Radio Active
Right since the beginning, Sheo Shekhar Shuklas focus was to interact directly with the rural citizens in far-flung areas and to receive direct feedback from them about the government machinery and its effectiveness on. This motivated him to adopt a medium like radio that had great penetration within the state. He spearheaded a radio program called Jan Samvad, where citizens could call and Shukla and his officers would discuss their grievances.

To inform the masses about the action taken by the administration, the team also set up a Jan Samvad website. All the grievances that were addressed on air were immediately posted on the website. Also, the officers were provided log-in IDs for accessing the website and taking appropriate action on the queries. The officers in turn had to post their report on the actions taken, back on the website. In this way, all the information was available to the citizen, stakeholders as well the administrative bodies.

In addition, Shuklas team identified certain private kiosk operators in the rural areas and they were doctored into the system. As the team could not attend to all the calls that came in during a one-hour window, the citizens were motivated to post their queries with the help of the private Internet kiosk operators who uploaded all the queries onto the website.

These initiatives helped in creating transparent and direct interface between citizens and the administration. It proved to be a great success story as it was for the first time in India that the public could interact directly with the collector of the state and discuss their problems. The government officials were also cautious in their dealings with the citizenry as the public was empowered and had direct access to the administration.

A Sensitive Touch
The pretty Sonal Mishra works with the Directorate of Urban Bodies, and is responsible for looking after a total of 161 municipalities in Gujarat.

When she was the Municipal Commissioner of Jamnagar, she tried to work out the modalities of the various services which the urban bodies provide to citizens. Having realized that the IT solutions have to be customized to the needs of the people, she set about in her path to successfully integrate IT and governance to create a proactive and transparent mechanism.

While talking about her award-winning initiatives, her enthusiasm and passion for the cause shines through. She speaks fondly of the Jan Seva Kendra (JSK) or the Citizen Service Centres that have been set up in Gandhinagar, where all the applications, petitions and problems of people are redressed in a very systematic and scientific manner. It all starts from a Citizen ID System, which is a centralized point where all the details of a citizen are recorded. This brings in transparency and prevents any application from getting lost within the system.

Mishra explains that effective e-governance brings a great deal of responsibility for the bureaucracy. She says, "Personally, as we go forward, I feel there is need for a proper mandate to bring about solutions in a time bound and integrated manner." She further stresses on the need to focus on the single citizen interface and develop a system around that. Bureaucrats have to look beyond their respective departments and work in a cohesive manner.

Change Agent
For Sunil Kumar Barnwal, Inspector General of Prisons and more recently additional CEO of Jharkhand Agency for Promotion of IT, e-governance brings about an opportunity to use IT to transform government processes.

Among his notable past assignments Barnwal has served as director, Information Technology, Government of Jharkhand from March 2006 to January 2008, wherein he was involved in almost all e-gov projects in Jharkhand. During his tenure, he had been involved in the states SWAN and CSC. He is also looking after the implementation of these projects. His stint as director IT led Jharkhand to bag the Best e-Governed State (Future Potential) award in 2006 and Progressive e-Governed State award in 2007 from the Computer Society of India.

Some of the key projects to Barnwals credit are Jharkhand Automated Registration System, e-Kuber, Jharnet, Pragya Kendra, e-Gyan, and a Child Tracking System. The current projects that he is handling include videoconferencing between jails and Civil courts and Prisoners Management Information System.

The Prisoners Management Information System is a complete management information system of jails in a web-based environment. Presently the project is being implemented in the Ranchi Central Jail.

Barnwal is responsible for monitoring the use of this system and updation of databases by the jail superintendent. His responsibility also involves planning and budgeting of jails using the information of prisoners.

Spirited Champion
With a background in public administration, Kapur, whose earlier stints included working with the Tea Board of India, has always been an active proponent of utilizing technology for better governance whether it is working on revamping the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) pass system or transforming the much lax file movement procedures in the government departments by introducing the file monitoring system.

His first brush with technology, however, came in 1992 when he decided to computerize liquor sales in Delhi. Before the implementation of the barcode solution at IMFL vends, the government received a large number of complaints about over-charging or black marketing of the brands. Post implementation, customers are satisfied because they are not being over-charged, and, also the brands available can be checked at the counter. One can also check the sale, stock and availability of the brands on the Internet.

The File Monitoring System, which Kapur developed, has now become a lifeline for many. Kapur was moved by the plight of the common man facing delays in file movement in government departments and of making a number of trips for getting a small job done. The FMS was tested in-house for six months, and has now been in use for over a year. It prevents officers from withholding files for long periods without stating clear reasons.

But no e-governance initiative is complete without the active participation of the common citizen; and it was Kapurs belief in the importance of this feedback that was the driver behind all his initiativesputting the common man first.

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