
Internet through Akshaya e-Kendras in the district. While the state government
will contribute Rs 100 towards the training, the trainee is expected to pay Rs
40.

DQ'S VIEW: While, 'the hole in the wall' experiment, along
with acceptability of ATMs and SMS in the country, has clearly demonstrated that
people can acquire skills if they find a use for it, the Kerala government's
initiative to create an 'e-literate' state somehow seems to have missed out
on the point. What is more important than imparting training is the imaginative
use of ICT for development and information sharing. The state should first
identify the kind of content that is needed by the common citizen and work
towards strengthening internal processes to deliver the same. A satisfied 'citizen
customer' would go a long way in creating the pull for others to use the
system and learn, rather than thousands of e-literate but dissatisfied citizens.
A good idea would be to create interactive websites that would provide
information on the development needs and the available resources, till
village level. It should also be able to gather information from the grassroots
level on their need, which can be used by respective departments for planning
developmental projects.

Delhi Hospitals to be Interlinked

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has decided to interlink its six
hospitals in the city through a wide area network. According to reports, the
Hospital Information System being planned will enable high-speed data transfer,
including patients' X-ray reports from one hospital to another.

This, the MCD claims, would help minimize inconvenience to
patients, and also promote better bed and drug inventory management. The trial
run for the Rs 2.5 crore-project has already begun at the Swami Dayanand
Hospital in East Delhi and the MCD expects the system to be up and running in
six hospitals by October 2006.

Besides helping the hospitals keep track of a patient's case
history and enabling them to evaluate referred cases from other hospitals in a
more effective way, the system would also help patients seek appointments with
specialist doctors through the Internet.

DQ'S VIEW: This is indeed a laudable effort that would
help strengthen the state's commitment to provide good health to citizens. It
may be recalled that the World Health Assembly in its meeting held in May 2005
had adopted a resolution encouraging more work on e-health. The Delhi government's
initiative would complement the Government of India's initiatives in creating
a health surveillance system in the country.

However, all efforts could go off track if the most important
component of the system, the doctors, do not get hooked on to e-health. A recent
seminar organized on the topic in Amritsar clearly indicated that doctors were
weakest link in the chain of e-health in the country.

Indian Language Computing Has Arrived!

In its bid to promote PC usage in the second- and third-tier cities, the DIT
has provided its language tool software free to various hardware vendors for
bundling with their products.

According to reports, Indian computer manufacturers-HCL
Technologies, Acer, Zenith, and Sahara-will now ship all their PCs with the
language tools developed by CDAC.

According to IT Secretary, Brijesh Kumar the initiative will
ensure that December onwards users will have an option to use the computer not
just in English but also in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.

DQ'S VIEW: Finally, there seems to be some action
happening to make language software popular in the country. Bundling of language
software tool at no additional cost will not only help increase acceptability of
PCs in the country, it would also open the door of language content that has so
far been eluding the nation. A good initiative would be to follow in the Chinese
government's footsteps-of making it mandatory for all software vendors
shipping their products in India to give a minimum of one language support. The
four Indian vendors also need to be lauded for their initiative in this space.
Hope the MNC vendors also follow suit.

Shubhendu Parth

MCD Field Offices to Get Laptops

If you thought MPs, MLAs and Councilors were the only ones
entitled to laptops, hold on. In its bid to bring about a radical change in the
civic body's approach towards dealing with people's problems, the Municipal
Corporation of Delhi is mulling over the idea of giving laptops to its field
offices to provide them with easy access to information.

The proposal aims at using information technology (read laptops)
to bridge the gap between the public and MCD's field officers in order to
ensure effective complaint redress mechanism in the civic body. According to
reports, the MCD is considering providing laptops in nearly 400 field offices to
assistant engineers, junior engineers and inspectors so that they can have
access to all complaints made online. This, the MCD believes, will help in
effective redressal of civic problems and make officials more accountable.

DQ'S VIEW: This is a classic example of putting the
cart before the horse. What is more important is process reengineering and the
need to create a system of accountability audit, without which all efforts of
putting up' boxes' in the field offices, or elsewhere, would only lead to
another era of hardware pile up. Besides, it's also important to understand
that the efficiency in government-to-citizen (G-2-C) services does not lie in
creating websites or service centers, or issuing a fancy gadget. An efficient
G-2-C service delivery is the direct result of improvement in the
government-to-government (G-2G) transactions and processes-with or without the
use of IT. It's also important that awareness is created amongst officials to
make sure they actually use the system, unlike the Councilors.

MCD Field Offices to Get Laptops

If you thought MPs, MLAs and Councilors were the only ones
entitled to laptops, hold on. In its bid to bring about a radical change in the
civic body's approach towards dealing with people's problems, the Municipal
Corporation of Delhi is mulling over the idea of giving laptops to its field
offices to provide them with easy access to information.

The proposal aims at using information technology (read laptops)
to bridge the gap between the public and MCD's field officers in order to
ensure effective complaint redress mechanism in the civic body. According to
reports, the MCD is considering providing laptops in nearly 400 field offices to
assistant engineers, junior engineers and inspectors so that they can have
access to all complaints made online. This, the MCD believes, will help in
effective redressal of civic problems and make officials more accountable.

DQ'S VIEW: This is a classic example of putting the
cart before the horse. What is more important is process reengineering and the
need to create a system of accountability audit, without which all efforts of
putting up' boxes' in the field offices, or elsewhere, would only lead to
another era of hardware pile up. Besides, it's also important to understand
that the efficiency in government-to-citizen (G-2-C) services does not lie in
creating websites or service centers, or issuing a fancy gadget. An efficient
G-2-C service delivery is the direct result of improvement in the
government-to-government (G-2G) transactions and processes-with or without the
use of IT. It's also important that awareness is created amongst officials to
make sure they actually use the system, unlike the Councilors.