'Our vision of ICT is a force multiplier'

This 1989 batch IAS officer was assigned the task of

leading the e-Governance initiative of the Rajasthan Government in the year

2000. Soon he realized that IT initiatives in governance required continuity and

an institutionalized mechanism for sustenance. Hence, he went ahead to create an

IT Policy for the state in the same year. Today, after having served for four

years as director IT and twenty months as the project in-charge of one of the

largest e-government projects of the state, he has an in-depth knowledge of

various aspects of e-governance. In a tête-à-tête with Shubhendu Parth of

Dataquest, Rohit K Singh, secretary IT &

Communication, Rajasthan, talks about the various issues and initiatives.

What is Rajasthan's long-term vision for utilizing ICT

tools for the benefit of its citizens and the different communities, which live

and work there?



Our vision of ICT as a force multiplier is very clear. The Government of

Rajasthan intends to leverage it not only as a tool for improving governance and

enhancing employment opportunities, but also, more significantly, as a means to

enhance the quality of life-bridging socio-economic divide, ensuring that skew

in the development in society is minimized and the underprivileged sections of

the society are brought at par with the more privileged sections. The Government

intends to make conscious efforts to see that benefits of IT and ITES, in terms

of employment generation and economic betterment, percolates to all sections of

the society. To make sure this happens, we are enlarging the role of the private

sector working closely with the Government in

deploying e-enabled citizen services, ICT infrastructure development, and

ICT-enabled education.

What

is the allocated e-governance budget for Rajasthan this fiscal? What are your

budgetary plans for the future?



For the current fiscal, around Rs 250 crore has been earmarked for

investment in the IT and e-Governance sector alone. Out of this, Rs 50 core is

routed through our department. Remaining projects including those under central

assistance and under externally aided projects are channeled through their

respective departments. This, it may be appreciated, is the 200% increase from

the previous years. In addition, Government of India, under its National

e-Governance Plan (NEGP) is providing funds for various programs. In the coming

years, there is going to be increase in the budgetary allocations from the State

Government resources as well as through NEGP.

Could your elaborate on the Government spending so far

in terms of hardware purchase, providing citizen services, and implementing

solutions for GPR?



Government of Rajasthan (GoR) has been making sustained efforts to create

the right kind of policy and program level frameworks so that requisite return

on investment are obtained.  During

the past two years, development of an integrated and inter-linked ICT enabled

Government back office has been on priority. For this, ICT infrastructure

projects such as creation of State Data Center, Secretariat Networking and

Jaipur City Metropolitan Network have been successfully implemented. District

Data Centers, which would become the hub for running citizen-centric services,

have been set up in all the 32 districts of the state at an investment of over

Rs 40 crore, during the past two years. We have also spent around Rs 10 crore on

innovative and citizen-centric applications like the online FIR project, e-enablement

of front offices of registration and stamps department and automation of

commercial taxes department.

In order to carry out the task of Government Process

Re-engineering in a professional and timely manner, GoR intends to hire services

of a reputed, professional and competent consultancy organization to assist in

preparation of a well thought out and comprehensive BPR plan for 15 select

departments. This would involve study of existing procedures, close consultation

with various departments, interaction with national and state level private

sector companies, research and data analysis. Proposals for the same have been

called for and it is envisaged that the project cost will be to the tune of

approximately rupees one crore.

How much of the allocated budget has provisions for

providing citizen services and how much of the same is aimed at Government

Process Re-engineering?



Providing citizen services in a friendly, transparent manner with the help

of ICT and with ease of operations is the foremost agenda of the State

Government. Considering this, 30% of the total budget-Rs 15 crore of Rs 50

crore-has been earmarked for this activity. It includes the budget for

government services and business process re-engineering.

Rajasthan is one of the few states that have gone ahead

with automating the procurement process. Can you elaborate on the project?



The state government is committed to bringing about greater transparency in

government processes, particularly those related to procurement activities. ICT

is being leveraged to achieve this objective and also to significantly improve

the internal efficiencies by bringing about reduction in time and costs involved

in government procurement procedures. Five infrastructure-related tenders worth

Rs 52 crore have already been awarded using digital signature based

e-procurement. In addition Jaipur Development Authority is also launching

e-auctions by end of March 2006. To ensure that the GFR guidelines are followed

in letter and spirit, the project has been developed through extensive study of

procurement procedures for five departments-Medical and Health, PHED, PWD,

Irrigation and the Department of IT&C.

While Rajasthan has several e-Governance projects for

rural areas, what are the initiatives for the urban populace?



The government is fully aware that all round development of the state could

happen only with the right mix of ICT deployment for rural and urban areas. We

are aware that the logistics and implementation modalities of e-Governance

projects are going to be different for rural and urban terrain. While we are

focusing on using ICT for education, information dissemination, health and other

social objectives in the rural areas, for the urban areas, ICT for e-governance

may be more of transactional nature. Several e-Governance projects aimed at the

urban masses have already been successfully implemented. 

For example, under the ADB assisted Rajasthan Urban

Infrastructure Development Project (RUIDP), we are working towards extensive IT-enablement

of the municipal corporations of the six largest towns in Rajasthan-Jaipur,

Udaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, Ajmer and Bikaner. The total cost of the project is

about Rs 23 crore. In addition, IT enabling of 183 smaller urban local bodies

has recently been tendered out and is in the final stages of being awarded.

Besides, e-Mitra is an integrated e-platform for providing Government

information and other services to both the rural and urban masses. As explained

earlier, we have also implemented Aarakshi, the online FIR Project to provide

facility to citizens for lodging on-line complaints. The project has been

awarded the Bronze Icon at the 9th National e-Governance Conference. Then there

is the Rajasthan Computerized Registration System (RajCrest), which has been

deployed across the state with the objective of simplifying the registration

process. The project has now been enhanced to provide facility for 'Anywhere

Registry' at any of the SR offices of Jaipur and the pilot is currently under

test at Sanganer SR Office. Last but not the least is our Telemedicine project,

the Rs 32 crore project that has been initiated as a 50:50 joint venture with

ISRO. The project aims at linking six college hospitals, 26 district hospitals

and six VSAT based mobile telemedicine vans.

Do you see these IT projects helping the Government

bring in transparency, and reduce operation costs in the future?



e-Governance has resulted in enhanced coordination and information-sharing

between various government agencies, improved information availability to public

and greater accountability, thus bringing about transparency in public

administration.

On the economic side, the benefits of e-Governance range

from reduced transaction costs to increase in revenues. Projects like State-wide

Video Conferencing Network have already curtailed traveling expenses of senior

functionaries. Further, the back-end computerization will enable online

information sharing thus eliminating to and fro movement of personnel of various

departments.

Sharing of data from the Central Repository, State Data

Center has already proved to be cost effective. Departments need not procure and

manage their own data banks. This is resulting in saving of capital and

recurring expenses.

It is being said that the Right to Information Act would

itself be the biggest trigger to e-Governance in India. Has the State Government

drawn up any plans of using IT to meet this challenge of providing information

to its citizen?



The Citizen charters of various organizations are already available on the

website of the Government of Rajasthan 'www.rajasthan.gov.in'.

Also, the Government is focusing on completing the back-end

computerization of all Government Departments, priority being given to

citizen-centric departments. Connectivity within the Government domain is being

conceived through the upcoming Rajasthan State Wide Area Network (RSWAN). This

network is going to be the backbone network for data, video and voice

communications throughout the State. RSWAN would act as the vehicle for

effective implementation of Electronic Governance (e-Governance) across the

state.

RSWAN will link Government offices at the State

Secretariat, 32 District Head Quarter (DHQ), and all the 250 odd Tehsils/Blocks

in the State. There are plans to dovetail the RSWAN project with other similar

communication projects to provide data, voice and video connectivity to maximum

geographical area of the State so as to bring villages and gram panchayats in

the communication footprint. E-Mitra kiosks in rural and urban areas would be

covered in the RSWAN footprints. This would help in bringing government services

to the door steps of citizens in urban and rural areas thereby bridging digital

divide the extent possible and implementing RTI in right earnest.

Could you elaborate on the status and technology for

RSWAN?



Rajasthan State Wide Area Network (RSWAN) is on the anvil. The requisite

preparatory work has been done. RSWAN is envisaged as the backbone network for

data, video, and voice communications throughout the State. RSWAN would act as

the vehicle for effective implementation of Electronic Governance (e-Governance)

across the State.

The project, envisaging an investment of over Rs. 300

crores has been approved by the GoI and would be partly funded by GoI under its

overall framework of National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).

RSWAN will link Government offices at the State

Secretariat, 32 District Head Quarters (DHQ), and all the 250 odd Tehsils and

Blocks in the State. There are plans to dovetail the RSWAN project with other

similar communication projects to provide data, voice and video connectivity to

maximum geographical area of the State. We plan to set up wireless stations at

strategic locations so as to bring villages and gram panchayats under the

communication footprint. It is envisaged that this would help in bringing

government services to the doorsteps of citizens in urban and rural areas

thereby bridging digital divide the extent possible.

What are you doing on the basic infrastructure front —

power, telecommunication and bandwidth — to make sure that the benefit of IT

percolates to the remotest corner of the State, particularly keeping in view the

topology of the State?



The State government is well aware of the fact the without proper basic

infrastructure, IT enabling of the entire State may not become successful. With

this in mind, policies have been chalked out and are being aggressively

implemented for infrastructure development in power, roads and urban amenities

sectors. For the telecom sector, we have already provided free right-of-way to

the private sector service providers.

While the Government of India is talking about

increasing PC penetration in the country and Swaminathan Foundation's Mission

2007 talks about a knowledge center in each village, has the State chalked out

any strategy on this front?



Yes. The State is ardently working towards reaching this goal. In fact,

Rajasthan is the first State to collaborate with NABARD for establishing 1000

Village Knowledge Centers in the State through its flagship citizen centric

project — e-Mitra. The project is being done in accordance with the

suggestions of the Swaminathan Foundation's Mission 2007 project. Moreover, we

are also making efforts to streamline many other such similar projects of

Government of India while ensuring that there is maximum reach for the rural

masses and also no duplication on similar lines.