empowering rural india: june 2010

VOLUME 6 ISSUE 6 ISSN 0973-161X Rs. 75 JUNE 2010

ASIA’S FIRST MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON E-GOVERNANCE

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Curtain Raiser

Empowering

How ICT is revolutionising the way Panchayats work

Rural India

3egov JUNE 2010

ovVOLUME 6 ISSUE 6 JUNE 2010

ISSN 0973-161X RNI NO. - UPENG/2008/25234

50 SOCIAL MEDIA IN GOVERNANCE

NEWS

24 India News

53 Business News

INTERVIEW

6 Dr Mukul SangmaChief Minister, Meghalaya

14 Jerome Bonnafont French Ambassador in India

18 Dr Sudhir Krishna Additional Secretary Ministry of Panchayati Raj Government of India

FEATURE

8 EMPOWERING RURAL INDIA

16 THE ROUTE TO GREEN DATA CENTRES

20 THE VILLAGE SUCCESS STORY

22 REVOLUTIONISING PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

25 CONNECTING SCIENTISTS GLOBALLY

31 e-GOV SOLUTIONS FOR LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENTS IN INDIA

47 INTEGRATED GPS SOLUTIONS

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5egov JUNE 2010

Transforming Rural Governancee-Panchayat is an important mission mode project included in the National e-Governance Plan of the

Government of India to address the main challenges facing the villages, which include the lack of reliable communication infrastructure, delay in delivery of services to citizens and lack of monitoring mechanisms for rural development schemes. This is in line with the government’s goal of empowering the grassroots democratic institutions.

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is a major instrument towards achieving this objective. ICT not only makes the information accessible but also reduces the delay in time taken in service delivery, besides bringing in transparent and effi cient governance. The rural India, as compared to urban India is marked by a lack of regular supply of electricity and poor connectivity, which makes one doubt about the success of e-Panchayats. Although, the Government of India plans to provide all the village Panchayats with broadband connectivity by 2012, we are still very far from this goal.

However, in this grim scenario, we have some shining examples of successful implementation of ICT for empowering the lowest rung of administration. Some of these examples include e-Panchayats in Andhra Pradesh (AP), which began as a pilot project to computerise the functions of Panchayat in a village near Hyderabad, and is now being extended to other villages in Andhra Pradesh. PriaSoft implementation in Orissa is another successful example, where the Panchayati Raj Institutions Accounting Software is being used to monitor the accounts of the village Panchayats. There are numerous such accomplishments and to continue this successful trend of e-Panchayat implementation, there is an urgent need to percolate the benefi ts of e-Governance and IT to the government employees at the village level and among the rural masses. Rightly, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India, is carrying out a massive capacity building programme in e-Literacy for the Panchayat members. Dr Sudhir Krishna, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, in an exclusive interview with e-Gov, informed that the Government is focusing on the computer literacy of the three million Panchayat members in the country.

In this edition of e-Gov magazine we also bring to our readers the excerpts from the interaction with two young and dynamic key government representatives from India and France. We have the Chief Minister of Meghalaya State, Dr Mukul Sangma, talking to us on how he intends to use ICT for governance and development. On the other hand, we have His Excellency, Jerome Bonnafont sharing his thoughts on how he evaluates India’s e-Governance journey. We hope you enjoy reading this edition of e-Gov magazine.

Dr. RAVI GUPTA

Editor-in-Chief

[email protected]

EDITORIAL

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egov is published by Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd in technical collaboration with Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS).Owner, Publisher, Printer: Ravi Gupta, Printed at Vinayak Print Media, D-320, Sector - 10 Noida, U.P. and published from 710 Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50 Noida, UPEditor: Ravi Gupta

6 www.egovonline.net

DR MUKUL SANGMACHIEF MINISTERMEGHALAYA

“Capacity Building ofYouth is the Key”www.meghalaya.nic.in

Dr Mukul SangmaDr MMu ul SangmaDr Mukul Sangma is a great believer of change and while it has been just i g ea l ev r of ch nge and wh le has be n u tis a great believer of change and while it has been justover a month that he has taken over as the state Chief Minister, he isve a mont hat h ha ak n ve a he s at Ch ef Min s er, he iover a month that he has taken over as the state Chief Minister he isalready talking about rolling out quality education and health facilities tol ead a in a out r l in ou ua i y duc t on nd hea t ac l t e oalready talking about rolling out quality education and health facilities totrigger high growth. Speaking tor gg igh g wth eak ng ttrigger high growth Speaking to Pravin PrashantPr vin Pr hanPravin Prashant of e-Gov, this young o -Gov th s younof e-Gov this youngand dynamic face of Meghalaya talked in details on how he intends to usend dynam c a e f MM ha ay l ed in de a l on how he i en o usand dynamic face of Meghalaya talked in details on how he intends to useICT for governance and development.CTT f r gov nan e and dev lo mm ntICT for governance and development

GOVERNMENT SPEAK

7egov JUNE 2010

We are impressed by your vision since you have been talking about growth and only growth for eliminating poverty alleviation, bringing new jobs, better education and health. How do you plan to make this vision a reality?

We have a multilevel approach to realise our vision. We have youth with different levels. For creating job opportunities for the youth we need to have different programmes to enable them to connect to the job market. Regarding employability, we are talking about employability in the government sector, non-government sector, farming sector and also self-employment opportunities through combination of skills, education and motivation. This will differ from person to person based on the level of education, knowledge and the level of motivation. Handholding needs to be done in case there is lack of motivation, in order to sustain the prorgramme.

I am identifying the employment areas based on the present job market and accordingly training the youth to fi t themselves into the job markets within the state, outside the state or outside the country.

There is a need for outsourcing of youth training for different schemes be it information technology, health and farming sector. We will have to explore the possibility of building up quality manpower in these sectors and export such manpower wherever there is an opportunity for our boys and girls.

Are you planning to allocate substantial funds for capacity building in Meghalaya for verticals like health, education, hospitality and information technology?

We are aggressively focusing on capacity building for youth in Meghalaya for verticals like health, education, hospitality and information technology (IT). The State Government is providing substantial funds for capacity building in the State and I am presently working on the amount.

We are fi nalising target for capacity building, which we plan to achieve by FY 2009-10.

We are also planning to create Meghalaya as the education hub and for this we are creating a pool of youth

teachers and also creating competitive environment for quality education and attracting students from different streams to Meghalaya.

Under your leadership, Meghalaya is actively looking to attract investment for IT/ITES sector. How are you planning to be a part of the complete eco-system for IT/ITES deployment in the state?

Apart from infrastructure, which includes bandwidth availability, our focus is on availability of trained manpower. IT/ITES companies need large pool of trained manpower. Since manpower retention is a big problem, thereore, our focus is to cater to their requirements by linking our policies to creating Meghalaya as the education hub and also focusing on capacity building programme.

Recently, the Planning Commission has fi nalised an Annual Plan of Rs 2,230 crores for Meghalaya. What are your priorities for FY 2009-10 as per the Annual Plan?

Regarding Annual Plan there are two important things: First, the whole amount must be available fully and it should be fully funded by the Planning Commission. Second, the amount released to the state should be timely so that there is timely implementation of schemes by the state and even the fund utilisation is high.

In the present Annual Plan we are focusing on Livelihood Programme, which focuses on the capacity building and skill development training programme for pursuing self-employment on a sustained basis. These programmes includes: hospitality, IT/ITES, sericulture, weaving, garment making, pisciculture, horticulture and allied sector of agriculture. The Livelihood programme focuses on youth, marginal and small farmers with special emphasis on women. This Programme is expected to generate 15,000 sustainable employment in FY 2010-11.

Another focus is to encourage investment in environment friendly industries like IT and hospitality sector. We are also focusing on sector specifi c handholding programmes to encourage local entrepreneurship. We are utilising North East Investment Promotion Policy (NEIPP) of the Government of India for attracting investment from outside.

Another priority we have put is to sensitise the community to climate change and its adverse impact. We are going with integrated rain water harvesting, water conservation program wherein it is expected that every basin will be properly surveyed and appropriate project will be taken up to recharge the catchment areas, including improvement of the qualityof river basin production of fi sh, irrigational purpose, promotion of eco-tourism, which can provide sustained income generation for the community.

We will continue to focus on infrastructure like road, power and airport. We are following up aggressively with the Government of India for having an appropriate railway network in the state. Regarding power, we have the potential of more than 3,000 MWs and similar quantum from coal based thermal project. There are are a number of projects which are coming up in the State and it is expected that the State will have affordable and quality power supply.

How are you planning to tackle the bandwidth issue for IT/ITES companies?

The kind of bandwidth needed to attract big players in the IT/ITES is going to be crucial and we are looking at this issue aggressively. We are planning to have a Green industrial-cum-IT hub, which will be suffi cient infrastructure for all kinds of IT/ITES activities.

How are you planning to use ICT in Meghalaya to provide better governance to your citizens?

I am planning to create an ICT environment so that citizens can draw maximum benefi t in terms of G2C (government to citizen) services and it also improves delivery of services to the citizens. We are planning to use technology for effi cient and transparent governance. Inclusive politics involving all communities of the State in various developmental programmes, which itself can be a mechanism to ensure transparency and more effective delivery mechanism for various government programmes. We are accordingly preparing a road map for development in an integrated manner for each constituency and we will monitor the milestone set to achieve this goal. \\

The kind of bandwidth needed to attract big players in the IT/ITES is going to be crucial and we are looking at this issue aggressively.


For the optimal utilisation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in capacity building of local government bodies—Panchayats—and for improving service delivery to citizens, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) formulated and launched a unique scheme for revolutionising the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). The massive e-Governance project, the e-PRI, was identifi ed as one of the Mission Mode Projects (MMP) under the National e-Governance Plan in 2006.

The e-PRI scheme has a critical role in improving the overall functioning of the Panchayats. The aim is to inculcate a culture of ICT usage in the PRIs, revolutionise them by leveraging ICT for increasing effi ciency at the grassroots and portray them as symbols of modernity and effi ciency. The project aims at the empowerment and development of communities at the Panchayat level by creating a virtual community and an interactive portal. It also offers transparent communication between the top-level and local functionaries, as well as between citizens and Panchayats.

To strengthen the community and the process, every year the loopholes in the work done by the Panchayats are identifi ed and fresh targets to deliver effi cient services are set for them. e-Panchayat focuses on the identifi cation of information needs and service needs of the stakeholders, process re-engineering and generation of detailed project report (DPR).

To take the initiative further, the Government of India has estimated around Rs. 4500 crore for providing connectivity to all 2.52 lakh Panchayats across the country. Presently, e-Panchayat has 30 major modules on different aspects of rural administration. The main focus is to provide services like birth certifi cate,

COVER STORY

Empowering Rural India

caste/tribe certifi cate, death certifi cate, application for old age and widow pension, ration card, registration of land and property, registration with state employment exchange, registering grievances with Women Commission, checking land records online.

Giving a major push to the project, the Central Government has mandated all its departments and state governments to extensively use e-Panchayat to keep a track of the progress made by the Panchayats, as also to connect with other the Panchayats. And the objective is clear: enable Panchayats to make speedy and transparent transfer of funds and automate their own functioning.

However, like in all major e-Governance projects in the country, the e-Panchayat too cannot be rolled out at a nation-wide level without the active participation of the private sector. Taking the Public-Private Partnership model to the bottom of the pyramid, the Government has decided to involve the private sector for the critical infrastructure and training components.

According to Sudhir Krishna, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India, the project includes appointment of Service Centre Agencies (SCA) by the states through competitive bidding process on the ‘build, own, operate, transfer’ (BOOT) model for the same.

These agencies would equip all Gram Panchayats (GPs) with computers, make the Panchayat members e-Literate and provide connectivity via high-speed Internet. Based on the requirements of each project and its location, the cost of the project will be calculated and payments would be made to SCAs on a monthly or quarterly basis.

CONNECTIVITY AND TECHNOLOGY

With the objective of equipping all Panchayats across the country with computing hardware and connectivity over the next three years, the Central Government has planned to spend Rs. 18,000 crore to lay a fi ve lakh km optical

GAYATRI MAHESHWARYwww.panchayat.nic.in

ICT is revolutionising the way local governments or the Panchayats work by bridging the gap between the government as a service provider and citizen at the bottom of the pyramid.


fi bre cable (OFC) network to reach every Gram Panchayat (GP). To accomplish this massive task, an infrastructure company will be carved out of BSNL, the State-owned telecommunications company in India, and will be funded by the Universal Services Obligations Fund (USOF).

The Ministry of Panchayati Raj has also partnered with the telecommunications department for providing connectivity to all the Panchayats through WiMax. BSNL has taken up to install 7000 base tower stations to cover the entire country. The hilly regions would be provided VSAT connectivity. By December 2010, the entire nation would be connected by broadband.

Bharti Airtel Limited, India’s leading telecommunication services provider, has partnered with the Government of Gujarat in the e-GRAM Connectivity Infrastructure Project. In the fi rst-of-its-kind project in the country, Bharti Airtel has set up telecom infrastructure to connect 13,716 village Panchayats, including those in the remotest areas, and Common Services Centres (CSCs) in the State. This has ensured high quality and cost-effective video, voice and data services at the Panchayat level, which can be used in the areas of agriculture, e-Governance, health, education etc. Connectivity at the Panchayat level further facilitates point-to-point and point–to-multipoint video conferencing services, VOIP services and both Intranet and Internet services from the village Panchayats and CSCs. This connectivity project in Gujarat was completed in March 2008.

Gujarat is the only State in the country having the infrastructure to provide e-Services to the 13,693 village Panchayats. All the 25 District Panchayats and 224 Taluka Panchayats, nearly 100%, of

Gujarat have been connected through the Gujarat State Wide Area Network (GSWAN).

In Bihar, an ambitious project was initiated, which envisaged the horizontal expansion of State Wide Area Network (SWAN) up to the Panchayat level. The project aimed at connecting all 8,463 Panchayats through SWAN ensuring direct connectivity with the state headquarters.

In Orissa, The Department has its own connectivity through VSAT and has also partnered with BSNL for 2 Mbps Virtual Private Network (VPN). The department also has LAN connectivity at 314 Panchayat Samitis and each GP.

In the offi ces in Thiruvananthapuram, horizontal connectivity can be seen where 3,500 offi cers are connected to the Kerala State Wide Area Network

(KSWAN). The same way all the major state offi ces in the area are connected to KSWAN. “In addition, 1,660 remote offi ces, not located in the civil stations are being connected to KSWAN using wireless remote connectivity,” says Dr Ajay Kumar, Principal Secretary, IT and Director, Institute of Management in Government, Thiruvananthapuram. As of now, almost 600 locations have been connected. The phase of connectivity is complete in 609 local bodies, while in the rest of the areas, it is in the advanced stages.

e-PANCHAYATS AND CSCThe Common Service Centres or

CSCs cater to the needs of the citizens of the villages. The aim is to provide effi cient delivery of the services to the citizens at their doorstep along with bridging

GETTING IT RIGHT

FINANCEThe fi nances allocated to each state Panchayats should be done in such a way that it improves their economic conditions, which in turn will automatically improve the quality of the infrastructure. With the right amount of funds, the connectivity of the villagers living even in the remotest parts can be ensured making them the benefi ciaries of the requisite services at their door step.

FUNCTIONSPanchayats should be ICT enabled in such a way that amongst others, it is able to provide citisen services—from issuing certifi cates and fi ling of applications to availing benefi ts of various government schemes, registration with state employment exchange, and logging public grievances with statutory bodies like the Women Commission or National Human Rights Commission.

FUNCTIONARIESA strict agreement with the various service centre agencies for the constant training of the Panchayat members have to be ensured by the government. This will help in making the Panchayats computer literate and ensure their smooth functioning. The Central Government also needs to equip the local governments with suffi cient resources and manpower to gear up the functioning of the e-Panchayats.

11egov JUNE 2010

the digital divide. “The e-Panchayat programme is open to converge with the CSCs in their programme. The CSCs

THE STATES’ ROADMAP

The e-Panchayat programme differ from state to state in terms of parameters such as applications used, available infrastructure, and connectivity. Some states need an upgradation in terms of hardware and software. Other states need to scale up their effi ciency with regard to computer usage.

ANDHRA PRADESHThe roadmap for e-Panchayat has been laid by Electronic Knowledge-based Panchayat, EKPanch, a pilot project implemented

by Andhra Pradesh State Unit of the National Informatics Center (NIC). The Department of Panchayati Raj and Rural Employment, AP, rolled out EKPanch initially in 475 Major Panchayats to be expanded to all 1300 major Panchayats in the subsequent phases. The aim was to equip the rural citizens with comprehensive and updated information in Panchayats and ensure transparency in governance. This has further offered a unique opportunity for establishing inter-/intra-stakeholder partnerships at the grassroots level.

All the Panchayat functions are web-enabled and computerised. Birth and death registration, house tax assessment and collection, trade licenses, old age pensions, works monitoring, fi nancial accounting, general administration, etc. are being executed electronically. The GP data could be easily obtained through Internet using software developed by NIC.

After the triumphant success of e-Panchayat in the phase I of imlementation, AP Government decided to implement the same in all the major Panchayats in the state. For the sustainability of the project, an Operator was also recruited for each e-Panchayat.

The EKPanch project in AP has demonstrated the feasibility and the successful implementation of ICT in e-Governance at the grassroots level in the villages. Due to the favourable outcome and the accomplishment of the EKpanch project in AP, several awards such as Oracle e-Governance Excellence Award and Skoch Challenger Award were given in. Therefore, the model of e-Panchayat in AP can be used as a reference at the national level in other states and also in other countries with due adaptation and localisation, to understand the strengths and the weaknesses of the same.

ORISSATo make the masses aware of the various benefi ts and schemes provided by the government, the Panchayati Raj Department

of Orissa has made the details of all the schemes and the programmes online to make things more transparent for the people. The information is updated on a daily basis. With the information provided online, the progress of each and every scheme can be monitored at each and every step. To make the website more user-friendly, all the information is presented in English and Oriya. Local computer engineers have been appointed to maintain the database. They maintain the service as well as provide training to their junior engineers and other offi cers of Panchayat Samitis.

In order to enhance transparency, the department provides all the information at Panchayat Samiti level. By 2010, the department will provide information at the GP level. An Integrated Grievance Redressal System (IGRS) is there for people to lodge complaints through its toll-free number. In addition to this, software has also been developed by the department to direct the complaints to the concerned Panchayat Samiti.

GUJARATThe Gujarat Panchayat Act, 1993 came into force after the 73rd

Amendment. The Panchayat Raj in Gujarat has a 3-tier arrangement; Gram Panchayat, Taluka Panchayat and District Panchayat. With the help of its

can be housed in the Panchayat building which has already been done in many states. It is an option given to the states

to converge with the CSCs, but it is not forced on them”, says Sudhir Krishna.

In West Bengal, the state government has developed around 3,870 CSCs out of which 1,190 are located in the GP offi ces and another 179 are located in Panchayat samiti offi ces. These CSCs help the citizens with various services at their door step. In Orissa, there are about 8000 CSCs implying one for each Panchayat, which are helping the rural and the remote areas of the villages create and develop an IT infrastructure of its own.

TOUGH ROAD AHEADThere are approx. 2.5 lakh Panchayat

members in the country spread across the 28 states and 7 Union Territories. The physical connectivity of the Panchayats is an issue, as majority of them are located


in remote areas. Availability of electricity in the villages is another major challenge to be addressed. The connection and then the regular supply of the electricity has to be ensured for the effi cient delivery of the services to the citizens.

Another major limitation which is faced by the State governments is the economic condition of the Panchayats which varies from state to state. “The prosperous states have a better infrastructure. In the poorer states, the infrastructure is not very good and it is a major task for the Panchayats to organise themselves and deliver the services. The poor economic conditions in remote areas not only refl ects on the infrastructure but also on the manpower as in such areas the people are not so competent at operations management”, adds Krishna.

As Panchayats are an important part

of the grassroots governance structure lack of transparency and accountability is one area which has to be focused upon. To get the e-Panchayat up and running, the government is geared up to maintain a strict agreement with the service centre agencies. Constant training of the Panchayat members is also important for their smooth and effi cient working. To overcome the lacunae in the system, the local governments have to be provided with suffi cient resources and manpower.

Panchayats play an important role in the lives of the people living in the rural and remote areas, an important yet neglected part of our society. Panchayats being the grassroots democratic institutions need to be further empowered through effective devolution of functions, fi nances and functionaries (3Fs).

Besides, empowerment and

accountability of Panchayats needs to be given higher allocation, in terms of fi nancial allocation and due importance in the state policies, for the institutions to render transparent, effective and effi cient services to the villagers living in the remote and rural areas. \\

portal, the Gujarat Panchayat Raj Department is reaching out to the rural masses of the state. ‘e-Gram Vishwa Gram’, the e-Village project in the state of Gujarat was launched in 2009. This project implemented

by Department of Panchayat and Rural Development had a vision to open up new horizons for the three-tier Panchayati Raj Institutions. The aim of the project was to computerise all 13,693 Panchayats in Gujarat and to connect them at each level via broadband to make their functioning organised, time-bound, simple, error-free and transparent through the implementation of IT.

Under this connectivity programme, various Internet-based services like VSAT, video conference, Internet, video broadcasting will be made available in the far-fl ung rural areas of the state. Facilitating IT enabled citizen–centric services such as the issue of birth and death certifi cate, land ownership certifi cate at the village level, and payments for telephone and electricity bills will be the prime objectives of the project. The entire project would be implemented by private companies, including Reliance Infocomm while satellite connectivity would be provided by Airtel.

KERALAIn the state of Kerala the e-Governance initiative of 1,215 local self-government which includes 999 Gram Panchayats,

154 Block Panchayats and 14 District Panchayats is driven through a project, Information Kerala Mission (IKM). As part of this project, 7 major systems including Plan formulation, monitoring and implementation (Sulekha), citizen services like civil registration and certifi cate issue (Sevana), revenue, fi nance and accounts (Saankhya), public works and purchase, administration and establishment and local body institutions covering Panchayat Committees, Standing Committees, Grama Sabhas, etc, were extensively studied, and applications developed. In most of the cases, the local language interface has been used along with the web technology.

The year 2010-11 will focus on the completion of the projects which are in the phase of completion/advanced stages, package for Accounts (Sankhya), Package for Establishment (Stapana), etc., that are in advanced stages, along with focusing on strengthening and follow-up of the already completed projects, like Sevana and Sulekha, to ensure its sustainability. The focus is to consolidate existing applications, ensure high level of service delivery in all Panchayats, provide services to the common man, migrate the applications and database to unicode compatible Malayalam font. Kerala has tried to leverage the advantages of both Government-Citizen Conjoint and Service Delivery Models.

WEST BENGAL The e-Panchayat initiatives in West Bengal focus on 4 major areas: improving fi nancial management, physical monitoring

of key programs using mobile technology, use of geo-referenced maps for people-centric decentralised planning, and CSCs for decentralised services. For improving fi nancial management, the rules for introducing the double entry system of accounting in the Panchayats hass been revamped by the state governments. The software Integrated Fund Management System (IFMS) has been developed for book-keeping of the Zila Parishads and Panchayat Samitis. The Gram Panchayat Management System (GPMS) has been developed for book-keeping and generation of birth and death certifi cates, trade licenses, management of tax, etc. Almost all 333 Panchayat Samitis (PS) have been using IFMS as on January 2010. The use of IFMS has brought a change in the maintenance of records, it has become more systematic and data retrieval has become easy and can be done as and when required.

To monitor the socio-economic infrastructure, the locations of the habitation and the natural features of every GP in West Bengal, geo-referenced maps are being used to monitor the same. It is also being used to show core network of roads for implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) at the block levels.

Low cost biometric ID solution for e-gov services


JEROMEBONNAFONTFRENCH AMBASSADOR TOINDIA

“The Success of e-GovernanceLies in Empowerment of People”

INTERVIEWGOVERNMENT SPEAK

The world has come to a full circle forTT w r s come u l c rc e f rThe world has come to a full circle for Jerome BonnafontJer mm Bonn fonJerome Bonnafont who started his w t rt d hiwho started hisdiplomatic career as a Second Secretary at the French Embassy in India. Thedi oma i ar er a con S cr t ry a he Fr nch Emba sy i nd a Thediplomatic career as a Second Secretary at the French Embassy in India Theman who returned to the country in 2007 as the ambassador to India strongly mm n w eturn o th un ry i 07 as t e amba sa r to I di t ong yman who returned to the country in 2007 as the ambassador to India stronglybelieves that optimum utilisation of technology can help government’s across be i ve ha o t mm mm u i i a io o e hno ogy c n l g ve nmm nt cr sbelieves that optimum utilisation of technology can help government s acrossp gy p gthe world achieve their objective of public good. In an interaction withth wo ld a hi ve t ei b c iv pub i g od n n in er c io w ththe world achieve their objective of public good In an interaction withj p gRavi GuptaRR v GupRavi Guptap andndand Gayatri MaheshwaryGG ya r Mahe hww ryGayatri Maheshwaryy y of e-Gov, Bonnafont shared hiso -Gov Bonna on ha ed h sof e Gov Bonnafont shared hisyythoughts on how he believes ICT can impact development.tho ght n ow el e es ICT ca mm ac ev opm tthoughts on how he believes ICT can impact developmentg p p

www.france-in-india.org

15egov JUNE 2010

every citizen to have 100mb speed home connections in the coming years.

Please comment on the digital landscape in India in the overall context of ICT and how similar or different it is when compared to France.

The comparison of ICT development between India and France is not very easy as the two countries have different economies. The growth and the development of both countries are different and both have totally different administrative structures. The most striking thing about India is the development of ICT in parallel with the acceleration of economic growth. This phenomenon has led to the emergence of many big Indian companies, which have become world actors in the digital route of e-solutions in India and worldwide. Another favourable factor about India is the easy and vast acceptance of digitisation, which could be justifi ed given the popularity of mobile phones not only among the urban and middle classes but also those living in rural areas. Farmers have very easily adapted to changing technology. In the education sector, too, the immense role of ICT can be seen.

What could be possible lessons for India from the French experience?

It may not really be possible for the Indian government to follow the same path as followed by France, because of the various differences. One major difference is the size of the population, which is huge in India as compared to France. Another big difference is that India is a federation while France is a united country. Despite the differences found, the Indian government can learn from the success and the experience France has gained over the years. India is still in the nascent stage of e-Governance, and has a long way to go. Yet, the government has made a good start with the help of very effi cient private companies, notably in the mobile telecommunication area.

Please comment on the collaboration between India and France on the Indian UID project.

France has both technological and administrative experience in UID, which can be used by India. The French government started with the process of giving unique numbers to its citizens after the Second World War. At the time of birth, every person is assigned a number.

The major challenge for the Indian government is that the unique number

will have to be compared with the fi nger prints of 1 billion people. It will also have to ensure that it is not duplicated, which is a mammoth task in itself.

What is your message for governments all over the world undergoing technological changes?

For fulfi lling the government’s objective of public good and a better society, the development of infrastructures is important, along with the full utilisation of technology. It is the government’s role to ensure that administrative procedures are modernised in parallel with the technological changes. It is a revolution which is happening not only in India but also globally.

Ensuring that the citizens’ quality of life is not altered and that technological evolutions are taking place are the major challenges which every government has to deal with.

Besides, the key success of e-Governance is empowerment. It is very important to ensure that citizens comfortably adapt to the technological changes and keep pace with modern technologies.

Please elaborate on the challenges that governments worldwide need to focus on.

The overall challenge of governments is the inclusion of citizens in development, ensuring social cohesion – which is important and has to be given priority. Securing equal access to the administrative system for everybody in the country is a cornerstone of France’s politics. Making sure that the digital divide does not become an enormous gap and that the system is user-friendly even for those who are not so technology savvy is an obvious concern for all administrations; it’s somehow the modern literacy challenge.

Another very pertinent issue today is that of security. With cyber crimes on the rise, it is very important for governments to focus on protecting their assets. Another equally important but often ignored issue is disaster management, especially natural disasters. Protection against fraud in e-Commerce transactions also needs to be addressed by the governments.

The French government has implemented a single administration address, where all the services for the citizens are available online. Citizens can avail of these services by logging on to the system using their unique numbers. We believe this is a way to simplify the access to e-Government services. \\

Could you tell us about France’s successful journey on the path of e-Governance?

The use of Information Technology in France started in the 1970s. The French government has a tradition of looking forward and being an actor of the future. Being the harbingers of development, top-level government offi cials, while introducing technology for the governance of the country, took into consideration both the challenges and the opportunities that technology brings with itself.

‘E’ or ICT as a phenomenon has brought in two big forces of change: human progress and economic growth. Human progress in the country has enhanced connectivity at both the national and international levels. In terms of sustainability and access to knowledge, ICT has ushered in a kind of mental revolution in the society. It has helped in improving the overall standard of living, and has brought greater prosperity to society. Thus, ICT–which is a new chapter in economic growth–has played a very important role in France’s development, as everywhere else on the globe.

To what extent has the French Development Plan for the digital economy been achieved?

This plan, called “Digital France 2012”, was started by the French Government in the year 2008 to place France among the major digital nations by 2012. In the 90s, the French were relatively behind the Americans and the Japanese in terms of technology. The government accordingly organised and accelerated infrastructure investment so as to cope and keep pace with the changes happening in the other technologically advanced countries of the world. These proactive actions have made France one of the most technologically advanced countries of the world, where a majority of people are connected through ICT with each other as well as with the government. More than 70 percent of the French population, for example, have access to broadband connection at home and 7.7 million people already use Internet to watch Television at home. Most of the 150 actions of the plan are implemented.

After the economic crunch in 2009, the President of France has given priority to the investment of 5 billion euros in developing the ICT infrastructure of the country, including 2 billion Euros to build an optical fi bre network that will enable


The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) has taken a big leap from government-centric to citizen-centric services. State Data Centre (SDC) is a key component of the NeGP. SDC is envisioned as a shared, reliable and secure infrastructure for hosting and managing e-Governance applications of a State and its different departments. It provides functionalities such as central repository of the state, secure data storage, online delivery of services, citizen information and services portal, state Intranet portal, disaster recovery, remote management and service integration.

With these shared service centres implemented and managed centrally, individual departments can now focus more on service delivery rather than on issues related to infrastructure.

In the last three months, 10 state governments--Tripura,Maharashtra, Haryana, Orissa, Meghalaya, Puducherry, Gujarat, Sikkim, Nagaland and Rajasthan-- have fl oated tenders for design, site preparation, supply, installation, commissioning, maintenance and operations of SDCs for a period of fi ve years . This number is bound to increase as many states are in advanced stage of data centre planning. All these deployments provide an impetus to e-Governance in these states.

INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

This is compounded by the trend of rising cost of electricity.

Along with consciousness of energy cost is an increasing recognition that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are a major contributing factor to global warming. Governments, like industry and the society at large, have an important new agenda: tackling environmental issues and adopting environmentally sound practices.

Reducing power consumption in Data Centres is, therefore, a priority for state governments. Green Data Centres are the answer as they consume less power and provide signifi cant environmental benefi ts. Energy saving features in technology products and virtualisation are the key to unlock profi tability and sustainability of data centres.

www.cisco.com

“If the focus is immediate power reduction, the fi rst step is to enable energy saving features in servers. The second is to take a look at virtualisation.”

Paul MarcouxVice-President, Green Engineering, Cisco Systems

DRIVERS FOR GREEN DATA CENTRES

However, shortage of power has emerged as a key problem in deployment of an effi cient data centre. With acute power shortages in most states, there is a crying need to use power judiciously.

Carbon Neutral Development

The route to a green data centre is marked by complex issues that require an understanding of hardware and software and a good understanding of power, cooling and networking.

17egov JUNE 2010

THE GREEN CHANNELA green connotation to a data centre

always means that the facility has either been retrofi tted or initially designed to mitigate its power consumption through the strategic application of available technologies. The long-term goal of the green data centre operation is to achieve carbon neutrality.

The route to a green data centre is marked by complex issues that require an understanding of hardware and software and a good understanding of power, cooling and networking.

BLADE VS RACKBlade form factors utilise power and

cool more effi ciently than stand alone rack unit servers, per work unit performed.

Since data centre effi ciency is in part a cumulative calculation of how disparate IT infrastructure interoperates with supporting facilities, blade capacity and density requirements must be aligned with facility design to achieve maximum effi ciency benefi ts

GREEN DESIGN Setting the right benchmarks to be

monitored is a critical success factor in energy effi ciency. For example, adhering

to a watt density per rack helps give the Data Centre manager more control over the standard operating environment (SOE) per rack. From a planning and deployment standpoint, this variable is manageable building block that can be used in a zone-based approach.

Cooling IT Right The largest consumer of power and the most ineffi cient system

in the Data Centre is computer room air conditioning (CRAC). Almost half the power in Data Centre goes to cooling. For example, if a server requires 100 watts of production power, a CRAC unit would require between 180 and 250 watts of power to cool the server.

Examining air fl ow in the Data Centre typically uncovers many simple fi xes that can increase the effi ciency of the entire cooling system.

MONITORING IS KEYFacilities infrastructure such as

Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPSs), Computer Room Air Handlers (CRAHs), temperature and humidity monitors, fi re suppression, physical security, power distribution units (PDUs), and branch circuits, when monitored and managed in an IP-based network, enables Data Centre managers to measure power effi ciency.

THE NETWORK EFFECTWhen considering network architecture,

the planner should not confi ne the scope to switches, routers, load balancers, and fi rewalls and should extend it to gather as many relevant data sources as possible to monitor power effi ciency.

These sources include monitoring of power, temperature, and humidity; UPS, branch circuits, PDUs, specialised sensors and others that are located either inside or close to the data centre. In addition to using the network, effi ciency opportunities in network design to support different services are signifi cant.

Convergence of services provided by standalone components into a more ubiquitous network-based platform will enhance asset utilisation (server and storage utilisation).

CISCO SHOWS THE WAYFor Cisco and its partner organisations

bringing the much-needed expertise to design, operate and manage an energy effi cient, cost effective data centre, is the key.

Cisco Energy Assurance Program (EAP) allows an entity to estimate the energy effi ciency of operations and identify energy effi ciency gains that can help fi nancially, and with sustainability in mind. EAP comprises:

Expanded planning tools for cost and carbon reductionLearning centreInteractive reference designsCollateral and articles that discuss energy effi ciency

Cisco Effi ciency Assessment Services are delivered jointly by Cisco Advanced Services and qualifi ed Cisco partners with extensive expertise in data centre facility requirements. Some components:

Evaluation of physical Data Centre infrastructure, including the overall site, power, cooling, physical security, and operational practicesEstablishment of effi ciency benchmarks for facilities and IT operationsArchitectural assessments to improve Data Centre and enterprise-wide operative effi ciency

BUILT TO LASTIn the march towards e-Governance, it

is important that States take cognizance of sustainable development. It has been proven that improving the effi ciency could possibly defer the upgrade or expansion of the data centre. With rising costs of power, States should thus strongly consider green SDCs. \\

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DR SUDHIRKRISHNAADDITIONAL SECRETARY MINISTRY OF PANCHAYATI RAJ

“MIS for Panchayats WillBring in Transparency”

INTERVIEWCOVER INTERVIEW

For this Karnataka cadre 1977-batch IAS offi cer with diverse experience, e-For hi Ka na aka c dre 19 -b tch IA o fice w th d ve se e per en e eF r thi K rn t k dr 1977 b t h IAS ffi r ith di r p ri np ,Literacy of the Panchayat members is a key focus area. Speaking to Li er cy of he Panch ya memb s i k y fo us ar a Sp ak ng toLit f th P h t b i k f S ki ty y y p gPrachi ShirurPra hi Sh urP hi Shi andanddr Gayatri MaheshwaryGaya r Mahes ww ryG t i M h hy y of e-Gov,of e GGo ,f G ,yy Dr Sudhir KrishnaDr Sudhi Kr shnD S dhi K i hinforms on how ICT is being used to bring in transparency and effi ciency ini fo mm o h w ICT i b ng u d to br ng in t an pa ncy a fic en y ni f h ICT i b i d t b i i t d ffi i ig g p y ythe working of the Pachayats.t wo k ng f th Pa hay t .h ki f h P hg y

http://panchayat.nic.in

19egov JUNE 2010

At the moment the centre is focusing on the computer literacy of the 3 million Panchayat members in the country for which they are seeking collaboration with the various service providers.

What are the challenges faced in implementing e-Panchayat programme?

There are approximately 2.5 lakh Panchayat members in the country spread across 28 states and seven Union Territories. The physical connectivity of the Panchayats in the remote areas is an issue and providing Internet connectivity in such areas is a massive task.

Another major challenge is that Panchayats are not uniform in terms of the number of the people they cater to in an area.

The functions of Panchayats also vary from state to state. In some states, a lot of work has been done, while in some other states, things are still at the nascent stage. This variation across the states is due to the fact that it is the state government which decides what functions the Panchayats will perform depending upon the state’s requirements.

Lack of regular supply of electricity in the villages is another major challenge in the implementation of e-Panchayat programme. The electricity connection and then its regular supply has to be ensured for the effi cient delivery of the services to the citizens.

Economic level of the Panchayats is another limitation which also varies from state to state. The prosperous states have a good infrastructure and in the poor and remote villages, infrastructure is not very good and it is a major task for the Panchayats to organise themselves and deliver the services.

The poor economic level in remote areas not only refl ects on the infrastructure but also on the manpower as in such areas people are not so conversant with the Operations and the Management activity.

Re-engineering of the whole process is also a major task. Also, the existing data has to be digitised. This is very challenging as all the different states have their own ways of doing things, though a standardised procurement model has been prepared for the states.

Tell us about the progress made so far in e-Panchayat programme implementation.

The Ministry has taken one year to prepare the detailed project report (DPR) of all the states. These state specifi c reports are in four phases, namely:

Inception Information and Service Need AssessmentBusiness Process Re-engineeringDetailed Project ReportThe computerisation of Panchayats

has already been done in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. The computerisation depends upon the use of the technology, but the reduction in cost is the major aim. The DPRs of the state cannot be uniformly reformed; it depends upon state to state preparedness as well of the infrastructure of the area. To manage the data of the state, the government is open to cloud computing as well.

The connectivity to the Panchayats is being provided through the ISPs which is more reliable and less costly as compared to. VSAT technology

How is the funding for the e-Panchayat programme done?

As against a centralised fund for e-Panchayats, which had been practiced earlier, now the state governments have been given funds for implementing the rural development schemes undertaken in their states at the grass rool level.

The cost is monetised in three years and depending upon the scheme the payment is made monthly or quarterly.

The unit cost of a Panchayat is INR 0.3 million in three years which includes the hardware, software, maintenance and the, staff cost and everything in the scheme is to be provided by the service provider.

How do you look at the convergence of e-Panchayats with the Common Service Centres (CSC’s)?

The e-Panchayat programme is open to converge with the CSCs in their programme. The CSCs can be housed in the Panchayat building which already has been done in many states. It is an option given to the states to converge with the CSC’s, but it is not enforced on them.\\

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Tell us about the overall scenario of Panchayats in the country.

The Panchayats fall in the third tier and are constitutionally mandated to do 29 functions of the public services which include amongst others, agriculture, rural development, irrigation, soil and water management, health care, rural housing and rural connectivity.

The involvement of the Panchayats in the various states, at the moment, is very gradual but is very signifi cant at the same time. There are 2.5 lakh Panchayat members in 626 districts of the country. The Panchayat in all the states have three level. Gram Panchayat, which is at the lowest level, above it is the Intermediate Panchayat and at the District Level is the District Panchayat. This is an exception in the north eastern states- Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland which have District Councils. The Panchayats across the country get funds to run the schemes in the rural areas.

How successful have the Panchayats been in delivering services to the citizens through IT?

The Panchayats need a good Management Information System (MIS) to perform effectively and effi ciently, which has to be open ended so that the citizens are aware of what is happening and also they are able to communicate with the Panchayats for their grievances.

With the help of a good MIS, the senior offi cials of the government, both at the state and the central level, will also be kept up-to-date on the assignments and the functions of the Panchayats in the country. This will bring in transparency and the government will have a clear picture on what the Panchayats are doing in their respective states.

The e-Panchayat programme is the solution for a two way clear and a transparent communication between the top level and local level and also between the citizens and the Panchayats. With Panchayats coming online, it has become an important source for the huge fl ow of data and information for the governments at all the levels. The e-Panchayat programme is expected to provide connectivity in the rural areas in any mode which can be through Internet, broad band or telephone.

Lack of regular supply of electricity in the villages is another major challenge in the implementation of e-Panchayat programme.


My Country…My Land…My Home! Whatever be the language they get expressed in, these invariably evoke strong sentiments and nativity feelings among humans. Wars have been waged and won to establish one possessions, over one’s own country and land. The strong feelings of kinship and bonding become all the more powerful when one is amidst a group of fellow country men or when one is away from one’s land, either by design and or by force.

Providing a forum where one can speak about one’s place with pride or a forum to express, rekindle and revive nostalgic thoughts is the project ‘Entegramam’ of Kerala State IT Mission (www.itmission.kerala.gov.in), the nodal IT implementing agency of the Government of Kerala based in the capital city of Trivandrum. As the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, rightly remarked decades back, “India lives in its villages”. This continues to be true even after sixty years of India’s Independence. Data has it that nearly 70% of the population continues to live in rural areas (Source: http://hetv.org/india/population-2001.htm).

IT FOR RURAL MASSESThe 21st century India has seen the

rapid diffusion of IT in various fi elds and applications. Consequent to this development, there was also the emerging thought among IT practitioners that the benefi ts of IT should not be restricted to urban and the IT-savvy people alone. It was felt that the fruits of IT should be spread to all sections of the population, including the majority living in rural areas and villages of the country.

The State of Kerala, a champion in many aspects of development including literacy, has also led the country with regard to taking IT to the rural masses. A major course of action in this direction

COVER STORY

Ente GramamThe Village Succes Story

has been the implementation of the project ‘Akshaya’ in 2002 to promote e-Literacy in Kerala. The favourable results shown by the project prompted the Kerala Government to launch more ICT based projects for the empowerment of the rural masses.

VILLAGES OCCUPY CYBERSPACEConsidering that the majority of India’s

population lives in rural areas, it can be rightfully stated that a wealth of India’s

resources and knowledge base exist among the rural population. To ensure that these resources and knowledge get represented in a larger sphere, the Government of Kerala launched a project called Entegramam. The project aims at taking Kerala’s villages to the cyber space and give the rural population adequate representation and deserving opportunities in the present global order.

The word ‘Entegramam’ in Malayalam stands to mean ‘My village’. The

REMA SUNDAR

DR.RATHAN U.KELKARwww.entegramam.gov.in

21egov JUNE 2010

project was launched in 2008 with the fi nancial support of UNESCO in nine Grama Panchayats (Azhikode, Muzhappilangadu, Pinarayi, Vengad, Maloor, Srikantapuram, Eramam-kuttoor, Pappinisherry and Payam) and one Municipality and Kannur district. Following the lapse of UNESCO funding, the Government of Kerala took over the project and extended it in all local bodies of Kannur. An updated web portal that covers all the 72 Grama Panchayats and fi ve Municipalities of the district has been launched.

Through these web portals in Malayalam, the communities can easily share and gain information on various aspects pertaining to their area. Each web portal covers detailed information relating to the Panchayat. This includes information relating to the history of the village, information relating to local resources, information on Government and public services. These apart, information on agricultural resources in the village, health resources, educational institutions, labour resources, industries, tourism, and culture are also made available. Locally relevant news and announcements are also displayed on the portal. The portal comes equipped with features for providing comments, feedback and blogging thereby preparing the community to a more participative, empowered and democratic knowledge society of the future. Unicode encoding is used to adhere to the universal standardisation, which also enables the user to search for this content on the web.

Interactivity is a highlight of these web portals. This is enabled through features like blogging, ‘Ask the Police’ and ‘Ask the Panchayat President’. The community can pose questions, which are readily replied by the concerned authorities. Such a facility has helped in ensuring transparency of governance at the local level. It also has instilled a feeling

Dr.Rathan U.Kelkar, a 2003 batch offi cer of the Indian Administrative Services, took over as Director, Kerala State IT Mission, the nodal IT implementing agency of the Government of Kerala, in July 2008. He anchors the 35 plus citizen-centric e-Governance projects of KSITM and is especially committed to taking ICT to the grassroots. Empowering the physically, mentally and socially disadvantaged classes through introducing multitude benefi ts to them, falls among his special interests. His background training as a doctor also makes him a strong votary for ICT-based health applications for effective health service delivery.

DR RATHAN U KELKAR IAS, DIRECTOR, KERALA STATE IT MISSION, GOVERNMENT OF KERALA

Rema Sundar, currently with Kerala State IT Mission as the Promotional Consultant, has been involved in creative and technical documentation for IT Mission projects, preparation of project proposals, case studies and other promotional materials. She has experience in content development for both the print and the new media, including freelancing for The Hindu. Her articles and reports have been included in state level, national level and international forums.

REMA SUNDAR, PROMOTIONAL CONSULTANT, KERALA STATE IT MISSION, GOVERNMENT OF KERALA

ZOOM BRINGS e-GOVERNANCE IN NDMC

New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) is one of prime municipal local body in the country. It has been ranked very high on cleanliness and maintenance of its services in various surveys carried out from time to time. NDMC is divided into 16 zones and each zone is allocated to a zonal inspecting offi cer whose duty is to periodically inspect the area and report any problems found to respective executive authorities for rectifi cation. This ensures that even before grievance arises the problem is sorted out. The whole reporting and resolution cycle is paperless. The offi cials use a software called ZOOM (zonal offi cers observation and monitoring). It provides an intuitive report card of both inspecting offi cers and executive offi cers on the home page and automatically keeps tab on their performance. The homepage reports performance of all the offi cers on a single page and therefore keeps a pressure on non-performing offi cers to complete their job. Its dashboard creates a competitive environment between all its offi cers and has resulted in as an excellent e-Governance initiative which directly benefi ts the citizen of the NDMC.

among the citizens that they really matter to the Government!

COMMUNITY MANAGEDThe implementation of the

Entegramam project is being done by Akshaya in association with the Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment (SPACE) However an interesting facet about the Entegramam project is that Akshaya centres only serves to mobilise the community and produce local content. The community is at the core in the Entegramam scheme of functioning. Working to mobilise content from the community are the Content Facilitators or Social Animators, who are also natives of the particular village/region. The content so generated is passed to Content Editors for editing and uploading. The Akshaya centres work to ensure timely and correct updation of content. The Panchayat (local body) also takes active interest in generation

and updation of content. Thus, the Entegramam community web portals are truly community managed. Such a model wherein the community takes ownership and actively engages itself in the process of management of the project is a signifi cant step towards ensuring long-term viability and sustainability.

EXTENSIONEncouraged by the response accorded

to the portals in Kannur, the Government of Kerala decided to pilot launch the portals in the districts of Malappuram, Trichur and Kollam. Accordingly, portals for 16 local bodies and District Panchayat of Malappuram, 14 local bodies and District Panchayat of Kollam and 9 local bodies and District Panchayat of Trichur are now are under pilot implementation. The Government is also exploring adding new features like dedicated labour portals with the rural economy in mind. \\


In terms of both coverage and public expenditure, the most important food safety net is the Public Distribution System (PDS). PDS provides rationed amounts of basic food items and other non-food products at below market price to consumers through a network of Fair Price Shops (FPS) spread all over the country. However, the food grains supplied by the ration shops are not enough to meet the consumption needs of the poor or are of inferior quality. The average level of consumption of PDS grains in India is only 1 kg per person / month.

The PDS has been criticised for its urban bias and its failure to serve effectively the poorer sections of the population. The targeted PDS is costly and gives rise to a lot of corruption in the process of extricating the poor from those who are not poor. Despite the PDS, India accounts for over 400 million poor and hungry people. Numerous malpractices make safe and nutritious food inaccessible and unaffordable to many poor.

Spanco, has emerged as a preferred ‘Government Transformation Service’ provider, its e-Governance Unit has been entrusted with the task of transforming the current supply and distribution chain into a technology driven system. Once complete; the new model will solve issues related to pilferage in transit – godown – ration shops, fake ration cards, manual transaction records, and unreliable data. Apart from revenue savings by state governments, this solution will directly benefi t a large number of population living below poverty line (BPL) who cannot afford food grain in open market.

The project covers the entire distribution network of FPSs spread across Talukas and district supply offi ces that reports to regional offi ces in State. Apart from the above, it is planned that all the Food and Civil Supplies (FCS) offi ces including HO,

FEATURE

Revolutionising PublicDistribution System

Divisional Offi ces and Taluka offi ces will be computerised and networked using MPLS/VPN broadband connectivity. A high-tech Data Center will be deployed which will connect with the rest of the department offi ces across a State.

CURRENT SYSTEMEach FPS serves a few hundred

households and the allotment for food and kerosene is done according to the number of ration cards. The sum of all the requirements of FPS in talukas is the procurement size of the state government from FCI. State government buys these food grains at market price and sells it through FPS at subsidised price incurring a defi cit on the budget. The entire process is manual with no real time record of the actual distribution, benefi ciaries and actual number of ration cards (excluding fake ration cards) leading to the situation

where:Many retail shopkeepers have large number of bogus cards to sell food grains in the open market.Many BPL families not able to acquire ration cards either because they are seasonal migrant workers or because they live in unauthorised colonies and a lot of families also mortgage their ration cards for money.

Pilferage may occur at different levels in the distribution network. There is currently no automated system to track the total number of active ration cards in each FPS. Middlemen typically try to take advantage of this by procuring on the basis of the registered cards, which may not directly correlate with the actual number of active cards. The entire system needs tracking and effi cient real time data to reach the core of the issue

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RAJIV AGGARWALwww.spancotele.com

23egov JUNE 2010

and establish new architecture assisted by technology.

FCS aims to tackle the above issue with the assistance of technology and Spanco Ltd., intends to transform the entire distribution process, which will have the following features:

Existing ration card will be converted into a bar code based laminated ration cardAll the ration cards will be digitisedBiometric fi nger prints will be used for the identifi cation of card holderEntire rationing process will be automated with real time transaction recordsPoint of sale (POS terminals with in-built Smart Card Reader, Magnetic Stripe Reader, Finger Print Scanner and Bar Code Scanner and printer will be deployed at FPS Deployment of Data Centre and Disaster Recovery Deployment of GPS instruments in trucks carrying food grains for effi cient trackingDevelopment of the Software Application on a Service oriented Architecture

BENEFITS OF TECHNOLOGY ASSISTED DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

Vehicle tracking through GPS instruments will assure delivery of goods from FCI godown to the state godown. Pilferage in transit can be avoided with this solution. At the FPS, every transaction will be recorded in encrypted manner through the POS device, which will enable decision making at the higher levels in government. This will ensure the right allotment of food grains for FPS based on the active ration card users.

Biometric record of the ration cardholder (head of the family) will help in the identifi cation process. Also inter-state migration rate in India is more than 30 percent. A study further reveals deeper malaise in the PDS which indicates that there can be as many as 50 bogus ration cards under each ration shop and the fi gure may go up to 150-200 per ration

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Rajiv is responsible for managing the strategy and solutions to position Spanco as a market leader in this space. He has more than 30 years of experience in work-ing on Government Projects and has successfully managed the entire IT spectrum from Products, Solutions to Services. During the last four decades, he has been involved in large citizen centric projects covering the Urban and Rural parts of the country. Rajeev was instrumental in launching the fi rst Smart Card based system in the country and overseeing the rollout of CSCs across the country. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, with specialisation in Electronics from BITS-Pilani.

RAJIV AGGARWAL, CEO, SPANCO e-GOVERNANCE

shop, in other large cities. Bogus card holders get subsidised commodities leaving nothing for those who really need it. Biometric identifi cation process will immediately identify the duplicate ration card as well as non-existing ration cards and block them as bogus, thus eliminating malpractices and reducing the burden on government PDS budget. The New proposed system will track every transaction in the state and deliver the status of every ration card and FPS stock to the higher authority. All this exercise will be done in real time.

The project scope involves building a Data Centre, which would be linked with the various other departments. The data gathered and stored will provide business intelligence for budgeting and other activities. The Data Centre site will be equipped with redundant servers to avoid losses and further strengthened by a Disaster Recovery Site (DRS) which will be built at an alternate location. The new system will identify and plug loopholes and leakages in the present distribution network and create an environment of accountability at each level. \\

Spanco, has emerged as a preferred ‘Government Transformation Service’ provider, its e-Governance Unit has been entrusted with the task of transforming the current supply and distribution chain into a technology driven system. Once complete; the new model will solve issues related to pilferage in transit – godown – ration shops, fake ration cards, manual transaction records, and unreliable data. Apart from revenue savings by state governments, this solution will directly benefi t a large number of population living below poverty line (BPL) who cannot afford food grain in open market.


kicked off with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) inviting tenders for the contract.

The civic body Standing Committee Chairman, Nilesh Nikam, wanted to name the library after one of the pioneers of the RTI movement, Prakash Kardaley. The proposal for the same would be placed soon.

The PMC has made a provision of Rs 25 lakh to set up the library on the third fl oor of the PMC headquarters. The library will house the latest resolutions passed by the civic general body meetings and standing committee meetings besides all administrative decisions and proposals.

HIMACHAL PANCHAYATS

GET IT KIOSKS

For providing citizen services at the doorsteps of a largely rural population, the Himachal Pradesh government has identifi ed 3366 locations for setting up Information Technology (IT) enabled Lok Mitra Kendras. Of which 2185 stand established where government, private and social sector services had been made available to residents at their doorsteps.

Enhancing the scope of e-Governance, the government is increasing the number of services being provided at a single window at these Kendra’s.

Some of the services already introduced for the benefi t of the citizen were IT services .

Other than these Lok Mitra Kendras, IT enabled Sugam centres had been set up at all tehsils, sub-tehsils, sub-divisions while district centres are being opened in municipal area to provide citizen services.

BIOMETRIC CARDS FOR BIHAR MNREGA

BENEFICIARIES

Biometric cards are introduced in Bihar under e-Shakti project to check discrepancies in the process of attendance and wage payment to Mahatma Gandhi

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) benefi ciaries using manual job cards. The card would be used by the individual with hand-held machine for authentication, attendance and other transactions using secure biometric technology.

Smaarftech Technologies Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Glodyne Technoserve ltd, started distribution of the smart cards in remote villages of Bihar.

e-Shakti cards initially would be distributed in the Phulwarisharif block and then would be distributed in the entire Patna district.

The registration process for these cards is cost-free and any adult can get himself enrolled during the village-wise registration/data collection exercise carried out by Smaarftech offi cial.

A separate bank account would be opened for each card holder to facilitate wage payment under MREGA-Bihar through e-Shakti cards.

e-COMPLAINT LAUNCHED BY PATNA POLICE

To facilitate the residents of Patna, Bihar to register the complaints online, the police has started a new initiative, e-Complaints. With the help of the particular initiative, a person can lodge the complaint at the click of the mouse, without physically going to the police station.

This will help the people living away from the state capital to lodge the complaints, they just have to provide the detailed information and correct address. An offi cial of the concerned police station would approach the complainant within 24 hours of lodging the complainant.

The objective behind launch of e-Complaint is to make it more and more convenient for the citizens, who don’t want to go to the police station for lodging complaints.

PUNE TO GET FIRST RTI LIBRARY

The process to set up a Right to Information (RTI) library, the fi rst in Pune

INDIANEWS

MMP TO BE IMPLEMENTED ON IMMIGRATION, VISA AND FOREIGNER’S REGISTRATION & TRACKING

The modernisation and the upgradation of immigration services as one of the Mission Mode Projects to be undertaken by the Ministry of Home Affairs under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) has been approved. The MMP is titled “Immigration, Visa and Foreigners Registration & Tracking (IVFRT)”.

The core objective of this Project is to develop and implement a secure and integrated service delivery framework that facilitates legitimate travellers while strengthening security. The National Institute for Smart Government (NSIG) was selected and tasked with the responsibility for generating a comprehensive e-Governance solution for the immigration, visa issuance and foreigners’ registration and tracking functions, and to prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the same. The implementation of this MMP is to be done in phases and the entire project is targeted to be completed by September 2014.

25egov JUNE 2010

When scientists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), Switzerland, developed a data sharing system for physicists 21 years ago, little did they know that it would blossom into the World Wide Web (www) and revolutionise communications creating an array of benefi ts such as the development of international collaborative research infrastructures. Collaboration has always been very much part of the success of the web according to Tim Berners-Lee, the man attributed with inventing the world-wide web. “The human nature that I came across from the early web developers was very open, very giving, people very much working together, encouraging each other, very much full of excitement, getting a kick out of making things work together. The collaborative spirit was a driver for most of the people.1”

As the web has developed and global collaboration becomes a feature of everyday life, collaboration in scientifi c research between Europe and India has also grown. The development of Grid Computing which sees the application of computational resources from numerous computers in a single network, now allows scientists to share information and computer power. Often compared with the electrical power grid offering users access to a massive reservoir of computational power, Grid Computing can potentially transform any desktop PC into the equivalent of a ‘super’ computer.

The Worldwide Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Computing Grid (WLCG) is the perfect example of collaboration between a global network of researchers. The WLCG links grid infrastructures and computer centres around the world including India, storing and analysing the immense amounts of data generated by the LHC at CERN, the most powerful physics experiment ever built. The grid

REPORT

EU-IndiaGrid2Connecting Scientists

will combine the computing resources of more than 100,000 processors from more than 170 sites in 34 countries and will be accessible to thousands of physicists globally who will have real-time access to a massive 15 petabytes of data annually, the equivalent of the storage capacity of 20 million CDs.

The development of Grid Computing has gone hand-in-hand with advances in global computing connectivity and also e-Infrastructures - innovative research environments in which researchers, whether working in the context of their home institutions or in national or multinational scientifi c initiatives, have shared access to unique, distributed scientifi c facilities including data, networks, tools and computing resources.

THE INDIAN LANDSCAPETwo main grids exist in India – the

Regional WCLG Grid and GARUDA, the India National Grid Initiative (http://www.garudaindia.in/). GARUDA, managed by EU-IndiaGrid2 partner the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), is a collaboration of scientifi c and technological researchers on a nationwide grid comprising computational nodes, mass storage and scientifi c instruments which will provide the technological advances required to enable data and compute intensive science for the 21st century.

With the growth of Indian Telecom and IT skills, Indian connectivity is allowing the evolution of e-Infrastructures uniting universities and research institutes. The Indian National Knowledge Network (NKN) aims to interconnect all higher education and scientifi c development institutions, some 5,000, with a high-speed network in the order of 10s of gigabits per second, providing the backbone for a scientifi c research e-Infrastructure in India. With 14 GARUDA sites currently connected with

the NKN, including two LHC computing sites in Mumbai and Kolkata, it is clear that work to develop collaborative research communities is advancing well.

The establishment of a reliable and quick connection between India and Europe has also been improving rapidly in recent years leading to the fi rst fi le transfer in 2007 between CERN and India on the WLCG. Prominent landmarks have seen the establishment of the 45 Mbps ERNET-GEANT link and routing of regional WLCG data to CERN and subsequently EU-IndiaGrid traffi c to EGEE, the European Grid Infrastructure, in 2006. In 2008, the GEANT-ERNET link was upgraded to 100 Mbps and then to 175 Mbps in 2009 which included an upgrade of domestic bandwidth for regional the WLCG network. 2008 also saw a dedicated 1 Gbps TIFR-CERN link for LHC research and peering with GEANT1 in 2009. In April 2009, the fi rst phase of the NKN was initiated while February 2010 saw a major milestone achieved with the establishment of the The Trans-Eurasia Information Network (TEIN3) (http://www.tein3.net/) 2.5 Gbps GEANT link to India. This made

www.euindiagrid.eu

Alberto Masoni INFN & EU-IndiaGrid2 Project Manager

NICHOLAS FERGUSON


India a vital lynchpin in a global grid infrastructure by connecting Europe and Asia-Pacifi c countries to provide a high-capacity Internet network for research and education communities across Asia-Pacifi c. Finally, in March 2010, the NKN received fi nal approving and full funding from the Indian Government (http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=59878).

According to Dr R. Chidambaram, Principal scientifi c advisor to the Government of India, these are crucial developments for Indian research. “The successful working of the initial phase of the multi-gigabit NKN, Indian Certifi cation Authority, and participation in TEIN phase 3 are some of the important building blocks for supporting virtual

research communities in India and their collaboration work with other countries.”

ICT SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURES

The EC-funded initiative EU-IndiaGrid2 (http://www.euindiagrid.eu) is a vital cog in the engine acting as a bridge across European and Indian e-Infrastructures and fostering evolution to ensure sustainable scientifi c, educational and technological collaboration. The project “improves the interoperation of e-Infrastructures and Grids between Indian and European Grid initiatives, supporting the development of sustainable e-Infrastructures across Europe and India.” says Alberto Masoni, Director of Research at INFN – the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics & EU-IndiaGrid2 Project Manager.

Interoperability and interoperation between the major European and Indian Grid infrastructures, the European Grid Inititive (EGI) and GARUDA respectively, is a critical step towards establishing a cross-continent Grid infrastructure. EU-

IndiaGrid2 is paving the way for a ‘seamless’ global integration of Grid infrastructures. To achieve this, bilateral work is required to evolve towards a common standard.

THE IMPACT The implications of

Grid computing are not restricted to the fi eld of Physics. EU-IndiaGrid2 supports the development both of stronger ties between European-Indian Grid Computing networks, and between science communities such as Climate Change, Biology, Material Science and of course High Energy Physics.

As Professor Kanhere, University of Pune and EU-IndiaGrid2 partner explains, Grid Computing has revolutionised his research into Material Science - “Due to rapid advances in material science, new materials are being produced in laboratories. The trend is to have designer’s materials, new molecules, artifi cial low dimensional systems, high temperature superconductors, GMR materials etc. These are complex systems having multi components and low sysmetry. We need to understand their properties and also simulate their behaviour under different conditions, the key to which is predictive power. Accuracy is demanded in these calculations requiring detailed computations using realistic interactions and theories putting substantial demand on computational power. Grid computing, with its high computational capacity is a possible way to address such challenges.”

Thanks to EU-IndiaGrid2, Professor Kanhere and the University of Pune are now collaborating with the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Italy and the French Atomic Energy Commission to develop applications for Material Science.

EU-IndiaGrid2 also assists Karen Lupkow’s research at the School of Biological Sciences, Cambridge University by furthering EU-Indian links in Biology with the National Centre for Biological Science, Bangalore. “In addition to providing valuable simulation space, EU-IndiaGrid2 keeps my collaboration with Bangalore alive. It is

much easier to learn from each other and maintain an exchange of ideas with the support from EU-IndiaGrid2. With the help of EU-IndiaGrid2 funds, we are organising an international workshop for 2011 on Biology, which we hope will benefi t not just us, but the wider scientifi c community.”

Collaboration in the fi eld of climate change is also taking place between the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and ICTP. Stefano Cozzini, EU-IndiaGrid2 technical manager says “EU-IndiaGrid2 infrastructure makes more computational resources available to increase and enlarge climate change simulations to have more complete climate change modelling scenarios for the South-East Asia region. A major international EU-IndiaGrid2 conference in 2011 will discuss role of grid infrastructure for climate change.”

With human and technological partnerships being formed and sustained between India and Europe it is clear that the collaborative spirit that was so much a driving force at the heart of the Tim Berners Lee’s early development of the World Wide Web is still the key to maximising the potential of international ICT research infrastructures. \\

Dr R. Chidambaram Principal Scientifi c Advisor Government of India

Trust-IT Services Ltd. email: [email protected]

NICHOLAS FERGUSON

31egov JUNE 2010

Globally, the trend towards democratic decentralisation is gathering momentum. Governments are recognising the need for local participation in planning, implementation and monitoring. Local self-government is gaining recognition as one of the key strategies for achieving good governance. India has a rich history of local self-government. In recent times, there is an increasing move towards decentralised planning and development. Panchayats (’council of fi ve persons’) are the functional institutions that enable such grassroots governance and the system of decentralised planning and development through such institutions is termed as ‘Panchayati Raj’.

The pyramid illustrates the structure of India’s Panchayati Raj system, the devolution of powers and key mechanisms established at each level to facilitate decentralised planning and development.

The main features of Panchayati Raj in India are as follows:

There is progressive devolution of powers of the State Governments in various areas to strengthen decentralised planning and implementation.Administratively three tiers of democratically elected bodies, viz., the Gram Panchayat (GP), the Block Panchayat (BP) and the District Panchayat (DP) form what are called the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs). Facilitating bottom-up planning, each higher tier of Panchayat performs necessary coordination to ensure alignment with the larger developmental objectives. Gram Sabhas (village assembly) form the mechanism for consultation with citizens for identifi cation of developmental needs and implementation of local level development plans.

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COVER STORY

e-Gov Solutions for LocalSelf-Governments in India

Governance mechanisms such as the Finance Commission, Local Fund Audit, Social Audit and the Election Commission address governance issues such as strengthening of fi nance and accounting systems, ensuring accountability to citizens and democratic election of PRIs respectively.

To strengthen decentralised planning and development, India is pursuing a large scale e-Governance transformation of the PRIs. This transformation programme will cover 234,030 Village Panchayats, 6,053 Block Panchayats and 535 District Panchayats of India. Nearly 3.1 million elected representatives across these PRIs will be associated with this initiative.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The objectives of the study are as

follows: Create a framework of Information Needs of PRIs to enable design of an integrated e-Governance solution to support decentralised planning and development andDevelop suitable Information Technology (IT) strategies to for roll out these information systems on the scale represented by India.

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APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY ADOPTED

In designing the e-Governance solution and implementation strategy, a fi ve step approach was followed. Having identifi ed the challenges of decentralised planning, through extensive citizen consultation a framework of information needs was created which was then integrated across the three tiers of PRIs. An e-Governance solution was formulated based on these information needs and strategies for its implementation were created by identifying enabler and constraints and evaluating various alternative solutions.

The study involved consultation with a cross-section of PRI offi cials. A variety of methods were used to involve them in the study which included brainstorming workshops, one-to-one interviews and joint analysis of data gathered. This helped in gathering insights about the evolution of PR in India and to understand enablers and constraints in the Indian context. A large cross-section of citizenry was also consulted as part of the study. This information was analysed in workshops involving PRI offi cials and citizen representatives and solutions to address the study objectives were derived.

Panchayati Raj Institutions in India

VIBHOR JAIN ANAND HARIHARAN


KEY CHALLENGES When over 2,40,000 Panchayats

engage more than a billion citizens in creation and implementation of development plans, a plethora of challenges emerge. The following table summarises some of these challenges.

When seen in the light of India’s population and geography, the magnitude of the above challenges becomes evident. In addition, Panchayati Raj is an evolving system. There are various challenges associated with the transition from a centralised to de-centralised mode of planning which also need to be addressed through e-Governance solutions. Some of these are:

a. Improving data access to a larger community of stakeholders: The transition to decentralisation implies that a large amount of data which was hitherto maintained in a central location now needs to fl ow down to a very large community of local level planners.

b. Improving citizen’s awareness about their role in planning: Since decentralised planning is a new concept for citizens, only through meaningful dialogues spread over a period of time that Panchayats can gain the confi dence of citizens to engage them in planning and implementation activities.

c. Developing capacity within Panchayats: Since Government was always a distant entity, accountability levels have been traditionally low. However, with democratic decentralisation, Panchayat members have to be better prepared to answer citizen queries. There is also a severe shortage of talent and skills to carry out planning in

specialised areas such as agriculture, education, social welfare, health etc.

THE PRI SOLUTION

In light of the above challenges, a Gram Panchayat centric approach was adopted for solution design. As the smallest building block of the Panchayati Raj System, a Gram Panchayat interacts with a wide variety of stakeholders as illustrated in the diagram below. From information needs perspective the GP acts as the source of vital information on citizen needs and the progress of implementation of development plans to address those needs.

Hence in our view, decentralised planning and implementation will be effective only if a Gram Panchayat is made self-suffi cient in its information needs. Hence the starting point for solution of various challenges lies in establishing a framework of information needs for PRIs to be addressed by e-Governance solutions.

THE FRAMEWORK OF INFORMATION NEEDS OF GRAM PANCHAYATS

The adjacent diagram illustrates

framework of Information Needs for Gram Panchayats.CITIZEN INFORMATION

Availability of correct and up-to-date citizen information in a country of India’s size has been one of the important bottlenecks for centralised planning. Even in a decentralised planning environment, though information gathering may have become easier, citizen information continues to be one of the vital information needs for effective planning. The key citizen related information needs for decentralised planning are:

Citizen Identity: Having correct citizen identity is one of the key objectives of India’s Unique ID (UID) initiative and it is expected to play a vital role in design of e-Governance solutions for PRIs. Citizen Contact Information: The ability to keep the citizen updated is one of the key transparency and service delivery requirement of a GP. Citizen contact management will thus form a key feature of any e-Governance solution proposed for PRIs. Family Relationships and Status: Family oriented social benefi ts administration in India is signifi cantly dependent upon the income status of a family. Numerous disputes have occurred within villages with the administration on the issue of wrong income category classifi cation or wrong defi nition of the family’s constitution. This situation is further complicated by marriages and also disputes within families. It is in this context that it becomes vital for a

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Identifying strengths and opportunities of a locality and creating development plans to maximise the benefi tsEngaging citizens in planningProviding timely information to citizens to facilitate planning through Gram SabhasSupporting development plans with reliable data to obtain buy-inCoordinating thousands of decentralised plans to ensure they align with the broader national and state level goalsBudgeting for plan implementation.

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Ensuring timely availability of funds and resources to execute the development plansEnsuring equitable distribution of benefi ts to all sections of the societyGenerating necessary resources to support the development plansMaintaining transparency in procurement and utilisation of fundsTimely reporting of progress to citizens and various other stakeholders

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PLANNING CHALLENGES

IMPLEMENTATION AND GOVERNANCE

CHALLENGES

Framework of information needs of Gram Panchayat

33egov JUNE 2010

GP to maintain information on family constitution. Status of Benefi ts under Various Schemes: Continuing in the context of equitable distribution of social benefi ts, the details of benefi ts obtained under various welfare schemes by an individual or a family becomes an important information need of a GP.

FINANCIAL INFORMATIONWith the concept of fi scal federalism

gaining momentum in India and with administrative decentralisation, fi nancial management is one of the focus areas for improving Panchayati Raj governance. In addition, integration with Government Treasury and banking systems are vital for effective functioning of GP. The key categories of fi nancial information required by Panchayats.

Budgetary Information: Preparation of a Panchayat budget sees various data points gathered together and an extensive process of consultation with citizens during Gram Sabhas to arrive at a consensual budget for the Village. The fi nalised budget forms an input for further aggregation at the Block, District, State and National levels and is monitored against actual progress. Information on Revenues: This pertains to details of the sources of funds made available to a GP at the beginning of every fi nancial year from various tiers of Government and the own revenues generated by the GP through various taxes and levies within its village jurisdiction. As the village development plans evolve with each year, the budgetary requirements for fi nancial resources are also increasing. It has become increasingly necessary for GPs to generate greater revenues especially through strengthening of its taxation systems. Expenditure Information: Tracking expenditure against the budget and reporting utilisation of own resources are key governance requirements of a Gram Panchayat. In a typical GP, there are various drawing and disbursing offi cers and therefore, it is all the more important to keep track of which offi cer has authorised what spend and on what purpose.

GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATIONGeography adds a signifi cant

dimension to planning and development. Geographical information is vital to answer

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various planning related questions such as:

What are the natural resources available with a Gram Panchayat?How can we plan watershed development better?Which parts of the village have adequate infrastructure in terms of roads, water supply and power lines and what is the development need?What is the fi scal cadastral of the village?What is the demographic profi le of our village vis-à-vis its geography?What are the likely natural disasters that will impact us and how can we protect ourselves?

To answer such questions which often get raised in Gram Sabhas, it is vital for the Panchayat to have current information in the form of various maps which include physical map, topographic sheets, cadastral maps, panchayat asset map, land use map, water resources map, drainage map, watershed atlas, soil survey atlas and power line maps. These thus constitute the key geographical information needs of all PRIs.

PROJECT MONITORING INFORMATION

Deriving from its development plans, a typical GP in India executes nearly 100 projects at a time on various fronts and considering that various stakeholders provide the GP with the resources needed to execute its projects, collecting and reporting project monitoring information on a timely basis is a key information need of Gram Panchayats. Such information is aggregated at progressively higher levels of PRI and reported to various stakeholder communities including citizens.

SOCIAL WELFARE INDICATORSAs the arm of Government closest to

citizens, Gram Panchayats play a key role in collection of various vital social welfare indicators. Some of the vital information needs are:

Citizen health indicatorsChild and family welfare indicatorsEducation and employment related indicatorsScheduled caste and tribe survey dataVeterinary/ Animal husbandry data

Unavailability of such information on a timely basis has proven to be a key challenge for India’s planners over the decades. With decentralisation, it is expected that it would be easier to collect and aggregate such information for national and state level planning. Hence

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this forms a key part of the information needs framework proposed for creation of an integrated ePRI solution.

PANCHAYAT GOVERNANCE INFORMATION

One of the key objectives of Panchayati Raj has been to make government more accountable and it is in this context that Panchayat Governance information forms a key part of the information needs framework of PRI. India is evolving various mechanisms to strengthen governance at grassroots level including:

Constitution of fi nance commissions to strengthen fi nancial management within PanchayatsConduct of social audits involving citizens to assess the Panchayat’s performance and Local fund audits to ensure that funds are being utilised as planned

The Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005 adds another dimension to Governance as Panchayats are expected to respond to citizen queries within specifi ed timelines. It is in this context that an e-Governance solution for PRIs needs to maintain the following information:

Panchayat Meeting Minutes and Decisions RegisterGovernment orders and circularsSocial audit fi ndings and resolutionsLocal fund audit fi ndings and resolutionsVarious registers related to citizen service deliveryCitizen queries and responses and Panchayat election details

INTEGRATED SOLUTION MAP FOR PANCHAYATI RAJ

Having identifi ed the above information needs, solution design was carried out to refl ect lines of integration that exist between various levels of Panchayati Raj Institutions. The solution modules were classifi ed under the following heads:

Government to Government interactionsGovernment to Citizen interactionsGovernment to Employee interactionsGovernment to Business interactionsSupport modules andInterfaces

ENABLERS AND CONSTRAINTS FOR e-GOVERNANCE SOLUTION IMPLEMENTATION

In rolling out the solution at either State or National level, it is imperative to know the enablers and constraints

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for its implementation and tailor the e-Governance strategy around these. Following are some of the key enablers and constraints identifi ed as part of the study:

Political commitment for Panchayati Raj: Across India, a strong political commitment to decentralisation is emerging and Panchayati Raj is being recognised as a solution for increasing the pace of development, better citizen services and improving transparency in government. An emerging national level architecture for Panchayati Raj: There is rapid assimilation of best practices thanks to the strong knowledge development and management systems that have been put in place for implementation of Panchayati Raj. From an e-Governance solution implementation perspective, such uniformity in architecture will ease solution development and enable faster rollout. Various other ongoing e-Governance initiatives at National and State level: e-Governance solutions for numerous components required for PRI are already under implementation. This will imply that only specifi c PR focused solutions would need to be implemented as the support infrastructure is already deployed. Increasing penetration of mass media and mobile telephony: With increasing penetration of mass media and mobile telephony it has become easier to communicate to citizens. This has opened avenues for solutions such as Village Radio and m-Governance solutions to reach citizens faster.

In creating e-Governance strategies for India, it is diffi cult to overlook the sheer size in terms of its geography and demography. Some of the other key constraints that have been identifi ed are as follows:

A large segment of India’s population is still illiterate A strong digital divide exists in the countryExtreme localisation challenges from a language perspectiveLimited Internet penetrationLow IT literacy of Panchayat staffPoor electricity supply in certain regions

In the above context, the study

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evaluated various e-Governance strategies some of which are outlined in the following section.

STRATEGIES FOR INDIA From an implementation standpoint, following are the key pan-India strategies that could be evaluated for Panchayati Raj Institutions.

Basing the e-Gov solution on open source and free software platforms: In light of the scale of roll out required, adoption of any proprietary technologies will be prohibitively costly for the Government of India. Simple consideration of the numbers of Panchayats in India tilts the argument in favour of open source and free software platforms. Other technology strategies that could be adopted to make the implementation cost effective would include use of Unicode scripts, usage of web technologies on a thin client platform and use of cloud computing models. Adoption of Web 2.0 technologies for citizen interaction: Considering the importance of citizen information and the challenges faced hitherto in managing citizen data, it has become important for Government of India to evaluate Web 2.0 technologies for staying in touch with the citizen. Using radio, television and mobile phones as platforms to bridge the digital divide: Gram Radio and mobile governance solutions are proving benefi cial in various pilot sites in India for the PRI to communicate with citizen. These technologies help make Gram Sabhas more inclusive and there is a strong likelihood of

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Vibhor Jain is a Senior Manager with Ernst & Young. He has been associated with some of India’s largest public sector transformation programmes specialising in the areas of e-Governance strategy, IT solution architecture, project management, public private partnerships and government procurement. He may be reached at [email protected]

VIBHOR JAIN

utilisation of Gram Radio and local cable TV to broadcast proceedings of Gram Sabhas. Modifi cations to recruitment procedures in PRIs and strengthening ICT capacity building systems: In terms of capacity building, modifi cations to recruitment and training procedures for PR offi cials to make IT training a mandatory requirement is being actively evaluated. In addition, considering the large community of offi cers to be trained, decentralised training based on ‘train the trainer’ concept is an alternative. Centralised design and rollout: Information sharing between Panchayats and other stakeholders has been established as a sine qua non for successful functioning of local self-government. It is in this context that Government of India needs to adopt this as a conscious strategy for implementation.

CONCLUSIONIn conclusion, while decentralisation

defi nitely brings in benefi ts of greater citizen participation and accountability, it can be made effective only by bridging the wide information gaps that exists. Any e-Gov solution to cater to decentralised planning needs to address the needs of the smallest block, namely the Gram Panchayat, and build a progressively integrated chain. Covering the scale represented by a country like India is possible only with a portfolio of appropriate e-Governance strategies. Going forward, e-Governance solutions and appropriate implementation strategies will play an important role in strengthening local self-government in India. \\

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Anand Hariharan is a Manager with Ernst & Young. He has been engaged with various projects of the Government of India, the World Bank and the Department for International Development notably in the area of revenue administration. He may be reached at [email protected]

ANAND HARIHARAN

4—6 August, 2010Hyderabad InternatIonal ConventIon Centre

Hyderabad, IndIa

Co-organIsersorganIsers

india’s Largest iCt event

Powered by

EMPOWERINg

DIgItAL DECADEINDIA FOR tHE

www.eIndIa.net.in

venue eindia 2010 HiCC Hyderabad

Country PartnerHost state Partner

FOr

eWO

rd

I am happy to know that Hyderabad is hosting the sixth edition of eIndIa 2010, south asia’s largest ICt event. the andhra Pradesh government, which has taken up several path breaking initiatives in ICt, e-governance, e-education, e-Health, e-agriculture and related fields, is glad to host this prestigious event in Hyderabad.

andhra Pradesh has emerged as a preferred destination for knowledge-driven and high-value investments. Hyderabad, capital city of andhra Pradesh, offers immense potential for It companies in terms of its advance business infrastructure and best It & Ites practices, highly skilled workforce, and supportive government policies, etc. within a short span of few years, Hyderabad has transformed itself into the most lucrative ICt destination in the asia Pacific region.

I hope that the ‘eIndIa 2010’ would highlight the leadership of andhra Pradesh and Hyderabad in ICt not only in India but also globally.

on behalf of the government of andhra Pradesh, I welcome you all to ‘eIndIa 2010’ and wish the event a grand success.

dr K rosaiah Chief Minister government of andhra Pradesh

eIndIa has been an excellent

platform for bringing together

stakeholders to exchange

ideas and to get to know the

possibilities of new innovations

that have come into the

field of technology. eIndIa

has made the entire process

very exciting, and I must

compliment that every time

I have attended the event, I

discovered newer and better

innovations. It is an insightful

and learning experience and

will be a good eye opener for

those who are not aware of

these ICt trends.

eIndIa has been

instrumental in bringing

together potential partners, not

just in the ICt in education field

but also those in the health,

governance and telecentre

domains. It has helped support

the fact that technology

can extend developmental

opportunities and facilitate the

teaching process further.

smt d PurandesWari

Minister of state

Ministry of Human resource

development, government of

India

on behalf of the government of andhra Pradesh, I invite delegates from India and across the world to eIndIa 2010. the conference will help participants further their understanding of ICt in governance, education, health, agriculture, and the impact on the society.

smt K ratna PrabHaPrincipal secretary-It, government of andhra Pradesh

www.eIndIa.net.in

It has been quite a spectacular journey and has always been an outstanding show growing from year to year. I feel happy to be associated with this mega conference, because it is one event that reflects under one roof, the amazing breadth and depth of the transformation, that is overtaking the country across multiple sectors, inside and outside the government, in every single sector. besides, the participation in eIndIa has been growing. this is the time where we are actually growing and therefore, we need to address the issues, and think in a more mature way before we go forward. beside bringing the technology providers we also need to bring the other stakeholders on the centre stage. I am sure that this event would continue to contribute in this absolutely exciting national journey.

sHri r CHandrasHeKHarsecretary, department of Information technology, Ministry of Communications & Information technology, government of IndiaPatron, Programme advisory board, eIndIa 2010

In serving its citizens, government of andhra Pradesh has embarked on practising e-government and leveraging the tools of Information & Communication technology. Hosting of eIndIa 2010 in Hyderabad, symbolises the government commitment of achieving the goal of citizen centric, clean and good governance. eIndIa witnesses participation from government, international developmental agencies and the service providers in e-governance. exhibition at eIndIa 2010 will facilitate synchronisation of demand and supply in terms of adoption of right technology and process, towards enabling e-governance. to maintain the pace of growth and consistent progress in this sector, eIndIa would go a long way.

sHri KOmatireddy venKat reddyMinister for Information technology & Communications, youth services and sports, government of andhra Pradesh, India

south asia’s largest iCt event. Meet key decision makers, experts, leaders & stakeholders in ICt arena at one platform.

meet service providers, It vendors, telecom vendors, consulting firms, government agencies

and national-international development organisations in the domain of ICt.

great networking opportunity with bureaucrats, policy makers, analysts, experts, ICt entreprenuers and ngo on innovative e-gov implementations, technology issues and people’s need from India, asia and beyond.

a platform for engaging with colleagues and experts handling similar ICt projects, dealing with transformation and gPr challenges, automation of back office processes and integration.

benefit from in-depth conferences more than 50 in the area of e-governance, e-learning, eHealth, eagriculture and telecentre. Participants will get numerous opportunities to witness innovative solutions from within the Indian ICt industry and beyond.

High roi for stakeholders from diverse fields: government, civil society, academia, corporate and many more,through ample opportunities to nurture business skills, enhance citizen service delivery and deliver innovative solutions for the consumers & community.

supported by various state governments, government agencies and industry associations.

delegates to the event will have an access to the eIndIa exhibition which will showcase cutting edge developments in ICt.

Centre for science, development and Media studies (CsdMs) and elets technomedia invites you to join the India’s largest ICt event cum exposition eIndIa 2010. the conference aims to explore the diverse opportunities of integrating ICt in different spheres of life. eIndIa 2010 is also a platform for sharing knowledge, assessing the already existing initiatives, and planning creation of technology enabled society.

the sixth annual ICt forum will be convened at Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad along with government of andhra Pradesh as Host state partner.

as an international event, the eIndIa 2010 Conference and exhibition aims to bring together 5,000 high level representatives of the ICt industry, government, civil society, academia and private sector from all across the globe to share the best practices and digital opportunities for development, to discuss, to exchange knowledge and ideas that will shape the future of the global ICt development.

intrOduCtiOn

COntaCt

eIndIa awards are the premier accolades given to innovative endeavours made in assimilating technology in developmental concerns. the award nominations are invited for the following

six categories from individual participants, government organisations, non-governmental organisations (ngos), private institutions and enterprises who have transformed social

development opportunities into a sustainable social enterprise through innovative use of ICt.

abOut

WHyattend?

egovg2C Initiative of the yearg2b Initiative of the yearg2g Initiative of the yearmgovernance Initiative of the yearICt enabled Psu of the yearICt in Financial Inclusion Initiative of the yearPrivate sector Initiative of the year

digital LearningICt enabled school of the yearICt enabled university/Higher education Institute of the yearICt enabled business school of the yearICt enabled engineering College of the yearskill development Initiative of the yearopen and distance learning Initiative of the yearPrivate sector Initiative of the year

eHealthICt enabled Hospital of the yeargovernment Policy Initiative of the yearCivil society/development agency Initiative of the yearICt enabled diagnostic service Provider of the yearHealth Insurance Initiative of the yearPrivate sector Initiative of the year

eagricultureICt enabled agriculture Initiative of the yearPrivate sector Initiative of the year

telecentreInnovative grassroots telecentre Initiave of the yearPrivate sector Initiative of the year

municipal itICt enabled Municipal Initiative of the yearPrivate sector Initiative of the year

aWard

enquiriessheena Joseph,

[email protected]

+91-9971841718

FIle yournOminatiOnsonlIne at www.eindia.net.in/awards/2010

Key sPeaKers at eindia 2010

d PurandeswariMinister of state Ministry of Human resource development (Hrd)government of India

dr K rosaiah Chief Minister government of andhra Pradesh

sam Pitrodaadvisor to the Prime Minister government of India

shri Komatireddy venkat reddyMinister for Information technology & Communications, youth services and sports, government of andhra Pradesh, India

rs sharmadirector general unique Identification authority of India, government of India

r Chandrashekharsecretarydepartment of It Ministry of Communications & Itgovernment of India

shankar aggarwalJoint secretarydepartment of It, Ministry of Communication & It government of India

dr n Jadhav Member, Planning Commissiongovernment of India

sudhir Krishnaadditional secretaryMinistry of Panchayati raj government of India

smt K ratna PrabhaPrincipal secretary, It government of andhra Pradesh

Prof v n rajasekharan Pillai vice ChancellorIndira gandhi national open university

n ravi shankerJoint secretary department of It, Ministry of Communications and It government of India

J satyanarayanaPrincipal secretary, Health, Medical and Family welfaregovernment of andhra Pradesh

subhash C KhuntiaJoint secretaryMinistry of Hrd government of India

Cd arha Chief Information Commissioner andhra Pradesh

dr s vijay Kumar Project director, tamil nadu Health systems Project

dr rajeev sharma director generalCentre for good governance

sharda PrasadJoint secretary & director generalemployment & training, Ministry of labour & employment, government of India

sherif el tokaliassistant resident representative Poverty reduction, Mdgs and Private sector team leader, undP

Kapil MohandirectorMinistry of Powergovernment of India

Michael riggsKnowledge and Information Management officerFao, rome

dr sameer sharma Commissionergreater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation

t Krishna Prasad IgP & director Police, Communicationsgovernment of andhra Pradesh

a babuCeo, arogyasree Health Care trustgovernment of andhra Pradesh

dr ashok Kumarddg and directorCentral bureau of Health Intelligence government of India

dr latha PillaiPro vice ChancellorIndira gandhi national open university

u K ananthapadmanabhanPresident, Kovai Medical Centre & Hospital

wg Cdr (dr) sanjeev sood, sr Medical officer, Indian air Force

shakila shamsuJoint advisor (education) Planning Commissiongovernment of India

dr ss Jena Chairmannational Institute of open schooling (nIos)

ashish gargregional Coordinator asiaglobal e schools & Communities Initiative

dr r sreedhardirectorCommonwealth of learning

dr Karanvir singhConsultant surgeonsir ganga ram Hospital

www.eIndIa.net.in

... and mOre

Public safety and security India is planning for a gdP growth of 8-10 per cent every year and it is imperative for law enforcing agencies to deploy advanced security and intelligent solutions so that citizen’s safety and security is not compromised. the session will focus on: ICt in policing, intelligence gathering and sharing (CCtns and natgrId), IP based video surveillance and secure communication systems cyber security, disaster management–preparedness and response and capacity building.

mOre OPPOrtunities

special session on uidgovernments today are facing information overload and there is a need for conducting information audit to have a clear view of whether information is up to the mark and social schemes are reaching the right audience. the session will focus on: Comprehensive strategy to manage information across different departments, policies and guidelines for access, storage and security of document and information, deployment of unique Id numbers pan India, dashboards and scorecards for analysis, monitoring and evaluation.

“i have seen eindia from its inception and

thereafter growing like an institution in itself. i congratulate the eindia team for

its tremendous effort in putting together

this outstanding conference.”

Cloud computingwhile the global cloud computing market expected to cross $70 billion by 2015 and India is ideally poised to address this growing opportunity—both as the solution provider to the world and the biggest consumer at the enterprise level—government Cloud or “g-cloud” is yet to become part of the mainstream e-gov discussion in the country. However, while the cloud computing is expected to allow government departments share applications or server power, and treat It as a ubiquitous, on-demand service and to flexibly consume as much or as little as is needed, it also comes with a fear of the cyber-threat that could pose a major national

r s sHarMadirector general, uIdaI

eindia WOrKsHOPsgtZ workshop onl ICts for sMesl International best practices in e-governance

Copenhagen Business school workshop onl Co-creation of new technologies

global e-schools & Communities Initiative work shop onl ICts in education

Euro-India spirit workshops onl ICt addressing societal challenges—

governance, public services, health, inclusion, mobility, environment, energy

l audio visual, media & Internetl emerging technologies and e-Infrastructures

security risk. the session will focus on: general governance, management and legal challenges in adopting cloud computing, privacy, security and business continuity issues.

Power itthe government of India is presently implementing the restructured accelerated Power development and reforms Programme (r-aPdrP) during the eleventh Five-year Plan period, which is worth us $12 billion project and is aimed at It-enabling power distribution system in India. the session will focus on: smart metering, smart grids and energy data management, gIs mapping of power distribution network, achieving superior customer services and profitability and operational excellence.

e-Panchayat e-Panchayat, one of the Mission Mode Projects (MMP) under national e-governance Plan (negP) aims to empower the panchayats and improve the internal management processes at the local level with the use of Information and Communication technology (ICt). the computerisation of the panchayats will ensure decentralised database and bring in transparency at the local governance by providing on-line monitoring of the various rural development schemes.

the session will focus on: computerisation of the panchayats, capacity building of the panchayats, addressing challenges in e-Panchayat programme–connectivity, power supply, infrastructure.

Financial inclusion banks have centralised their operations, and have started new delivery channels with the usage of It such as at Ms, Internet banking, smart card based products, mobile access and using It for customer relationship management, customer transaction pattern analysis, credit profiling and risk management.

the main objective of financial inclusion is to bring these people in the mainstream of the banking industry. the session will focus on: financial inclusion of people who are out of ambit of formal banking systems, role of ICt solution for financial inclusion, pilots and case studies.

iCt in urban governanceurbanisation, is the engine of growth, socio-economic development and most importantly is a tool for poverty alleviation. the key

www.eIndIa.net.in

eIndia 2010 Knowledge series is a unique platform for knowledge sharing

among all stakeholders in the government space be it bureaucrats, technocrats,

academia, industry and civil society. the Knowledge series will help in bringing

together ICt experts, practitioners, business leaders and stake holders on to one

platform through peer to peer learning, thematic workshops, and exhibitions.

eIndIa 2010 Knowledge series will have six tracks focusing on e-gov, digital

learning, eHealth, e-agriculture, telecentre Forum and Municipal It. In all these

tracks there will be multiple thematic sessions.

challenges with urbanisation are to provide better transportation, integrated public infrastructure, increase human capital, long term planning, sustainability, citizen centricity, and distribution of equal economic opportunities and poverty alleviation. Moreover, to make urban centres better planned, livable, connected and smarter, citizen centric is with judicious blend of good governance; the use of ICt is paramount. the session will focus on: integrated urban infrastructure, gIs and city planning, transport and traffic management, efficient handling of work, transparency in dealing with citizens, property tax management including records management, municipal accounting system, e-Procurement and payment of utility bills.

agriculture, as an important sector, with a huge work-force engaged, it is in fact the backbone of India’s rural economy. technology has the potential to change agriculture landscape for the better with a pre-condition to bring all the stakeholders in the ambit of the exponential age, leveraging on the power of networking, collective wisdom and shared information, in order to align efforts and change attitude. the fruits of technology can only be availed by addressing challenges in meeting this precondition. Modern farming practices and technologies have been implemented in many parts of the world, which need to spread out to the areas untouched by it. both the communication networks and supporting infrastructure have to reach out to rural areas to enable the biggest entrepreneur community i.e., farmers to deliver its best and consequently build a stronger nation and economy.

the Indian telecentre Forum 2010 is going to do just that by providing an opportunity to telecentre stakeholders, both regional as well as global, to meet and deliberate on the issues facing the telecentre movement. the session will focus on: review of the CsC programme, telecentre movement in India: issues, lessons and best practices, capacity building, telecentres in the age of mobile phones, knowledge sharing among the telecentre stakeholders, sustainability concerns in the telecentre domain, localisation of content, services and grassroots innovation.

the initiative this year is to bring together India’s top-notch educational entrepreneurs, Ceos and private players from different walks of life. In K-12 sector the focus is on school principals and top executives. In the higher education sector the focus is on deans, directors and top executives along with policy and decision makers at national level. skill development and vocational training Programmes will focus on capacity builders as India requires a lot many experienced professionals if it is planning to grow at a gdP growth of 8-9 percent.

K-12 the track on K-12 will focus on rashtriya Madhyamik shiksha abhiyaan, strategising and implementation of policies on usage of ICt in leveraging learning, merging ICt in learning and training through open schooling, challenges in developing e-learning and role of ICt in advancing inclusive education.Principal’s Conclave: discussion on different education models, pedagogy and andragogy in ICt mediated classroom.

Higher educationthe track will focus on systemic enhancement of learning and teaching, innovation, research and development, education governance in universities, collaborations with world class higher education players and quality standards.

“i congratulate the Csdms and elets

team for organising an event that would go

a long way in helping the country achieve

the mdg objectives of education and health…

ignOu is happy to partner with eindia.”

ProF v n raJaseKHaran PIllaIvC, Ignou“Conferences like eindia have the

potential to create awareness about the stupendous possibilities that e-governance harbours within itself for overall improvement to the life and especially in the context of governmental activities.”

subHasH C KHuntIaJoint secretary, Ministry of Hrd, government of IndiaCo-chair, Programme advisory board, eIndIa 2010

ignOu Workshopl strengthening capacities of educators: the ICt wayl vice Chancellor’s Conclave: discussion on emerging issues in ICt integration and higher education

skill development & vocational trainingthe track will focus on skills and information literacy, PM’s national skills mission, skills development and training, certification and quality assurance across education sector, role of training centres in providing youth employability, best practices in vocational education system, assessment methodologies of future skills demand and how to connect skills to markets requirements

www.eIndIa.net.in

advancement in modern information and communication technologies (ICts) are revolutionising healthcare systems, by transforming health administration, service delivery and care management.

rapid market maturity, heightened consumer expectations, increasing cost pressures and emerging medico-legal/regulatory requirements are driving the need for ICt solutions that could bring substantive value -add through improved efficiency and enhanced business performance. availability of intelligent healthcare information systems, high performance communication networks, advanced analytical tools and powerful computing gadgets are promising to achieve all of these and even more.

‘eHealtH India 2010’ – the most definitive Indian event on healthcare ICts, technologies and applications will once again bring together the entire community of health It professionals, practitioners, end-users and decision-makers to engage over three power-packed days of active conferencing and networking, along with a vibrant exhibition to showcase some of the latest technologies that are on offer.

Key tOPiCs & tHemesl national Health It Infrastructurel Healthcare reforms through ICtl Hospital automation & systems

Management (HMIs & erP)l eMr applications & Medical Informaticsl Medical Imaging, rIs & PaCsl shared services Infrastructure & Hosted

Modelsl Clinical, bio-Medical & drug Information

systemsl telemedicine & tele-healthl online and Mobile healthcarel technology standards and Interoperability

Key sessiOnsl envisioning Healthcare reforms: role of

ICt in healthcare transformationl Hospital CIo Conclave: technology

strategy for next generation hospitalsl Health Insurance Conclave: leveraging

technology for efficient health insurance administration

seCretary-LeveL OFFiCiaLs such as head of various departments, Chief secretaries, Principal secretaries, additional secretaries, Joint secretaries, deputy secretaries and directors from Central and state government departments

Key OFFiCiaLs from It, Health, education, urban development, Pwd, agriculture, rural development, Home, Planning, Power, Finance, transportation and taxation departments and institutes from states and central ministries

Key staKeHOLders and elected representatives

Key deCisiOn maKers from educational institutions - vCs, registrars, Principals, directors and Heads of organisations

Key officials FrOm distriCts and municipalities

representatives FrOm tHe judiCiary and legal experts

Key people from various CHambers OF COmmerCe and associations

industry rePresentatives and experts

representatives from ngO and other civil societies

COnsuLtants and research agencies

DELEgAtE PROFILE OF

kEy

DELEgAtEs FROM

egyPt, PHiLiPPines,

sri LanKa, bangLadesH,

sudan and eurOPean

uniOn

“With the help of iCt, india is ushered in a new

paradigm that looks promising than ever before and the healthcare service

is nowhere exception in that. We are planning to open

community service centres to access as many people as we can, but it seems to be a

challenge.”

dr asHoK KuMarddg & director, Central bureau of Health Intelligence, government of India

Key Participantsl Mds/Ceos of leading Healthcare organisationsl Hospital directors, Medical superintendents & Chief administratorsl CIos/Ctos/gM-It/Head-It/Manager-Itl Central & state Health officials & Policy Makersl technology vendors & solution Providersl Industry analysts & Healthcare Consultantsl eHealth researchers & academicians

the three-day eIndIa 2009 attracted more than 4,000 delegates from across 50 countries providing a very high roI to over 150 exhibitors—from It, to e-learning, e-Health and e-gov solution providers, e-Content majors, education sector specialists, medical technologies, medical equipment and healthcare application companies—making it the largest ICt for development exhibition in the entire south asia region.

going ahead with the success, eIndIa 2010 has earmarked a 3,000 sq meter area aimed at enabling the companies, state governments and departments, as well as Psus to showcase the best in breed technologies and projects implementation.

the high-powered delegation including mPs and mLas from the north eastern states attending a demo session at the eindia 2009 exhibition.

WHyPartiCiPate

meet and network with key domestic and international government influencers.

explore new business avenues in government, education, health, agriculture and other development sectors.

Check out the latest technologies, solutions and products at the eindia special experience zone.

eINDIA 2009 PARtNERs

www.eIndIa.net.in

enquirieseINDIA 2010 Secretariat: G-4, Sector - 39, Noida - 201301, UP, IndiaPh: +91-120-2502180-85 Fax: +91-120-2500060 Email: [email protected]

Program Enquiries:

Anaam Sharma,

[email protected],

+91-9910597744

4,120visitOrs

150exHibitOrs

255sPeaKers

5COnFerenCe

traCKs

60tHematiC

sessiOns

COntaCt eINDIA 2010 Secretariat G-4, Sector - 39, Noida - 201301, UP, IndiaPh: +91-120-2502180-85 Fax: +91-120-2500060 Email: [email protected]

PrOgram

enquiries

Anaam Sharma, [email protected],

+91-9910597744

sPONsORsHIP/

ExHIBItION ENquIRIEs:

Dipanjan Banerjee, [email protected]

+91-9968251626

deLegate registratiOn enquiriesPriya saxena +91- 9999349399 [email protected]

www.eIndIa.net.in

4—6 August, 2010Hyderabad InternatIonal ConventIon Centre

Hyderabad, IndIa

india’s Largest iCt event

EMPOWERINg

DIgItAL DECADEINDIA FOR tHE

deLegate registratiOn

Pre registration Fee spot registration Fee

Indian delegates Inr 10,000 Inr 15,000

Foreign delegates usd 225 usd 375

Registration fee includes taxes as applicable

47egov JUNE 2010

OVERVIEW OF SRI LANKA’S DOMESTIC TRANSPORT SECTOR

An effi cient transport service is one of the pre-conditions for economical and social development in a country. Therefore, provision of an effi cient transport service:

leads to increase in productivity reduces production cost of goods and services and thereby improving effi ciency of the entire production process caters to reduce economic and social discrepancies in inter-provincial and intra-provincial levels.contributes to reduce poverty by means of reducing production cost, getting competitive price and paving a way to access new opportunities.

Seventy percent of the entire population of the country lives in rural areas. Three million people live in Colombo Metropolitan area, whereas the population in the other cities range from 50,000 to 300,000. These indicators need to be considered in planning the transport facilities in Sri Lanka.

The road network in Sri Lanka consists of 11,760 kms of National Highways, 15,743 kms of Provincial Highways, 68,843 kms of rural roads and 120,000 kms of footpaths and tracks. The Railway Network consists of 1,449 kms of which only 1,200 kms is operational.

CONTRIBUTION BY THE DIFFERENT TRANSPORT MODES

The following table indicates the Modal Share for Passenger Transport

Sri Lanka Transport Sector –Modal Shares (Percentages) of Passenger Transport

The entire 68% of the share held by the bus transport gets distributed among public and private buses.

1.2.

3.

4.

COUNTRY FOCUS: SRILANKA

Integrated GPS SolutionsRegulating Fare Structure

The performance of each mode of transport in 2008 is shown in the following table. The table includes an approximate cost comparison (cost per passenger / tonne – kms) too.

A.T.L.PALITHA SAMARASINGHEwww.transport.gov.lk

Strengthening and developing state passenger transport services for operating competitively with the private companies

These are of prime importance where IT solutions can be implemented to achieve some or all of them.

APPLICATION OF ICT IN PUBLIC TRANSPORT SECTOR

ICT is an enabling technology. It can be considered as a new engine for modern transport processes, fueled by the resources and driven by the needs of the society.

ICT in transport sector is aimed at:

•

Increasing the effectiveness, effi ciency and capacity of existing transportation systems. It includes information processing, communication and controlEnsuring safety Enabling collecting and transmitting dynamic information on traffi c conditions and transiting schedules for travelers [home, en route, offi ce etc.]Improving transit security and productivity through tracking and dispatching systems

1.

2.3.

4.

123456

Year

198219922001200520072008

Buses (%)807170686868

Railways (%)1066665

Private (%)102324262627

Source – National Transport Commission, Sri Lanka

Mode

PassengersRailwaysBuses-PublicBuses- PrivateThree-wheelersPrivate VehiclesFreightRailwaysTrucks/ Vans

Vehicles-

1244277

13166

1220,000

Passenger-km

46821508833231

1.75300

Cost per Passenger km

– to public

0.841.201.20

20.002.75

4.509.00

Cost per Passenger km – to Organisation

1.640.720.562.402.75

4.350.60

Vehicles-km

8.4314631

0.33000

NATIONAL TRANSPORT POLICY - 2009

The National Transport Policy, which has been designed by a high level committee will be accepted by the Parliament soon. It mainly focuses on 12 policy areas.

However, the policy addresses the following key areas.

Optimum utilisation of available resources Regulating passenger transport fares

•

•


ICT enables deployment resulting in higher consumer satisfaction, the ability to promote public transport, more effi cient cities and lower infrastructure demands.

REGULATING PASSENGER TRANSPORT FARES

Railway Fares: The Sri Lankan Railways fares are based on a rate per km that is applicable to a zone. The zonal rate drops as the distance from the embarking station increases. This has been done by considering the affordability of people, to encourage long distance travel and to be competitive. The ticket fare is calculated based on the distance of travel in kilometres and the rate for the zones that the passenger passed.

Bus Fares: The bus fares are based on rates applicable to zones. Similar to

(Source – National Transport Commission)

Zone

Zone 0 - 0 to 02 kmZone 1 - 02 to 04 kmZone 2 - 04 to 06 kmZone 3 - 06 to 08 kmZone 4 - 08 and 10 km - Continues …Average Rate per km

Flat Rate for the Zone

6.009.00

12.0015.0018.00

1.20

railways, the zones spread radially from the starting point of the journey. The width of a zone is about 2 kms. There is no tapering formulae applicable to borders of the zones. So, passengers are not paying for the nearest kilometre that he travels.

The fare structure of buses brings injustice to the passenger because it does not charge for the exact distance (for exact number of kilometres travelled) that he travels. This happens especially at the borders of the zones.

FARE STRUCTURE OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT

The fare structure of Public Transport Oganisations must not bring injustice to the passengers as far as possible. This does not mean that the organisations are to receive negative contributions from passenger transport (just because the government funds are available). These organisations must receive positive contributions through:

Enforcing suitable pricing structure by considering the affordability of people and by being competitive.Eliminating waste and ineffi ciencies to minimise cost (release people from bearing internal ineffi ciencies of organisations )

1.

2.

ICT can be utilised to achieve fairness and to regulate transport fares.

If a system is available through which, the authorities can know the exact locations of buses / trains which are engaged with journeys. assistance for decision making can be obtained. For instance, decisions about how the rostering of buses/train sets can be improved by predicting when the bus/train will reach the destination and the best way of re-using it for other trips. The effect from breakdown of buses/trains can be reduced by rearranging the buses/train sets.

In order to address the above issues integrated Global Positioning System (GPS) based ticketing and operation mapping system is proposed.

INTEGRATED GPS (GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM) BASED TICKETING AND OPERATION MAPPING SYSTEM

The system has been designed with the intension of regulating the bus fares (Train fares too, if necessary) and to achieve optimising of the available resources (Buses and Trains).

The following sketch depicts the outline of the system.

REGULATING FARE STRUCTURE THROUGH GPS-BASED TICKETING

Features and functionality of the equipment and the system (How it works):

1. Smart Cards (SC) : The Smart Cards are issued by the Transport Organisations (SLR and SLCTB). The organisation will hold the personal details of the owner (similar to the Credit cards)

1.

when issuing the SCs. The Card bears a unique number and the price tag for which the card is valued. The Smart Cards are valued at various fi xed prices (from Rs. 1000.00 upto Rs. 3000.00). They can be recharged by paying to the Transport Organisations or to their authorised agents. The remaining balance of the Card can be checked through the mobile phones (through SMS) or at the bus through the Conductor’s Ticketing Machine. Furthermore, it would be possible to charge the Cards through the Mobile Phone, if the Mobile Operators and Transport Organisations agree on fund transaction procedures.

2. The SC Readers in the Bus : The front and the back doors of the bus are provided with the Smart Card readers which are connected to the GPS Receiver.

The passengers having a valid SC can have his SC in the pocket and get into the bus. The reader will read the SC Number and send it to the Database along with the GPS coordinates of the location where the passenger gets into the bus. If the card is not valid, the card number will be displayed and an alarm will appear at the Conductor’s terminal. The passenger can then either pay to the Conductor and get a ticket or get his Card recharged from the Conductor.

When the passenger gets down, the reader again reads the contents and informs the database along with the GPS coordinates to deduct the fare (i.e., the exact fare for the distance that the passenger travelled) from the Card.

3. If, the remaining balance is not suffi cient to cover the fare, it will be deducted for the Card when the Card is recharged. If the passenger do not

(Source – Railway Planning Unit)

The rate is almost linearly adjusted according to a tapering formulae at the borders of the zones. The fare is then rounded off to the nearest rupee (high side). Although the rounding off brings some injustice to the passengers, the overall price structure has been designed by focusing on the passenger . Railway Fares

Zone 0 - 0 to 09 kmZone 1 - 10 to 49 kmZone 2 - 50 to 99 kmZone 3 - 100 to 199 kmZone 4 - 200 and AboveAverage Rate per km

Fare per km - w. e.f. Dec. 2008

Zone Class of Travel1st

3.603.302.802.101.602.68

2nd

2.001.801.501.200.901.48

3rd

1.101.000.850.650.500.82

49egov JUNE 2010

recharge, then the amount will be considered as unrecoverable expense. However, such a passenger will not be able to purchase another card. Conductor’s Ticketing Machine: The Conductor’s Ticketing Machine has few functions:

a.Smart Card Reader b.Ticket Issuancec.GPS ReceiverThe conductor can read the Smart

Card produced by the passenger for checking and for recharging it.

The machine has a Flash Memory (applicable to a route or few routes) having following information.

a.The bus halts (code numbers of halts) and their kilometres on the route.

b.The fare structure or the formulae for calculation

The conductor, when he starts the bus must set the route number on the machine. For calculating the fares, the conductor has to refer to the table applicable to that route.

Note : Each Bus halt is given a Code number and it is displayed at each and every bus halt. The codes are formed by considering the kilometerage of the bus halt. The passengers can refer halts usually by their code numbers or by the names of the locations.

GPS Receiver System: Receives GPS coordinates continuously from the GPS satellites. Consists of an external antenna system to make the system more reliable. For the Conductor’s Machine, a leaky co-axial cable or a sliding antenna can be used.

The Mobile Network Connection: In addition to the GPS system, a Mobile

Radio Connection is necessary to transmit:

a.Ticketing data to the ticketing database

GPS coordinates of the buses/trains to map the entire bus/train operation for the controller.

FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITY OF THE EQUIPMENT AND THE SYSTEM

1. The GPS Receiver System in the Bus: The system in the bus (the same system used for Ticketing) receives the GPS coordinates of the bus from the satellite and transmits it to the of the Mapping System at the control centre through the mobile network.

2. The Database and Mapping System Application: The mapping system after receiving this information, evaluates and plots the locations of the trains/buses on a screen consisting of the road map.

The mapping system delivers the following information to the controller :

The map indication of the whole transport operation Speed of buses/trains

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REFERENCE:

Progress Review Report 2009 – Ministry of TransportNational Transport Policy 2009 - DraftStatistics – National Transport CommissionRailway StatisticsDiscussions with:

– Dr. D.S. Jayaweera – For-mer Secretary of the Ministry of Transport - Mr. M.A. Jefry – Director – National Transport Commission - Mr M.B.S. Perera – Con-sultant - National Transport Commis-sion - Mr. J.W. Chandrasekara – Director Planning – Ministry of Transport

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Probable time of trains/buses reaching the destinationDecision support system for the controller about Rostering of buses/trains Controlling of trains, crossing points etc.Bus/train operation information displays at bus stands/railway stations, Internet, airports, ports and allowing the citizens to query the system through mobile phones.

ENABLING OPTIMUM UTILISATION OF RESOURCES

Public bus services have limited number of buses with which a satisfactory service need to be fulfi lled competitively. Optimum utilisation of the available resources to cater a service which delights passengers will benefi t the country in many ways.

Extending a satisfactory service to the passengersReduce capital expenditure needed to purchase additional buses/trains

Integrated GPS based solutions will not only regulate the bus fares bus also achieve maximum optimisation of the available resources.\\

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ATL Palitha Samarasinghe, is Deputy Chief Signal and Telecommunication Engineer in the Sri Lanka Railways ( SLR ). He also works as the Data Processing Manager and the Chief Innovative Offi cer of the SLR. He has Signaling, Telecommunication and Computerisation Projects in SLR. Samarasinghe graduated from The Institution of Electronic and Radio Engineers, UK in 1986, and did Electronic , Telecommuni-cation and Computer Systems Engineering for the degree. He is currently pursuing Masters Degree in e-Governance from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

ATL PALITHA SAMARASINGHE


Democracy is a system of governance that, in a very simplistic manner of saying, gives power to the people. The power to decide the way their nation is run, the way the nation interacts with other nations in the world, the way the nation governs those who make it a nation. Social Media gives the same power to the common netizens who, for years have only been the receivers of knowledge and information online. With the increasing proliferation of Social Media over the past few years it can safely be assumed that Social Media is here to stay.

What started as initiatives from members of the public, like Tom Steinberg’s fi xmystreet.com or chicago.everyblock.com has now steadily crept into the mainstream. With the UK government stepping into the Social

Media sphere with twitter and friendfeed accounts for the Parliament and 10, Downing Street, Digital Britain and their High Commissions and Consulates.

This is a realisation that has dawned upon quite a few government agencies around the world, the heaviest user of Social Media in governance is the United States of America, predictably enough, considering the way the Internet has penetrated the lives and lifestyles of its citizens. However, one can also attribute this development to President Obama’s social media powered election campaign. As a natural progression of his success with the Social Media experiment,

FEATURE

Getting Government Hooked On

President Obama was soon to announce the Open Government Initiative.

“My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote effi ciency and effectiveness in government,” He said while unveiling the initiative.

On his fi rst day in offi ce, the President signed a memorandum1 directing all federal agencies to participate and collaborate with the people and ensure that there is transparency in their functioning. Leading by example, he circumvented the White House Press Corps while seeking opinions from Americans about

his administration and received over 11,000 responses. The questions from citizens are available on YouTube’s CitizenTube channel2 and viewers were required to vote for the questions that they wanted him to respond. This was a

very interesting demonstration of cyber-democracy and populism. This interview was Obama’s fi rst after his State of the Union address3 which was viewed by 1.3 million live on the White House’s website. Of course this is apart from the approximately 48 million others who watched the address live on TV. The White House also said that about 50,000 people participated in a Q&A session with Government Offi cials after the speech via facebook.

While the White House hasn’t been able to fi gure out exactly how many people viewed the speech through their iPhone app but they did announce that more than

a terabyte of data was streamed4. This isn’t surprising considering the fact that little over a year ago 13.9 million people watched the President’s inauguration on CNN.com alone.

Similarly, when Obama goes on overseas trips the number of questions he receives is staggering. Sample this, 17,000 responses from a visit to Ghana and 250,000 from a visit to South Africa, albeit some of these responses were from outside Africa but still, considering the thin Internet penetration in the continent these numbers say a lot about the potential of Social Media integration in governance.

As for internal transparency, Data.gov, leads the way in democratising public sector data and driving innovation. The data is being surfaced from many locations making the government data stores available to researchers to perform their own analysis. Developers are fi nding good uses for the datasets, providing interesting and useful applications that allow for new views and public analysis.

The government is now publishing online data that has never been available in the past about federal spending and research. Data.gov started as 47 data-sets from a small group of federal agencies and as of December 2009, expanded into more than 118,000 data-sets with many more such initiatives like reversing an executive order that previously limited access to presidential records and web-casting White House meetings and conference.

What’s even more interesting is the administration accepting that, “By themselves, however, these steps do not provide the transformation in the philosophy of governing that the President wants. They are improvements over past practice, to be sure, and valuable ones. But more needs to be done.”

Of course, the UK and the US aren’t the only countries that are on Social Media,

SUBIR DEY

Social Media has already started penetrating individual’s life in a big way. It’s now time for governments to jump onto the bandwagon

People have always been using the Social Media of their time for a variety of purposes, including, to change in the way governments or society work

51egov JUNE 2010

other countries have joined in the fray. For instance, the Singapore government is on Facebook. Its feedback agency Reach Singapore, sees new media as a key opportunity to drive public feedback and citizen participation. Their use of facebook has seen a lot of feedback and has generated discussions on various issues. Says Dr Amy Khor, Member of Parliament, Mayor of Singapore’s Southwest district and Chairman of government feedback agency Reach, “What we are seeing now is active discussion on the discussion board. These range from transportation to environmental issues.” Similarly, Hong Kong offi cials have used social media to conduct various ‘e-Engagement activities’ on different policy initiatives. Some of the examples include online surveys, blogs, collecting feedback from Facebook, live Web chats, dedicated Web sites to consult the public on specifi c issues and mail exchange with the public.

However, the way the US has leveraged on the ubiquity of the Internet to include its citizens in governance 2.0 is admirable. We are sure that as other countries realise the benefi ts of this medium and as Internet penetration also increases in the developing world, we will see more synergies being created between the traditional government systems and Social Media. As these governments step in, they will bring their own ideas about how this medium can be utilised for the benefi t of government and citizens, which is the beauty of mass media that it can be moulded into any form that the user wishes to give it.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT NEWIt is strange but true that while Social

Media has already started penetrating individual’s life in a big way, any mention of its usage for governance is always met with apprehension. This is perhaps because people at the helms of the affair see it as something ‘new’ and unfamiliar. However, people have always been using the Social Media of their time for a variety of purposes, including, to change in the way governments or society work.

Paul, the Apostle wrote 13 epistles (letters) that substantially infl uenced Christianity throughout the Mediterranean and were included in the New Testaments. Martin Luther brought to light the abuses of the Church and initiated the Protestant Reformation by writing theses (updates) and posted them on the church of All Saints on 31 October 1517, which were quickly translated from Latin to German, printed and widely copied, making the controversy one of the fi rst in history to

be aided by the printing press. Within two weeks, copies of these had spread t h r o u g h o u t Germany and within two months t h r o u g h o u t Europe. His w r i t i n g s , spreading wider, reached France, England and Italy as early as 1519 and students thronged to Wittenberg to hear Luther speak.

Thomas Paine spread his printed pamphlets (blogs) about democracy to the masses titled, ‘Common Sense’ which immediately spread among the literate and in three months, 100,000 copies sold throughout the American British colonies making it the best-selling work in 18th century America and giving him the honour of being the Father of the American Revolution.

However, while Social Media may not really be something new that has suddenly come up in our midst, the only difference between the usages has been the platform that the information has been spread through.Social and political change can still be brought about today using the same social networks that have been around us for centuries, the only difference is that today, thanks to the Internet our social network is much wider and information can spread far and wide at the speed of the Internet.

THE HURDLE Despite the Open Government

Initiative and the increasing social media presence of the top government offi cials and offi ces and despite the increasing adoption of social media by the general public and their desire to be actively participate in the democratic process, social media usage in government is still fraught with several roadblocks.

Even in the US, Governance 2.0 is not exactly smooth sailing. At the Gov 2.0 Expo convened at Washington D.C. between May 25-27, 2010 one could hear the same refrain that experts in the social media domain often encounter, including those like “we cannot do this”; “the management won’t accept it”; and “government regulations make it too hard to share information freely with the public”.

These are issues that these simple directives cannot and will not solve. Creating and implementing effective Social Media communications strategies can go a long way in solving these issues. Besides, there is a need to imbue the culture of openness within the people who make up these organisations and agencies and for them to see that the Internet and Social Media are not something alien to them. It is something that has always been around for generations.

For governments the world over, social media can not only send and receive critical information instantaneously but also help build trust and relationships and share information at the same time by keeping both governments and citizens at an equal footing. To do this, social media usage doesn’t need to be creative, just being there and responding proactively to the queries received, clarifi cation and information being requested and demonstrating that action is being taken based on what the citizens are saying is all that needs to be done to show people that the government agencies are indeed listening. \\

REFERENCE:

Full text of the Memorandum is at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/memoranda_2010/m10-06.pdfhttp://www.youtube.com/citizen-tubehttp://www.whitehouse.gov/pho-tos-and-video/video/2010-state-union-addressh t tp : / /www.wh i t ehouse .gov /blog/2010/01/28/your-response-state-unionwww.futuregov.net/articles/2008/sep/17/singapore-experiments-social-media

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egov is a monthly magazine providing a much needed platform to the voices of various stakeholders in the arena of e-Government, apart from being a repository of valuable information and meaningful discussion on issues of e-Governance in general, and eGovernment in particular -- both to the specialist and the generalist.

Contributions to egov magazine should be in the form of articles, case studies, book reviews, event reports and news related to e-Government projects and initiatives, which are of immense value for practitioners, professionals, corporates and academicians.

We would like the contributors to follow these guidelines, while submitting their

material for publication.ARTICLES / CASE STUDIES should not exceed 2500 words. For book reviews and event report, the word limit is 800. AN ABSTRACT of the article/case study not exceeding 200 words should be submitted along with the article/case study.ALL ARTICLES / CASE STUDIES should provide proper references. Authors should give in writing stating that the work is new and has not been published in any form so far.BOOK REVIEWS should include details of the book like the title, name of the author(s), publisher, year of publication, price and number of pages and also send the cover photograph of the book in JPEG/TIFF (resolution 300 dpi). Book reviews of

books on e-Governance related themes, published from year 2002 onwards, are preferable. In case of website, provide the URL.MANUSCRIPTS should be typed in a standard printable font (Times New Roman 12 font size, titles in bold) and submitted either through mail or post.RELEVANT FIGURES of adequate quality (300 dpi) should be submitted in JPEG/ TIFF format.A BRIEF BIO-DATA and passport size photograph(s) of the author(s) must be enclosed.

ALL CONTRIBUTIONS ARE SUBJECT TO APPROVAL BY THE PUBLISHER.

Please send in your papers/articles/comments to:The Editor, egov, G-4, Sector 39, NOIDA (UP) 201 301, India.

tel: +91 120 2502180-85, fax: +91 120 2500060, email: [email protected]

ov

Presents India’s 1st Directory on ICT in Government

For Advertising Details, ContactDebabrata Ray, [email protected],+91-9899650692; Anuj Agrawal, [email protected],+91 9911302086

Watch out for the 2nd edition in August 2010

Segments CoveredBiometric/RFID

Broadband Equipments Cloud Computing

Consultants Cooling Solutions

e-Governance Solutions e-Procurement Solutions

ERP Financial Management System

Financial Inclusion

Infrastructure Management Internet Service Providers

Mobility Networking Solutions

Open Source

PCs/Laptops Power Solutions

Printers & Peripherals Security Storage

Server/ Data Centre Telecom Towers

Video Conferencing Solutions Virtualisation

VSAT

Issue will be released at eINDIA 2010 www.eindia.net.in/2010

Distinct VisibilityDetailed Segmentation & Positioning Opportunity

Focussed Reache-Gov reaches to the Decision Makers in the

Central Government/State Governments/Municipalities/PSUs/Banks

One Year Shelf Lifee-Gov IT Directory is One of its Kind, Year- long Reference Book for all the Stakeholders in e-Government

Reasons to Participate

53egov JUNE 2010

features and the smart fan, the DGS-3200-24 switch offers advanced security features and is IPv6 Phase II certifi ed. The DGS-3200 series is capable of operating in temperatures up to 50 degree Centigrade and in non A/C environment especially suitable for Indian climate.

NASSCOM FOCUSES ON EMERGING MARKETS

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), in association with consulting fi rm Pricewater houseCoopers, has announced the key fi ndings of the Germanic report, ‘Opportunities for Indian IT – BPO industry in Germanic countries’. The report focuses on identifying partnership opportunities for both India and the Germanic countries in the area of IT services, business process outsourcing (BPO) and engineering services.

According to the report, Indian companies earning less than USD 2.6 Bn from this region across the IT, BPO and engineering services space as against the addressable market size of more than USD 53bn.

Business from this region, which is the largest market in Europe, has the potential to grow to USD 10 Bn by 2020, provided Indian companies take the strategic and tactical steps required to succeed in this market. The BPO market alone is estimated to be around USD 4 Bn and offshored engineering services around USD 3.4 Bn. Germany and Austria; each spends close to 2.5% of the GDP on IT, whereas Switzerland leads the norm by spending over 5%.

and business environments. D-Link Green products don’t compromise on operational performance or functionality, and do not cost more.

D-Link Green Technology automatically detects device link status and reduces the power usage of ports that are not linked. When detecting a link down, the DGS-3200-24 conserves power usage without sacrifi cing network performance.

In addition to the innovative Green

BUSINESSNEWS

WIPRO BAGS MAHARASHTRA, WEST BENGAL AND GUJARAT SDC PROJECTS

Wipro Infotech, has bagged three State Data Centre (SDC) projects from the governments of Maharashtra, West Bengal and Gujarat.

The Maharashtra project entails commissioning and managing a SDC spread across about 3,000 sq feet for a period of fi ve years, while the West Bengal project is for designing, building and management of the data center (IT and non-IT components) for fi ve years.

The Gujarat project is for upgradation and commissioning of the Gujarat SDC, which will also act as a Disaster Recovery site for four other mini data centers already present in the state. These centres providing online

services to urban and rural citizens like for payment of taxes or simply fi ling a complaint.

The projects assume signifi cance with SDCs emerging as one of the key elements of the core infrastructure required for the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). Once integrated with other infrastructure projects like State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and Common Service Centers (CSC), these data centres would form the framework for roll out of various e-Government services for citizens and the Government.

CII-HCL WHITEPAPER ON ‘SAFE CITY’

In its relentless efforts and commitment towards deploying a robust technology led security infrastructure, Ministry of Home Affairs released a white paper on the basis of the recommendations from Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) in association with HCL Security Ltd., a 100% subsidiary of HCL Infosystems.

The white paper on ‘Safe City’ framework consists of suggestions and a plan to deal with the security threats in front of the nation today. The white paper suggests several measures to overcome the hurdles not only in the short-run, but also presents a defi ned roadmap to deal with the critical security issues both in the medium and long-run.

Government of India is also equally concerned and CII along with HCL has taken a step forward to work towards fi ghting security threats and make India safer for tomorrow.

EMERSON NETWORK POWER ENHANCES FOCUS ON INDIAN MARKET

Emerson Network Power (India) Pvt Ltd. Systems has revamped its entire Micro and Small UPS range as well as enhancements of other key products including Liebert ITON-600 BX, Emerson Adapt Series Parallel Modular UPS (6 kVA), Liebert GXT-MT + (1,2,3 kVA online UPS system) In-Pulse Inverters (30 kVA) and OptimiseIT.

The product revamp has been done to further enhance the features and provide latest technologies which can have an impact on customer’s business as well as reduce energy consumption. Emerson will work with its network of channel partners to create awareness about the new range of products.

D-LINK GOES ‘GREEN’

ED-Link, the end-to-end networking solutions provider for consumer and business, has launched of the world’s fi rst Green managed switch - the D-LinkGreen 24-port Managed Gigabit Switch (DGS-3200-24).

D-Link has always been committed to Green computing and has taken a lead in developing innovative, power-saving technology that is ideal for both home


NEWS

INDIA’S FIRST SMART CARD BASED PDS SOLUTION

HCL Infosystems, India’s premier hardware, services and ICT system Integration company has bagged an order to implement India’s fi rst smart card based solutions for Public Distribution System (PDS) in the union territory of Chandigarh. The project will see distribution of smart card based ration cards to the families living below poverty line in the region.

These smart cards will capture all biometric, tax, demographic and personal information details, enabling authorities to ensure proper distribution of food rationing and other benefi ts. This fi rst of its kind deployment resonates well with the Government’s national initiative ‘Aadhar’ (UID project) and reinforces the company’s expertise in the space.

Commenting on the project J.V. Ramamurthy, President & COO, HCL Infosystems Ltd said, “It gives me immense pleasure to see HCL Infosystems leading the way with India’s fi rst deployment for a technology led PDS solution. Technology today is changing the way local authorities across the globe reach out to their citizens. As PDS is vital for sustained living of the people living below the poverty line, this project is a step in right direction to make the PDS more robust and effective by deploying path-breaking technology. The project will ensure that the benefi ts of thePDS will reach the grass root levels and we at HCL Infosystems are proud to be a part of such nation building project.”

This project also highlights the constant endeavor of HCL Infosystems to introduce various IT services, products and new practice areas such as innovative services and system Integration applications to strengthen and consolidate its offerings. With its focus on new product development HCL Infosystems has successfully worked upon IP creation for over 30 products.

FLIP SIDEby

Santulan Chaubey

Sir, My son also draws good bridges and Roads on Paper, He will also become big offi cer like you...

J.V. Ramamurthy President & COO, HCL Infosystems Ltd

Showcasing the ICT Experience to the World

TECHNOgraphyeINDIA2010 Photography Competition

In celebrating the true spirit of eINDIA2010, we invite amateurs and photographers to participate in the eINDIA2010 Photo Competition.

We are looking for unique and innovative ideas captured on camera, depicting out of the box use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for education, governance, health and developmental concerns.

Show us how simple gizmos to the latest gadgets have enhanced the value and productivity of mundane activities and percolated its usage to villages and small towns and metros.

Show the world how ICT has positively rendered to your life’s creative experiences, and that of others.

CLICK and Send your entries now...

ThemeHarnessing ICT Potential for

Development

Selection CriterionEntries have to be unique and

portray innovation in the usage of ICTs; We encourage entries to feature the use of ICTs at the grassroots.

Eligibility Participation open to all above

the age of 18.

eINDIA2010 Photo ExhibitionOutstanding photographs will be

displayed at the eINDIA2010 Photo Gallery Exhibition at eINDIA2010 Conference to be held between 4-6 August, 2010 at Hyderabad International Convention Center, Andhra Pradesh, India

Name..................................................................................................................

Address.................................................. State..................................................

Country.................................................. Post Code..........................................

Tel........................................................... Fax.....................................................

Email ..................................................................................................................

Photograph Description.......................................................................................

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Visit us at eINDIA.net.in

Photo gallery will also be available on the website www.eINDIA.net.in

Don’t miss out on this exclusive opportunity to be a part of eINDIA2010, India’s largest ICT Event

Last date for entry: 20th July, 2010

Please NoteNo images supplied in hard-copy will be accepted, only high resolution digital fi les will be accepted. Acceptable entries will be from either digital cameras or electronic scans supplied on CD.

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All photographs need to be sent in high resolution JPEG format, 300 DPI.Entries will not be returned. Any combination of black and white, color or digital prints may be submitted. Only photographic processes will be accepted. All work submitted must be original, and completed in the last three years. A maximum of 5 entries per person will be accepted.

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All entries must be correctly labelled with your name, contact details and the location at which the each image was taken in. Provide details in the

Send your entries to [email protected] oreINDIA Secretariatelets Technomedia Pvt LtdG-4, Sector 39, Noida - 201301Uttar Pradesh, IndiaTel.: +91-120-2502180- 85Fax: +91-120-2500060

For queries, contact Sheena Joseph Mob: +91-9971841718

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empowering rural india: june 2010

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