Reaching Out Online

When e-governance is debated in seminars, audiences receive
forward-looking projections that create an impression, that it is the most
happening thing in the country. "Not really", says John P Roberts, VP
and research area director, Gartner Group. "The typical transition from
governance to e-governance has four distinct phases – the initial,
interactive, transaction and transformation. India is still in the initial phase
and a meaningful e-governance paradigm will be in place only by 2010", says
Roberts.

This Gartner observation is a clear indication of the
potential for automation that lies in the government sector. For instance in
India, there are 2,450 government departments spread across 170,000 sites.
Automating these departments calls for around 26,500 applications. Realizing the
potential for e-governance in the country, IT majors like Microsoft and TCS have
put in place an ambitious e-governance strategy for Andhra Pradesh. Says Rajiv
Nair, President, Microsoft India, "Microsoft has been working closely with
the AP technology services and the department of IT since October 1997. As part
of our partnership, we facilitate technology and skills transfer and helping
them develop e-governance solutions."

Microsoft is also involved in the design and deployment of an
e-governance portal for the Government of Andhra Pradesh (Go AP). The portal is
being built using Microsoft technologies with TCS as the implementation partner.
The portal once launched, will allow citizens to access a range of government
services. The portal, tentatively called aponline.com is expected to take IT to
the grassroots as the government is planning to set up Internet kiosks across
the state.

Yet another ambitious initiative of Microsoft in AP relates
to the online transaction process (OLTP) project. The aim of the project is to
integrate all the 1,100 mandals in the state with Hyderabad and district
headquarters. Microsoft will be providing solutions to GoAP on the .Net and XML
platforms. Says Rajiv Nair, "Technology can play a critical role in
improving the efficiency and responsiveness of the government. Electronic
governance is all about managing knowledge that exists and continues to be
generated within the government departments every day. The large volume of data
that lies with governments has to be converted into information for tactical
purposes and then into knowledge bases for more strategic applications."

The political factor

E-governance transformation calls for a lot of political, operational and
technological co-operation. According to the GoAP, the computerization of all
central and state government departments will involve 130,000 person-years
costing around Rs 35,000 crore.

E-governance implementation can succeed only if governments are willing to
share all the necessary information. Says Professor Carl Ullman, senior
principal, Strategy consulting group, USA, " The e-governance tendency to
empower citizens can be a double edged sword threatening the centralized and
secretive practices of several governments."

The GoAP has put in place a three-layered strategy. The first layer is called
the 6C Model (content, competencies, connectivity, citizen interface, cyber
laws, and capital). The second layer is the public private partnership (PPP)
model and the third is the IT architecture. Says J Satyanarayana, Secretary, IT
and Communications, GoAP, PPP can change public utility services like issuance
of driving licenses, bill collection, management of land records etc. In the
twin cities integrated network services (TWINS) project, the private sector
players were involved in providing services to the citizens. Called e-Seva
services, TWINS enables people to obtain a range of G2C services".

Reaching out through e-seva

The AP government has put in place 18 e-seva service centers with 200 citizen
counters. The services include 23 G2C and 5 B2C services. Using e-Seva, the
public can pay utility bills like water, electricity, and property taxes, obtain
birth and death certificates, apply for a driving license, passport etc. On the
B2C front, e-seva provides services like ATM, cellular bill payment, securities,
and mutual funds.

Digitizing the govenment

While e-Seva reaches the cross-section of the populace, the
Secretariat knowledge and information management system (SKIMS) is aimed at
improving the overall efficiency of the government. Says Satyanarayana; "
The basic idea of SKIMS is to deliver an electronic workplace by integrating the
technologies". SKIMS’ is developed by TCS, which is implementing the
solution at the AP Secretariat. The core responsibility of the secretariat is to
formulate policies, procedures, rules and guidelines that decides the
implementation of various schemes. SKIMS creates an office management system
that cuts down duplication of work and enhances productivity by providing a
policy based processing.

E- Governance is going to be the major market mover for
hardware. AP alone requires servers at 1125 mandals, 30,000 systems at mandal
level offices, 10,000 peripherals and networking devices, over 50,000 low cost
computing devices at the habitation level and about 200,000 low cost hand-held
devices for village level functionaries.

With an ambitious roadmap in place, the AP government has
rolled out what could be a change management revolution. The key challenges in
putting into practice all these initiatives depends on the adoption of
technology on a day to basis in a sector that was rooted in conventional
processes.

Microsoft e-Governance initiatives:

Orissa: Microsoft has been working with the Industrial
development corporation of Orissa Limited (IDCOL).

Rajasthan: ‘Aarakshi’ — an Intranet for the
Jaipur City Police, gives access to authorized personnel like circle officers,
field level officers, SPs and district collectors to use this Intranet based
online communication system. Day to day activities such as communicating
instructions, filing daily crime reports, vehicle theft registration and query,
and details on wanted criminals, are all available.

Punjab: Microsoft has set up a Center of excellence at
the Regional engineering college in Jalandhar, to certify students on Microsoft
technologies through the Authorized academic training partner program.

Tamil Nadu: Microsoft and ELCOT (Electronics
corporation of Tamil Nadu) are working toward the building of skilled technical
resources within government departments through skills transfer; The development
of expertise within ELCOT to provide technical consultancy to various state
government departments.

Kerala: The Center for development of Information
Technology (C-DIT) consults, develops, and executes systems integration projects
on Microsoft technologies.

Karnataka: Microsoft will work closely with the
Karnataka government computer center (KGCC) to provide training, skills and
system integration.

G Shrikanth in
Hyderabad