Better Governed when e-Governed
The mavericks of Technical India spoke with elan and others listened with rapt attention. Ideas and anecdotes flowed and a whole new vista of a brave new India was opened up in the cerebral essence of the inquisitive audience. The annual VARIndia IT Forum, which has been drawing exemplary corporate attention all these years, has been celebrated with exceptional fervour and gaiety. The Technical Forum accredited for offering excellent Government-Corporate Interface kicked off to distinguished glitterati at hotel Taj Palace on 25th May, 2007. At a time when the country is eager not to leave any stone unturned to bridge the digital divide and leverage its IT capacity in empowering the teeming millions, the Forum interestingly, empathizing with the efforts, has chosen to give it the theme-“Economic Development Through e-Governance”. Speakers starting from Dr. N. Vijayaditya, Controller of Certifying Authorities, Government of India, to Mr. R. Chandrasekhar, IAS, Additional Secretary” - T, DIT, Government of India, presented their views across the table.
The forum which happened to be the fifth in a row and spanned a whole day was kick-started with Mr. Deepak Sahu, President & Director of Kalinga Digital Media Pvt. Ltd.’s cordial welcome address to the guests and delegates. Following this, distinguished guests of honour lighted the inaugural lamp.
The event attracted a galaxy of CXOs, government officials and SIs from across India and provided an excellent opportunity to share good practices in e-governance. The Symposium also debated the potential of e-governance for increasing transparency, good governance and citizen participation.
The Symposium included an opening address by Mr. S. N. Tripathy (IAS), Secretary - IT, Government of Orissa, ITeS on Rural Development by the State of Orissa and a keynote address by Dr. N. Vijayaditya, Controller of Certifying Authorities, DIT, Government of India, followed by presentations by representatives of different states, organizations and companies on various aspects and activities related to e-governance.
Presenting a strong case for Orissa, Mr. Tripathy said, “Orissa presents a strong case for IT investments. With the four major players of Indian IT well stationed in Orissa and the software exports crossing $100 million this year, Bhubaneswar being well connected through air, rail and road, and a staggering Rs.25,000 crore being earmarked for road construction, vibrant industrial atmosphere, stable political conditions, good law and order facilities, centres of educational excellence and rich talent pool and power surplus condition, Orissa is in an enviable condition for IT investments.”
Mr. Tripathy described Orissa as the metal hub of India and recorded with enthusiasm his Government's signing of $45-billion investment with various industry players in the sector, even exceeding McKinsey & McKinsey's predictions of $32 - 40 billion. He laid stress on the development of infrastructural set-up like ports, land and air links by the Orissa Government. He claimed that with a staggering 13,000 MW power production, peaceful atmosphere and people-friendly sustainable development, Orissa is there with all the effects of Calcutta, but without the side-effects of it. That is why no Singurs, no Nandigrams in Orissa have happened as of yet. Mr. Tripathy, shedding light on his government's e-Governance programmes, stunned the audience by claiming that Kalahaandi is using digital modes to run its NREGP schemes through proper implementation of GRAMSAT. He further claimed that with the help of NIC, his Government has not only got all the block headquarters Internet connected 24/7, but has made it sure that all connections are through optical fibre laying. Mr. Tripathy urged the Indian IT leaders not to waste time in starting up in Orissa.
In his keynote address, Dr. N. Vijayaditya drew the attention of the august assemblage towards some important aspects of e-governance. He emphasized on higher bandwidth, State Wide Area Network (SWAN) being carried to the villages, growth of Data Centres and security auditing of various IT applications. In a short but highly loaded speech, Dr. Vijayaditya told that all we need is greater network connectivity and for it higher bandwidth is indispensable. The Government has crossed the first phase of implementation and is considering only bandwidths of Gigabyte scales. He laid stress on maintaining the existing Data Centres and creating new ones throughout the country. As the economy is poised for astounding growth, to support and accelerate its speedier implementation of e-governance programmes is the crying need of the hour. He also reminded the audience about the most important aspects of digitalisation, i,e., Security Auditing. Unless a stamp of security is affixed on a certain application whether it is related to telemedicine, financial areas, or e-education, it is less likely to attract public trust. “Certifications of various applications developed by various vendors,” he continued, “will go a long way in enhancing the prospects of e-governance.”
Taking the baton from Dr. Vijayaditya, Mr. Alok Bhatacharya, Adviser, WEBEL, invoked the corporate spirit towards West Bengal while simultaneously presenting his package for the IT industry. Mr. Bhattacharya highlighted the massive availability of local talent, an inspiring power situation without almost no power cuts - a must for the IT industry - in Calcutta. He also dwelt at length on the availability of good bandwidth of 50 megabytes in West Bengal and a further addition of a sea cable connecting at Haldia Port to supply pleasurable bandwidth to the industry. As far as space is concerned, he informed that several million square feet space is being developed by the Government with DLF and other developers are being roped in. The Government headed by an IT-savvy minister, he said, is also developing Siliguri and Durgapur to spread the IT pressure over the state.
The flavour of the event was the corporate presentations, whereby the top IT corporate honchos with their Power Point presentations vied for bigger spaces in the Government's e-governance programmes. The products, their application and their uniqueness - all rose up to a crescendo with each official's espousal of his products utility. Canon's Som Ganopadhyay, Director, Business Imaging Solutions Division, while convincing the government mandarins about the products for e-governance from Canon's stable, touched upon four key products, at the same time vouchsafing that his company is suitably placed to adjust and customize its products as per the requirements of the Government as it has one of its three global software centres based in Gurgaon. Mr. Som focussed on products such as the 'Universal send' solution, Remote copying, Secure Watermark and the Web Cool print. In this era of right to information, the products' reserve an added relevance. While 'Universal send' solution is capable of verifying and then sending documents in various modes like emails, mail servers, etc. to almost 256 destinations simultaneously, the remote copying is poised to bridge the digital divide by accessing and copying files at remote locations. The digitalized era is more concerned with security and authentication and this is where the security watermark fits in. It helps in eradicating the possibility of duplicating, impersonations or copying a document and also facilitates e-signature device. The Web cool print, which simply surfs the Net for relevant contents and gets them printed eliminates the need of a PC and thereby becoming an effective tool of e-governance. Mr. Som went on to emphasize on good governance and said bringing connectivity to the village kiosks is just the beginning, but the real challenge starts from there in operationalzing and customizing the system in place to cater to the needs of the population.
The daylong brainstorming session was frequented by launches, tea breaks and pleasurable chats. While the session was going off, the stalls from various top corporates like HP, Canon, Samsung, ZyXel, Inflow Technologies were the cynosure of all eyes.
One of the memorable presentations that sent the audience into trance was presented by Dr. Shefali Dash, DDG, NIC. In a short but powerful presentation, Dr. Dash reiterated her view that e-Governance has to be citizen-centric, and not government-centric. For e-governance to be effective, she opined, we need to build up internal efficiency first. She categorized the programme into G-to-G and G-to-C categorized. In the G-to-C category, she said, a website called “code” is already in place for workflow to address the consumer grievances. Similarly, we have online universities, online results and e-filing of results, E-ticketing for Railway reservations and airlines. Dr. Dash took pains to apprise the audience that we have crossed what she called the transaction phase and have entered the transition phase in e-governance. Way back in the mid-nineties, the public databases were put on the websites for public access. She, with a striking exactitude, presented an ideal model of how e-governance programme percolates down to the citizen. While the government remains at the centre, the universities, NGOs, etc. remain at the next layer of the service delivery gate from where the citizen can access service and the required information. She also extensively dwelt upon E-readiness, whereby networking People, networking Language, networking Society and networking Policy bear added significance. The short lecture also drove home the benefits of IT implementation by various government bodies. It also informed that the Planning Commission has also made it clear to state governments that they need to devote a specific proportion of funds of their total spend on IT. She emphasized on skilled manpower to operationalize the governance programmes.
In the corporate presentation section, Mr. Vijay Yadav, Managing Director, South Asia, UTStarcom India Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Som Ganopadhyay, Director, Business Imaging Solutions Division, Canon India, Mr. Rajesh Kumar, National Manager, GDE Business, Samsung Electronics India Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Anup Kumar of SonicWall, Mr. Harshdeep Marwah, Business Development Manager, Government & Defence, Cisco Systems, India & SAARC, and Mr. Vibhav A. Tekchand, Technical Specialist, AMD India, Mr. Manish Pratap, Server Specialist, HP Blad Systems, HP India, and Mr. Gurkiran Singh, Security Consultant, Check Point, made compelling presentations of their organizations’ readiness and products to participate in the e-governance programmes by the government to take the country to newer heights.
To add further push the elegance of the event, another compelling presentation came from Mr. Niraj Prakash, General Manager, Public Services, SAP India. Mr. Prakash shed light upon an' “Enterprise Approach” to implementation of e-Governance projects. As a leader in the ERP segment, SAP, he said, understands e-Governance as a two-tiered phenomena: First, Internal Efficiency in the field of government's revenue and Expenditure and, secondly, the area where the government deals with the citizens and businesses. In the first area, dealing with government accounting, HR Management, e-procurement, he claimed, SAP enjoys an edge over others. E-Governance, according to him, is not just offering services to citizens by putting information on the website, but it has to be transaction-centric and has to be done by back-end support of approvals etc. It needs to take into account accurate IT system, the time factor and integrating various systems delivering citizen service. More than an ERP organization, SAP, he claimed, is also an organization dealing with information management capable of providing interoperability frameworks for government programmes. SAP has been actively helping in tax and revenue management, project and master data management by various state governments as well. He also explained SAP's participation in various UK and US city corporations along with the Indian Navaratna companies. Mr. Prakash also laid stress on his company's security and scalability aspects of his products.
Mr. R. Chandrasekhar (IAS), Additional Secretary - IT, DIT, Government of India, gave a brilliant account of e-governance projects undertaken by the government, the wider implications for economic opportunity and revolutionary impact of rural connectivity. Mr. Chandrasekhar said, “e-Governance should be viewed from the angle of transparency, reliability and accessibility. It has to be from the citizen’s point of view, not from the government's perspective. He reiterated the Government's focus on the marginalized side of the digital divide. As a part of the e-governance programme 100,000 villages have been brought under the scheme to develop Community Service Centres.
2007 has been announced as the year of the broadband, but to drive broadband connectivity to the rural India, he admitted, is still a distant goal. When this is being done, it would, he expressed optimism, provide opportunity to the lower bottom of the pyramid. Revolution in communication has brought economic opportunity to rural India and it has to be delegated to the rural area in the same way, he quipped. He further stated that the outreach has to be done by public - private partnerships. Mr. Chandrasekhar stunned the august assemblage by citing an example from Bihar, where the Government has introduced a system to provide information to common citizens. All a citizen has to do is to give a call from the ubiquitous mobile phone requesting for certain information and then the call is processed and a bill is sent to the customer while it is rotated to the server. Eventually, the customer gets the information, enjoying the power of technology and the force of law. This small example speaks well of the vast potential of broadband connectivity and the sort of power it is all set to put in the hands of the people. To accelerate the process and make it happen, more purchasing capacity has to be put in the rural citizens' pocket. To sustain it with the persuasion of the government, some private players have started with rural BPOs. The result, he said, is more than encouraging. With half the costs and 30-per cent better accuracy, these BPOs in small towns employ hundreds of men.
Mr. R. C. Prabhakar of Teledata Informatics also gave a brilliant account of his organization's involvement in various e-governance projects undertaken by the Government. Mr. Manish Pratap, Server Specialist, HP Blade Systems, HP India, while emphasizing on various aspects highlighted the dynamic features of the HP server, its resilience and flexibility and put his company’s case very strongly on the table. And, Mr. Dinesh Talreja also emphasised on the readiness of HP India.
The VARIndia IT Forum also witnessed some award-giving ceremony. The awards which were given away were in two categories: The Brand of Excellence and the Most Trusted Company. In the category of Most Trusted Company, vendors including Epson India Pvt. Ltd., Intel Technology India Pvt. Ltd., Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd., Network Appliance Systems India Pvt. Ltd., SAP India Pvt. Ltd., Avaya Global Connect, HP India Sales Pvt. Ltd., Select Technologies Ltd., Logitech Electronic India Pvt. Ltd. and UTStarcom India Pvt. Ltd. won the awards, whereas in the Brand of Excellence category vendors like TVS Electronics Ltd., HCL, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd., Samsung India Electronics Pvt. Ltd. and APC India Pvt. Ltd. received the awards.
And distinguished personalities like Dr. N. Vijayaditya, Controller of Certifying Authorities, Government of India, and Mr. S. N. Zindal, DG, STPI, had honoured the corporates with the awards.
The panel discussion, the most-awaited and exciting of the whole cerebral drama, witnessed some of the best minds of the industry and the Government. together in one stage. The esteemed panel comprised of Dr. N. Vijayaditya, Controller of Certifying Authorities, Government of India; Col. Rajesh Dua, GM (IT), Punjab Infotech; Mr. S. N. Zindal, DG, STPI; Mr. B. K. Panda (IOFS), Commissioner, Coal Mines PF Organization; Mr. ALok Bhattacharya, Adviser, WEBEL; Mr. Milind Deshpande, Vice-President, HCL Infosystem; Mr. Rajesh Dhar, Country Manager, Industry Standards Service, HP India; and Mr. S. Narendran, Vice-President, TVS-E. Moderator Vinnie Mehta, Director, MAIT, gave an electrifying start to the topic by registering the astounding growth rate of 10 per cent at which the economy is growing and the magic that e-governance can instil into it, while expressing the hope that he would be able to see the day when India would be the largest economy in terms of GDP by 2050. Participating in the discussions, Dr. Vijayaditya emphasized on revenue creation for the Government as well as the citizen. Quoting the Bihar Government's successful implementation of its sales tax project which generated Rs.100-crore revenue, he expressed optimism on this front. He chose to downplay the concept that citizens were not ready to spend and stressed that if accurate and reliable service was provided there would be no dearth of spenders. He said the telecom revolution and the flooding traffic of SMSs bear talking testimony to this fact. Good governance would certainly give way to good economic growth. He held the proper implementation of ICT to be greatly responsible for the recent economic growth and expressed that e-governance could effectively bridge the rural-urban divide. Mr. S. Narendran presented a vivid account of the possibilities of a one billion entrepreneurs in India and emphasized that entrepreneurship was in the Indian DNA. He further reminded that if 15 years of partial liberalization could unleash a $20-billion services economy which was the tip of a iceberg, then it could be imagined that what could be the effect of an e-governance programme that would touch the education, agriculture and so many other sectors at the grassroots level.
Panellist Alok Bhattacharya, giving examples from his experience as adviser, WEBEL, said how digitalization of property records had eliminated the time wastage and had started delivering in just three hours. He also shed light on training the personnel at the Panchayat level to run e-governance.
Col. Dua of Punjab Infotech put on the table some salient points. While 23 per cent of our skilled workforce employed in the services sector produced 56 per cent of the total GDP, another 77 per cent in the industry and the agriculture produced 46 per cent of the total GDP. He said India was the youngest nation with the average age of 23-24 years being the employable age in comparison to 48 years being the average age in developed nations, including the US. So, we needed to take it to our advantage. The colonel laid stress on “capacity building” as the way forward.
Mr Zindal anchored his opinion on four distinct points. He said to provide connectivity to a country of such size itself was a challenging task. Providing connectivity at the block level, constant power supply to run the systems, hardware maintenance, the use of Indian languages in the computer systems presented a lot of difficulties for the rural India to go fully digitalized.
Mr. Panda (IOFS) came out with a crisp but emphatic presentation on how IT could be used to assert India's supremacy throughout the world and his trials and tribulations in bringing Software Technology to the most unthought-of area - the dusty interiors of Dhanbad coalmines in Jharkhand. Fighting against heavy odds - public apathy, ignorance of users, callous government officials, the ire of vested interests - he successfully brought the rays of e-governance amongst illiterate coalmine workers to help them come out of the grip of exploitation of middlemen, through his “MISSION BISWAS”. Messrs Dhar & Deshpande effectively took up a question from the audience on E-waste and also added their valuable views on the topic.
In the end, Mr. Sanjay Mohapatra, Editor, VARIndia, proposed the vote of thanks.
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