Tech-savvy Tamil Nadu

An early starter, the Tamil Nadu government has unleashed a slew of
e-governance initiatives since it announced a separate IT policy way back in
1997. The state bureaucracy has proactively lobbied the benefits of IT with the
political machinery and taken IT to the public at large. There are quiet a few
e-governance stories and government-to-citizen (G2C) services to talk of in the
state. The state government has also used the Internet as the vehicle for its
initiatives to bring the populace closer. We take a look at some of these moves.

Farmers’ marketplace

Whoever said market places are for private players, ought to think again.
Enter Oddanchatram, a small village in Tamil Nadu, and see what IT means to the
farmers here. The seed growers association of the village alongwith M S
Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) has put in place a site www.oddanchatram.com–an
e-market for vegetables, flowers, and dairy products. The site has 130
commissioned retailers and caters to wholesale buyers from Kerala, Maharashtra
and other parts of Tamil Nadu. The site provides the buyers with current market
price for various commodities in the market. The buyers can telephonically place
an order. The site has expanded the market’s reach to a wider mass, thus
improving the revenues of the farmers around the area.

e-Villages

Come out of Oddanchatram, and travel upward around 200kms, you will reach
Nellikuppam, once a sleepy village in Cuddalore District. At first glance, it
might be deceptive. But as you explore the place, an Internet kiosk in drives
home the point. When you enter the kiosk, you are in for more surprises. The Net
here is powered by corDECT wireless technology, an invention by Dr.Ashok
Jhunjhunwala of IIT Chennai. The technology allows the simultaneous use of data
and voice at an economical rate. Chennai based Murugappan Group - an Industry
giant with diversified interests has set up a data access center for the benefit
of farmers in the village. Today the village is wired and boasts of more than 50
Internet connections and farmers have turned into owners of Internet kiosks.

Another district that has used the Internet for its advantage is Tiruvarur.
E-governance initiatives kicked off by the then district collector Umashankar in
1999 have today transformed Tiruvarur, probably into India’s first fully
functional eDistrict. The collector roped in private players like Siemens
Information Systems and IBM India to develop Taluk Automation Software (TAS) for
automating the district’s land record system.

The software was successfully commissioned in seven taluks in this district.
The implementation of TAS facilitated online transaction of land by revenue
department officials starting from the taluk tahsildar to village administrative
officers (VAO). The cumbersome work of annual audit of village accounts has been
reduced to quite an extent with the implementation of TAS.

Also, e-governance has ushered in a high degree of transparency to the
department, which was once mired by inefficiencies. Another model worth
emulating from Tiruvarur is its Old Age Pension (OAP) scheme. The pensioners’
records were automated and today pensions for all the seven taluks of the
district are disbursed to the beneficiaries before the second day of every
month. The Tiruvarur district by these initiatives has eliminated the paper
based accounting system in the revenue department.

Bandits beware

Elsewhere, in the Chengai MGR district, TN police have rolled out a unique
initiative through a site–www.digchengai.com. Chennai based EnMail maintains
the site on behalf of Tamil Nadu Police. The site is aimed at bridging the gap
between the common man and the police department. According to sources at EnMail,
"The public can use this site to file a complaint with the police. Once the
complaint is lodged, a unique complaint ID is generated. The system also sends
return receipt as an acknowledgement to the victim. The complaint then is routed
to the respective authority within the district. The site enables a victim to
check the status of the investigation. And once the case is solved, the system
then sends an e-mail with a copy of the action taken to the victim."

Meanwhile, the state prisons are currently exploring the possibility of
conducting investigations of remand prisoners through videoconferencing. This
technology is being mooted to do away with transporting the accused to the court
from the prison. The system has been successfully checked out on an experimental
basis. The proposal to implement the same is pending before the government for
legal clearance. Once the system comes to force, the courts and prisons will be
provided video conferencing facilities to this end.

Geographically speaking...

Try exploring a state of 130058sq.km housing a population of more than 62
million, physically going to each district. Laborious task, isn’t it? Not, any
more. The state unit of the National Informatics Center (NIC) has created a site–www.tnmaps.com–which
is a one-stop resource on the various details of a district. Explains a senior
NIC official, "For instance, if a user wants to know about Vellore
district, all he has to do is to click on Vellore in the site which will give
details including the collectors’ name and contact details." The state
government, having recognized the importance of Geographical Information System
(GIS) has put in place map scale guideline benchmarks. For instance, a map scale
of 1:50000 are for natural resources and socio-economic data, while the 1:5000
scale is for infrastructure and citizen utilities. The defined scales are aimed
at integrating GIS initiatives of various government departments of the state.

Issues@large

The state may have ample feathers on its e-governance cap, but the political
dilly-dallying has not left the various initiatives unaffected. And, in some
cases, initiatives launched by previous governments are curbed by the current
incumbent. Not to mention the general problem of transparency when it comes to
computerization of various departments. Given the circumstances, the outcome
will depend on the bureaucratic community who may have to ensure that
e-governance survives frequent political changes–a default feature in Indian
polity.

G Shrikanth in Chennai