Out With the Hyberbole

Amidst all the uncertainty and trauma that has hit software exports over the

last 12 months, a factor that most people have lost sight of is the generally

pitiful state of the domestic software industry in India. But interestingly, the

Indian companies who have weathered the storm successfully have one

characteristic in common–they make excellent use of information technology.

Whether it is Hero Honda, Bharat Forge or HDFC, they have all shown exemplary

commitment in the deployment of IT across every function and process of their

organizations. But then, a few swallows don’t make a summer and a handful of

successful organizations don’t change the reality that the percentage of

revenue spent on computerization in an organization is abysmal in this country,

especially if you compare it to most other competitive nations. And it’s not

just the various sectors of business and industry, but also the central and

state governments, which are guilty of largely ignoring the potential of IT to

make them more competitive.

Whenever the topic of e-governance comes up, what springs to mind is a vision

of citizens interacting through information kiosks and via Internet connections

with every department of the government. In reality, there is as much work to be

done in the G2G (government to government) area as there is in the G2C domain

given the extent of work duplication and inefficiency that pervades many of our

bureaucracies. The governments of many countries, from the US to Hong Kong are

using the power of the Internet and intranet technologies to link various

departments and ministries to provide seamless flow of information within and

across various segments and enable quick redressal of citizens’ grievances.

Access to public records and information across the length and breadth of the

country and the formation of farming and industrial communities which can

access, store, disseminate and use data, information and knowledge across long

distances can transform the productivity of citizens engaged in every useful

endeavor. There are enough experiments in India like the Karnataka BHOOMI

project and the Andhra e-SEVA initiative, which have established the benefits of

citizen oriented e-government initiatives. And today, the country has people

like R Chandrashekhar, joint secretary in the e-Governance division of the

government’s department of IT, who have both the sagacity and the willingness

to make e-governance a reality.

But e-governance cannot be achieved just by having a vision. It needs robust

action initiated by all levels of the center and states supported by the IT

industry with action rather than hyperbole. There are many areas where

industry-government partnerships can prove to be successful in changing the IT

landscape of the country. A national initiative could be set up where all the

technology based training solution providers can use their experience in

developing and delivering e-learning solutions in India and abroad. They could

customize the content available in abundance along with the NCERT, IGNOU and

other worthy institutions to deliver Web and CD based training in multiple

languages to schools and colleges. Knowledge management solutions that have been

successfully implemented abroad can be harnessed and customized to enable

government initiatives to succeed and remove the inefficiencies in workflow in

government procedures and processes.

None of these areas are revolutionary or heavy on investment. The only reason

that these are not getting initiated and implemented is the self serving nature

of our outlook, for which all of us are equally responsible. The domestic

economy cannot grow till we learn to work together — the government,

infrastructure providers, the manufacturing industry and the software industry.

If each one of us is willing to forego some revenues upfront and wait for a pay

per use benefit that can surely accrue through well implemented e-government

initiatives, it will not be long before we can enjoy the fruits of double digit

economy growth and a domestic IT sector which marches forward along with the

export markets.

The author is chairman of the Maharashtra Council of the CII and deputy

chairman and managing director of Zensar Technologies

He can be reached at ganesh@dqindia.com