Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

Twitter

Moving ahead from Dataquest's first Summit, the 2006 Regional Summit across the four metros-Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata-aimed at addressing these issues by developing through a consultative process, a 10-point action agenda for e-Governance in India.

What have emerged from the process and deliberations, are the 10 practical and achievable steps aimed at making India a truly e-Governed Nation. The agenda also clearly defines the driver for each charter, including the role that responsible media such as the Cyber Media India and Dataquest can play in this space. While some of these action points can be implemented in 2006, others can be initiated and completed in mid and long term.

The DIT and Government of India are already considering some of the steps recommended by Dataquest. They have been included in the agenda to make sure that the implementing agencies monitor and measure its progress at each step. Dataquest would certainly follow it up by appraising the overall implementation during its third Regional e-Gov Summit in 2007. Apart from this, the magazine would also be constantly reviewing the agenda and updating it based on interaction with all stakeholders, the citizen forums, civil society bodies, various state and central government departments, vendors and the DIT.

GD Gautama, principal secretary-IT, West Bengal		Dr Neeta Shah, director, e-Gov, Gujrat Informatics Ltd		PV Unnikrishnan, executive mission director, Information Kerala Mission		Prakash Kumar, joint secretary, Ministry of Ocean Development
MR Rajagopalan, director, CDAC-Chennai		Dr M.Ariz Ahammed, CEO, Assam SFAC		SR Das, senior director, DIT		Satish Kaushal, country manager, e-Gov (SWG), IBM India

The Agenda

1 Consolidate Applications
Primary Driver: DIT
Support: Media such as Dataquest
Identify 5-10 applications that can be delivered centrally-public grievance system, issuance of certificates, FIR registration and criminal record, education record, health records-while allowing for some interface customization, if required. This may involve some GPR in the states, to adapt local processes and formats to a common best practice model. Adoption will be optional but DIT could focus on building application, ensuring implementation in 2-3 states; Dataquest and other media would help showcase the successes, and both would urge adoption by other states.
It is also suggested that state could plan a separate data center for hosting state-specific applications and loosely integrate inter-state applications by using messaging systems.  If states were to accept such an IT design, DIT could sponsor implementation of IT infrastructure for integrating all states, thereby creating India wide e-Governance framework.

2 Create Central Repository of e-Gov Resources
Primary Driver: DIT
Do a summary assessment of e-Gov projects in India and put them in a repository at the national level for reference and adoption by various states and government departments. Besides the project details, the repository would also capture and display information on applications used in the project, specifications, guidelines, source code, and vendor details.

It would also include learning from projects about various shortcomings, FAQs, dos and don'ts and channels used, information about research and development funded by the government and related agencies in e-governance.

All projects listed in the repository would be available for optional adoption and replication and should be either Open Source (GPL) or the terms of contract should allow reuse by other government departments. However, it's also possible to follow the shareware model. What this means is that the applications can be put in the repository and a trial version be kept for other states and departments to use and test it. The actual use would, however, require license fee payment.

The Summit suggested that governments and departments should also look forward to adopting and encouraging the Pro-bono model as one of the options for e-Gov projects.

3 Standardize Record Formats
Primary Driver: DIT
Support: Media such as Dataquest
Identify 5-10 key areas-rural and urban land record, birth/death/caste records, contracts, FIR and crime records, health record, education record, driving license record and municipal tax record-and set up a working group with fixed tenure to create a uniform standard for capturing data and records across India. The working group can look into the best practices across the states and create a uniform format that may be adopted by the states.

While the adoption would be optional, the DIT and the Planning Commission can link further funding for these areas directly to adoption of the format.

The common format would ensure that databases across the states could be linked to each other at the national level, enabling better planning option by respective governments and departments.

4 Roadmap for a Resident ID Card
Primary Driver: PMO/Ministry of Home
Secondary Driver: DIT
Create policy road map, tech specifications and funding plan for a National ID or Resident ID card project. This would include one card system and common data structure at every level by initiating multi-utility, integrated National ID or Resident ID Card system that should be capable of accommodating new department needs and additional functionalities, as an when the need arises.

It could be similar to the US social security card or Singapore's resident card system. The data from Rural Household survey, Election ID, PAN, PF account and Passport can be used as an initial reference point to take this forward.

The project should be driven by DIT at the initial stages for creation of unique national or resident number, consolidated database format, uniform specification for data collection and card issuance as well as security and privacy policy.

Dr Santosh Babu, collector, Krishnagiri District		Santanu Sengupta, CEO, Grasso		D Rajendran, commissioner, Disciplinary Proceedings, Salem		Umashankar CMD, ELCOT
Rohit Kumar Singh, secretary IT, Rajasthan		Talwant Singh, additional district and sessions judge, Delhi		S Abbasi, director, DIT		Rajan Varda, project director, SSK, UNICEF

Page(s)   1  2  3