Succour for the Seven Sisters

Governments across the world are facing the challenge of
improving efficiency and effectiveness, responsiveness and transparency of their
operations for improving the quality of life for its citizens and for reducing
the cost of governance. In order to ensure these objectives it is essential that
the government shares information with citizens and at the same time citizens
are given a mechanism to give feedback to the government, with regard to
governance issues as also implementation of development schemes and utilization
of public funds-through a public grievance redressal mechanism. e-Governance
is a tool that facilitates this objective. The crucial part of e-Governance is
governance, once there is consensus on the objective of providing good
governance to citizens, it's just the tool to facilitate good governance.

Transforming Governance

In hilly areas, like the ones in Nagaland and the north east, where the
density of population is small and challenges to communication -both physical
and electronic are many-the ICT tools have the potential to serve effectively
to bridge the gap. It not only enable communication-both G2G and G2C-but
will also help improve initiatives in social sector, specially education and
health, through remote teaching and telemedicine. Technology has the potential
of transforming economy also in these remote areas by opening up distant markets
for the exotic handicrafts, flowers and organic foods produced in these regions.

Not Yet Ready

However, the development of e-Governance in the North East has not been at
par with other Indian states. This inspite of the Government of India's
efforts in providing computing and connectivity infrastructure through the
provision of community information centers (CICs) at the block level in these
states. As a practitioner of e-Gov projects, when I analyze the reasons for such
a situation, I find that there are several factors that contribute to the poor
level of ICT infrastructure in the North East. One very important reason is the
geographical isolation of these states that has resulted in poor economic
development, lack of power supply, and poor tele-density. In Mokokchung, where
the e-Modop project is being implemented, I have observed that even though the
villages are electrified, they don't get ample power. Telephone services are
at a very primitive stage and BSNL is yet to link up all the district
headquarters through optical fibers. Dial up Internet connectivity offered by
BSNL is quite unreliable and broadband connectivity is yet to be introduced at
the district level.

Comparative Scenario

In states like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, the e-Governance boom has taken
place through effective public-private partnerships which help leverage the
technological flexibility and efficiency of the private sector in offering
public services. This is achieved through very healthy competition between
vendors who offer "Good Technology at Good cost." However, in the
North East, the private sector is hardly there, and those which are providing
hardware and other solutions are also unable to offer the same service levels
that they do in other states. Even reputed companies fail to comply with their
own standards in most of the North Eastern states. For offering public services
there are hardly any competitive vendors. This results in difficulties in
getting the right technological solutions on one hand and increased cost per
transaction on the other, making e-Gov projects economically unviable.

Closing the Distance

Another challenge that the North Eastern states face is the lack of
sufficient number of trained manpower required to man e-Gov projects. This is
because there are very few engineering and technical colleges in the North East,
and there is a general reluctance of people from the mainland to serve in the
North Eastern states. Thus, the very few who are available are in great demand
leading to higher cost of hiring them, thereby increasing the overall cost of
e-Gov projects. In the e-Modop project, being implemented in Mokokchung, this
was one reason because of which it is being envisaged to offer the service
through the CICs, as these centers at the block level do have the required IT
infrastructure and trained manpower. This approach is also helping to make CICs
financially viable as after February 2007 these have to sustain themselves or
become a burden on the state government.

In fact, most of the challenges and bottlenecks mentioned above
also point out the likely solution for the e-Gov projects or the larger
governance issue in the North East. e-Governance has the great potential of
resolving the 'remoteness' problem of these states. In a connected world,
these areas and people of the North East will no longer be far from the mainland
as the information highway and the Internet will bring them at par with anyone
anywhere in the world. To achieve this objective, what is needed is to tap the
true potential of the 487 CICs coupled with the citizen service centers being
envisaged by the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). IIT Guwahati can serve as a
center for training e-Gov champions. The private sector IT companies can also be
promoted to join the mission of providing e-Gov services in the North East
through policy level initiatives making it mandatory for them to have operations
in the North East just like the telecom and the airline companies. The CICs can
serve as the lead vehicle and will require some will power at the political and
bureaucratic level to ensure all state governments' commitment to
e-Governance.

Optimizing Services

CICs have the potential of being utilized for offering services in the
education, health and the services sector. The e-Modop project in Mokokchung
plans to deliver services like electricity and telephone bill payments, issue of
birth, death, caste, and domicile certificates, filing of public grievances,
information on government schemes particularly pertaining to public distribution
system and rural development through the network of CICs. Offering of these
basic services can create a considerable interest amongst the people. One can go
in for offering these services through kiosks in the private sector. e-Learning
and telemedicine are also possibilities that will help transform governance.
Similar possibilities exist in the field of agriculture and handicrafts wherein
the farmers and artisans can get the information to improve their product and
increase their incomes. Prices of commodities can be very helpful for farmers.

Coming Together

Of course the greatest challenge that such an initiative faces is change
management. As experienced in e-Modop project, it is not simple to convince the
government departments to share information online with the people and to offer
services in a transparent and integrated manner. e-Governance makes government
processes simpler and takes care of the discretion existing at various levels,
thereby demystifying government for citizens. It is also observed that through a
mix of proper training and environment building, the initial resistance amongst
the government department is taken care of and the joy of bringing a smile on
the face of citizens ensures that all stakeholders join together in the mission
of e-Governance.

Abhishek Singh

Deputy Commissioner, Mokokchung

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in

The view expressed by the authors are his own and does not reflect that of his
department or the state