Widening E-Goveranance Canvas

Widening e-Governance CanvasSelected e-Governance Initiatives in India

A selection of major e-Governance initiatives atState, District, Department and Projects level including those ofCentral Government, which competed for coveted CSI-Nihilent

e-Governance Awards for the year 2010-11.The Awards werepresented during 46th Annual Convention of Computer Society of India

by Special Interest group (SIG) on e-Governance at Ahmedabadon 2nd December 2011.

– Editors

About CSI

The Computer Society of India (CSI) is the largest association of informationtechnology professionals in India, with over 70,000 members comprising softwaredevelopers, scientists, academicians, project managers, CIOs, CTOs and ITvendors, among others. The society has 69 chapters spread across the length andbreadth of the country. Being closely associated with students, the Society hasdeveloped a well-established network of nearly 381 student branches. The purposesof the Society are scientific and educational, directed towards the advancementof the theory and practice of Computer Science & IT. For more information,please visit www.csi-india.org

Special Interest Group on e-Governance (CSI-SIGeGov) has been set up withinCSI to focus on e-Governance activities in the country. SIG activities includeKnowledge sharing with all stakeholders through holding conferences, Knowledgesharing summits and recognizing efforts/ contributions of Central/State levelGovernment entities by way of e-Governance Awards (www.csinihilent-egovernanceawards.org) For more Details Visit http://www.csi-sigegov.org

About Nihilent

Nihilent is a global consulting and solutions integration company using a holisticand systems appoach to problem solving. Headquartered in Pune, India, Nihilenthas extensive experience in international consulting, IT outsourcing and IT services.Nihilent’s operations span North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Nihilent's mission“Change for Performance” encapsulates it’s commitment to make change happensystemically in terms of people, process, technology and knowledge for achievingsustained performance for it’s clients. For more information you may visitwww.nihilent.com.

Widening e-Governance CanvasSelected e-Governance Initiatives in India

Edited by

Surendra Kapoor

Prabhu Gollamudi

Nityesh Bhatt

The Icfai University Press

Widening e-Governance Canvas

Selected e-Governance Initiatives in India

Editors: Surendra Kapoor, Prabhu Gollamudi and Nityesh Bhatt

Copyright: Surendra Kapoor, Prabhu Gollamudi, Nityesh Bhatt and Chairman, CSI-SIG e-Gov.All rights reserved.

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The views and content of this book are solely of the author(s)/editor(s).The author(s)/editor(s) of the bookhas/have taken all reasonable care to ensure that the contents of the book do not violate any existing copyrightor other intellectual property rights of any person in any manner whatsoever. In the event the author(s)/editor(s) has/have been unable to track any source and if any copyright has been inadvertently infringed,please notify the copyright holder(s) in writing for corrective action.

Shri Surendra Kapoor is a Freelance IT Consultant and Convener CSI-Nihilent e-Gov Awards 2010-11, He had a long 23 years journey with CMC Ltd, a PSUduring the period, holding various positions. He was trained on Digital machinein US , He was involved in setting up RCC Chandigarh and Roorkee DecMachine and provided training to local Faculty and Students .He then moved toCMC Hyderabad and became Software Advisor to ‘Project INTERACT’ aUNFSST collaborative International project. Under his guidance, the projects -Real-Time Systems for Power Utilities, Online Transaction Processing Systemsfor Railways Freight operations and Image Processing Systems for MeteorologicalApplications were developed in close cooperation with participating Nationallevel user organizations namely APSEB, SCR, NRSA and their counterparts indeveloping countries like Philippines, Yugoslavia , Peru, Tanzania Etc.

He was Head of R&D and Executive Director -System Integration SBU. E-commerce, Embedded Systems for Defense during which period several importantprojects got launched and completed He was deputed to Mauritius for two yearsas MD of State Informatics Ltd (SIL), to set up Software Development centre forgovernment applications. He was on Board of State Bank of Mauritius (SBM)and has helped build teams for the SIL & SBM by recruiting, training andmentoring local talents.

He started his career in computers in 1964 with IIT Kanpur Worked on II &III generation IBM Systems as Sr. Systems Programmer & Operations Manager.Prof H K Kesavan, Prof V Rajaraman, Prof H N Mahabala, and many others guidedhis foundation in early years of his career. Under Prof H D Huskey at University ofCalifornia at Santa Cruz, he developed High Level Assembly Language using PolishNotations. He left IIT Kanpur in 1977 and joined CMC Ltd.

After his long stint with CMC Ltd, he was with Satyam Learning Centre, asHead of Industry -Academic Alliances. Subsequently, he was actively engaged insetting up & mentoring India Operations of Bling Technology, an US basedCompany developing Applications for Mobile phones for Carriers and Deviceproviders.

About Editors

He continues to be professionally active with CSI-SIG e-Gov, academicinstitutions., He was deeply involved with most of Hyderabad based conferenceslike COMAD, VLSI, Southern regional CSI etc.,

He holds Masters in Mathematics from Agra University. Advance Diploma inSystems Programming from UC Santa Cruz US, and Adv. Management Programfrom ASCI Hyd.

Shri Prabhu Gollamudi is a freelance IT Consultant with expertise in the areas ofBusiness strategy/Development of IT Products/ services and in facilitating talentscreening of staff and external candidates.

He has long and extensive IT Industry experience. He worked most part of hiscareer with IT major CMC Ltd now a TCS subsidiary and closely worked onseveral e-Government projects from concept to creation. He had also worked onmany System Integration projects in sectors like - Power, Transport, Banking andDefense. He has been associated with Indian Railways Freight OperationsManagement System in the early stages of its planning and in development ofpilot projects as part of an Internationaly funded project. During his tenure withCMC Ltd, he had the opportunity of initiating many e-Governance projectswith active support from Ministry of Information Technology. This associationenabled him to interact with several Government Officials at various levels and inunderstanding Government processes for building appropriate IT solutions. Heworked in CMC Informatics UK, as Vice President (Business Development) andtravelled in Europe and UK as part of Business development. He had alsocontributed significantly to several quality initiatives and talent managementactivities of the company in the later part of his career.

He has been supporting many of the Computer Society of India’s professionalactivities both at local level and at Central level. He has been closely associatedwith the CSI Nihilent e-Governance Awards team for over 2 years now.

He holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Mathematics from GovernmentEngineering College, Jabalpur. Mr Prabhu is keen to engage himself in learningfrom experiences of field teams connected with applying new ICT technologiesto reach larger sections of the citizens.

Shri Nityesh Bhatt is working as Associate Professor and Chairperson in theInformation Management Area at Institute of Management, Nirma University,Ahmedabad – India. Out of more than 13 years of experience in academia, corporatetraining and research; in his first nine years, he was associated with NIIT and FirstComputers, and Pacific Institute of Management, Udaipur. In 1998, he was awardedthe best faculty of NIIT in North India. Dr. Bhatt holds MBA and Ph.D (e-Governance) degrees from M.L.Sukhadia University, Udaipur. He has also completedfour months Faculty Development Programme (FDP) of IIM-A and Online InternetGovernance Capacity Building Programme of DiploFoundation, Malta in year 2006.

Credited with good number of research papers and management cases, he hasalso co-edited five books in the areas of technology and management. Two of hisstudents have already been awarded Ph.D and two students are currently pursuingtheir Ph.D under his guidance. In year 2006, he was invited to participate infirst Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meet jointly organized by United Nations– IGF Secretariat and Government of Greece at Athens. Since year 2007, he is amember of the National Executive Committee of Special Interest Group oneGovernance (SIGeGov) set up by Computer Society of India. He is also co-convener of CSI-Nihilent Awards 2010-11.

Dr. Bhatt is also a research consultant with Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO), Ahmedabad in ICT area. He was awarded as ‘Best Teacher of InformationTechnology” in 17th B-School Affaire & Devang Mehta B – School Award foryear 2009. He has imparted lectures in almost 200 MDPs for more than 30leading companies like ONGC, BPCL, BOSCH, HZL, Reliance Power, Sterlite,Alstom Power, Kalpataru Power, J.K. Cement, Parle, Zydus, Torrent Pharma,GMDC, SBI, Bank of Baroda, Indian Air Force etc at different levels.

Contentsm-Governance futurein Indian context

Khairiyyah Binti Mohd

Acknowledgements i

Foreword-President, CSI v

Message-President and CEO, Nihilent Technologies vii

Message-Chairman, CSI SIG e-Gov ix

Preface xi

Section I

Widening e-Governance Canvas: Invited Papers1. New Frontiers of Service Delivery:

e-Gov. Focus Maturity Model 03

Dr. Dhrupad Mathur

2. Meeting the Demand of e-Governance Professionals

from the Higher Education System 07

Prof. Rafiq Dossani

3. A Values based Approach to e-Government 12

Prof. Harish P Iyer

4. CSI Nihilent e-Governance Awards Nominations

Assessment 2010-11: Process Overview 20

Shri Surendra Kapoor, Shri Prabhu Gollamudi and K S Vijaya Sekhar

5. Mobile Office System Adoption in Seoul Metropolitan

Railway Transit (SMRT) of Korea 35

Prof. Namjae Cho and Jungin Choi

6. m-Governance future in Indian Context 45

Shri. K S Vijaya Sekhar, Dr. R K Bagga and Ms. Khairiyyah Binti Mohd Noor

Section II

e-Governance Success Stories - State Level Initiatives7. State Nominations Summary 61

Shri Prabhu Gollamudi

Section III

e-Governance Initiatives Success Stories -Department Initiatives8. Andhra Pradesh Forest Department* 71

Sri C Madhukar Raj and Sri P K Sharma

9. eGovernance at Chief Minister’s Office (CMO)* 80

Dr Hiren Joshi

10. Gujarat State Watershed Management Agency 94

Smt. Rita Teaotia and Shri Ram Kumar

11. Commercial Taxes, Government of AP: IT Initiatives

in VAT Administration 104

Shri Suresh Chanda

12. Motor Vehicles Department, Kerala –

Services through ICT 116

Shri. T P Senkumar and Shri. Alex Paul

13. Health Management Information System, Tamilnadu 133

Dr. S Vijayakumar

Section IV

e-Governance Success Stories - Districts Initiatives14. ICT Initiatives for District level e-Governance 157

Dr Nityesh Bhatt

15. South Goa, Goa 162

Shri Sandip Jacques and Shri Ashutosh Apte

16. Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh 177

Shri P Narahari and Shri Avinash Pathak

17. Gadchiroli District, Maharashtra 192

Shri Atul Patne and Shri Meshram

18. Nanded, Maharashtra* 216

Dr. Shrikar Pardeshi and Shri. Rajesh D Bhusari

19. Pali District, Rajasthan* 234

Shri Niraj K Pawan and Shri H S Yadav

20. Ramabai Nagar, Uttar Pradesh* 243

Shri. Chandra Prakash and Shri. Mayur Maheshwari

Section V

e-Governance Success Stories – G2C Initiatives21. Online Scholarship Management System (OSMS) 265

Dr. Mohd. Ilyas Rizvi

22. Tourism Project Government of Andhra Pradesh 280

Shri Jayesh Ranjan

23. ePASS (Electronic Payment and

Application System of Scholarships)* 292

Dr M Padma and Shri. Chakradhar

24. National Portal of India – A Gateway to

Indian Government Cyber Space* 305

Neeta Verma and Alka Mishra

25. VAHAN- AN ICT-based Solution for Vehicle Registration* 324

Dr. Mahesh Chandra and Shri Nitin Gokarn

26. Hon’ble CM Narendra Modi’s

website: www.narendramodi.in 335

Dr Hiren Joshi

27. Online Teachers Recruitment 344

Shri Dr Hasmukh Adhia and Shri R P Gupta

28. Online Voting System (OVS) 356

Shri K C Kapoor

29. e-Services for Ration Cards 372

M S Jaya and Dr. K S Raman

30. Online Scholarship Management System, Kerala 377

Shri Ajith Brahmanandan

31. SAND: System for Attumanal Neutral Distribution* 388

Shri. V Sanal Kumar and Shri. Suresh K

32. Property Tax Management System Using

Geospatial Technology* 397

Shri R Vikram Singh and Shri. U N Tiwari

Section VI

e-Governance Success Stories – G2G & G2B Initiatives33. Census of India 2011* 409

Dr C Chandramouli and Shri Manish Bharadwaj

34. e-Panjeeyan* 429

Shri Deepak Goswami and Shri Devajit Bhattacharyya

35. Integrated Online Junction on Net for Decentralised

District Planning (iOjN 4 Planning) 440

Shri V N Maira and Dr. Hiten Parekh

36. e-Governance of Mineral Administration* 455

Shri Vinay Vyasa and Shri Jagdeep S Kochar

37. Maharashtra Plan Schemes Information

Management System – MPSIMS* 467

Shri S J Kunte and Smt S M Aparajit

38. Government Receipt Accounting System (GRAS) 476

Shri Shreekant Deshpande and Shri Balakrishnan Nair

39. SEVAARTH (SEVA+ARTH) A Web based Integrated

Package of Personnel Information and Pay Roll 491

Shri. Sunil Vyas

40. Integrated Orissa Treasury Management System (iOTMS)* 502

Shri Patita Pawan Nath and Shri Siddhartha Das

Section VII

e-Governance Success Stories – Sustainability41. Sustainability of e-Governance Projects 521

Dr. Ashok Agarwal and Prof. Sanjiv Vaidya

Section VIII

About CSI-SIGeGov and Publications42. About CSI SIGeGov 539

Maj. Gen. Dr R K Bagga and K S Vijaya Sekhar

43. CSI-SIGeGov Publications 543

• Author Index 545

* Winner of CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Awards for the year 2010-11.

I am honoured to be the convener of the CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Awards2010-11, more so to be associated for a cause that recognizes Institutions/Organizations which are playing constructive role in ‘Widening the e-GovernanceCanvas’ and bringing in more and more processes - both internal / external andServices – G2C/ G2G /G2B using established and emerging ICT technologiesfor the overall benefit of all stake holders. I take this opportunity to acknowledgeand appreciate the people behind many success stories in taking these initiativesand making e-Governance work on a sustained basis. I and my team at the e-Governance Special Interest group (SIG) are delighted, that owners of these successstories took time out from their busy schedule and presented their nominations.

Over the years, the SIG team has grown and a lot of dedicated people havejoined hands to participate and support this activity. To begin with, I would liketo express my sincere gratitude to the Special Interest Group (SIG) e-Gov ofComputer Society of India (CSI) for providing me and my team members theopportunity to participate in the e-Governance Awards process leading to thepublication of this book. This has been possible only through the support of ShriMD Agarwal, President, CSI and Dr RK Bagga, Chair, CSI-SIG e-Gov.

Award process started in mid Feb 2011 and members of the core group, ProfAshok Agarwal, Dr RK Bagga, Prof Harish Iyer, Mr GSN Prabhu and Mr PiyushGupta past Convener , guided us at each stage. I thank each of them from core ofmy heart.

Prof GR Sahu, past Co-convener and the initiator of the AHP model againhelped in re-casting the evaluation tables, in view of additional assessmentparameter ‘Value Indicators’ getting included. I thank him for his enthusedinvolvement and support.

This year it was decided to introduce a new Award for ‘Sustainability’ andrecognize those cases of earlier award Winners and assess their current status,commitment for continuity etc and recognize sustenance efforts. For this purposeproject Award recipients of 2006 CSI -Nihilent e-Gov Award were individually

Acknowledgements

ii

assessed for identifying winners. Prof Sanjiv Vaidya with guidance from Prof AshokAgarwal did a commendable job in identifying the projects which have not onlysustained but enhanced operations over the last 5 years.

Maj General A Balasubramanian, AVSM (Retd.), founder member of CSI, ProfMP Gupta, Mr SP Singh, Mr Satish Babu, Mr DK Dwivedi, Dr Rachita Misra, DrBharat Deshpande & Mr S Ramasamy actively participated in the field visits andhelped SIG in completing an important evaluation process. I thank them for theirtime and interest in SIG activities. At some places, we had also received very goodsupport from local Chapters of CSI who helped in the field visits. I convey mysincere thanks to those who helped us in our journey.

I also want to put on record significant contribution of Shri Mahesh Chandra,Mr Bipin Mehta and Prof Sai Kumar in our selection committee deliberations.Mr Bipin Mehta was special invitee and his presence added value to the selectionprocess.

Our thanks to Mr L C Singh, Mr Ravi Teja , Himanil Bose , Abhishek Mohantyof Nihilent Technologies for supporting the entire effort and participating atvarious stages most importantly anchoring Award Ceremony and handlinglogistics for the ceremony .

Section I of the book has invited papers. We are indebted to the authors , DrDhrupad Mathur Director (industry Interface) SPJCM, Dubai, Prof. Rafiq Dossaniof Stanford University, Prof Harish Iyer , Prof Namjae Cho & Jungin Choi ofHanyang University South Korea , Dr RK Bagga and his Research team at IIITHfor readily agreeing to share their Knowledge and experience in the vital domain ofe- Gov.

As Convener of CSI Nihilent e-Governance Awards 2010-11, I extend myspecial congratulations to all the Award winners and those presented with‘Certificate of Commendation’. This journey over the one year is very fruitfuland has been a wonderful learning experience for me and my entire team.

I also wish to acknowledge great support received from Mr Piyush Guptaprevious convener, Prof Harish Iyer and A Sridevi in the entire process. Last, but

iii

not the least, Very Very Special thanks to my two co-conveners Mr GSN Prabhuand Prof Nityesh Bhatt for holding my both hands and making the definedprocesses work. Mr Vijay of the SIG Secretariat team played crucial role ofcoordination and ensured that interface with all the Nominees and other Selectionmembers/Guests is smooth and confidence building. I convey my thanks to himand his energetic student team volunteers.

Lastly, thanks to our extended team members, Ms Rekha PKS of NISG andthe book publishers ICFAI University Press for giving full support in bringingthe book to shape and ready for release.

Surendra KapoorConvenor, CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Awards 2010-11

[email protected]

I feel highly delighted and proud to acknowledge the major achievements ofCSI e-Governance SIG during last 9 years. Their endeavor to promote e-Governancethrough knowledge sharing summits and by recognizing talent and key achieversthrough CSI-Nihilent Awards in the field of e-Governance is remarkable.

Members of our SIG e-Governance executive committee contribute activelyto various committees for developing policy framework of Central and Stategovernments, other government and semi-government organizations. Every year,CSI e-Governance SIG, with the whole-hearted support of M/s Nihilent,recognizes the contribution of Central and State level Government organizations/agencies towards e-Governance projects and deployment of services to Citizens..By this time, CSI web site is having a good knowledge base with last 6 yearsdetails of shortlisted entries of CSI Nihilent e-Governance awards. This on-linerepository has become a good-quality reference for taking ideas and learningfrom success stories. We are really proud of the team work of CSI e-GovernanceSIG led by Dr. R.K. Bagga, Dr. Ashok Agrawal and incessant support from othercommittee members. CSI Nihilent e-Governance awards have become brandambassador of CSI for promoting effective usage of ICT for masses.

Many thanks to Mr. Surendra Kapoor and our editorial board for bringingout this excellent publication of compilation of high quality short listednominations, most of which are India’s important e-Governance initiatives,particularly launched/ significantly improved over the last two years. Knowledgesharing, promoting of quality education of e-Governance subjects and building anetwork of practitioners, academicians, researchers, developers and policy makersare some of good initiatives, which we shall promote at national level throughCSI delivery channels and engagements. My good wishes!

The role of ICT in nation’s growth trajectory is indisputable. Providing ICTproducts, services, workplace environments and facilities that are accessible andusable, without any need for modification, for all users – the ultimate goal of“design for all” or “inclusive design”. There is an increasing need for effectivecollaboration between major entities like – people, technology and systems. Thereshould be an effective framework for digital participation. It should enhance thedigital delivery of varied, relevant and important public services with effectivepolicy and governance. Global spread of technological proficiencies is introducing

Foreword

President CSI

vi

major transformation in diverse fields of Health, Agriculture, Banking, Education,Media, Entertainment, etc. Society needs to innovatively harness this immensepotential for meaningful e-Inclusion for its growth. Introduction of Aadhaar (UID)for identification and verification opens up new possibilities of technicaldevelopments and innovations for e-Governance stakeholders. The success of e-Governance involves rightful choice of ICT framework and understanding of issuesinvolved and also integration aspect of various kinds of e-Governance applications.For example, e-Governance for health services may have a direct linkage withanother application which provides finance and insurance services. This will bringin a good benefit to citizens. I foresee a great amount of investment in e-Governance projects and the need for deep rooted research and development.

Considering our nation’s diversity and language plurality, there is a challengeof making available versatile standard ICT solutions & E gov. solutions in locallanguages, which can be adopted across all states and organizations as standardsolutions. There is strong need of development of standards and framework andcollaborative ecosystem. Different states and organizations have implementeddissimilar solutions for common citizen services and governance issues. There isneed for consolidation and uniformity and collective efforts at Nation level. Thanksto the vision of e-Bharat 2020 of NeGP, in this direction of creating standardsand integration. CSI can definitely play an important role in defining standardsand provide a rich platform of meetings and deliberations and help Nation toadopt e-Governance projects at a relatively faster pace.

CSI has an opportunity to build a country-wide network of e-Governance expertsand vendors. Education & training on e-Governance may be another importantdeliverable of CSI. I consider that the future of e-Governance is bright and wewould be witnessing many more innovations and developments in this arena.

My hearty good wishes to all contributors whose entries are included in thispublication “Widening e-Governance Canvas - Selected e-Governance Initiativesin India”.

Jai Hind.

M D AgrawalPresident

Computer Society of India

vii

Transparency Key for a Systemic Change

As once very famously said by Kofi Anan, former Secretary-General of theUnited Nations “Corruption debases democracy, undermines rule of law, distortsmarket, stifles economic growth and denies many, their rightful share of economicresources of lifesaving aid”. This famous quote has become more prevalent inIndia in the recent past against the backdrop of various scams hitting the headlines.As of 2010, India has been infamously listed as the ninth-most corrupt countryin world. Corruption is today the biggest menace engulfing our Country & isthe biggest hurdle in the progress of Indian Economy.

There is much discussion about eradicating corruption on various publicplatforms by well-known public figures and the media but merely furnishingideas to combat corruption will not completely eradicate corruption from society.There certainly needs to be a sustained and sincere effort to make “systemicchanges” to ensure more transparency and safeguards in the governing processes.Lack of transparency in the functioning of the government agencies can make iteasy for the perpetrators to cover their tracks.

The biggest need of the hour is to eradicate the presence of secrecy in thefunctioning of the Government. Transparency implies that all rules and regulationsregarding the functioning of the various arms of the government and the powersand duties of its officers are in the public domain. Transparency in governance inIndia has certainly improved in recent years, but a lot is still to be desired. Takethe example of Right to Information Act (RTI) which only recognizes the crimeafter it is committed. So at best it’s a deterrent.

It is our belief that ‘Automation’ is the answer. Automating the entire decisionmaking process of the Government or in other words moving to E-Governancewill help lower costs, improve efficiency and generally provide better services tocitizen while substantially improving transparency.

Message

President & CEONihilent Technologies

viii

A faster implementation of E-Governance can bring about a paradigm shift inthe quality of service delivered to the citizens. E-Governance, however, is notmerely the use of IT in governance but a tool to ensure equitable and easy to availgood governance. It does not mean proliferation of computers and technology; itis basically a political decision that calls for discipline, attitudinal change inofficers and employees, and massive government process re-engineering.Implementers and drivers of E-Governance initiatives agree that the biggestchallenge of deploying E-Governance is not technology but change managementencompassing cultural, organizational, process, people and technologicalchallenges. E-Governance can ultimately turn out to be one of the major reasons,for India’s rapid development by utilizing the ‘people will’ to ‘immunize’ projectsfrom the changing mood of administrators.

It is time for one of the oldest democracies in the world to change from whatis today deemed as representative democracy to what the future beckons asinteractive democracy. And this can be made possible by a strategic and sincereeffort to automate the decision making process as far as possible.

In the end technology can only function as an enabler and a tool to drivechange. The real benefit of E-Governance cannot be measured by the level oftechnology used to simplify the operations, but by the application of technologyin bringing about transformation in the functioning of the government and itsinteraction with people.

LC SinghPresident & CEO

Nihilent Technologies

ix

Computer Society of India (CSI) under its revised Constitution set up a SpecialInterest Group on e-Governance (CSI SIGeGOV) in 2007 under the leadershipof Dr Ashok Agarwal to address some of the major issues in e-Governance. Theobjectives of SIGeGOV include, act as a repository of National e-GovernanceInitiatives with a view to Knowledge Sharing of the experiences of all thestakeholders in India.

Apart from starting a website (www.csi-sigegov.org) to maintain the details ofvarious best practices, efforts were made in collecting details during CSI Nihilente-Governance Awards process to document in the form of a formal publicationfrom one of the leading publishers. Since 2007, 5 publications including onepublished by SAGE, two by Universities Press (UP), three by ICFAI UniversityPress (IUP) have been attempted and shared with all the stakeholders duringawards presentations, as part of CSI Annual Conventions. The books have alsobeen placed on www.csi-sigegov.org website for free download by all thestakeholders. One of the major benefits of these efforts was the widespreadutilization of e-Governance Best Practices among various States, Departmentsand Districts, as experienced during three Knowledge Sharing Summits organizedin 2009, 2010 and 2011.

I am grateful to all the conveners of previous year’s CSI Nihilent e-GovernanceAwards, who have made major efforts in their own time to benefit the society,with this rich content on e-Governance. Efforts have also been fruitful in gettingthe original stakeholders to document their efforts particularly using Results andEnablers Approach so that a clear understanding of the issues are made known toall. This has only been possible by a very efficient methodology of evaluating e-Governance Initiatives using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and includingfield visits and formal presentation at different stages of Awards process. Creditmust also go to all authors, who have made efforts in documenting their e-Governance initiatives.

The present publication by Surendra Kapoor, Prabhu Gollamudi and NityeshBhatt has further improved on the quality of documentation for the finalists ofCSI Nihilent e-Governance Awards for the year 2010-11. It required enormous

MessaMessaMessaMessaMessagggggeeeee

Chairman, CSI SIG e-Gov

x

efforts to collect, compile, edit and include the latest trends in e-Governance tomake the present volume extremely useful. I am sure all stakeholders includingresearchers of e-Governance and common citizens will find the details providedin various chapters very useful for their activities, thereby spreading the muchneeded awareness of the e-Governance Initiatives in the country, at present.

As Chairman of SIGeGOV, I will be failing in my duties, if I do not record ourappreciation for Shri LC Singh, CEO, Nihilent Technologies and Shri MDAgarwal, President, CSI who have made the present book possible by their supportand contributions. I am personally indebted to Prof Rajeev Sangal, Director,IIIT, Hyderabad for permitting me to undertake this societal task for CSI andallowing the use of some of the facilities for conducting evaluation process forthese awards in IIIT-H campus.

Congratulations to all the award winners, for their efforts.

Major Gen. Dr. R K BaggaChairman, CSI Special Interest Group on

e-Governance (CSI SIGeGOV)

xi

In year 2011, The Government of India has released a draft “Triad of Policiesto Drive a National Agenda for ICTE [Information & communications technologyand electronics]”. A principal policy objective brought out in this documents isto optimally leverage India’s existing and developing ICT infrastructure andcapabilities to meet the growing need for e-government services. National E-Governance Plan (NeGP) is one of the ambititious program of the Governmentof India aimed at pervasively spreading e-Governance in the country. In pursuanceof this, the Government has launched several Mission Mode Projects (MMPs)cutting across the Center, and States, districts and departments.

One of the early successes in the area of e-government was the creation ofgeographically dispersed citizen service centers. Whether called e-Seva center [as inAndhra Pradesh], Bangalore-one [in Bengaluru] or Jan Mitra Samadhan Kendra [inGwalior District], such service centers are present in many corners of India and theyhave demonstrably made progress towards reducing periodic citizen footfalls intogovernment offices. They also have contributed in two other important ways - firstly,by providing the employment opportunities in the field of ICT sector to villageentrepreneurs and secondly, by rendering the benefits of ICT in the lives of villagers,particularly those who are geographically, socially, economically or demographicallyremoved from the mainstream. With visibility comes familiarity, with familiarity, reduced doubtsand with reduced doubts, greater usage - provided no barriers stand in the way. We thus see thatwhen plans and support are in place, good ideas get replicated possibly leading toreplication of solutions too.

We have traversed farther on this journey since then, and we now have manyState level portals which provide several Citizen centric services with integrationwith back end systems. A few among such portals include payment gateways too,thus improving citizen convenience. Though portal driven service delivery is inthe right direction for making e-Governance work effectively, the core issues remain– issues of low accessibility to a majority of citizens, due to reasons of unreliableinfrastructure, low Internet literacy, relatively greater trust in manual systemsetc. The often discussed ‘Digital divide’ continues to be a challenge for policymakers and e-Governance architects in reducing the inequality.

Preface

xii

This theme - of enhancing visibility, removal of barriers and the resulting possibilityof better and balanced usage of eGoverment systems - is reflected in the title of theComputer Society of India’s Special Interest Group’s (SIG) compendium “Wideninge-Governance Canvas - Selected e-Governance Initiatives in India”. Webelieve, in the current context of enabling growth in e-Governance the phrase‘widening the canvas’ is appropriate.

a. The nominations received for 2010-11 included initiatives in the nature ofCSCs. However, what was heartening was that many nominations receivedshowed a shifting trend from looking at e-Governance projects in isolationto catering for forward and backward linkages. Moving beyond an elaborateGIS-MIS system and drawing up of detailed inventory of Forests, and thecollaborative inter-departmental approach for ensuring that studentscholarships were not misused are but two examples culled from 2010-11nominations. Clearly such initiatives were enabling spread of e-Governancecanvas.

b. Widening of the e-Government canvas was also observed in case one nominationfrom Kerala for 2010-11 detailing e-Government initiatives which endeavoredto present to citizens with more points of contact and more comprehensivedemand and delivery management choices for availing of e-Governmentservices. The project that relates to systematized allotment and accounting for‘sand’ for individual and group builders is a case in point.

c. This year also very good example of ICT deployment for Mineraladministration, a case of widening ICT under G2B category.

As a responsible national institution, CSI seeks to promote e-Governance in itsbalanced form. As a small step in this direction, for the first time, the assessment for2011 included parameters which required nominees to introspect on their actionsstood with respect to reducing digital divide and other ‘value’ based parameterssuch as handling of e-wastage etc. In this sense too the e-Governance canvas hasbeen widened - by making ‘visible’ to global audience the exemplary efforts towardsimplementing balanced e-Gov programs or projects.

As mentioned earlier, the special interest group of eGov of CSI, as part of2010-11 CSI-Nihilent e-Governance award selection process, required nominees toassess themselves on Digital inclusion, e-Participation and e-Waste. The followingtable shows a small extract of responses received.

xiii

Sample Digital Inclusion e-Participation e-Waste

Response-1 Citizens are provided Since documents As when an ICT item is

with vernacular language are captured at source, purchased it should meet

support in the services. e-participation of the green standard, also a

Manuals and support authorities concerned buy back policy is framed to

documents are prepared will ensure quick remove the e-waste.

in local languages. Help Decision making.

counters at Grama

Panchayat and Taluks

formed to assist citizen.

Information Community

centres are trained to

assist Citizens.

Response-2 One of the objectives On-line Complaint While acknowledging the

of district policy is to monitoring system is fact that, large number of

bridge the gap between an example of equipments were deployed

digital divisions. The e-participation wherein which created a huge

e-governance systems for many administrative assemblage of electronics,

better field operations entities interacted thrust was given to rope in

were deployed through the system for hired gadgets. With this

across the district, making important notion of re-use of

placing trained decisions. equipments, electronics

manpower to operate wastes were effectively

the systems. kept at a minimum value.

Response-3 It is not possible to send To encourage The local body is doing

SMS in regional eParticipation we buyback of old system. Till

language, as only smart have taken number of date we have done this

phones are having such effective steps, which process 5 times.The local

facilities and penetration includes publicity of body is using Thin Client

of such mobile phones is specific service by instead of Desktop

less than 10%. We have Print Media, news Computers as the life span

designed English SMSs paper Printing details of Thin Client is more than

in such a way that it is on how to access Desktop Computers. We are

easily understandable. m-Governance service using refilling technology

for our laser printers. This

not only reduces eWaste but

also is economically very

cheaper.We encourage our

staff to use LAN mode of data

transfer. This has resulted in

less consumption of CD/

DVD.

xiv

As can be seen from the table, the responses ranged from very specific and aptto very generic.

In a larger context, widening e-Governance can also be perceived as a contributorto the knowledge economy. We observe that for many of the nominee organizations,the focus is still on Techno economic considerations rather than social drivers forlaunching e-Governance projects. While this is considered as a step in the right direction,progressive policy architects want evolution of new systems / paradigms based oncitizen demands or civic society demands. While such feedback can be culled out from‘Call Center’ data, we are not sure if organizations have built in mechanisms to scan,collate and classify any such piece of indirect feedback. Some States have put in place‘Grievance monitoring systems’. Here too, mostly the focus of citizens who bring thegrievance forward is transactional rather than process related.

This has been the first year, that CSI has attempted to draw attention to these verycritical issues related to e-Government. Rather than retrofit an existing system to enablecitizen participation, the CSI-Nihilent award committee hopes that by specificallyrequiring the nominees to think about and address the need to provide a system forcitizens to digitally participate in all phases of e-Government initiatives - fromconceptualization to implementation – there will be greater awareness and action towardsdesigning specialized programs and procedures for beneficiary e-participation. In acircuitous manner, greater digital participation will also lead to addressing the issue ofdigital divide, a lessening in the number e-exclusions. In short, it is hoped that such awidening of e-Government canvas will lead to congruence in thoughts, processes andaction – a congruence which respects and balances the fragility of environment [e-waste] with a respect for the fragility of human emotions and the need for beingsocially relevant [e-participation and e-inclusion].

Looking into track record of many projects but did not survive, CSI SIGeGovhas started focusing on sustainability aspects of e-Governance initiatives. First stepin this drive is to recognize those projects which have not only maintained theireffective presence but have also scaled up in terms of scope of services andgeographical coverage. This year three of such e-Governance projects wererecognized for their sustenance. We strongly feel that this will enthuse the leadershipas well other stakeholders for continuity of projects in the long term.

Editors acknowledge the contribution and study inputs provided by Shri HarishIyer, core team member of SIG in arriving at the title theme for this year’s book.

EditorsSurendra Kapoor

Prabhu GollamudiDr Nityesh Bhatt

SECTION I

Widening e-Governance CanvasInvited Papers

During the last decade there has been an enormous emphasis on the delivery ofpublic services with transparency and convenience. One aspect which is frequentlyoverlooked amid the jungle of technology issue is the citizen-experience, theoutcome of service delivery. This has become very important today, especially fora nation that carried the legacy of the colonial rule for long, where the concept ofservice delivery was historically non-existent and any step towards citizen servicewas seen as a benefit from the government, but things have changed since lastfew decades. There is enough commitment from the political leadership now toshow visible results towards better citizen services. This can be seen in the formof various large scale development programs and associated projects. However,when it comes to achieving the best frontiers of service delivery, there is still aroom for improvement.

While the focus of initial years of ICT and e-Gov initiatives was more towardscomputerization, subsequently process engineering and web-enablement got thecentre stage. With more and more developmental commitments, the thinking isnow gravitating towards various implicit and sustained dimensions of the servicedelivery ecosystem. The following empirical model has thus been proposed. It isa construct, to be seen over the backdrop of various practical e-Gov cases. It istitled as e-Gov focus maturity model.

CHAPTER 1

New Frontiers of Service Delivery:e-Gov. Focus Maturity Model

Dr. Dhrupad Mathur

4 Widening e-Governance Canvas

STAGE 1 focus – Computerization

o Application focus

o Hardware centric

STAGE 3 focus - Web-enablement

o Online Presence

o Interactions online

o Transaction online o Online Delivery (of late, M-Gov)

STAGE 4 focus –Behavioral/Development dimensions:

o Transparency o Convenience to next level – Thin skinned-city models o Empowerment – Participative models o Development Policy reforms o Inclusion o Rich, satisfying and positive Citizen experience o Productivity impacts o Capability impacts

STAGE 2 focus - Process re-engineering

o Procedural changes

o Information Systems approach

Fig: E-Governance focus maturity model

(An empirical model currently prototyped by the author)

5New Frontiers of Service Delivery: e-Gov. Focus Maturity Model

As per the United Nations E-Government Survey 2010, considering variousparameters of Online service index, India ranks 55th. If we take a look on variouscomponents of this index India scores: 45 for emerging information services, 41 forenhanced information services, 22 transaction services and 8 connected approach. Onthe other hand there are countries such as US, Canada etc that score very high on eachof these indices. A close study of the indices and other rankings in the e-Gov survey willfurther substantiate the evolution of the e-Gov initiatives as per the model above andthe emerging focus brought up at every stage of evolution.

Though there is apparently a natural sequence in the focus-maturity as per thestage of e-Gov evolution but the cognizance of these focus areas is not necessarilysequential and there is a certain extent of overlap across stage. In fact, the nationsthat started scaling up the ladder of e-Gov & ICTD programs a little late always hadthe opportunity to be exposed to almost all the newer focus areas. Of course it requiressuitable capacity and willingness within the agencies, government departments tocontemplate on various stages of maturity as listed in the e-Gov focus maturity model.

Most important citizen-centric dimensions as we see it in the above model emergeduring stage-4, which has an emphasis on the behavioral aspects. These aspects manytimes are amorphous and are also difficult to imagine and imbibe during the earlierstages of e-Gov development where there is pressure to show visible results throughdeployments, application development, hardware installations or related infrastructuresetup. Thus, across all developing nations, we may see several e-Gov applicationsworking perfectly well on a service counter which has not got even basic amenities inplace since the focus was entirely on technology and not the citizen-experience.

We realize that merely stage 1, 2 & 3 level maturities will not help. Thus it’simportant to enhance the related experience and other dependencies as per stage-4above. Let’s further take an illustration: Recently while entering in India throughone of the international airports, one of my friend saw that an immigration officialwas misbehaving with many travellers, was impolite and the episode soon turned outto be a squabble at the airport and guards had to intervene. The scenario is not verydifferent from what many people would have experienced in their quest to get servicesfrom government agencies. Let’s understand that the last node is very important.Well, we do have an e-Gov application at the node there but the poor citizen gets an


unpleasant experience, a rotten taste of dealing with the e-Gov frontend. Look atwhat happened to others in the same immigration queue – all got fearful, familieswith children were scared and were just thinking of getting out soonest. What didthe immigration officials probably derived? A taste of the legacy-Raj? In spite of severalthousand crores of rupees spent on ICT enabled transformation & e-Gov projects,the citizens remain under-privileged or under-served. It’s like preparing a very tastymeal for someone with all good intentions and instead of serving it suitably, smashinginto the face. So the focus should not only on preparing but also serving it suitably. Yes,we do have citizen-charters in place; there are feedback mechanisms but it importantto activate the system to achieve the end results. E-gov projects are inaugurated withall fanfare, yes, it’s a reason to celebrate as an achievement of our republic but equallyimportant is to reach out to the people who carry thee onus of touching lives of thecommon man.

Referring to the above maturity-model again, a higher degree of sensitization towardsstage-4 maturity can only be achieved through sustained, committed and collectiveefforts. This can not be achieved only by technology and policies but by deep-seededchange management interventions. Hence we see that there is a certain emphasis on‘change management’ across ICT & e-Gov projects but the unresolved question is thatdo we understand it well? How will the entire strategy of dealing with human subjectsbe aligned towards larger developmental goals?

ICTD & E-Gov leaders have to often struggle with the trade-off betweendoing things right and doing things fast; and one fully understands there is noeasy way out of this. On one hand it’s important to have a clear implementationstrategy and result-focus but the on the other hand one has to keep an eye on thelong term development and vitality as per the ecosystem in which these projectsoperate; keeping the beneficiary in mind.

* Views expressed in the article are personal.

(Dr Dhrupad Mathur, Director (Industry Interface), SPJCM, Dubai.email:[email protected])

India, over the past decade, has become a test bed for innovations in informationand communication technologies (ICT) serving underprivileged users such asrural users and low-income urban users. Various reasons explain this emergence.The most obvious is the search for a solution to what has long been an intractableproblem: that rural India has remained poor while the rest of the country hasmoved ahead. The hope that ICT can surmount at least some of India’s social,political and administrative challenges and create a viable technology for theprovision of health, education, and other social services is thus ICT’s strongestcalling card. An additional expectation is that ICT can be used innovatively toimprove access to the large, underserved market that rural India’s 700 millionpeople represent, especially considering that India has the resources to build anICT infrastructure, i.e., its large, skilled, cost-efficient IT workforce.

ICT can, therefore, be used for the delivery of the following services:

Informational services disseminate generic (non-customized) information, suchas weather forecasts, crop practices, and contact information.

Transactional services involve an exchange of specific (or customized)informational services or funds between two or more parties using the ICTinfrastructure. Examples include e-commerce and email.

CHAPTER 2

Meeting the Demand of e-Governance Professionalsfrom the Higher Education System

Prof. Rafiq Dossani


E-Governance services refer to transactional services that involve local, state, ornational government. Providing land records, submitting user complaints to localofficials and confirming a user’s presence on electoral rolls are examples.

In this paper, we focus on one service, e-Governance, and inquire as to thecapacity of the higher education service to provide the skills needed to supply theservice.

The following table lists the needed capacities, and priorities that may beoffered through e-Governance. The primary reason for the difference betweenthe priorities of rural and urban areas is the availability of some of the services inthe list below in more adequate supply in urban areas, with the result thatproviding e-governance services in such cases will not be highly valued. Typicalexamples of services that are in relatively adequate supply in urban areas are healthand education services, whereas these are relatively inadequate in rural areas.Even employment services are provided to a larger extent by the private sector inurban areas, thus reducing the need for an e-governance intervention, whereasrural area employment is in short supply, with the gap being filled by governmentemployment programs.

EGovernance Service Priority - Rural Priority - Urban

Public-sector/govt. Employment

Information & Fulfillment High Medium

Transactions (eg., tax payments) High High

Grievance Management Medium High

Citizen’s Data Services (eg., land

records, company registration) Medium Medium

Health Services Medium Low

Education Services Medium Low

Census & Voter Services Low Low

Personal Information Services

(eg., email) Low Low

Note: The rural priorities are based on a survey conducted in 2005 under theauspices of the National Informatics Centre and undertaken by Dossani, et. al.(2005). The list of urban priorities is based on the author’s compilation frominterviews.

9Meeting the Demand of e-Governance Professionals...

The country’s higher education service needs to be of adequate quality tofulfill the needs for e-governance. Apart from domain and technical skills, suchas accounting, healthcare and other skills that derive from the above table,additional requirements include project management, training and cloudcomputing skills.

For example, let us consider the case of providing healthcare services via e-governance to rural users. Even if we assume that the state will be able to obtainthe services of healthcare professionals, several additional tasks remain. The firstare project management skills. For instance, how will these services be delivered- the mix of onsite and offsite/online services for diagnosis, delivery and evaluation;and record-keeping. The second task is training of rural residents to providesupport services, such as primary healthcare, in the absence of trained doctors.The third is to use cloud computing to provide applications for diagnosis, datamanagement, etc.

Clearly, these are tasks of immense magnitude and complexity. So, the questionraised is: does the higher education system cater to these requirements?

In sheer numbers, the answer might seem to be positive. If one considers thegrowth of professional graduates, numbers from the All India Council for TechnicalEducation (which excludes healthcare graduates) are encouraging, as may be seenfrom the tables below.


To get a sense of perspective, consider how many engineers will graduate overthe next few years. As the table above shows, by 2016, India will graduate about1.5 million engineers a year (equal to the intake in 2011-2012). By then,China will be graduating about 1 million engineers and the United States 100,000.

Thus, in terms of the quantity, one can see that there are unlikely to be shortfalls.By most indications, the professional graduates from Indian colleges (not justengineers, but architects, healthcare professionals, etc.) possess a level of technicalskills that are adequate. Hence, if there is a shortfall, it will be in terms of theancillary capacities listed earlier, i.e., project management, training and managingon the cloud.

Unfortunately, the first two are skills in very short supply in the country.This is because the higher education system at broader level is yet to be fullydeveloped in true sense. Let us look at each in turn. First, consider projectmanagement skills. The reason why Indian colleges do not produce studentsskilled in project management is that students are required to specialise in atechnical subject from the start of their college degree. Hence, they do not takecourses or undertake practical work of the type that will give them projectmanagement skills. Second, on developing training skills, this is a fairly specializedactivity that is best acquired through short professional courses after one’s formaleducation is over. However, the pressures of employment for income that arepresent in most Indian families is high. The result is that few students will takesuch classes since it means sacrificing income from regular employment withoutthe prospect of adequate reward.

11Meeting the Demand of e-Governance Professionals...

Finally, on developing applications for the cloud that are specific to e-governance, the problem is not that the skill sets are lacking. Instead, the problemis that the government does not welcome small, creative startups as partners forproviding cloud applications. Instead, it relies either on internal suppliers, suchas the National Informatics Centre, or on large or small private IT vendors.However, majority of players are learning competencies for cloud environmentand neither of these types of providers possess enough knowhow and skills that isneeded for designing ways to use the cloud. Instead, their strength is to look atbest practices worldwide and Indianise them. It is desirable that they need tocome up with practical solutions to fulfill the unique requirements of India.

The solution to this problem is easier than the more difficult problemspresented by the shortage of project management and training skills. It is for thegovernment, perhaps beginning with state governments, to open the door byfunding small firms for generating e-governance applications.

In summary, this paper prioritizes e-governance services and lists some of theskills that are needed to provide these services. It argues that the technical skillsand quantity of workforce is adequate. The shortfalls are in project management,training and creative applications on the cloud. The first two are long-termchallenges that will need reform of the education system and better incentives.The last skill is not being developed in India because of numerous reasons relatedto public and private sector. Much of this can be remedied by a change in policy.

Reference:

Dossani, R., R. Jhaveri and D.C. Misra. 2005. Enabling ICT for Rural India. Project report

prepared jointly by Stanford University’s Asia-Pacific Research Center and the National

Informatics Center. Available at: http://aparc.stanford.edu/publications/enabling_ict_for_rural_india_2005

Prof. Rafiq Dossani, Stanford University, Contact: [email protected]


Prof. Harish P Iyer

Introduction

The concept of “e-Government” is by no means new. It might be argued that it hasattained a fair amount of critical mass over a period of the past decade or so. Fromissue of birth and death certificates to making railway reservations, the exposure –direct or indirect - to e-Government has touched many a common man, and the ideaof e-Government has permeated many a stratum of the Indian society – cutting acrossmultiple demographic boundaries.

This paper presents two ideas. The first is an exhortation that due to theoverpowering abilities of technology, eGovernment is very much about ‘e’ and that itis time that phrases such as e-Government is less about ‘e’ and more about ‘government,the e in eGovernment is in small caps while G is in capital etc were not repeated asmechanically as is encountered in every discussion on the subject. The second is thatif eGovernment practitioners do need catchy phrases to guide them, it is perhapstime to replace ‘e’ with a different alphabet.

Given that the track record of a number of e-Government projects in the countryis not very flattering, one wonders whether such catchy phrases are of any help. TheHindu, in an October 2011 editorial, notes that “under the National e-GovernancePlan Income Tax, passport, visa, land records, property registration, pensions, roadtransport, police, municipalities, panchayats, and employment exchanges are allpriority services, but these are not ready for electronic service provision even afteryears”1.

CHAPTER 3

A Values based Approach to e-Government

13A Values based Approach to e-Government

Notwithstanding the mixed results, the Government spending on eGovernmentinitiatives continues to grow. There currently are a host of eGovernment projectsunder various stages of conceptualisation, and implementation. There are a numberof eGovernment projects which are being redone from scratch – for reasons rangingfrom failure of earlier ones to a move towards [or away from] certain types of technology.Adding to this logjam is the contribution of a few eGovernment practitioners whoare not averse to reinventing eGovernment applications even if very similar systemsare under live usage elsewhere in the Country. For some reason, ‘replication’ seemsnot to find favour in some Government circles.

The Political import of visibility

It is not uncommon when dealing with ICT pertaining to eGovernment to segregatetasks into those that are ‘visible’ [software interfaces, PCs, handhelds, eServiceCenters…], and those that are hidden or ‘invisible’ [changes in Government processes,for instance]. Even if no reliable data exists on the level of activities of the back office/invisible type, we will posit that, from Government’s point of view, significantlyincreasing the level of activities belonging to the visible end of the spectrum is desirable.We can identify the following reasons in support of our presumption.

1. As stated in the draft IT policy 2011, the desire of the Indian Government is torender ICT ubiquitous. Achieving ubiquity mandates significant level ofinvestments in ‘visibles’ - hardware and software –through which connectivitywill be achieved.

2. Though it is common knowledge among eGovernment practitioners that truesuccess in eGovernment projects is obtained only if back office process changes[the invisible] accompany citizen facing eGovernment initiatives, thepractitioners tend to focus on citizen facing, visible efforts – such asestablishment of CSCs, laying of wide area networks etc. Citizen facingactivities are relatively easy, there is much political mileage to be obtainedfrom being seen to promote such affirmative action.

3. As part of the draft National Policy on Information Technology 2011, theGovernment intends to provide “ubiquitous, affordable, access to informationand public services for enhancing efficiency, transparency, accountability andreliability”. By placing visible aspects of technology [ubiquity, accessibility]


and value propositions [accountability, transparency etc are value propositions]on the same platform, Governments tends to affirm the “rationalising effect ofscience on State intervention.”2 Yaron Ezrahi calls this ‘visual attestive culture’3

From virtuous to vicious - a mob of four

To hold the view that ‘e’ is subservient to ‘G’ in eGovernance is to subscribe to aninstrumentalist view of technology – where technology is viewed as a set ofinstruments that act as tools for better governance. This view is perhaps dated. Whatis perhaps less anachronistic is to admit that technologies have begun to dictate whatgood governance should be.

Speed, portability etc are one dimension of transference that has taken place fromthe domain of technology to the domain of governance. To quote Sundar Sarukkai“element of speed now becomes an important element of good governance – not necessarilybecause that is the way we conceive good governance but because that is what thesetechnologies are best suited to do”4. Speedy Governance is certainly a desirable one. Justas individual behaviour bears little relationship to mob behaviour under certaincircumstances, so also speed, virtuous when single, becomes vicious in the company offollowing three other forces.

1. The undemocratic [and speedy] nature of evolution of technology whereeverybody – the citizens, the industry, and the Government is free toparticipate and yet nobody controls either the direction or the content ofdevelopment.

2. As already stated elsewhere in this paper, the compulsion for Government andbureaucrats to be seen to act [speedily] giving them no slack to ‘sit back’ andreflect.

3. The uncertainty over the tenure of bureaucrats and eGovernment practitionersduring which eGovernment practitioners must dream-up and delivereGovernment solutions.

The demographic, cultural, and economic characteristics of receivers ofeGovernment services are far from standard. The effect of the forces such as thosesuggested above however is such that many characteristics of uniqueness among thepopulation of beneficiaries are sculpted away and a standardised personality of the


intended receivers of eGovernment services is all that is retained. Once such virtualstandardised personality is given life to, all that remains is to create standardisedpackaging of information and services. This seems to present the eGovernmentpractitioners with an efficient manner in which to conduct eGovernment operations.

Woe to those who, by design or accident, retain their non-standard self. Theresults of a 2008 study5 conducted on selected Government sites to assess how wellthey supported all citizens – including those differently able – is shown below. Asshown under the column 4, even minimum level of support was not available in India.

The essence of technology

It is important for eGovernment practitioners to understand and place ‘e’ of theeGovernment in perspective before they begin to make plans around it. In keeping withthe spirit of this paper, we will not be satisfied with any banal definition of ‘e’. Perhapsit may be relevant to recall the words of German Philosopher Martin Heidegger.“Technology is not equivalent to the essence of technology. When we are seeking the essenceof “tree,” we have to become aware that That which pervades every tree, as tree, is not itself atree that can be encountered among all the other trees. Likewise, the essence of technology isby no means anything technological”6. Heidegger offers no definitive answers to thequestion to how one must view technology. Perhaps there is no definitive answer.There is however considerable merit in his words “Everywhere we remain unfree andchained to technology, whether we passionately affirm or deny it. But we are deliveredover to it in the worst possible way when we regard it as something neutral”7.

Other than to suggest that cultural neutrality cannot be a part of the essence oftechnology – ICT in particular - this paper will refrain from getting into further debate.


e-Exclusion – a by-product of Standardisation

In 2011, the author was introduced to a wonderful web based eGovernment ICTsolution intended for use in the Education sector. The system was of G2C nature.Implementation of the system had resulted in elimination of middlemen and creationof very lean and transparent processes. For all the excellent features the systemcarried, it had its user interface only in English. On enquiry as to why such a systemdid not carry vernacular choices too – since the system was aimed at those unlikely tohave sound knowledge of English – it was suggested to the author that the system hadinduced the students and their parents to become familiar with English – a familiarity,the project managers submitted, that was to be desired. Desired by whom?

In the above example, we see the emergence of one type of a standardised personality– a beneficiary who is able to read and understand English. Definition of a standardisedpersonality is an exercise involving comparisons and is an act laden with culturalimplications. As the example cited above confirms, not only was it not the charter ofthis eGovernment project to help spread knowledge of English, it also betrayed thebelief of the project owners of the superiority of English education over the vernacular.We take issue with this only because it carries with it the potential to exclude anumber of citizens from enjoying what is due to them.

Without getting too statistical, we can attempt to figure out the negative effectthat follows from a subscription to “packaging services in English for delivery tobeneficiaries proficient in English” narrative. The following table extracted fromDISE database shows the break up of primary and upper primary students enrolledunder different language medium schools in the State of Andhra Pradesh.

Source: District Information System for Education – www.dise.in – Figures for Andhra Pradesh – 2009-10


Stakeholder participation – the solution to double deviance

Rajiv belongs to an Indian metro. He started picking rags at a very young ageafter he dropped out of school. The meager income of his parents, who are alsorag dealers, forced him to leave school and earn to add to the family income. At14, he was already pulling a rickshaw and supporting his family economically8.

Rajiv’s poverty and dropping out from school for economic reasons is not thecreation of technology. However, if eGovernment initiatives existed [and they doin India] for provision of school fees and maintenance scholarship and yet thelikes of Rajiv continued to remain school dropouts, eGovernment services shouldshoulder a portion of the blame.

Narrowly conceptualised and delivered eGovernment systems should be deemedto be doubly at fault- firstly for excluding the likes of Rajiv due to reasons of theirmigrant / homeless status, and other handicaps [related to Language, age,infirmities etc], and secondly, for their pre-occupation with promoting[educationally, economically and through other means] beneficiaries with‘standardised personalities’, thus worsening the socio-economic divide.

As the data shows, students enrolled in English medium schools during theyear 2009-10 were only a third of the total primary and upper primary studentpopulation. If an eGovernment system was implemented targeting such studentsand even if a small percentage of the intended beneficiaries failed to participatein the program due to English language barrier, that would have worked out toexclusion of several Lakh students – from one State alone.


If cases such as Rajiv’s are to be prevented, eGovernment practitioners shouldpractice thinking in terms of ontological measurements. Such measurements –not different from what is referred to as normative standards in philosophicalterms - first require determining “what could be”. What is the ‘could be’ withrespect to Rajiv? More importantly, who should decide what the ‘could be’ forRajiv should be? Just as we refrained from defining the essence of technology andarmed ourselves with questions through which to ponder, so must we acknowledgethat experts from within or outside of the domain of eGovernment can at bestonly partially decide what “could be” for others. To complete the ‘could be’, Rajivtoo should be consulted. This calls not merely for citizen participation butenablement of e-participation. In today’s age of multimedia and mobile phonesbased ICT, little skills are mandated for engaging in two-way interaction withany strata of society.

Street Children interacting with Computer through ‘Hole-in-the-wall’

Rajiv is not an imaginary person. We learn that Rajiv was introduced to computersthrough hole-in-the-wall project. By giving him access to non-standardised serviceand, equally importantly, by facilitating his own participation in developingcontent of interest to him, the initiative helped him rejoin the school goingstream and regain his childhood.

Conclusion

As a small step towards promoting Values based eGovernment, CSI-Nihilent, inits 2011 assessment framework, introduced evaluation components which requirednominees to self-assess their performance with respect to e-inclusion, e-participationand e-wastage.


It is suggested in this paper that such must be the approach of eGovernmentpractitioners in India – that they must understand that the ‘e’ is in fact morepowerful than is acknowledged and that it permeates and colors the culture inwhich it finds itself in silent ways. It is further suggested in this paper thathaving made this acknowledgement, the practitioners should replace the ‘e’ withperhaps ‘V’ for Values [or ‘C’ for culture, if they wish]. It is hoped that this willhelp remind them that it is incumbent on governments to acknowledge – ifGovernment were not to contribute to deepening of information chasm – thatthere are no standardised personalities to whom standardised eServices can beoffered.

References:

1. The Hindu, October 12, 2011, Editorial titled “IT Policy and Credibility gap”

2. Yaron Ezrahi, The descent of Icarus:Science and the transformation of contemporary

democracy, Harvard University Press, 1990

3. ibid

4. Sundar Sarukkai, “Culture of Technology and ICTs”, ICTs and Indian Social Change, Sage

Publications 2008

5. Joanne Kuzma, Yen Dorothy and Klaus Oestreicher, “Global e-government Web Accessibility:

An Empirical Examination of EU, Asian and African Sites”

6. Martin Heidegger. The Question Concerning Technology and other essays. Translated by

William Lovitt. Harper & Row, New York, [1977]

7. ibid

8. www.hole-in-the-wall.com

Prof. Harish P Iyer is a Fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.He has served as Consultant Professor at T.A.Pai Management Institute (TAPMI),Manipal. He was the co-ordinator of the first, full time executive program one-governance (eGPX) jointly offered by DIT, NISG, and TAPMI.


Shri Surendra Kapoor, Shri Prabhu Gollamudi and K S Vijaya Sekhar

CSI SIG e-Governance group has been successfully conducting Nihilente-Governance Awards over the years. Any assessment of nominationsrequires to have a good and well tested process. And any process cannotsustain over such a long time unless processes are reviewed andimprovements put in place. Improvements would depend on inputs fromusers, in this case nominee organization and practicing professionals.Every year the organizing team receives nominations- which present anattempt to use ICT for applications that were not earlier on the horizon.We also have some repeat cases showcasing enhanced functionality thereby making the job of assessors tougher to cull out the best of the initiatives.The objective of this paper is to present an overview of the process,improvements in the templates and present the steps in evaluation. Thepaper sets out with background of the awards and various award categories.It then presents enhanced evaluation framework which consists of ResultIndicators & Enabler Indicators and their attributes. Finally, it elaboratesthe Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) which is revised and followedfor evaluation and assessment process followed for the received nominationsin various categories. It concludes by presenting the strengths of the processand areas of improvement.

CHAPTER 4

CSI Nihilent e-Governance AwardsNominations Assessment 2010-11:

Process Overview

21CSI Nihilent e-Governance Awards Nominations Assessment 2010-11...

1. Introduction

The Computer Society of India was formed in 1965 and since its inceptionCSI has been instrumental in guiding the Indian IT industry down the rightpath since its formative years. Today, the CSI has many chapters all over

India, student branches, and more than 70,000 members. India’s elite of ITindustry, brilliant scientists and dedicated academicians (http://www.csi-india.org) continue to patronage the CSI activities. Special Interest group on

e-Governance is part of CSI and with continued support from NihilentTechnologies has instituted awards for recognizing the contributions madein the field of e-Governance in the country, particularly by GovernmentOrganizations/Institutions/Agencies both at Central level and State level.

This is the ninth year since these awards in e-Governance were initiated.The basic objective of these awards has been to recognize and appreciate thesuccessful efforts by the States, Government Departments, Project initiatives

and Districts in achieving good governance using ICT. The endeavor has beento bring as many projects to the fore front for the benefit of all. As part of theseawards, another major value addition being made has been towards knowledge

sharing by documenting and bringing out a publication, for the benefit of allat large. The publication presents the major successful e-Gov initiatives selectedfrom the nominations received and Award Winners are felicitated during theCSI Annual Convention each year.

The CSI SIG team has put in significant efforts in revamping the Awards website both from content perspective and ease of use.

2. Award Categories

Nominations for the year 2010-11 Awards were invited for the following categories:

(a) Award of Excellence – State Category. States are judged based on theiroverall performance in e-Governance initiatives during the year 2010-11,especially with respect to policies, infrastructure, capacity building,

projects, etc.


(b) Award of Excellence – Department Category. Central and StateGovernment Departments who have demonstrated excellence in the area of e-Governance during the year 2010-11.

(c) Awards of Excellence – District Category. Outstanding effortsdemonstrating excellence in e-Governance during the year 2010-11 at theDistrict level.

(d) Award of Excellence – Project Category. Projects that have beenimplemented or enhanced during the year 2010-11 and delivered benefitsto its stakeholders. The projects will be judged in three sub-categories, namelyG2C, G2B, andG2G/G2E.

For indicative purposes the schedule that the team followed for the process ispresented below:

This year CSI-SIG eGov has instituted a new award called ‘Award of Sustenance’to recognize earlier winners efforts to sustain the early initiatives and for makingsystems stand the test of time and continued to serve with enhanced capabilities. Forthis award five years old project award winners are considered and evaluated usinga framework developed to test the sustainability of the projects.

SIGeGov andCSI Nihilent e Gov Awards web sites are used to announce theAwards and seek nominations from Government Departements. In addition toabove , brochure announcing the Awareds are sent to all to senior officials of Stateand Central Governments and Districts


3. Conditions for Entry

• Entry for sending nominations is open to all Government agencies in India(both Centre and State/UT Governments, District level).

• All the Government Organizations & Semi-Government Corporations,District Collectorate, Municipal Corporations, Autonomous bodiesincluding Public Sector Undertakings are welcome to apply.

• Entries should fall in one of the specified Award categories.

• Entries under Project category are only for those projects which havebeen implemented in India

• In case of project category, they should have at least 75% of the servicesbeing delivered should be Government services.

• Awards for year under consideration will consider the initiativesimplemented during previous year and the current year. These can beeither implemented during the current year in question or Specialincremental efforts or enhancements to the earlier initiatives.

• To encourage fresh e-Governance efforts, the Initiatives that have beenrecognized and awarded by CSI in the last 2 years will not be usually notconsidered by the Selection Committee for recognition.

4. Judging Process

• Nomination to each category will be judged by the Awards selectioncommittee, consisting of members from Government, Industry andAcademia.

• The judging process shall be based on:

– On-line nomination submission

– Field visits to short listed entries by Selection Committee/nominatedmembers for on site assessment and identification of ‘Finalists’

– Presentations by ‘Finalists’ to the Selection committee

– Final Award list is generated based on the combined evaluation at differentstages as above.


• The selection committee reserves the right to seek additional informationfrom the nominated entries during the evaluation process.

• The final recommendation of awards will be made by the selection committeeon the basis of the information available to them in the nomination form, on-site visits and presentations by the applicants.

5. Evaluation Criteria for the Awards

• The evaluation criterion is based on two indicators i.e. Results and Enablers.The attributes considered for Result indicator are mainly in terms of outcomesand the attributes for Enabler indicator are in terms of the processes in placeso as to achieve the desired results. Keeping into consideration the constraintson time and resource, for the purpose of these Awards, only the key attributesare being considered for these awards.

• For the Awards of 2010-11 a new section called ‘Value Indicators’ has beenadded to the templates. The Selection Committee will use this ‘ValueIndicators’ information for overall assessment at each stage of short listing andappropriate weightage applied depending on category of nomination.

The Value Indicators are high level goals and objectives which can be used asguiding philosophies for defining visionary scenarios within which to place e-Governance projects. Guidelines for providing details and to respond to ‘ValueIndicators’ section have been presented on the Awards web site for theconvenience of nominees. The background for introducing the three valueindicators is explained below:

Digital Inclusion

It is often stated that “e-Governance” is more about “Governance” and less about ‘e’.While this might well be true, e-Governance is, from one perspective, all about deliveryof Government services through the medium of portals and pages on public and /orprivate networks, which are accessed through the time tested PCs, Laptops, mobiledevices etc. These delivery channels and touch points, collectively referred to asInformation and Communication Technology [ICT], form the backbone of e-Governance. The digital ecosystem within which e-Governance finds itself is howevernot without its contradictions and challenges. A significant number of beneficiariesof e-Governance services do not speak English rendering non-Vernacular web pagesinaccessible to them.


A significant number of intended beneficiaries for e-Government services aresenior citizens and women. In India, many from among these classes of Citizenshave special mobility related challenges. If no special consideration is given tosuch disabilities, and delivery of Government services is designed in a genericmanner which require such beneficiaries to travel to the service centers instead ofthe Services “travelling” to their doorsteps – say through mobile phone basedservices – then these beneficiaries become digitally excluded or disenfranchised.

A significant number of stakeholders cannot read or write, let alone have anyproficiency in the use of Computers. On top of their core illiteracy, digital illiteracyis also a burden thrust upon them. Even if the Government designs its pages inthe Vernacular, will not such a marginalized class of beneficiaries benefit from e-Government services if they are explained, made accessible, and delivered throughVoice interaction mode?

Unless conscious effort is made to during the design stage itself, e-Governanceprojects have the unintended consequence of contributing significantly to digitaldivide. The above are some examples of how, in designing e-Governance services,unless very intensive care is taken, some classes of citizens/beneficiaries come tobecome excluded.

e-Participation

e-Participation is about connecting beneficiaries of eGovernance initiatives withthe policy-making group and involves identifying ways of giving the beneficiariesgreater stake in the policy-shaping process. ICTs provide a variety of tools whichcan give beneficiaries easier access to information about what decisions are beingtaken which affect their lives – BEFORE the decisions are taken.

What services of the Government to bring under the charter of e-Governance,what features to incorporate as part of Computerization, what standards to establishunder Citizen Charter, how the issue of Digital divide [specific to the e-Governanceinitiative under consideration] should be tackled and many other related issuescan all be opened up for e-Particiation from the intended beneficiaries.


Ranging from [quantitative] reduced coordination costs to [qualitative]increased and improved feelings of satisfaction and involvement, the benefits ofeParticipation from stakeholders in the design and implementation of e-Governance initiatives cannot be overemphasized.

e-Waste

e-Waste [electronic waste] consists of everything from redundant cell phones andcomputers, to out-of-date televisions and printers.

eWaste is produced in vast quantities by every ICT project – e-Governanceones included. And with the price of commodities soaring, the profit from theextracting the copper, gold, silver and palladium, locked up in electronic devices,can be considerable. But to maximize profit, a significant per cent of the e-wasteis segregated, dismantled and recycled in the unorganized sector based in urbanslum in metro cities.

National and State Level policies and regulations relating to eWaste disposalcertainly help but unless every e-Governance project consciously and formallytakes steps to ensure that eWastes produced by it are properly channeled forrecycling or destruction with minimal impact on the environment, the long termsocial costs of e-Governance projects may well come to out weigh their shortterm benefits.

• The quality of content submitted by the applicants for the nominationswill be of most important part of the evaluation process. The informationneeds to be as per formats/ templates defined on the awards web site.

• The key indicators and attributes being used for evaluation under each awardcategory is presented in the following section.

4. Evaluation criteria for the awards

The evaluation criterion is based on two indicators i.e. Results and Enablers. Theattributes considered for Result indicator are mainly in terms of outcomes andthe attributes for Enabler indicator are in terms of the processes in place so as toachieve the desired results. Keeping into consideration the constraints on timeand resource, for the purpose of these Awards, only the key attributes are being


considered for these awards. The key indicators and attributes being used forevaluation under each award category are given in subsequent paragraphs withbrief explanation of each of the attributes.

Award of Excellence - State Category Evaluation Criteria

Result Indicators & Attributes Enabler Indicators & Attributes

1. Key Performance 1. State Policy & Strategy

a. List of State Mission Mode Projects as a. eGov/ICT vision road map and its

per the NeGP and their status in terms implementation status

of pilots and roll -out b. Sharing of common infrastructure

b. State portal implementation with single status with details

window G2C/ G2B information and c. Policies related to open standards,

transaction services. Provide information technology architectures, website

on number of portals functioning in the standards, security standards and

state departments and strategy of their current status

integration and consistency. d. Planned budget during the year for

2. Government efficiency improvement e-Governance and the actual

initiatives(Till date in Brief and elaborate expenditure incurred for the same

during the year for each of the following) 2. Support Infrastructure

a. Initiatives implemented under G2C, a. Plan for SWAN and current

and their impact (time/cost) achievements

b. Initiatives implemented under G2B, b. State Data Center, and its

and their impact (time/cost) utilization by various department

c. Initiatives implemented under G2G applications

and G2E, and their impact (time/cost) c. CSC – Rural and Urban, established

3. Innovation and Best Practices and planned during the year and

a. Specific innovative ideas implementedin their actual utilization data

eGov area and their impact services wise

b. To what extend transparency has been 3. Capacity Building

achieved and how a. Leadership support &

visibility. Provide details

b. Training plan and its

implementation effectiveness

c. Institutional structure for training

planned and implanted


Award of Excellence – Department Category Evaluation Criteria


1. Key Performance 1. Department Policy & Strategy

a. What services ( G2C, G2B, G2G andG2E) a. eGov/ICT vision road map for

are delivered using ICT ; provide impact department and its current status

in terms of time and cost of delivery b. To what extent the common

of services infrastructure(national, state, other

b. Implementation coverage till date department; delivery channels) is

andduring the year (geographical areas being shared

covered under pilot, roll-out, future plans) c. Technology standardization policy

2. Government Efficiency improvement initiatives and its implementation

a. Time and cost efficiency improvements in 2. Process Re-engineering & Reforms

the working & delivery of servicesb. a. Major non-ICT front end process

Specific innovative ideas implemented in changes planned for Department

eGov area; and their impact on services level eGovernance efforts and their

c. To what extent the services are integrated current status

with other offices / departments. b. Major non-ICT back end process

changes planned for department

level eGovernance efforts and their

current status

3. Capacity Building

a. Leadership support & visibility and

current status

b. Change management strategy

defined and status thereof

c. Capacity building plan and its

implementation status

d. Are the Program Management

Teams are there full time

(department officials/ consultants)

Award of Excellence – District Category Evaluation Criteria


1. Key Performance 1. District Policy & Strategy

a. What services ( G2C, G2B, G2G andG2E) a. eGov/ICT vision road map for

are delivered using ICT ; provide impact department and its current status

in terms of time and cost of delivery of b. To what extent the common

services infrastructure(national, state,

b. Implementation coverage till date departmental; delivery channels)

andduring the year (geographical areas is being shared


covered under pilot, roll-out, c. Technology standardization policy

future plans) and its implementation

c. Future plan with regard to geographical 2. Process Re-engineering & Reforms

coverage as well as scope of services a. Major non-ICT front end process

2. Government Efficiency improvement changes planned for district level

initiatives eGovernance efforts and their

a. Time and cost efficiency improvements current status

in the working & delivery of services b. Major non-ICT back end process

b. Specific innovative ideas implemented in changes planned for district level

eGov area; and their impact on services eGovernance efforts and their

c. To what extent the services are current status

integrated with other systems within 3. Capacity Building

and outside the district a. Leadership support & visibility and

current status

b. Change management strategy

defined and status thereof

c. Training of internal & external

members on the use of the ICT

systems – planned vs

implemented;

d. Does the full time Program

Management Teams (District

officials/ consultants) exist?

e. Efforts to ensure sustainability of

various eGov efforts, in addition to

the few mentioned above.

4. Technology

a. Technological solution adopted

[including cost of ownership,

maintenance model];

b. Security and confidentiality

standards defined and

implemented

c. Competence of people in

technology (hardware, software,

security etc)


Award of Excellence - Project Category Evaluation Criteria


1. Key Performance 1. Processes

a. Describe the services ( G2C, G2B, G2G a. Major ICT and Non-ICT front end

and G2E) that are currently being process changes that were planned

delivered using ICT; Describe the and the extent to which the plans

benefits obtained from these services have been implemented;

by each category of stakeholders; b. Major ICT and Non-ICT back end

b. Present those services that are enhanced/ process changes that were

introduced/functionally extended during planned and the extent

the year. What services are planned to be to which the plans have been

delivered through ICT in subsequent implemented

stages/ phases; 2. People and Resources

c. Implementation coverage till date and a. Project management & Monitoring

during the year (geographical areas / adopted;

category of stakeholders covered under b. Training of internal & external

pilot, roll-out, future plans) members on the use of the system

2. Efficiency improvement – planned vs implemented;

a. Time and cost efficiency improvements in c. Change management strategy

delivering and availing of ICT enabled defined and implemented;

services; d. Leadership support ( Political,

b. Specific innovative ideas implemented in Bureaucratic) and its visibility;

eGov area; and their impact on services; e. Financial Model ( Funding pattern ,

c. The extent to which this eGovernance Business model PPP etc) defined

initiative is integrated with other internal and implemented

and/or external ICT systems 3. Technology

a. State strategy adopted for Disaster

Recovery & service continuity and

it’s compliance;

b. Give a detailed description of the

Technological solution adopted

[including cost of ownership,

maintenance model] and it’s

compliance to NeGP standards;

c. State the Security and

confidentiality standards adopted

and the level of compliance.


5. Methodology followed for evaluation

As contained in the paper of Prof. G P Sahu et.al which was published in theprevious year;s book, the evaluation of nominated e-government projects falls intothe purview of what is called Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) or multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). Unlike methods that assume the availability ofmeasurements, measurements in MCDA are derived or interpreted subjectively asindicators of the strength of various preferences. Preferences differ from decisionmaker to decision maker, so the outcome depends on who is making the decisionand what their goals and preferences are. There are many MCDA / MCDM methodsin use and for the CSI-Nihilent e-government awards, the AHP has been preferredover other MCDA methods, because of its ease of use. Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP ) has been preferred over other MCDA methods, because it allows therelative importance of various parameters to be defined based on inputs fromvarious experts and arriving at appropriate weightages for various parameters. AHPis a structured technique for dealing with HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCDA" \o "MCDA"complex decisions and well matches with the needs ofthe e-Governance area.

6. Evaluation Process

Nomination to each category was judged by the Awards selection committee,consisting of members from Government, Industry and Academia. The selectioncommittee usually seeks additional information from the nominated entries duringthe evaluation process. The final recommendation of awards will be made by theselection committee on the basis of the information available to them in thenomination form, on-site visits and presentations made by the applicants. A simplefive step process was followed while assessing the projects nominated for CSI-Nihilent e-Governance awards.

(a) Step 1: Online Nominations. Going with the objective of fostering e-processutilization, the proposals/nominations were invited through the portal http://csinihilent-egovernanceawards.org. The due dates for various stages andinstructions for filling up of online nomination form with necessarydocumentary attachments was made available on the website.

(b) Step 2: Short Listing Based on Nominations. After the due date of the


submission was over, the received nominations were evaluated by two expertson parameters mentioned in the nomination submission template. Each expertawarded score for each attribute for every project in the supplied AHP excelworksheet. These marks were multiplied by the corresponding weightage ofeach attribute. The marks assigned by experts were averaged for each project.A minimum cut-off score was decided by the core selection group for qualifyinginto the next step of assessment i.e. field visits. The marks scored in this stage,has 35% weightage in overall score of a project.

(c) Step 3: Field Visits. Based on the rankings of each project short listed inStep 2 above, top 33% (approximate) nominations were selected for fieldvisits. The field visits were undertaken by two experts for each shortlistednomination. The main objective of field visits is to validate the correctnessof the information submitted in nomination entry. Second objective is tohave a first hand exposure on the benefits of the initiatives for itsstakeholders. The Project Owners were informed well in advance on thevisits to make all necessary arrangements for meeting and visits to projectsites. Most of the visits were for one day duration wherein project wasstudies in detail with a view to ascertain correctness of informationsubmitted in nomination entries. Field visit are an integral component ofthe overall assessment process for getting first hand exposure to the projectand its accruable benefits. Each team member assessed and assign scoresfor various attributes on the AHP excel worksheet. The AHP score of eachproject was arrived at after multiplying with weightage of each attributeand averaging the scores awarded by members. The marks scored in thisstage, has 65% weightage in overall score of a project.

(d) Step 4: Identification of Finalists Based on the aggregate score of eachnomination, combining Step 2 and Step 3 scores ‘Finalists’ are identifiedfor Department, District and Project category of Awards except Statecategory. For State category normally SIG is identifying ‘Presenters’ basedon nomination strength rather than any field visits. Once the Finalists areidentified, 50% of their aggregate score are carried over to the Presentationstage.

(e) Step 5: Presentations Final Step in the evaluation process is presentations


of all the short listed nominations by the project teams to a committee ofexperts. Presentations are made to the selection committee, and individualscores are given by each member. The AHP work sheet was used by thecommittee members to award scores for each attribute. The marks scored inthis stage, has 50% weightage in overall score of a project.

7. AHP Model

The actual stages that were followed for evaluation of e-government projectsand identifying the best e-government project are presented below. These stepsapply equally to other categories of awards, though the sub-attribute and sub-sub attributes may vary in each case.

The AHP hierarchy prepared during 2009-10 continues to be the basis forattributes grouping.

An excel worksheet based model was prepared to obtain weightages for variousattributes from experts. This year a new assessment item called ‘Value Indicators; gotadded and accordingly experts views were taken for determining weightage for eachattribute.

Weightages assigned by each expert was fed into the model', which calculatedaverages for each attribute

Initial screening of nominations was done and those selected were assigned scoresfor each attribute by the core selection group and inputted into the evaluation modelas described before. ‘Result of Step 2 above’

Once the field visits are completed and experts provided their scores these scoreswere again populated into evaluation model. The worksheet indicating calculationof scores of projects as an outcome of Step 3 above.

Based on scores obtained during Step 2 and 3 above weighted aggregates werecalculated and ‘Finalists identified based on 35:65% assignments of scores betweenthe first two assessment stages

These scores then are carried to the ‘Finalists’ presentation stage. Once thepresentation scores are received and after applying AHP weightages, 50:50 % is


used between aggregate score of earlier stages and the Presentation stage score.Based on final scores the award Winners get identified under each category. TheSelection committee(Jury) usually recognizes some of the very special cases of‘Finalists’ by way of Jury/Special Recognition Awards.

8. Conclusion

The evaluation framework used consistently over the last few years to assess State,Departments, districts, and projects, based on Result, Enabler and Value indicatorshas matured and worked satisfactorily by providing a transparent process forevaluation to achieve a fair assessment. As done last year, nominations from variousstakeholders for the awards were captured online by means of a nomination template.Through out the evaluation process (initial screening based on submitteddocumentation, field visits, and presentations by stakeholders) AHP model was usedfor determining weightages for various parameters

The few aspects to be considered for future improvements include: judging oneoff cases along with high usage and most relevant citizen service systems; improvingnominee adherence to response for all the attributes;strengthening Value indicatorssection for seeking more detailed information and introducing normalizationprocess to remove the variance in the grading given by different selection committeemembers.. CSI-SIG eGov plans to focus on ‘Sustenance’ of initiatives by various e-Govenance projects based on the Award winners five years back.

Shri Surendra Kapoor, Convenor, CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Awards 2010-11 email:[email protected], Shri Prabhu Gollamudi, IT consultant, email:[email protected] and K S Vijaya Sekhar, Member SIG Team, email:[email protected]

35Mobile Office System Adoption in Seoul Metropolitan ...

1. Background: City Railway Services in Seoul

Seoul, the capital city of South Korea, is a modernized large-scale metropolitan citywith the population of 11 million residences. Seoul has been the capital of Korea forthe last 600 years. For this reason Seoul has full of historic monuments and palaces.The city of Seoul has been known as one of the fastest growing capital. Recently thecity received keen attention as it is chosen as one of the best city Asian people wantto visit and as it is awarded the best e-government service provider to its citizen. Thenumber of inbound visitors from abroad is also increasing rapidly.

Seoul has 8 completed lines of city railway, of which most of the line sections aresubway lines moving under the ground. Two additional lines are under constructionand 2 more lines are included in the master plan, making total 12 metropolitanrailway lines by the end of the completion of the master plan. By now, 8 lines and partof line 9 and two city extension of Korea national railway make a complex andconvenient coverage of the city of Seoul via fast railway network. As each train takepassengers to almost every corner of the city and the train interval is maintainedaround 5 minutes, the city transportation in Seoul has become world-famousinfrastructure. The metro system in Seoul is also known for its convenience,cleanliness, and modern technology. The complex web of subway lines is depicted in[Figure. 1].

CHAPTER 5

Mobile Office System Adoption in SeoulMetropolitan Railway Transit (SMRT) of Korea

Prof. Namjae Cho and Jungin Choi


The first subway line (line number 1) in Seoul was built in 1974. Since then fourlines were completed by 1985 based on the first stage city railway plan. The first fourlines are managed by Seoul Subway Company (renamed as Seoul Metro afterward).When the second stage city railway plan is completed, the city decided to establish asecond company to manage the next 4 lines. There was an important reason forestablishing a separate company instead of incorporating new lines into existingSeoul Metro. By making two separate companies and evaluating their quality of servicesperiodically, the city could introduce the competing mind into public services. Thetwo companies, through competition, are expected to compete to gain high reputationin their service provision and to maintain organizational tension toward innovationand improvement.

2. Seoul Metropolitan Transit Railway (SMRT)

2.1 Company Overview

Seoul Metropolitan Railway Transit (SMRT) Company is a government-owned publiccompany owned 100% by the City of Seoul. SMRT was established in 1994 in orderto manage city railway services.

[Figure 1] City Railway System of Seoul


SMRT manages 148 stations and 6 large-scale maintenance centers. The companyoperates 1,560 coach compartments and 152 kilo meters of railway lines in Seoulcarry 3,390,000 passengers per day.

Line 5 operates 608 compartments (8×76 coaches) carrying 1,160,000 passengersper day, line 6 operates 328 compartments (8×41 coaches) carrying 650,000 passengersper day, line 7 operates 504 compartments (8×63 coaches) carrying 1,270,000passengers per day, and line 8 operates 120 compartments (6×20 coaches) carrying310,000 passengers per day. Daily revenue from fare collection is about 1.3 BillionKRW.

SMRT ranked as number 1 in the management evaluation among all public servicecompanies belong to the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairsfor 4 consecutive years from 2005 to 2008. SMRT also ranked top in 2008 in IntegratedRailway Safety Review performed by the Ministry of Land, Transport and MaritimeAffairs among all railway operators in Korea.

2.2 Development of Mobile Office Environment at SMRT

1) Business Practice of SMRT during 1994~2009

SMRT has about 30,000 Major facilities. List of the whole facility include over onemillion items scattered all around the city. For this reason employees of SMRT keepmove around the city to locate and manage the facilities of responsibility.

Since the birth of SMRT in 1994 the task scheduling, assignment, orders, andreporting was processed manually up until 2004. Every morning each employee shouldgo to the company headquarter, confirm the task order of the day, and receive workorder sheet. They carry the work-order to the location of the facility, process the taskassigned, and complete the work-order sheet manually. After returning back to theoffice, they again should fill-up the completion report about the task they performed.

Such manual work process produced enormous amount of paper documents andthe company should devote massive amount of time and effort to manage, transport,and store the documents. Employees had to spend 20% of their time on the street tomove back and forth from office and facility in addition to commuting. In addition30% of employee time devoted to create and manage administrative documents and


to participate in meetings. For this reason only 50% of their time was used to takecare of the actual tasks of facility check-ups, maintenance, adjustments, and operations.

After computerized reporting system was adopted in 2006, employees could befreed from the manual creation of work-completion report at the end of the day. Thekeyed in the report contents about the work they completed in each day. The accuracyand usability of data has increased. However, the time spend on the street was same asbefore as the other processes including picking up the paper-based work-order sheetwere remained unchanged. Still 20% of employee time was used for moving back andforth and 25% of the time was used for administrative chore. In addition, peoplewaited on a line to enter the report as the peak load is concentrated toward the endof the day.

2) Mobile Office System Development Project at SMRT

Mobile Office System is considered to have the potential to innovate business practicesas the infrastructure, application, and terminal equipment becomes reliable and smart.Korea is well known in the quality of telecommunication infrastructure. Since 1995,the Korean government drove the establishment and adoption of broadband backbonethrough Giga-Internet project, high-speed network project as well as the adoption of‘Wibro’ mobile infrastructure and smart applications. The introduction of smartphone such as iPhone opened up the potential to optimize the use of suchtelecommunication infrastructure. Smart phones provide improved flexibility andapplicability compared to existing mobile support environment such as PDAs andlaptops.

The top management initiated the radical changes in business process to reducenon-task waste of employee time using advances in technological environment. Hedecided the development of mobile office system which can economize on the useof smart phones. Initial skepticism on the social effect, technical functionality, speed,fear for being connected and monitored were expressed the voice of labor union.Close communication about the potential problems and solutions with theemployees was helpful in pursuing the project in a cooperative atmosphere.

The CIO of SMRT decided to develop the application systems in-house as hedid not want to be overly dependent on external services in future changes and


developments of the system. Fast experience of hiring several external developers inthe development of separate information systems might affect this decision. Withthe help of KT(Korea Telecom), the MOS infrastructure service provider, they startedthe development of internal service network, inter-connection with existing legacyinformation, and the development of mobile applications.

In this vein, they re-organized IT Division by combining existing three separatedepartments: IT planning, system development, and technology analysis. Theystrengthened technical capability by recruiting more engineers, emphasizingupdated technical training for existing IT members, and facilitating the sharingof development results, experiences, knowledge, and skill. They focused on thedevelopment of mobile office system applications, technology, and services bestfit to the situation of the company and user groups.

3. Characteristics of the Mobile Office System of SMRT

By combining existing IS applications (such as engineering systems, electronicengineering and product design management system, and facility managementsystem) and wireless personal media, SMRT could successfully develop a mobiletask-supporting environment, first of its kind in the world as they mentioned,that help the management of subway lines real-time without the restriction oftime and space. They named the system as ST&F (SMRT Talk & Flash).

Thanks to the adoption of ST&F, employees now do not have to commute tothe company headquarter office in the morning. Employees receive work-ordervia their individual smart phones before they leave home. They commute directlyto the location assigned for planned and regular check-ups or to the location offacility with problem report. After completing the task the employees report thecompletion of the task real-time using the applications in their smart phones.

Home page screen of ST&F system looks like [Figure 2]. The top menuincludes Problem Reporting, Company Announcements, Approval of RailwayTasks, Operation Procedure Guide, and Barcode Inquiry.

1) ST&F Problem Reporting System


Previously, problem reporting was a task assigned only to technicians in charge offacility check-up. After the mobile office system put in place, any member ofSMRT can file the problem report wherever and whenever they find a problem inequipments and facilities while commuting or while working around. Immediatelyafter the problem report is forwarded, a responsible and qualified technician closestto the spot while moving around is assigned the repairing and maintenance job.The problem is fixed real-time and the result of resolution is reported.

There are three different methods of problem reporting: the use of ST&Fbarcode picture capturing, the use of company private phone line, and the use ofSMS or public phone by citizen. When the ST&F is used, one use smart phoneto take the picture of QR code attached in each facility or equipment. Then thefacility or equipment information is retrieved and a menu to report a problempops up so that the reporting can be completed on the spot (refer to [Figure 3]).

2) ST&F Barcode Processing System

ST&F Barcode Processing System is linked to the corporate facility managementsystem so that problem reporting, part history-management, and problemresolution result reporting can be completed through one integrated interface.Although the reporter does not have sufficient knowledge on the facility of concern,the system help the user find key information so that any authorized employeecan report a problem or the result of task completion (refer to [Figure 4]).

[Figure 2]


3) ST&F Part History Manager

ST&F Part History Management system helps employees to search and review thecurrent status as well as the detailed history of the maintenance of all equipment,facilities, and parts as a group or by individual items with just one simple touch of abutton of their smart phones (refer to [Figure 5]).

[Figure 3]

[Figure 4]


4) ST&F Operating Procedure Guide System

ST&F Operating Procedure Guide System provide SOP (Standard OperatingProcedures) and response methods to the occurrence of such emergency situationas fire, railway delay, explosion or earthquake. SOP and response method includestep-by-step response procedures to crises for all types of tasks such as integratedcontrolling, customer services, driving, coach handling, and engineering. Itincludes action guidelines at the spot, facilities and equipment handling guidelines,corporate rules by roles, as well as the methods for CPR (CardiopulmonaryResuscitation).

5) Effect of the Adoption of ST&F at SMRT

After the adoption of ST&F system, the employees do not have to commute tothe headquarter office in the morning. All the employees received the daily taskassignment via their smart phones. They can directly go to the location appropriateto the completion of the mission such as periodic check-ups and problemhandling. After the completion of the mission, they report the results immediatelyand directly to the central office.

The new practice reduced the time for moving back and forth to 10% of theirworking time from previous 20% (a 100% improvement). The time used forpaper works and administration chore also reduced to 10% of their working time

[Figure 5]


from previous 30% (a 200% improvement) on the average. The employees could use80% of their time to concentrate on the completion of assigned task. The effect ofthis improvement resulted in the heightened efficiency of the use of human resourcesand the heightened level of railway safety.

The response time between problem reporting and the completion of problemfixing has also reduced dramatically to 20 minutes from 2 hours in previouspractice. The ST&F Barcode Recognition helped every employee to report aproblem they found and simple fix result without detailed technical knowledge,virtually every employee of SMRT turned into facility managers. The effect turnedout as the increase of preventive maintenance and the reduction of defect-occurrencerate by 40% compared to pre-adoption period.

In addition, the use of ST&F Part History Manager and Operating ProcedureGuide systems helped standardize the performance reducing the discrepancy inthe quality of task results between novices and skilled experts. This improvementincreased the overall level of confidence of employees in performing their tasks.

The company reports that the total monetary benefit from the ST&F systemis expected to be 220 billion KRW (about 200 million USD), which include theannual reduction of operating costs (28.4 billion KRW) and revenues from newbusiness services. Since the total investment into ST&F was 10.2 billion KRW,the benefit is way far surpassing the investment.

The system also facilitated the enhancement of the reputation of the company.As the success of ST&F system of SMRT drew attention among industryprofessionals, experts from Canada, Singapore, and China visited SMRT for abenchmarking. Based on the confidence in their technological achievement, SMRTis pursuing the commercialization of the system to make it a new business tocreate extra revenue from the provision of software and consulting services todomestic as well international railway operators.

Smartness and mobility has become the strategic necessity of today’s corporateworld. Mobile office system successfully incorporates both of these two attributes.However, consideration of the specifics and contingencies of organizational andtask needs should be made for desired results. The case of SMRT shows how business


needs and task characteristics fit to the use of technology. They could successfullyinnovate the speed and quality of public services by way of using advances in high-speed mobile infrastructure, applications, and equipments. Internal members ofthe company actively pursued the design and development of new systems ratherthan simply hiring and relying on external technology vendors.

One learning from the case is that the members of a user company, who understandthe nature of the corporate task better than any other should take initiative in developingnoble technology. In a related vein, human relationship within the company can becarefully taken care of using the participative development approach. In addition, thecase of SMRT shows that the mobile office system can be applied and extended tovarious business areas such as facility management and maintenance beyond such typicaluses as sales and marketing support.

Prof. Namjae Cho (Hanyang University, Korea) Assisted by Jungin Choi (MS student,School of Tech. and Innovation Management), email: [email protected]

45m-Governance future in Indian Context

K S Vijaya Sekhar, R K Bagga and Khairiyyah Binti Mohd Noor*

Introduction

A century ago, companies stopped generating their own power with steam enginesand dynamos and plugged into newly built electric grid. The cheap and affordablepower did not just change how businesses operated, it set of a chain reaction ofeconomics and social transformation, which brought the modern World; the globalvillage. Today a similar revolution is under way, when internet’s global computinggrid is pumping massive data, information and software code into our home,offices and businesses. Internet technology is the key to 21st Century growth andprogress and is used to refer to the collection of tools and techniques to improveproductivity both in public and private sectors. In this context, it is the currentstate of humanity’s knowledge which combines resources to solve problems, fulfillneeds of citizens, or satisfies their wants. That is exactly the charter of allGovernments all over the World. The use of technology by the man began withthe conversion of natural resources into simple tools to build automatic machinesthat are able to help human beings in cooking, washing, entertainment andtravelling. The discovery of the wheel helped man in travel and other technologiesdevelopment during previous centuries helped man to do work in much easierways. The development of information technology has impacted the press, themedia, the communication using internet, which has reduced the physical barriersand allowed human beings to network on a global scale with the click of a button.e-Governance is expected to become a common mode of meeting people’s needs

CHAPTER 6

m-Governance future in Indian Context

* Article appeared in the CSI Communications October 2011 Issue


which is in infancy particularly in developing country like India. Can India, withabundant of computer literate professionals take a quantum jump by using theexplosive growth of mobile device and meet the need of masses particularly inrural area by directly focusing on m-Governance?

Governance to e-Governance

Governance is the act of governing by the governments or any other organizationsor agencies which can be defined as “The manner in which power is exercised inmanagement of a Country’s economic and social resources for Development”. Hence,Governance can be simply put as the process of decision-making and the processby which decisions are implemented (or not implemented). Since governance isthe process of decision-making and the process by which decisions are implemented,an analysis of governance focuses on the formal and informal agencies involved indecision-making. e-Governance is the efficient use of Information andCommunication Technology (ICT) at all levels of government set up in deliveringcitizen services to common man and also to the corporate world.

m-Governance

m-Governance is a sub-domain of e-Governance and it is not a replacement of e-Governance, through which the governments delivers their services to the citizensusing mobile devices. m-Governance is as an alternative to e-Governance especiallyfor the country like India, that has very large population of citizens where accessingor having the personal computers and internet usage is comparatively low ascompared to mobile phones. Hence, the alternative of m-Governance or mobileGovernance can help make public information and government services availableanytime and anywhere by bringing personalized, localized and context awareservices close to citizens and officials. Most of the government realized a longtime back that mobile is no longer a tool meant only for communication but it’sa medium for empowering the citizens and a powerful enabler of good governance.m-Governance can be defined as a strategy and its implementation involving theutilization of all kinds of wireless and mobile technologies, services, applicationsand devices. It improves upon the benefits for those involved in e-Governance,including citizens, businesses, and all government units. m-Governance offers agreat potential for enhancing the provision of basic public services, especially to


the poor and marginalized populations. Furthermore, it also enhances theparticipation of non-State agencies in critical democratic governance issues, suchas transparency, electoral processes, oversight of governments and public policymaking. While many m-governance efforts are essentially focused in the provisionof private services, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) interestlies in the improvement in terms of both quality and quantity of public servicesfor those who have little to no access to them.

Need for mGovernance in India

To know the relevance of mobile devices in developing countries such as India,we must know the benefit of these devices. The growth of mobile technology isincreasing rapidly day by day and every month, a new mobile device might comeout in the market. This grows with the demand and the use of mobile devices bythe users is increasing now a days. The high demand of mobile devices from theusers especially in developing countries such as India which has high populationis because of the benefits and advantages that they can get from these devices.Some of the advantages/benefits of the mobile devices are: Ready Availability,Low Cost, Easy Learning Curve and Location Based Services.

One of the India’s Government aims is to connect all the States, villages andeven every home in India through wireless broadband; so that, information canflow from any part of India to the home of any citizen anywhere in India even ina rural areas. Instead of the need of citizens to go to government agencies to getthe services, now those services come to the citizens through all the e-Governanceprojects and plans. But, because of the high population in India and as wellbecause of the slow pace at which the internet is spreading across the country,there will be a problem to reach e-Governance to all the citizens especially inrural areas. Hence, mobile devices technology has come out to improve thegovernment services delivery to the citizens with mobile technology. The handheld mobile device set can make in roads into even the remotest area and canhelp make public information and government services available at anytime,anywhere to citizens and officials.

In rural India, being able to store a number in contacts and then call thatcontact is a primary mechanism for overcoming traditional infrastructure


challenges, like learning the prices of goods at market. However, currently, mostmobile phones available to people in rural areas of India, have a text driven interface,making it near impossible for illiterate users to obtain and store contacts.Information in rural India isn’t centralized through census information, medicaland health records, or a regional phone book. Therefore, the contact lists onmobile phones become an extremely valuable mechanism for creating adhocnetworks that enable information sharing. For example, several research participantsrecorded the blood type of the contacts stored in their phone’s address book.These users were able to act on this information when medical emergencies occurredin their village. They could quickly identify possible donors for blood transfusionsand alert their network of the need. All these actions can be done through asimple piece of information stored in a mobile device. To show how data could bemade tangible, and how illiterate users could easily share contact information,Adaptive Path, a product experience and strategy design company created a conceptcalled MobilGlyph. Solving the “save a contact” problem for illiterate users becameone of the focuses for their project.

m-Governance allow for the use of mobile wireless communication technologywithin the government administration and tool for delivery of information andservices to citizens and business. The use of mobile technology in governmentsector not only provides an alternative channel of communication and public servicedelivery, but more importantly, it can address the mobility of government itselfwhere m-Government can help make public information and government servicesavailable anytime and anywhere by aware services close to citizens and officials.Therefore, these can help in reaching rural citizen to access government services.Transition from e-Government to m-Government requires researching the integrationprocess between the two. m-Governance is an add on to e-Government involvingthe utilization of all kinds of wireless and mobile technology, services, applicationsand devices for improving benefits to all parties involved in e-government includingcitizens, businesses and all government agencies. m-Governance can be powerfulcomponent of the e-Government in facilitating the delivery of more and betterservices to citizens. With the developments in mobile and wireless technologies,some applications and services of e- Government are being provided through mobiledevices, and yet these technologies are also opening ways to some unique and newapplications and services. In terms of technology involved, currently many mobile


government applications make use of SMS (short messaging service). Othertechnology includes Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), MMS and mobileinternet. It is expected that mobile internet will play a more significant role in nearfuture due to the development of 3G technologies and the capabilities to processmore information faster.

Mobile Devices in India

Though mobile phones have been available for over two decades, their exponentialspread in India during 2010-2011 is due to low cost and affordability, throughlarge number of players in 2G arena. Not only their penetration has exceededlandline, it is bound to displace the existing inefficient BSNL set up. Steve Jobsof Apple must get the credit for his launch of iPhone and iPad, smart devicesmeeting the diverse need of new generation.

Status of m-Governance in India

Today, India is moving towards m-Governance after major involvement in e-Governance. It’s a well known that Information and Communication Technology(ICT) is very essential for processing, storing, organizing, and presenting dataand information. The reasons for the keen interest in governing through mobileare not tough to guess. As the Indian telecom subscriber base reached theextraordinary figure of 700mn, mobile phones have become the most accessibletool of communication available to such a large population. Thus, making thebest way for delivery of information at citizen’s site is a personalized way. Withintwo decades of mobile launch in India, mobile phone has reached at remote ruralhamlet despite the much known hurdles like lack of connectivity and power andlow level of literacy. In the other side, it has created lakhs of direct and indirectjob opportunities for youth.

In the second phase of the development, it has emerged as a delivery channel fordifferent kind of services and now anyone can transfer amount from one bank accountto another using their mobile phone. Government and private agencies have alsostarted using “Mobile Phone” to deliver citizen and business services to commonman. Recently, Reserve Bank of India has allowed commercial banks to providebanking services on mobile phone, whereas Government of India has approved the“Framework for delivering financial services through mobile phone” developed by


Inter-ministerial group. After the launch of 3G technologies in India, users will beable to access health, educational, agricultural, infotainment services on their mobilephone. Around 54 Gram Panchayats in five remote blocks of West Bengal State willsoon have SMS alerts on disasters, funds inflow and outflow, information abouthealth camps and pulse polio campaigns will be sent to and from between the Statedepartments, district offices and Gram Panchayats, block development offices. InIndia, m-Governance is still at a nascent or new stage. While many innovativeapplications are underway in both private sector as well as government domains, itmay be a little premature to celebrate its success. However, embracing the possibilitiesand opportunities that this technology provides will only lead to an effective andcost-efficient way of exploiting the same.

Current m-Governance project and services in India

The project and services that currently provided by Government of India throughm-Governance are:

i) The latest M-service added is The electoral Details on Mobile

Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) has added a new m-service by whichcitizens can check their Voter ID details by sending an SMS. The votersjust need to send the message ELE to the Kerala m-Governance short code537252 and the sender will get the details regarding his/her voter detailsRoll No, and polling station. Another example is that Gujarat State ElectionCommission has developed a project called ‘Online Voting System’ for itsLocal Body Elections in October 2010 and in April 2011.

ii) Mobile Banking in India

In India, Banking sector has become more customers friendly to providebanking services through mobile phone. It has given an opportunity tocustomers to update themselves about Account balance, transactions anddo the transfer of amount from one Account to another. All the public andprivate sector banks in India have started providing their different servicesthrough mobile phone. Currently they are offering banking services throughmobile free of cost (except some bank) but customers have to bear the costof mobile service providers.


List of the banks offering banking services on mobile handset (Source: http://www.indg.in/e-governance/mobilegovernance/mobile-banking):

iii) Common Citizen Services in India using Mobile devices

Some examples of common citizen services using mobile devices are IndianMeteorological Dept’s Weather Information, Kisan Call Centre’s Agriculturerelated queries solution, CBSE’s Exam result of class 10 and 12 and so on.DataQuest (May 2011) may be referred for detailed list.

Suggested Proposal for moving from e-Governance to m-Governance in India

Within two years from now which has a time frame till Oct 2013, it is suggestedthat policy makers of India should implement m-Governance using below sixphases to get better m-Governance services in order to give complements to e-Governance:

Phase 1: Making all government websites mobile compliant/mobile site accessshould be promoted. All government agencies should use mobile optimized contentas a primary method for device support.

Phase 2: Plan strategies to popularize the use of mobile devices technology inrural areas by giving subsidies, training and guidelines.

Currently, m-Governance status in India still at the starting level and in factstill new to the citizens especially for the Indian citizens in rural areas whereas theurban citizens are most aware of the mobile technologies that are growing increasinglynowadays. While most of the Indian rural areas are not aware and interested aboutthe mobile technologies that are growing increasingly nowadays, and in fact someof them never use and own at least a mobile phone. If this condition still happens,the services that are provided by the government through the mobile devices mightnot reach the citizen. The government should plan a strategy how to popularize theuse of mobile devices among the Indian rural citizens. Most of the Indian ruralcitizens have lack of knowledge about these technologies, because they are bornand live in poor condition which might prevent them to own and use suchtechnologies. To overcome this problem, the government should provide and givesubsidy to own a mobile phone and they should be given a training how to use that


mobile device. They also should be given knowledge what are the benefits they canget from the mobile technologies and why these technologies are becoming famousfor other areas and countries. The Government of India should come out with theplans and strategies to formulate guidelines about the use of mobile devices andenable government departments to provide services from mobile phones like payingutility bills etc. It also should aims to formulate standards for applications for easyinteroperability of services across multiple service providers and multiple Governmentdepartments and other agencies.

Phase 3: Implement m-Governance by developing mobile applications in locallanguages and more mobile utilization applications.

Phase 4: Plan strategies to popularize the use of mobile devices technologyamong all citizens by education.

To popularize the mobile technologies among all the citizens, they should beintroduced to such technologies since their early childhood. Currently in India,most of urban kids are already exposed with those technologies but the problemis for the kids in rural areas. To overcome this problem, the government shouldprovide more learning by using the mobile technologies in the education spacein India. This learning method is called as m-learning. Whereas m-learning appsalready exist in the education in India but this learning method might still notin use in rural areas. Meanwhile, the government should expand m-learningmethod to all the school areas in India even in rural areas, so that, all the citizensmight be exposed with those technologies. This strategy will change the mindsetof rural citizens about the mobile technologies.

Phase 5: Develop mechanisms and platforms for the good design and deliveryof mobile Governance.

To improve the m-Governance in India, it is proposed that development ofsuitable mechanisms to enable users to pay for public services through mobilephones, and develop and deploy innovative public private partnership. Multistakeholder partnership models for the design and delivery of mobile governanceservices should come out. It will also encourage the development of cloud-basedimplementation models. Besides that, a platform should be proposed for the way


the mobile services deliver to the citizens which will be fully integrated with existinginfrastructure created under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). All ministriesand departments will be able to start offering their services on this platform.

Phase 6: Implement laws for mobile Governance for better m-Governanceservices.

As we know, m-Governance is the complements of e-Governance so that m-Governance should provide services in a better way rather than e-Governanceservices. To achieve this vision, Government of India should come out with somelaws to get the better services from m-Governance to overcome the problem thatare still faced by e-Governance such as corruption. The laws that should be enactedby the government are such as Privacy Law, Data Protection Law and LegalEnablement for better m-Governance.

Challenges for m-Governance in India

To facilitate the deployment of m-Governance services reach to the citizens, it isessential to critically examine the challenges that have traditionally being the ‘entrybarriers’. Here, we can define those challenges into technical challenges andmanagement challenges. The main challenges of m-Governance are typically thesame as those of e-Governance, such as low levels of computerization of governmentoperations at the back-end, lack of digitized data or content and change management.As mentioned above, that the challenges for m-Governance in India have traditionallybeen the ‘entry barriers’. Some of these ‘entry barriers’ which we can put it asmanagement and technical challenges in m-Governance includes:

i) Cost: m-Governance tends to be yet one further channel for e-governance,in which case it will create additional costs. This will continue until m-Governance can truly substitute for other delivery channels. Suchsubstitution will be viable for applications within government.

ii) Low levels of literacy

The low levels of literacy in India mostly happening in the rural areas.Currently, most mobile phones available have a text driven interface, makingit near impossible for illiterate users to obtain, read and get any informationprovided by the government.


iii) Lack of knowledge of English language

80% of Indian citizens speak and understand only the local languageswhile only 5% of them have knowledge and understand English language.But, most of mobile devices applications are developed using Englishlanguage. So, this factor will give challenge to the m-Governance servicesto reach their services to the citizens especially in rural areas through mobiledevices.

iv) Computer illiteracy

The computer illiteracy problem in India will also pose challenge to m-Governance application reaching the citizens. This is because some mobiledevices are using technology in m-Governance which is related to computerbased devices such as tablet PC, iPad, iPhone etc. Therefore, the computerilliterate users might face problems and difficulties to access governmentservices which are offered through such mobile devices.

v) Not enough facilities in mobile devices for m-Governance

Though, in India the costs of mobile devices and calls are perhaps thelowest in the world, in order to effectively deliver government services onmobile devices, we need very simple text messaging solutions. For example,if a person has to put details in a form etc, he/she cannot do so if suchfacilities are not available in the current devices. Therefore, the immediateoption is to look at mobile devices that combine computing with mobilityand are affordable.

vi) To develop application in each of local languages

Another challenge is to develop applications that can be offered in each oflocal languages. Because India is facing a lack of knowledge of Englishlanguage challenge, the applications that can be offered in local languagesshould be developed. But, it still has another challenge where currently,India has 22 different national languages which will give major challengesfor developers.

vii) Trust/security

If m-Governance is to encompass m-payment systems or other transactional


public services, then it must have good security and must be trusted. As yet,there is still a credibility gap to be crossed for many mobile device users.

The mobile nature of information poses a significant challenge at thegovernment level. Data no longer simply resides within the network. Itexists on mobile devices and data that is on a network can be accessedfrom virtually anywhere. In addition, compromising a mobile device itselfcan place the government at risk. The present cloud computing beingoffered will further aggravate the security environment.

viii) Data overload

Mobile devices increase the pressures of a world in which users arepermanently connected. These connections increase the number of messagescirculating and can cause a blizzard of communications by spam, junk andunwanted messages. Govt of India has just restricted the number of SMSper day to 100 to control such eventuality.

Conclusion

The research study done at IIIT, Hyderabad on the m-Governance in India is togive a better view of the government services through mobile devices technology.The discussion on this application has brought many issues, challenges and ideasinvolving m-Governance applications in India. In India, m-Governance is still atnew stage and still need for more improvement to get a better m-Governance.While many innovative applications are underway in both private sector as wellas government domains, it may be a little premature to celebrate its success andstill need for the improvement. The proposed suggested plan for the m-Governancein India is to give better e-Governance environment in each phase. The proposalcovers the strategy that could be accepted by Government of India in order tomake m-Governance success and get acceptance by all citizens. Currently, m-Governance in India is still facing challenges in both management and technology.Hence, to improve the m-Governance in India, some suggestions have beenrecommended which are to overcome those challenges in order to implement m-Governance and make it successful in next few years.


References

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www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/mar2000/nf00302b.htm. Accessed June 9,

2011.

DATAQUEST site, E-GOVERNANCE: 20 Hot eGov Projects in India available at: http://

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Designing Mobile Technology for Emerging Markets “Rural India” available at: http://blog.i2fly.com/?p=978. Accessed May 20, 2011.

e-Gov (Magazine), May 2011, Vol. 07, Issue 05.

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Pages/MobileGov.aspx. Accessed May 18, 2011.

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India Development Gateway official site available at: http://www.indg.in/india. Accessed

May 18,2011.

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http://voicendata.ciol.com/content/NetworkingPlus/210010501.asp.

Accessed Jun 1,2011.

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10603. Accessed May 18, 2011.

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2007/q1/20070326_egovernment.shtml. Accessed May 19,2011.

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detail?itemId=1074298219&type=RESOURCES. Accessed May 18,2011.

Nicholas Carr: The Big Switch; Rewiring the World from Edison to Google published by

WW Norton & Company New York 2008

Rachel Hinman, MobilGlyph: Making Data Tangible. Available at: http://adaptivepath.com/

ideas/mobilglyph-making-data-tangible. Accessed May 19, 2011.

Romit Pandey and KS Vijaya Sekhar: From e-Governance to m-Governance: The wayforward paper submitted to ICEG-2011.

Saaransh – A compendium of Mission Mode Projects under NeGP, January 2011.


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The iPad 2 – Price, Features, Availability – Everything You Need to Know! Available at: http:/

/www.redmondpie.com/ipad-2-price-specs-features-availability-everything-you-need-to-

know/. Accessed June 18, 2011.

The Times of India Newspaper, Hyderabad, Monday, May 30, 2011.

K S Vijaya Sekhar, Pursuing his PhD in Dr BR Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad.email:[email protected], R K Bagga, Advisor – IIIT-H, email: [email protected] Binti Mohd Noor, M.Tech, IIIT-H, email: [email protected]

SECTION II

e-Governance Success Stories

State Level Initiatives

1. Background

One of the very important nomination categories that SIG team anticipates with

pride of doing assessment is the State category Nomination. Though the nominations

are few the motivation and competitiveness amongst the nominees is high and

enthusiastic. Last year the award was aptly won by the State of Gujarat and the

previous year it was the State of Madhya Pradesh.

This year we had more than five States showing their intent to participate. We

are presenting here a summary of two nominations that were invited for

presentation.

A. State of Andhra Pradesh

1. Intent of Submission

The Government of Andhra Pradesh has a comprehensive view of ICT as a

vehicle for transforming Andhra Pradesh into a knowledge-based, economically

vibrant, democratic and inclusive society. By the term “inclusive,” the

Government means that the benefits of the socioeconomic transformation

possible through ICT should reach every single citizen of the State. State has a

vision of empowering with the latest technology, in all sections like High Quality

Education, e-Governance, Healthcare, Institute of excellence, Infrastructure etc.

CHAPTER 7

State Nominations Summary

Shri Prabhu Gollamudi


In the endeavor to achieve”inclusive society’” addressing the MDG(Millennium Development Goals) GoAP envisaged the ICT as an enabler of allother sectors, including economic, social, environmental and governance sectors.

This enabling role of ICT encompasses the concept of ICT for development(ICT4D), reflecting the contribution that ICTs can make to the development inall sectors.

• Economic Sector: Agriculture, Industry (Manufacturing, Pharma, Mining andTourism) and Services

• Social Sector: Especially Education and Health

• Environment Sector: agricultural extension programmes, disaster early warningsystems

• Government Sector: Digital and Connected Governance

Access to the right information is a means of local and community empowermentand helps people enhance their capacity to sustain themselves.

This nomination is an attempt to retrospect the journey to achieve improvedtransparency, speedy information dissemination and higher administrative efficiencyand improved public services leading to the overall impact of

• the citizens getting connected to the department more easily

• Achieving efficiency in public service delivery through faster dissemination ofdepartment’s information to a larger audience.

• Reduction of the cases of corruption as accountability and transparency isincreased and the Department’s activities are easily monitored.

• Providing equal opportunity to access to information is provided regardless ofone’s physical location and physical disability. Reach all the stakeholders whoneed government services regardless of their location, status, language,

• Breaking the barriers of bureaucracy experienced generally in the governmentoffices as the hindrances caused by those in ‘power’ are removed and the servicesare offered regardless of one’s background.

63State Nominations Summary

• Interdepartmental exchange of information is facilitated

• Convergence of related services by linking with the servers of theparticipating departments leading to significant reduction of transactioncosts, time, space, and manpower.

2. e-Governance Vision of Andhra Pradesh

“The Government of Andhra Pradesh is committed to build a people-centered,inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone cancreate, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals,communities and people to achieve their full potential in promoting sustaineddevelopment and improving their quality of life.”

3. Level of e-Governance

The nominee has presented the following status of level of eGovernance whichhelps in looking at the road map for future.

High Medium Low

Rural Development Registration PR/RWS

Commercial Taxes Municipal R&B

Civil Supplies Revenue Irrigation

Welfare Finance Education

Arogyashree Tourism Health

Treasury Energy

Transport Housing

Police

4. Summary

State has presented a very good continuity of initiatives earlier launched and the earlyleadership role the State enjoyed in terms of setting directions for the other States isvisible in use of Infrastructure and resources. In terms of new initiatives the State hasrecently launched ‘Mee Seva’ the results for which are expected to be visible very soon asthey State has worked out an aggressive plan for spreading the service.


B. State of Chhattisgarh*

1. Intent of Submission

Chhattisgarh, a 21st century State, came into existence on November 1, 2000.The State with wide-ranging socio-economic disparities consists of overwhelmingSC/ST population and the literacy rate is only 65%. 44% area of the State iscovered with forests and 80% of the population of State is largely rural, which hadlargely remained untouched by modern development. Implementation ofeGovernance in this ecology is a challenge of altogether different dimension.

Good Governance is the highest priority in this Fast Track State. State hasinitiated some key eGovernance initiatives, to transform the way the governmentinteracts with its citizens and redefine the nature of relationship by providing aseamless and consistent service to the citizens. Chhattisgarh state has madeconsiderable progress in electronic delivery of government services to rural andurban populations in implementing pro-poor e-Governance. Progress is largelyin a) to clarity to the objectives of pro-poor targeting, b) to ensure delivery ofpublic services in rural and urban areas, c) balanced standardization andlocalization, d) leveraging private sector and build PPPs to serve rural areas.

We are successful in taking our mega e-governance projects like Bhuiyan, PDS,CHOiCE / CSC, eProcurement, CGSWAN across the state where the citizensget access to the Government services at village level. In a few years time,Chhattisgarh would be one of the front line states in transforming the pilot projectsto successful state-wide roll out since we follow a collaborative, coordinated andan institution based decision making approach during the process oftransformation. State e- Governance Mission Team has started functioning in thestate. District e-Governance Committee has been formed in all districts withCollector as Chairperson for proper coordination and monitoring e-Governanceprojects at district level.

Chhattisgarh has emerged as a leading state which delivers e-Governance projectsto the most ambitious scales for its citizen. The focus of the applications is on bothinternal efficiency and service delivery to citizen. In the latest ‘e-Readiness report’released by Department of Information Technology, Govt. of India, Chhattisgarh



has been placed at top in the category of select ‘Advanced States’ in the field of e-Governance. In the Dataquest-IDC survey also, Chhattisgarh was placed at no. 3in the country in ‘The Indian States e-Governance Score Card’. Besides,Chhattisgarh has achieved distinction of being first in India in the field ofeGovernance on several accounts and has bagged awards and accolades includingPrime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration, UNDP Award, eWorldAward, National e-Governance Award, CSI Nihilent Award, eIndia Award, ManthanSouth Asia Award, Skoch eGovernance Award, Best of Open Source in India Award,Indian Geospatial Award, India-tech Excellence Award. CHiPS, the IT Agency of theState Govt. is the first ISO certified government organization in the state which indicatesstate commitment towards process standardization and continuous evaluationmechanism

2. e-Governance VISION of Chhattisgarh

The State’s IT policy has been designed to achieve Government’s vision of creatingan ‘e’nabled Society effectively contributing to the social and economicdevelopment of the State, where there are no islands of elitism or isolated conclavesof wisdom. Government of Chhattisgarh, in its new Industrial Policy has declaredindustries falling under Information Technology and ITeS in the list of PrioritySector Industries of the State in order to encourage investment in IT industry inthe state. Towards this end, the State is ensuring appropriate financial andoperational support is extended to entrepreneurs and enterprises in the ITindustry. The projects including eProcurement, CHOiCE, SWAN, SDC, CSCetc. are being implemented on PPP model ensuring minimum financial burdenon the State Government while implementing state-of-the-art e-Governanceprojects. Utmost importance is being given to address and frame policies for thesecurity aspects related to e-Governance projects being undertaken in the State,It is worthwhile to mention that we have already adopted the state-of-art securityfeatures of PKI enabled tools like usage of Bio-metric and Smart Card devices andDigital Signature Certificate along with the normal usage of the login-ids andpasswords. The Government recognizes the need to democratize he informationtechnology ownership, control and its use.


Chhattisgarh is the first State in India which has systematically developedan eGovernance Road Map in order to identify the various IT needs and prioritiesof the departments and also the first state to frame Chhattisgarh Citizen Service(Electronic Governance) Rules, 2003 in accordance with IT Act 2000 of Govt.of India.


Government as part of strategy has created a society in the form of CHiPS (Chhattisgarhinfotech & biotech Promotion Society) for all requirement of IT in State. Societyprovides necessary flexibility to Government to cater to unique requirement to sunrisesector like Information Technology. In order to give a direct message that InformationTechnology is a top priority area for Government, the portfolio of InformationTechnology as Minister in-charge is held by Hon’ble Chief Minister himself. FurtherChief Minister is also the chairperson of CHiPS. This ensures that IT ownership is athighest level and horizontal and vertical coordination and collaboration are easy andsmooth. At the next level an Empowered Committee has been constituted, duly approved& empowered by Cabinet, which is headed by Chief Secretary of the State and PrincipalSecretaries / Secretaries of important Departments as its members. District e-GovernanceCommittees have been formed in all districts with Collector as Chairperson forproper coordination and monitoring e-Governance projects at district level. State e-Governance Mission Team has started functioning in the state. Further, separate cellhas been formed for NeGP projects like SWAN, CSC, eProcurement, SDC etc. forproper coordination and monitoring at the State level.

Government has paid a very focused attention on the capacity building. In a veryambitious programme, 4000 Government employees including the humble Class IVemployees were trained on computer. Chhattisgarh was the 1st State in countrywhere the Hon’ble Chief Minister along with its senior Cabinet colleagues attended a2 day workshop on Smart Government at ISB Hyderabad organised by NISG. Theprogramme was so successful that NISG has made it a regular module and many otherStates have also undergone similar training. Similarly IT training programme wasarranged for Hon’ble MLAs of the State and specialised training like ProjectManagement, GPR & Change Management for senior Government officials of allDepartments. Under Specialized Training Programme in eGovernance (STeP), 3 batches


of senior officials across major department of State Govt. has been trained throughNISG. Under ICT at School project, computer training is being given to students/teachers of 1900 schools in the state.

A separate IT/e-Governance Training wing is being set-up at AdministrativeAcademy of State for training to employees / officials of state in eGovernance.

Award Winner during CSI Nihilent e-Governance Awards 2010-11.

4. Summary

The presentation by State representative gave a broader eye view of the ICT road mapand the pro active support being enjoyed from leadership. The successful replication ofprojects like CHOICE across State has been presented and factors for success elaborated.The importance of capacity building to address future IT growth has been shared andexplained on their plans. Focus on staff training and training of leadership teams seemsto have paid some dividends as per the State team.

Shri Prabhu Gollamudi, IT consultant, email: [email protected]

SECTION III

e-Governance Initiatives Success StoriesDepartment Initiatives

Shri C Madhukar Raj and Shri P K Sharma

I) Overview

Forest Department of Andhra Pradesh has adopted Information Technology in a bigway as DSS for the Management of natural resources in Planning and Implementationof different projects. Modern technologies like Remote Sensing (RS), GeographicalInformation System (GIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) & DGPS havebeen deployed in the day-to-day administration and management of forests andmonitoring various activities, which has led to improvement in efficiency, transparencyand ease of monitoring. The Dept. has executed GIS and RS-based projects in thepast like Vegetation Cover Monitoring, Fire Risk Zonation Mapping, Site Suitabilityof Water Harvesting Structures and Site suitability of Plantations. It has also carriedout Statewide Inventory of Forest Resources using modern tools and carried outsurvey of assets of VSS, Forest Blocks and Forest Conservation Act areas using DGPS.The Dept. has also deployed a number of web-based Forests Management InformationSystem Modules for monitoring various activities of the Department and been apioneer among the Forest Depts. of the country.

APFD has brought out a comprehensive report on the growing stock and thestatus of forests in the State of Andhra Pradesh in 2010 based on the field workcarried out between 2006 and 2008, titled “Andhra Pradesh Forest InventoryReport, 2010”. It was a unique venture of a large scale Statewide inventory of theforests resources, attempted for the first time in the country. The department hasalso brought out comprehensive reports on the forest cover changes at the lowest

CHAPTER 8

Andhra Pradesh Forest Department*



level of forest administration, i.e., Beat level, during 2010 and 2011 in the form of“Andhra Pradesh State of Forest Report 2010” and “Andhra Pradesh State ofForest Report 2011” using Remote Sensing data.

It has taken a new initiative of online MIS, APFMIS with a view to createalmost paperless offices, reducing redundancy at all levels of the hierarchy forobtaining data from the field level officers through customized data capturemodules and generating reports for various levels of Officers and providing themwith a tool to analyze the data for better administration and improving efficiencyat all levels.

The Department has also been building the capacity of department’s officialsin the use of modern technologies.

As recognition of the efforts at national level helps motivate the teams engagedin the development and transfer the services employing modern technologies,hence the APFD is submitting the nomination.

Andhra Pradesh is the 4th largest state with 2nd largest forest area in the countrywith an area of 63,814 Km2; around 23% of the Geographical area. Thedepartment is organized into (13) territorial Circles and (14) functional Circles;(46) territorial Divisions and (62) functional Divisions; (204) territorial Rangesand (222) functional Ranges; (930) territorial Sections and (759) functionalSections and (2611) territorial Beats and (305) functional Beats. (1458) Asst.Beat Officers assist the FBOs. The primary function of the AP Forest departmentis protection, conservation and management of forests, wildlife and Bio-diversity.Managing this vast natural resource has been a herculean task. Efficient ForestResource Management requires capturing rapid, reliable and accurate informationabout the status of various activities connected with Forest and Wildlife. Thisrequires strengthening the current forest planning and management systems usinglatest technologies and development expertise in-house. The Department hasbeen traditionally managing vast amount of data and images manually, whichwas cumbersome and time consuming. The modern technologies make the abovetask simpler and increase efficiency by cutting down the time on redundantactivities. Therefore, Andhra Pradesh Forest Department has started out in makinguse of modern tools of Geomatics like RS, GIS, GPS and MIS in aiding the

73Andhra Pradesh Forest Department

planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation of all the activities. These steps areleading to development of a robust Decision Support System (DSS) for the Department.

The Dept. has acquired expertise in a relatively new field and has developed ateam in-house to handle all the technologies. The following are some of theProjects executed by the Department, using Remote Sensing, GIS, GPS andWeb technologies.

1. Spatial Database creation

2. Vegetation cover Monitoring

3. Fire Risk Zonation Mapping

4. Selection of Suitable Sites of Water Harvesting Structures,

5. Wildlife Habitat Mapping and Bio-diversity Characterization. (Some key areas)

6. Selection of Suitable Sites for Eco-tourism (Some key areas)

7. Selection of Suitable Sites for Coffee and other Plantations. (Some key areas)

8. Andhra Pradesh Forest Inventory

9. Micro-level Watershed Planning using DGPS (Some key areas)

10. Recognition of Forest Rights under RoFR Act (Some areas completed andremaining areas in progress)

11. Online GIS services using Enterprise GIS Server

12. Online Andhra Pradesh Forest Management Information System (APFMIS),etc.

The efforts of the Dept. have been recognized by the Govt. of India in the pastand have been awarded with Silver Icon during the year 2004 for “Fire Risk ZonationMapping” and with Golden Icon for “Site Suitability of Water Harvesting Structures”during the year 2005 for excellence in the e-Governance Initiatives.

The output of the above initiatives has been made available to all the Officers andStaff and the communities, who have been sensitized in the use of these technologies


in day to day administration and preparation of Micro Plans at the VSS level,respectively.

II) Result Indicators

1. Key Performance

a. Service Delivered (G2C, G2B, G2G, G2E)

G2G: Most of the activities of the department in the past were highly timeconsuming, giving very little time for proper analysis and use in the decisionmaking. To elucidate this point, it is to inform that identification of encroachmentsin the forests was highly time consuming for the field officers, especially in thehilly terrain. Now with the deployment of RS, GIS and GPS technologies, theofficers can straight away walk to the sites and take appropriate action. It saves90% of time of the field officers.

The Work Estimates are being prepared by the executive officers using APFMIS byselecting readily available menus and time is greatly saved and it is not prone to errors.

The reports generated through various modules of APFMIS at various levelsare highly useful and time saving. This time is reduced to a fraction compared tothe time needed in data collection compilation and use through snail mail. APFMISremoves manual and subjective errors/biases.

Initial cost of procurement of hardware, software is high but in long term itwill prove to be highly cost-effective as the benefits in terms of empowering theofficers at all levels and enabling them in taking correct and timely decisions willfar outweigh the costs.

G2C: Various types of maps and vector layers of Forest areas and Reports ofForest Inventory, State of Forest Reports and various other reports are kept on theweb for the use of general public. This brings in transparency in the operationsand aids the Researchers in advancing their works. This serves as a sensitizer tocommunities and other sister organizations. The NGOs can also make use of thedata for their projects.


b. Implementation Coverage

The Implementation coverage is whole of the 63,814 Sq. Km of Forest Area of AndhraPradesh (All the items mentioned in 2-2) area-wise and 50% functions-wise. Futureplans are to provide PDAs to field officers enabling them to enter data on the centralserver direct from the field specially pertaining to offence cases (Registering of PORs),Nurseries, Plantations, Wildlife Monitoring, etc. and to cover all the remaining functions(pertaining to HRM and HRD, Budgeting & Accounts, JFM, Timber sales,Establishment matters, etc.) in the next 1-2 years.

2. Efficiency Improvement Initiatives

a. Time and Cost Efficiency

The time of the executive officers and staff, regional officers and Head Office Officers aswell as staff is saved as the data is received almost on time basis and period of wait, whichsometimes ranged up to 6 months, is reduced to a maximum of 1 week. As this data isavailable on the web, is available to stakeholders as well as general public. Now theyneed not approach various offices for supply of information.

b. Innovative ideas Implemented

Both, the department officials as well as common public and stakeholders arebenefited. For example, even the clearance of Forests for encroachments, isidentifiable to sub-Hectare level. This precise information helps the field officersin effectively and timely dealing with the Offenders. It is also leading to increasein the accountability on the part of field.

The Applicants for Mining Licenses, New Sawmill Licenses etc. can easilycome to know if the proposed location/s and the extent are falling inside the RF/proposed RF or a WLS or NP; by plotting it on Arc GIS Server and makeappropriate decision. It relieves the dependence of the public on the FD for eachand every work.

c. Integration with Other Departments

The facilities available have extensively used by Rural Development department,specially the IWMP, for better management of the Watersheds.


The services have also been utilized by the Tribal Welfare Department in mappingof the rights of the Tribals and Traditional Forest Dwellers under RoFR Act, 2006.

Irrigation department, Electricity department and others like GHMC etc. havealso benefited from the facilities of the Geomatics in the Department.

III) Enabler Indicators

1. Department Policy and Strategy

a. eGov/ICT Vision and Road Map

A new ICT Vision document is prepared in year 2011 focusing on A to Z of the ICTin the department. It includes ICT hardware, software, human resource, connectivityand other infrastructure; and sources of funds for the same including CapacityBuilding of the Department Officers and staff. It is being sent to Centre for GoodGovernance/APTS for vetting. However, as per the APO of 2011-12 of the CAMPA-NPV Project and the 13th Finance Commission Schemes (i.e., major sources offunding), action to procure H/W, S/W and CB is going on.

b. Sharing of Common Infrastructure

APFD has been striving to achieve excellence and avoid duplication of works. In thisendeavor it has obtained as well as shared data and common infra-structure with theForest Survey of India, Dehradun & the NIC at national level and The NRSCHyderabad and AP State Remote Sensing Applications Center (APSRAC) at Statelevel. The AP Forest department has been providing its GPS and other Lab facilitiesat nominal rates to Other Government departments. Besides, it is helping/guidingmany students of the Universities and Colleges in pursuance of their Degrees, PGand Doctoral thesis.

c. Technology Standardization

A Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has been constituted by the StateGovernment Order (G.O.Ms.No.121 dated 04-12-2009, EFS&T (For-III)Dept.) by nominating Members from various National and State level organizationslike NRSC Hyderabad, MoEF GoI New Delhi, FSI Dehradun, APSRACHyderabad and Officers of the AP Forest Department to guide the activities ofthe GIS wing. All the activities are undertaken as per the advice of the experts.


Besides the above, there are Technical Committees for various purposes constitutedby the PCCF for data standardization as well as procurement of IT-relatedequipment and software and services.

2. Process Re-engineering and Reforms

a. Major Non-ICT front end Process Changes

In the past, all procurements were done following the traditional method ofcalling for tenders etc. by giving paper notification. Now it has been replacedwith the system of e-Procurement to have greater participation and to ensuretransparency and fair play.

Traditional method of surveys has given way to GPS/DGPS surveys saving lotof effort and time. Around 2000 GPS sets are available in the field. In the pasteach Division was provided with an Arc-View GIS and now all the requiredfunctions have been made available through web-enabled Arc-GIS Server. Thecustomization is nearing completion.

It is planned to procure PDAs with GPRS connectivity and cameras to monitormost of the important activities like wildlife sightings, seizure of forest producein offence cases, plantation details, nursery stocks; including movement of staffand their field observations. This will enable better monitoring by the superiorsand will provide timely guidance to the field officers.

b. Major Non-ICT back end process changes

As the GIS and MIS are in use in the Department for last 10 years, the back-endICT is ready for general applications. However, it is planned to integrate all thedata collected using geo coordinates and the unique codes to each geographicalunit and person within a period of next 6 months.


a. Leadership Support and Visibility

The AP Government and the APFD leadership in particular, is highly pro ICT.They are providing all the budget, support and guidance needed for deployment of theICT Plan.


b. Change Management Strategy

It is planned to manage the change by regular trainings to all the concerned on thenew technologies and applications. Training modules have been prepared keeping inview the needs of various categories of the Officers and staff in various fields. Further,CB activities have also been decentralized; certain trainings and programes will beconducted at State HQ level, while others would be at Circle, District, Division andRange level, so that benefit of changes proposed is quickly disseminated to the groundlevel.

c. Capacity Building Plan and its Implementation

It goes with the change management programe. Capacities of the officers andstaff would be strengthened by custom made, decentralized training programes.

d. Program Management Teams

Yes, the programe management teams, known as Core Functional Groups (CFGs),are in place. They are full time department officials, having been identified basedupon their aptitudes, expertise and domain knowledge with interest in the fieldof ICT. They are supported by programmers and GIS scientists, taken oncontractual basis.

IV) Value Indicators

1. Digital Inclusion

Steps taken to address this factor

Stakeholders, specially the frontline staff and the Communities (VSS members)are being educated in the use of new technologies in their own mother tongue.Manuals and reading material are being provided in Telugu. Some Web-Mobileapplications are also proposed to be in Vernacular language, besides English.

2. eParticipation

Steps taken to address this factor:

Most of the information is being captured through Web-based applications. Manysuch applications are in place and many more are in the pipeline.


3. eWaste


The e-Waste generated is being recycled/disposed of as per the Orders issued inG.O.Ms. No.24 dated 03-09-2010 by the Government of Andhra Pradesh aspart of its eGov initiative

Shri C. Madhukar Raj, IFS, Prl. Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of ForestForce, Andhra Pradesh, e-mail: [email protected] and Sri P K Sharma, IFS,Addl. Prl. Chief Conservator of Forests (IT), AP Forest Department, Govt. of AndhraPradesh, e-mail: [email protected]


Dr Hiren Joshi


I) Overview

On June 23, the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), Gujarat, won the prestigious 2010United Nations Public Service Award (UNPSA) for innovative use of informationtechnology to address public grievances. CMO is also certified ISO 9001:2008 sincelast three years with scope related to administration and overall governance. Effectiveuse of IT has played an important role in getting this certification. CM officeimplements the e-Government strategies and professional IT development whichcontribute to achieve positive transformation – ‘Change for Performance’. CMOplays a vital role in sustaining the democratic ethos of the society and ensuring a highlevel of transparency in governance. Chief Minister Office (CMO) is the focal pointof GoG performing innovative, constructive and result-oriented progressive policiesfor the promotion of e-governance in the State. It acts as a catalyst to play a significantrole in the affairs of the State.

Overall governance of the state with efficiency and transparency is the primaryobjective of the Chief Minister’s Office. It adopts leadership, people, process,partnership and resources in process to enhance e-governance initiatives of GoG.

Active participation in e-governance by Hon’ble CM with infrastructure,policies and e-governance road map, charter to implement ICT as a vehicle fortransforming Gujarat into a knowledge-based, economically vibrant, democratic

CHAPTER 9

eGovernance at Chief Minister’sOffice (CMO)*

81eGovernance at Chief Minister’s Office (CMO)

and inclusive society. CMO plays a vital role in sustaining the democratic ethosof the society and ensuring a high level of transparency in governance. It furtherfocuses on ‘digital gap’ and implements ICT-enabled egovernance in almostevery sector of socio-economic activity ranging from industrial production toeducation and public healthcare for improvement in the quality and efficiencyof human endeavors. It encourages E-readiness initiatives in CMO and allministerial and department offices.

The experience gained shows that the major challenges that are faced by GujaratState Government to implement an e-Governance project are:

1. to overcome inertia to change work culture

2. to upgrade skills and increase awareness

3. to introduce changes in infrastructure

4. to redefine rules and procedures (legal/tech)

5. to ensure security

Having overcome challenges, Some of the remarkable ‘Changes forPerformance’ achieved are:

1. Effective policy making

2. Ensured ‘Environment-Friendly’ office

3. Development of a collaborative and structured work environment

4. Efficient work/task prioritization

5. Enhanced and efficient monitoring and control of various files, work itemsof CMO

6. Enhanced internal information exchange

7. Building up a sharable knowledge base system

8. Automated the routine tasks

9. Automated the generation of file number and tracking

10. Standardized common processes

11. Reduced cycle times and dependencies

12. 24*7 access to relevant information


This section should give high level introduction to the Department and shouldexplain the overall approach to the e-Governance plan and current status.

e-Governance is visualized as Governance by a ‘SMART’ Government at CMOwhich is Systematic, Methodical, Accountable, Responsive and Transparentgovernment.

CMO overhaul Major Initiatives for strategic performance with its enhancedIT Policy 2006-2011. CMO encourages E-Readiness Initiatives in all departmentswith IT Action Plan with a one year focus and a five-year perspective. CM motivatesand encourages other ministerial and Department Offices for E-readiness andimplements workplace task force to perform as per his vision and mission.

Primary Activities of the Chief Minister Office

The main activities of the CMO in coordination with various department Boards,Corporations, Heads of the Department, etc. are as under:

1. Effective and better governance of overall state activities.

2. Ensuring overall economic, cultural, social progress of the state.

3. Appointing different ministers for regulation of various departments.

4. Effective utilization of the budget.

5. Provided better infrastructure facilities and safety measures to the citizens.

6. Regulation of funds collected from the taxes for the betterment of thecitizens of the state.

7. Providing funds to the needy and the victims of natural calamities fromthe “CM Relief Fund”.

8. Introducing, implementing and monitoring the different schemes.

9. Timely and optimum utilization of all the natural resources available.

10. Promote foreign trade and improve relations with neighboring states.

11. Managing in-house work flow like Secretarial Functioning within GoGDepartments, Effective Time Management with CM’s Schedule, PRO/Media Meetings/Programs/Public Forum/CM. Instruction for state imagebuilding and justification of negative news/program/trends. Approval ofall media press notes/program clips before publishing


Major eGovernance and reach of initiatives

1. Policy/strategy drafting is initiated by CMO for functioning efficientlyand to achieve its public mission to provide convenience to citizens alongwith sustainability, innovation and reliability.

2. Implementation of IT strategies to accomplish effective eGovernance.

3. All departments are in the process of creating shareable databases of rulesand other information pertaining to administration including informationsuch as budget, recruitment/service rules, plan achievements for variousschemes, etc.

4. Integrated Workflow and Document Management System (IWDMS) isimplemented across the Government Secretariat, which increasesAccountability, Transparency and Effectiveness in Governmentadministration.

5. State Wide Attention on Public Grievances by Application of Technology(SWAGAT) – At Jansampark Department of Chief Minister Office, thegrievances of the common man are addressed through video conferencingand solutions are provided online immediately. Since the implementation,92.45% of the applications received have seen justice through the mutuallyunited initiative of all Department heads.

6. The GSWAN project saw a boost from the CMO for the Secretariat officeActivities. It facilitates intra government communication. It involves activeparticipation through 20015 email ids created for Government offices allover the State.

7. Systematically monitoring and integration of activity-oriented MP/MLAsystem is performed by the CMO apart from formulating relief fundprocessing, visitor and telephone diary systems and other fields that needCMO governance.

ICT is an enabling tool that achieves the Vision of Development and effectiveGovernance that has been established for Gujarat. Using various ICT interventions,we are committed to accelerated growth and cohesive social development throughthe following measures:


1. Providing SMART governance to the people of Gujarat.

2. Empowering citizens and providing equal opportunities through appropriateinformation dissemination .

3. Making the Government accessible to citizens anytime, anywhere and servethem in a more effective and empathetic manner.

4. E-readiness initiatives with in-house implementation at workplace – Taskforce to perform as per vision and mission of CM. The Government isthereby, geared for e-governance right from the grass root levels.

Other features:

1. Grievance registration: online lodging of grievance and online status trackingavailable.

2. Online Appointment and tour scheduling and automatic updation ofappointment list for Hon’ble CM.

3. Online employees’ requests submission for various entitlements like leave,advance payment, etc. with ability to track the same online. Online recordsof such requests are also maintained.

4. Online appointment scheduling for Chief Minister

5. Implementation of ICT-enabled CM website www.narendramodi.in andState Portal, www.gujaratindia.com.

Performance Goals

CM believes that technology alone can foster e-Governance and that good governancecan only happen through an efficient, proactive and citizen-friendly system.

Hence, the GoG initiated a massive training program to reorient over 5,00,000state government employees and to strengthen the administrative machinery.

Chintan Shibirs are annual retreats for ministers and senior government officialsfor brainstorming, progress review, goal setting and developing a collective visionwhile V-Governance is a unique training initiative for Vibrant Governance through‘change in mindset’. Till date, 4 Chintan Shibirs have been held and lakhs of officers/employees have undergone the V-Governance training. In addition to governmentofficials, over 2.5 lakh teachers too have undergone the karmayogi training.



1. Key Performance

Services Delivered (G2C, G2B, G2G, G2E)

GoG remain focused on—and committed to—Transparency, Participation andCollaboration. CMO is the focal point with improved task operations with ICTenabled features—an open government initiative that has its impact on deliveranceof G2C, G2B, G2G and G2E.

1. G2C Service: Citizen

Enhanced access to public information through the use of dissemination tools,such as:

State Portal and CM Narendra Modi’s website: Provides transparency.Highlights policies and development projects and initiatives. Increases venues ofcommunication between the CM and the citizens through updates, news storiesand online interactions. Live Audio, Video and Photo features reflect the CM’sbold strategies for Development and governance.

SWAGAT provides right platform to the citizens to avail various governmentaids and raise their issues/concerns to top leadership for effective and speedyresolution. Registering common man / public grievance and forward to concerndepartment for closings and make sure that compliant has been resolved withoutunwanted delay. SWAGAT program every week with effective planning &execution and its closing and for a reach to Villages ‘Gram Swagat’ is effectivewith G2C service.

2. G2B Service: Business

• Focus on effective compliance management and transparency.• Provide business information and simplification through website download

of policies, project and initiative highlights and links to related websiteseg. Vibrant Gujarat (through State Portal and CM’s website).

• E-communication between Department and stakeholders through e talking,e messaging and sms.

• Speedier conveyance of Decisions to concerned Departments/stakeholders.


3. G2G Service: Government

• State MP/MLA can raise the issues/concerns of their respective constituencythrough MP/MLA application. This integrated application not only bringsissue in notice of CM but also routes the same to appropriate departmentauthorities for resolution through a electronic workflow.

• Integrated Workflow and Document Management System (IWDMS) isimplemented across the Government Secretariat, which increasesAccountability, Transparency and Effectiveness in Governmentadministration.

• Dashboard Facility: State Portal Gujaratindia.com is enhanced withDepartmental Dashboard facility. The feedback/complaints, etc mails reachstraight to Departments with a copy to CMO. Interactive emailing andtimely action is noted by CMO for the same. Also In-House Interactionrelated to people-centric services are taken care of.

4. G2E Service: Employees

• Continuously strives to improve efficiency, effectiveness and transparencyof intra department and inter department interactions (Government andwith Government employees).

• Provide Human resources—enhanced facilities to employees.

• Conducts massive training program to reorient over 5,00,000 stategovernment employees and to strengthen the administrative machinery.Chintan Shibirs are annual retreats for ministers and senior governmentofficials for brainstorming, progress review, goal setting and developing acollective vision while V-Governance is a unique training initiative forVibrant Governance through ‘change in mindset’. Till date, 5 ChintanShibirs have been held and lakhs of officers/employees have undergone theV-Governance training. In addition to government officials, over 2.5 lakteachers too have undergone the karmayogi training.

Implementation Coverage

• Various e-gov initiatives like IWDMS CMO and SWAGAT have beenimplemented and operational. Additionally, as part of grievance processing,IWDMS CMO has been integrated with other departments and their


District Collectorate offices for effective resolution of these grievances. Thesedistrict offices are spread all across State.

• Swagat online Grievance Redressal Program “Gram Swagat”—has beenrolled out for villages with aim to reach remote rural corner of the state tohelp their problems solved.

• State Portal Gujaratindia.com is actively operational with G2C (citizen)G2B (Business) and G2G (government) facilities whereas CM’s website isfully functional with transparency with G2C. Partake with Government,e-Transcriptor and iGujarat are some important roll outs apart from videos,audios, etc.

2. Efficiency and Improvement Initiatives

Time and Cost Efficiency

• 50% time reduction achieved for Grievance handling process—SWAGAT.

• Mail management becomes efficient and average mail processing becomesfaster by 80%.

• MP/MLA reference processing also became faster by 50%.

• The clerical manpower (6-8%) can be reallocated as the work being doneby them earlier has been automated, thus resulting in cost benefit.

• Reduction in ICT spending with enhanced features.

• Simplified business focused with G2B effective business compliance andmanagement.

• Improves efficiency, effectiveness and transparency of intra department andinter department interactions with Government and with Governmentemployees. (G2E).

• IWDMS is a project for improving the productivity of GovernmentEmployees and increasing the transparency in Government administration.

Innovative Ideas Implemented

• As file is the basic unit of workflow, every file has been assigned a uniqueidentification to enable a qualitative control of tracking/monitoring of same.


workflow item in the form of Unique File Number for better tracking andtracing

• E-mail and SMS Alerts: The employees can receive alerts on documents receivedin their inbox.

• Digital signature: This is being incorporated for authenticating documentsand also for ensuring security of crucial transactions.

• Dashboard for tracking: The dashboard along with drill down facility providesthe view of pending files with an officer and his subordinates at any givenpoint in time.

• Pocket appointment scheduler: A provision for mobile version of appointmentschedules for handy reference by Hon’ble Chief Minister.

• Dynamic priority management of file based on ageing, subject and other factorssupported by automatic notification.

• Automated updating of appointment schedule once in 3 minutes for Hon’bleChief Minister.

• A graphical interface for managing one’s delegated work assignment to varioussubordinates along with the capability to re-assign and monitor the status ofwork.

• Hon’ble CM’s web presence is at top among the leaders in India. People canconnect with him on twitter, facebook, blog and on official website.

Integration with other Departments

• Major eGov initiatives like IWDMS CMO, SWAGAT have been completelyintegrated with other Departments. SWAGAT online is being viewed as modelsa for replication at the national level.

• Dashboard @ State Portal—Department can access their dashboard by usinga unique login and they can update/post content to State Portal with duallymoderated mechanism; department can even see query/feedback posted toeach department and reply to each.




eGov/ICT Vision and Road Map

ICT is not an end. It is an enabling tool to achieve the Development and GovernanceVision of Gujarat. Using various ICT interventions, CMO is committed toaccelerated growth and cohesive social development through:

• Providing SMART governance to the People of Gujarat.• Empowering citizen and providing equal opportunity through articulate

information dissemination.• Making Government accessible to Citizen anytime anywhere and serve the

citizen more efficiently and effectively.• E-readiness Initiatives with In-house implementation at Work place—Task

force to perform as per vision and mission of CM. Thereby, geared foregovernance from grass root levels.

e-Governance Vision of Gujarat

To become first State in the Country so as to make Transparent, Efficient andEffective Government to Citizen (G2C) Government to Government Servicesavailable Online. G2G with the Dashboard facilities to Departments is anInnovative approach through CMO.

e-Governance Road Map

It is an initiative to make a detailed Roadmap of all the ICTs initiatives that will beundertaken by the GoG over the next 3 years. The big picture of e-Governance blueprintof Department is transparent on its State Portal www.gujaratindia.com and CMODepartment Initiative of CM’s website www.narendramodi.in

Sharing of Common Infrastructure

State and Department:

GSWAN: Gujarat State Wide Area Network

SDC: State Data Centre

SICN: Sachivalaya Integrated Communication Network


Technology Standardization

GoG has taken a giant step towards technology standardization across its variousfunctional units, i.e., departments. An integrated information system based on openstandards, J2EE architecture has been implemented across various departments and inHoDs. With the adoption of open standards technology, CMO department has movedtowards interoperable systems leading to easy integration with other e-governmentsolutions and is effective with ease and improved efficiency.

2. Process Reengineering and Legal Reforms

Major Non-ICT front-end Process Changes

• Grievance registration: online lodging of grievance and online status trackingavailable.

• Online appointment and tour scheduling and automatic updation ofappointment list for Hon’ble CM.

• Online employees requests submission for various entitlements like leave,advance payment, etc. with ability to track the same online. Online records ofsuch requests are also maintained.

• Online appointment scheduling for Chief Minister’s programs.

Major Non-ICT back-end Process Changes

• Electronic file and correspondence movement, tracking and processing with adashboard.

• Electronic workflow for ESS and HRMS processing.• Electronic processing for Visitor passes, Grievance processing, Appointment

scheduling, Relief fund processing.3. Capacity Building

Leadership support and visibility and current status

The Gujarat Government adopts the Total Quality Leadership rooted with timelessprinciples:

• Faith, hope, humility

• Industry, research, technology

• Constancy, consistency, predictability


• Continuous improvement and progression

• Virtue, selfless service, truth and human relations

The Government is absolutely apolitical with P2G2 – Pro people, Pro active—Good Governance under the leadership of Hon’ble CM and is the most ‘fast-forward’ State of India with political stability, entrepreneur spirit and representsuniformity of development as well as unanimity on the issues of development.

The strategy adopted by Government of Gujarat was to follow Top-downapproach. A major e-gov initiative, i.e., IWDMS, SWAGAT have been firstimplemented in Secretariat to set example, gain visibility and ensure continuoussupport from top leaders at all levels. Thereafter, extension of E-gov program wascarried out at HoD and other hierarchy levels under guidance and support of topleadership. Moreover, CMO is the main center for top leadership activities andvarious e-gov initiatives. CMO has natural advantage of continuous attentionand support of top leadership.

Social Media Presence is a major Initiative by the Leader with website, Blog,Social network integrations like Facebook Page, Twitter and You Tube. The GujaratGovernment’s Department of Information has announced the use of Socialnetworking websites Facebook and Twitter. This enables the Government toconnect to technically versed generation, predominantly the massive youthpopulace in order to circulate news and information on Government activitiesand schemes. The State Portal is likely to adopt and embrace the Technologywith Social Media Presence as a future plan of action.

b. Change management strategy defined and status thereof

Changes have been dealt on following levels:

• Transition from manual system of workflow processing to electronicworkflow processing: various general and project specific e-governanceawareness and training initiatives have been taken to smoothly carry outthe transition of employees and end users of new system.

• Change/improvement in various information systems implemented under e-governance program: A single point of contact has been identified for the


entire department to implement and authorize any change in the concernedinformation systems like IWDMS CMO, etc. This has resulted in smoothchange implementation and better alignment of information system todepartment’s requirement.

c. Capacity building plan and its implementation status

CMO places indepth efforts to formulate capacity building of its employees and ensuresmooth implementation of various e-governance initiatives. Adequate provision hasbeen made to provide training and build computer competency of the governmentemployees. It encourages E-readiness at all levels for smooth operations.

Types of training provided:

• Basic computer training

• Gujarati Indic Training (typing in local language)

• IWDMS CMO, SWAGAT training to users

• Refresher training

• ISO Awareness Training

Highlights of training:

• User base divided into category based on Designation. Separate trainingscarried out for Registry Clerks, GDC, DySO, SO, US, DS, JS.

• Content of the training designed based on participant designation.

• Minimum 2 hours of Training with question-answer session and 1 hour ofhand-holding on computer with each user login into their account andexploring the actual functionalities of the system.

• Elaborative and comprehensive user manual designed in regional languagefor easy understanding of system process implementation.

Capacity Building at:

• Awareness Level• Management Level• Functional Level


CMO has defined and implemented those human and physical factors of thework environment needed to achieve conformity of administration and governance.


Consideration of these factors is identified during the administration and governanceand process planning stage.

This includes:

• Positive environment;

• Work methods;

• Work ethics.

The C.M /Secretariats appoint a member as the Management Representative.Dr Hiren Joshi (OSD IT) has been appointed as the Management Representative.He is responsible to implement and maintain the quality system and variouseGovernance Initiatives.

IV) Value Indicators (Optional Section)



Fully functional State Portal and website with G2C/G2B/G2G and G2E features.

2. eParticipation


• e-talking, sms and e-messaging

• Department Dashboards

• G2C features at State Portal and CM’s website, e.g. Partake withGovernment, Swagat online, etc.

2. eWaste


• Paperless working (inter and intra office)

• Department Dashboard at CMO/on State Portal

Dr Hiren Joshi, Officer on Special Duty (IT) to Hon’ble CM, Chief Minister Office,Government of Gujarat, email: [email protected]


I) Overview

The concerted, calculated and conscious efforts undertaken by the department in thedirection of applying e-governance in the recent past have been remarkable and wonappreciation from many quarters. The policies and strategies to makee governance happen have been put in place to the extent required. A dedicatedmanpower with the domain expertise have continuously supervised the entireprocess to ensure that nothing goes wrong and if at all some aberration occurs,corrective measures are taken on time. Feedback mechanism has been developedto take on board the outsider’s opinion and accommodate the voices of the genuineones. This has led to a better service delivery, a more transparent system and animproved problem solving scenario. It is all the more relevant given the erstwhilebackground when decision making was mostly subjective and arbitrary with nouse of any DSS tool. Scant attention was paid to capacity building of thestakeholders. There was neither a proper monitoring system nor a stronginstitutional arrangement. Equity concerns like benefit sharing, beneficiaryselection and conflict resolution were either completely ignored or dealt with onan ad hoc basis. Such scenario engendered lack of transparency and accountability.The abovementioned context necessitated a complete overhaul of the system andhere came the e governance to salvage the situation. The ICT enabled benefitshave been achieved in many sectors and one did not have reason to repudiate thesame here in the department. The conviction was converted into action with

CHAPTER 10

Gujarat State WatershedManagement Agency

Smt. Rita Teaotia and Shri Ram Kumar

95Gujarat State Watershed Management Agency

putting in place a robust and customized e governance system that led to desiredoutcome. The concrete benefits realized through the e system and the experimentsdone in the application of ICT by the department have to be made known to andshared with other stakeholders, institutions, departments, agencies. It will helpensure the wider acceptability and usability of such initiatives. Essentially andprecisely, this has been the reason to nominate the entry.

The Gujarat State Watershed Management Agency (GSWMA), RuralDevelopment Department serves as a State Level Nodal Agency (SLNA) toundertake Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) in the state.GSWMA is the key player in planning, strategizing and executing the innovativechanges that have been brought about in the way Watershed DevelopmentProjects are managed. Being the State Level Nodal Agency (SLNA), it is responsiblefor obtaining sanction for IWMP projects from the Department of Land Resources,Ministry of Rural Development of the Government of India. After getting theprojects sanctioned, it appoints Project Implementing Agencies (PIAs) forimplementation of the projects at village level. At district level, its offices in thename of District Watershed Development Units (DWDUs) monitor the projectsregularly. The PIAs are responsible for facilitation of works to be carried outprimarily by the Village Watershed Committees. The major role played byGSWMA are as follows:

1. Provide technical support to District Watershed Development Units(DWDU) throughout the state

2. Prepare a perspective and strategic plan of watershed development for thestate

3. Approve a list of independent institutions for capacity building of variousstakeholders and planning for the same

4. Approve Project Implementing Agencies identified

5. Establish monitoring, evaluation and learning systems at various levels

6. Ensure regular and quality on-line monitoring of watershed projects in thestate in association with Nodal Agency

7. Constitute a panel of Independent Institutional Evaluators for all watershedprojects

8. Prepare State Specific Process Guidelines, Technology Manuals etc


Goals/Objectives of the ICT initiatives:

1. Prioritization and planning of watersheds across the whole state for a pragmaticand scientific assessment of whole area to be treated while at the same timeintegrating historical and future physical structures in the plan

2. Long term, scientific and need based holistic planning of each micro-watershedwith mandatory provision for convergence with other relevant schemes/departments/agencies

3. Participatory management where developmental planning, execution andmonitoring was done with active participation of the community membersintegrating modern technology with traditional people’s wisdom

4. Transparent and effective monitoring of the ongoing projects at field level

Economic/Social Agenda of the initiative:

1. Poverty eradication through natural resource management

2. Employment generation through livelihood support

3. Restore the ecological balance by harnessing, conserving and developingdegraded natural resources such as soil, vegetative cover and water in a holisticand sustainable manner

4. Demand driven and need based watershed planning with active participationof community members

5. Prevention of soil run-off and regeneration of natural vegetation with low costtechnological solution complemented by indigenous knowledge

6. Rain water harvesting and recharging of the ground water table withinculcating a sense of conservation among the community

7. Enabling multi-cropping and the introduction of diverse agro-based activities,which help to provide sustainable livelihoods to the people residing in theproject area

8. Promoting eco friendly and locally suitable activities with the required capacitybuilding of the stakeholders



1. Key Performance


Services are mainly delivered in the categories of G2C and G2E with primaryfocus on G2C. Compared to previous scenario, the service delivery mechanism inthe present has proved time efficient and cost efficient.


Table 1

Sr. No. Year of No. of Micro- No. of No. of Total Area Budgetary

Sanction Watershed Villages Projects (in Lac Ha.) Allocation

Covered Covered (in crore )

1 2009-10 1136 1099 151 7.08 930

2 2010-11 802 1101 141 7.21 927

3 2011-12 881 1135 138 7.12 922



Technically appropriate selection of project area & location of physical interventions:Identification and prioritization of most needy and critical areas throughout thestate have been accomplished in a relatively short period of time. Below is theillustration of the priority map of the Dang district of Gujarat state where projectclusters has been shown and the clusters are located in one of the most backwardregions in terms of socio economic status and natural resources parameters:

Scientific prioritisation has resulted in selection of remotest and needy area intribal district of Dangs which is one of the hundred most backward districts asper Planning Commission

Scalability: Geographical Coverage – Gujarat State

Table 2

S. Item Details Area

No. No. (Lakh ha.)

1 Total micro-watersheds (MWS) in the State 13587 196.024


b. Innovative Ideas Implemented

1. GIS based prioritization on objective parameters and planning of watershedswas undertaken for the whole state resulting into a pragmatic and scientificassessment of whole area to be treated under the programme while at thesame time integrating historical and future physical structures in the plan.

Figure 1: Geographical Spread of the Project Services in Dangs

2 Total untreatable MWS (Reserved Forest, Barren Rocky,

assured irrigation, etc.) 1005 27.2386

3 Total treatable MWS in the State 12582 168.7854

4. a. Total MWS covered under pre-IWMP schemes of DoLR 3895 31.6302

b. Total MWS covered under schemes of other Ministries 645 6.07954

c. Total MWS covered under IWMP 2009-10 and 2010-11 of DoLR 1507 14.218

d. Total of 4 a to d 6047 51.9277

5 Balance micro-watersheds not covered till date 6535 116.858

6 Plan for covering 11th Plan 2011-12 881 7.12

balance micro- watersheds 12th Plan 1842 39.7477

13th Plan 1940 37

14th Plan 1745 33

Total 6535 116.858


The Government of India has issued a reference to all states to follow Gujaratmodel for preparing DPRs under IWMP viz., letter vide No. Z-11011/20/2010-PPC Dated 7 September 2010 that validates the ample potentialof the replicability of the approach adopted under the initiative.

2. GIS Based Monitoring: Use of GIS has been planned for the purpose ofmonitoring and evaluation of IWMP projects. Each WDT member of PIAwill be allotted a unique code for their respective districts. Timely updatingof the data regarding the project implementation on GIS maps will help ingenerating regular summarized and specialized reports for the decisionmakers. Data will be translated at State level onto GIS maps through whichmonitoring before, during & post implementation will become possible.

3. Additionally, Customized mobile based software is being developed incollaboration with BISAG (Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applicationsand Geo-informatics) which will enable updating maps through mobiletext messages received from WDT’s & incorporating GPS coordination.The process is represented in a diagram below:

4. Impact Assessment through remote sensing and GIS: The GSWMA hasdesigned a rigorous impact assessment of projects. On completion of theproject, impact assessment becomes essential. GIS will be used to map theenvironmental as well as social impact resulting from implementation ofIWMP. Natural parameters such as ground water recharge, forest cover,salinity ingress, soil erosion and biodiversity will be studied through remotesensing and GIS. Also parameters such as crop pattern and irrigated areawhich have a direct impact on society can be studied. Analysis of dataavailable from satellite images at regular intervals will help in generatingan idea of the changes occurring in the baseline data due toimplementation of IWMP. While detection of changes on the groundmay be possible only after certain duration. Since IWMP is a long durationproject, the assessment is feasible. Collection and analysis of data at regularintervals along with the mapping of project activities before, during andafter implementation will create a very useful database which is at thecore of any impact assessment process.


Figure 2: Monitoring & Evaluation System



a. eGov/ICT Vision Roadmap

1. Use of technology as a tool for transparency and improved planning atgrassroots level.

2. Centrality of community participation and democratic processes rightfrom the commencement of the project by holding village meetingsthrough Gramsabha, Participatory Rural Appraisal exercises andexecution of work through a democratically constituted WatershedCommittee in the village.

3. Continuous Capacity Building at all the levels with special emphasison the Watershed Committee for ensuring quality implementationand sustainability of the project.



State infrastructure for ICT is shared with the department.


State specific Technical, Capacity Building and Human Resource Manuals andOperational Guidelines issued and enforced

2. Process Reengineering and Reforms

a. Major Non-ICT front-end Process Changes

To enhance the efficiency, transparency, accountability and effectiveness of IWMP,the systems and procedures have been automated to the extent possible. Thedifference between the new and the old approaches is given in the diagram belowwhere one could see that new approach focuses more upon participatory planningwith proper application of scientific tools like GIS and remote sensing as andwhen required. To ensure transparency and get feedback across board, the planningoutput i.e. detailed project report has been put in public domain. Vernacularhard copies have also been provided to VWCs.

Figure 3: Monitoring & Evaluation System


Colour code:

Pink: New approach;

Blue: New aspects;

Green: Traditional approach

E-connectivity has been provided in all its offices at different levels- from state tovillage level


a. Leadership support & visibility and current status

There has been a constant support from the upper hierarchy at each and everystage of the conceptualizing, designing and operationalization of the initiatives.


Change management strategy:

• Institutional restructuring

• Team building at every level of the department

• Community and employee participation

• Application of technology to the extent possible

• Emphasis on capacity building of every relevant stakeholders


The whole process of capacity building has been standardized. A manual to thiseffect has been prepared and enforced. A consortium has been developed byempanelling 33 reputed institutions of different expertise. These institutionsprovide technological support and training programmes for skill enhancement.Regular capacity building programmes are under way to address the knowledgegap. Such programmes are aimed at all the relevant stakeholders within thedepartment and targeted beneficiaries.


Yes. There is project team at every level. Team of domain experts work in unisonand with community resulting into the successful execution and effective


coordination. Efforts have been made to professionalize the human resources byenlisting people from reputed institutes like IITs, IRMA, Anand; EDI,Ahmedabad, DA-IICT, Gandhinagar, XISS, Ranchi, etc.




– Availability of the services in the vernacular

– Capacity building for utilizing the services

– Documentation of the ICT application plan

2. eParticipation


– Citizens and Employees can send their feedback through e mail, SMS,ETC.

– The e governance initiatives exercises are shared electronically withthe staffs and suggestions are accomndated

3. eWaste

Not Relevant.

Smt. Rita Teaotia, Principal Secretary, Rural Development. Govt of Gujarat,[email protected] & Shri Ram Kumar, Chief Executive Office, Gujarat StateWatershed Management Agency, Rural Development, Gujarat, [email protected]


Shri Suresh Chanda

I) Overview

CT Department, Government of AP endeavors to transform into an enterprise-friendly entity with greater transparency and achieve highest tax efficiency throughuse of Information Technology. As part of this vision accomplishment, department isproviding Tax Payers Services through Online System in addition to other channelsto give choice to dealers to opt for a service channel which is more convenient to himand also to reduce avoidable physical interface between citizen and tax office. Theseinitiatives have brought in higher levels of convenience to tax payers, higher levels ofsatisfaction, reduced cost of service to citizens, reduced discretion in the hands of taxoffice in decision making, transparency in decision making, reduced scope for corruptpractices and reduced cost of service delivery for Government.

Commercial Tax department contributes more than 65% to the AP State Revenues.It is the biggest and main bread earner for the State. Main function of the departmentis administration of Value Added Tax, Entertainment Tax and Profession Tax. During2010-11, it collected Rs. 32,800 Cr towards State Revenue. The State ExciseDepartment stands at No. 2 with revenue collection of Rs. 7,5000 Cr. It has more

CHAPTER 11

Commercial Taxes, Government of AP:IT Initiatives in VAT Administration for

Improved Transparency, Fairness andTax Payers Services

105Commercial Taxes, Government of AP – IT Initiatives in VAT...

than 2.25 lakh dealers on its Roll.

Every month more than 2 lakh dealers visit department offices just to file theirmonthly VAT Returns and to make Tax Payment. Approximately, 3,000 newprospective dealers need to visit Tax offices per month for Registration. Approximately,20,000 dealers visit every month Tax offices to apply for Statutory Forms like Waybills,C Form, etc. to transport their Goods. Every dealer, on average, has to make at least 3visits to get these Forms. These processes were leading to too much of physical interfacebetween Tax Payers and Tax Collectors along with its associated ills. Not only ills ofphysical interface, there was too much secrecy and scope for subjectivity in decisionmaking and there were delays in delivery of service again leading to increased scopefor corrupt practices.

By nature of its functions, Tax departments all over the country are highly proneto corrupt practices. Tax staff generally has lot of discretions in taking decisions. Inview of this, these departments generally face complaints of harassment, corruptpractices, unfair treatments of tax payers, abuse of discretionary powers, etc. But inthe recent past, there has been positive improvement in all these departments andnow there are proactive initiatives to improve Tax Payers Services, reduce discretionarypowers, simplify process, and improve transparency in decision making process andfairness in approach.

Government, by nature of its functions, is the biggest monopoly. Citizens has nochoice but to approach Government for many services like Licenses, RegistrationCertificates, Permissions, Protection of Life and Property, Resolution of disputesthrough Courts, to name a few. This monopoly tends to reduce efficiency andeffectiveness of Government services. Government does not feel the pressure ofcompetition. But now that also is changing and Government can no longer ignore itas more and more citizens, with increased awareness, are demanding improvement inGovernment services.

Approach towards eGovernance

Within ‘that’ monopoly of Government, it is possible and feasible to eliminate or reducesuch monopoly in many sub functions of the main function of the Government. Forexample, for issue of Statutory Forms, the sub functions like receipt of request applicationsand dispatch of Forms can be easily outsourced to multiple agencies to create options andchoices for the dealer to create competition and thus improving quality of service. That


has been the primary approach for ICT initiatives. Further it is a well known fact thatdiscretions in decision making, non-transparency in decision making and too muchphysical interface creates ground for corrupt practices and harassment. This is anothermain objective behind ICT initiatives.

In brief the objective behind ICT initiatives are, to the maximum extent possible,to provide options and choices to citizens to access Government services, reducediscretion, decision based on system-driven policies, reduced avoidable physicalinterface, services to citizens as per their convenience and move towards OnlineService on 24X7 basis.

These initiatives will also bring substantial savings to citizens in terms of reducedcost of travel and time and also savings to Government in terms of reduced routinework in Tax offices. These initiatives will also improve the image of the Governmentand increase the satisfaction level of citizens towards its Government. T h emajor ICT initiatives taken up are:

eRegistration and Central Registration Unit (CRU)

Prior to Reforms process, prospective dealer has to go to local Tax office only. Toprovide choice (Breaking monopoly) and additional channels for service (Increasingsupply); initially Central Registration Unit was created at Hyderabad for all the areascoming under Twin Cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. Twin cities contributemore than 50% tax revenue. At CRU, dealer gets Registration Certificate on thesame day without the need to visit the Tax office. In the next step, eRegistrationfacility has been put in place. Prospective dealer can file his application Online throughInternet and he can send documents to Tax Office through Post. RegistrationCertificate is dispatched to dealer place through post. eRegistration has eliminatedeven the need for visiting CRU. Now Prospective dealer has choice (Breakingmonopoly) as per his convenience to choose Tax Office or CRU or Online System(More channels – increased supply – smaller queue). Physical interface with taxoffice has been reduced.

eReturn

Every month more than 2 Lakh Tax dealers visit Tax offices just to submit Tax Returnand Cheques. Facility was available during Tax Office Working Days and Workinghours only. If the last date for filing Returns happens to be a sunday or a Holiday, thedealer has to file the Return one day in advance of the last date. Through eReturn


process, dealer can file his Tax Return through Internet from any place on 24X7 basiseven on holidays and make payment Online through Internet Banking account. Fordealers who still do not have access to Internet, they can file Tax Return through anyeSeva center spread over all Municipal Towns in the State. The facility has also createdfor Sales Tax Practitioners (STP) to file Return on behalf of Dealers so that dealers whodo not have their own IT infrastructure, can avail facility of STPs. This process haseliminated the need for more than 2 lakh dealers to visit tax offices every month. It hasalso helped Tax department. No need to enter more than 2.90 Lakhs Returns in computerevery month. Earlier there used to be a lot of data entry errors in Tax offices committedby the Data Entry Staff. Now no errors, as Return is entered by dealer himself online.Even if we take average travel of 20 KMs per the dealer per month, it has eliminatedmore than 4.80 Crores Person KMs travel per year. Thus reducing not only Travel andTime cost for dealer, but also big benefit to society as a whole in terms of reduced trafficcongestion on roads and reduced consumption of fuel by personal vehicles.

ePayment

It is a big boon to Finance department. If tax is paid through Cheque/DD, Governmentrealizes Tax after, on average, 6 days. In case of ePayment, tax is realized by Governmentnext day itself. Thus, there is improvement by 5 days.

Issue of Statutory Forms

Dealers for transporting goods from one place to another place require certain Formslike VAT Waybill, CST Waybill, C Form, etc. In the manual process, dealer need toapply to the local tax office. The service was available during Office working days andduring working hours only. Issue of such Forms by the Tax office, has always have beena source of complaint from the trading community. General complaints are delay inissue of Forms, issue of lesser number of Forms forcing them to approach Tax officeagain and again and complaints of tax office staff demanding bribes. On average, 20,000dealers per month approach Tax offices for 10 lakh Forms. As a first step towards reforms,a Centralized Computer Dealer Service Centre (CDSC) was created at Head Office.Dealers can file request online through Internet on 24X7 basis to this Center. Thesystem will check the eligibility and indicate the number of Forms that can be given toa dealer. The Service provider (Third party) will dispatch Forms to dealer within 48hours through courier. The entire process is completed without any interface with Tax


staff. The system is self-sustainable and does not require any budget support fromGovernment. Service provider, who is selected on open tender basis, collects transactioncharges from dealer to meet his expenses and courier charges. This system has eliminatedaltogether the need to visit Tax office for getting Forms. On average per month, morethan 4.50 lakh (45%) Forms per month are delivered to dealer through this system.

eWaybill

As a next step to further improve dealer services, in this system, dealer will fill upgoods transaction details for which he desires Waybill online and self-Print theWaybill. This service is also available to dealer on 24X7 basis. This service has eveneliminated the need for dispatching Form through Courier and Form delivery toDealer is instant. On average, more than 2.10 lakh (21%) Forms per month are beingself-printed by dealers.

Information dissemination – Transparency

Correct and timely information is the key for transparency and fairness inadministration. It strengthens the hands of citizen and makes staff accountable forits actions. A full-fledged portal puts citizen-centric information in public domain. Inaddition to that, the department has started putting all its orders on the Portal assoon as these orders are issued for the information of public. Earlier, order passed bythe Tax authorities will be known to respective dealer and respective office only.Others will have no access to these orders. Orders passed by Tax authorities are quasi-judicial in nature. As such, department cannot take one stand in one case and anotherstand in another similar case. But in absence of transparency it is not possible toensure such fair play. Once these orders are put in public domain, dealers can insistfor such fair play. It will also make authorities accountable for their actions.


1. Key Performance


1. Central Registration Unit (CRU) and eRegistration:

In manual mode, prospective dealer has to visit Tax office for submission of Registrationapplication. It involved Travel as well Time cost to dealers. Under eRegistration,citizen can file Registration application Online and submit required documentsthrough Post. Thus, avoiding on as average a minimum of 20 KMs of travel to and


from Tax office. At CRU, dealers get Registration Certificate on the same day.eRegistration has reduced data entry work at Tax office.

2. eReturn:

In manual mode, every month, more than 2 lakh dealers has visit Tax office forsubmission of monthly Tax Return. It involved Travel as well Time cost to dealers.Under eReturn, citizen can file Return Online on 24X7 basis. Thus, avoiding onaverage, a minimum of 20 KMs of travel to and from Tax office for each dealer. Onaverage more than 4.8 crore Person KMs are avoided per year. Indirectly, it is also a bigbenefit to society as it has reduced pressure on Public Transport and Traffic on Roads.Each month the department has to enter more than 2 lakh Returns in computersystem. There were many instances of data entry errors. With eReturn, there is noneed to make entry of Returns at Tax office and no scope for data entry errors.Manpower cost savings to Government also.

3. ePayment

In manual mode, dealer will prepare Cheque, go to Tax office, Tax Office will capturedetails in Computer for generating Challan, send Cheque along with Challan toTreasury Bank, Bank will send Cheque to Other Bank for realization. Finally, theBank will transfer amount to Government account and Challan confirmation detailsto department. This process involves huge routine work in Tax office and in bank.Government will realize the amount on average after 6 days from the date of submissionof Cheque by the dealer. Under ePayment, dealer makes payment Online withoutvisiting Tax office and information flows between Tax office to bank Online. No dataentry work in Tax office and Bank. Government realizes revenue on next day ofePayment. Huge benefit to Government as time for realization is reduced from 6 daysto 1 day. In the month of June 2011, Rs. 800 Cr was realized through ePayment. Soonit will go up to Rs. 2000 Cr per month. In financial terms, it will amount to financialcost saving of Rs. 50 lakh per month.

4. CDSC and eWaybill

In manual system, dealer has to make at least 3 visits to Tax office to get StatutoryForms. Thus spending time and money on travel. Under CDSC and eWaybill system,dealer files request Online and get Forms delivered at his door steps through courier


(in CDSC) and Prints Form himself instantly (eWaybill). Thus totally avoiding visitto Tax office. Savings in terms of Travel and time Cost for dealer. With eWaybill andCDSC in place, Tax office staff can focus on other important functions. Saving inmanpower cost to Government.


All the ICT initiatives are now available to all the dealers through the State of AP.



1. Central Registration Unit (CRU) and eRegistration

In manual mode, prospective dealer has to visit Tax office for submission ofRegistration application. It involved Travel as well Time cost to dealers. UndereRegistration, citizen can file Registration application Online and submit requireddocuments through Post. Thus avoiding on average a minimum of 20 KMs of travelto and from Tax office. At CRU at Hyderabad, dealer gets Registration Certificateon the same day.

2. eReturn

In manual mode, every month, more than 2 lakh dealers has to visit Tax office forsubmission of monthly Tax Return. It involved Travel as well Time cost to dealers.Facility was also available during working days and working hours only. If the last dayfor filing Return happens to be a holiday, the dealer has to file the Return one day inadvance. Under eReturn, citizen can file Return Online on 24X7 basis. Thus avoiding,on average, a minimum of 20 KMs of travel to and from Tax office for each dealer. Onaverage, more than 4.8 crore Person KMs are avoided per year. Each month departmenthas to enter more than 2 lakh Returns in computer system. There were many instancesof data entry errors. With eReturn, there is no need to make entry of Returns at Taxoffice and no scope for data entry errors. Manpower cost savings to Government also.

3. ePayment

In manual mode, dealer will prepare Cheque and go to Tax office. Tax Office willcapture details in Computer for generating Challan, send Cheque along with Challanto Treasury Bank, Bank will send Cheque to Other Bank for realization. Finally, the


Bank will transfer amount to Government account and Challan confirmation detailsto department. This process involves huge routine work in Tax office and bank.Government will realize amount, on average, after 6 days from the date of submissionof Cheque by the dealer. Under ePayment, dealer makes payment Online withoutvisiting Tax office and information flows between Tax office to bank Online. No dataentry work in Tax office and Bank. Government realizes revenue on the next day ofePayment. Huge benefit to Government as time for realization is reduced from 6 daysto 1 day. In the month of June 2011, Rs. 800 crores was realized through ePayment.Soon it will go up to Rs. 2000 crores per month. In financial terms, it will amount tofinancial cost saving of Rs. 50 lakh per month.

4. CDSC and eWaybill

In manual system, dealer has to make at least 3 visits to Tax office to get StatutoryForms. Thus spending time and money on travel. Under CDSC and eWaybill system,dealer files request Online and get Forms delivered at his door steps through courier(in CDSC) and Prints Form himself (eWaybill). Savings in terms of Travel and timeCost. Further dealer will get Forms with a delay of 10 to 12 days. Under CDSC,Forms are dispatched to dealer within 48 hours and under eWaybill system he getsinstantly. With eWaybill and CDSC in place, Tax office staff can focus on otherimportant functions. Saving in manpower cost to Government.


1. Uploading of Orders on Portal:

Earlier it was very difficult for the dealers to get a copy of the Department Notifications,Circulars and Orders timely. The only way for them to get copies was through PrivatePublications on Taxes. Now all orders and circulars issued by department are madeavailable on portal as soon these are issued. Not only dealer has access to ordersrelated to him but to all orders. Now he can represent if he finds that departmentshas taken different stand under similarly placed cases. It will bring transparency andaccountability.

2. CDSC and eWaybill:

Earlier there used to be a lot of complaints from trade on delay, harassment andcorrupt practices in issue of Waybills. Under CDSC, Waybills are provided to dealers


without any physical interface with Tax office and dispatch is within 48 hours. UndereWaybill system also, physical interface with Tax office has been eliminated. Dealerhimself can print Waybill Online and service is instant. It has not only reducedservice delivery time but, most important, it eliminated physical interface with Taxwhich is generally the cause of harassment and corrupt practices.

3. ePayment

ePayment option has reduced lot of routine work in Tax office and helped Governmentto realize Revenue on T+1 day as against earlier of T+6 days.

c. Integration with other Departments

Major interface of Commercial Tax department is with Treasury Department forrealization of Revenue. Through ePayment system, Challan generation has beenmade online with treasury department. Now department is working for OnlineVerification of PAN data with Income Tax department.



a. eGov/ICT Vision and Roadmap

Vision: CT Department endeavors to transform into an enterprise-friendly entitywith greater transparency and achieve highest tax efficiency through use of InformationTechnology. As part of this vision, department is now providing all Tax Payers servicesthrough Online System in addition to other channels to give choice to dealers to optfor a service channel which is more convenient to him.


CT department has its own Data Centre and WAN of 2 Mbps connecting all itsDivisional offices and 256 Kbps for Circle Offices. As now AP SWAN capacity hasbeen increased from 2 Mbps to 8 Mbps, it is planned to migrate Divisional offices toAP SWAN. Similarly as soon as State Data Centre is made operational, CriticalServers will be shifted to State Data Centre.


Department has not locked into any one technology. It is using Windows as well as


Sun Technology. Database is Oracle. But now it plans to migrate to SQL Server forcost advantage.

2. Process Reengineering and Reforms

a. Major Non-ICT front-end Process Changes

Legal changes have been carried out to facilitate eReturn and ePayment. Change inprocedure for issue of Forms through CDSC and Online has been made.

b. Major Non-ICT back-end Process Changes

VAT software was initially implemented in 2005. Subsequently many Tax PayersServices related software has been developed with independent databases. Now it isplanned to develop single software with single database. Software agency alreadyidentified and work of developing software started. It is likely to be completed in next8 months.


a. Leadership support and visibility and current status

Any Reform initiative requires support of all stakeholders more so top leadership.Support from top leadership is very crucial in getting required approvals, budget andlegal changes carried out. Government provided all the required support at right timeto accomplish the vision.


Tax administrations by and large are highly conservative and regulatory in nature andthus they resist any reforms and liberalization for fear of Revenue loss. Further, Taxadministrations are known to be prone to corrupt practices because of inherent natureof job, high degree of discretion in taking decisions and secrecy. As such it createsvested interest in the system which tend to oppose any simplification in process,reduction in discretionary powers, transparency and liberalization. Hence it isimportant that all critical stakeholders namely Tax men, Tax payers are taken intoconfidence at every level of change contemplated. Tax men should not feel that Reformsand IT initiative are planned to take away their powers. Tax payer should realize earlyresults of such initiative like improved convenience, fairness and reduced scope forharassment. Thus, strategy adopted was to create additional channel of services


without dismantling existing channels run by Tax men. Idea was to create choices fordealers. Let dealer decide which option is good for him. It helped in answering thefears of Tax men that IT is not planned to replace them. Bottom line is to provideimproved services to dealers – whether through online system or through Tax office.Finally dealer should feel satisfied. It worked. It improved trust level between fieldTax staff and higher administration. Meetings with Trade organizations and directtouch with dealers through email helped in creating right environment for earlyadaptation of IT initiatives. Once critical mass of dealers realized its benefits, it easilyspread to others for adoption.


This department has been one of the earliest users of ICT in AP as long back as 1989.VAT software was launched in 2005. All the staff was given exhaustive training formaking use of ICT initiatives. For creating awareness among dealers, meetings wereheld with Trade dealers. Citizen friendliness and ease of use was given high prioritywhile developing Citizen Centric software. Maintenance of ICT infrastructure hasbeen outsourced to third party.


There is full time Project Management team consisting of Department officials andTechnical team from Institute of Electronic Governance and Centre for GoodGovernance.




The main Stakeholders for this department are Tax Dealers. Most of them have theirown ICT infrastructure but there are many small dealers who do not have their ownICT infrastructure. To ensure that such dealers also take advantage of eInitiatives,dealers can take assistance of Sales Tax Practitioners, who are authorized by thedepartment, to avail Online Services. In addition to this, dealers can also file theireReturns at any eSeva Centers. From the beginning this aspect was kept in view whiledesigning, planning and implementing ICT project. If system is adding value tocitizens, they are very eager to adopt these new initiatives and even willing to learnnew IT-enabled processes.


2. eParticipation


The various important stakeholders in this initiative are, Dealers, Field Tax Staff,their Associations, Trade Organization, Media, Senior Tax Administration staff andGovernment. As Tax staff was taken into confidence at every stage and it was madevery clear that purpose of Reforms and IT initiative is to improve service delivery todealers through multiple service delivery channels, there was no expression of negativefears. Trade organizations gave highly positive support for these initiatives and alsotook initiatives to create awareness among dealers for early adoption of theseinitiatives. It helped in building positive critical mass very early. Media supportedthese initiatives by highlighting the advantage and taking awareness to large numberof citizens. Government at every stage and at right time provided all the necessaryapprovals to make it happen. Department portal has provision for giving feedback.Special care is taken to answer dealers queries received through this channel. Manydealers gave very useful advice to improve the quality and reach of these initiatives.Their feedback was taken into consideration for making appropriate changes insoftware. It also encouraged them to give more feedback to improve system.

3. eWaste


AP Technology Services, a Government of AP enterprise has identified third partyvendors for safe disposal of eWaste. Recently this department has submitted list ofeWaste for disposal through identified vendor.

Shri Suresh Chanda, IAS, Commissioner, Commercial Tax, Government of AP, AndhraPradesh, Email: [email protected]


I) Overview

Motor Vehicles Department is one of the departments of the Government of Keralaoffering highest number of citizen centric services. The department was establishedin 1958. It is a major revenue earning department of the Government. All the 18Regional Transport Offices, 65 Sub Regional Transport Offices, and 19 MotorVehicles Check Posts have been fully computerized through the FAST (FullyAutomated Services of the Transport Department) Project, and interconnected usingKerala State Wide Area Network (KSWAN), the first of its kind in the State ofKerala to have a wide coverage. Computerization of all the citizen services has helpedthe department in providing efficient and timely services with better transparencyand quality to the citizens in spite of having acute shortage of staff. The major boostto the department was its recognition in the national level by awarding theCSI:Nihilent e-governance awards for the Best e-Governed Department in the year2007-2008 at the initial stage of computerization itself. This has helped thedepartment in implementing new and challenging innovative schemes.

The major reasons to submit this nomination are:

1. To get recognition of the department for the successful use of Information& Communications Technology in serving the public.

2. To recognize the efforts and confidence of all the department staff whoaccepted the new schemes.

CHAPTER 12

Motor Vehicles Department, Kerala –Services through ICT

T P Senkumar and Alex Paul

117Motor Vehicles Department, Kerala – Services through ICT

3. To encourage the department officials to accept challenges in implementinge-Governance.

4. To get recognition and confidence of the citizens and to bring a newperspective of the Government services.

5. To promote cost-effective and open source e-Governance solutions.

6. To be a model department for other State departments in the e-Governancefield.

7. To accept the support and encouragement of the department’s technicalsolution provider, National Informatics Centre, Kerala.

Motor Vehicles Department is the only department in the country which hasachieved 100% computerization of the services and implemented State Registerand National Register.

The department believes that it has brought a new perspective before thecitizens by the use of IT services in providing the department services and hasgreatly reduced the time and cost of the citizens for obtaining a service. Hencethis nomination is submitted for the Best e-Governed Department.

The Motor Vehicles Department was established in the year 1958. Thedepartment is a line department of the Transport Department, Government ofKerala. All the services under Motor Vehicles Laws including those related tolicensing of motor vehicle drivers and registration of motor vehicles is performedby the department. The department is headed by the Transport Commissionerand is assisted by the Joint Transport Commissioner and Senior Deputy TransportCommissioner. For the smooth functioning of its administrative and citizenservices, the department has sub offices all over Kerala. There are 18 RegionalTransport Offices, 65 Sub Regional Transport Offices, and 19 Motor VehicleCheck Posts. There are also four Deputy Transport Commissioner Offices in eachzone (North, Central Zone-I, Central Zone-II, South Zone) to control thefunctions of the offices. The department was formulated with the objective ofregulating the use of Motor Vehicles in public places and ensuring safety andefficiency in the transport system for catering to the needs of traveling public aswell as transportation of goods for industries and agriculture. Collection of revenuefor meeting the expenditure for the regulation of traffic and construction andmaintenance of roads are also important objectives of the Department.


The services of the department can be broadly classified into three categories:

1. Citizen Services: Issue of licences, registration, permit and related works.

2. Enforcement Activities: Implementation of Motor Vehicles Acts & Rules,Control of automobile pollution, implementation of road safety measuresand enforcement at border check posts.

3. Revenue Collection: Collection of vehicle tax, CESS, fees, compoundingfees

All the services of the department were fully computerized as part of the FASTproject and was declared Go Live in January 2007. All the services related tolicences, registration, permits, number allotment, check reports etc have beenautomated through the SMART MOVE software.

The department has always strived to give better and faster services to the public.With the advancement of information technology, the department has been usingthese services to deliver promptly the needs of the public. People assess a Governmentby means of how the departments respond to the needs of the public. It dependsupon the structure, uses of resources, decentralized mechanism, good procedure,routing of files, correctiveness in its day to day activities and avoiding delay inimplementation. With the above priorities in mind, the department is workingdiligently and effectively through various e-Governance schemes.

The department has implemented the ICT activities using specifically theresources allocated by the Government of Kerala. Care has also been taken todevelop the software needed for various computerization activities in open sourceplatform thereby avoiding financial burden to the citizens to avail various services.The department has explicitly used the Government service delivery points likeFRIENDS, Akshaya centres, mobile governance etc to deliver its services. By theuse of Government schemes like Data Centre, Kerala State Wide Area Networketc. the department has definitely taken care that no extra cost is to be incurredby the Government or department.

Various G2C, G2B, G2E and G2G services have been implemented by thedepartment. It is to be noted that the number of people coming to obtain theservices of the department are increasing day by day with the growth of vehicle


population. The vehicle population in Kerala which was only 11.7 lakhs during1996 has reached around 65 lakhs by the end of the year 2010. Implementationof various services with the help of ICT has helped the department to offersatisfactory services even with acute shortage of staff.

The technology-mediated process to modernize Government has brought intremendous changes both in the method of delivery of public services and in theinteraction between the Government and the public.


1. Key Performance

a. Stakeholder services and benefits achieved through ICT interventions

1. G2C Services

The department has introduced submission of applications online for selectedcitizen services. This has made it much easy for an applicant to apply for a service.The applicant can select the service he needed and input only the relevant detailslike licence no. or registration no. After submitting the application, he is providedwith the application forms duly filled in the prescribed format with barcode andan application id. The data entered online is readily forwarded to the CentralData Server and the same can be retrieved in the office by entering the applicationID. The advantage of this system is that the applicant need not be botheredabout which application form be submitted for a particular service.

• e-Licence Services:

a. New Learner’s Licence b. Licence Particulars c. Change of Address d. New Badge

e. Addition of new class f. Duplicate g. Change of Address h. Renewal

(outside State)

• e-Vehicle Services:

a. RC Particulars b. Duplicate RC c. Change of d. Renewal e. Hypothecation

Address endorsement

f. Hypothecation g. Transfer of h. No Objection i. Re-assignment j. Certificate of

termination ownership Certificate of Registration no. fitness

• e-Permit Services:

a. Fresh b. Renewal c. Authorization renewal d. Transfer e. Cancellation


• Information Services: Facility has been provided to the public for accessingvarious information in the department website www.keralamvd.gov.in,related to licence, vehicles, permits and registration numbers. The followingservices are offered:

a. Licence details b. Vehicle details c. Allotted numbers d. Temporary

registered vehicles

e. Mock test for f. Booking status of

Learner’s licence reserved numbers g. Tax calculation h. Application status

• Mobile Services: As part of the m-Governance scheme of the Governmentof Kerala, the department is providing selected information services throughmobile using SMS technology. Messages in specific format can be sent tothe short code 53725/537252 for availing the services. The following servicesare offered:

• Vehicle details: MVD V <vehicle no.>

• Application status: MVD A <inward no.>

• Permit Application status: MVD P <vehicle no.>

• New Registration number: MVD N <inward no.>

• Vehicle Tax: MVD T <vehicle no.>

• Vehicle Number booking range: MVD F <office code>

• Vehicle Number booking status: MVD F <booked no.>

• Fast Track Services: A new innovative venture of the department calledFAST TRACK counters envisages providing instant services to the citizensthrough a single visit. The main features of this scheme are as follows:

• Services are rendered only to those applicants who come directly. This hasreduced the interference of agents and touts in the offices.

• Services are delivered and disposed within 30 minutes of the submission ofapplication.

• Two counters at each office have been exclusively provided for servicesthrough this counter.

• All the services like acceptance of fees, tax and application are done througha single counter.


• Facilities to take photos of the applications, if needed are provided at thecounters.

• Documents are delivered by hand to the applicant after service on thesame day itself.

• Selected services are only provided through this scheme:

• Driving Licence/Conductor Licence: Renewal, Change of Address, LicenceParticulars, Duplicate (on surrender of original)

• Vehicles: Transfer of ownership (non-transport), Change of Address,Hypothecation noting, Duplicate (on surrender of original), Registrationcertificate particulars

• Permit: Motor Cab permit & Auto rickshaw permit renewal

2. G2B Services

Dealer login – The facility was introduced for dealers to enter directly the datarelated to vehicles for registration. This has reduced the workload of the employeesto a great extent. On an average 80-100 vehicles are registered daily in an office.This caused delay in disposing the applications in time and data entry errorswere frequent. With the introduction of this facility each dealer can enter thedata of vehicles he is registering from his office. The data can be retrieved fromthe office by entering the application ID. It has also become much easier toaccept fees and tax of the vehicles thereby making it possible to issue the registrationcertificate on the same day itself.

The Driving Schools are using the facility of e-licence services for submittingthe applications of new learner’s licence and for booking the test date and time ofappearance.

Banks and financial companies can use the facility of e-services and m-servicesfor verifying availed vehicle loans. This prevents the misuse of taking loans for thesame vehicle from different financial institutions.

3. G2G Services

• Enforcement login – The department is giving G2G services to departmentslike Police, Excise, Sales Tax etc. by sharing information like details of licence,vehicles, tax details through e-services and m-services for enforcement


verification. Data is shared with other departments for verification purposes.The National Register for vehicle and driving licences has been made forthe interconnectivity with other States also.

• Common Service Centres – Department is using the facility of commonservice centres like FRIENDS, Akshaya etc. for delivery of its services.Citizens can remit tax and fees for various services of the department throughFRIENDS. Citizens who are not well-versed with internet technology canuse the services of the Akshaya centres for submitting online applications.

4. G2E Services

• Employee login – Facility has been provided in the website for theemployees to login and retrieve various statistical reports in the sub offices.This has reduced the time delay in obtaining various reports.

• E-mail – E-mail IDs have been provided to all the senior officers and officesof the department for instant communication. The department has usedthe facility of Kerala State Wide Area Network in achieving this. Importantcirculars and communications can be communicated through this facility.

• SPARK – The department has implemented Service Payroll and Repositoryof Kerala, a Government initiated web service application for payrollprocessing. This has greatly reduced the work load of the employees inmatters related to process of pay of the employees.

Implementing the services through ICT has greatly reduced the time fordisposing of services to the citizens. The facility of web services and m-serviceshas reduced the time taken by the citizens to submit an application and knowingits status. Implementation of web services has given access to the services of thedepartment to the citizens anywhere and anytime. In the conventional system,services which took more than 10 to 15 days on an average for processing anddisposal, now takes only 2 or 3 days. The ICT services have also brought bettertransparency in the services of the department. With the facility of knowing theapplication status through web and mobile, a citizen can easily track the processof his application in an office without coming to the office itself. Submission ofapplications has also become very easy. Before the implementation of ICT services,a citizen had to fill up to 7 or 8 forms for some services and he was forced to takethe help of agents and touts in filling the application forms. In the web service


system, he only needs to enter the necessary details, and a filled application formis generated automatically, which he can submit to the office with properdocuments. Facilities like choosing the test date and time for appearing in Learner’sLicence test or Certificate of Fitness test for vehicles has reduced the burden ofthe citizens to a great extent. The e-permit services recently started by thedepartment have reduced the workload of the employees and also that of the taxipermit holders in the State. Earlier the application along with RC and othernecessary documents had to be sent to the office of the State Transport Authorityfor process and then send back to the citizen through speed post. Now with onlineapplications, these are verified at the respective RT Offices and the documents arereturned then and there to the applicant. The details only are forwarded by webservice to the head office for process and the permit certificates are sent by post tothe applicant. Services like FAST TRACK Counter have given the confidence to thecitizen to approach the offices without the help of agents or touts.

All the services of the department through ICT have been implemented in acost-effective way by using the resources provided by the Government. Applicationsoftware have been developed in open source platform. Connectivity has beengot through the KSWAN provided by the State. The necessary technical solutionand development of programs are being done through NIC. Hence, there is noextra cost incurred by the department and it has made possible to deliver theICT services to the citizens without causing them much financial burden.

b. Implementation coverage till date and during the year:

The ICT services of the department are available throughout the State. All theoffices have been computerized and are providing the citizen services throughICT only. Internet technology and mobile technology have made it possible forthe citizen to avail the services of the department 24x7x365 days anywhere andanytime. The pilot run of the ICT services were done in selected offices of thedepartment and necessary corrections were made. The program was then rolledout in all the offices of the department. At present 100% of the services are beingdelivered to the citizen using the ICT services only.

The department has taken active steps in implementing e-payment gatewayto be integrated with the web services and will be rolled out shortly. At present,STQC certification, testing and trial run are being conducted.


In the enforcement area, the project Automation of Enforcement Wingproposes to achieve automation of the enforcement work of the department.Cameras have been installed in major junctions of the city and vehicle/licencedetails of any citizen who transients the motor vehicle laws and traffic rules willinstantly be informed to the enforcement officers. Under this scheme, enforcementofficers are provided with PDAs which will enable them to generate check reportand compound penalty while on the move itself.


a. Time and cost efficiency improvements in delivering and availing of ICTenabled services:

1. The introduction of ICT based services has definitely reduced the timeand cost of delivery of the services to the citizens. Services which had takenmore than 10 or 15 days has now reduced to less than 5 days.

2. The ICT services have also enabled the department to give service with quality.Registration Certificates and Licence which were in book form and hand-written are now delivered in computer printed format and laminated.

3. With the use of ICT, the work environment in each office of the departmenthas been utilized to maximum. Now there are less paper files to keep andhence the work area around the staff is fresh.

4. With the introduction of e-services, filling of application form has becomeeasy. It can be done by anyone having a minimum knowledge of ICT or hecan take the service of Government controlled CSCs. Only relevant dataneed be filled and this has saved the cost of application forms or servicemoney which are to be given to the agents and touts.

5. The citizen can directly track the status of application through e-servicesor m-services and hence he need not come to the office often. The documentsare sent by speed post to the citizen’s address.

6. The employees need not do data entry and hence any service can be deliveredin time. The data already entered by the applicant can be retrieved fromthe central server of the department.

7. Though the number of vehicles has increased considerably over a period oftime, the department is able to deliver the citizen services in time due to


the adoption of ICT and hence the costs of appointing additional staff bythe Government have been saved.

8. Wise use of resources provided by the Government have enabled thedepartment to save considerable expenses that could have occurred in thisfield. The technical solution provider, NIC, being a Government of Indiabody has developed the softwares for free of cost and thus no expenses havebeen incurred in this field.

9. Use of open source softwares have saved considerable amount for thedepartment.

b. Specific innovative ideas implemented in eGov area; and their impact onservices:

1. FAST Project: - Fully Automatic Services of Transport Department projectwas the first of its kind in the State to cover such a vast area in the field ofcomputerization. The department offices all over Kerala were computerizedwith this initiative in a short span of time.

2. Smart Move Software: - The software was developed by the NIC bycustomizing the Vahan-Sarathi software. This is comprehensive softwareto automate all the citizen related services pertaining to licence, registration,and permits. Automatic allotment of registration numbers is a main featureof this application.

3. Computer Aided Learner’s Licence System: - This module is coupled withthe Smart Move and is used for conducting learner’s licence test. It is anobjective type test module and is available in English, Malayalam, Hindi,Tamil, and Kannada languages. This has made possible to issue learner’slicence in a single day itself and at an average more than 80 candidates areable to attend the test.

4. Any Counter Any Service: - These counters were set up as part of the FASTproject so that fees and tax for various services could be remitted in any ofthe counters instead of separate counters for a particular service. This hashelped to prevent long queues and the citizen could get his services donewithout any delay.

5. Fast Track Services: - A new venture in which selected services can beprocessed and disposed off within a single day itself, if applicants comedirectly. This has helped the department offices more citizen friendly.


6. Speed Post Delivery: - With this facility, the applicants need to come tothe office only once for submitting the application. The documents arethen sent by speed post to the applicant. This has prevented the exploitationof the common public by agents and touts.

7. E-Applications: - In this the citizen need only enter his licence number orvehicle number for a particular service and the application form is generatedautomatically. An application ID is also incorporated so that citizen cantrack the status of the application.

8. Test date booking for Learner’s Licence and Certificate of Fitness: - Whilesubmitting online applications for learner’s licence or vehicle fitness, theapplicants can choose the date and time for appearing for the test, andhence multiple visits to the office can be avoided.

9. Dealer Login: - This was introduced for facilitating the dealers to enter thedata of newly registered vehicles from their office itself. This has enabledthe acceptance of tax and fees of new registration vehicles easy and hasbecome possible to issue the certificates on the same day itself.

10. Online Permit Applications:- This web service was started by thedepartment recently. Instead of sending the RC and the applications tothe head office by post, citizens can now submit applications at RT Officesand after scrutinizing the documents are returned to the applicant. Thedetails entered by the RT Offices are then forward to the head office viaweb service for processing and the permits are despatched by speed post tothe applicant directly.

11. E-Kiosks: - Touch screen kiosks have been installed at all the offices of thedepartment for the public to access various information services without theassistance of office staff. Application status, tax calculation, change of drivingtest date, mock test for learner’s licence, number allotment, numberreservation, vehicle and licence information can be accessed through thisfacility.

c. To what extent the services are integrated with other departments

The data of the department is shared with the Police, Excise, Sales Tax etc. throughenforcement login for knowing the details of vehicles and licence holders. Data isexchanged between FRIENDS Common Service Centres for facilitating acceptance


of fees and tax. Under the e-District project of the Government, the departmentdata is shared with the Revenue Department for verification of address proof andidentity.



a. eGov/ICT Vision and Roadmap

The department has a broad perspective on its future e-Governance initiatives.The department is always in the forefront to embrace the emerging technologiesin ICT to deliver services through e-Governance. The major projects of thedepartment are:

• E-Payment: - All necessary steps have been taken by the department toimplement e-payment facility in the web enabled services. At present,auditing and testing of the applications is being done by STQC anddepartment officers.

• Electronic Document and Records Management System: - The departmenthas a database of over 65 lakhs of licences and 56 lakhs of registrationcertificates, voluminous number of permits etc. Though the applicationsare processed through computer, the necessary documents are being keptin paper form. This has led to piling up of the documents and difficulty toretrieve necessary papers. Hence, it has been decided to digitize all thepaper documents and store it in a web server which can be retrieved onlinefrom any office.

• Complaint and Query Management Systems: - Road transport is a veryvital area of public interest. To render help to the public an effective andefficient method of complaint management system needs to beimplemented. In the present scenario complaints are received by means ofletter or e-mail and there is no way for tracking the status of thesecomplaints. An automatic CQMS will allow the citizen to track the statusof complaints and bring transparency and speed in disposing the complaints.

• Web Application Software: - At present, the department is using the client-server model of the Smart Move software to deliver computerized services


to the citizens. It is proposed to develop a web application software havinga common database to avoid duplication of records and can be accessedand processed via online. This will also bring the concept of a single RTO.


The department has taken care to utilize the resources and channels providedby the Government to maximum use. Connectivity between the offices have beenestablished through Kerala State Wide Area Network. The front end of the website has been developed in the open source content management system ‘JOOMLA’and the back end has been developed in open source platforms using PHP andPostgreSQL. Common Service Centres like FRIENDS, Akshaya are being utilizedfor service delivery. Government schemes like m-Governance are also being usedto deliver services to the citizens. Sharing of data with other departments is alsodone through KSWAN.


The department has decided to implement all its e-Governance schemes usingthe resources made available by the Government and to use open source platformsfor software development. This is clearly evident in the ICT services alreadyimplemented.

2. Process reengineering and Reforms

a. Major Non-ICT front end Process Changes

1. Implementation of web enabled services and e-application form.

2. Facility for tracking the status of application through e-services andm-services.

3. Despatch of processed applications through speed post.

b. Major Non-ICT back end process changes

1. Implementation of e-applications.

2. Data synchronization between RTO and central server using theKSWAN connectivity.

3. Capacity Building.


3. People and Resources

a. Are the Program Management Teams there full time; (department officials/consultants)

The department’s IT team, Smart Support Group is constituted with IT interestedofficers. They provide full support and suggestions in implementing variouse-Governance schemes. The major functions of the team are:

1. Examine and enable formalization of changes required in the departmentalprocess and review the progress of implementation of process re-engineeringand change management.

2. Evaluation of progress of implementation of the e-governance schemes.

b. Capacity building plan and its implementation status

Training is being given to the employees during the implementation stageof e-Governance activities. Vehicle dealers and driving school owners arealso given training for the use of e-applications. Master trainers are selectedfrom the department staff for giving training. National Informatics Centrealso gives requested training programs to the employees.

c. Change management strategy defined and status thereof

1. Employees and citizens have been given better ambiance. The office workenvironment has got a new look. Provision for drinking water and seatingfacility has been provided in the offices.

2. Centralization of data has enabled to deliver information 24x7x365 daysthrough multiple channels. Sharing of data with other departments arealso possible.

3. Concept of e-application forms has greatly reduced the burden of thecitizens in filling data repeatedly.

d. Leadership support & visibility and current status

The Transport Commissioner along with Joint Transport Commissioner leadsthe overall implementation of the projects. The department’s IT team called theSmart Support Group manages monitors and implements the various e-Governanceschemes.


The technical solution provider of the department, National Informatics Centre,Kerala provides full support and suggestions on the e-governance schemes. TheService Provider of the FAST Project, C-DIT supports and maintains the ICTequipments in all the offices.

Recently the department has started its own Software Development Centre,Software Testing Centre, and Software Training Centre. The software developmentcentre and testing centre has been equipped with latest and advanced servers andICT equipments for developing and testing the web enabled software of the SmartMove software. In the training centre, it is proposed to conduct regular trainingfor various e-Governance activities. The centre has been equipped with internetconnection and latest computers for giving hands on training to the existingemployees as well as to the new recruitments.

T.P. Senkumar, IPS, Transport Commissioner, Motor Vehicles Department, Kerala,[email protected] & Alex Paul, Joint Commissioner, Motor Vehicles Department,Kerala, [email protected]

131Motor Vehicles Department, Kerala – Services through ICTA

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133Health Management Information Systems, Tamilnadu

I) Overview

The Tamilnadu Health Department works for the cause of a healthy population througha system of Medical College Hospitals, District Hospitals and Public Health Centersarranged in a three tier system. Tamilnadu Health Systems Project under the departmentof Health and Family wrelfare, Government of Tamilnadu, caters to the upgradationPrimary, Secondary and Tertiary Care hospitals in the State.

The system lays special emphasis on reaching out to the poor, disadvantaged andtribal groups. Health Management Information System “HMIS” is a judiciouscombination of Information Technology (IT) and management systems, to deliverimproved evidence based health care to the public at large. Health ManagementInformation System provides information-based support for the implementationof cutting-edge reforms by the Tamilnadu Health Systems Project. Apart fromPrimary health centers, Secondary care hospitals, this project is envisaged to includeall the tertiary care hospitals including the Medical colleges.

IT enablement of hospitals in the Tamilnadu districts will create an accuratereal time database which can be then used as a basis of timely information fordrawing up health-related policies and budgets by the State bureau. This initiativestrives to strengthen the patient and the hospital database such that it ablysupports the strategic management of the health system of the state. The easy

CHAPTER 13

Health Management InformationSystem, Tamilnadu

Dr. S Vijayakumar


access to epidemiological data about individual patients enables proactive and efficientmanagement of communicable and non-communicable diseases. This is very effectiveand result-oriented during the eventuality of an epidemic.

Early intervention and swift response by the health directorates, guided by accurateinformation would aid in handling emergencies and such other situations. The Healthdepartment of Tamilnadu is not only providing for quality health care but also ensuringinfrastructure support to sustain this care.

Critical parameters captured and made available in real-time, across the healthchain, distinctly aids quality and timely decision making by the healthdirectorates. Implementation of health schemes has significant financialimplications. Thus the HMIS project being implemented by the Healthdepartment of Tamilnadu for IT enablement of the hospitals. The ambitiousproject was conceptualized to provide the critical health data across the healthchain for quick and timely intervention by the health directorates.

The project includes the development and implementation of Hospitalautomation of Primary, secondary care institutions, Tertiary care hospitals, GovtMedical Colleges & a Medical University across the state and a State wide HealthIT network for reporting on a uniform reporting platform. All the criticalparameters are captured at the end user level and made available real time acrossthe health chain for decision making

HMIS is a judicious combination of Information Technology (IT) andmanagement systems, to deliver improved healthcare to the common man. Criticalparameters captured and made available in real-time, across the health chain,distinctly aids quality and timely decision making by the health directorates. Inaddition to administrative benefits experienced by the hospitals and enhancedpatient-experience in follow-ups, the state-run programmes like Blindness Control,Malaria, TB, Infectious diseases, School Health etc. gain access to accurate andcurrent data which gives a fillip to the success of the programmes.

Implementation of health schemes has significant financial implications. Theobjectives of HMIS include improved financial control of the various schemes.Efficient data handling of patients, equipment inventory, drug stocks and suchother related entities, controls costs and avoids unnecessary wastages.


Compliance with International Classification of Diseases-10, is essential to carryout qualitative analysis of the diseases and health problems of a large population.HMIS eases this process and gives the Tamilnadu Health Care system a significantleverage in efficient management across the entire state.

The Government health care delivery covers a population of over 7.21 Crores(2011) in the State of Tamilnadu (in all 32 districts) through 19 Tertiary CareInstitutions under Directorate of Medical Education, 267 Secondary care hospitalsunder the control of the Directorate of Medical Services and 1539 Primary Healthcenters under the Public Health Directorate.

The HMIS application is envisaged as a single State Health IT system. Atotally centralized web based system on fully open source technologies was decidedupon to optimize investments and more importantly, overcome the maintenanceand skills availability at district/hospital level.

It has two components namely:-

HMS (Hospital Management System)

1. Registration-OP/IP/casualty

2. Clinical module for OP record/IP record/Nurses notes, Operation notes/discharge summary/ ANC record etc.

3. Reporting of the lab test results online

4. Online indents and issues (for drugs)

5. Online ward transfer/linen/diet/BMWM

6. Online day end/periodic report generation

7. Final disease diagnosis is mapped to ICD-10

And

MIS (Management Information System)

1. Clinical module (as above-Auto populate)

2. Ancillary-reporting forms-Blood Bank, stores, diet etc

3. National Programmes – Blindness control, Malaria, TB, Infectious diseases,School Health


4. Administrative Information – HR issues

5. Security module handles all the access and privileges to be given to endusers for each

6. Application and reporting.

An University Automation system for Tamilnadu Dr. MGR Medical Universityand College Management system has been devised for University & MedicalCollege activities.

This is devised to capture real time online data on patients and hospitals in267 hospitals in 32 districts across the state of Tamilnadu. Health managementinformation from 1539 Primary health centers, 19 medical colleges, 47 DMEinstitutions.

While TCS provides the software solution support, the connectivity is providedby Electronics Corporation of Tamilnadu using a 2 mbps leased line. The vendor-independence of the software and fail-proof connectivity make the system a robustone. So, this system can be successfully deployed across all the hospitals—whetherit is in an urban area, a village, or a remote location, independent of the volumeof patients handled by it. The simplicity of the interface enables the use of theapplication directly by the end-users without any assistance from operators.

Implementation of HMIS has been treading zones where no one had evergone before. Gujarat had a system, but that was data entry operators puttinginformation into the system. This is a real time online loading of data and itssuccess is dependent on the cooperation of the staff. By implementing this systemwe have fixed accountability and responsibility on the individual health careproviders.

Project Data:

HMIS the flagship Tamilnadu Health System Project was implemented in a phasedmanner. Started as Pilot (during the year 2008), followed by Phase–I (duringthe year 2009), Phase-II (during the year 2010) and finally Phase III levels (2011).Amount spent for pilot implementation


Table 1:

Sl.No Stage Amount Spent through TNMSC and ELCOT

1. Pilot Rs.2,88,15,000/ and Rs.18,33,250/-

2. Phase I Rs.5,01,84,000/-

3. Phase II Rs. 87,85,28,697/-

4. Phase III Rs.23,05,05,792/-

Total Rs. 118,75,46,739 + Rs. 50,00,000 (Rupees One Hundred and

Eighteen Crores Seventy Five Lakhs Forty Six Thousand Seven

Hundred Thirty Nine Only)


1. Key Performance

The HMIS project has several stakeholders – Patient, Doctors, HealthAdministrators and the service providers in hospitals.

Benefits to patients

1. Online health record available for easy retrieval by doctors in subsequent visits

2. Time saved with access to doctor directly instead of registration for followup visits

Benefits to Government / Health Administrators

1. Quick and easy retrieval of data – real time data across hospitals/districtsavailable online

2. Close monitoring and follow up easier with data available online

3. Better inventory and human resource management

4. Capability to analyse trends and disease patterns

5. Evidence based decisions for investments, improvements

6. Savings in terms of paper and records maintenance

7. Referral chain and patient movement

8. Easy consolidation of data – for comparison, validation, etc.

Benefits to hospitals/staff

1. Time saved for reports and data consolidation

2. Quicker and easy retrieval of records


3. Single point of data entry – at end user level

4. Uniform and standardized reporting formats across the Health chain

5. Near real time data available – for monitoring, decision making across thehealth chain

6. Reduced/minimized duplication of data entry and data maintenance

7. Automatic consolidation/collation of data

8. In-built validations for data entry – reduction in data entry errors

9. Master data entry forms – standardized to bring in uniformity in reporting

HMIS is a solution that encompasses technology, procedures and people with afocus on providing timely and accurate information to micro manage at operationallevel and aid decision making at policy level. This solution aims to increase processand quality outcomes and decrease inefficiencies and costs. This would help controladministration costs and maximize efficiencies of available resources. Acknowledgingthis, the initiative was awarded the “e-India 2009 award for category e- Health – BestGovernment initiative/policy for the year 2009” at the e- India event, held at Hyderabadduring August 25-27, 2009. Selected for Final round National E-Governance Awardawarded by department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Ministryof Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Government of India.

One of the important measurable outcomes of the HMIS implementation is thatapprox. 60% of the registered patients bring back the PIN (Patient IdentificationNumber) during their subsequent visits, which shows high patient compliance tothis system.

By implementing this system we have fixed accountability and responsibility on theindividual health care providers. The results are clearly indicating the success

1. 267 secondary care Government hospitals + 1539 PHC’s online

2. Real time data 24x7

3. The Usage details since December 2008




1. All the processes and data capture fully paper based and all recordsmaintained manually at the hospital - resulting in time consuming processfor transfer/retrieval of records, and collation/consolidation of data forreporting.

2. Substantial Government funds spent on printing of Registers for recordkeeping.

3. Duplication of records/data entry – eg. Patient demographics includingname, age, sex to be entered in each register/record; and no recordsmaintained by hospital for patients treated in Outpatient department.

4. Inconsistency and variations in health care data received from hospitals/districts for analysis.

5. No snap shot/dashboard view available to monitor the performance ofthe hospitals on real time basis for health administrators.

6. No uniform and proper maintenance of details for Equipment,Personnel, Drugs inventory, at hospitals/administrator levels.

7. Limited mapping facility for Inpatient records to Disease classification(International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10)) at hospitals.

The end users across various Institutions and offices were called upon for finalizingthe software requirement specifications, so that the entire application was customizedto suit the needs of each and every department. TNHSP judicially chose an OpenSource software stack in order to prevent a vendor lock in state, in case the projectneeds to be up scaled. Extremely simple, user friendly screens designed byapplication provider to ensure end user ease of use and optimized for performance.

Table 2:


Adequate training for the end users at the Institutional level, to ensure the fullparticipation and to increase the comfort level of the end users. Hassle free connectivitythrough Tamilnadu State Wide Area Network (TNSWAN), which is a 2 Mbpsdedicated leased line terminating at each hospital level. A Broadband Connectivityof 2 Mbps connectivity has also been setup at all hospitals as a redundant connection.We have also established Automatic switch over from TNSWAN to broadband andvise versa during times when either one of them fails. A centralized web server whichhouses all the database placed at a fully equipped Tamilnadu State Data centermaintained by ELCOT.

TNHSP in coordination with Tamilnadu Electricity Board has ensured that thereare no power cuts during the Out patient hours of the hospitals. We have also suppliedUPS with 2 hours back up to all the hospitals in case of a power failure. TNHSP hasrequested the State Government to issue necessary orders to do away with the manualregisters subsequently Govt Order number (MS)10 dated 14.01.2011 was issued byHealth and Family Welfare department, Govt of Tamilnadu, this had enabled all thehospital staff to eventually use HMS for all the transactions.

Continuous motivation of all the end users from the top level of the managementand a daily review of the performance of the hospitals on HMS at the Directoratelevel ensured that the implementation was a success. Creation of a “CentralizedHelp Desk” to register calls/clarify queries from end users regarding hardware/application related issues, which will also ensure coordination among variousstakeholders. TNHSP has posted an IT Technical coordinator at each district for the32 districts to supervise, troubleshoot and handhold the various issues occurring atthe institutional level.

b. Specific innovative ideas implemented in e-Governance area; and theirimpact on services

1. Unique Patient Identification Number (PIN) - helps in Referral andeasy retrieval of Patient data

2. Standardized and Unique codes across all government hospitals; andemployees of the Health Department

3. Usage of standardized State level drug codes from Central procurement


agency & Treasury codes for Finance related information

4. Uniform and standardized reporting formats across all institutions forease of comparison, data analysis among Health Directorates.

5. Online availability of patient health records across referral chain.

6. No Data entry support by ensuring the end users themselves trained foronline usage of the system - OP record entry by doctors online includingonline prescriptions, lab investigations, diagnosis.

7. Issuance of Government orders - removal of manual registers; processchanges at hospitals (eg. Drug tokens, lab slips removal) and use ofthe online HMS.

8. Rationalization of manpower and processes

c. The extent to which this e-Governance initiative is integrated with otherinternal and/or external ICT systems

Optimal utilization of existing IT infrastructure investments by the Stateincluding Wide Area Network, State Data Center

Guided by the objective to improve efficiencies at the global level and leveragingthe prolific presence of technology, rationalization of some processes, inputs andreports have been done. This has led to removal of many manual processesincluding manual tokens for drugs, lab request slips, indent forms, etc. andautomation of periodic reports on drug issues, indents, daily census, etc. resultingin substantial saving of time for the end users. Grass root level study of informationrequirements and processes has facilitated the design of uniform and standardizedinput formats and processes. Common uniform system of reporting will ease datacomparison and performance monitoring across institutions. Proactive Healthprogrammes can now be tailored to meet the local challenges. The abstract of theinnovations brought about by the project are as follows:-

1. Unique Patient Identification Number

2. Unique Institution codes across all government hospitals and office

3. Unique employee numbers/user names and password-for access to system

4. Re-use of drug codes (from other central procurement agency)


5. Re-use of the treasury codes for finance related information

6. Uniform and standardized reporting formats across all institutions

7. TNHSP will propose to link the PIN to the UID that is to be developed by thegovernment of India.

8. The Lab test results are being given to the patients with test report referencevalues

9. The final disease diagnosis is linked to International Disease Code-10

Basic Computer training to all the hospital staff were arranged with the helpof Tamil Nadu e Governance Agency (TNeGA). The doctors themselves enterdiagnosis, order lab tests and give prescriptions online for all out patients. As aresult, no manual records are maintained any longer. Posting of an exclusiveDistrict IT Technical Coordinator, to maintain the systems inventory and toattend to local hardware/network issues ensures minimal downtime.

Top management support has also played a critical role in the successfuldeployment of the application. Continuous motivation of all the end usersfrom the top level of the management and a daily review of the performance ofthe hospitals on HMS at the Directorate level ensured that the implementationwas a success.

As mentioned earlier, at the behest of the Director of Medical and RuralHealth Services facilitated by TNHSP, the State Government has supported thisproject by way of issuing a G.O instructing hospitals to do away with manualregisters and make full use of HMIS application. Also, HMIS was conceptualizedas a centralized web based software solution to minimize technology support andmaintenance dependencies


1. State Policy and Strategy

One among the Secondary care hospitals where this web-enabled system hadbeen established – the Namakkal Govt Hospital had received NABHaccreditation. The vendor-independence of the software and fail-proofconnectivity adds value to the system. Hence this is successfully deployed acrossall the hospitals—whether it is in an urban area, a village, or a remote location,independent of the volume of patients handled by it. Government had issued


orders to do away with manual records and all hospital related entries are doneonline. By principal government had issued orders for the implementation ofState Health Data resource center, which will serve as a central repository forall the data received through HMS and HMIS.

The various Government orders are as follows:-

1. G.O.2D No.68 Health and Family Welfare Department Dated:29.08.2005 (Hiring of a consultancy firm to develop and implement acomprehensive HMIS for secondary level hospitals).

2. G.O.2D No.62 Health and Family Welfare (EAP 1/1) Department Dated:06.06.2007 (Hiring of a consultancy firm to develop and implement acomprehensive HMIS for secondary level hospitals – Expenditure Sanctioned).

3. G.O.(Ms) No.223 Health and Family Welfare (EAP 1/1) DepartmentDated: 08.07.2008 (Implementation a comprehensive HMIS for secondarylevel hospitals- Pilot Phase – Procurement of Hardware components andconnectivity, etc).

4. G.O.2D No.87 Health and Family Welfare (EAP 1/1) Department Dated:29.07.2008 (Implementation a comprehensive HMIS for secondary levelhospitals).

5. G.O.2D No.37 Health and Family Welfare (EAP 1/1) Department Dated:18.05.2009 (Implementation of comprehensive web based HMIS includingHMS and patients electronic medical records – Implementation in 270 hospitalsin the State – Procurement of equipment for Phase I hospitals Sanction ofadditional funds of Rs.3,47,26,930/-).

6. G.O.2D No.80 Health and Family Welfare (EAP 1/1) Department Dated:20.10.2009 (Implementation of web based HMIS and HMS in Phase I projecthospitals – Provision of TNSWAN connectivity – proposal approved – Sanctionof expenditure of Rs. 1,56,66,521/-).

7. G.O.2D No.87 Health and Family Welfare (EAP 1/1) Department Dated:21.10.2009 (Provision of computer furniture to the hospitals supplied with thecomputers - Proposal approved – Sanction of expenditure of Rs. 10 Lakhs).

8. G.O.2D No.88 Health and Family Welfare (EAP 1/1) Department Dated:


21.10.2009 (Implementation of web based HMIS and HMS in all project hospitals– Outsourcing of Technical Co-ordinator(IT)).

9. G.O.(Ms) No.63 Health and Family Welfare (F1) Department Dated:2.03.2010 (Introduction of HMIS in all secondary care hospitals under thecontrol of the Director of Medical and Rural Health Services in two phases –Implementation of changes in the hospitals systems – Formation of team at theDirectorate level and nomination of contact persons at the district level).

10. G.O.(Ms) No.121 Health and Family Welfare (F1) Department Dated:03.05.2010

(Planning and Development – Introduction of Hospital Management Systemand Hospital Management Information System in all the Secondary carehospitals under the control of the director of Medical and Rural HealthServices in two phases – Implementation of changes in the hospital systems-formation of the team at the Directorate level and nomination of contactpersons at the district level – Orders issued – amendment to orders – Issued).

11. G.O. (Ms) No.9 Health and Family Welfare (F1) Department Dated:14.01.2011 (Department of Medical and Rural Health Services -Implementation of a comprehensive HMS in all secondary care hospitals underthe control of Director of Medical and Rural Health Services in all remainingdistricts).

12. G.O. (Ms) No.10 Health and Family Welfare (F1) Department Dated:14.01.2011 (Department of Medical and Rural Health Services -Implementation of a comprehensive HMS in all secondary care hospitals underthe control of Director of Medical and Rural Health Services in all remainingdistricts – Dispensing away with the manual reporting system – Fixingresponsibility on hospitals staff for online reporting).

13. G.O. (Ms) No.72 Health and Family Welfare (EAP 1/1) DepartmentDated: 23.02.2011 (TNHSP – Establishment of State Health Data ResourceCenter and implementation of Operational Guidelines - “in-principle” approval).

14. G.O. (Ms) No.73 Health and Family Welfare (E1) Department Dated:23.02.2011 (Department of Medical Education – Implementation of HMISin all tertiary care hospitals and 20 Government Medical Colleges (IncludingGovernment Dental College) under the control of Directorate of Medical Education


and Pilot Implementation of HMIS in Government General Hospital, Chennaiand Government Thanjavur Medical College Hospital and Implementation ofUniversity Automation System and College Management System (CMS) in Dr.MGR Medical University).

15. G.O. (Ms) No.102 Health and Family Welfare (EAP 1-1) DepartmentDated : 01.03.2011

(TNHSP – Department of Medical Education – Implementation of HMIS inall tertiary care hospitals and 19 Government Medical Colleges (includingGovernment Dental College) – Pilot implementation of HMIS in GovernmentGeneral Hospital, Chennai and Government Thanjavur Medical CollegeHospital – Implementation of University Automation System and CollegeManagement System in Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University – contractingof a consultant for a software development).

2. Cost Effectiveness

HMIS is a solution that encompasses technology, procedures and people with afocus on providing timely and accurate information to micro manage at operationallevel and aid decision making at policy level. This solution aims to increase processand quality outcomes and decrease inefficiencies and costs. This would help controladministration costs and maximize efficiencies of available resources. The hugecost involved in the procurement of records and registers are now being curtailedand a more cost effective system put in place.

3. Support Infrastructure

a. Sustainability

IT challenges faced by all deployments is, trying to accommodate increasingdemand for new IT capabilities and services. The scenario in this case includesmaintaining a fine balance between growths, cost savings, handling day-to-dayoperations and providing improved and extended services.

The mantra for success for this application includes :

1. Enablement of real-time, online data capture and updation

2. High availability

3. Reliability

After the project period the respective Directorate will maintain the HMIS


implementation and will be promptly supported by the Department of IT. The budget(recurring expenditure) needed to run this project will be factored in during the annualbudgeting of the Directorate. The Department of IT will maintain the hardware/software by means of Annual Technical Support every year.

One of the important measurable outcomes of the HMIS implementation is thatapprox. 60% of the registered patients bring back the PIN (Patient IdentificationNumber) during their subsequent visits, which shows high patient complianceto this system. Even registered patients who fail to bring the PIN, their data canbe retrieved by way of searching the name, address or the date of previous visit.

Creative use of resources has been instrumental in tiding over all thesechallenges. The project has been conceptualized as a centralized web based softwaresolution with minimal technology support and maintenance dependencies.Notwithstanding this demand, the solution is customized to suit the needs of alldepartments and has been designed using the inputs from the end users acrossvarious Institutions and Offices.

Reliability and availability has been the key area of focus while drawing upthe blueprint of infrastructural support for HMIS. Dynamic changes in technologyand rapid growth of user needs are some universal changes. To counter the changingsoftware scenario, TNHSP wisely chose an Open Source software stack to eliminatevendor lock-in, to create efficiencies, improve service delivery and maintainscalability. On the hardware front, uninterrupted connectivity is assured usingTamil Nadu State Wide Area Network (TNSWAN)—a 2 Mbps dedicated leasedline terminating at each hospital level. As an automatic failover solution, thissystem includes a fallback mechanism—a redundant, 2 Mbps broadbandconnectivity has been setup at all hospitals such that an automatic switch overtakes place from TNSWAN to VPNoBB and vice-versa in the event of failure ofone of the connectivity mechanisms. A centralized web server which hosts thedatabase is securely placed in a fully equipped Data center.

The server Architecture has been designed in such a way so as to enableredundancy at every level, so that there is never a server downtime. Every enduser machine IP address is configured and locked by the IT technical Co ordintaor,so that the end users do not alter the same and also it has prevented IP conflicts


occurring within the Institution. The IP schema of the hospital is maintained by ITtechnical coordinator and also shared with the concerned Chief Medical Officer andthe respective Directorate.

b. Application Solution Architecture

1. Centralized web based solution

2. On open source platform

• J2EE

• Postgre SQL Database

• Glassfish Application server

• Solaris OS

The Solution is a centrally hosted web based application. It follows industrystandard three tier architecture via Presentation, Business Logic and Data Layer.The application is built on J2EE platform, the components used follow J2EEspecifications.

The access to the applications are user role based and privileges assigned asper the designated roles and requirements defined by the respective directorates.The applications also audited and certified as fully compliant with the OpenWeb Application Security Project (OWASP) requirements.

The hardware requirement for the hospitals including the UPS and electricalcabling, Local Area Network - number of nodes and positioning of switches, wascarried out by a technically competent agency. The agency after a thorough fieldinspection, prepared a scientific document detailing the exact requirements foreach and every hospital including department wise breakup and cabling diagramfor the hospital, based on which the procurement is being carried out.

TNHSP in coordination with Tamil Nadu Electricity Board has ensured thatthere are no power cuts during the outpatient hours of the hospitals. The hospitalsare equipped with UPS with 2 hours back up to all to manage the situation incase of a power failure. The simplicity of the interface enables the use of theapplication directly by the end-users namely Doctors, Staff Nurses, Pharmacists,Lab Technicians, ANM’s and Hospital workers. The centralized web-based solution


developed using open source technologies overcomes the blockades arising from vendorlock-in. The advantages of open-source technologies also supports customizationrequired to handle situations unique to hospital management across all terrains inthe country. The end user machines are loaded with Linux Operating system whichhas also proved to be cost effective till date.

The design caters for possible pain-points that could arise at operational leveldue to factors like remote location of the hospital, lack of trained manpower athospital, operational exigencies etc. The solution is driven by low cost of support,ease of deployment, training, etc. HMIS data entry formats are fully standardizedand provide for uniformity in reporting and data consolidation. Data input andcollection in forms includes the data requirements for National Rural HealthMission (NRHM) and other reporting needs at State and Central level. Simple, yetcomprehensive solution enables phased implementation such that the processenhances competency and the comfort-level of the end-users, taking it to a smoothroll-out.

The patients records being available online provides for ease of referral across thechain of hospitals from primary health care centers to secondary health care centersto tertiary health care centers as needed. This clearly demonstrates that the solutioncan easily adapt itself to different volumes and different levels of uses.

c. Capacity Building

The HMIS application is envisaged as a single State Health IT system. Thegovernment healthcare delivery covers a population of over 7.21 crores in theState of Tamil Nadu. The State Health Society also a major stakeholder alsoexpects to extract/import most of the information needed for reporting andmanagement from this application.

This centralized web based system on fully open source technologies was decidedupon to optimize investments and more importantly, overcome the maintenanceand skills availability at district/hospital level. The hospital records and processeswere totally manual prior to implementation of the HMIS application.

Basic computer training followed by HMS training and HMIS training isimparted to all users with the help of TCS, TNeGA. at State head quarters andat District head quarters. Also training programs are conducted at individualhospitals for the doctors, pharmacists, Lab Technicians, Staff Nurses, IT co-


ordinators posted in all 32 districts of Tamilnadu train and support the usersduring their hospital visits.

Project management & Monitoring adopted;The project is being monitoredby full time State HMIS coordinator along with a team from the respectivedirectorates. The online reporting provides for status updates and helpdesksupport. There are periodic reviews by the Project Director and respectiveDirectorates on the online entry and usage status.

Training of end users are handled through both classroom and hands on trainingsessions. All training sessions for 5 districts as part of Phase I of the project fullycompleted. Refresher training also planned and implemented to target user groupsto improve online usage.

Change management strategy defined and implemented as follows :- Ascomputerization was introduced for the first time, the users had to be initiallyexposed to basic computer training and orientation. The e–Governance agency ofthe State also provided the basic computer training. Apart from the Applicationtraining, the champion/nodal teams at each hospital also trained to handle basictroubleshooting of IT infrastructure. Various government orders mandating theusage of online system also issued as needed.

Leadership support :

The Project Director & Special Secretary to Health Department, Secretary ITDepartment, NRHM Mission director along with the Directors of Medical services,Public Health and Medical Education have addressed the end users during trainingand other review sessions to reiterate the need and importance of ICT interventionsfor better patient care.

Interpretation and Action taken

1. Respiratory tract infection and Asthmatic Bronchitis indicates the highprevalence rate in tropical climates - ensured availability of appropriatedrugs.

2. Degenerative arthritis and Fibromyalgia are next common in elderly –ensured rehabilitation activities.

3. Habits - Food and exercise – imply that Acid Peptic Disease and NIDDMare seen among the people - Counseling plays vital role.


Figure 1: Drugs Prescribed Online


Action Taken

• Ensured the availability of drugs

• Procurement based on utilization

• Change in prescription pattern

Figure 2: Lab Orders Online

Interpretation of Action Taken

1. Majority suffer from Upper Respiratory Tract Infections / Lower RespiratoryTract Infections – Blood HE/ESR/DC/TC are done to evaluate.

2. Next commonly affected individually are elderly with osteoarthritis andHypertension - Serum glucose/urea/creatine and urine glucose/protein/deposits are done.

3. Based on instant results they are assured of speedy management and recovery.


Awards & Honours for HMIS

1. This Project was the winner of the e-India 2009 Jury award under e-Healthcategory for “Best Government Policy / Initiative of the year 2009” whichwas awarded during the e-Asia Conference 2009 event held at HyderabadAugust 25-27, 2009.

2. The Project Paper was selected for oral presentation at e-Asia Conference2009 held at Colombo, Sri Lanka, during December 2-4, 2009.

3. The Project Paper was selected for an oral presentation at the Med-e-Tel2010 conference at Luxembourg during April 14-16, 2010.

4. Based on the cost effective approach, this project has caught the attentionof the following International Publishers, who have offered to publish thisproject as a book.

1. The Lambert Academic Publishing AG & Co.KG, Germany.

2. VDM publishing house Ltd., Mauritius.

5. Shortlisted for the final round of e-governance Na tional Award for theyear 2010-11.



e-Inclusion under HMIS project includes the staff and users at hospitals whonow benefit with ICT initiative in terms of time saving, record keeping and useto technology for quick and real time availability of health data. The staff hithertocarrying out manual maintenance of records can fully utilize the benefits of onlinesystem for data capture and reporting as needed.

The patient also is benefitted with the online availability of medical recordacross the government health chain for doctors to view and retrieve full patienthistory as captured.


In Phase III activities, when this system is extended to Tertiary Care MedicalCollege Institutions integration to Digital X-ray transmission/PACS planned,


interfacing with Tamilnadu Dr. MGR Medical University will enable further e-inclusion on academic specific areas.

Three members from Tamil Nadu Health systems Project has attended anInternational Conference on Digital Libraries on 23.02.2010 to 26.02.2010 atTERI, New Delhi.

2. eParticipation


All staff at hospitals are being trained on use of computers and application asneeded.

e-Participation is the generally accepted term referring to “ICT-supportedparticipation in processes involved in government and governance”. Processes mayconcern administration, service delivery, decision making and policy making. E-participation is hence closely related to e-government and (e-)governanceparticipation. TNHSP with the implementation of HMIS facilitate E-Governenceactivities of district collectorates by providing the Public Health Data and otherNational Health Programmes. This enables the policy makers to decide on healthpolicies and it is reflected in the annual health budget performance. The staff withinterest and aptitude for ICT have also been trained on hardware, LAN and otherlocal troubleshooting to help create nodal teams at locations for quicker diagnosisand resolution of IT infrastructure related issues. The entire staff can participate inutilization of the online system based on their roles and also interact with the Centralhelpdesk for any ICT related issues.

IT Coordinators, 3 Server Administrators and all other program officers areinvolved in this e participation. 32 Technical Coordinators from all the districtsare also involved in this e-participation.

3. eWaste


E-waste Management policy is adopted by TNHSP head quarters. Awarenessamong individual users is propagated by IT coordinators in various districts.


Action plan has been devised to keep the environment green. Tamil Nadu HealthSystems Project is disposing its e-waste through a vendor adopting auction processimposing stringent rules for the clearance of e-waste.

As per the State e-Waste policy, the buy back and disposal of all IT hardwarecomponents are being followed. The ELCOT is the coordinating agency forimplementation of this policy on behalf of the Health Department.

Dr. S. Vijayakumar, I.A.S., Ex. Project Director, Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project,Tamil Nadu, [email protected], [email protected] & State Coordinator (HMIS), Healthand Family Welfare department, Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project, Tamil Nadu,[email protected], [email protected]

SECTION IV

e-Governance Success StoriesDistrict Initiatives

Government of India (GOI) approved the National e Governance Plan (NeGP)in May 2006, with the following vision:

“Make all Government Services accessible to the common man in his locality, throughcommon service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability ofsuch services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the common man”.

To realize this vision, 27 Central, State and Integrated Mission Modeprojects (MMPs) along with 8 support components were identified andapproved under NeGP.

Overview of e-District MMP: e-District MMP is one of the 27 MMPs underNeGP, with the Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government ofIndia as the nodal Department, to be implemented by State Government ortheir designated agencies. It aims at electronic delivery of identified high volumecitizen centric services, at district and sub-district level, which are not part of anyother MMP. (Source: http://www.mit.gov.in/content/e-district)

For delivery of these services, front-ends in the form of citizen facilitationcenters are envisioned to be built at District-, Tehsil-, Sub-division- and Block-levels. Village-level front-ends would be established through Common ServicesCentres (CSCs). Objective of these front end and CSC are to reduce travel andinteraction of citizens with Government offices and faster delivery of services.

CHAPTER 14

ICT Initiatives for District level e-Governance

Dr Nityesh Bhatt


With online submission of applications, a Citizen can also track the progress of theapplication/request on line.

Timelines: e-District project in each state is to be implemented in two Phases.In Phase I Pilots would be undertaken covering 1-2 Districts of a State and inPhase II, the Project would rolled out across the State subsequent to successfulimplementation of the pilot. Phase I would be completed within 18 monthsfrom the date of approval of the pilot project report. Phase II will be completedwithin two years from the date of sanction of statewide roll out. At the end of theproject, all 640 districts will start offering e-District services.

A core list of six services has been identified at the national level which shallbe taken up for implementation by all States which agree to participate in theeDistrict MMP. The State can also add a further 4 services, at its discretion, forimplementation under the MMP. The list of core services is as follows:

a) Issue of Certificates including Domicile, Nativity, Caste, Marriage, Income,Employment etc

b) Pensions – Social welfare Pensions (Old age, Widow, Handicap, Destitute)

c) Revenue Court – including Case listing, Case adjournment, Stay orders,Final orders, Status of execution of orders: Information, Tracking, and filingof misc. applications.

d) Government dues and recovery as part of Land Revenue – including Issueof notices, Record payments, Track default processes, Updation of treasuryreceipts etc

e) Public Distribution System, Ration Card related services –includingRegistration, Change of address, Addition of members, Issue of duplicatesetc.

f ) RTI services including redressal of Grievances – (Application, tracking,monitoring, redressal, appeals etc.), Education, Electricity, Drinking Water,Panchayats, Health, Police, Revenue, Road, Treasury, Social Welfare,Irrigation, Woman & Child, Public Distribution System, Transport,Disaster Relief

159ICT Initiatives for District level e-Governance

In addition to these core services, discretionary services to be chosen by Statesinclude certificates, revenue, marriage services, electoral services, licenses, courtservices, utility services, payment of property tax, grievances, education, health,employment, police, travel, grant/loans, social welfare and industries.

By May 2011, 41 e-District pilot projects have been implemented in than 16States under different platforms. STQC is engaged to test that under each servicecategory for chosen services, the functionality is built securely and the e-districtapplication so developed gives acceptable performance for a defined load. The e-district applications which will get certification from STQC will qualify for statewide roll out.

This modernization and automation project of district administration willultimately empower the citizens. The estimated total project cost for the nation-wide rollout of e-District MMP is Rs 1663.08 crore, out of which Government ofIndia’s share is estimated to be Rs 1233.08 crore and States’ share Rs 430 crore.

(Source: http://news.nwn.in/2011/04/20/e-district-mission-mode-project-to-empower-the-citizens-in-640-districts-of-india/)

CSI-SIGeGov & eGov in India: The Computer Society of India (CSI), thelargest association of information technology professionals in India, with over70,000 members from all domains has instituted a series of awards for recognizingthe contributions made in the field of e-Governance in the country. Special InterestGroup on e-Governance (CSI-SIGeGov) has been setup within CSI to focus on e-Governance activities in the country. One of its annual activities is e-Governanceawards. These awards, sponsored by Nihilent Technologies are given for the effortsmade in e-Governance area at the State, Department, District and Project level.

Award of Excellence - District Category: In District Category, Award ofExcellence is (are) given for outstanding efforts demonstrating excellence ine-Governance during the current year at the district level. The basic objective ofthis award has been to recognize and appreciate the successful efforts at the districtlevel in achieving good governance using information and communicationtechnology (ICT). For annual CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Awards 2010-11, CSISIGeGov received 16 district nominations for the District category. From


Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Kerala States two nominations were receivedwhile from Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana,Karnataka, Assam and Punjab States, we received one nomination each.

Based on the response to template questions, a few nominations were consideredsuitable for ‘Project Category’ instead of ‘District Category’. After two stages ofscreening, five districts were called for presentation in front of selection committee.Three broad evaluation criteria, that are used are: Result Indicators, EnablerIndicators and Value Indicators. For those nominations that were short listed forField visits non-disguised observations as well as interaction with key stakeholdersi.e. District officers (including District Collector, District Information Officers),employees and CSC owners & employees were included as a process of evaluation.

Result Indicators were comprised of Key Performance (further divided into e-Governance services portfolio and its impact, implementation coverage, futureplans), and Government efficiency & improvement initiatives (in terms of time,cost, innovation and integration with other offices/ departments). EnablerIndicators were District Policy & Strategy (further divided into eGov visionroadmap, shared IT infrastructure and technology standardization), Processreengineering & Legal Reforms (both front end and backend), Capacity building(comprised of leadership, training, change management, program managementteams and sustainability aspects) and technology (cost, maintenance, securityand competence of people). Value Indicators was made up of e-Waste, e-Participation and digital inclusion.

Most of district projects covered a large number of G2C services like variouscertificates, public grievances, health Projects, land record computerization anddelivery, PDS as mentioned above. Some of projects also covered G2G serviceslike video-conferencing, treasury management, election management etc. Fewprojects offered G2B services also. Citizen Services Centres (CSCs) in these districtsare offering many G2C as well as some B2C services also. Many districts havedeployed innovative technological solutions like IP based surveillance, SMS baseddisaster management, SMS & GPS based PDS distribution, biometric basedattendance system, touch-screen kiosks etc. In majority of cases, districts utilizedtheir own funds for these installations. Even in some cases, private donor supportwas also sought.

161ICT Initiatives for District level e-Governance

Background & Impact of selected Districts: Interesting observation about thereceived nominations was that most of the districts were relatively small, less-known and backward in terms of main socio-economic indicators literacy,healthcare, employment, income etc. Some of them were facing severe naxalviolence. Geographical reach is also not easier with many districts. Despite thesechallenges, these districts under strong and techno-centric leadership of districtcollector and their team could achieve significant success which was not onlyrecognized by their State, Centre and also non-State actors like CSI but many ofsuch initiatives were replicated in other districts or whole State. Successfulimplementation of various E-Governance projects in these districts have deliveredtangible results in terms of employment generation, efficiency of employees,reduction in corruption, faster file processing and speedier grievance handlingand intangible results in form of empowered and satisfied citizens. Passion ofleadership in these districts is also reflected in accolades received in non-ITinitiatives such as healthcare, literacy etc.

Determinants of Success: Based on our interaction with different stakeholdersand observation of IT projects in these districts, we generalize following majorreasons for their success:

1. Passionate, enthusiastic and courageous digital leadership

2. Involvement of stakeholders through effective communication andmotivation

3. Constructive change management practices including training

4. Political support

Final Results: Based on comprehensive scores obtained at each stage ofassessment, Nanded (Maharashtra) Pali (Rajasthan) and Ramabai Nagar (UP)were recognised for Awards in the District category.

Dr Nityesh Bhatt, Chairperson & Sr. Associate Professor – Information ManagementArea, Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad; Co-Convener, CSINihilent Awards, [email protected]


I) Overview

South Goa Collectorate has implemented a DC-Suite system with a technicalsupport of National Informatics Centre, Goa. DC-Suite is an integrated suite ofapplications implemented for effective district administration so that the servicesto the citizens can be provided timely.

DC-Suite is web-based application, developed under open source technologies.It has implemented with a minimal expenditure on the development, deployment,training and implementation components of the project. Initially, fifteen functionalareas are identified under this project. It has work flow based file managementsystem as backbone of the system and other functional modules are integratedwith this to provide services to the citizens.

There are fifteen modules in the system which are integrated with the fileflow management system. Modules such as Arms Licence, Certificates, RevenueRecovery, Public Grievances, Govt. Quarters Allotment, Rest House Reservation,Court Cases, Cash Receipts, Assembly Questions, Land Conversion etc areintegrate with it.

System enables features such as public access, transparent administration, andservice delivery to the citizens.

District Collectorate is an important government machinery at district levelof the revenue department. State and Central Government policies are

Shri Sandip Jacques and Shri Ashutosh Apte

CHAPTER 15

South Goa, Goa

163South Goa, Goa

implemented at grass root level through the district administration. It deals withthe various subjects ranging from revenue administration, development,magisterial, disaster management etc. Every citizen is related to this departmentthrough one or other activity.

District Collectorate is headed by the Collector which is highest authority atdistrict level. He is assisted by the two additional collectors and deputy collectorsin the collectorate. Deputy Collectors/Sub Divisional Officers are heads of thesub-divisional level offices and Mamlatdars are heads at taluka level offices. Throughthis machinery, government policies are implemented at local levels.

South Goa District has six talukas and four sub-divisions. Dharbandora, thesixth taluka has been formed recently.

The District Collectorate functions can be broadly classified into five categories.

1. Revenue Administration.

2. Magisterial.

3. Schemes Implementation.

4. Election.

5. Personal Administration.

6. Census.

Revenue Administration

Collectorate handles various acts under Land Revenue Code. It deals with landconversion, cumeri cultivation, recovery of government dues, matters relating toagricultural tenancy and mundcar, transfer of rights by way of sale/gift, grant ofgovernment land, land records, encroachment of government land, illegalconstruction, mining, etc. Cases/Appeals under LRC are filed in the courts of thecollector and additional collectors.

Land Acquisition Act is also implemented by the collectorate to acquire landfor the public use.


Magisterial

Collector is responsible to enforce Law and Order in the district. Collector hasdelegated quasi judicial powers under various acts. Collectorate issues licensesunder Arms Act, Cinematography Act, Explosives Act, Noise Pollution Act, VideoParlour, Sound Permission. Collectorate implements other acts such as CriminalProcedure Code, Motor Vehicle Act, Essential Commodities Act, Indian ForestAct, Indian Electricity Act, Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, Press &Registration Act, Smoking & Spitting Act, Non-Biodegradable Garbage ControlAct, Child Labour Act. It issued Domicile Certificates and permission to transportdead bodies.

Development Schemes

Collectorate implements various development schemes of the State and CentralGovernment. Schemes such as 20 point program, MPLAD, Ambedkar AwasYojana, Old Pension Scheme are implemented by this office.

Election

Collectorate hold elections of Parliament Constituency, Assembly Constituency,Zilla Panchayat and Co-Operative bodies in the district. Collector being a DistrictElection Officer, looks after Electoral Registration work.

Personal Administration

Collectorate has offices at district, sub-divisional, taluka and village levels. It hasto maintain records of service books, leave accounts, promotions, transfers onday-to-day basis. Besides this, it has to handle matters like employee pensions,annual confidential reports, vigilance enquiries, etc.

Census

Collector is a District Census Officer. This office conducts decadal population censusof the district. Also, it involves in conducting animal census and other surveys.


1. Key Performance

165South Goa, Goa

a. Stakeholder services and benefits achieved through ICT interventions

1. G2C Services

• Acknowledgement of letters.

• Current status of files.

• Current status of an application.

• Beneficiary search.

• Government Order search.

• Public Grievance status.

• Help Desk

• Employee and office search.

• Citizen charter with detailed collectorate services.

• Application forms.

• SMS facility to enquire status of an application.

• Interface to Govt of Goa eService portal to accept applications throughinternet.

2. G2E Services

• Intranet to the employees.

• Notice Board to publish notices & circulars.

• E-mail messaging.

• Discussion Forum, Chat.

• Daily events, meeting dairy.

• Search of Tapals and files.

• Payslips of employees.

• Circulars.

• Meeting minutes.


• RTI Act information.

• Internal office application forms for employees.

3. G2G Services

• User-based login to other offices.

• Land records form I & XIV availability on kiosk.

b. Implementation coverage till date and during the year

DC-Suite system is implemented in the South Goa Collectorate. This system isbeing used by all employees of the collectorate. Citizen Facilitation Centre issetup in the office with four counters to accept the letters, help citizens to fillapplication forms etc.

c. Future plan with regard to geographical coverage as well as scope of services

It is planned to integrate additional functional modules such as Explosives Licence,Land Conversion, Court Cases, Land Acquisition, Land Conversion in the system.Arms Licence renewal module access can be given to police station to verifyapplications. It is planned to extend same kinds of services at Taluka and SubDivisional offices.



1. Tapals can be traced easily with a particular staff and file. It has a provisionto search on tapal number, subject, receiving dates etc.

2. Searching of files and documents based on file/document number, subjecthas reduced considerable time.

3. Pendency of tapals and applications made available always to the staff.

4. Reduced time in generating letters and certificates.

5. Citizen problems solved considerably as they need not move table to tableto locate an application.

167South Goa, Goa

b. Specific innovative ideas implemented in eGov area, and their impact onservices:

1. Citizen Facilitation Centre is setup in the Collectorate to receive applicationsand assist people to fill application forms.

2. SMS facility is setup to enquire status through mobile.

3. Public access provided through internet.

4. Applications are made available in the CFC.

c. Extent to which services are integrated with other internal and/or externalICT systems within the district or outside.

Goa State has a GBBN network through fiber optical cables. Maximum officesare networked through this network. Access to this system can be provided toother departments.




South Goa E-Governance Society is being formed in the district to achieve thefollowing objectives.

1. To take all necessary steps to promote efficiency, reduce delay; enhanceaccountability, transparency and objectivity in the functioning of the SouthGoa District Administration.

2. Formulating and implementing policies, procedures and guidelines for theadoption of Information Technology and e-governance for improvement ofcitizen services through various government departments and agencies andancillary activities and services. To promote and disseminate informationtechnology culture in the district so that the common man could avail thebenefit of information technology and e-governance.

3. To administer the implementation of e-Governance projects for ensuringuse of information technology for masses. To lay down the necessary


administrative, financial legal and technical framework and resources forthe IT-enabled citizen services.

4. List and prioritize the areas for Citizen Services in consultation with theconcerned Departments and take all steps for improving Citizen Servicesto the use of IT. To facilitate implementation of Citizen Charters framedby the other departments through the use of e-governance and IT as atool.

5. To workout revenue models and modalities for providing Citizen Servicesthrough use of IT on a public-private partnership model for its self-sustainability and to encourage private sector initiative in IT-relatedinfrastructure and services. This would include working out all commercialmodalities and revenue model including Franchise Model in citizen services.

6. To collect revenue and to issue receipts on behalf of the various Departmentsand Organizations. Such receipts shall have same legal validity as if it werean actual receipt issued by the concerned department of the organization.Transfer the revenue collected to the concerned departments andorganizations. Or to authorize a suitable authority, committee, sub-committee or society for these purposes on behalf of the e-GovernanceSociety.

7. To establish and make available connectivity and access to Informationthrough Internet, Intranet, LAN, MAN, WAN, E-MAIL, WEB SERVERSand Websites, VSAT and other modes of communication or any otherform of connectivity and regulate their use in the State. To facilitate thecreation of a comprehensive State-wide Computer Networks and a StateTelecom Network for use by all Government departments, institutions,agencies as also the public and private sector. Anything in excess capacitycould be commercially exploited.

8. To buy, sell, let on hire, repair, import, export, lease, trade and otherwisedeal and provide all IT resources and support, required by any Departmentfor IT and e-governance applications including hiring of professionals,consultancy services, procurement of hardware and software, developmentof special purpose software projects involving application of Information

169South Goa, Goa

Technology on turnkey basis.

9. To enter into collaborations, MoUs, partnerships, agreements and contractswith Indian and/or foreign individuals, companies or other organizationsfor transfer, sale, purchase of equipment and for technical, financial or anyother assistance for carrying out all or any of the objects of the society.

10. To enter into an agreement with any Government or authorities (municipallocal or otherwise) or any corporations, companies, or persons which mayseem conducive to the Society’s objects or any of them and to obtain fromany such Government authorities, corporations, companies, societies orpersons any contracts, rights, privileges and concessions which the societymay think desirable and to carry out, exercise and comply with any suchcontracts rights, privileges and concessions.

11. To hire professionals, consultants and other specialized agencies as foundnecessary for efficient handling and conduct of the business of the society.

12. To provide and/or arrange to provide all technical assistance and help tocreate, organise, and maintain centralised data-warehouse, departmentaldatabases, information-repository, and software-library to be shared by alldepartments, institutions, agencies and wherever possible, the general public.To facilitate inter-departmental coordination in all IT-related matters and todevise modalities for information sharing so as to avoid duplication of dataentry and development of software. To enable, simplify and modernize thestorage, retrieval, transmission, distribution and exchange of information inelectronic format. To work out procedures for data entry and its verification,validation, security, storage and updation on a regular basis.

13. To handle intellectual property rights in Information Technology and othernew technology areas. All the software created in any government Departmentwould be jointly held by the Department of IT through the Society.

14. To workout and notify the Standard of Service and Service Level Agreementsin e-governance and IT for citizen services.

15. To take all means for the safety and security of data and to lay policiesprocedures, guidelines and rules for achieving the objectives of security


and authentication. This would include use of digital signatures and publickey infrastructure.

16. To take all the steps necessary to fulfill the objectives of the Department ofIT, good governance any governance for the overall benefit of the citizensand public in the State of South Goa. To do all such other lawful things asmay be necessary, incidental or conducive to the attainment of the aboveobjects.

17. To obtain licenses, certificates and privileges for all purposes from allpersons, local authorities and the Central and State Government, to renewthe same and transfer the same in favor of any person or authorities.

18. To lend or deposit moneys belonging to or entrusted to or at the disposalof the Society or franchisees and other having dealings with the societywith or without security, upon such terms as may be thought proper andto guarantee the performance of contracts by such persons or companyprovided that the Society shall not carry on banking business as defined inBanking Companies Regulation Act 1949.

19. To borrow and raise money with or without security or to receive moneyand deposit on interest or otherwise in such manner as the Society maydeem fit.

20. To draw, issue, accept and to endorse discount and negotiate promissorynotes, hundies, bills of exchange, delivery orders, warrants, warehouse,keeping, certificates and other negotiable or commercial or mercantileinstruments connected with the business of the Society.


1. It has access to land records database to view Form I & XIV records.

2. Online applications received through Govt of Goa eservices portal aredownloaded and processed through this system.

3. Interface to South Goa District website.


It was planned to use open source technologies to deploy this system. Software

171South Goa, Goa

Package is developed under Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP(LAMP) platform.

E-Service layer is the front-end layer of DC-Suite which interacts with citizensand offers services to the citizens. The public access is provided through internet,SMS and Touch Screen kiosk.

Intranet layer is the middle layer which offers lot of collaboration services andtools. Serivces like E-mail, Forum, Notice Board, Daily Events are provided tothe staff.

Back Office layer is the key functional area comprising of all fifteen functionalmodules with which the government staff will work and carry out the backendoperations.


a. Major non-ICT front end Process Changes

1. Citizen Facilitation Center: It is setup to receive all kinds of applications ata single location, issue all types of forms and help to fill forms to citizens.Status of application can be traced from CFC.

2. Standardization of application forms and documents required to attachalong with the application forms.

3. Standardized correspondence letters, orders for activities which are coveredas modules.

b. Major non-ICT back end process changes

1. Re-arrangement of sections and seating arrangement of employees basedon the public and official contacts.

2. Assigned seat names to each employee.

3. Purchase of two Linux Servers to deploy an application DC-Suite.

4. Employees’ motivation and training to shift from manual process toelectronic process.




This project is initiated with the positive support of District Collector, SouthGoa District and other officers. They had arranged study tour to Kerala districts.


1. Training

Employees were trained through N.I.C. and Education Development Corporationto operate computer systems and use windows, MS-word, Open Office tools.NIC had conducted trainings on Windows basics, Open Office, Internet and E-mail in the collectorate. Also, employees were sent to computer training programesorganized by the EDC.

2. Workshops

DC-Suite demo was organized to provide general awareness about package andfunctional activities covered in the system. Officers and Section heads were involvedin it. It was arranged mainly to prepare them to shift over to a new workingenvironment. It helped to clear apprehensions and negative attitude.

3. Formation of a Committee

A Technical Committee is formed to monitor the DC-Suite implemention project.It consists of Additional Collector, Mamlatdar E-Governance, Dy. Collector(Revenue), State Informatics Officer, District Informatcis Officer as members.District Collector is the chairman of the committee. It meets on a monthly basisto review the progress of the project.

4. Hiring Technical Hands

Graduates with computer knowledge were hired to assist staff to operate DC-Suite software and attend the minor technical problems. These graduates werehired in the initial phase of the project for a period of six months.

5. Master Trainers Identification

Collectorate has fourteen sections to handle various matters. One Master Trainerwas identified from each section to assist other staff. Master trainers were trained

173South Goa, Goa

thoroughly on DC-Suite. Master trainers were chosen with the following criteria

• Having a positive attitude towards the computerization activities.

• Having reasonable knowledge on computer operation.

• An aptitude to learn and develop skills.

• A helping mentality to their colleagues and ready to share knowledge.

• Energetic and ready to take challenges.

The master trainers are looking after day-to-day issues on DC-Suiteimplementation in their sections. They act as a link between the sections andNIC officials.

c. Training Plan Internal and External

The skills and capabilities development of the staff is an important componentto implement e-governance services. Keeping this in mind, the staff was providedtraining on basic computer knowledge of MS Office, Open Office, Internet andE-mails.

It was planned to form batches of ten employees to train twice on basic toolsand DC-Suite system. In the beginning, two trainings were given to the staff.These trainings were conducted by the NIC in the Collectorate. All employeeswere trained in basic computer tools and DC-Suite.

Every month on last Friday training is arranged for new employees and refreshtheir knowledge on computer concepts and DC-Suite.

Also, employees were sent to EDC to attend training regularly on basic tools.

NIC had conducted around trainings to implement this project apart frommonthly training.

d. Program Management

Yes. Technical support is provided by the National Informatics Center, DistrictUnit, Margao to implement the project. Also, one programmer is hired on acontract basis to develop additional modules in the system.


A technical committee has been formed to review the progress of the project.It meets on a monthly basis and discusses the technical and non-technical issueswith the Collectorate section heads.

e. Sustainability of Efforts

This district is covered under e-District project. Also, E-Governance committees being formed to implement e-services in the district.

Regular training programes are being arranged for newly joined staff.

Training programme is conducted on the last Friday of every month to refreshknowledge.

Adequate ICT Infrastructure is made available by the Collectorate to run thisproject.

4. Technology

a. Give a detailed description of the Technological solution adopted [includingcost of ownership, maintenance model]

DC-Suite is developed under Open Source Technologies Linux, Appache, MySql& PHP platform. Software is web based application and citizen interface isprovided through Kiosk, internet and SMS.

b. Security and confidentiality standards defined and implemented

Standards Defined

1. User authentication.

2. Firewall protection.

3. Roll-based access.

4. Module-based access.

5. Seat-based access.

6. Hierarchy-based transfer of tapals and files.

175South Goa, Goa

Standards Implemented

1. This system has been deployed on Linux Servers with a firewall protection.

2. Each employee has a user account and they login with login/password.

3. Users are created by granting admin, master and general permissions.

4. My SQL users are created with the necessary grants and permissions toaccess the database.

5. Seat-based required menus are enables in the system whether a particularemployee handles functional area.

6. Dealing hands can transfer tapals or files to his next superior only.

c. Competence of people in technology (hardware, software, security. etc.)

1. All employees are made computer literate for using basic tools throughtrainings and re-trainings.

2. Software is being used by all the employees of the collectorate.

3. Data backups are taken regularly.

4. Databases are replicated on the Server at Secretariat, Panaji.



a. Extent to which this factor of “eExclusion/eInclusion” has been addressed

This factor has not affected implementation of this project as English languageis maximum being used in daily office work.

2. eParticipation


1. Review of pending tapals and files done fortnightly.

2. Module implementation done with district administration support.

3. Provided technical hands to implement the project.


3. eWaste


As per the directives of Govt. of Goa, a committee has been formed to disposeobsolete ICT items. Committee consists of Dy. Collector, Accounts Officerand NIC official from district unit. Items list is prepared as per the guidelines,it is approved from DOIT. Obsolete items are disposed through buy-back ore-waste management agency.

Shri Sandip Jacques, Collector, South Goa Collectorate, Goa, e-mail: [email protected] Shri Ashutosh Apte, Mamlatdar E-Governance, Goa, e-mail: [email protected]

177Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh

I) Overview

E-governance ranges from “the use of information technology to free movement ofinformation to overcome the physical bounds of traditional paper and physical basedsystems” to “the use of technology to enhance the access to and delivery of governmentservices to benefit citizens, business partners and employees”. The common themebehind these definitions is that e-government involves the automation orcomputerization of existing paper-based procedures that will prompt new styles ofleadership, new ways of debating and deciding strategies, new ways of transactingbusiness, new ways of listening to citizens and communities, and new ways oforganizing and delivering information. To monitor and judge the various governmentactivities and policies e-governance is an inevitable step in today’s scenario. Ourdistrict administration takes various steps for the automation of different departmentsinvolved in the public welfare activities so that a better decision making foundationhas been laid down. Multiple numbers of e-governance projects has already beenlaunched and few are in pre stage of implementation for providing fast and upto themark government to citizen services out of which Samadhan Ek Din, Jan Sunwai, andLAIIS system are the platinum ones. The key to e-governance is the establishment ofa long-term, organization-wide strategy to constantly improve operations with theend in view of fulfilling citizen needs by transforming internal operations such asstaffing, technology, processes and work flow management. Adding to this key Basic

Shri P Narahari and Shri Avinash Pathak

CHAPTER 16

Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh


Amenities and services monitoring system (PARAKH) and Land Acquisition andIndustry Information System (LAIIS) has been implemented for proper monitoringof various public welfare tasks in the district. Kiosk centers have been developed forproviding better Citizen Services at Block level. Every important effort needsrecognition in the world. CSI-Nihilient recognizes these efforts and honored themglobally through e-governance awards in various categories every year. We also wantto be a part of this great event so that we can judge our e-governance initiatives andlearn with others as competition is a wonderful way of improvement.

Singrauli is the 50th district of Madhya Pradesh. It was ranked district status on24th May 2008, with its headquarters at Waidhan to fulfill the aspirations of peopleof this place. Singrauli district has emerged as an ideal destination for setting up ofthermal power units due to availability of coal and water in the vicinity. As many as 8projects promoted by industrial houses like Reliance, Essar, Hindlaco, JayPee etc. arebeing setup in the district, with an aim to wipe out the shortage of power. Districtadministration is entrusted with the onerous task of land acquisition for all theseprojects. District Administration’s priorities include acquisition of land in a speedyyet humane and justified manner, to satisfy this quench e-governance is the bestoption as a result of which we have developed and implemented Land Acquisitionand Industry Information System (LAIIS). LAIIS helps in various land acquisition,resettlement and rehabilitation activities going on within the district. Districtadministration also provides various G2C services through various e-Nagrik SevaKendra Kiosks implemented at the district as well as block level. These seva Kendrasworks for facilitating submission of applications by the citizens for issue of certificateslike Birth, Death, Caste, Residential and Income. Implementation of State WideArea Network (SWAN) and the development of various Common Service Centres(CSCs) at the Gram Panchayat level will make the district globally connected. JanSunwai System has been extensively used by the various departments and the industriesfor the automation of grievance redressal mechanism.This system helps in the propertuning of the various administration tasks & activities so that they can providemaximum benefits to the citizens. Apart from these activities a plethora of othere-governance activities also going on in the district.



1. Key Performance


1. Land Acquisition and Industry Information system

• Project Brief

Singrauli district has emerged as an ideal destination for setting up of thermalpower units due to availability of coal and water in the vicinity. As many as 8projects promoted by industrial houses like Reliance, Essar, Hindlaco, JayPeeetc. are being setup in the district, with an aim to bridge the shortage of power inthe state and the country.

District administration is entrusted with the onerous task of land acquisitionfor all these projects. District Administration’s priorities include acquisition ofland in a speedy yet humane and justified manner.

LAIIS is a web based software which is full of Graphical User Interface extensivelyused by various power sector companies for various land acquisition and R&Ractivities and citizens of the district for filing on line complaints and checkingtheir status.

Basically this software is developed in two different phases (Using Drop wiseSoftware Development methodology).

In the first phase of development (August 2008), a software was developed toenter the data captured from govt. records and field surveys and calculate thecompensation payable to Project Affected Persons (PAP) and also generates a uniqueID No for each PAP and print photo identity card for them.

In the second phase (November 2009) we developed a web based software(hosted it with a DNS of http://www.singraulidist.org) with an aim to bringtransparency to the whole process of land acquisition, as well as subsequentRehabilitation and Resettlement Activities.

• Project Objectives


The key objectives for this project are as follows:

a. For Project Affected Persons (PAPs)

Project affected Persons should access to accurate and reliable information such as:

• What data has been captured related to their physical assets – land, house,trees etc.

• Rates of Compensation

• What R&R benefits the company has agreed to provide to them

• In case a PAP finds some discrepancy he/she should have a complaint filingsystem

b. For District Administration

• Making all information available at fingertips for speedy complaintsettlement

• Keeping track of all compensation payments

• Keeping a check on companies as to whether all R&R responsibilities arebeing executed in proper manner

• Ease in Planning due to availability of data in a comprehensive manner.

c. For Other Groups

To report the true state of affairs to media, NGOs and political parties so as todispel any misinformation campaign.

• Benefits of Project

The software goes one step further than just display of information capturedand allows all the companies setting up projects in Singrauli to login to the siteand enter data on the following activities (Ten different data screens have beenprovided for it)

– Financial Compensation - Award

– Financial Compensation – Land Rate Difference


– Financial Compensation – for House on Govt. land

– Housing

– Labour/Employment

– Training

– Educational – Scholarship/Other

– Pension/Displacement Stipend

– Medical

– Other Benefits

As most of the R&R benefits are of a long term / recurring nature, projects areusing them on a continuous basis and will be required to do so in future also.

This data automatically gets added to the profile of the respective PAP andwhen you search for any PAP you get complete details about him his family,assets, compensation paid to him/her and R&R benefits given till date.

In addition to individual reports about the PAPs project wise reports are availableon demographic profile of displaced population and compensations paid to them.

• Information / Services being provided to public

a. Based on the data entered by projects the system dynamically generatesvarious types of reports in PDF format for public access:

– Updated information on compensation payment and R&R benefits givento PAPs, like house, education, medical facilities etc.

– Detailed profile of all PAPs along with Photo, family details, assets, andupto date details of benefits given.

– Summary Reports on demographics profile of PAPs based on education,age, sex, category, village, BPL Status etc.

b. The system also makes available all Agreements, R&R policies and AwardStatements, related to land acquisition, in public domain.

c. Public can also view News, Notices and Announcements posted by District


Administration, and news updated by industrial projects.

d. The system has a complaint form, where any complaint can be submittedin Hindi and the system generates a reference no which can be used totrack the status of that complaint, online.

Complaint registration module of LAIIS (Land Acquisition and IndustryInformation System)

This module provides online complaint registration mechanism and after filingthe complaint a unique complaint id will be generated through which he/she cancheck the status of his/her complaint. Details of the complaint along with actiontaken/response are available for everyone to see.

Table 1

Complaints Resolved Pending

2814 2764 50

• E Nagrik Seva Kendra

Samadhan Ek Din Mein- e-Nagrik Sewa Kendra (One Day Governance-PublicFacility Centre) is a very innovative and pro-people project which increasesefficiency of administration. It seeks to provide around 21 certificates sought bythe applicant on the same day itself. The main aim of the program is to provideall kind of services like Govt. certificates on the day of submitting applicationitself and under one roof. For the Administration, it reduces the corruption to agreat extent, generates revenue, increases public confidence and reduces thenumber of pending cases. As this district was formed in 2008 so currently thereis only one public facility centre established with in the premises of districtcollectorate and two centers are being developed at Deosar and Chitrangi block.This will help in the work flow automation of various governmental activities.

Table 2

Year Applications Received Resolved Pending

2009-10 7776 7776 0

2010-11 22598 22598 0


• MP LOK Seva Kendra

Recently we have launched delivery centre for various MP lok seva services inthe district Collectorate premises.

• Common Service Centers (CSC)

Common Service Centre (CSC) is a community service centre for rural citizens atpanchayat level covering about 6 villages. Currently 136 CSCs at all levels in theDistrict cater the service needs of all the communities in the surrounding 5-6villages. Each CSC will have computer and internet facilities. It will have bothoffline and online services. It will be equipped with computer, multi functionprinter, digital camera and networking facilities.

Following G2C Services have been provided by CSC’s:

a. Land records

b. Vehicle Registration

c. Issue of certificates

d. Government schemes

e. Utility/Telephone Bills

f. Employment exchange

g. Ration cards

h. Electoral Services

i. Pension schemes

j. Road transport

k. Public grievance

• Jan Sunvai System

This system has been extensively used in the district for the automation ofgrievance redressal mechanism. A separate public grievance cell is working underthe Collector which is using this software for registering the grievances of thecitizens came at every Tuesday (This day is declared as Jan sunwai din). Using


this system one can easily measure the density of applications comes under whichdepartment and various statistical configurations for decision making. Thismonitoring tool has developed enormous confidence among district people,especially with thousands of Project Affected Families.

Table 3

Year Complaints Resolved Pending

2009-10 5368 3709 1659

2010-11 11606 8239 3367



• BHU Abhilekh (Land Record System)

BHU-ABHILEKH System has been implemented as a future step forimplementation of decisions regarding agricultural land ceiling, distribution ofceiling surplus land by removing various administrative and legal obstructions.It is a detailed and informative database with an efficient retrieval mode. It helpsin the creation of comprehensive computerized database on land records andland reforms activities. This database can help in the land tenancy, ceiling,consolidation and records maintenance activities pertaining to land reforms. We areusing the Data hosting software for hosting the created data to the main server sothat it can be easily accessed by the citizens. Recently we have integrated BHUNaksha software with the existing system which will generate digitized map alongwith khasra details.

• Parakh (Basic Services and amenities management system)

This software covers management of various basic infrastructure services such as drinkingwater (hand pumps), electricity (transformers), education, health, agriculture, veterinaryservices, women and child development (anganwadis) , distribution of essentialcommodities through fair price shops, distribution of old age and social security pensionand disposal of demarcation, mutation and partition cases. Data regarding theseamenities and services has been collected and compiled on monthly basis and has beenused for creation of resource inventory of all the villages, better monitoring and planningand improvement in delivery of services.


• Rural soft monitoring system

Web-based Rural Soft is a web based solution for monitoring monthly progressreports of various rural developmental oriented schemes such as Indira Awas Yojna(IAY), Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), Sampoorna Grameen RozgarYojna (SGRY), Mid Day Meal (MDM), National Food For Work Programme(NFFWP), M.P.Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MPREGS), BackwardRegion Grant Fund (BRGF), Watershed Management etc. It facilitates on-linedata entry and on-fly generation of monitoring, progress / analysis reports. Theseprogress reports directly reflect the progress of poverty alleviated schemes thoseare executed by Zilla Panchayat.

• BRISC (Bank Recovery Incentive Scheme)

This system has been used to facilitate the user department in easy Maintenance,Management & Monitoring of Revenue recovery against Loans given under variousSchemes. The basic input to the system consists of Master Directories viz., District,Tehsil, Bank, Revenue Officers, Treasuries, Schemes and the details of RRCcontaining the information of borrower, scheme under which Loan sanctioned,bank, Guarantor, Loan & due amount.

• CM Visit / DM Visit Monitoring System

This system has been used for the monitoring of various tasks/announcementsthat have been declared/announced by Chief Minister or District Magistrateduring visits/tours to various places within the district. Using this one can easilytrack the progress of any announcement and its current stage of implementation.

Table 4


2009-10 312 312 0

2010-11 804 418 386

• e-Khanij (Information System for mineral resources department)

Following facilities has been provided by the system-

1. Submission and processing of applications for granting Reconnaissancepermit (RP), Prospecting license (PL), Mining Lease (ML) and Quarry


lease (QL). Submission/ processing of application for renewal, Transfer,Termination for ML & PL.

2. Submission of Transit Pass (TP) request by lessee, its processing and issue ofTP book by a work flow module. Calculation of royalty and dead rent depositat the time of issuing of TP book.

3. Registration, processing and disposal of the cases related to illegal mining andillegal transportation.

4. This will result in the speedy disposal of various RP, PL, ML and QL relatedapplications. Availability of accurate mine-wise mineral production may resultincrease in tax collection and royalty collection.

· Forest Survey and Dwellers System

This system is collectively used by forest and tribal department. Its implementationencompasses extensive use of innovative technologies like GPS (Global PositioningSystem) and the use of personal digital assistant (PDA) for conducting surveys in theforest areas. It is used for the exact calculation of land and its topographicalcharacteristics. After conducting surveys the data will be uploaded to the site forglobal access. About 3600 forest dwellers have been given pattas under Forests RightsAct 2006 and been distributed.

· NREGA MIS

This system has the following elegant features-

1. Information on base-line data of BPL survey.

2. Password protected on-line data updation at the web-site.

3. Various on-line reports based for citizens/government.

4. Computerization of all activities of NREGS right from the registration tomuster roll preparation.

5. Provides status of fund availability at district/ block/ panchayat level.

6. Facilitates data uploading on Delhi server directly.

7. 80% MIS feeding is the current position of the district.


• Election MIS

Assembly/Parliamentary General Elections were held under the directions ofElection Commission of India. Various reports in the required formats werearranged. Polling and counting party formation was made my computerizedrandomization technique fulfilling all the guidelines of ECI was done by NIC,Singrauli and was found quite successful. More over to keep ready and at a glancethe various elections’ information of the district was profiled by the computersystem. This profile made available the countless election related informationthen and when required. CD was prepared and sent to ECI, Delhi for uploadingon ECI website “www.eci.gov.in”. The counting data compilation of electors,generation of reports and transmission to ECI, Delhi, Chief Election Officer,Bhopal. The computerization as a whole was found so much satisfying and needsof the time that the district authorities especially responsible.

• Time Limit Paper Monitoring System

The time limit paper monitoring system helps the collector to keep track of actiontaken/time taken by various officers on time limit works. On every Monday a meetinghas been conducted for the progress of work required and using this system collectorwill easily track the work progress corresponding to various OIC’s. This will increasethe throughput and make the work flow more efficient.

Table 5


2009-10 3417 3397 20

2010-11 5045 4714 331

• Vidhan Sabha Question Reply Management System (VQRMS)

This system has been used for the workflow automation pertaining to gatheringof replies of vidhan sabha questions from various offices of the Departments andaid in smooth and effective management in reply to Vidhan Sabha Questions.

Table 6

Total Question Received Total Question Final Replied No. Of Question Pending

30 30 0


• Mobile Governance

A quick and efficient method of governance has been adopted by District Collectorateand Zila Panchayat using the SMS service of various cellular network providers.This is helping the collector and ceo, zila panchayat in making the good networkwith various district and janpad panchayat officials. Using this service they havebeen monitored the different tasks and processes going on at different executionlevels and also send the schedules and agenda of meetings on it.

• Video Conferencing facility

The Video Conferencing facility had been started by NIC since 2009. The facilityis being used by most of the departments regularly to interact with their headoffices. VC facility is proving to be very beneficial as it saves a lot of time andmoney involved in traveling.

• EScholarship

Various schools and educational institutes in the district have been using thissoftware for online demand of scholarship and the whole procedure is monitoredby Assistant Commissioner Tribal Welfare.

• Agmarknet

Software is supplied by NIC Head Quarter New Delhi and successfullyimplemented at all Agriculture Produce Market Centers.

• LAN Backbone

Singrauli is one of the important nodes of NICNET, a satellite based computercommunication network. For accessing the web/internet/email a LAN setup iscurrently installed in the District Administration Centre. Using this LANbackbone various offices connected to each other and communicate throughelectronic mails.

• District Website

Website for district Singrauli has been hosted. The site contains informationabout the District and District Administration, various Industries, Government


Schemes, Key Contacts, Places to visit etc. for the giving the brief details to theuser who wants to visit the District Singrauli or who is interested in getting someinformation about the district.




The main ambition behind all the ongoing / planned schemes above is to makeGovernance transparent and hence totally accountable to the normal citizen. It isintended that the citizen be made free from all cumbersome procedures and redtapism and he / she feels empowered through the use of ICT. All the projects thathave been taken up have been approved by the either state or district authority.Some concepts have been borrowed from best practices in other districts butapproval has been received from our state before implementation hence the softwarebeing used is uniform throughout.


a. Major non-ICT front end process changes

Creating suitable plans to deal with organizational issues that arise duringimplementation of e-governance projects. E-governance projects tend to redefinepower equations within departments. Stakeholders outside government are alsooften impacted. The major front end process changes that are envisioned mainlycenter on the comfort of the citizen. The citizen should be able to accessinformation anytime anywhere either through the internet or may be even throughphone. This information may relate to his / her own grievance or to anydevelopmental project of the government. Apart from this, these G2C, the G2G,G2E services should help the various departments to stay connected to reducefile work and instill more confidence in the average government employee. Themajor back end process change hence focuses on paperless office and quickerdelivery of services.




To initiate any e-Governance project, the capacities required are much morecomprehensive and holistic than a conventional Software Development Life Cycle(SDLC) project. E-Governance initiatives entail policy development/refinement,Financial Management, Program Management and warrant a higher emphasison Change Management. Establishment of district e-governance society is a stepto achieve all these milestones.

Almost all eminent public representatives of the district are the member ofthis society and make the valuable additions in the current policies and proceduresso that district administration will avail the various services to common citizen inan easy and effective way. A technical team under district Collector with thesupport of District Informatics Centre provides training to various governmentofficials.

4. Technology

a. Give a detailed description of the Technological solution adopted [includingcost of ownership, maintenance model];

Mostly open source technological solutions have been adopted by districtadministration for the software development process. We develop a quality controland prediction model for improving the quality of software delivered bydevelopment to maintenance. This model identifies modules that require priorityattention during development and maintenance. The model also predicts duringdevelopment the quality that will be delivered to maintenance.

We try to make each and every software security complied, a team will conducta security audit before launching of the application.



a. Extent to which the project has addressed the factor of “eExclusion/eInclusion”

As per the demographic structure of Singrauli, most of the public lives in ruralareas nevertheless district administration takes various steps to improve eInclusion.Recently Singrauli has been emerged as an energy hub of India hence various


industrial houses makes the enormous task of land acquisition and as a part ofR&R policy most of them along with district officials are involved in givingcomputer training to rural public. That’s why we rate our shelf in the scale of3(moderate).

2. eParticipation

To improve eParticipation a proper training plan has been made for various districtofficials which contains software specific training, basic computer skills program.

Shri P Narahari, DM & Collector, District Collectorate, Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh,Email: [email protected] and Shri Avinash Pathak, District Informatics Officer,Department of Information Technology, Singrauli, Madhya Pradesh, Email:[email protected]


I) Overview

Gadchiroli has traditionally been the most backward district in the state of theMaharashtra. On all the developmental indicators especially the HDI Gadchirolihas somehow remained worst off in the whole state. But the district administrationis determined to reverse the situation.

Need of an hour Citizen oriented administration, administration at yourdoorstep, development administration and other such terms were coined afterthe phase of e-governance has become a reality in the public administration. Byusing the IT in the administration the efforts are being made to go from theestablishment computerisation, facility centers, smart cards, web based monitoring,SMS Alert to now Social Network/Blog based administration. E-governance isexpected to deliver speedy work and if possible transparency in the administration.Prompt availability of facts for decision making has been equated with promptdecision making. Beginning with the Dhar districts Gyandoot’ the project ofproviding citizen facilities, Karnatakas land record computerization project Bhoomi’etc and Maharashtras Setu’ project, etc experiments are already underway.Previously the public sector was using the e-governance. E-auction, e-tenderingetc have become common now. Banks core banking was implemented as theirefforts towards e-governance. But the more I think about these projects, the more

CHAPTER 17

Gadchiroli District, Maharashtra

Shri Atul Patne and Shri Meshram

193Gadchiroli District, Maharashtra

I realize that e-governance implemented in the name of making the administrationcitizen centric cannot actually be construed to be so. Computerisation is merelya support system of technological upgradation, but when I really think about itsutility in making the administration development oriented, several objectionscan be raised. Let us look at some of the facets which though straightforwardhave seldom caught anyones fancy……

e-governance is concerned mainly with computerization, in other words it is arelated concept to the Intelligence Quotient (I.Q.). A computer cannot be asubstitute to human nature, whatever good-bad use technology is put to dependsupon the intentions and nature of the human beings operating. For example, sametechnology can be used to launch a satellite into the space and the same technologycan be used to a launch a deadly missile onto defenseless humans. Same satellitecan be used to spy on others and same satellite can be used to predict the deadlycyclones. The examples are numerous. Similarly the citizen centricity of theadministration depends on the intentions of the officers-employees making use ofthe medium of e-governance. Here in I visualize the need for the I-governancewhich is more dependent on Emotional Quotient. EQ is also dependent on IQbut is much more than it. Similarly I-governance though inseparably linked toe-governance is much broader concept. Here, I stands for Innovation.

I-governance is inclusive of e-governance. It never avers from the use of IT inthe administration, it just aims to put a heart in it. To realize it is paramount toestablish mechanisms which can send a message to the last levels ofimplementation of encouraging the employees to put their heart into their workas well as can analyze the effects and response timely.

District Gadchiroli is situated at the east and extreme end of the maharashtrastate and is well known for dence forest, beautiful hills and rivers. however now adays the district came into limelight because of naxal activities. Gondia district issituated on the north side towards east shares borders of Rajnandgaon BasterDistrict of chattisgad state; towards south it shares borders of Karimnagar, Adilabaddistrict of Andra Pradesh. All this neighboring district are Naxal affected.Gadchiroli is tribal district it mainly includes gond, pardhan, madia, rajgondtribes. The Total Population of Gadchiroli District is 11.03 lakh and tribalpopulation is 3.72 lakh i.e. 38.35%.



1. Key Performance


Our approach will become evident in the following projects that have beenundertaken in the district to bridge the gap between the popular expectationand the results of administrative exercise.

Our efforts have been based on two types of approach

1. Improvement of existing systems

2. Formulation of new systems and procedures

Following is the list of projects that are being undertaken in Gadchiroli-

Projects involving Improvement of existing systems

ICT based Disaster Management Plan- implemented by the Disaster ManagementCell of the district Gadchiroli as part of its Disaster Management Programme

1. e-Flood Alert Project -

• Control Room for constant flood situation monitoring - It consists offollowing innovative modules

• CUG Mobile distribution under disaster management cell

• SMS based Flood Alert System

• (Includes a query module to monitor in between scheduled alerts)

2. SMS based Water level monitoring in the Observation Wells

3. SMS based Blood donor information and registration system

4. Wild life monitoring system and automatic pumping system at bore wellof drinking water for wild animals.

5. e-News

b. Specific innovative ideas implemented in eGov area; and their impact onservices:


1. IVRS and web based seed and soil testing Information and assistance system

2. e-Vidya- Computer education and long distance education using V-Satfacilities in remote and inaccessible locations

Projects based on formulation of new systems and procedures:

• Innovations in the Public Distribution System Implemented

1. GPS Tracking of PDS Trucks

2. SMS based information system

Proposed

1. Mobile ration shop

2. DWAR POCH for whole district

3. Direct supply of grains from FCI godown to the FPS

4. Increase the remuneration for the truckers

• Innovations made in the implementation of the MGNREGS:

Implemented

1. Project e-Disha- Financial Inclusion in MGNREGS: Use of BusinessCorrespondent Model and the biometrics

2. Call Centre

3. Adult Literacy

4. Skill development projects

5. Mobile Crèche

Proposed

1. Financial cover for the beneficiaries

2. SHGs should be allowed as a unit for NREGA work

3. Crèche under NREGS Scheme

4. Increase the sharpening charges of the tools

5. Grant of powers of Technical Sanction

6. Literacy Missions for the beneficiaries


7. Convergence of Forest Right Act 2006 with MGNREGS

Other innovative measures taken

1. Jayshree Bima Yojana and Aam Admi Bima Yojana

2. Convergence of Social Security Schemes

1. ICT based Disaster Management Plan

In the field of systemic improvement, our main focus has been to introduce theinnovative use of Information technology in ensuring better efficiency and servicedelivery to the citizens. We have realized that the IT can be most useful in speedyinformation processing and dissemination. So we saw it fit to integrate most ofour IT based initiatives with the district s disaster management system. Thus,the Disaster Management Cell of the district undertook various initiatives tostrengthen its disaster handling capacity.

Our mission is vulnerability reduction with respect of all types of hazards, beit natural or manmade. This is not an easy task to achieve, keeping in view thevast population, and the multiple natural hazards to which this country is exposed.However, if we are firm in our conviction and resolve that the Government andthe people of this country are not prepared to pay the price in terms of massivecasualities and economic losses, the task, though difficult, is achievable and weshall achieve it.

Gadchiroli district is well known about tribal people and most of the peoplesare farmers. Specialty of this district is the number of big and small rivers thatcross through this district, so in rainy season all the rivers have huge quantities ofwater flow very violently and make it a very vulnerable situation for the riverbank of the people. Rivers are as follows in district Gadchiroli:

Table 1:

S.No Name of River Affected Area

1 Wainganga Wadasa Sawangi, Armori, Dongargaon, Wagala, Gadchiroli,

Markanda, Gadaheri

2 Godavari Somnur

3 Indravati Somnur, Damrancha, Hindur


4 Gadvi Vichiro, Shankarpur, Mohgaon, Aratrodi

5 Sati Kurkheda, Manapur

6 Khobragadi Malewada

7 Kathani Gadchiroli

8 Pranhita Mrudukrishanapur, Gadaheri, Sironcha

9 Parlakota Bhamragad

10 Palamgoutam Lahiri

Every year due to heavy rainfall, the floods cause substantial loss to people andproperty. Administration has to rehabilitate thousands of people to safer place. So,for the prevention from the damages arising due to natural calamities and also toreduce cost on rehabilitation of the river bank people, we have made extensive ITmade interventions.

2. Introduced Technology:

1. e-Flood Alert

Control Room: An Emergency Operations Center (Disaster Management Cell) existsin collector office, Gadchiroli, which functions round the clock, to assist the divisionalcommissioner office in the discharge of his duties. The activities of the Control Roominclude collection and transmission of information concerning natural calamity andrelief, keeping close contact with governments of the affected villages, interaction withother state Ministries/Departments/Organizations in connection with relief,maintaining records containing all relevant information relating to action points andcontact points in state Ministries etc., keeping up-to-date details of all concerned officersat the State levels. District administration has provided the emergency ambulances inflood affected area because to provide health services immediately to the victims. ThroughVHF-GPS fitted in the ambulances, control room keeps track of the information abouttheir current situation.

2. CUG Mobile distribution under disaster management cell

In Gadchiroli district, 42 villages are flood affected, so district administration hasgiven the CUG mobile to villages people like Sarpanch, talathi, Gram Sevak. In caseof emergency, villagers could be directly connected to control room or vice versa. Thefirst step in implementing an efficient flood damage control programme is developinga fast and least error alert and information system.


District Administration implemented GSM based E-Flood monitoring system-Disaster Management Cell has installed and commissioned GSM based E-Floodmonitoring system on 13 destinations which have been chronically flood affected.Before installing this system, DMC had surveyed the area which has been floodaffected in previous years and selected most vulnerable 13 destinations forinstallation. The system consists of following three main modules-

o GSM based flood monitoring equipment with solar panel

o Flood server for collecting data of current water level through GSM module

o Web portal for live updates of current water levels of river.

GSM based flood monitoring equipment is a completely customized oneconsisting of various electronics equipment integrated with the help of mobiletechnology. We have installed and commissioned flood detection equipments atall the destinations most of which are very remote and affected by naxal activities.Basic concept of behind this project was to give prior intimation of current waterlevel of river on mobile through SMS. In this system, we have prepared the fourwater level alert like

o River water flow is normal level : means it is safe for transportation, noneed to panic

o River water flow is above normal level: means it is safe but be alert

o River water flow is danger level : means be alert for flood situation

o River water flow is above danger level: Flood Alert

All of the above mentioned levels automatically fired the message throughflood monitoring server. Flood GSM based equipment immediately message tothe server like “Gosikhurd Vainganga River water flow is normal level”. The Serverimmediately blasts the alert message to desired stored mobile numbers within 5Min. And with help of this message, concerned disaster management authoritycomes to know as to where to provide the help or communicate this message toall river bank area people.


• How it works e-Flood System

GSM based flood equipment is installed and commissioned on a high point fromriver bed like bridge, structure of irrigation department besides the river bed oron the top of well besides the river. Height of equipment from the river bed hasbeen calculated by using measuring instruments and decided the water levellike, if total height of equipment from the river bed is 10 meter then

o Normal level is set on 2.0 Meter

o Above Normal level is set on above 2.0 to 5.0 Meter

o Danger level is set on above 5.0 to 7.5 Meter

o Flood Alert More than 7 Meter

As per the above mentioned levels format, water sensor has been commissionedto desire destinations. In rainy season, if water flow of river increases and touchthe first water sensor, sensor immediately response to the equipment andequipment searching the network and send immediately request to the floodserver which is situated at disaster management cell.

Server takes the request from the remote flood system and generates SMS like.River flow of water is on normal level and sending to stored mobile numbers. Ifthe water level decreases then sending the SMS like River flow of water is belownormal level.

We have designed the special server for message data collection and generateSMS notification and send to the stored numbers. We have collected the cell no.list from divisional commissioner office, Nagpur; police department, Gadchiroli;and BSNL. With help of this list, we inserted cell no. of district administrationofficers of 6 districts, police departments, Gadchiroli and also gram Sevak, talathi,NGO who works in Gadchiroli. About 7 thousand numbers have been stored inflood server for the purpose of sending flood alerts.

One more add-on technology we have adopted here, this server is attached tothe SMS gate way server, if you want any information about the water level ofSpecific River, we have made separate server number with specific number. Somekey words are:


o WL Mark (Markanda Vainganga)

o WL Gadv (Vichora Gadhavi)

o WL Sati (Kurkheda Sati)

• Benefits

3. Date of 5th, 29th, 30th August 2010 and 05th to 7th September 2010due to heavy rainfall flood situation was occurred and communication,transports services was hampered that time due to this system, peoplegot pre-alerts SMS for flood situation and with the help of disastermanagement cell, rehabilitation team reached the place and moved peopleto safer destination, supplied the foods, motor boats, life jackets andgood swimmer teams were deployed on flood locations.

4. In rainy season, 42 villages were covered by E-Disaster Management Cell

5. In rainy season, within 15 days 51000 No SMS was blasted from theserver at various locations and people got the information on their mobilesand controlled the situation before any disaster came through heavy rain.

6. GSM based Automatic Water Level Measurement System on ObservationWell through Mobile SMS

It is again very important innovation made which works on the reverse principleof the flood alert system. While the flood alert measures the rise in the river waterlevel, this equipment measures the sinking of the water level. Thus it can be veryuseful in sending out the warning regarding an impending drought. If the waterlevels sink dangerously low, the situation will be reported to the districtadministration in real time, thus enabling us to make necessary relief provisionsto address any situation of water scarcity immediately.

This project is first of its kind in India, which is implemented in the districtof Gadchiroli. This is a GSM based equipment and tailor made mechanism as perthe conditions of the installation site. In Gadchiroli most of the OB wells arevery far from the district headquarters because area of Gadchiroli is 14412 sq.km. and 80% is under dense forest cover. So in summer or rainy season, when itis not easy to go to the OB well, this innovative mechanism comes in very handy.


Whatever be the water level it is sent by way of an SMS by the GSM based equipmentfitted inside the OB well.

• Benefits

– GSDA installed and commissioned this system at various 10 destinationswhich are in very interior area.

– From this system, GSDA are getting the reading on live server.

– From only one SMS, every can gets the observation well reading on theremobile

– From this system, they saved time, money

7. E-News system for daily updates of flood, wild life reports to the localpeople of Gadchiroli, district administration and media person of districtand state level

District administration has launched E-news project under disaster managementcell. Project features are as follow

1. Launched web portal www.e-warta.org, in this portal district administrationupload the latest news of Gadchiroli.

2. Started E-SMS system, collected the cell no. data from BSNL andsubscription facility on web portal, up till now more than 10000 cell no.have been stored and daily short news updates or various types of messagescan be broadcast on behalf of the district administration through SMS.

As mentioned earlier we tried to develop an integrated system with the help ofIT interventions. In this setup to fully exploit the potential of SMS based informationmanagement system, we further developed an important module to maintain aninventory of the information about the potential blood donors. As Gadchiroli doesnot have any significant blood bank facility this information bank can prove lifesaving in times of need. Following is the description of this facility.

8. SMS based blood donor information and Registration facility

This, essentially, is a mobile based application using the SMS facility to provideinformation on the blood group donors in the district.


District administration develops following two systems for the citizens ofGadchiroli which is very helpful for providing instant health services to victimsof any accident, requirement of blood and eye.

• Blood Donor Information System through Mobile SMS

• Registration of Blood and Eye Donor through Mobile SMS

Blood Donor Information System: This system is completely web basedcustomized solutions and integrated with SMS gate-way server. Up till now wehave collected database of blood donors more than 1500 of various blood groupsand it is randomly selection process in web based software. Whenever anybodysends the SMS for blood that time web based software selects the three numbersrandomly and sends reply to request mobile number.

• Benefits

• This blood donor SMS system is very much helpful for citizens ofGadchiroli, they are getting instant information blood donors immediatelyon their mobile.

• Uptill now 3679 people have got benefit from this system.


• 1500 eye registrations have been done on server.

9. IVRS and SMS based soil testing information and assistance system

Gadchiroli is spread over an area of almost 15000 sq kms. From North to Souththe distance is around 350 Kms. There is only one soil testing laboratory whichis located at the district headquarters in Gadchiroli. For any kind of seed or soiltesting the farmers have to travel great distances and go through a lot ofinconvenience. To ameliorate this situation we decided to automate the wholeprocedure of soil testing.

The samples of soil are collected by the Agricultural assistants in the villagesand a PNR number is issued to the farmer and affixed on the soil sample. Thissample is then taken to the central soil testing laboratory. Along with the soilsample a whole lot of information is taken from the farmer regarding his farmingpractices. A user account of the farmer is opened and all the information relatingto him is stored in this account. All this information is fed into the central database.After testing of the soil sample the results are uploaded in the user account of thefarmer. The farmer can access these results from anywhere over the internet or bysimply dialing the contact number of the IVRS based system which is programmedto operate in local languages like Hindi, Marathi, Madia etc. The website foraccessing the results online is www.seedsoiltesting.com

• Benefits

• Farmers of Gadchiroli getting their soil result at taluka level through TAO(Taluka Agriculture Officer)

• Also getting report of soil testing through internet

• From this system, agriculture department is saving money on transportation,saving time.

• This system increased the efficiency of work.

• Replication:

• Agriculture Commissioner, Govt. of Maharashtra is going to start this projectall over Maharashtra


• e-Vidya Computer education and long distance education using V-Sat facilitiesin remote and inaccessible locations

• Executive Summary:

The project of e-Vidya has been implemented on a pilot basis in the two Naxalinfested and remote talukas of Dhanora and Kurkheda in the Gadchiroli district.This is an endeavour to take education to the remotest and most deprived partsof the district. The project envisages the education of computer through computersto the students in these talukas. To overcome the handicap of connectivity, wehave installed V-SATs at all the sites not covered by any kind of connectivity.

10. Use of breakthrough technology for quality education

Through this project we are empowering the students and the youth by givingthem quality education through access to the best of teachers imparting subjectclasses through a VSAT network. To implement this, we have established AudioVisual Labs and Virtual class rooms in the Schools spread across the district.

11. Imparting Vocational Training through these labs and studios

We understand the importance and the need for vocational education for increasingthe employability of the rural youth. The gap between the requirement andavailability of skilled manpower can thus be reduced through structured trainingusing the studios and establishing such labs in ITIs and Polytechnics.

12. Soft skills and Employability enhancing skills for the unemployed youth

These labs can also be used for the training the unemployed youth in soft skills,language proficiency, skill development and other employability enhancing skillsets thereby addressing one of the key concerns of the masses.

Background & Objective of the project

The project was conceived to meet the unmet demand of quality education onmodern lines in the backward and interior regions of Gadchiroli. Our objectives are

• To fulfill the primary objective of the department, in providing qualityeducation for the grades 1 to 12 in regional language or Hindi or Englishmedium.


• To enrich the education process with the help of the latest technology.

• To improve the students’ performance uniformly across the schools, thusimproving retention and quality of education.

• To help and assist teachers through regular training in utilizing technologyand developing new methods of teaching.

• To impart vocational training to the youth, thus increasing theiremployability skill sets.

• Use of this infrastructure for multifarious uses like imparting healthawareness, timely inputs for increased agricultural output, ruraldevelopment, governance etc.

Current Challenges faced by District Administration

Field of Education

1. Shortage of quality teachers resulting in limited assimilation of subjectmatter.

2. Use of out dated delivery mechanisms, adversely impacting the quality ofeducation.

3. Poor infrastructure in most schools.

4. High dropout rate of students due to waning interest in studies.

5. Resultant unemployment and thus easily attracted towards organizationsinimical to the interests of the State.

Vocational Training

1. Inadequate dissemination of knowledge and skills in institutions like theITI and Polytechnics.

2. Low conversion ratio of such youth from student to employment.

3. Industry specific skills to be imparted by quality instructors are lacking.

4. Resultant unemployment and thus youth easily attracted towardsorganizations inimical to the interests of the State.


Governance

1. Lack of means to disseminate forecasts/ information/ market intelligence tofarmers and discuss issues affecting them.

2. As vast majority of rural population are mainly agrarian, this is a big voidwhich needs to be plugged.

3. Inadequate means to spread health awareness campaigns and timely calamitywarnings.

4. Insufficient interactions between the District and Panchayat authoritiesleading to divergence of views.

Strategy Adopted By District Administration:

The solution to the above problems is using technology which is cutting edgeand at the same time affordable, in improving the teaching and learningcapabilities, skill development, vocational training, imparting health awarenessand critical agricultural inputs, real-time and transparent interactions betweenthe authorities at various levels thereby making a difference where it matters –substantial increase in quality of education and imbibing skill sets required forhigher employability quotient, renewed trust in the governance systems and ahope for the future.

VSAT Studio

As per directives from the district administration, implementing agency has setup state of the art VSAT studios at the district headquarters. The studios areequipped with all the necessary hardware to broadcast the class through thenetwork. The implementing agency Everonn Ltd is appointed fully trained andqualified manpower to operate these studios and provide necessary satellite linkup and connectivity for seamless transmission.

Virtual Classrooms and Audio Visual Labs

In the first phase, as per directives of district collector, implementing agency hasestablished VSAT labs in the schools in the district. These labs are equipped withcomputer, projector, webcam, VSAT equipment, mike, speakers, requisite


furniture, UPS etc. The classes are conducting from the studios located at Districtheadquarters by the best available subject matter experts of the schools.Implementing agency has provided one Technical assistant in all these VSAT labsto assist in operating the lab. It would initially train the teachers at the studio toteach the students on camera. The time table is being scheduled by studio managerin consultation with the school.

In the second Phase the above solution can be taken to the ITIs and thePolytechnics in the district for improved vocational training, skill development etc.

Multifarious Uses of this Studio

The studio can be used for other multifarious uses like imparting health awarenessprogrammes, timely inputs to farmers for increased agricultural output, ruraldevelopment, governance etc.

• Benefits

1. E-Vidya is turnkey project for district Gadchiroli. Through this projectstudents can get digital and distance academic education.

2. Trible students are getting the computer education through this project.

3. Due to this project, strength of student in the school has increased andreduced the percentage of absence in school.


4. In Gadchiroli district 60% population are below poverty level, they don’t haveenough money to give computer education to their children, in this scenariodistrict administration has started the revolutionary project and fulfill thedreams of poor students to give the computer education through E-Vidyaproject.

5. Gadchiroli district two NGO’s are working there

a. Search Foundation, Chatgaon which is run by Mr. Abhay Bang

b. Lokbiradari, Bhamragad which is run by Mr. Prakash Amte

These NGOs are conducting training and awareness program through theE-Vidya project.

• Achievement

E-Vidya, Gadchiroli has got eWorld Education Summit Award 2011 at NewDelhi which was organized by Department Telecommunication, GOM.

c. Implementation coverage till date and during the year (geographical areascovered under pilot, roll-out)


Area 14412 sq. kms

Area under Forests 1184000 Hectares

Latitude 18.43 to 21.50 North

Longitude 79.45 to 80.53 East

Temperature Min. 11.3 °C; Max. 47.7 °C

Average Rainfall 1410.2 mm

Population 970294 (2001 census)

Population Density 67 per sq. kms.

Literacy Rate 60.10%

Sex Ratio 976 females per 1000 males

Languages Gondi, Madiya, Marathi, Hindi, Telugu, Bengali

No. of Subdivisions 3

No. of Tehsils 12

No. of Villages 1688

STD Code 07137

Above mentioned all project has been implemented throughout completeGadchiroli district. Every citizen is the beneficiary of district administrationprojects.

All mentioned projects have started in August 2009 and still running properlyin Gadchiroli district.

d. Future plan with regard to geographical coverage as well as scope of services.

• District administration has done two year agreement with implementingagencies for running the projects.

• Award winning projects proposal is sent to govt. for replicating all overstate.



As per the time concern, all projects are innovative IT based projects

1. E-flood alert system,


• Disaster management cell are giving all the water level positions of theGadchiroli district rivers, within a minute to particular river bank livingpeople get the message of water level on their mobile, in this case DMCcan provide the rehabilitation services to victims and other resources.

• This solution is very cheap solution, awarded agency has developed theirown mechanism and assembled it. One installation of the cost of Rs.1,57,500/- (Including tax)

2. Automatic Water Level Measurement System on Observation Well throughMobile SMS

• GSDA (Geo-water survey and development agency) has installed theautomatic water level measurement system in interior area which isnot easy to travel there time to time, through this installation theyare getting the water level of OB well at their own office hence theysaved our time and cost of transportation.

• They can update their ob well data web portal. Due to this systemGovt. cost has reduced on the survey of Observation well.

3. IVRS and SMS based Soil Testing Result system

• Before implementing this system, all the taluka soil samples werecoming at District Soil Testing lab, Gadchiroli and registered theform of soil testing result and also coming at district place for collectingthe result of soil testing. In previous system govt expenditure washighly paid on transportation and stationary material. But due tothis system following advantages are obtined.

i. Only one time visit at district place for giving the sample of soil.

ii. Registration of soil by farmers can be registered at their ownoffice at taluka level (TAO).

iii. After registration, taluka farmer is getting the PNR number ofsoil.

iv. After the soil testing, district soil testing laboratory staff entersthe details of soil on the web portal.


v. Through internet, with help PNR no, farmers can use IVRS systemor send SMS for soil result or taking print receipt of test result throughwebsite.

vi. With the use of technology, we can save the money and cost of theirexpenses on transportation and stationary material.

b. Specific innovative ideas implemented in eGov area; and their impact onservices

• All innovative ideas are implemented in eGov area and from this districtadministration has got tremendous trust from the citizens.

• Last under the e-Flood Monitoring system, 51000 No SMS blast from theserver within 1 and half month during the rainy season, due to this districtadministration done wonderful rehabilitation work in flood area atBhamragad.

• GSDA (Geo-Water Survey and development agency) are getting the waterlevel of OB well at their own office and due to this system they are verythankful to district administration for introducing this technology to theirdepartment. Also GSDA has sent the proposal to Govt. for taking initiativeto install this equipment to all GSDA departments in entire state.

• E-Vidya project is the turnkey project in Gadchiroli district. Tribal andpoor students are getting the education of computer through the distancelearning concept through V-SAT.

• Recently E-Vidya project has got e-World Forum Summit Award 2011 atDelhi.

c. To what extent the services are integrated with other internal and/orexternal ICT systems within the district or outside.

1. E-Flood Monitoring system and Automatic Water Level measurementsystem has got 14th National Conference Award which was organized byGovernment of India-New Delhi and also going to replicate this system toall over Maharashtra

2. IVRS and SMS based Soil Testing Result System is going to replicate in entire


state. Proposal of IVRS and SMS based soil testing System in Commissionerlevel, after approval commissioner, it will be ready to launch to entire state.

3. E-Vidya project is the turnkey project in Gadchiroli district. Tribal and poorstudents are getting the education of computer through the distance learningconcept through V-SAT.

4. Maharashtra Govt. is going to start this project in Maharashtra.

5. Recently E-Vidya project has got e-World Forum Summit Award 2011 at Delhi.



a. eGov/ICT vision roadmap for District and its current status

The entire mentioned project running successfully in the district with the keeninterest of District administration and committed to run all implemented projectsat district level.

1. Technology is used for other district, state and national also butinfrastructure cannot share because it to every place and situation.

2. Some technology can be shared and used common infrastructure like IVRSand SMS based soil testing result.

3. Technology standardization policy and its implementation.

All technology has been developed by awarded agency, developed technologyis the combination of IT, Electronics and Mechanical based used materials aresolely purchased by District Administration and doing implementation by contractawarded agency.


a. Leadership support & visibility and current status

1. Leadership support for implementing innovative projects from the mostdynamic and innovative idea’s maker district collection Mr. Atul Patne, I.A.S.District Collector, Gadchiroli. Presently Mr. Atul Patne is the Director ofTextile Corporations, Nagpur


2. No change management strategy defined and implemented

3. Implemented projects are mainly man less projects, very few time got in touch

with this system. Development agency is giving maintenance and support of

any details about traning, reports or any other consultation to district

administration.

4. Does the full time Program Management Teams (District officials/ consultants)

exist?

5. Development Agency: Yes

6. Maintenance and support is increased for 2 year from the district

administration

3. Technology

a. Give a detailed description of the Technological solution adopted [includingcost of ownership, maintenance model];

We have used all embedded technology to implement this project

1. E-Flood Monitoring system :

• Microcontroller which has customized by development agency

• GSM module

• GSD modem

• Solar Panel

• Water Sensors

• Database Server

• Linux server for data management

• GPRS modem for blasting SMS

• Cost of per installation 1,57,500/- with 20% maintenance andsupport cost


2. GSDA-Automatic Water Level Measurement System through Mobile

• Same technology is used in GSDA, only difference, we have usedmechanical based gear system for water sensor probe.

• Cost per installation 1,57,500/- with 20% maintenance andsupport cost

3. IVRS and SMS based soil testing result system

• This is the web portal and developed SMS server which isused by GPRS modem and also developed IVRS (IntegratedVoice Recording System)

• This site is hosted on lynx server

4. E-Vidya: This project is completely based on V-SAT

• District Administration set up on V-SAT server room at ITIcollege

• Audio-Visual room set up at every schools

• Provided Computers, Projectors

5. Security and confidentiality standards defined andimplemented

• Maintaining one database server with highly secured byFirewall and also maintaining one backup server.

6. Competence of people in technology (hardware, software,security etc)

• All the security of software, hardware is doing third partyagency.

• As per concern about the installation of FloodMonitoring system and GSDA automatic water levelmeasurement system, we have given responsibility totheir local authorized people or staff.



1. We have provided the services to their local languages like Marathi, Hindi,English, Madia and Gondi.

2. Our IT services is not bound for particular stakeholders, it is for everyhuman being in this district and for live things. Because Flood disasterand Health services must in entire earth.

Shri Atul Patne, I.A.S, Director, Textile Corporation, Nagpur (MS), Textile Corporation,Nagpur, Maharashtra, was the Ex Collector Gadchiroli District, email:[email protected] and Shri Meshram, Resident Deputy Collector, DistrictAdministration, Gadchiroli, email: [email protected]


I) Overview

The Nanded district administration has been actively involved in promotinge-Governance initiatives since last 10 years. It has been proactive and at theforefront of implementing National e-Governance Programme (NeGP) and othere-Governance projects in association with the State and Central Governments.

There are three main reasons for which we are applying for this prestigiousaward:

1. To endorse authenticity to the efforts put in by all stakeholders and theresults achieved thereby

2. We would like to submit our projects for replication at a National level, asit has been recently identified for replication within the state of Maharashtravide Government resolution dated: 13th April 2011

3. Provide a boost to all stakeholders, Government, private operators andcitizens as we continue to adopt various reform projects.

In the recent Economic Survey of 2010 – 11, published by Government ofMaharashtra, Nanded district is ranked in the bottom 5 districts in terms of percapita income. In this context, it is extremely important that Governance in thedistrict is enhanced to the maximum extent possible using e-Governance to itsfull potential to help the citizens of the district in their day to day lives. Hence,

Dr. Shrikar Pardeshi and Shri. Rajesh D Bhusari

CHAPTER 18

Nanded, Maharashtra*


217Nanded, Maharashtra

while it is likely that some of the initiatives mentioned have been implementedearlier, at a District level, we believe it is very important to embrace the initiativeand implement it so that the citizens can avail the benefits of the results.

Summary

Nanded covers an area of 10,422 Sq. Kms. As per the provisional figures of 2011census, the population of the district is 33.56 Lakhs. The district has a populationdensity that is lower than the national average with only 28.29% of its populationliving in the urban areas. Nanded district has been divided into 4 revenuesubdivisions which include 16 talukas consisting of 80 revenue circles. The revenuecircles are further divided into 457 Talathi Sajjas which include the 1572 revenuevillages of this district.

Objectives

Nanded district administration aims to promote e-Governance with the followingobjectives:

1. To ensure greater quality, accountability and speed in citizen centricservices.

2. To provide single window clearance for all Govt. Services at District Level.

3. To create a user friendly interface in order to eliminate middlemen.

4. Transparency in administrative operations.

5. To facilitate cost effective services.

Services

The District Collector is in charge of the Revenue administration within thedistrict and co-ordinates the functioning of all other departments of the stateGovernment within the district. It offers 136 services to the citizens and undertakesvarious functions like Revenue collection, Land acquisition, Supply of essentialcommodities, and implementation of various Govt. schemes etc.

With the above objectives in mind, the Nanded district administration hasfollowing two key initiatives, amongst other initiatives, which are being submittedfor evaluation in this nomination:


1. PARADISE (Setuonline) – Powering the Maha e Seva Kendra (CSCs):Nanded is one of the first districts to provide its own web based applicationsoftware to implement G2C services in the CSCs and support them withthe required enablers of process reengineering through standardization andintroducing mutually beneficial accounting of revenue.

2. PDS reforms (PDS Nanded): Given the economic situation of the districtand with majority of the population living in the rural areas, the Districthas used e-Governance, including m-Governance to empower people withinformation pertaining to PDS distribution in the district.


1. Key Performance


1. PARADISE (SetuOnline) – Powering the Mahae Seva Kendras (CSCs):

Background

Nanded was a pioneer in implementing citizen servicecenters way back in 2001, known as SETU centersand further decentralizing in year 2008 inMaharashtra. Nanded District SETU Samiti, underthe chairmanship of the Collector, in association withNIC Nanded developed an application PARADISE(Processing Applications, Registration and Delivery Information System

Electronically) in 2008. Over the years, the initiative wasnurtured and improved upon gradually.

The rollout of CSCs as part of NeGP in 2009 – 10 wasthe perfect platform that Nanded district required to rolloutits application,PARADISE to offer G2C services throughthe Common Service Centers (CSCs) – named as Maha e

Seva Kendras in Maharashtra.

The scheme envisages 1 center per 4-6 villages with following objectives


• Cut down the travel cost (loss of wage, travel, food etc)

• Easy reach either by walk / cycle

• Employment opportunities for the computer literates from rural areas

• Eliminate transaction costs by providing transparency using e Governancesolution

Services

One of the major hurdle in the implementation of CSCs was lack of backendcomputerization to offer services through the CSCs. Nanded District has tackledthis problem by running its home grown Internet based application PARADISEthrough the CSCs. Earlier only few B2C services were offered through the CSCs.District Administration then entered into an arrangement with the SCA to runPARADISE through the Maha e Seva Kendra (CSCs). Currently 136 G2C servicesare offered through PARADISE. The complete list of these services is provided onwebsite www.setuonline.in (option-kiosk) through PARADISE in the Maha eSeva Kendras (CSCs). In summary, these services are:

• Acceptance of application forms (with receipt having token number fortracking)

• Providing photo based computerized affidavits

• Generation of Certificates

• Online status monitoring for the applications (KIOSK)

• Downloading of Forms – available free of cost at the centers and over theInternet.

A major innovation that was conceived and implemented earlier by NandedDistrict has subsequently been implemented in the CSC centers in Nanded in2010 – 11 viz. Prepaid Accounting. This has been explained later. Seeing thesuccess of this practice, the SCA of CSC has incorporated this feature in hisapplication for rollout in other districts.

As the District Administration has completely computerized the Land Recordsof the District, the CSCs also offer the 7/12 extract (land record certificate) and


the 8A extract (land holding certificate), which are by far the most frequentlyused services by the farmers. Nanded is the only district in the state which hascompletely banned the manual issuance of land records by the Talathis (Patwari).

Report of Computerized 7/12 (LAND RECORDS) Distribution inAurangabad Revenue Division in the year 2010-2011

Table 1

Month Latur Beed Jalna Parbhani Hingoli Osmanabad Aurangabad Nanded

Population

(lakhs) 24.55 25.85 19.58 18.35 11.78 16.60 36.95 33.56

April-10 10103 0 21852 NA 15654 9216 7289 54989

May-10 NA 0 29377 NA 22270 8220 7543 69245

June-10 16185 0 40415 NA NA 10773 9900 107988

July-10 20284 0 43804 54692 NA 12376 7759 95617

Aug-10 12326 0 32484 30774 NA 9631 7759 56785

Sept-10 9092 0 15099 14538 18309 7905 10219 23754

Oct-10 15715 0 NA 11459 12501 9395 13153 25159

Nov-10 NA 0 NA NA NA NA NA 26103

Dec-11 16743 0 17098 NA NA 11050 28803 30124

Jan -11 13407 0 20368 10937 14691 9239 34721 50323

Feb-11 NA 0 NA NA NA NA NA 42724

March-11 NA 0 NA NA NA NA NA 45692

Total 103752 0 169268 122400 45501 70369 112314 415853

Total Transactions through Maha e Seva Kendras in the Year 2010-2011

Table 2

Year Transactions through Distribution of record of rights

PARADISE (Land Record)

2010-11 3,29,472 7,57,355

Total Transactions – 10,868,27

Benefits

The Benefits this initiative has brought to the District is summarized for thefollowing three stakeholders:


• Citizens

• Village Level Entrepreneurs with average income Rs. 4000 per month

• District Administration (Government)

• Citizens

The citizens have gained the following benefits:

a) Services in the neighbourhood: All the centers are outside Governmentoffices. Therefore, to avail these 136 services, the citizens do not have totravel to Government offices. Further, they can avail the services close totheir home as a total of 282 Maha e Seva and Setu sub centers are presentlyworking across the entire district.

b) Easier tracking: The centers have displayed the service levels i.e. turnaroundtimes of delivery of the services. Hence, citizens now know the time takenand they can track their request based on the token number they get whileapplying for any service. This token number can be tracked online onInternet or at the CSCs.

c) Standardization of service: This initiative has enforced standard forms andstandard support documents requirements across the district, providing thecitizens with more predictability of requirement from them to obtain the service.

• Village Level Entrepreneurs -

Earlier process and its problems: The Village Level Entrepreneur (VLE)would collect service charges from the citizens and deposit the same withthe Govt. VLE would then submit an invoice for its share to the Government.The VLE would have to make many rounds to get his payment releasedand this process bred corruption and delayed the cash inflow for the VLE.

Innovative process implemented in Nanded District: The VLE first depositsmoney in advance with the District Headquarters. Thus, the Government’sshare is received in advance. This amount is ‘loaded’ as credit into theVLE’s account in the online application PARADISE used at the CSCs.Then, as each transaction is made in PARADISE by the VLE to providethe service to the citizen, this account gets debited. The VLE can continue


to provide services as long as there is a balance in their account. Therefore,the cash collected by the VLE from the citizen as service charge remainswith the VLE and he does not need to deposit it with the Government.

Benefits: The VLE has obtained the following benefits –

a) Faster receipts of his due share: The VLE now gets his share in real time assoon as the citizen avails the service as the citizen has to pay the servicecharge upfront.

b) Minimizing interaction with the Government: Apart from the periodicreloading, the VLE does not require to visit Government offices to obtainhis share of service charges.

c) Predictable cash flows: The VLEs are now aware of the seasonality of theirvolumes and hence, reload their accounts accordingly. Therefore, their cashflows, both inwards and outwards, are more predictable.

• District Administration (Government) –

This initiative has provided the District Administration with the followingbenefits:

a) Standardization: The District Administration used this opportunity torollout standard forms and documentary requirements from citizens. Thishas helped the Departments in processing the requests more quickly.Nanded is the only district to ban issue of manual land records by talathis(patwaris) in Maharashtra and to mandate issuance of only computerized7/12 (land record certificate) and 8A (land holding certificate).

b) Initial scrutiny performed by the VLEs: The VLEs perform the initial checkson the citizens’ requests, thereby filtering out incomplete requests fromthe citizens.

c) Less rush at District administration Offices: As all centers are outsideDistrict Administration Offices, this has significantly reduced the rush atthe said offices. This allows the District officials and officers to concentratemore on their work as citizen interaction has been optimized.

d) Implementation Coverage till date: The total number of Maha e SevaKendras has gone up to 282, which are spread all over the district. The


State Government has adopted this model and declared to replicate it inother parts of State vide government resolution dated 13/04/2011.Department of IT has conducted independent assessment of this projectvia SPV members. This model will be replicated under Maha online, anambitious project of Govt. of Maharashtra.

Future Plans

There are two aspects to the future plans:

a. Increasing the number of centers: The District Administration plans tocomplete its target of commencing a total of 453 Maha e Seva centers inthe District.

b. More services: The District Administration will add about 30 more servicesby the end of September 2011 to the CSCs to leverage more from thesuccessful experience and impetus provided by the Government.

c. Using online banking: NIC Nanded is helping the District Administrationto explore usage of online banking for the VLEs to reload their accounts.

2. PDS Reforms (PDS Nanded):

Background

The PDS system is plagued with leakages at various points in the supply chainbecause of the subsidized essential commodities, which are priced lower thanmarket prices. On the ground, this diversion and pilferage results into variousproblems.

Two commonly occurring problems that the District Administration aimedto solve were:

a. Citizens not having any visibility of commodities available at the FairPrice Shops (FPS): Especially in the rural areas of the District, the FPSowners would drive away the citizens citing unavailability or non-deliveryof essential commodities from the District godowns.

b. Citizens being denied their benefits of various Government schemes dueto lack of their awareness: Depending on which ration card a citizen holds


i.e. for APL, BPL or Antyodaya, a citizen is entitled to specific quantities ofessential commodities and at specific prices. FPS owners would maximizetheir gains by offering lesser quantities and / or at prices of higher schemes.There are cases, when the FPS owners would take away and keep the rationcards of the villagers with him.

Services

Nanded District Administration has started the following two services inSeptember 2010 aimed at addressing the above two problems. These services are:

a. SMS information of grain dispatch to citizens:

The District has 23 warehouses from where the food grains are dispatchedto the FPS. As soon as food grains are dispatched to a FPS, the informationis entered onto a web application, which then sends out SMSs to themembers of Village Vigilance Committee who are the key individuals ofthe village where the FPS is located. These individuals would be the Sarpanchand other office bearers. The SMS summarizes the food grains, theirquantities, name of the FPS and the date of dispatch. Besides, on the website(www.pdsnanded.com), any citizen can enroll his / her name to receiveSMS alerts for any FPS they choose.

b. Display of ration card holders list at FPS:

Another initiative undertaken by the Department is to computerize its5.47 lakh ration card holders. Based on this computerization, at each FPS,the District Administration has mandated that Display Boards be putcontaining the following information:

• List of all ration card holders, scheme wise i.e. APL, BPL and Antyodaya.

• Details of entitlement, scheme wise along with the price rates.

This list of ration card holders or beneficiaries is also available online at theabove mentioned website. The District Administration has issued an order that hasmandated the FPS owners to provide essential commodities to citizens even if theydo not have the ration cards as long as their names appear on the Display Board.


This initiative by the Nanded district administration aims at achieving a moretransparent and well monitored PDS system through participation of the citizens.After running a pilot for 2 / 3 weeks, all 1935 FPS were covered under thisinitiative. A total of more than 2.9 lakh SMS have been sent since July 2011

Benefits

This initiative has brought benefits to the citizens as well as to the administration.

• Citizens -

The Citizens come to know of delivery of food grains to the FPS in their localityalmost at the same as when the food grains reach the FPS. This increasestransparency and empowers villagers with information to exert pressure on theFPS for distribution of the essential commodities. Further this service is availableto citizens at zero cost as incoming SMS is free.

The citizens now cannot be denied any essential commodity available at theFPS due to reasons of non-availability or mutilation of their ration cards. Theynow also know their entitlements and the rates at which they should be procuringthe essential commodities based on the scheme under which names fall.

• District Administration (Government)

By increasing the transparency in terms of release of food grains to the FPS andopenly displaying entitlements, the overall lifting of food grains has dropped asdiversions or pilferage has become more difficult.

By enhancing the transparency of the system by having SMS sent to thecitizens, the District Administration has tried to redress the grievances of citizensregarding the PDS system. Their initiative to aid the entitlements of the citizensthrough the Display Boards is viewed as a citizen friendly change.



1. PARADISE (SetuOnline) – Powering the Maha e Seva Kendra (CSCs):

The pre-paid accounting has added cost efficiency into the CSC initiative. The


Government also gets its share in advance. The VLE also receives his share sooner.This reduces the cost of capital.

Standardization of the forms and requirements of documents have reducedthe time it takes for the VLEs / their operators and the District officials to checkprocess requests of the citizen.

2. PDS reforms (PDS Nanded):

By incurring a small additional expenditure of about Rs.8 lakhs on the SMSsystem, the District has saved pilferage of food grains worth Crores of rupees. Thedemand for food grains has fallen as avenues for diversion of pilferage have reduced.This has been responsible for the efficient utilization of food grains, as for Nanded,the state has to part away with lesser food grains without any drop in number ofbeneficiaries. District Administration could identify 28,262 bogus ration cardswhich were cancelled during the initiative.

Comparative statistics of actions against FPS based on inspection

Year No. of License License Deposit Amount

Shops Cancelled Suspended forfeited seized

Inspected (Rs.)

Sept 2009–

Aug 2010

(Before reforms) 951 18 30 40 60,000

Sept 2010–

Aug 2011

(After reforms) 659 29 37 36 98,000


The use of following innovative ideas has helped the citizens, in a District withover 71% of the population living in the rural areas:

• Using of SMS medium of information i.e. m-governance for disseminatingfood grain delivery related information

• Publishing names of ration card holders / beneficiaries using simple DisplayBoards.


Both these innovative ideas are the very backbone of the PDS reform initiative.

c. Integration with Other Systems Within and Outside

The PARADISE application has been completely integrated with the CSCinitiative. PARADISE application has been used to provide the application foroffering G2C services through the physical setup of the CSCs.

The Land Records related system is also made accessible through the CSCs,thereby ensuring convergence of the 2 key applications of the District under theCSC initiative.




The Nanded district administration aims to promote e-Governance with thefollowing objectives:

• To ensure greater quality, accountability and speed in providing servicesand information to the people of Nanded.

• To provide single window clearance for all G2C Services at District Level.

• To create a user friendly interface in order to eliminate middlemen.

• Transparency in administrative operations.

• To facilitate cost effective services.

Nanded district has been driven these objectives and has achieved significantprogress with CSCs as its means for delivery G2C services. Today 136 services arealready offered through the CSCs and 30 more are planned to be launched bySeptember 2011.

Nanded district’s experience with PARADISE will help it to embrace therecently launched e-District initiative under the NeGP.



The District administration believes in using common infrastructure to the fullestextent. Therefore, all its initiatives that have interaction with the citizens arerouted through the CSC initiative.


Nanded district has been consistent in its adoption of Unicode. Applications likePARADISE, PDSNANDED are developed using known standards. Theseapplications make use of Unicode for data to be entered. Even officecorrespondence in local language is done in Unicode only.

For whatever e-Governance initiatives that Nanded District has undertaken,it has been conscious of using open source technologies. LAMP platform is usedfor the application development, saving cost of proprietary software.



The following major non-ICT front end process changes were planned andimplemented to support the e-Governance initiatives:

• Standardization of forms: While implementing PARADISE, the team realizedthat various Tahsils were using different forms for the same service. Beforedeveloping the application, an exercise was first done to standardize theforms and the supporting documents that were required from the citizens.

The State Government of Maharashtra has recognized the District’s effortsand has passed a Government Resolution dated 03/06/2011 instructing all otherdistricts in the state to follow suit.

• Order for issuance of only computerized 7/12 and 8A forms: As far as themost commonly used G2C service i.e. issuance of 7/12 extract (land recordcertificate) and 8A extract (land holding certificate) is concerned, theDistrict Administration has passed an order that only computerized landrecord / holding certificates would be issued to ensure uniformity in thedisbursement while universalizing the same.

To complement the above change, facility is also provided in PARADISE over


the Internet that allows any individual to key in the issued certificate details andascertain if the certificate was indeed issued from the system. This service is offeredwithout compromising on the confidentiality of the certificate, by providing onlya confirmation or denial of the authenticity of the certificate.

Lastly, to strengthen the processes followed at the Maha e Seva Kendras, theDistrict Administration got 10 centers in Nanded City ISO9001:2008 certified.The processes followed at these centers have been replicated across all centers.The audits that are done under ISO9001:2008 certification help in doing aperiodic check on the adherence of the processes.


To enforce PDS reforms, the District Administration passed an order thatmandated the FPS owners to issue essential commodities to the citizens even ifthey did not physically possess the ration cards, provided their names appearedin the list of the beneficiaries on the Display Boards. The names could also beverified by any citizen over the Internet as well.



For the good part of the year, the Chief Minister of the state was from the NandedDistrict. This lent very good visibility and support for the e-Governance initiatives.It was the then Chief Minister who inaugurated the issuance of computerizedland records through Maha e Seva and the Display Board initiative in the District.


Following two specific interventions were planned and have been implementedtowards change management:

• Camps: The PARADISE application that is accessed over Internet at theCSCs can also be accessed on laptops / PCs using wireless data cards. Thepresent Collector personally wrote to Head Masters (580) of all HighSchools (580) in the district and had mobile camps conducted for thechildren and their parents. More than 32,000 certificates pertaining tocaste, domicile etc. were prepared and distributed in schools itself.


• Communication: Regular briefing of the print and electronic media hashelped in dissemination of the vital information about the progress of thementioned initiatives. Apart from this, simple brochures prepared for thecitizens were distributed to important offices and in villages for awareness.

• Training: Various trainings have been conducted to help the VLEs operateeffectively in the Maha e Seva Kendras. A total of 10 such training sessionswere conducted in 2010 – 11. The training sessions covered the topics of

– Online Software (PARADISE)

– Business development for village level entrepreneurs

– Communication skills

– CSC accounting

District Collector has also initiated best VLE scheme based on theirperformance in CSC scheme. The periodicity for this scheme is presently 1 year,which Administration will revise to half year in coming days. The best VLE isfelicitated by the Collector with a cash prize of Rs. 500/-, certificate and garland.Best VLE selection is done on following criteria

– Number of G2C transactions done

– Conformance with the principles laid down to run the CSC

– General indicators like ambience of CSC, communication skills etc.

c. Training Plan- Internal and External Plan Status

Training is an ongoing activity for this project as new enrollments of VLE, transferof Officers / clerks is a continual process. Specifically trainings are conducted tofollowing audience.

Training Audience

Sr. No Audience Type Sessions Conducted

1. Village level entrepreneur External 6 sessions conducted and in all 282

persons are trained

2. Certificate issuing authority Internal 6 sessions and 16 Officers trained

3. File processing staff Internal 10 sessions and clerical staff

trained



Under the supervision of the Collector’s office and the SETU Samiti, which isalso chaired by the Collector, NIC Nanded provides full time programmanagement oversight for the initiatives. The SETU Samiti has nominated fewretired District officials to support NIC Nanded in the day-to-day programmanagement.


To ensure sustainability of the various e Gov efforts, the Nanded DistrictAdministration has undertaken the following initiatives:

• The District Administration has proactively worked to reduce its share tohelp the VLE obtain double their share to help sustain the Maha e SevaKendra:

Stake holder Dec 2009 Nov 2010

VLE Rs. 3.90/- Rs. 7.80/-

CMS (SCA) Rs. 2.10/- Rs. 4.00/-

Setu Samiti Rs. 9.00/- Rs. 6.00/-

Total Service Charge (to the citizen)

6 Rs.15.00/- Rs. 15.00/-

• By making issuance of only computerized certificates mandatory, theDistrict Administration has ensured that the setup does not fall back onearlier manual systems to ensure that the initiative sustains.

• The cost of implementing the described PDS reform initiative is very less(about Rs. 8 lakhs). The revenue from the District share of the PARADISEinitiative can easily fund the PDS initiative.

4. Technology

a. Technological Solution Adopted

The software is developed using PhP on front end and MySQL at backend. Theoperating system used was RHEL 5.0. Due to open source adoption cost ofproprietary software was saved. Afterwards the application software was hostedon private shared server at a cost of Rs. 18,000 /- per year. Maintenance of software


is being done in-house while, for larger scale development, manpower is hired asper requirement.


It was ensured that the software conforms to standard web security aspects alsothe security issues related with open source environment are taken in to account.

c. Competence of people in technology (hardware, software, security etc)

282 direct centers (CSC operators); Officials from 20 offices and Citizens aremaking use of this software. The software is developed keeping the audience inmind, it can be said, based on feedback received, that this is real user-friendlyapplication.




Digital Inclusion has been rightly considered while implementing thementioned initiatives. During the period from 2001 to 2008, the Setu Centreswere restricted only to Collectorate and Tahsil Offices. However, since 2009,there has been active promotion of Maha e Seva Kendras at the doorstep of thecitizens. It was decided that rather than calling the applicants and giving serviceat office end, the Govt will go to the doorstep of applicant by establishing centresnearer to their residing place. That is the reason that Maha e Seva Kendras havebeen consciously kept out of office buildings of the District Administration andhave been spread all across to the District so that the citizens can access it nearer totheir home. Secondly to bridge the digital divide both the portals www.setuonline,www.pdsnanded.com have been developed in local language i.e. Marathi. All thecentres are ready to serve the poorly educated as well as the illerates, helping themto assist in filing applications. Citizens are empowered for the usage of portal to getoptimal information about citizen centric services. For the PDS reforms, by providingthe required information through ubiquitous technology like mobile phones, it


has become very easy for citizens to obtain the desired information. Simultaneouslythe display boards, with the names of all the beneficiaries under all categories, forsubsidized food grains, in front of all the fair price shops has given them confidenceabout their monthly entitlement of food grains.

2. eParticipation

Setu Samiti is apex body for the project. Officials from all fields are nominated asmembers of the Samiti. Apart from this, in the initial stage local NGO was involvedfor better delivery of the services. It is now proposed to call noted social activistswith a background of citizen centric services in the Setu Samiti meetings so thatthe project can benefit from their experiences. Setu Samiti always believes thatreforms and inclusion are a continuous process. This commitment has led toISO9001:2008 certification for the Setu Samiti Centres which acts as third umpirein the present scenario.

3. eWaste

For the initiatives been submitted, e Waste is not applicable due to the followingreasons:

1. PARADISE: As the initiative of Maha e Seva Kendras is run in PPP, the PCsused belong to the VLEs and the prerogative on deciding its redeploymentor discarding would lie with the VLEs.

2. PDS reforms: These use mobile phones, which are personal properties ofthe citizens and its discarding, would be the citizen’s prerogative with theDistrict Administration not having any specific role.

Dr. Shrikar Pardeshi, IAS, Collector & District Magistrate, Revenue Department,

Government of Maharashtra, Email: [email protected] & Shri. Rajesh D.Bhusari, District Informatics Officer, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Maharashtra,Email: [email protected]


Shri Niraj K Pawan and Shri H S Yadav

I) Overview

For recognization of contributions, made in the field of e-Governance, in the Palidistrict of Rajasthan. Primarily for recognization and replication of the successfulinitiatives of the district, in achieving good governance using ICT. It gives aninsight to all stakeholders in e-governance and shares the critical success factorsin the implementation process. To show that e-Governance is a tool to ensureequitable and easy to avail good governance.

Pali district is situated in western Rajasthan. District Pali of Rajasthan is aland of opportunities embedded in its vast mineral resources; close proximity tothe northern and western markets of India; educated and skilled labour force;and investor-friendly attitude of the State Government. Pali district is blessedwith varied climatic conditions ranging from arid western region to humid region,such that it is able to produce a wide variety of products. It is a leading producerof mustard, bajra, barley, maize and cotton. It has a large livestock population.It, being a pre-dominantly agrarian district with about 70 per cent of the totalpopulation depending on it, offers numerous opportunities for development ofagro-based industries. These industries include solvent extraction, floriculture,tomato processing as well as other processing industries based on fruits andvegetables. Industries based on herbal and medicinal plants, poultry productsand non-edible oil have bright export prospects. Pali district is famous for itsexotic beauty, rich cultural heritage, wild life and safaris, forests and bio-diversity.

CHAPTER 19

Pali District, Rajasthan*


235Pali District, Rajasthan

It is endowed with ancient forts, carved temples, museums, archaeological sites, etc.Some of the important places of tourist interest in the district are Ranakpur, Nadol,Jojawar etc. Besides, fairs and festivals of Rajasthan have assumed internationalprominence. All these make the district Pali a favourite destination for tourists theworld over. Given this, the Government has taken several steps for promotinginvestment in the tourism sector. Accordingly, a tourism policy has been designed tomake tourism truly a people’s industry. This policy aims at ensuring optimumutilisation of rich resources of the district; generate employment; develop a readymarket for the traditional handicrafts; and thus accelerate the contribution of tourismindustry in socio-economic development of the district. The district has shownsignificant spurt in industrial activity, based on the exploitation of its agriculture andrich mineral deposits. It is manufacturing a wide range of products, which includesynthetic and cotton yarn, cement, marble and granite slabs, edible oils, chemicals,rubber and plastic based items, electrical and electronics goods, ceramic and glass, etc.In addition, its diverse and beautiful landscape has made tourism in the district, apreferred sector for investment. The District Administration is making all efforts toleverage the benefits of IT for improving the quality of life of the people. It hasundertaken several steps for promoting Pali as an attractive location for investmentin the IT industry.


1. Key Performance


1. SMS based Public Grievances Redressal:- Using latest SMS based technology,the District Administration tries to redress public grievances in an efficientmanner.

2. GPS based Public Distribution System Kerosene route monitoring:- With thehelp of GPS technique, the District Supply office keeps track of the movementof Kerosene tankers, so that black-marketing of kerosene is minimized.

3. Web Conferencing for SDO’s:- This technology is used by the DistrictCollector and all the nine SDO’s, so as to interact as and when needed, foron-line appraisal of situation etc. Through this facility any person can


interact directly with the District Collector, Pali from the Sub Division officer’soffices located in the district.

4. Common Service Centre(s)- The CSC is a strategic cornerstone of theNational e-Governance Plan (NeGP), to introduce e-governance on a massivescale. The CSCs would provide high quality and cost-effective video, voiceand data content and services, in the areas of e-governance, education,health, telemedicine, entertainment as well as other private services. Ahighlight of the CSCs is that it will offer web-enabled e-governance servicesin rural areas, including application forms, certificates, and utility paymentssuch as electricity, telephone and water bills. The Scheme creates a conduciveenvironment for the private sector and NGOs to play an active role inimplementation of the CSC Scheme, thereby becoming a partner of thegovernment in the development of rural India. The PPP model of the CSCscheme envisages a 3-tier structure consisting of the CSC operator (calledVillage Level Entrepreneur or VLE); the Service Centre Agency (SCA) anda State Designated Agency (SDA) identified by the State Governmentresponsible for managing the implementation over the entire State

5. e-Mitra Project is aimed at providing various citizen-centric services ofvarious government departments in integrated form through service &information delivery centres.

6. RPSC On-line Application Filling :- For the benefit of rural and urban youth,Rajasthan Public Service Commission has started on-line application fillingfacility. This facility can be availed at e-Mitra/CSC kiosks on payment basis.


1. SMS based Public Grievances Redressal:- This system is aimed at lodgingof public grievances using SMS from any part of the district or fromanywhere. So far more than 6000 complaints have been lodged and sent totheir respective departments for an early redressal.

2. GPS based Public Distribution System Kerosene route monitoring:- Tokeep track of distribution of kerosene under Public Distribution System,this system is implemented throughout the district.


3. Web Conferencing for SDO’s:- For on-line discussion on important mattersand for appraisal of any information, this facility is being implemented for allthe nine SDO’s of the district Pali.

4. Common Service Centre(s):- So far 79 Common Service Centres have beenoperation in the district to cater to various needs of the public for differentservices.

5. e-Mitra :- In district Pali at present 27 e-Mitra counters are operational

Future plan with regard to geographical coverage as well as scope of services

1. SMS based Public Grievances Redressal:- In future this system will beexpanded and in addition to district headquarter level monitoring, block/tehsil level monitioring would be started.

2. GPS based Public Distribution System Kerosene route monitoring:- Tocope with numbers of kerosene tankers, foodgrain trucks etc. the numberof vehicles fitted with GPS based equipments would be increased.

3. Web Conferencing for SDO’s:- For on-line discussion on important mattersand for appraisal of any information, this facility would be implementedfor all the Block Development Officers and important District Level Officersof the district Pali.

4. Common Service Centre(s) & e-Mitra: More and more services would beincluded for the benefit of common man of the district.



1. SMS based Public Grievances Redressal:- This system is aimed at timeand cost efficiency. With the help of this system, grievances may be lodgedfrom any part of the district or from anywhere. Then lodged grievances aresent to their respective departments for an early redressal.

2. GPS based Public Distribution System Kerosene route monitoring:- Toimprove vigilance and time & cost efficiency, this system is devised, so thatkeeping track of distribution of kerosene under Public Distribution Systemmay be monitored smoothly and effectively at any time and from anywhere.

3. Web Conferencing for SDO’s:- Time and cost efficiency improveddrastically by using Web Conferencing for on-line discussion on important


matters and for appraisal of any information. Using this facility the SDO’s cansave their precious time.

4. Common Service Centre(s):- Common Service Centres have been in theoperation in the district to cater various needs of the public for differentservices, thus improving time and cost efficiency in public services forcommon man.

5. e-Mitra :- Time & cost efficiency has been improved in services providedby the e-Mitra centres being operational in the district.


1. SMS based Public Grievances Redressal:- This system is implemented byusing SMS. This idea aimed at time and cost efficiency.

2. GPS based Public Distribution System Kerosene route monitoring:- Thebasic idea is to improve vigilance and time & cost efficiency. Keeping thisidea in view, this system is devised, so that Public Distribution SystemKerosene route has been monitored smoothly and effectively at any timeand from anywhere.

3. Web Conferencing for SDO’s:- To use the on-line web based conferencing,with improved time and cost efficiency, this idea is implemented. This inturn, improved various aspects drastically by using Web Conferencing foron-line discussion on important matters and for appraisal of any importantinformation.

4. Common Service Centre(s):- To improve the services rendered to commonpeople by using ICT in eGov area, these Common Service Centres has beenin the operation in the district to cater various needs of the public. Thusimproving time and cost efficiency in public services for common man.

5. e-Mitra :- This innovative idea has improved efficiency in eGov area andsimultaneously provided services in the district.


1. SMS based Public Grievances Redressal:- This system is implemented atdistrict headquarter by using input from SMS from anywhere, inside orout-side of the district. ICT systems are using latest technology to cater


public needs and early solution of public grievances.

2. GPS based Public Distribution System Kerosene route monitoring:- TheGPS technology is used to improve vigilance and time & cost efficiency.With this technology effective and smooth monitoring has been possible,at any time and from anywhere.

3. Web Conferencing for SDO’s:- This system uses web technology to facilitatereal-time web based conferencing. Presently all the nine SDO offices areconnected through this system, they can interact, using their credentials,from any part of the district or outside.

4. Common Service Centre(s) & e-Mitra:- With the help of these systems,use of web based ICT applications, from designated Common ServiceCentres/e-Mitra kiosks, across the district and connected to the state server,to improve the services rendered to common people by using ICT in eGovarea has been successfully implemented.




Application of Information Technology, in the processes of district leveladministration, to ensure timely services to the common people. For this districtadministration is trying its best to ensure in providing with the benefits of usingInformation and Communication Technology to common people. Work processes,decision making and interactions within government will be improved significantlywith the help of ICT.


Initial efforts were local by using shared resources. Subsequently state governmentallocated funds for new infrastructure. Still few applications are using commoninfrastructure/resources whereas some are standalone.


ICT tools used in these applications confirms to the standards, as latest toolswere deployed under the close vigilance of district ICT officials.




Registration, monitoring and intimation of disposal related details of the publicgrievances received through the system.


1. Communication of grievance details to the concerned officer

2. Regular monitoring to make the whole system effective

3. Systematic operational changes/improvements required for strengtheningthe system for effective delivery of public services.



Adoption and promotion of useful innovation, for the benefit of common people,in every possible manner.


Believed in the spirit of team building and promoted the collective responsibilityculture for the decision taken during the course of action in good faith. For thismany a times new ideas, methods and innovations are cross checked, tried anddocumented.

c. Capacity Building Plan and its Implementation

With the availability of skilled technical experts, various in-house training wereconducted from time to time to cater to the needs of the house. Sometimes statelevel trainings were attended by the staff deputed/posted in these projects toimprove their skills.


District administration has appointed nodal officer(s) for smooth functioning ofthese projects and to handle any problem occurred during day-to-day functioningof these ICT applications.


e. Efforts to ensure sustainability of various eGov efforts, in addition to thefew mentioned above.

As mentioned above, nodal officer(s) were made responsible and accountable tohandle problems occurred related to these projects. Their work has been regularlymonitored during weekly meetings.

4. Technology

Technological Solution Adopted

1. SMS based Public Grievances Redressal:- This system is implemented

using latest .NET technology, integrated with SMS facility to cater public

needs and early solution of public grievances.

2. GPS based Public Distribution System Kerosene route monitoring:- This

application uses GPS technology to improve vigilance and time & cost

efficiency. With this technology effective and smooth monitoring has been

possible, at any time and from anywhere.

3. Web Conferencing for SDO’s:- This system uses web technology to facilitate

real-time web based conferencing. Presently all the nine SDO offices are

connected through this system, they can interact, using their credentials,

from any part of the district or outside.

4. Common Service Centre(s) & e-Mitra:- This is a web based ICT

application, being accessed from designated Common Service Centres/e-

Mitra kiosks, across the district and connected to the state server, to improve

the services rendered to common people by using ICT in eGov area has

been successfully implemented.


Security and confidentiality standards are well defined and are being implementedin all the e-Government initiatives been implemented in the district.


For the e-Government initiatives, been implemented in the district, technicalaspects are managed by technical experts posted in the district, under the


directions of the state government and local district administration received fromtime to time. Hardware, Software and Security standards/aspects are as pergovernment norms/standards and are being monitored regularly.




In the district, implementation of e-Government initiatives has increased use ofinformation and communication technologies to broaden and deepen citizensparticipation, by enabling citizens to connect/interact with district administrationfor improved service delivery. This also includes all stakeholders in decision-makingprocesses and not only citizen related top-down government initiatives. Thusdigital inclusion in the form of eInclusion has been implemented successfully.

2. eParticipation


“ICT-supported participation in processes involved in government and governance”has been ascertained by active participation of stakeholders at all levels.eParticipation is closely integrated to e-government and (e-)governanceparticipation. This has also emerged as citizen benefits and values that have oftenreceived less attention in e-government development than those of the serviceproviders. Also the role of citizen and customer has become clearer.

3. eWaste

NA

Shri Niraj K Pawan, District Collector, Pali, Rajasthan, email:[email protected] &Shri H S Yadav, ADM, Collectorate, Rajasthan, email: [email protected],[email protected])

243Ramabai Nagar, Uttar Pradesh

Shri. Chandra Prakash and Shri. Mayur Maheshwari

I) Overview

Governance today, is incomplete without the crucial word “E”. E-Governance hasbeen adopted internationally, as an effective tool to facilitate G2C interface, trickledown the effects of development and investment for weakest links of society andensure transparency and accountability in governance. Last decade has been witnessto tremendous efforts being made in e-governance initiatives in India as well. However,there has been a duplication of these efforts in many cases and gaps in many othersbecause of lack of interactive platforms to debate and discuss these efforts at nationallevel. In this background, CSI-Nihilent E-Governance awards has emerged as apowerful platform for dissemination, sharing and discussion of e-governance initiativesat the national level. It has been a forum whereby the best of e-governance initiativesacross the nation, in different categories have been presented and awarded, helpingfuture better projects to come up and deliver effective services for all.

It is with this very objective of being able to get a platform for the projects runningin district Ramabai Nagar of Uttar Pradesh i.e. Aarogyam, (which has also won thisyear’s National E-governance Award 2011(Silver ICON)), and E-Samwad (whichwon e-World Award 2011) that the district has been nominated herein. Aarogyam,initiated in Uttar Pradesh, is country’s unique end to end digital mapping and pioneerpregnancy tracking system which uses ICT to empower all sections of society, attheir doorsteps. CSI-Nihilent award can help in further dissemination and adoptionof this project in other states of the nation, and contribute in better health care

CHAPTER 20

Ramabai Nagar, Uttar Pradesh*



delivery for all and especially, mothers and their children. E-Samwad is another uniqueinitiative whereby with use of ICT, sittting at district Headquarters, top officials canmonitor performance of all government developmental schemes at the village level.CSI-Nihilent awards is a key forum which would help in dissemination of thesebenficiary oriented G2C projects across the nation. Hence, the nomination.

District Ramabai Nagar is centrally situated in Uttar Pradesh with the populationof 17.95 lakhs having sex ratio 86.2 and literacy rate 77.52. The District has fivetehsils as administrative units and 10 blocks as development units. Area wise districtspread is at very high side hence ICT initiatives are needed to address the citizensliving at the distant places like Rasulabad (55 Km from District Headquarters) andSandalpur (60 Km from DHQ). 98% of the citizens in this district live in the ruralarea and the transportation is still a problem in the rural areas. Hence the initiativeslike Aarogyam and E-Samwad are a boost for such type of terrain. So these type ofinitiatives help the citizens to get effective services in time.


1. Key Performance


In Ramabai Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh, two major initiatives were launched inFebruray, 2011 and both the initiatives are giving the G2C services to the Ruralcitizens of the district. As most of the population resides in the villages hence thesetwo applications are widely used by them and they have improved their livingquality. First of these is the health initiative-Aarogyam-Doctor in pocket.

1. Aarogyam

Mothers and children constitute a significantly large proportion of the country’spopulation. This group is exposed to the risk of child bearing in case of mothersand growth, development and survival in case of infants and children. Therefore,it is a high risk group requiring special care and attention.

In this backdrop, the Purpose of Aarogyam is to develop a digital health mappingprogram to ensure:-


a. 100% immunization for children in 0-5 years of age group.

b. Tracking each pregnancy with the help of a technology based monitoringsystem

c. Complete reproductive and child health care including early registrationof pregnancy, Ante-natal/post-natal care, institutional delivery (promotionof Janani Suraksha Yojana(JSY) ), pulse-polio immunization etc.

d. Development of a replicable model of technology based Pregnancy trackingand Child immunization system to achieve the Millennium Developmentgoals for various health indicators

e. Generation of awareness in community about health services by providinginformation to citizens at their doorsteps

With above specific priorities, the project uses ICT and mobile phones as atool to generate telephone calls, sms (in Hindi for wider appeal) to the families oftarget group on/before the due dates of immunization schedule. Hence, the modelhas “Knowledge is power” as the underlying theme wherein, have-nots areconverted to haves through information dissemination. It therefore becomes apotent vehicle for people living in low socio economic brackets to access healthcareat their doorsteps through the feedback mechanisms inbuilt in the system.

Aarogyam works on a four pronged approach of Proactive, Reactive, Interactiveand Educative interventions among the community. It can be thereby visualisedin terms of following two modules:-

a. Pregnancy tracking and monitoring module (Proactive and Reactive)

b. Proactive- Aarogyam keeps citizens at the centre of the health model anduses an Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS), which generatesautomatic family specific reminder calls/SMS in Hindi encompassing thefollowing areas:

– Immunization details for children from 0-5 years informing them aboutthe place and date of vaccination.

– ANC/PNC details of pregnant and lactating mother based on the duedate for TT, IFA tablets etc.


– Institutional delivery and benefits of Janani Suraksha yojna (JSY).

c. Reactive- In case of pendency the reminder calls are sent to the concernedfamily and village pradhan for ensuring the service delivery, ANMs are alsosent reminder calls for all uncovered families per village. This enablesAarogym to ensure that all beneficiaries receive the desired services.

– Services delivered

d. Enabling the digital health mapping and pregnancy tracking system.

e. Outbound IVR/ Hindi SMS disseminating personalized information w.r.tmothers and children for - BCG, DPT, Polio, Measles vaccines etc.

f. Audit Trails - Regular pendency reminder calls to family, ANM, Pradhan(Village Heads) for ensuring 100% immunization, ANC, PNC etc.

2. Grievance Redressal and Information dissemination module(Interactive and Educative)

a. Interactive – Aarogyam allows beneficiaries to interact with the systemwhereby through in-dial option on a helpline number, one can gathermaternal and child health care information e.g. child vaccinations, antenatalcare, postnatal care, institutional delivery, birth preparedness, and JananiSuraksha Yojna (JSY) among other topics. A beneficiary can also lodgespecific health related complaints using the in-dial facility.

b. Educational- Aarogyam provides educational support to various healthcampaigns such as Directly Observed Treatment Short Course forTuberculosis (DOTS), pulse polio campaigns, gender-equality, anti-epidemic (i.e., cholera or dengue fever) campaigns, Prenatal DiagnosticTests (PNDT), JSY, and the burden of disease in a particular region amongothers. In addition to this Aarogyam sends periodic Behavior ChangeCommunication (BCC) messages to the beneficiaries.

c. Services Delivered

• Inbound Information retrieval of Health parameters and schemes

– Complaint lodging and redressal


– Community Broadcasting

Apart from the above, Aarogyam provides web-interface for service providers aswell as citizens through it’s web portal www.aarogyam.co.in. Herein, the projectobjectives/strategy/mode of operation is made clear for use of citizens. Apart fromthat, various MIS reports which are an integral component for review of onlinesystem as in :

– Mother report, Pending child immunization

– SMS report

– ANM/Pradhan Call report

– Polio report

– Complaint reports etc.

are uploaded for effective monitoring by district level officers right from DistrictMagistrate to chief medical officer.

Benefits obtained from above services for different target groups are elucidatedbelow :-

1. Improved responsibility and accountability of service providers: Instantmessages and calls to service providers have made them (ANM/MOs) moreresponsible and accountable. The web based monitoring portal(www.aarogyam.co.in) gives a snapshot of achievers and underperformers.This helped to ensure the timely delivery of health care services to thecommunities.

2. Improvement in measurable indicators of health for children and pregnantmothers: So far as measurable indicators are concerned, there is a positivetrend over a period of time. Across the board in figures wrt child andmother immunization, we are seeing positive trends emanating with theimplementation of Aarogyam. For District Bagpat, there has beencommendable improvement over a period from Jan 2008 to Jan 2011:-


Table 1

Immunization Apr-2007 to Jan 2008 Apr-2010 to Jan 2011

Polio 19914 33964

DPT 19914 33964

BCG 22637 34419

MEASLES 21838 33934

TT Mother -1 20314 39525

TT Mother -2 18374 38280

from 18374 to 38280

Figure 1: Impact of Aarogyam

3. The project has provided a specific health database with respect to measurableindicators of the target group and each individual therein. Having access tothis, our entire future strategy in disease control can be planned and therebymade highly focused.


4. The best result has been in terms of knowledge empowerment of the henceforthleft-outs, economically/socially impoverished families. Sitting at home onegets specific knowledge about one’s health profile, and this has resulted in atremendous hike in demand for health related services especially wrtimmunization.

5. The model has helped health department to refocus its strategy and change toPreventive Medicare whereby on the basis of demand generated and complaintslodged in, one can immediately take corrective steps and achieve results.

6. User friendly approach: It follows a user friendly approach in which anilliterate person can also take initiatives to update himself/herself on healthservice provisions and status. It is also easier for health department to informtheir community level workers (ANMs, ASHAs) on health gaps andpriorities.

Figure 2: Impact of Aarogyam


7. Community feedback: It was evident during several field visits of health andother officials that community’s response on the idea is very enthusiastic.Their feedback on technology based information and monitoring systemwas positive and they are looking forward to get more benefits from thetechnology based system.

8. Effective Planning: Better planning of community level health programsespecially ANC/PNC checkups and immunization drives are possible withthe system e.g. ANMs can be now informed of the number of beneficiariesto expect at the each session, this will not only result in reduced waste ofvaccines but also more accurate head count.

It is wrt above mentioned benefits that project has won accolades at nationalas well as international levels. Aarogyam has won various awards at national andinternational levels as in:-

1. WINNER : National E-Governance Award 2011-Aarogyam won theprestigious Silver Icon award in the Citizen Centric Service Delivery categoryat National E-Governance Conference held at Aurangabad.

2. WINNER : NASSCOM Social Innovation Honours-2010 – Organisedby NASSCOM for recognising and awarding pioneering work in variousfields of e-governance. The Honours were adjudicated by an eminent juryconsisting of Mr. Narayan Murthy (former chairman of Infosys Ltd),Mr. Jerry Rao (founder of Mphasis Ltd) and Mr.T Ninan (former Editorof Business standard) etc.

3. WINNER :- FIEO Telecom Technology Award 2011 by Ministry ofCommerce in 2 categories - “Amazing Social Media Initiative” and “JuryChoice” award

4. WINNER : M-billionth awards south-Asia 2010 Supported by Digitalempowerment foundation

5. Finalist- Stockholm Challenge Award 2010

3. Second initiative is E-Samwad

a. E-Samwad With the initiatives of District Magistrate Ramabai Nagar, ShriMayur Maheshwari, IAS, the last mile connectivity at Ramabai Nagar has been


achieved. District Magistrate calls his E-Samwad Team and every body is readyfor a trip to a remote village inside the district with all the logistics in a BoleroVehicle. He sits with some senior officers at the District Headquarter and thenVideo Conference starts from the remote village.

Villagers start telling the problems and the real governance takes place. It isgreat to watch the villagers getting satisfied with their queries and the districtlevel officers there itself are told to solve the problem on the spot. Some of thesedistrict level officers are informed just an hour before and they also go to theremote village and hence the various services are offered to the villagers at theirdoor steps. This way the villagers have the win-win situation. The villagers donot have to travel, hence they are saving the travel cost, do not have to pay thespeed money to somebody for their work and so many advantages are there toadopt this nice facility of Video Conferencing. E-Samwad has made the villagersmore informative about the schemes which are running in the district. As whenthis conference takes place the ½ hour is given for the information about thevarious government schemes. Their long awaited problems are redressed. Theyare in front of the DM and then they tell the real situation at their village. Theconcerned government employee is also at the village and DM instructs aboutthe gaps if any about the services.


Since its inception in March 2009, the project has been benefitting around 2 lacfamilies in four districts of UP i.e. Baghpat, JPNagar, Gautam Buddha Nagarand Ramabai Nagar. The project is easily replicable-

1. An integral component of the project, Pregnancy Tracking System, hasbeen taken up in all 72 districts of the state of UP as mentioned in theNRHM PIP.

2. Secretary Health GOI has seen and highly appreciated the project.

3. Joint Secretary, Health, GOI, and Director NIHFW, have visited both thedistricts and have recommended scaling it up on a national level.

4. Already the program is running in four districts (Bagpat, J.P. Nagar, Gautam


Buddha Nagar, Ramabai Nagar) catering to around 70 lakhs population. Projectfunds have been sanctioned in NRHM PIP for all districts of MoradabadDivision (Moradabad, Rampur, Bijnore, JP Nagar), where it has been initiated.

5. Teams of Health Departments of Punjab and Rajasthan have visited the districtsand evinced keen interest in replication of Aarogyam in their states.

6. Different NGOs like Intra Health Foundation (A Bill and Melinda GatesFoundation), Rotary Foundation, Public Health Foundation of India, etc.have visited the project and are keen to replicate key approaches/practicesfrom this project in their own fields.

c. Geographical Coverage

1. Aarogyam

As it is a well known fact that despite being aware of the benefits of the healthservices uptake for a pregnant woman and children, regular hammering is requiredto change behaviour of the community. Therefore..

a. We can increase spectrum of the services ranging from pre pregnancy to childimmunisation and family planning after delivery such as-

• First child after 20 years of age – for adopting some family planningmethod – OCP/Condom (may only for ANMs of concern village)

• Importance of early registration of the pregnant woman (message/call will go in pre pregnant state)

• Importance of 3 ANC check up and call alerts for pregnant women

• Importance of breast feeding

• Home visits for PNC care to ANMs to follow up with ASHAs

• Family planning methods after 1st child- spacing and after 2 children-permanent. Same message to ANM for follow up.

b. We would like to achieve the following other immediate possibilities for theproject –

• Integration with other departments like Panchayati Raj for Total SanitationCampaign, with ICDS implementing agencies, Education etc


• Database to be used as a Community Broadcasting Tool in different aspectsas in case of a Calamity/Disaster for effective and speedy relief/evacuation/forewarning, voter ID registration.

• Link up with emergency transport and 24*7 medical facility foremergency patients.



Aarogyam-Improved efficiency of process and effectiveness of outcome:Awareness can be created in no time and there is no need to have too many people tospread a message. At the field level the efficiency of workers has been improved asthey are being informed about their duties on phone on regular basis. At the districtlevel, top officials are now better equipped to monitor the progress as well ascoverage through web monitoring system. Field Officers are found to be moreefficient in data analysis and compliances of complaints.

e-samwad - Time and cost efficiency improvements in delivering and availing ofICT enabled services:

By the application of this system, timely information is spread to the masses andat least one village is completed in one conference. As the information is deliveredby senior officers hence the specific and timely information is shared. Sitting atdistrict headquarters, one can come to know of the field situation, and reviewperformance of developmental works. It is especially important for repeatassessment and review of works done in a village and to assess performance vis-avis instructions passed on earlier. Hence it is a great saving of time and cost, asone can in a day cover many villages/areas.


Aarogyam is a unique Mobile-Governance health initiative. Its innovativeness is inits being :

• The first outbound IVR application in government health care deliverymechanisms.


• It is also a pioneer in terms of establishment of a scientific and comprehensivepregnancy tracking system.

• The digital database so captured makes it a powerful communitybroadcasting medium for various educative campaigns not only in healthlike pulse polio and JSY, but also in public welfare schemes of otherdepartments like Total Sanitation Campaign, Education, Flood/Epidemicalerts etc.

• The inherent advantages of Integrated Voice Response Technology, add toits innovativeness in terms of following factors:-

– Ease of access:-Easily accessible to anyone who knows how to receivea call.

– Wide range of people covered:-Wide range of people can be reachedto, who hold phone/mobile.

– Use of Vernacular to spread awareness

– Applicable to illiterate people:-No need to have any writing/readingskills, only listening ability is required.

– Zero cost to people:-As this is an out dial voice call, there is no costfor receiving a call all over India.

– Fast: Awareness can be created in no time. Hence there is less time lagas compared to visiting a remote village.

– Less human Endeavour:-No need to have too many people to spreada message, hence greater efficiency can be ensured.

As far as E-Samwad is concerned, it is the only application where we havereached up to the masses at village level to review their developmental concerns,without them having to come to various offices for effective redressal.Innovativeness of project lies in-

• Usage of video conferencing equipments to address the rural citizens

• The reach is the last mile reach


• The Government is going to the door steps and the citizen is not coming tothe Collectorate or Tehsil office.




With the advancement of ICT and the upcoming Internet technologies the Districtheadquarter is connected to the five tehsils with the 2 MBPS line and the tenblocks are also connected to the district headquarter. Some of the major officeshave the fibre optic network from the district headquarter like DRDA, Treasury,Local bodies and many more. We have a State Wide Area Network Center at thedistrict Headquarter. Still the District Level health, education, transport andother departments have to procure the Routers and then the Network of theDepartment will be complete.

Figure 3: UPSWAN



Aarogyam and e Samwad shared the same backbone which is used by the districtlevel projects. The information collection and the dispersal is being done with thehelp of the government given Internet facility hence a lot of cost is saved due tosharing of the resources.


The locally developed formats on the web are used to get the data from the field leveland the standardized performas approved from government are used to get the datafrom the field staff hence the redundancy is avoided and the integrity is maintained.

In aarogyam and e samwad the Booklet of the forms is made and was made availableto the citizens.


a. Major Non-ICT front end process changes

The mode of transformation for Aarogyam can be visualized in various phaseswherein various front and back end ICT and non ICT plans have beenimplemented as in:

Phase-1 Baseline Study

A comprehensive baseline survey of district with respect to family health indicatorslike age, gender, class, parity, immunization details of children, database ofpregnant mothers and their expected date of deliveries (EDD) was conducted,with interdepartmental coordination especially Health and ICDS Department.The survey captures village wise database encompassing all crucial determinantsof health.

Phase-2 Implementation Phase

• The above information forms the master database, which is then fed in acustomized software and linked to Integrated Voice Response System(IVRS). The technique uses analogue/digital card to read all the uploadeddata and devolve it to the beneficiaries.


• Next step is establishment of multiple phone lines and initiation of healthhelpline for the citizens to get an update on health services and to registertheir complaints.

• Establishment of required institutional mechanisms at district (central server)and block level, ensuring updation at CHC level and linkage with the masterdatabase.

• Capacity building/training of service providers and data entry operatorson the software, with clear delineation of their roles, responsibility andaccountability.

• Awareness generation through IEC/BCC (Films, Songs, Nukkad Natak,Pamphlets, Hoardings) about the project.



Under the guidance and motivation of the Chief Secretary, UP, the DMRamabainagar (Mr Mayur Maheshwari) and MD KESCO, then DM-JP Nagar(Ms. Ritu Maheshwari) have demonstrated excellent leadership qualities toconceptualize and implement the innovative model. They ensured theparticipation of different departments and stakeholders and motivated themenough to work and perform together. It is their leadership quality which resultedin successful implementation of approach and also a consistent growth in healthindicators in very small span of time.From the state government also we get a lotof support in terms of hardware, software and the training programs for the seniorofficers. In Feb 2011 state Government has organized 7 days training programfor SDMs, Tehsildars and Revenue staff at the Division level which was inauguratedby the Commissioner Kanpur Division. So we have a lot of support from thegovernment and from the Senior Officers.


Development of a web based monitoring portal www.aarogyam.co.in which reflectstotal disposal of grievances, officer-wise complaint pendency, status of call alertsand sms sent on a daily basis, pendency calls generated etc. This portal is regularlyaccessed by key officials including CMO and District Magistrate (DM).Similarly


e-samwad can be accessed on distric website www.kanpurdehat.nic.in/e-samwad.Also, continuous training program for the health, rural development and the revenuedepartment staff is planned andbeing implemented since 1st of April 2011. 11th batchtraining is in progress which is undertaken by NIC having support from the abovesaid departments.The use of SMS, IVRS system is also demonstrated at the differentfunction like Krisi Mela and other government related Melas.

c. Training Plan Internal and External-Plan and Status

As far as aarogyam is concerned, a major challenge has been in terms of technicaltraining/inputs as anms were not aware of the new survey formats or data collectionsheets. Similarly data entry operators were not well equipped to handle loads ofhealth were not well equipped to handle loads of health information daily. Hencecontinuous weekly rounds of training were conducted for both anms and dataoperators , whereby they learnt the feeding of survey formats, data collectionsheets as well as the process of continuous updation/uploading of data.

Apart from above, for all e-governance projects, At the District Level we havea training calendar which is followed and the Officers and the lower staff both aretrained from time to time. This financial year, two training programs have alreadybeen completed and two more are proposed. In these training programs officersand the staff are trained about the Internet Usage, email, SMS, use of IVRSSystem, Internet Browsing, How to get data from Internet, How to See the JudicialStatements and many more.


A full time team is in place for effective monitoring of the project. Two key featuresof management and monitoring strategy are:-

• Development of the cadre of trained and skilled staffs for data interpretation,entry, analysis and documentation. Under ambit of NRHM, data entryoperators have been engaged, and trained for feeding, updating anduploading the database both at central server as well as PHC level.

• District level review committee continues to monitor the progress withsupportive supervision



The project cycle is chosen so that it is not officer dependent but it is processdependent. Most of the other district projects like SWAN, e-tehsil (Certificategeneration work are running for last 4 years, which tells that we are generating thesustainable systems.) Aarogyam and e Samwad also have a very strong feedbacksystem where the feedbacks are taken care of and integrated in the system if theyare found useful by the feedback committee.

4. Technology

Technological Solution Adopted

The software applications have been developed via out-sourcing. A comprehensive

baseline survey of district wrt family health indicators was conducted, with

Interdepartmental coordination esp Health-ICDS Department wherein family

details concerning all health indicators were collected. These include, name,

address and age of family members, immunization details of all children wrt

their expected dates as well as actual dates of immunization/pregnancy, details of

pregnant mothers wrt ANC status and PNC coverage, location and phone no of

each family and finally assigning a unique family ID to each family. This whole

information was then uploaded on a specially designed software to have health

indicators of each family on computer. The details have been uploaded on IVRS.

The technique uses analogue/digital card to read all the uploaded data and devolve

it to the beneficiaries through AUTOMATIC FREE OF COST AUTO-DIALERSAND SMS. The kinds of SMS/calls devolved are demonstrated below:

Costing of the project has been purely through utilization of available funds/grants under National Rural Health Mission, provided by the Government. Costsincurred on the project can broadly be seen in two aspects. One time costs i.e.costs incurred, initially at time of project start up & recurring costs i.e. yearlyrunning costs of the project :

• One time costs

1. Baseline Survey Rs. 1,70,0002. Awareness Generation Rs. 3,60,000


3. Training and capacity building Rs. 80,0004. Technology setup at district & Block level Rs. 10,00,000Total One time costs:- Rs. 16,10,000

• Recurring costs:5. Monitoring and documentation Rs. 30,0006. Stationery and miscellaneous costs Rs. 1,00,0007. Human resources:- Rs. 4,80,000Total Recurring costs:- Rs, 6,10,000 Total Expenditure (per year per district) Rs.22,20,000


Though the data in Aarogyam and e-samwad is from the people and for thepeople, there are three security objectives for information and information systems:-

• CONFIDENTIALITY: Preserving authorized restrictions on informationaccess, which is implemented by operating system, data base managementsystem (DBMS) as well as physical and administrative control oninformation system.

• INTEGRITY OF data is validated at different layers in organization throughfield staff as well as administrative level.

• AVAILABILITY Ensuring timely and reliable access to and use ofinformation by preventing service disruptions due to power outages,hardware failures and system problem by round the clock supervision ofIT systems.


The district has an IT wing which takes care of the hardware, software and otherrelated issues of network and security. They are well versed to tackle the day today problems and address them effectively.





Language plays a key role in e-inclusion. In this perspective, Aarogyam seeks todisseminate useful information to all stakeholders by sending vernacular sms and callalerts i.e. in Hindi. Another factor key to involvement of all stakeholders is ease ofaccess of the initiative. Access may be limited because of geographical/ cultural/gender/class related limitations. Since Aarogyam ensures free of cost, family specificoutbound calls for all families with a landline/mobile number, the barriers ofgeography, culture/caste/class/gender are totally eliminated. Once all beneficiariesare identified and their data uploaded on central server, software automatically sendsspecific information to every family. Secondly, since it also has an inbound call facility,one not registered on the system or left out by field staff because of any kind of biascan dial in, and lodge a complaint and register himself/herself on the system. A keyfactor herein is the availability of phone to a particular family. It is significant tomention herein that teledensity in India is growing at a very impressive pace, beingmore than 60 at present. Still, for those families left out of the loop, calls are sent tothe village pradhan so as to ensure all round participation at village level.

2. eParticipation

The project has well integrated interactive model, which ensure e-participation.Aarogyam has firstly, the in-dial helpline numbers and secondly, online portalwww.aarogyam.co.in, wherein one can dial-in/log in and lodge complaints/suggestions, which are automatically forwarded to the concerned officials for theireffective redressal/incorporation. Hence, it ensures participation of differentstakeholders in the decision making process.

Shri Chandra Prakash IAS, Joint Secretary Labor and Employment, Principal SecretaryIT and Electronics, Government of Uttar Pradesh, Email: [email protected] Ms. Ritu Maheshwari, IAS, DM Ramabainagar, Government of Uttar Pradesh,Email: :[email protected]/ [email protected]

SECTION V

e-Governance Success Stories G2C Initiatives

I) Overview

For the first time in the history of the country a totally transparent and simplifiedonline workflow automation system ‘Online Scholarship Management System(OSMS)’ was designed, developed and successfully implemented way back in2006-07.

This project became a role model in the country for all student scholarshipcomputerization systems in the country. The application is generic in nature i.e.,the same application can be easily customized to suit any type of students’scholarship management system without much changes in the software. Theapplication is uni-code compatible so fully compatible with Indian languageswithout changing the code. It has been developed using open source technologiesand tools. The application has been deployed at Govt. of India, NIC Data centreto avoid overheads and associated additional expenditure.

This is the only online scholarship management system in the country cateringto the students of primary school to the Research Scholars i.e., First class studentsto PhD students.

The entire workflow has been made paperless, as all the required documents/certificates/testimonials are being scanned and uploaded by the students. The

CHAPTER 21

Online ScholarshipManagement System (OSMS)

Dr. Mohd. Ilyas Rizvi


system is Aadhaar compliant so it can be interfaced to upcoming Aadhaar identityframework in the country.

This is the first tamperproof system in the country for managing studentscholarships. Right from the first year of its implementation its impact is visibleas it is fully linked to the authenticated sources of information such as SchoolDirectorate, Universities, College Directorate etc., so that bogus students andbogus educational entities get checked even at the entry level of the system.

It has brought total transparency and process efficiency improved several folds.This is the first system in the country to reduce cumbersome twenty four plusprocesses of manual system to simply six processes. This is the first open sourcesystem in the country with multiple technical features such as. Indigenous andSecure Online Payment Gateway Interface to Banks.

• Low-Cost SMS Gateway Interface to Mobile phones of Students/Parents/guardians,

• Online Web-Services Interface other legacy and peer systems for automaticverification / authentication & local language interface with Uni-codecompliance,

• Very simplified user friendly interface so that teachers/parents of even Urdumedium primary schools from remote villages are able to apply online (forand on the behalf of primary and secondary students).

• Has high-performance and low-cost architecture to serve peak scalabilityof a few lakh hits per day.

In view of uniqueness and novelty, delegates from US, Israel, Pakistan, Middle-East have visited and studied the system. Even Japanese have shown interestedand invited to Tokyo for presentation of the project.

1. To improve transparency of the pre-matric and post-matric scholarshipsmanagement system for students of minority community.

2. To develop an online 24X7 application submission system, so as to facilitatesubmission of application from anywhere.

267Online Scholarship Management System (OSMS)

3. To develop an automatic, objective rule based transparent scholarship andfee re-imbursement calculation system.

4. To develop efficient, effective, accurate, speedy scholarship disbursementsystem avoiding delays in disbursement, errors, scams, subjectivity inawarding scholarships, redundancy etc.

5. To enable students to track status of their application online.

6. To publish the details of beneficiaries online.

7. To enable the authorities at different levels to access the data online forverification and other purposes.

8. To eliminate subjectivity and human factor and associated problems.

Earlier there was lot of problem in reconciliation of amount sent to the collegesand the students through the banks in the manual system. Therefore we obtainedlimited connectivity between (NIC) Server and Banks’ Server so that onlineproceedings are being sent to the banks and in turn the banks transfer the amountto the concerned student’s account online and send the file back to NIC serverand as soon as the file is received, automatically the amounts sent by the banksalong with date appear in the appropriate box before the name of the student.This has made the reconciliation process very easy.

Earlier hundreds of students were enquiring daily in the District Offices andeven in Head Office regarding sanction and release of their scholarship and tuitionfee and our Officers had to struggle to give them satisfactory reply. This problemwas overcome by online system of oost matric scholarships for minority studentsby giving them facility of tracking the status of their applications online by justfilling their token number on our website – www.apsmfc.com, and they canknow the status of their application.

Earlier students were not able to write their correct course and University towhich their college was affiliated. To overcome this problem we have preparedCollege Masters so that the students after selecting the University, get the dropdown list of colleges affiliated to the University and by selecting the college, getthe list of courses available and they have to select their own course in which theyare studying. This has made the filling up of the scholarship application verysimple and user friendly.


Through our Online Scholarship Management System we have served 1875585students and disbursed total amount of Rs. 751.83 crores.

The Online Scholarship Management System (OSMS) for Minority Studentsis taken up to enable the students of Pre Matric from Class I to Class X and PostMatric students studying from Class XI upto Ph.D. including all professionalcourses viz; B.Tech, M.Tech., MBA, MCA, MBBS, MS, MD etc. to apply for thefee reimbursement and scholarship scheme online through our Website –www.apsmfc.com and to get rid of the old manual system of filling the applicationforms. In this system, the student applies online through our website-www.apsmfc.com and after filling the application, he/she takes out the print andalong with required 2 to 3 documents, submit the application form to the collegeand the college authorities in turn will fill up the Bonafied Certificate and writetheir online Account number for the reimbursement of tuition fee , then theseforms come to the District Offices/Executive Directors of Andhra Pradesh StateMinorities Finance Corporation (APSMFC), where it is validated online and allthe information furnished by the students are validated with respect to the printoutand online sanction is given by the ED, APSMFC of the concerned district andthe online advice is sent to the bankers to transfer the fees amount directly intothe bank account of the college and the scholarship amount directly into thebank account of the student and in turn the bankers transfer the amount onlineas per the advice and after execution of advice, they send back the file online toour server and the executed action of the banker is updated online in our system.Students and the colleges have been given online facility for tracking their onlineapplication by typing unique token number issued to the students on our website,where he is able to see the status of his application. Similarly colleges have beengiven password and they can download the sanctioned proceedings online andthey can also know as how many students have been sanctioned scholarship andto how many students the tuition fee and scholarship is pending due to want ofwhich certificate. SMs and E-mails are also sent to the students giving theminformation regarding sanction of their fee reimbursement and scholarship.

The system is unique and innovative in the country by harnessing state-of-the-art Information and Communication Technology in the following areas.


1. Electronic Payment: Never before in the country any student of minoritycommunity has been delivered the scholarship amount directly to his bankaccount in a transparent manner electronically and securely. By establishinga unique disbursement gateway which interacts with the bank paymentgateway, the scholarship amount is being credited automatically to theaccounts of the students.

2. Automatic Reconciliation: With unique automated feed-back systemestablished with the banks, the reconciliation is happening within 24 hours- which hitherto used to take several months.

3. Efficiency Transparency: The entire workflow has been made 100%transparent, which eliminated all disputes. The workflow status gets updatedautomatically and corresponding reports are published online. Nearly twentyfour processes in the manual system were reduced to six processes. There is75% increment in the efficiency due to automation of 3/4th of the processes.

4. Accuracy: The automated rule engine is incorporated in the software tomake all the calculations 100% automatic and accurate. Very complicatedcourse specific fee structures on one hand and the eligibility rules on theother hand are incorporated to prepare the rule engine to make theautomatic calculations and achieve 100% accuracy.

5. Empowerment: By making students to apply online, every eligible studentis empowered to submit his/her application directly to the system.

6. Ease of Use: Each key stakeholder has a single and simple interface tooperate the system. Thus usability is maximum.

7. Authentication: Very reliable and less time consuming online processesintroduced to ensure authenticity of the content.

8. Verification: A very unique database referential integrity technique hasbeen successfully applied to ensure verification of the credentials of students.This has resulted in eliminating several bogus records.

9. Errors Elimination: By collecting and creating the master data of thousandsof educational institutes and course details and similarly standardizing theinputs based on the previous applications, master databases have beencreated which has resulted in eliminating the scope of data entry andassociated mistakes to a very large extent.


10. Timely SMS Alert: As and when the student tuition fee amount is creditedto the Educational Institute’s bank account, automatically an sms alertgoes to the student’s mobile number. So that educational institute cannotharass students regarding tuition fee again in view of the sms alerting system.

The programme is innovative because never before the minority students wereable to apply for the scholarship online and monitor their status of applicationonline. In the earlier system they were not able to get the information regardingthe receipt of application, its sanction and release of scholarship and feereimbursement amount to the colleges and students. If the applications submittedby the students were found defective it was difficult for the officers to communicateto the college and the students for rectification of defects and also the studentswere not able to know whether their scholarship is sanctioned or not and aftersanction of scholarship, money was released to the colleges and the students werenot aware about the same. Sometimes some colleges were collecting the fees alsofrom the students inspite of release of fees by the Government. In this system thestudents are able to know the status of their application and when the amount issanctioned – they can see the status and even the date on which and how muchamount has been sanctioned, date on which the amount is transferred from thebank to their College account and to their own Account. Therefore this innovationhas made the whole system transparent, user friendly and innovative.


1. Key Performance

a. Service Delivered (G2C,G2B,G2G,G2E) with benefits

Benefits Delivered:

The system is highly scalable and capable of catering to thousands of studentsconcurrently. The system scaled up to the load and served a few lakh studentsonline with respect to accepting the applications (write operations). The systemis tuned to serve over one lakh transactions per day at present. This configurationis good enough to serve the Minority student community. The Data centre ofNIC which has high scalability, security and reliability is being used to host theapplication. The Storage Area Network is capable of storing several lakhs of studentrecords online for any required duration of time (years).


The students who are beneficiary of this scheme and major stakeholder are

able to submit their application online and track the sanction and release of fees

and scholarship to them. If there is any deficiency in their application that is also

shown online with their Token No. and hence they are able to rectify defects

pointed out. So that their Scholarships and Fees Reimbursement is sanctioned.

The next stakeholder is the college where the students are enrolled and studied.

The colleges have been given link to the software so that they can download

sanction proceedings and to know about how many students have been sanctioned

Scholarship and Fee Reimbursement and how much.

Moreover SMS Messages are also being sent to students about sanction of

Reimbursement of Fee and Scholarship through our online messaging system.


All the students of Minority Community belonging to all the (23) districts of

Andhra Pradesh and students of Andhra Pradesh studying in National Institutes

like IITs, NIITs etc. throughout the country. Therefore geographical reach is

all India.



Due to online system following impact on cost incurred is observed.

1. Printing of Application forms has been disbanded.

2. Information is following through online in place of paper advertisementsand notifications.

3. Students need not travel long distances for obtaining and submission ofapplication forms.

4. Students need not travel long distances for knowing the status of theirapplication forms, now status can be known online from any place.


5. Sanction proceedings need not be taken in hard copy and not to bedispatched to the colleges, as colleges have been given facility to downloadsanction proceedings online.

6. Reconciliation of expenditure need not be done manually taking long no.of mandays now. It can be done online

7. Processing time has been reduced drastically.

8. Due to facility provided by online system no. of students increased.

Figure 1: No. of Students covered

Figure 2: Year wise Budget released (Financial Rs. In Lakhs)


9. Rate of dropout of minority students is reducing year by year.


The system is unique and innovative in the country by harnessing state-of-the-art Information and Communication Technology in the following areas.

1. Electronic Payment : Never before in the country any student of minoritycommunity has been delivered the scholarship amount directly to his bankaccount in a transparent manner electronically and securely. By establishinga unique disbursement gateway which interacts with the bank paymentgateway, the scholarship amount is being credited automatically to theaccounts of the students.

2. Automatic Reconciliation : With unique automated feed-back systemestablished with the banks, the reconciliation is happening within 24 hours.Which hitherto used to take several months.

3. Efficiency Transparency : The entire workflow has been made 100%transparent, which eliminated all disputes. The workflow status gets updatedautomatically and corresponding reports are published online. Nearly twentyfour processes in the manual system were reduced to six processes. There is75% increment in the efficiency due to automation of 3/4th of the processes.

4. Accuracy : The automated rule engine is incorporated in the software tomake all the calculations 100% automatic and accurate. Very complicatedcourse specific fee structures on one hand and the eligibility rules on theother hand are incorporated to prepare the rule engine to make theautomatic calculations and achieve 100% accuracy.

5. Empowerment : By making students to apply online, every eligible studentis empowered to submit his/her application directly to the system.

6. Ease of Use : Each key stakeholder has a single and simple interface tooperate the system. Thus usability is maximum.

7. Authentication : Very reliable and less time consuming online processesintroduced to ensure authenticity of the content.

8. Verification : A very unique database referential integrity technique has


been successfully applied to ensure verification of the credentials of students.This has resulted in eliminating several bogus records.

9. Errors Elimination : By collecting and creating the master data of thousandsof educational institutes and course details and similarly standardizing theinputs based on the previous applications, master databases have beencreated which has resulted in eliminating the scope of data entry andassociated mistakes to a very large extent.

10. Timely SMS Alert : As and when the student tuition fee amount is creditedto the educational institute’s bank account, automatically an sms alertgoes to the student’s mobile number. So that educational institute cannotharass students regarding tuition fee again in view of the sms alertingsystem.

The programme is innovative because never before the minority students wereable to apply for the scholarship online and monitor their status of applicationonline. In the earlier system they were not able to get the information regardingthe receipt of application, its sanction and release of scholarship and feereimbursement amount to the colleges and students. If the applications submittedby the students were found defective it was difficult for the officers to communicateto the college and the students for rectification of defects and also the students

Figure 3 : Increasing Students and Decreasing Costs

TA/DA, Postage, Stationery in Rs. Lakhs


were not able to know whether their scholarship is sanctioned or not and aftersanction of scholarship, money was released to the colleges and the students werenot aware about the same. Sometimes some colleges were collecting the fees alsofrom the students inspite of release of fees by the Government. In this system thestudents are able to know the status of their application and when the amount issanctioned – they can see the status and even the date on which and how muchamount has been sanctioned, date on which the amount is transferred from thebank to their college account and to their own Account. Therefore this innovationhas made the whole system transparent, user friendly and innovative.

c. Integration with Other Systems

First system in the country with full extended integration.

1. Fully integrated with school education system by sharing same educationinstitutes Master data CBSE, ICSC

2. Sharing SSC & Inter & Eamcet etc., common entrance results system.

3. Integrated with fee structure of Universities courses.

4. Integrated with Government of India Post Matric, Pre Matric scholarshipsystem.

5. Integrated to B.C Welfare system through web services for de-duplicationsautomatically.

6. Integration with Bank’s payment gateway system to credit scholarship tostudents accounts directly.


1. Processes


1. One stop non-stop simplified single online interface to all stakeholderswhich is operational 24 hours as per the announce schedule.

2. SMS alerts to students.

3. Online Help desk for grievance redressal



ICT : Linkage with educational institutions database system, SSC, Inter,Counseling database system. Fee structure data base system.

Database system of school education, college education department, universitiesetc., Student rule engine for calculation fee structure database.

E payment Gateway & Messaging services.

Non-ICT : NGO camps to sensitize students to open zero balance bankaccounts, apply online assistance with Internet Kiosk etc.

Above Plans implemented.


a. Project Management and Monitoring

A team has been formed to monitor the core project and suggest suitable measuresfor its improvement time to time. This team consists of Programmers and Officersof A.P. State Minorities Finance Corporation who are working day and night forthe betterment and monitoring of the project.

Resistance envisaged. However, step by step manner training given andemployees were trained and motivated to use it to overcome work load. As theystarted using ICT from 2006 in the process transparency brought automatically.

b. Training -Plan and Status

Regular trainings, Seminars and Workshops are being organized for theprogrammers and the staff members who are working on this system and wheneverthere is any change in any application, special training programmes are alsoorganized. Sensitization and training given role based to internal staff. Manualprocess stopped. Software made user friendly. So project continued & sustaineddue to cost effectiveness.

c. Change Management strategy

Due to change in the system from the manual system to the online system thewhole strategy and mind set has been changed and in place of non-computer


known Jr.Assistants and Sr.Assistants, Computer knowing personnel are placedwho are working for the Online Scholarship Management System day and night.It has also changed the working of the whole office and all the data is beingcollected and stored in the digital form and it has become very easy for the Officersto review the progress of the work at every stage. The reports are being generatedas per requirement.

d. Leadership Support and Visibility

The Online scholarship system has been accepted by the Officers as well as PoliticalLeaders across the Party affiliation, due to its transparency and user friendliness.Due to online system the number of applications have increased year by yearand it is getting full support from the stakeholders, its beneficiaries and from thepolitical bosses as well as bureaucratic bosses.

e. Financial Model

The Online Scholarship Management system is applied for scholarship and feereimbursement schemes of Government of India as well as State Government ofAndhra Pradesh. For the State Government Scholarship scheme, the funding is

Figure 3: OSMS Workflow


100% from Government of Andhra Pradesh and for the Scholarship scheme ofGovernment of India (GOI) i.e., for the Post matric and Merit-cum-MeansScholarships funding is 100% from GOI and for Pre matric GOI scholarshipscheme, 75% funding is by GOI and balance 25% is from Govt. of A.P.

3. Technology

a. Strategy for Disaster Recovery and Continuity

The whole scholarships system for minorities is being implemented through NationalInformatic Centre (NIC) and they are taking all the care for the disaster recovery.

The disaster recovery and business continuity plan has already prepared andbeing implemented.

b. Solution Adopted and NeGP compliance

As discussed earlier the online scholarship management system for minorities isvery cost effective and very less cost is required for its maintenance. Earlier hugeman power was required for dealing with lakhs of applications of the minoritystudents for scholarships whereas through online scholarship system, the manpower is reduced considerably and it has become very efficient and cost effectiveand user friendly and it is being maintained.

c. Solution Adopted and NeGP compliance

Yes



To a large extent eExclusion addressed.

Minority students were encouraged to open no-frills bank account facilitatingfinancial inclusion. Simplified online system sensitized them to empower thento use internet. NGOs opened Kiosks.


Temporary kiosks to reach the unreached.


Muslim women started applying for themselves & their children.

2. eParticipation

Addressed fully


Department encouraged NGOs in operating special camps to help minoritystudents to apply online & scan & upload documents & open bank accounts.

Over 50 camps organized in remote areas. Besides usage of online E-Sevacentres, Public Kiosks etc.,

3. eWaste

• We have eliminated procurement of additional Hardware to a large extent.

• We made the best use of the available resources.

• We have avoided stationery for consumption to a large extent.

• TA/DA also reduced.


• Bare minimum hardware are being procured

• We are upgrading the systems time to time in place of disposing there off.

Dr. Mohd. Ilyas Rizvi, IFS, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Minorities WelfareDepartment, Andhra Pradesh State Minorities Finance Corporation Ltd., AndhraPradesh, email: [email protected], [email protected]


I) Overview

The Tourism department, Government of Andhra Pradesh has taken up a uniqueproject of giving a high end audio & video pda for the visiting tourists to therenowned Golconda fort. This concept includes providing a device on rental basisat the heritage sites which will offer tourists a rich audio-visual experience. Thehigher-end devices which will offer audio and video content will have a pda-likeuser-interface that is intuitive and requires minimal familiarity with technology.The content itself will draw upon the rich heritage and history of the specificmonument and will be comparable in scope, coverage and depth to what is availableat some of the best heritage sites in the west. Furthermore, will differentiate thecontent by having narration of short passages from books written by famousauthors, re-enactments of historical events, music clips from a particular era andan ensemble’ of rare photographs and other artifacts. Currently, there is nocomparable solution that comes even remotely close to delivering this kind ofrich experience. This project is taken up by the state with the help of centralfinancial assisted under computerization and its schemes.

First of its kind initiative in India is taken by the state under pilot basis atGolconda Fort. Tourists would be able to select their preferences and also indicatehow much time they have to visit the site. Accordingly the software will recommend

CHAPTER 22

Tourism ProjectGovernment of Andhra Pradesh

Shri Jayesh Ranjan

281Tourism Project Government of Andhra Pradesh

specific points of interests within Golconda and make a customized route mapfor them. These points of interest would each have multimedia content developedfor them. The story would be told using tools such as videos, pictures, maps,graphics, audio and text. Total content length is expected to be around one hour.It will be give a live walk through feel and effect through the fort, with subjectivecamera movements (use of steady cam equipment) or the actors/presenters takingyou through the locations.

For the first time in India, if not the world, a Smartphone GPS-Video Tourhas been developed for a heritage site giving travelers an independent, intuitiveand rich experience. As of now audio guides have been popular globally. However,the power of video cannot be underestimated in delivering a world-class memorableexperience to the tourist. AP Tourism, along with an ISB-incubated innovativeHyderabad company, My IndiEye, has come up with a mobile product which isdelivered both online, on Google’s Android platform, and offline. The applicationhas been ingeniously designed to cater for numerous customers still withoutsmartphones. The initiative is innovative right from its PPP business model, tosolution conceptualisation, technology development, human-science designfeatures, end marketing and distribution and feedback collection. Overall theimpact of this project is massive as it can be scaled fast across the country.

In general, tourists in India face key problems:

1. Lack of Quality and Quantity of information – Variable and Unreliable

2. Language barriers and the communication problems thereof

3. Lack of multimedia options during the day for tourists (Light and Soundshow in the evenings)

4. Lack of effective distribution mechanisms for high quality multimediacontent

5. Pestering of tourists who want to be left alone

6. Overcharging due to lack of standardization in pricing mechanism

The criticality of need is high is because of the expectations of tourists whenthey come to a particular site. They are discerning individuals who have a keeninterest in knowing in depth about the site they are visiting. The only mitigating


factors are the reference books they have or the information they might havedownloaded from the web. As Tourism has been growing at a remarkable pacesince 2001, sailing through recessions, and contributing to 8.6% (~118b US$)of India’s GDP, it is expected to be a key growth driver for India’s overall economy,it becomes imperative for us to embark on key initiatives which make a quantumleap in the overall quality of experience of tourists.

Ministry of Tourism had commissioned a market research study to AC Nielsento understand foreign tourists better and following insights were reported:

1. The majority of foreign tourists visiting the country are individual travelers

2. Majority of the foreign visitors have indicated that they consider India as adestination of rich cultural heritage

3. Heritage of the country is the most pre-dominant factor considered by theforeign tourists prior to their visit in India

4. According to the tour operators, the major problems faced by foreigntourists who wish to visit the country are the cumbersome immigrationprocedures at airports, inadequate frequency of flights to various destinationsin the country, poor road infrastructure, insufficient hospitality services,inadequate medical facilities, lack of appropriate entertainment/recreationamenities at certain location and unsatisfactory modes of conveyance

5. In order to increase foreign tourist inflow to the country, the tour operatorsfeel that the Government should play a more pro-active role in Tourismenhancement

6. The Hong Kong Tourism Board in particular suggested that India shouldpackage and market its destinations in a professional manner.

Overall the key premises and areas of value-addition on which this ICT Projectwas built were as follows:

1. Research showed tourists were returning dissatisfied from their visits toheritage sites

2. Research also showed people prefer video content and find it moreinteresting; also, they wanted independent navigation to be free andempowered


3. The differently-abled – hearing and visually impaired, were less able toenjoy and explore our rich cultural heritage and history

4. Smartphones are proliferating and platform winners are emerging – Android;iPhone etc.

5. 3G roll-out is on its way and the entire mobile-telephony landscape ischanging

6. The market and situation called for development of a product which solvedexisting problems and created a technological asset which could be scaledup across the country.


1. Key Performance

Table 1

1 Exceptional industry, media and customer feedback/reviews – from hoteliers and

tour operators to foreign and domestic tourists across demographic profiles (ages/

genders/occupations etc.)

2 Project commissioned on a PPP model with Indian School of Business (ISB,

Hyderabad) incubated company – My IndiEye Travel Companions Pvt. Ltd. Plans to

expand project to other Heritage properties in AP (Qutb Shahi Tombs; etc.)

3 Cross-functional innovation team comprised of award-winning historians & film-

makers; top-management, technology and design experts; Tourism industry experts;

Government personnel

4 Overall the initiative is innovative along multiple dimensions – PPP business model;

team configuration; project conceptualisation; technology; marketing and distribution

mechanisms; sustainability integration; long-term scalability and impact prioritization

Table 2

# ISSUES FACED BY TOURISTS TODAY DIRECT IMPACT OF INNOVATION

1 Lack of quality, accurate, media content/ Positive impression on tourists; strong visual

info on the heritage, history and stories memories for tourists to carry back home

associated with the Fort versus images of poverty that is the norm

(Eg. Slumdog Millionaire)

2 Insufficient highly trained, educated Innovation can take care of any number of

top quality human tour guides to cater to tourists without compromising on quality.

the fast increasing tourist population Devices can be increased in inventory;

Online download also available


3 Lack of quality and pricing Non-negotiable centrally controlled

standardization for guides/information standardized pricing on the same

distribution mechanisms distribution channel

4 Language barriers across information Barriers eliminated. Multiple languages

dissemination mechanisms option easily implementable using

subtitles/dubbing

5 Lack of independent navigation aids Independent unassisted navigation using

(Google Maps does not map Golconda GPS without physical installations at fort

Fort) on site ruining its authenticity

6 Lack of inclusive multi-format content – Inclusive product to enable the disabled

audio/visual/textual (hearing/visually impaired) to enjoy the site

better

7 Lack of feedback mechanisms to improve Continual feed of data to allow for sustainable

products/ services and features improvements and enhancement of

experience

8 Lack of products developed in a modular Using latest technologies to enable fast and

and scalable manner so more sites can capital-efficient expansion to make more

be enjoyed in a high quality and effective use of public resources. Content for

empowered way more sites can be added cheaper and faster

on the same platforms/devices.

Tourist Reviews

• “The product by My IndiEye adds a new dimension to Tourism. It allows theuser to practically travel back in time to understand the historical context andmeaning of a landmark or artwork, through the use of National Geographic-style dramatizations, computer graphic simulations and content-rich scripts thatcan be thoughtfully customised to individual preferences.”

Victor Ng, Singapore

• “It is a very easy to use, handy device which enabled us to better appreciate thehistory and significance of the fort we were about to visit. There is an amazinglevel of attention to detail, which can only be understood once used.”

Armaity, Hyderabad, India

• “The concept of video-guides is still new in India and the way the tutorial isconducted is very impressive. Even the elderly were comfortable with the device,thanks to your instructions. The content loaded on the device had a perfect blendof history, facts and illustrations and wasn’t crammed with too muchinformation.”


Pratap Gupta, Kolkata, India

• “I had taken the My IndiEye Tour out of curiosity and it turned out to be a bigboon for my travel trip. Very easy to use and creatively done, I enjoyed the voiceovers,and the videos were very nice. They could tell the story in a very nice manner foreach location of the fort and I could enjoy the fort at my own pace. The GPS wasvery effective and it kept updating itself every time.”

Punita Mittal, Delhi, India



Table 3

EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT FACTORS HOW INNOVATION INCORPORATES

EFFICIENCY ENHANCEMENT AT VARIOUS

LEVELS

1 Business Continuity, Scalability & Resource The architecture of the innovation is

Utilisation Efficiency modular and scalable and on solid

technological platforms backed by top firms

(Google; Samsung etc.). As history does not

change, the content is not expected to

change, accruing the benefits from

innovation for a long time (>10 years).

Faster & cheaper to build additional tours

as platform is scalable – highly efficient

capital use

2 Greater Social Equity Innovation is inclusive of lesser privileged

populations (differently-abled hearing/

visually impaired). They can either see/ hear

the stories. The solution is not perfect;

however, is a step in that direction

3 Improved Economy The innovation better meets the

expectations of tourists and thus

commands a notable price premium in the

market boosting the Tourism economy

towards extracting greater value from high-

value-seeking tourists (both foreign and

domestic)


4 Enhanced Employment Boosts higher-value higher-impact and

creative industries employment

opportunities in the sector

5 Superior Environment/Climate Change Reduced dependence on paper/

Handling printed guides by providing the experience

in electronic form


1. Unparalleled Application Functionality: GPS navigation enabled on 3DArtistic Map of the Fort which is on undulating terrain. Customised routegeneration as per the time availability (2hrs; 1.5hrs; 45mins) and preferencesof the tourist (history; architecture; culture; non-climbing). Server-basedQR Code scanning authentication mechanism on devices using data-cardsfor hassle-free experience and smooth operations and MIS. Time-trackerfunction to help tourists plan time. Feedback taken electronically anduploaded immediately from all tourists post tour. v2 of the product willhave 3G-enabled features implemented – social networking; tour-blogging;picture/audio/video capture etc.

2. Human-factors Design & Remarkable Content - User-interface design,aesthetics and content production has been done using the ‘human factorsscience’ approach – elements such as size of touch buttons to enable easyproduct use for people with large fingers. Since the product uses audio andvideo mechanisms it is more inclusive for the hearing/visually impaired.Video stories developed by award-winning historians and film-makers onrecommended points of interest across the fort.

3. Scalability - App developed on the Google Android platform and madeavailable both online (Android mkt) and offline (via touch-screen devices)to cater to tourists without Android phones. Anywhere; anytime (24/7)service as the app can also be used to take a fort virtual tour. Productdesigned in a modular manner to enable addition of languages with ease.Day-alternative to the light and sound show which happens in the eveningat the Fort.



1. State Policy and Strategy

Andhra Pradesh Tourism Policy

Besides providing various incentives & subsidies to a private promoter, the StateGovernment also undertakes the complete responsibility of providing land onlease, obtain all clearances & permissions and support in promotion throughwebsites, travel fairs, etc.

Andhra Pradesh is thus guaranteeing land availability and hassle free clearancesto a private promoter as part of its Proactive Tourism Policy.

Future Strategies

1. Customized tours

2. Development of Minimum infrastructure at most visited sites (toilets, snackkiosk, souvenir shop, information counters)

3. Water bodies as Tourism destinations (Jalyagnam). 41 places have beenidentified for taking up Tourism activities.

4. Development of Beach resorts (@ 1-2 / Coastal Districts)

5. Development of Brindavan Gardens at Nagarjunasagar.

6. Development of New Shilparamam at 5 locations (Medak, Puttaparthi,Vijayawada, Warangal & Nellore)

7. Adventure Tourism Academy at Ananthagiri, RR Dist

8. Highway amenities

9. Rural Tourism

10. Thematic Museum (Forts, Textiles, Tribal, Boats, British / European)

11. World Heritage Status for Qutub Shahi precincts & Kakatiya group ofmonuments in Warangal District.

12. Development of Qutub Shahi Tombs.

13. Conversion of R&B Guest Houses into Chain of Budget Hotels

14. Promotion of Hyderabad as Convention Capital.

15. Promotion of Hyderabad as Medical Tourism Capital.


16. Constitution of 2 separate Government driven societies with all stakeholderfor above 2 to achieve synergies.

17. Film Tourism

18. Heli Tourism

19. Strengthening existing circuits by bringing in new Tourism products.

20. Southern Splendor Train

21. Luxury cruise from Vizag to Andamans.

22. Archaeological Museums in left over districts

23. Shilpalayam near Shilparamam, Hyderabad.

24. Construction of New Convention Centre with GOI assistance

The Golconda pilot fund requirement is outlined as under:

Table 4

Description of Item Anticipated Costs

Content scripting, filming and production (Expert estimate) 12,00,000

Portable Mobile Device (50 pcs @ Rs.16,000 each - Mkt. Price) 8,00,000

Total 20,00,000

Deliverables and Quality Assurance

From the funding obtained from APTDC My IndiEye will create the content forGolconda and will procure 50 devices from the market for deployment. Beforethe devices are deployed explicit approval will be sought from the Secretary ofTourism to ensure overall content quality of the product for tourists in AP.

2. Cost Effectiveness and Support Infrastructure

Project commissioned on a PPP model with Indian School of Business(ISB, Hyderabad) incubated company – My IndiEye Travel Companions Pvt.Ltd. Plans to expand project to other Heritage properties in AP (Qutb ShahiTombs. etc.)


Tab

le 5





Table 6

1 Greater Social Equity Innovation is inclusive of lesser privileged populations

(differently-abled hearing/visually impaired). They can

either see/hear the stories. The solution is not perfect;

however, is a step in that direction. Physically limited

tourists who cannot climb ~400 steps can exercise the

non-climber tour option and utilize the product as per

their convenience

2 Bridging the Digital Divide The application has been ingeniously designed to cater

for numerous customers without smartphones. Enables

them to experience the benefits smartphones can

potentially bring to them across domains.

3 Scope for enhancing inclusion The project can easily be extended to include multiple

languages, subtitles (for the hearing impaired), sign

language in inset (for the hearing impaired and

uneducated)

Figure 1: Support Infrastructure


b. Extent to which the project has addressed the factor of “eParticipation”

Table 7

1 Feedback mechanisms to improve Continual feed of data from each customer has

products/services and features been implemented to allow direct participation

for sustainable improvements and enhancement

of experience

2 Choice exercised by consumer to Customised route generation as per the time

adapt the product to their tastes, availability (2hrs; 1.5hrs; 45mins) and preferences

preferences and requirements of the tourist (history; architecture; culture; non-

climbing).

3 Improved Economy The innovation better meets the expectations of

tourists and thus commands a notable price

premium in the market boosting the Tourism

economy towards extracting greater value from

high-value-seeking tourists (both foreign and

domestic)

4 Enhanced Employment Boosts higher-value higher-impact and creative

industries employment opportunities in the

sector

5 Business Continuity, Scalability & The architecture of the innovation is modular and

Resource Utilisation Efficiency scalable and on solid technological platforms

backed by top firms (Google; Samsung etc.). As

history does not change, the content is not

expected to change, accruing the benefits from

innovation for a long time (>10 years). Faster &

cheaper to build additional tours as platform is

scalable – highly efficient capital use. This will

enable much faster participation of maximum

number of people in the e-revolution.

c. Extent to which the project has addressed the factor of “eWaste”

Table 8

1 Superior Environment/Climate Change Handling Reduced dependence on paper/

printed guides by providing the

experience in electronic form

Shri. Jayesh Ranjan, IAS, Secretary to Government, Tourism, Archaeology & Museums,Government of Andhra Pradesh, Email: [email protected] & [email protected]


I) Overview

Post Matric Scholarships (PMS) is one of the important welfare measures of theGovernment aimed at providing financial assistance to students of all weakersections such as scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, backward classes, economicallybackward class, disadvantaged classes and minorities to pursue post matric courses.The scheme is operated on a saturation basis wherein all weaker sections whosefamily income is less than Rs. One lakh are eligible for a scholarship. The postmatric scholarship is fully administered through an online system wherein thetuition fee reimbursement is made directly to colleges and the maintenance fee ismade directly to the student after due verifications into respective bank accounts.The scheme currently covers 26 lakh students amounting to Rs. 4000 crs. peryear to the state exchequer. Rs. 3000 crs. goes towards reimbursement of tuitionfee payable to colleges and Rs. 1000 crs. towards maintenance fee of students.This perhaps is one of the most complex and large scale project of its kind inIndia. The complexity of the PMS system spanning over 5 departments can beseen by the magnitude of the dimensions involved:

1. Total Students - 26 lakhs

2. Total Colleges - 12000; 64000 courses

3. Total Fee Structures - 1,44,000

CHAPTER 23

ePASS (Electronic Payment andApplication System of Scholarships)*

Dr M Padma and Shri. Chakradhar


293ePASS (Electronic Payment and Application System of Scholarships)

4. Total Field Officers - 350

5. Total District Welfare Officers - 100

6. Total Treasury Offices - 40

7. Total Banks - All

8. Total College Attached Hostels - 2000

9. Total Department Attached Hostels - 790

10. Total Universities/Boards - 60

11. Total Disbursement Amount - Rs. 4000 Crores.

The urge to achieve improved transparency, speedy information dissemination,higher administrative efficiency and improved public services while disbursingthe Post Matric Scholarships is motivating enough to design and develop ePASS(Electronic Payment and Application System of Scholarships). ePASS is web basedG2C (Government-to-Citizen) and G2G (Government to Government) service,administering the online transfer of Post Matric scholarship money to studentsbelow the Poverty Line. The deployment and nurturing of this initiative has ledto the overall impact of:

1. Ease of access by the students and citizens to the department through theInternet, to access the scholarship enabling speedier delivery of servicesand dissemination of information by the department, enable uniform setof procedures and rules for applying for a scholarship across departments.

2. Reduction of the cases of corruption as accountability and transparency isincreased and the department’s activities are easily monitored.

3. Equal opportunity to access to information is provided regardless of one’sphysical location and physical disability. Reach all the stakeholders whoneed government services regardless of their location, status, language,

4. Enabling each application as unique through the use of the SSC certificatenumber and year of passing, thereby reducing double and bogus claims.

5. Breaking the barriers of bureaucracy through systematic business processre-engineering and bring into the fore a system of registering colleges whichare active in imparting education.

6. Facilitate interdepartmental exchange of information.


7. Reduced transaction costs for all departments as the system is operated througha central server and inter-linkage with other department servers for verificationand validation of data.

Thus the overall positive impact has helped in sustaining the initiative in atransparent and accountable manner leading to good governance in theadministration of scholarships. Direct payment into bank accounts, increasedaccountability and transparency and reduced risk of corruption has raised theperception of good government among citizens, thus bringing lot of credibilityto the Government’s image of making the poor students become a part of themain stream education thus contributing to overall development and makingeconomic growth truly inclusive.

The broad vision is to have low cost and fail-safe technologies that will have amore efficient, strategic and inexpensive way of

1. Putting the student at the centre of operations.

2. Expediting payments and disbursement cycle to ensure timely and correctpayments to students/colleges·

3. Providing a system driven accountability mechanism, wherein there is noscope for any discretion.

4. Ensuring open access to information to all stakeholders.

5. Enabling reliable, timely and comparable information from the “ground-up”.

6. Minimizing leakages to ensure that the benefits reach the students / colleges.

Manual Disbursement: Earlier during manual disbursement of scholarshipsthere was no scope for systematic monitoring and maintaining transparency intransactions. The whole process was cumbersome and time consuming. Checksof students were given to colleges who often collaborated to misappropriate. Somisappropriation, embezzlement, fictitious claims, irregular and irrational drawalsof scholarship amounts by certain unscrupulous persons resulted in depriving ofscholarships to genuine SC, ST and BC students besides leading to majorscholarship scams.


Online Solution: The Online scholarship system was envisaged by thegovernment to ensure speedier disposal of scholarships through very minimallystaffed welfare departments. Given the magnitude of disbursement and theaccumulation of arrears of Rs. 2183 Crs of the year 2009-10 in the year2010-11 coupled with the demand of 2010-11 only ushered the urgent need toevolve a complete end to end student / college centric G2C ICT (Informationand Communication Technology) solution will build the much needed confidenceamong the stakeholders and confirm the seriousness of Government in itscommitment to welfare.

ePASS has been developed as a complete workflow driven module whichincludes online filing, verification, sanction and disbursement. Role based loginshave been created for 26 lakh students, 10,944 colleges, 4,500 verification officers,5 departments and treasury. Under the system, the students have to apply onlinethrough the website and furnish applications to the college, which in turn has toverify the details on line and forward the documents in physical and electronicform to the verification officer. Once the verification officer does a physical anddocumentary verification, the scholarship applications are forwarded online tothe welfare officers of the concerned department, who in turn will sanction thescholarship online and forward it to the treasury. The treasury passes the bills

Figure 1: ePass Workflow


online and uploads the amounts for disbursement through the corporate internetbanking interface into college and student accounts which have been registeredand authenticated on the website.


1. Key Performance


G2C: The project mainly focuses on students. Students can access from anyinternet kiosk online and file an application or verify the status of the application.The fee structure collected from all universities and boards are populated on thepublic domain. All procedures and processes have been standardized. Studentscan not only view the details of the fee payment to the college but also view theirdisbursement in their bank accounts. Application dates for fresh and renewalsare well publicized. Colleges and students have been provided a comprehensiveMIS to view all sort of reports on the progress of applications, sanctions anddisbursements ensuring transparency at all levels.

G2G: The ePASS is multi-departmental enabling access to all welfaredepartments, the finance department and the banking system. Standardizationof procedure across departments, simplifying the hierarchy of sanctions, cuttingshort delays at the welfare departments and the treasury through web linkageand a comprehensive set of MIS reports, has not only reduced time but hasfostered greater transparency at all levels of Government. The monitoring of theprocess has been made easy at all levels. The online workflow has reduced thepaper work and movement of files as everything is captured on the online system.The calculations for projecting budget requirements are done within secondsand are based on actuals.

The services offered through ePASS are—

1. College Registration Module for colleges

2. Student Scholarship Application On-line Registration module

3. On-line Verification and Forwarding module for verification officers

4. On-line Scholarships Sanctions module for District Officers


5. Payment release module with Internet Banking Payment system through theTreasuries and Accounts department

6. User Interfaces (Dash Boards) to all HODs of Client Departments with variousMIS reports such as

• Financial Report – Budget received Vs Releases Status

• MIS- Performance Reports (Field Officers wise/DAH) and GroupWiseFinancial Report

• Reports – Abstract report on Students, Amounts. Bank wise andCollege wise Releases

7. Project Management Team (PMU) with necessary User Interfaces in thesoftware to administer certain roles such as addition of new colleges, courses,fee structures, release of installments to various courses, updation of datapertaining to colleges / universities / boards, resetting of passwords ofField/District Officers and any other activity which is related to domain.

8. General reports for public view such as Scholarship status, Applicationnumber, valid and invalid college accounts etc. to name a few.

The initiative was implemented from May/June 2010 in all the 23 Districtsof the state. In May 2010, the pilot for disbursing Tuition Fee into collegeaccounts was taken up in Ranga Reddy District and in mid June it was scaled upto all the Districts. From July 2010 onwards maintenance fee was also disbursedinto the students’ accounts.

Future Plans - It is planned to bring the intermediate nominal rolls alsounder ePASS, have link with aadhaar database and further have direct link withCET databases through web services. Also digital certification will be introducedand the District officers will have to upload sanctions by using digital signatures.Other services include:

1. SMS based services

2. Mobile based services for accessing status

3. Online customer management system

4. Data-warehousing for digital dashboard and business analytics


5. Use Aadhar compliant database for identification and authentication

6. Computerization of the nominal roles



Time - The manual process of scholarships was not only time consuming butfraught with innumerable problems ranging from delays in hierarchical sanctions,cumbersome procedures, influence of middle men and mischievous colleges whichoften connived to misappropriate besides enabling the scope for bogus studentsand colleges.

The simple and user friendly workflows in ePASS help the District officers toquickly process the applications and pay the scholarships.

The introduction of web service between the ePASS & treasury server in June2010 has enabled complete online integration thereby enabling the processingof bills by the treasury and upload of amounts into the online banking interfaceto disburse amounts into student and college accounts. This has led to substantialreduction of time from a month to less than a week.

Cost: The transaction cost for a student is reduced to the bear minimum ofpaying the costs for uploading the application and documents to the internetkiosk. Middlemen are eliminated. Application by the student is directly receivedonline and sanctions are given as per time schedule. Status can be verified onlinethereby saving the time, effort and money needed for such trips to the offices aswas done in the past. The application is web based. Students can browse forinformation from their place of stay and irrespective of location or time all thestakeholders can seek information and offer their feedback for further improvingthe system. Personalized services through call centre and help desk at PMU hashelped to reach out to the students and colleges whenever they do not haveaccess to internet and immediately need information.

Efficiency: The computer based acceptance of applications ensures that it iscomplete in all respects since the inbuilt validations do not allow the applicationto be saved unless all the parameters are fulfilled. The transaction based reportsare helping in improving the efficiency of the system. As the information is


readily available in web site and a call centre is established at PMU, the field officersare getting quality time to concentrate on their inspections and increase their output.

Improvements in delivery of services:

Fairness and equality : The student applies online without interference from anyone and the onward processing of the application happens automatically withoutany individual discretion. Once the sanctions are given by the District officer, thesanction proceedings and the bills are auto generated based on the fee structureavailable in masters. So students studying in the same college, same year and samecourse get the same fee and all the students who applied are given scholarships unlessthey are disqualified for sanction.

Accountability : Details of personnel and officials involved in implementationat each stage are being logged into the system increasing the accountability. Timelines for each stage of processing are set in and strictly monitored. Alerts in theindividual logins and exception reports to higher officials help in streamliningthe administration.

Effective Decision Support System to avoid slippages in implementation. Earlierwhile calculating the demand under PMS programme the following projectionswere made.

Table 2

Annual

growth % 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15

SW 10% 565134 602161 662382 728618 801369 876056

TW (@) 10% 269181 300121 330133 363146 399460 439406

BCW (*) 1350392 1620470 1944564 2333476 2683497 3086021

EBC 280743 336567 403881 484657 557355 640959

DW 10% 3309 3640 4004 4404 4844 5328

MW (**) 150842 196000 245000 306250 382812 478515

2619601 3058959 3589964 4220551 4829337 5526285

The projection for number of students who would apply in 2010-11 was30,58,959. But when the students actually applied online for fresh and renewalit is found that during 2010-11, the total count is coming to 24,47,168 andaccordingly budget is released.


Minimizing fraud: Since the entire expenditure is traceable to the student/college, time and date, incidents of fraud, misappropriation are immediatelyidentified and tracked down to the responsible persons. This has helped greatlyin putting remedial measures in place and minimizing fraud. Several validationsare in built into the system so that same bill cannot be passed twice. As a resultduring 2009-10 arrear payments being made during 2010-11, the system wasable to weed out duplicates / double claims and save to a tune of 1 cr. Similarlyby integrating with PMS web application of minority Dept developed by NIC,during the year 2010-11, 4,300 duplicate claims in e-PASS could be identifiedand weeded out. Further efforts are being made to have Ration Card link up forcross check and verification and in Making the Database UID compliant.


This initiative is first of its kind in India covering 5 major welfare departments(SCs, STs, BCs, OBCs, and Disabled) and linking Treasury and Banks. It is alsofor the First time that maintenance fee is disbursed using eZ-Pay (Pre-loaded)ATM cards of SBI for student bank accounts. 16.5 lakh accounts of eZ pay cardsare being operated. Change requests from HoD’s are gathered through email andcall centre is established for grievance redressal of students, colleges, officers.VPN for security is established between CGG and Treasury also among thesanction level officers using APSWAN. Interface through web-services withUniversities/Boards for Attendance, Performance, Fees etc and Interface withCounseling Center’s is being developed for getting direct access to the datathereby minimizing data entry errors and saving lot of time that was otherwisespent for getting the data.

This is a simple and easily replicable total web based initiative from Studentapplication to transfer of Tuition / Maintenance fee to College/Student bankaccounts directly. The disbursement of fees to students studying in nationalinstitutes outside the state also takes place through this system. The studentsapply for fresh registration and renewals online by keying their SSC/Inter HallTicket Number through which their name and other personal details are retrieved.They must have a bank account and those who do have an account are given eZpay card of SBI (State Bank of India). Scanned images of photo and testimonialsare uploaded, thus avoiding earlier problem of District officers not receiving thehard copies of the application forms. Students can access the site through a userid (email id) and password (sent to email accounts) and know the status of theirapplication and the stage of funds transfer.


Colleges must register on the website. Give details of recognitions, capacity, bankaccounts, management details etc. Principals of colleges will have to verify each ofthe student applications, print and prepare booklets for fresh and renewal studentsdepartment wise and contact the verification officer for getting the verification donefor sanction of scholarships. Since the workload is heavy and meager staff of welfaredepartments cannot complete the work within the short time, the verification officersare drawn from other departments also and appointed by the collector. Results ofverification are updated online. Recommended candidates are sent to the districtofficer. Rejected applications are either sent to the colleges or students for rectification.

Processing & Sanction of bills online happen at the District Officer level and thebills are forwarded to treasury through the web service established between ePASSand treasury server. From treasury the money is released directly intocollege/student accounts through common internet banking interface and returnconfirmations is obtained to track the success/failure of the transactions.


Web Services/SFTP established with the following

• Treasury – for online transfer of Scholarship Bills.

• Minority Departments’ scholarship website developed by NIC – for avoidingduplicates while sanctioning the scholarships.

• SBI – For uploading the details of students needing eZ pay cards.


1. Processes


Pushing the funds directly into the account of the end user was planned andimplemented by establishing web services with treasury department. In thisregard, the entire process of disbursing Post Matric scholarships is automatedthrough workflows and the treasury department does not accept the hard copyof the bill unless it is generated online and system generated TBR number isobtained. Unlike some initiatives wherein SRS is developed and strictly adheredto while implementing, ePASS is developed as per emerging needs. Whenever apolicy change or a process change is proposed it is immediatley reflected in thesoftware application and manual overrides are strictly not allowed. SMS based


and email support is given for collecting the change requirements and areimmediately attended.


All the backend non ICT processes are analysed and suitably re-engineered to ensuretheir rationality and simplicity. These process changes are followed by instructionsin the form of Govt orders to give authenticity and legality to the changes. Capacitybuilding workshops are arranged for quicker dissemination of process changes.



The Group of Ministers provide the policy framework for the scholarships. ThePrincipal Secretary Social Welfare as the nodal officer for Scholarships, coordinateswith all departments the Group of ministers and the PMU to Streamline andImplement the Scholarships online in the State. The PMU translates all decisionsto actionable processes in the online system. Each change is backed up by relevantgovernment orders to bring in the clarity of the process and the change.

Key to the project are:

1. J. Raymond Peter IAS, Principal Secretary, Social Welfare and Nodal Officerfor Scholarships

2. Dr M Padma, IAS – Head, ePASS Project Management unit

3. Mr Chakradhar, Project Manager, ePASS PMU, Centre for GoodGovernance

4. Mr Madhusudhan, DD (SW) ePASS PMU, Commissionerate, Social Welfare


At the time of roll out during June 2010 one training was given to the welfareDepartment officers. Thereon during each Video conference held every monththe enhancements and version changes are explained and doubts cleared. Threemajor workshops were held with welfare dept officers and 2 workshops withEducation department officials and 2 meetings with Health officers.



The Change Management is constantly brought about by the Group of Ministerswhich meet at frequent intervals, at the policy level and the Principal SecretarySocial Welfare Shri. J. Raymond Peter as the agent of change who monitors andushers in the reforms needed for the scholarship system both technically andadministratively. All changes are documented and enabled through the onlinesystem with regular and frequent video conferences, press and media briefs. Thedesign of the online workflow has mandated each department to follow only onepath of the sanction and disbursement process. Capacity building at all levelsthrough workshops, video conferences and state / district level conferences haveenabled greater awareness of the departments. District wide conference withcollege managements and student associations have also enabled the awareness.


Total political support is garnered by Chief Minister who reviews the outcomesas the scholarships is a flagship program of the state. The Group of Ministersreview the project every month and take key decisions to streamline theadministration of scholarships and take key policy decisions.

Mr J. Raymond Peter, IAS, Prl Secy, SW Dept is spearheading the project, thesocial welfare department being the nodal agency for implementation. Hisinspiration, support and guidance at all stages has enhanced the commitmentlevels of the implementing officers, enlivened the team spirit and garnered thesupport of all the stakeholders. Further the officials of 5 implementing WelfareDepartments of PMS programme, Departments of Education Sector and FinanceDepartment support is available.

e. Financial Model

Regular budgetary support given from GoAP. Transaction based charges are paidto the CGG where the application is being developed and hosted. Online supportservices and service level agreements have been entered with the CGG for deliveringthe service.

3. Technology


Recovery is done every day and it will be kept at remote location other than DataCentre.



To bring the overall cost of ownership to the bare minimum and also reduce recurrentcosts besides having a robust system, the department has developed the online systemon open source softwares. The program has been developed on Java 1.6, StrutsFramework 2.0, Tomcat 6.0 is the Application server and the database is on PostGre/SQL.

c. Security and Compliance Standards

All Application level security levels are implemented. Network and client levelsecurities are also taken care. All database level securities are implemented.Quarterly security audit is planned and done by the 3rd party agency. Weeklysecurity audit is done for new changes.

Further once a student registers, his ID and password is sent to his email. Incase he forgets his passowrd he has to click on “forgot ID or password” and get hisdetails through email.

Dr M.Padma, IAS, Head, PMU, ePASS, Dept of Tribal Welfare, Govt of Andhra Pradesh,Andhra Pradesh, [email protected] & Mr Chakradhar, Project Manager, ePASS,Centre for Good Governance (CGG), Andhra Pradesh, chakradhar @cgg.gov.in.

305National Portal of India – A Gateway to Indian Government Cyber Space


CHAPTER 24

National Portal of India – A Gateway toIndian Government Cyber Space*

Neeta Verma and Alka Mishra

I) Overview

Governments globally are embracing Information and Communication Technologies(ICTs), especially the Internet and the World Wide Web, to reinvent their routinefunctioning, processes and service dissemination methods. As of today, there are over7000 Indian government websites and portals existing in the internet space and thisnumber is constantly on the rise.

It is imperative to ensure that a common citizen is able to access the informationand services provided by these numerous websites in the most convenient andfriendly manner. And, this is where the National Portal of India (NPI)(india.gov.in), a Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Plan(NeGP), has emerged as a tool to provide the much needed single window accessto the plethora of online information and services by the Indian Government.

In its endeavor to cater to most of the citizens’ needs, the NPI plays host toover 1900 services from various states/ministries/departments which are allpackaged under the ‘How Do I’ section of the portal. It is also a central repositoryfor numerous Government forms, documents, acts, rules, schemes and policies.

The portal receives overwhelming feedback on a daily basis through its varioussections, which actively solicit suggestions, complaints and comments from users.


With over 13 lakh visitors per month, and 24 lakh hits per day (approximately), theportal is scaling new heights of popularity and visibility.

A citizen’s single-window access to all there is to know about the Governmentand its subordinate bodies and authorities, http://india.gov.in stands at the apexof India’s ICT pyramid. With numerous interactive tools, services and static contentrepositories, the National Portal of India, now in its sixth year of existence, can beaptly termed as the one and only cyber facet of the Indian government which iscomplete in all aspects.

These features and achievements render http://india.gov.in a suitable nomineefor CSI-Nihilent e-Governance Award for Excellence in the Project Category.

In the past few years, a large number of websites belonging to variousconstituents of the government have been published, offering a plethora ofinformation and services to the citizens. However, all of these websites followdifferent technology standards, design lay-outs and navigation patterns that inturn cause the citizens a lot of inconvenience. The end-users are required to learna lot to be able to peruse through such a wide range of web entities. They find itdifficult to access the services provided for their benefit, thus defeating the verypurpose of the initiative.

Keeping this scenario in mind, a need was felt to establish a one-stop sourcefor all the government information and services. This led to the genesis of NationalPortal of India – a gateway to over 7000 Indian Government websites facilitatinga single-window web-based access to government information and services.

A Mission Mode Project under the exhaustive National e-Governance Plan,the National Portal of India plays host to a huge content repository which is aculmination of collaborative efforts. Content on NPI is being contributed byvaried sources – right from every ministry/department in the Central Governmentto State Governments as well as District Administrations.

The first government website designed to be accessible to all users – irrespectiveof the device in use, technology or ability – the National Portal has as of nowapproximately over 80,000 registered users availing regular services provided


therein, with an increase of at least 10% per month.

Apart from faring superbly in all the objectives of e-Governance, http://india.gov.inhas been mandated to act as a catalyst in enabling quite a few ICT initiatives such asSixth Central Pay Commission Public Consultation Process, NGO ParticipationSystem (NGO-PS), the Central Information Commission Online (CIC Online)and the most recent Public Partition on National Testing Scheme (NTS).

The aim behind National Portal of India is to further strengthen the effort towardsgood governance through anytime, anywhere delivery of government informationand services for the benefit of citizens, businesses and otherstakeholders, both within India and abroad. By providing a unified interface andacting as a logical front-end to the e-government initiatives, the edict of theportal is to facilitate the foundation of a healthy relationship between theGovernment and the citizens through the conjoined efforts of variousadministrative units/authorities of the Government.


1. Key Performance


Benefits Delivered:

The broad scope of this project was to establish a single-window access to informationand services being delivered by any Government of India constituent, enhancinginteraction between Government and Citizen (G2C), Government and Business(G2B), Government and Employee (G2E), within Government Departments andacting as an integral part of the overall mission of practicing ‘good governance’.

By virtue of being the National Portal, ‘india.gov.in’ has nationwide coveragein terms of information – even from districts and panchayats – and a worldwidereach for its target audience and beneficiaries namely:

1. Citizens of India of all age groups and demographic backgrounds

2. Government ministries, departments and associated offices and the officialstherein


3. State Governments, UTs, District Administrations and Panchayats

4. Legislative and Judicial Institutions of the Government

5. Public sector enterprises and organizations

6. Corporate sector and Business Establishments

7. National and International Media Agencies

8. Non-Resident Indians and Persons of Indian Origin

9. Public at large, all across the globe

Stakeholders and Benefactors:

• G2C : Government and to - citizen interaction is where electronic deliveryand exchange of information and services takes place through the portal,thus fulfilling the primary objective of e-governance. Services available onthe portal have rendered transactions such as obtaining certificates, renewinglicenses, paying taxes/bills and applying for benefit schemes less timeconsuming and convenient. Also facilitated through the portal is the keycomponent of citizen participation in the processes and policy formulationby the government.

• G2B : Government-to-Business interaction through the portal has not onlyfacilitated the transaction and exchange of information between thegovernment and the businesses regarding licenses, taxation and policiesissued for various sectors, but has also led to improved and efficientprocurement of goods and services by the government from the commercialbusiness entities. The authentic information from starting a business toclosure/graceful exit has been provided in simple and understandable terms.The Online Government Tender Information System has seamless beenintegrated the portal, which has made the entire Government tenderprocedure extremely simplified, transparent and convenient for thestakeholders.

• G2G : Government-to-Government interaction through the NPI has ledto seamless sharing of data and conduct of electronic exchanges amongstvarious government departments and other entities. This exchange is bothintra and inter agency in nature.


• G2E : Government-to-Employee interaction through the NPI has facilitatedinformation exchange about employment opportunities, work guidelines,rules and regulations, benefits and services. A special section in the portalknown as the ‘Employee Corner’ caters to the specific information needs ofGovernment employees. It provided up-to-date information/status onpreparation as well as implementation of Sixth Central Pay Commissionreport.

b. Services Enhanced/Introduced Plan vs Status

Prime Features:

• One-Stop Source (Single -Window Service) : The services offered by variousgovernment bodies are spread over hundreds of websites at various levels ofnavigation hierarchy, and thus many of them remain largely unnoticed.The portal acts as a platform to connect all these services in a manner thatthese are easily accessible and available to the citizen as well as otherstakeholders. To augment the huge information resource available in theportal, a state-of-the-art search facility has been provided for that is able toindex and organize vast amounts of information optimally.

• Comprehensive Content : The National Portal presents comprehensiveinformation on all aspects and constituents of the government whethercentral, state or local bodies. In other words, the portal does not belong tojust one group or sector of government, its mandate includes completeand comprehensive information from the various entities includingLegislature, Judiciary, Executive, Apex Institutions, Local GovernmentBodies, Public Sector Undertakings, Government Institutions,Organizations, etc.

• Citizen Orientation : NPI has been built from the ‘users’ or ‘citizens’perspective, rather than from the perspective of the government. In otherwords, instead of presenting and categorizing the information and serviceson the basis of government departments, information is presented in amanner citizens would like and comprehend better. The various componentsof the portal have a common look and feel to ensure ease of navigation withenhanced user experience.


• Bi-Lingual Content : The content on the portal is also available in Hindilanguage, apart from English. The navigation interface of all the sections inthe portal is available in Hindi while the process of making the same availablein regional languages of India is also underway. This effectively ensures a muchwider reach of the information and services being provided by the NationalPortal of India.

• Content Management System : Since NPI is the repository of a huge amountof content being sourced from as well as maintained by multiple sources anddifferent teams at different geographic locations, a comprehensive and secureweb-based Content Management System (CMS) to effectively manage thecontent has been developed for the portal, which is useful for not only carryingout future modifications and updations of the portal content but also allowsthe flexibility of a convenient change in the content architecture of the portal.

c. Implementation Coverage

The Year Gone By

The year gone by witnessed many a prized development and enhancement inthe overall service delivery of the National Portal of India. It consistentlyattracts visitors to its new and updated information and services – http://india.gov.in is in action always.

• Rating of Content and Services (Enhancing Interactivity) : In its endeavorto cater to most of citizens’ needs, the NPI plays host to over 1900 servicesfrom various states/ministries/departments which are all bunched under the‘How Do I’ section of the portal. With new services being added on a dailybasis to the huge repository already available, user feedback plays an allimportant role. To harness the same, a Rating Module has been introduced inthe ‘How Do I?’ section on http://india.gov.in, which will enable users toassess the services provided therein. It would help the service provider toimprove upon and gauge the service maturity to improve upon.

The users are asked to rate a particular service on the basis of two mainaspects, these being ‘Usefulness’ and ‘Ease of Access’. A provision is also madewithin the same interface for surfers to be able to view the current rating

enjoyed by the said service. Any comments or suggestions from the users’ end

can also be posted within the same application window.


Instant feedback and rating of a service or content/information published on

the portal can be given by a visitor. This has been introduced to take publicperception on a particular content published on the portal and enhance suitably.

• Universally Accessible : Making the portal universally accessible to all users,irrespective of device in use, technology or ability, was another very crucialaim that was achieved with much fanfare and success. NPI meets priority2 (level AA) of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0laid down by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

• Furthering Customization : Surfers can now choose from a select array ofcolorful theme options to lend the Home page of National Portal Of Indiaa unique, personalized touch. Each theme comes with its own speciallydesigned banner and background data display options.

• Nurturing New Initiatives : The National Portal of India has acted as acatalyst to help citizen participation in the process of governance byleveraging demand-based citizen centric initiatives like the NGO PartnershipSystem, the Central Information Commission (CIC) Online and the mostrecent is on Public Opinion on National Testing Scheme (NTS).

• Awardees Repository : The improved version of the ‘My India, My Pride’section provides search-based access to its Awardees Repository, anexhaustive listing of all distinguished citizens of India who have beendecorated with various awards for their dedicated service to the nationsince 1954. Along with Gallantry Awards, NPI also provides roll of allbrave children of India who have been honored for their exceptional displayof courage.

• Guidelines for Indian Government Websites : On of the mandate of theNational Portal of India is to introduce standards for government websitesand portals. In view of this, Guidelines for Indian Government Websites(GIGW) have been developed and published for the government departmentsto comply with and the same has been included as an integral part of theCentral Secretariat Manual of Office Procedures (CSMOP) by theDepartment of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG).

• Statistics Speak : The National Portal has as of now approximately over80,000 registered users, with an increase of consistently at least 10% permonth, availing regular services provided therein. With over 24 lakh hits per


day (approximately) the portal is scaling new heights of popularity and visibility.Presently there are around 7,300 Forms, 6300 Documents, 1,900 Services,1,400 Schemes, 2,300 Acts, 1,500 Rules and 1,4000 Announcements uploadedto its repository from across the country on the NPI. Hit statistics, registereduser trend and appreciations etc. are given in the following pages for readyreference:

Year-Wise Hits and Trend of Registered Users for the National Portal of India

Figure 2 : Year-Wise Trend of Registered Users (2006 to August 2011) of NPI

Figure 1: Year-Wise Millions of Hits (2006 to 2010) of NPI




The National Portal of India comes adorned with unique features andtechnology to facilitate ease of access apart from providing convenient single-window access for multiple Government information and services.

• Query through ‘Advanced Search’ module for Services, Documents,Schemes, Forms, etc. helps users elicit targeted results as per theirspecific requirements.

• An attempt has been made through the portal to providecomprehensive, accurate, and reliable one-stop source of informationabout India and its various facets.

• The information in the portal has been well classified into distinctmodules, which are also interlinked at relevant places to provide thevisitor with a holistic view in minimum time and clicks.

• The portal is developed using Open Source tools and has been hostedin the National Data Center thus drastically cutting down cost onlicensing and hosting requirements.

• The National Portal Project has been developed in the interest ofthe citizens of the nation and hence is not based on any revenuegeneration model.

• The Project has been funded by the Department of InformationTechnology from the funds allocated for the implementation of thisMission Mode Project under the NeGP.


• The National Portal of India has not only ended up immenselybenefiting the end-users or common citizens, but also fulfilled – andcontinues to do so - the other basic objectives of electronic governanceincluding enhancement of transparency & accountability infunctioning of governing authorities.

• The Portal is gateway to scores of other Indian Government Websitesand Portals and thus ensures provision of comprehensive informationand services for the benefits of the citizens and other stakeholders.


• Another very important initiative of the Portal has been its ‘VisitorRelationship Management System’, where every feedback, suggestion,queries received through the portal is attended and responded to orforwarded to respective departments for necessary action and furthercommunication to the sender directly, if they like to do so.

• A recently-added ‘Rating Service’ for content and services availableon the NPI enables surfers to directly rate each of the services providedby different sectors of the Government and its affiliated authorities.User feedback not only facilitates NPI in improving and improvising,but also aids direct Citizen to Government dialog.

• Universally Accessible on content on the portal ensures that peoplefrom diverse backgrounds and varied physical abilities can also makeuse of the services provided.

• Since most of the content on the NPI is available in both English andHindi, its reach is much more widespread and exhaustive.

• Publication of information and documents on the Net and speedyonline access to citizens on information and services such as governmenttenders, policies, citizen charters on the portal, as well as status ofapplications submitted for various government services also lead toimproved efficiency in service delivery, reduced corruption andincreased public participation.


• The National Portal has provided a readily available base infrastructureto the government departments/organizations for launching theire-governance initiatives for the benefits of citizens, businesses and otherstakeholders. The public participation in drafting the Sixth CentralPay Commission Report, NGO Partnership System, CentralInformation Commission (CIC) Online and the most recent NationalTesting Scheme (NTS) are cases in point.

• The feedback received by the NPI team are forwarded to the concernedministry/department/governing body, which in turn helps them to improveand improvise upon the service delivery on their individual portals.



1. Processes

a. Major non-ICT front and back end process changes

1. Front-End Processes: These processes comprise attributes that are visible atthe user’s end, and of which the surfer is the direct consumer.

• Service Delivery : The National Portal has a Comprehensive ContentRepository that is cohesive and ensures a single-window access toscores of services provided by different departments/states/bodies ofthe Indian Government.

• Ease of Access : The content of National Portal is not onlycomprehensive, but also interlinked at crucial junctures to give theuser a holistic view of the information available. Moreover, usabilityand universal accessibility of the content on NPI ensures that peoplefrom diverse backgrounds and varied physical abilities can also makeuse of the services provided. It has received the Web Site QualityCertificate provided after assessment by STQC (http://india.gov.in/images/hp/website_quality_certificate.pdf ).

• Citizen Orientation : The National Portal has been built from the‘users’ or ‘citizens’ perspective, rather than from the perspective ofthe government. It is amenable to personalization and customizationthat makes targeted delivery of information much simpler. An effectiveVisitor-Relationship Management System and numerous Feedback/Interactive Modules also ensure seamless exchange between the portaland its users.

2. Back-End Processes: These processes comprise basic elements that go intomaking the infrastructure of the portal thoroughly sound and available,over which efficient delivery of the website rests.

• IT Architecture : NPI leverages upon open source technology beinghosted at the ISO 27001-certified NIC Internet Data Center, whosestate-of-the-art infrastructure ensures 24*7*365 availability of thewebsite.


• Content Strategy : In order to populate and maintain content in thePortal a Content Advisory Committee (CAC) has been set up underthe Chairmanship of Additional Secretary, D/o Administrative Reformsand Public Grievance (DARPG). The committee constitutes membersfrom ministries, departments and states. It meets regularly forformulating policies for content contribution from across the countryand its subsequent approval. All information on the NPI is presentedin a manner citizens would like and comprehend better.

• National Portal Coordinators (NPCs) at the level of Addl. Secretary/Jt. Secretary in the Ministries/Departments and IT Secretaries inthe States have been nominated to oversee content contribution andmaintenance for their respective jurisdictions. NIC Coordinators forthe NPI (NCNPs) have been nominated as nodal offices from NICside to assist NPC on their functioning. Moreover, a few of the Stateshave engaged a Content Service Provider (CSP) for contentcontribution to the portal.

• A comprehensive and secure web-based Content Management System(CMS) has been developed for the portal, which is useful for notonly carrying out future modifications and updations but also allowsfor immense flexibility. Apart from this, various Content ManagementPolicies, such as Access Control Policy (ACP), Content Flow Process(CFP), Content Moderation and Approval Policy (CMAP), ContentReview Policy (CRP), Content Archival and Exit Policy (CAEP) andContent Consumption Policy (CCP) were devised and published asContent Framework for the NPI (http://india.gov.in/cfw), which isfollowed by the NPI team to ensure that the National Portal is alwaysup-to-date on the content front.



National Portal of India is a comprehensive repository of content related togovernment services that is being contributed by a number of authorized contentcontributors across the country (as mentioned under Enabler Indicator->Processes->Back-end Processes->Content Strategy).


In order to retrieve the relevant, meaningful content easily from the portal at theoptimum time, certain crucial Content Management Policies have been laid down.This would ensure that the portal users extract the content in a correct and consistentmanner without facing any inconvenience of having to navigate a number of websitesof different look and feel. These Content Management Policies, outlined in theContent Framework of the NPI (http://india.gov.in/cfw), follow the contentcontribution process, the procedure of content moderation and approval, contentreview, expiry and archival of content as well as the content consumption process.

The National Portal is hosted at the ISO 27001 certified NIC Internet Data Centrewith state of art infrastructure to deliver citizen centric services with primarycommitment of providing a system with high availability, scalable, secure, accessibleand manageable system. Since the Portal delivers services, which are accessed bymillions of users, its availability for 24*7*365 is one of the critical components.


As a strategic move, a comprehensive training and was enforced during theimplementation phase. Workshops, trainings, seminars were organized at thecentral as well as state/UT level to appraise on the web-based content managementsystem (NPI-CMS). This is basically on information architecture (IA) of the NPIand content classification and metadata preparation for contribution contentthrough the CMS. A comprehensive guide on the same has been prepared for thecontributor as well as the moderator for getting quality content for the NPI.

Apart from the above regular internal hands-on training of the content,technical teams were organized for managing the day-to-day functioning of theNational Portal of India at the headquarters.

NIC has developed the CMS to address the entire lifecycle of a piece of contenton the NPI, right from its conceptualization to design, development, maintenanceand management.


There is a comprehensive change management process in place for updating anycontent within the Content Management Framework of the NPI.



Being one of the mission-mode projects under the National e-Governance Plan(NeGP), the National Portal of India enjoys the support and backing of theCentral Government and all its affiliated governing bodies. The principal cyberface of the Indian government, NPI is a one-stop window for all that thegovernment wishes to impart to its citizens.

Following institutional arrangements are done for development andmanagement of the NPI:

• The Apex Committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary to the Governmentof India.

• Project Review and Steering Group (PRSG) is headed by the Secretary tothe Ggvernment of India for the Department of Information Technology

• The Content Advisory Council (CAC) headed by the Additional Secretary,D/o Administrative Reforms and Public Grievance (DARPG) constitutedwith senior level officers from ministries, departments and states.

• Coordination Committee at the level of NIC constitutes domain expertsfrom majority of sectors of the government and is headed by the DirectorGeneral, NIC.

• National Portal Coordinators (NPCs) are nodal officers from the centralgovernment ministries/departments as well as states/UTs to oversee contentcontribution activity of the National Portal.

e. Financial Model

The National Portal Project has been developed in the interest of the citizens ofthe nation, and hence philosophically not based on any revenue generation model.The project has been funded by the Department of Information Technologyfrom the funds allocated for the implementation of MMPs under the NeGP. Thisproject is directly executed and implemented by the National Informatics Center(NIC) under the D/o IT, M/o Communication and Information Technology.


3. Technology


National Portal of India has a huge structured central content repository and consistsof very valuable citizen services and information. Thus securing them from storage/hardware failure is another core objective of the deployed hosting infrastructure. Theactive components of the portal are devised to function in fail-over mode, and havebuilt-in redundancy with an up and running BCP. Moreover, during any naturaldisaster, the Disaster Recovery (DR) System located at Hyderabad, ensures the portal’sseamless availability and takes care of data security. The portal data herein is replicatedasynchronously over WAN using FC-IP protocol.


1. Multi-Layered Architecture: The portal application, database and front-endservers are fully independent of each other. Therefore bringing about changein any of the layers doesnot affect the other layers. Hence, the architecture

Figure 3: Project Management Structure of NPI


facilitates high system availability by adding additional node/module withzero down time.

2. Clustered Server Components: In order to cater to millions of users and todeliver meta contents to various state portals, multiple server nodes are clusteredfor processing the user request simultaneously. Also, the clustered system ensuresthe availability of the portal during any node failure. The state-of-the-art loadbalancing at network level distributes the users request to the cluster nodes todecrease the system response time and increase its availability.

3. Storage Area Network: To meet the exponential data growth of India portal,all server nodes are equipped with SAN Storage System which is accessiblethrough high speed up to 1Gbps network ensuring that the system ishighly scalable in terms of storage to meet additional requirements.

4. Pre and Post-Production Auditing: The process of auditing the applicationmodules of India portal before and after production includes testing security,performance, usability and accessibility – hence ensuring the portal’ssecurity and performance. Similarly, any new hardware component whichneeds to be added is also tested and tuned before integrating it inproduction environment.

5. Open Source Technology: National Portal of India is developed and hosted inopen source platform such as Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, XML andJavaScript. Hence, the system is completely flexible and can be easilyconfigured/upgraded for any additional functionality.

c. Security and confidentiality standards defined and implemented

1. The NIC Data Center at Delhi is ISO 27001-certified. The ISO certificateis available at http://india.gov.in/iso.pdf for public view.

2. The NPI has been designed using XHTML 1.0 Transitional and meetspriority 2 (level AA) of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)2.0 laid down by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

3. The National Portal of India fulfills the requirements of ‘Software ProductEvaluation and Certification Scheme’ of GoI. This certification covers three ISOstandards, namely ISO 25051, ISO/IEC 9126-1 and ISO/IEC TR 9126-2.




Language, demographic and cultural differences may result in certain types ofstakeholders not getting fully benefitted from e-Governance initiatives. This factorof digital inclusion is relevant to this submission.

Specific steps taken to address this factor

• NPI has been built on the basic principle of inclusiveness from the ‘users’or ‘citizens’ perspective, rather than from the perspective of the government.

• The content on the portal is also available in Hindi language, apart fromEnglish. The navigation interface of all the sections in the portal is availablein Hindi while the process of making the same available in regional languagesof India is also underway. This effectively ensures a much wider reach ofthe information and services being provided by the National Portal of India.

• The portal has also been made universally accessible to all – irrespective ofthe device in use, technology in operation or physical ability of the user.NPI meets priority 2 (level AA) of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines(WCAG) 2.0 laid down by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

2. eParticipation


The factor of eParticipation in the decision making process of the nominee isrelevant to this submission.

1. Pre-Launch Interaction:

• The pre-launch deliberations on the project involved the participation ofnumerous officials from various levels of government all over India.Representatives from various ministries, states and local governing bodiescame together to advice upon and subsequently formulate the portalarchitecture and its prime mandates.

• All committees mentioned in pre-page (Enabler Indicator->People & Process-> Leadership Support…..) met regularly during the development of the


Information Architecture (IA) of the portal. Inputs from various quarters ofthe country were considered in order to render the project comprehensive andfeasible to all strata of users.

2. Post-Launch Interactivity:

• The National Portal of India has not only ended up immensely benefitingthe end-users or common citizens, but also fulfilled – and continues to doso – the other basic objectives of electronic governance includingenhancement of transparency and accountability in functioning of governingauthorities.

• A very important dimension of the portal has been its ‘Visitor RelationshipManagement System’, where every feedback, suggestion, queries receivedthrough the portal is attended and responded to or forwarded to respectivedepartments and tracked.

• A recently-added ‘Rating Functionality’ for content and services availableon the NPI adds manifold to user interactivity, as herein surfers can directlyrate each of the information and services provided by different sectors ofthe Government and its affiliated authorities hereby encouragingeParticipation for evolving the Portal.

• The national portal has provided a readily available base infrastructure tothe government departments/organizations for launching theireParticipation initiatives for the benefits of citizens, businesses and otherstakeholders. The public participation in drafting the Sixth Central PayCommission Report, NGO Partnership System, Central InformationCommission (CIC) Online and the most recent National Testing Scheme(NTS) are cases in point.

3. eWaste


National Portal of India boasts of an intricate web-based system of connectivityand data sharing that ensures very little to zero paperwork and file transfer. Acomprehensive Web-based Content Management System, User RelationManagement System, Rating System, etc., enables various stakeholders to submit


content/feedback/reviews via the online medium, hence minimizing the use of paperto the largest extent possible.

‘http://india.gov.in’ is the quintessential National Portal, which offers akaleidoscopic view into the country’s myriad affairs – including all Governmentaloperations, citizen information and services, Indian culture and heritage, and ahost of other activities - within a state-of-the – art technology framework.

Simply put, the strength of the National Portal lies in the assimilation of richand comprehensive content amassed through meticulous study and investigation,and a unique user-friendly way of presenting that information. With numerousinteractive tools, services and static content repositories – the National Portal ofIndia is the one and only cyber face of the Indian government which is completein all aspects and acting as a gateway to over 7000 Indian Government websites/portals.

Neeta Verma, Senior Technical Director, HOD, National Informatics Center, Delhi,[email protected] and Alka Mishra, Senior Technical Director, National Informatics Center,New Delhi, [email protected])



CHAPTER 25

VAHAN- AN ICT-basedSolution for Vehicle Registration*

Dr. Mahesh Chandra and Shri Nitin Gokarn

I) OVERVIEW

VAHAN, an ICT-based solution for vehicle registration is an application softwarefor enabling the processes of vehicle registration and allied activities to getcomputerized, is one of the best examples of horizontal transfer of ICT-basedbest practices. The VAHAN is integrating smart card infrastructure with ICT togenerate smart card-based RCs. It also integrates mobile/telephony network forstatus tracking, anywhere basis service delivery, etc. This project caters the needof urban as well as rural public and smoothens the functionality of departmentitself. The Department of Road Transport is governed by both Central MotorVehicle Act (CMVA) 1988 and state-specific Motor Vehicle Rules (State MVR).Consequently, VAHAN was conceptualized as a workflow-based software packagethat takes care the functionalities as mandated by CMVA as well as state MVRs.Customization is done in the core product to suit the requirements of the states.This project has enhanced the face image of the department in the eyes of theirstakeholders and citizens. It also smoothens the day-to-day activities of RTOofficials/staffs.

Over the past decade or so, there had been islands of e-Governance initiativesby the State Transport Authority of different states in the country. The experiencewith these IT initiatives had been very good and is extremely beneficial in makingthe Transport Department services accessible to the common man in his locality

325VAHAN-an ICT based Solution for Vehicle Registration

through various service delivery outlets. It also ensures efficiency, transparency and

reliability of such services at affordable costs to realize the basic needs of the commonman. To support these initiatives Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH)had envisaged a project for computerization and interlinking of about 975 RTOs/DTOs across the country. The department of Road Transport is governed by the

CMVA 1988 and State MVR. VAHAN is conceptualize the to take care of thefunctionalities as mandated by CMVA 1988 as well as State MVR. VAHAN can beused to issue registration certificate, fitness certificate and permit, etc.

Modules of VAHAN

1. Vehicle Registration

• New Vehicle Registration

• Renewal of Registration Certificate

• Transfer of Ownership

• Change of Address, Termination of Hypothecation, etc.

2. Permit and Taxes

• Issuance of Home State Permit, National Permit and All India TouristPermit

• Renewal of Permit

• State-specific Road Tax Calculation and Collection

3. Fitness

• Issuance of Fitness Certificate

• Renewal of Fitness Certificate

4. Enforcement

• Issuance of Challan

• Settlement of Penalty Amount

5. Implementation of VAHAN was divided into four subgroups :

• Computerization of all the RTOs/DTOs across the country: VAHAN is

being implemented at all RTOs/DTOs across the country for computerizationof all vehicle registration-related processes in all the RTOs/DTOs.


• Connectivity at all the RTOs/DTOs across the country: For sharing of

information between all the RTOs/DTOs across the country, adequate

network connectivity is the major requirement. All the RTOs/DTOs are being

connected through the Leased Line/VPNoBB.

• Establishment of State Register (SR) and National Register (NR): State

level data repository called State Register (SR) has been established at every

state. All the information being captured at RTOs/DTOs level will entirely

go to SR, so as to avoid any dependency of introducing new services on the

level of information available at the state level. SR is connected to all RTOs/

DTOs through Leased Line/VPNoBB connectivity. This supports the data

replication from RTOs/DTOs to SR and vice versa. SR will provide real time

information to State Transport Department, RTOs/DTOs, automobile dealers,

police department and other G2C services regarding Vehicle Registration.

National Register (NR)–VAHAN– a Centralized Database for

Registration Certificate has been created out of all the SRs from

different states, to act as central repository for all crucial information

related to vehicle registration. NR has been established at NIC Data

Center, Hyderabad. Its architecture has been designed for high

availability, reliability and scalability. It will also act as a database backup

for State Registers and is connected through high availability NIC

Network(NICNET) bandwidth. High availability network bandwidth

supports the real time data replication from State Register to National

Register and vice versa.

• Development of web application in order to roll out the services from SR/

NR: A web portal, i.e., http://vahan.nic.in has been designed and developed

by NIC to deliver G2G, G2C, G2B services related to vehicle registration

from State and National Register. It also aims to provide “Anywhere Anytime

Basis Services” to various stakeholders as well as citizens at large. It also

aims to provide online services related to National Permit for Goods Vehicle.



1. Key Performance


1. Ministry of Road Transport and Highways

2. National Informatics Center

3. Department of Information Technology, Ministry of IT, GoI

4. Department of Road Transport

5. DTOs/RTOs/RLAs/SDMs/MLOs, etc.

6. Dealers

7. Insurance Companies

8. Bankers, Manufacturers etc.

9. Law Enforcement agencies like Police Department, NCRB/SCRB, etc.

10. Citizens.

11. Agencies working on road safety measures.

1. Government to Citizen (G2C) Services:

• Application for issuance of Registration Certificate (RC)

• Application for change of address in RC

• Application for transfer of ownership

• Application for noting/terminating hire-purchase/hypothecation/lease

• Application for clearance certificate

• Application for No Objection Certificate (NOC)

• Application for issuance of duplicate RC

• Reservation of an advance registration number

• Online payment of fees, tax, etc.

• Application for issuance of National Permit for goods vehicle


• Status tracking of application

• Online search of vehicle information based on registration number and enginenumber or chassis number.

2. Government to Government (G2G) Services:

VAHAN has enabled the Ministry for delivering various G2G services fordepartments like Police, NCRB/SCRB, etc. by sharing the informationlike complete vehicle information, vehicle permit details, etc through thewebsite using the authorized login id and password.

Vehicle Search: It provides a nationwide search over the digitized data ofRegistered Vehicles. Stakeholders may view the information based on thefollowing parameters :

• Registration Number either full or partial

• Chassis Number

• Engine Number

• Body Type

• Fuel Type

• Vehicle Color

• Name of the Manufacturer

• Make/Model, etc.

• Reports on Registered Vehicle

• Year and Month-wise reports of registered vehicle in various states

• Year and Month-wise reports of registered vehicles in various DTOs

• Vehicle class-wise reports in various states

3. Government to Business (G2B) Services:

Automobile dealers may submit online application for vehicle registration,pay taxes, etc. through dealer point registration module of VAHAN.

• Web Modules for Dealers


• Application for new registration

• Payment of fees and taxes etc

• Status Tracking

• Sharing of relevant information with insurance companies, manufacturers,banks, etc.

b. Benefits to various stakeholders

• Improved quality of services

• Improved law abidance

• Reduced turnaround time of various G2G, G2C, G2B services

• Anytime Anywhere basis services viz.

• Online application submission for issuance of Registration Certificate

• Online payment of Tax and other fees related to vehicle registration

• Status tracking of various applications related to RC

• Application for issuance of National Goods Permit

• Application for endorsement of name, address, etc. on RC

• Status tracking through mobile phone

• One time document submission

• Availability of hassle-free services

• Availability of MIS for decision making

• Quick and easy availability of information to other government department

• Quick and easy tracking of stolen vehicles

• Easy detection of malpractices

• Quick and easy availability of information related to tax due date, fitnessdue date, RCs renewal due date, etc.

• Quick and easy sharing of relevant information with insurance companies,banks, etc.


• Availability of SMS-based services.

At present 100% of VAHAN services are being delivered through computerizedRTOs/DTOs etc. National Permit Portal has been implemented for issuance ofNational Permit for goods vehicle and has been operational since September2010. All the National Permits are being issued online. As of now about 6.50lakh national permit have been issued online. Integration of payment gatewayhas also been done for Department of Transport, West Bengal and is under processfor the rest of the country. Enforcement services, dealer point registration, onlineapplication for vehicle registration, SMS-based services for vehicle information,etc are planned for release in this current financial year.

c. Implementation Status:

• 100% implementation of VAHAN has been achieved in 31 States/UTs.

• VAHAN implementation status – implemented at 945 RTOs/DTOs outof 975 RTOs/DTOs

• 100% connectivity achieved in 31 States/UTs

• State Register has been established in all the States/UTs

• 97% of RTOs data replicated to SR

• National Register has been established at NIC Data Center, Hyderabad

• 94% of RTOs data replicated to NR.



Table 1

S.No. Name of the Services Delivery Time Through Delivery Time

Manual System Through VAHAN

1. Information related to 3-4 Hours (After visiting the RTO Immediately from

Vehicle Registration office or through agents) the Web

2. New Vehicle Registration > 10 Days 3-4 Days

3. Issuance of Duplicate RC > 7 Days Same Day

4. Change of Address in RC > 7 Days Same Day


5. Re-registration of Vehicle > 15 Days 3-4 Days

6. Transfer of Ownership > 7 Days Same Day

7. Hypothecation > 5 Days Same Day

Endorsement in RC

8. Hypothecation

Cancellation in RC > 7 Days 1-2 Days

9. Issue of No Objection

Certificate (NOC) > 5 Days 1-2 Days

10. Renewal of RC > 7 Days 1-2 Days

11. Issuance of National

Goods Permit > 7 Days Same Day

12. Renewal of Permit > 7 Days Same Day

13. Cancellation of Permit > 7 Days Same Day

14. Transfer of Permit > 7 Days Same Day

6. After implementation of VAHAN, the staff at RTOs/DTOs are able toproduce more output in a day so the revenue generation has increased to200% of the department.

7. Data is more accurate and easily available to the higher authorities fordecision making.

8. Presence of agents at various RTOs/DTOs location across the country arereduced.

9. Before the implementation of VAHAN, citizens were forced to take theservices of agents or travel to the respective RTO office (3-5 times) to availthe service. Now every applicant is able to save at least Rs. 1,000 by avoidingagents or multiple visits to RTOs.


1. Development and establishment of SCOSTA

2. Uniform software development for the country

3. Concept of state-based customization of VAHAN

4. Replication of customized VAHAN using PPP model by many states

5. NIC in association with MoRTH could extend s/w management and support


6. Integration with SMS gateway for information dissemination through SMS

7. Integration with payment gateway for online payment of taxes and fees


1. Processes


1. Detailed system study was done by NIC, report was prepared and submitted toMoRTH

2. MoRTH organized many conferences and workshops for all the state and UTlevel officers in explaining the project goals and the roles of various agenciesinvolved to achieve the final objective

3. NIC developed the VAHAN application and customized as per the Staterequirement for pilot implementation. After the success of pilotimplementation and fulfillment of state requirement respective state wasasked to certify the same for replication of VAHAN in other RTO offices.

4. State governments identify the agency for implementing the VAHAN usingany financial model or they may ask the financial support from MoRTHfor the implementation of the same

5. RTOs supervise and implement with full effort for carrying out their dailyfunctionality with respect to vehicle registration.

6. Other service delivery model like dealer point registration, integration withpayment gateway, etc. is worked out

7. Online issuance of National Permit for goods vehicle has been implemented

8. State Register and National Register of VAHAN have been established fordata sharing between various RTOs/DTOs across the country as well aswith other government departments, enforcement agencies, and MoRTH,etc.

9. Unified form for vehicle registration has been introduced

10. Unified visual design for smart card based RC has been designed andapproved by MoRTH

11. VPNoBB/LL connectivity is being used for replication of data from DTOs/RTOs to SR and NICNET connectivity is being used to replicate the datafrom SR to NR


12. SR and NR of VAHAN are being used for providing the online services

13. The RTO data are pooled at the end of the day or at a definite period at thestate level by specialized software and state level services are provided on theRegistration Certificate.

14. The State Wide Area Networks (SWANs) that are developed are used forcompiling the data from many RTOs at the State level for consolidation.

15. The NICNET is used to bring the consolidated data of RegistrationCertificate to build the National Register of Registration Certificate.



1. Full time project management unit has been established at NIC HQ forproject monitoring purpose

2. A nodal officer has been appointed at every state headquarters forimplementation of the project

3. Daily videoconference with all nodal officers is conducted for the monitoringof the implementation

4. A specially constituted team within MoRTH and NIC review the progressof the implementation periodically with the help of the state transportdepartment

5. Hon’ble Minster of Road Transport and Highways himself conducted thesetype of reviews personally with the Transport Ministers of all states and ahandful of MPs.


Training has been given to the local staff of State Transport Department sothat they can make the full use of it.

c. Leadership support (political, bureaucratic) and its visibility

Full support was given by the top authority to implement the project

d. Financial Model (funding pattern, business model PPP, etc.) defined andimplemented


This project has been implemented in multi-mode financial model.

MoRTH has funded the cost for the establishment of SR and NR, connectivity ofvarious RTOs/DTOs with SR/NR, funded capital expenditure to about 19 States forICT infrastructure.

Business model PPP has also been opted by various state transport departmentsfor project sustenance.

3. Technology


The project has been implemented in high availability architecture as shownin the figure 1.

Dr. Mahesh Chandra, Dy. Director General, Transport Department, NationalInformatics Center, [email protected] and Mr. Nitin Gokarn, Joint Secretary (RT&H)Ministry of Road Transport & Highways Transport Bhavan, 1, Parliament Street,New Delhi-110001. email: [email protected]

Figure 1 : High Availability Architecture per State

335Hon’ble CM Narendra Modi’s website: www.narendramodi.in

I) Overview

‘Good Governance cannot be merely a Philosophy. Concrete Steps have to be takento realize its goals.’ Says the CM who has a vision goal to implement ICT in Gujaratand adopts the Technology with embraced arms.

Instituted by eGov magazine, Hon’ble CM Narendra Modi (www.narendra modi.in)got the prestigious eGov 2.0 award for the ‘Most innovative use of social Media’.

The website is largely responsible for his dynamic presence on the web and addsto his increasing influence by making Hon’ble CM accessible to every citizen onlineas he adopts E-readiness initiatives and enhanced ICT that facilitates greater peopleparticipation.

www.narendramodi.in - The portal provides a comprehensive portrait of ShriNarendra Modi’s long and illustrious social and political life. It presents his viewson various national issues, his books and articles, interviews and speeches. Theportal provides latest information about his initiatives, speeches, statements, etc.

The portal that offers Transparency, connects the people with their belovedleader and effectively engages them with the cause “Development of Gujarat forthe development of Mother India”.

Dr Hiren Joshi

CHAPTER 26

Hon’ble CM Narendra Modi’swebsite: www.narendramodi.in


While many political personalities have a web presence, the portalwww.narendramodi.in is ‘Class Apart’ and unique with richness of content, therange of interactivity, and visual appeal. The portal has over 200 videos, 250audios, 21 ebooks (full text), over 2000 photographs and more than 800 pagesof properly categorised textual content.

More importantly, this is the only website of a political leader which is availablein five languages: English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and Sanskrit.

This is the first Sanskrit website of any leader.

The accompanying blog www.narendramodi.com is in nine languages.

Shri Narendra Modi has been a leader of the masses. With a feel of the pulseof the people, his website creates a live platform for People Participation wherethey can speak their heart directly to him without distortion and manipulation.Giving a sense of belonging to people of Gujarat and all those who believe in himand Gujarat, the site is enhanced with effective communication tools for a journeyin progress of State.

Goals and Objectives:

Showcasing inclusive information- www.narendramodi.in showcases Complete,authentic and up-to-date information about Narendra Modi & his initiativeswith Goals to reach masses and maintain Transparency, deepening ‘Trust, Faithand Interaction’ as:

Comprehensive Web Presence:

1. Web Presence with Transparency

2. Interactive Presence

3. Networked Presence and e Participation

www.narendramodi.in main features:

1. His Biography

2. Development Projects and initiatives in Gujarat as the CM


3. Awards

4. His political journey5. His Quotes6. Publications (E-books)7. Archives of his speeches in text, video, and audio formats8. Photographs, and many more

As a Leader with a mass fan flow and admiration of citizens of India and beingInternationally acclaimed personality, the site is enhanced to showcase the truespirit of Gujarat and its Growth Engines with Big Vision Goals for futureInfrastructure and development of Gujarat.

‘Share Idea that will Shape Gujarat’ and Social Media Presence are ‘InteractiveShaping’ tools that research for improvising the policies and procedures for bettergovernance.


1. Key Performance


G2C Service: Citizen

1. Provide News related to CM’s Development journey for Gujarat

2. Provide Transparency

3. Highlight Major Projects and Initiatives

4. Show Live webcast of important Events

5. Provide video/audio and slide show Gallery

6. Sharing positive stories with friends and well wishers

7. Sharing and discussing innovative Ideas that can aid governance

8. Participating in Polls

9. Posting views and comments

10. Participating in contests


11. Allow citizens to download paraphernalia related to the CM such asWallpapers, Screensavers, Jingles, E-greetings

G2B Service : Business

Though there is no direct G2B service, the portal have a very innovative application-Toshakhana online auction of the Gifts received by Hon’ble CM. As Shri NarendraModi travels and attends events, he receives scores of gifts and souvenirs. Eachand every gift is deposited with the government treasury (toshakhana), and soldto support the education of the girl child (kanya kelavani.). This portal also providethe facility of online auction of gifts available in Tosakhana. People can view thegifts and bid for them. He has so far received 7,994 gifts since November 2011.The nine occasional auctions of 6,634 of these gifts have fetched a sum of aroundRs.10-crore. A special fund Kanya Kelavani Nidhi has been created for this cause.

G2G Service : Government

Not relevant directly, yet the image of a Tech Savvy Hon’ble CM infuse motivationand inspire the leaders in their respective posts in the Government.

G2E Service : Employees

Not applicable. However, the Portal of CM is an inspiration to them who followthe leader and adopt best practices to entrust their duty towards the state.


Apart from enhanced/introduced/functionally extended service like News, Liveevents coverage, etc, Following are operational and delivered through ICT:

1. CM Narendra Modi runs a special fund named Kanya Kelavani Nidhi tosupport girl child education. The gifts he receives are auctioned onlinethrough ‘Toshakhana’ and the proceeds go for girl child education. Userscan bid for these gifts on the website and contribute for this noble cause.http://www.narendramodi.in/pledge/toshakhana)

Online auction of gifts received by CM

2. E-book and slide-show gallery- These sections have an exquisite collectionof free E-books written by and written on Shri Modi.


3. Inviting fresh ideas from public- ‘Share ideas that will shape Gujarat’ is theinitiative which acts as the suggestion box of the website!!! The active citizensshare their developmental ideas for Gujarat directly with Shri Narendra Modi.

4. Newsletters and mailers- Timely and beautifully designed newsletters and e-mails are sent to the subscribers to keep them updated about the recent eventsand developments in Gujarat.

5. Involving citizens in public service through volunteering options available.(http://www.narendramodi.in/volunteertask): The pro-active citizens whowant to contribute their valuable time for the state can register themselvesas volunteers on www.narendramodi.in and choose from a myriad ofactivities available for volunteering such as teaching, content writing,language translations, health and hygiene, medical, finance and many more.By volunteering they earn credits and get rewards for their valuable earnings.


The above stated activities are Implemented and covered on narendramodi.in –Moreover, the Social Web Presence is enhanced for reach to masses and furtheringthe thought, the future plan alongwith active Blogging by CM, aims for moreTransparency and portraying the correct and authentic Governance in Gujaratunder the management of Hon’ble Shri Narendra Modi. Building Trust andRelations with supporters by giving clear picture of Development Journey andengage ‘People Participation’ for G2 – Growth for Gujarat.



The Portal is Mass circulation through Web 2.0 Technology and social medianetworking has been a major time-saver in spreading information about theinitiatives of Shri Modi. For a political leader, information hand-out in the rightway and at the right time is the biggest challenge and that is what has beenachieved through these initiatives.

Though the conventional platforms of advertisements such as T.V, radio,hoardings are still used to meet the needs over a period of time, social medianetworking has enabled the circulation of information speedily and conveniently,


and that too free of charge.


1. Speedy exchange of information

2. Increased public participation in state governance and decision-making.

3. Transparent, direct and pro-active governance

4. Inducing people’s trust in the state mechanisms.

5. Success of several initiatives such as Share Ideas, Share and Grow, Volunteer,etc. where people have actively participated and contributed positive stories,ideas and their time to serve Gujarat in every possible way.

6. Global presence – staying in touch with NRGs, NRIs and Internationalreaders and to know where Gujarat stands amongst other states and othercountries.


Citizens are the key observers of the state and their opinions and experiencesspeak the most. Their ideas and suggestions are priceless inputs for improvementin governance. Hence, the Web Presence with Interactive and eParticipation nodeshave been fruitful in research and work for better Governance.


1. Processes


The Portal is revamped and appears in major five Languages giving choice toreaders. It is made more friendly and interactive with people participation. Bringingcloser to fans and supporters, the CM’s life and work reach to masses. The adoptionof ‘All round’ features and an eye to focus on technology development issues isthe continuous process of the Portal development.


Hon’ble CM devotes his precious time and focus on Time Management sparing


moments for Technology and updating/viewing and sharing his tech skills/experienceto masses through the portal and blog. Thus, known as ‘Tech Savvy CM’ of mostprogressive State.



CMO is responsible for Project Management and Monitoring. Mr. Hiren Joshi isthe OSD-IT who efficiently manages the affairs of the state CM Portal. Consideringthe services of the Web Consultants, Staff team and Volunteers, the site is on Topwith continuous updates 24x7.


Being a Web 2 Portal and with CMS, the Portal is easy for use and navigation.Consultants maintain and manage the back end with major front end portionshandled by CMO.

There is a dedicated team of personnel for the management and monitoringof web 2.0 project and social media services; a team consisting of website designers,web developers, content writers, operations and administration


The Portal is revamped to suit readers and is made ‘User Friendly’ and providebest Services to portray image of Hon’ble Narendra Modi. Furthermore,Transparency and Interactive features.

d. Leadership support & visibility

Hon’ble Shri Narendra Modi personally devotes his precious time with ‘TimeManagement’ schedule that he manages for Technology and understand technologyupgradation and keeping with tech times. He personally blogs and makes surethat contents are fairly available and placed on narendramodi.in – for this, CMOfunctions proactive alongwith the well wishers/ volunteers for the purpose. ShriModi reads about 500 messages from public daily and resolves all their queriesdirectly or indirectly. Shri Modi has used the Web 2 technology so pro-activelythat it has become one of the major drivers of his work system.


e. Financial Model

It is developed/ maintained by well wishers of Hon’ble CM.

3. Technology

a. Strategy for Disaster Recovery & Continuity

Disaster recovery is managed by Web Consultants and Back Up facility at CMOserve as savior in case of problems.


The website is owned by Hon’ble CM Narendra Modi and is fully functional andmaintained by well wishers of Hon’ble CM under the guidance of CMO. Complieswith NeGP Standards, Mission mode Projects are enhanced at CMO level andinfuse five Es in governance: ease, economy, efficiency, effectiveness and ethics.

c. Security & Compliance Standards

The Portal is strengthened with Security with services offered by Web Consultants/Developers.




The Portal www.narendramodi.in appears in five languages – English, Hindi,Sanskrit, Marathi and Gujarati. The Blog www.narendramodi.com is supportivewith nine languages.

2. eParticipation


Online Auction ‘Toshkhana’, Volunteer services and e participating tools like‘Share & Grow’, Social web presence with comments and promote facilities likeshare, widgets and add to – brings about people participation and user friendly.

2. eWaste



No print is taken for processing more than 500 daily emails received by Hon’ble CM.Processing includes screening of emails, perusal by Hon’ble CM, forwarding to Govtdepartments, tracking the action taken till disposal. Interaction online, throughsms, email newsletter and other social media presence, etc. focus on ewaste to reducedpaper and other related.

Dr Hiren Joshi, Officer on Special Duty (IT) to Hon’ble CM, Chief Minister Office,Government of Gujarat; [email protected]; URL of the project:www.narendramodi.in


Shri Dr Hasmukh Adhia and Shri R P Gupta

I) Overview

Since 1998, the Gujarat state government has organized Vidyasahayak scheme forprimary schools to recruit teaching assistants. The Vidyasahayaks become regularteachers in the school after a service of 5 years. Under this scheme, since 1998-99 to2010-11, more than 1,21,245 teaching assistants were recruited. Out of these, 85,194Vidyasahayaks (teaching assistants) have become regular teachers.

The teaching assistants were originally paid a monthly remuneration of Rs. 2,500which has now been revised to Rs. 4,500 by the state government. After therecruitment, they are appointed in various schools and their performance appraisal isdone. If they are found suitable and their performance satisfactory, EducationCommittees appoint them as regular teacher against the vacancy arising out of theretirement of regular teachers. Those who cannot be regularized due to inadequatevacancies are appointed as regular teachers at the end of 5 years by creating additionalteachers posts.

The basic qualification for Vidyasahayaks is 12th pass and P.T.C/C.P.Ed/A.T.D.Earlier, candidates were allowed to apply in one district only, not in more thanone district. This left them in a dilemma as to which district they should applyfor. They were required to deposit their original certificates along with theapplication form to ensure that they do not apply in more than one district. Theentire process of preparation of merit list was manual which took a lot of time errors

CHAPTER 27

Online Teachers Recruitment

345Online Teachers Recruitment

both intentional and unintentional occurred and also many instances of meritoriouscandidates being left out if they could not apply to the right district, leading tonumerous court cases thus leading to further delay and wastage of time, efforts andmoney. The entire process of recruitment took around 5 to 6 months with a numberof pending court cases.

Later, the candidates were permitted to apply for more than one district. Theycould submit xerox copies of the required certificates along with the applications invarious districts. Most of the candidates applied to all or many districts. There werea large number of applications in each district and most of the districts would end upwith almost common merit lists. It took long time to verify the documents by eachdistrict but the errors, both intentional and unintentional, in fact increased. As thenumber of candidates were common in various districts merit-lists, they would takeappointment letters in more than one district. Instances of these candidatescontacting those in the waiting lists and asking for money for resigning (not acceptingthe offer) were also complained. As one could join in one district only, he wouldultimately, but at his own convenience, decline offer of other districts. Thisnecessitated many rounds of call-letters, appointments and decline of offers resultingin wastage of money, administrative time and efforts, and most importantly deprivingthe students of teachers for long durations. The entire recruitment process used totake not less than 8 to 10 months and sometimes even the recruitment of next yearwould be delayed as previous year process was not completed.

Objectives/Aim

The main objectives/aims of the new process of recruitment of Vidyasahayak schemeare:

1. To recruit the required number of teachers in a short period of time.

2. To eliminate the shortcomings of earlier processes and make recruitmentprocess more transparent, efficient as well as reduction in time.

3. To increase the efficiency by reducing time and cost of service delivery.

4. To improve the quality as well as quantum of output.

5. To develop a system which is transparent, corruption free and ensure that


intentional errors are eliminated.

6. To initiate a sustainable approach for future recruitments.

7. Show casing a scheme as a ‘best practice’ for other programs to follow.

Strategies Adopted:

To achieve the above-mentioned objectives, the following strategies were adopted:

1. Centralized recruitment

In the district-based selection, with district selection committees adopting separaterecruitment process for each district almost at the same time, it was not possible toeliminate the shortcomings observed earlier. So it was advisable to centralize therecruitment process and issue one single advertisement at the state level, and allotthe candidates to different districts as per the position of the candidates in the meritlist. This would not only eliminate the possibility of meritorious students being leftout due to poor judgment of not applying in the right district, but would also do awaywith the possibility of many candidates getting selected for more than one districtand consequently the requirement of many cycles of calling the candidates fromwaiting list. It would also save the time and efforts which was wasted in each district.

2. Use of ICT, and Transparency

It was decided to adopt the strategy of using the IT to the maximum to ensuretransparency, speed, and reduce the intentional errors and completely eliminatethe unintentional and human errors.

Innovative Methods Used

To give affect to the above strategies, following innovative methods were used inthe recruitment process of the Vidyasahayak.

1. Using the existing data available with other agencies

As the merit list was prepared based on the marks of 12th standard examination,marks obtained at the graduation level and the marks obtained in B.Ed./P.T.C.


examination, it would be prudent to use this data from respective agencies only ratherthan asking the candidate to fill this data and then get it verified from the respectiveexamination board/universities. Accordingly, the recruitment websites was pre-loadedwith the data of 12th examination board. The data from universities was either notavailable in the electronic format (ready to use) or could not be accessed on time.Further, as the 12th standard exam data was available, the candidate was asked to fillin only the year of passing 12th standard examination and his seat number. Thewebsite then displayed his Name, Date of Birth, Gender, Category (SC/ST/OBC/General), subjects taken by him and marks obtained in different subjects. This eliminatedthe requirement of verification of this information if the same was to be supplied by thecandidate. It also reduced the time and efforts on part of the candidate in filling theapplication form, apart from reducing the administration’s time and efforts hugely. Ofcourse, the candidate was also given an option to change any information if it wasincorrect according to him. The software had a provision to keep log of such changes, soas to verify only these cases.

2. Web Display of Merit List

Once the provisional merit list was prepared by the computer, it was published on thewebsite. The information displayed was the position of a candidate in the merit list,his Name, Date of Birth, Category, Marks obtained in various examinations and alsohis marks in total merit. The candidate or any other person could not only see theposition and information pertaining to him but could also see the position andinformation pertaining to any other candidate. If any information pertaining to onewas incorrect, he could contact the designated authority with required documents toprove his claim. If the objection pertained to some other person, he could fill upobjection form on the website itself. But to make objection effective, he was requiredto take a print out of the objection and submit it at a designated centre with objectionfees of Rs. 1,000 which was refundable if his objection was found to be correct andinformation given by a candidate was wrong. But the objection fee was forfeitable ifthe objection was frivolous and not sustainable. It was decided to settle the objectionafter hearing both the parties and considering the documentary evidence given byboth. However, again to our delight, no objection was filed/taken either by anycandidate for himself or by anyone against any other candidate.


3. Allocation of District

After the publication of final merit list, the candidates were called at Gandhinagar inbatches of 1500 candidates each day to select the district. A huge online LCD screendisplayed the current position of vacancies available in each category in each district.As the candidates kept on selecting the districts, the vacancies in those districts andin respective categories were reduced instantaneously. This ensures that nomanipulation takes place in the allotment of districts.

Table 1

Date of Advertisement in Newspapers : 28-5-2010

Date of Form Submission : 28-5-2010 to 6-6-2010

First Merit List : 12-6-2010

Interview Call Letter : 12-6-2010 to 14-6-2010

12First Round (to select districts) : 15-6-2010 to 18 -6-2010

Second Merit List : 19-6-2010

Interview Call Letter : 19-6-2010 to 20-6-2010

Second Round (to select districts) : 21-6-2010 to 24-6-2010

To select city/village/school (at district level) : 29-6-2010 to 1-7-2010


1. Key Performance


Benefits Delivered:

1. Saving of time and efforts

Huge saving of time and efforts of not only the administration but also thecandidates was effected. Whereas the earlier processes of recruitment used to takeminimum 4 to 6 months, this process was completed in less than one monthonly, in spite of 56000 applications being received. Table 2 gives the time takenfor recruitment in different years. However, more significant reduction was inadministrative manpowers requirement, whereas earlier process used to involvealmost all the persons of Education Department at the district level for acceptingthe applications, verifying the documents, preparing the merit list andappointment letters, this process required a manpower of 8 to 10 persons only at


the state level. Some manpower at district level was used for collecting the applicationsand verifying the information not pre-loaded on the website but it was insignificantcompared to the recruitment in the earlier processes.

Table 2: Yearwise Vidyasahayaks Recruitment 1998 to 2011

Year No. of Vidyasahayaks Recruited Duration

1998-1999 15404 4 to 6 months

1999-2000 20756 4 to 6 months

2000-2001 13181 4 to 6 months

2001-2002 6900 4 to 6 months

2002-2003 6591 4 to 6 months

2003-2004 3448 4 to 6 months

2004-2005 15468 3 to 4 months

2005-2006 0 -

2006-2007 12691 3 to 4 months

2007-2008 0 -

2008-2009 10225 12 months

2009-2010 6294 12 months

2010-2011 10,000 30 days

Total 1,21,358

2. Transparency

This process was completely transparent. The use of ICT particularly displayingthe information of each and every candidate and making it accessible for everyoneto see and, more importantly, take objection if it was incorrect, ensured completetransparency. It also ensured that the intentional and unintentional errors whichwere quite large in number in earlier years and which to a large number of courtcases where minimized to or were completely eliminated.

3. Elimination of Corruption

The manual preparation of merit list and verification of documents in the processesearlier had huge scope for manipulating the information, preparation of meritlist and consequently for corrupt practices. A large number of complaint used to comeat the state level and quite a few court cases were also filed each year. However, thetransparency of the process and preparation of the merit list through computer and


throwing it open for anyone to see, coupled with the speedy implementationeliminated the possibility of corrupt practices.

4. No Court Cases \ No Complaints \ No Grievances.

As the process was totally transparent, no court case was filed, no complaint was receivedand no grievance was registered at any level. In fact, the whole process was greatlyappreciated and commended by the candidates, their parents and the media.

• Accountability

• Responsiveness

• Consistency, equity and or equality of opportunity

• Uniformity and standardization

• Operational convenience and ease

• Simplification of procedures and processes

• Showcasing of best practices

• Improved quality of services

• Target surpassing in terms of quality and quantum of results and timeliness

• Introduction of a unique idea or a distinctively new approach

• Facilitation ICT enabling / E Governance

• Enhanced citizen role, involvement and participation

• Increased efficiency (reduced time and / or cost of service delivery and / orimproved quality and quantum of output)

• Computerization of records and access to citizens

• Sustainability and further improvement

The project is guaranteed of sustainability because of its huge success in effectingand showcasing the speed, efficiency, the transparency of the process, theelimination of corruption / court cases / complaints and mostly the reduction of


time, effort and manpower recruitment. This year again the Primary Education Dept.is recruiting about 13,000 Vidyasahayaks using the same process, though this year therequirement of TET (Teachers Eligibility Test) has been added. The process hasalready started on 16th July and is expected to be completed by 18th August. In fact, theState Government has also advised all other Departments and Governmentorganizations to adopt this process after suitable modifications as per their requirement.Many Government Departments and Organizations have already contacted us andstudied the process and are in the process of implementing it in their recruitments.

Further improvements which are required to be incorporated in the onlinerecruitment process is pre-loading the data from Universities and also makingthe selection of districts online without calling the candidates at a central place.However the last point of improvement in not requiring candidate to come tothe central place may not be feasible as many candidates who are not interestedin joining as teachers though in the merit list, may also obtain the appointmentletter and not join necessitating further rounds of calling the candidates fromwaiting list and also the possibility of corrupt practices by them as earlier alsoremained. At present such candidates who are not interested, do not come to thecentral place and other candidates automatically get a chance in their place.



Huge saving of time and efforts of not only the administration but also thecandidates was effected. Whereas the earlier processes of recruitment used to takeminimum 4 to 6 months, this process was completed in less than one month, inspite of 56000 applications being received. The table below gives the time takenfor recruitment in different years. However, more significant reduction was inadministrative manpowers requirement, whereas earlier process used to involvealmost all the persons of Education Department at the district level for acceptingthe applications, verifying the documents, preparing the merit list andappointment letters; this process required a manpower of 8 to 10 persons only atthe state level. Some manpower at district level was used for collecting theapplications and verifying the information not pre-loaded on the website but itwas insignificant compared to the recruitment in the earlier processes.



1. Online / Print Media Advertisement

2. Online Form Submission

3. Online Merit List

4. Online Call Letter

5. Selection of Location / District


The candidates database of Teachers Eligibility Test was coorelated toVidyasahay application.


1. Processes

a. Major front end Process Changes and Implemented

1. Major ICT front end Process Changes

• Filling up the application form where candidate had to give only his roll numberand year of examination of 12th Standard (for the recruitment of 2010) and theseat number of Teachers Eligibility Test (for the recruitment of 2011).

• Online display of provisional merit list.

• Receipt of online objections against data filling by other candidates.

• Communication of objection and date of hearing to the person against whomobjection has been taken and physical objection form submitted along withfee.

• Display of final merit list and generation of interview call letter and date ofinterview.

2. Major Non-ICT Process Changes

• Receipt of Physical application form along with the fee and necessarycertificates.


• Receipt of Physical Objection form along with fee.

• Selection of District as per merit.

b. Major back-end process changes and implemented

1. Major ICT back-end process changes.

• Preparation of provisional merit list.

• Generation of intimation of objection to be sent to the person objection hasbeen taken.

• Preparation of final merit list.

2. Major non-ICT back-end process changes

• All back-end processes have been implemented as per plan.



• Department of Education – Govt. of Gujarat

• Directorate of Primary Education

• INDEXT – B : A Government Organization


Internal members like the employees of District Primary Education Officers of thedistrict level and the officer of Directorate of Primary Education at State level weretrained to use of the system. No external members required any training as the systemwas very userfriendly.


Yes

d. Leadership support and visibility

There was high degree of bureaucrat leadership support and all the persons workingon the project were made aware through required training.


e. Financial Model

The project did not require much of the funding and a small application fee wasenough to cover the cost of the project.

3. Technology

a. Disaster Recovery and business continuity plan defined and implemented

Regular backup, Stand- by Server

b. Technological solution cost-effective and maintenance over time

MS SQL, .Net Technology, Online web space higher

c. Security and confidentiality standards defined and implemented

The OWASP (Open Website Application Security Projects) Security:

1. Injection.

2. Cross-Site Scripting (XSS).

3. Broken Authentication and Session Management.

4. Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF).

5. Insecure Configuration Management.

6. Failure to Restrict URL Access.

7. Insecure Transport and Storage.

8. Un-Validated Input.

9. Application Denial of Service.

10. Malicious File Execution.

11. Information Leakage and Improper Error Handling.




Extent to which the project has addressed the factor of “eExclusion/eInclusion”

The factor of digital inclusion project is relevant to the extent of intended beneficiary,i.e., the perspective teacher needed to be computer literate for participating in therecruitment process. In fact, a minimum level of computer literacy is one of therequirement for becoming teachers in Govt. schools. The process tests the computerawareness of each participant to a large extent. The candidates who are digitallyilliterate are meant to be excluded and this objective has been served up to someextent.

Dr Hasmukh Adhia, IAS, Principal Secretary, Education Department, Gujarat,[email protected] & Shri. R. P. Gupta, Secretary, Primary Education Department(Primary Education), Govt. of Gujarat, [email protected], [email protected]


I) Overview

Online Voting System (OVS) has revolutionized the entire voting system. It not onlyoffers a new option to the voters to cast vote from convenience of residence but alsostrictly abides by the process of conduct of elections. It is implemented on the principlesof fairness, accuracy, transparency and secrecy. This project is a milestone in IndianHistory as it is first time implemented in India. The system empowers the voter toexercise their right to vote over the internet without being unduly influenced bypolitical parties or peers as in case of EVM Booths and thus contribute to a strongerdemocracy.

The project implements digital encryption and cryptography protocols whichmakes it invulnerable to cyber-attacks and at the same time maintains privacy ofvoters and ballot.

This system has been implemented in General Elections of 7 MunicipalCorporation over a period of 6 months and has delivered the expected result ofmaintaining election protocol. It is also planned to implement this system in theupcoming Village Panchayat Elections in November 2011.

This system is unique in terms of its processes and can be used by otherelection conducting authorities for conduct of elections in PSUs, NGOs, Societies,Universities/Colleges, etc. This system is a one-time investment and the benefitsof which could be reaped in elections of more than 1.5 lac representatives in the

Shri K C Kapoor

CHAPTER 28

Online Voting System (OVS)

357Online Voting System (OVS)

State. The system can be considered as a green revolution as it reduces paper cost byintroducing zero paper work. It is environment friendly as it allows voter to vote fromhis home so he doesn’t need to drive to polling booth. The system is voter friendly,very simple to use, easily replicable. Because of its advantages it helps in increasingvoter participation in election. Thus this system is great innovation for strengtheningthe democracy.

State Election Commission, Gujarat (hereafter referred as SEC) has developed itsprestigious project “Online Voting System” (hereafter referred as OVS) for its LocalBody Elections. SEC had implemented OVS in General Elections of 6 MunicipalCorporations (namely Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Bhavnagar, Rajkot, and Jamnagar)in October 2010 and subsequently in Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation in April2011.

The key stakeholders of the system are:

1. Voters;

2. Local Bodies (e.g., Municipal Corporations, District Panchayats, TalukaPanchayats, Village Panchayats)

3. Political Parties and Candidates;

4. The State Election Commission.

The following are the concern areas which have been kept in mind whileconceptualizing and implementing Online Voting System.

1. Free, equal and secret voting is fundamental for a democratic politicalsystem.

2. Today elections are won on plurality basis rather than majority basis.

3. Voters of urban areas comparatively less participate than in rural areas.

4. Particular classes of voters including businessmen, age-old and infirm donot participate in elections.

5. Voters find inconvenience of commuting to Polling Booths, standing inqueues, etc.


6. Association of voter to a particular booth affects mobility of the voter.

7. In EVM and Ballot Paper, vote count statistics reveal the choice of voters atone particular booth.

SEC with an intention to encourage greater voter participation, and providean innovative, user-friendly and convenient option of voting, has embarked upon the journey to implement OVS in the local body elections. SECs’ initiativeshall lead an example for other States to implement similar systems and presenta new medium of service delivery to voters. SEC sole purpose is to adapt a newtechnology with futuristic approach rather than being concerned on the immediatebenefits of the system.

Information & Communication Technology is deep rooted in major aspects ofour lives such as banking, trading, online bookings, online shopping, etc. It givesan impetus to design/develop a voting platform on similar principles of digitalsecurity. India is one of prime which has been taking e-governance initiatives touse ICT for better service delivery to its citizens. Gujarat is at the top inexperimenting and implementing e-Governance Projects in India. It comes as anaid to en-cash this rich experience of the state for OVS.

By implementing OVS, SEC shall reap the following objectives for thestakeholders:

1. Increase voter participation, by providing a user-friendly and convenientoption of voting.

2. Strictly adhere to election protocol based on principles of completeness,fairness, accuracy and secrecy.

3. Ensure secrecy of the ballot and privacy of voter.

4. Should not reveal booth-wise vote count statistics.

5. Ensure smooth, speedy and transparent execution of entire election process.

6. Decrease cost of elections conduct to a considerable extent byimplementing a centralized voting infrastructure to remove redundantcost involving EVMs purchase, appointment of staff, stationary,transportation, daily allowances, etc.


7. Centralized control over the election process.


1. Key Performance

a. Stakeholder services and benefits achieved through ICT interventions :

Benefits Delivered:

Following are the ICT services which were delivered by OVS and catered tovarious Stakeholders of the project:

1. Voter Registration

2. Voter Approval as e-Voter

3. Setting of Ballot and Its Approval

4. Starting the election on Election Day

5. Voting by voters

6. Counting of votes

7. Reports

As a result of delivery of these services certain benefits were reaped by theStakeholders:

1. Voters had the convenience to cast vote through internet. The systemmaintained the integrity and privacy of the ballot.

2. Election Staff had a centralized control over the entire election whichreduced the cost of manpower and resources which are prominent inelections conducted through EVM or ballot paper.

3. OVS has won the confidence of political parties by displaying the integrityof the election results, strict adherence to privacy and integrity of the ballot.

4. SEC fulfilled its obligation in delivering to voters a convenient and easyoption for voting from residence. Apart from this the entire system adheredto strictly to protocol of elections.


b. Services that are enhanced / functionally extended during the year 2010-11:

OVS is unique in its implementation such that it can be introduced for electionsconducted by various election conducting organizations such as PSUs, universities/colleges, societies, NGOs, etc. It is also envisaged to introduce voting throughMobile Phones including IVRS in future through OVS.

c. Implementation coverage till date and during the year:

OVS went GO-LIVE during General Elections of 6 Municipal Corporations on10th October 2010 in 1 ward of each of the Corporation. The SecondImplementation of OVS was carried out in 11 wards of Gandhinagar MunicipalCorporation Election in April 2011.

More than 3500 Voters had participated in the Mock Voting Drives whichwere held in 7 Municipal Corporations. Though for the first time in India morethan 5000 Voters had applied to become e-Voters. The success of OVS shouldnot be measured in terms of number of e-Voters but the % of Voting throughOVS as compared to that through EVM Booths. A comparative analysis of EVMand OVS percentage voting is as below:

Table 1: Details of Percentage Voting for

6 Municipal Corporation Elections

Sr. Municipal Name or Voting through EVM Voting through OVS

No. Corporation No. of No. of Actual % Voting No. of No. of % Voting

the Ward Actual Voters through Registered E-Voters through

Voters Voted EVM E-Voters who Voted OVS

1. Ahmedabad 23 78725 23891 30.52 64 40 62.50

2. Bhavnagar 16 25851 8247 31.90 11 6 54.55

3. Jamnagar 8 18034 7892 43.76 10 10 100.00

4. Rajkot 10 30593 12697 41.50 13 9 69.23

5. Surat 12 61821 23957 38.75 84 59 70.24

6. Vadodara 16 37809 16024 42.38 1 0 0.00

Total 252383 92708 36.73 183 124 67.76


Table 2: Details of Percentage Voting for Gandhinagar

Municipal Corporation Election

Sr. Name or No. of Actual % of Total No. of % of Voting

No. No. of Actual Voters Voting Registered E-Voters through

the Ward Voters Who Voted through E-Voters who OVS

(EVM) (EVM) EVM Voted

1. 1 13847 8121 58.65 54 51 94.44

2. 2 12275 6782 55.25 75 54 72.00

3. 3 8734 4912 56.24 76 55 72.37

4. 4 12211 6792 55.62 76 59 77.63

5. 5 11325 6919 61.10 7 6 85.71

6. 6 11571 6245 53.98 33 24 72.72

7. 7 9514 5068 53.27 29 27 93.10

8. 8 12589 8932 70.95 50 43 86.00

9. 9 11684 6236 53.37 52 41 78.85

10. 10 14223 8865 62.33 72 46 63.89

11. 11 19298 10344 53.60 146 111 76.02

Total 137271 79216 57.71 670 517 77.16

In future it is planned to implement OVS in upcoming Village PanchayatElections in November 2011 in Gujarat.



Table 3

Sr. Impact/Benefit

Description Before After

1. System efficiency Distribution of booth-wise Considerable saving of time,

in terms of time EVMs, allocation of staff for manpower and overhead

required for booths, collecting and expenditures as all such processes

delivery of services maintaining EVM in strong are eliminated in online voting.This

rooms after election and system publishes a ward-wise result

before counting, extracting and that too within a minute and

results from all EVMs of hence saves considerable time in

particular ward to publish result declaration.The sealing and


the ward result. security of the system is to be

managed at one central location i.e.

the Data Center and hence

considerable time is saved as

compared to managing EVMs.

2. Reduction in Cost Cost of conducting All votes are stored in centralized

of resources election rises from vote bank at Data Center, various

contributions from processes costs associated in managing EVMs/

like storing EVM in secure, EVM booths is eliminated. Also,

sealed & controlled voters can cast vote from the

environment, setting up & comfort of their residence using

sealing of EVMs, transporting personal PC/laptop. This effectively

EVMs from storage location saves the cost of petrol/natural

to polling booth and resource or any other travelling

vice-versa, manpower in means for visit to EVM booth.

executing these processes

etc. Setting up of EVM

booths, requires considerable

amount spent in terms of

manpower, security personnel,

stationary, etc. Also voters

are required to use their

conveyance means to visit

EVM booth. Considering the

average size of 700 voters

per booth, this involves a

considerable cost in terms of

petrol or other natural

resources spent during

the voting day.

Apart from this the other areas that were impacted by OVS implementationare tabulated below:

Table 4

Sr. Impact/Benefit

Description Before After

1. Voter Comfort Travelling to and visiting the Online registration and cast vote

EVM Booth, standing in queue, from the comfort of home/office

physical identification and using Laptop/PC.

vote cast.


2. Control over the Decentralized control and Centralized control over the entire

election process cumbersome management election process hence making it

of Polling Booths and more effective for election staff to

manpower for election conduct. manage various processes of online

voting.

3. Voter Turnout The average voter turn-out at The average voter turn-out in Online

EVM booths is around 60%. Voting System is more than 75%.

4. Elimination of Contesting Candidates are The counting is done ward-wise and

booth-wise vote able to find out Booth-wise hence candidates will not be able to

count statistics as voting figures. Hence they identify those localities of their

revealed in EVM become apprehensive towards wards from where they have

results the development of localities received lesser votes. Hence they

from where they have received will tend to become equally

lesser number of votes. cooperative and cordial with people

in their.

5. Strengthening the Voters have to queue up at OVS enables the voters to cast vote

democracy EVM booths, where they can in an uninfluenced state of mind

be influenced by the from his residence. A voter with an

representatives of the uninfluenced state of mind will vote

contesting candidates. for the best & deserving candidate

thus participating in building a

strong democracy. With increased

participation elections will have

competitive edge rather than

plurality.

6. Green and The hundreds of papers, OVS provides facility of zero paper

Environment manpower and other work which will in turn stop the

friendly. resources are used to follow wastage of papers. OVS allows voter

the traditional election to vote from his home and the

procedure that causes the centralized system is monitored

wastage. Voters and other and controlled from the single

election commission officers place no one has to travel to

have to travel to the polling polling booths.

booths, that results in increase

in air pollution

b. Specific innovative ideas implemented in eGov area; and their impact on services:

1. To ensure the vote is cast by actual voters, the passcode is sent to voter’sregistered mobile number as an SMS at the time of voting. He has to enterthe received passcode to confirm his vote.


2. After the voting is completed the mixing and tally process of votes is done. Inthese processes the voter’s identity is detached from his vote.

3. As voting is confidential process, in order to provide confidentiality all thedata are encrypted and sent through SSL network.

4. In order to prevent mass voting from single PC or laptop, User is limitedto vote from a single computer up to certain number by capturing machineuniqueness.

c. The extent to which this e-Governance initiative is integrated with otherinternal and/or external ICT systems:

Currently this system works independently however in future it is envisaged tointegrate the system with Electoral Roll Database which would enable the votersand election staff to verify registered voter data online.


1. Processes


Following are the Major ICT front end process changes that were planned anddelivered by OVS:

1. Voter Registration

2. Voter Approval as e-Voter

3. Setting of Ballot and Its Approval

4. Starting the election on Election Day

5. Online Voting by voters

6. Counting of votes

7. Reports


Following are the Major ICT back end process changes that were planned anddelivered by OVS:


1. Maintaining e-Voter Data

2. Election configuration

3. Ward configuration

4. Political party configuration

5. Assigning returning officer and assistant returning officer

6. Mixing of votes



To ensure smooth implementation of the project and that too in a stringent timelinefollowing project management and monitoring strategies were adopted:

1. The Task Force included bureaucratic members from various fields and wasbasically formed to ensure greater coordination and to guide over projectimplementation and government approvals as and when required.

2. Gujarat Informatics Ltd. (GIL) worked as IT Consultants for SEC. GILdrafted the RFP for the project, assisted in selection of TSP and providednecessary timely support as and when required.

3. An Apex Steering Committee headed by State Election Commissioner,Gujarat and Secretary State Election Commission, Gujarat looked afterthe overall monitoring of the project and resolution of any issues andstrategic decisions to be taken during project implementation.

4. A Project Execution Committee comprising of team from TSP and teamidentified from SEC in executing the entire project. The Committee wasresponsible for the successful execution of the project and the day to dayrunning of the project and providing all required approvals and resolutionof bottle necks

5. In order to ensure that OVS never compromised on integrity and security,a third party security agency, which is CERT-IN empanelled agency, wasalso appointed.



The following table shows the stakeholders involved and type of training conductedfor each stakeholder:

Table 6:

Sr.# Stakeholder Training Duration

1. SEC and Back Office Module: The training This training was basically

Election Staff topics are: conducted for duration of 1

1. Election Configuration day. However this training is

2. Digital Ballot Paper Configuration repetitive for the election staff

3. Verification of e-Voter Data as the staff changes in every

4. Creation of Election Board election.

5. Publishing Elections

6. Conducting Mock Voting

7. Conducting Actual Elections

8. Mixing, Tally and Result Declaration

2. Voters E-Voter Registration & Online Voting: Time duration not defined.

Mock voting exercises were conducted However it was to be done

in Municipal Corporations to increase before certain stipulated time

voter awareness of the new system. span before the election date.

User Manual and presentations were

uploaded on the SEC website.

3. Political Parties Mock Voting exercises were conducted Time duration not defined.

/ Candidates and political parties and candidates However it was to be done

were sent invitations to attend the same. before certain stipulated time

SEC also conducted in-house span before the election date.

demonstrations for contesting parties/

candidates before the elections to win

confidence

To support the Election Staff before and during the election and countingday, trained technical manpower were associated with them. To support the votersfor e-Voter Registration and on the Voting Day, centralized helpdesk with 10personnel was setup.


An appropriate change management strategy becomes a vital factor in decidingthe success of any e-Governance system. OVS is a major break-through in our


history as it is being implemented for the first time in our country. Henceapprehensions of the new system were quite high. In order to curb theseapprehensions SEC took the necessary responsibility in propagating andpromoting the new system. SEC conducted meetings and trainings of electionstaff to train them on the new system and processes. SEC also conducted in-house demonstrations of the new system to political parties and candidates beforeelections to win their confidence.


OVS has overwhelmingly received necessary leadership support in terms of itsincorporation as a new method of voting in existing process. It has beenimplemented in Urban Body Elections and in future it is planned to beimplemented in Rural Elections also.

e. Financial Model

The entire project is funded by State Election Commission, Gujarat.

3. Technology


1. Election is a critical process and the criticality comes in to ensure 100%availability of voting services to the voter on the Election Day. To ensure100% availability the entire system is designed in redundant mode.

2. The system is deployed in two different sites (primary and disaster recovery),configured 1:1 so that the DR site can cope with the traffic if primary siteis down.

3. The Database is configured in cluster with redundant components andsynchronized with a disaster recovery site. Continuous backups alsoperformed. This ensures lesser possibility of data loss at the time of disaster.

4. A Near DR was setup to ensure zero data loss during time of Data Centrefailure.

5. Also, denial of Service attacks will be mitigated by using active monitoringtechniques that allow quick reaction to block attacking IPs.

6. The system implemented SSL in order to immune against phishing attacks.



Following figure depicts the overview of the proposed Online Voting System.Online Voting System (OVS) is basically classified in two major modules,

duly integrated for seamless exchange of information across the two systems:1. Pre-Voting2. Voting

Pre-Voting Module

Pre-Voting module consist of various registrations and back office functionalities:

Registration:

1. Voter Registration and Approval2. Appointment of Party Representatives and ApprovalBack Office:

Figure 1 - Overview of the Proposed -logical solution


1. Create Election Schedule2. Create Constituencies / Wards3. Create RO / ARO Details4. Create Polling Agents / Counting Agents Details5. Create Polling Stations / Booths / Counting Station Details6. Allocation of Symbols to Candidate7. Ballot Paper Generation and ApprovalVoting Module :Voting module consists of following functions to cater online voting requirements:1. Voter Authentication2. SMS Password Authentication3. Casting of Vote with Confirmation4. Voting Receipt Generation5. Mixing and Counting of Votes6. Result Declaration

OVS implements a specific cryptographic protocol for securing on-lineelections, which ensures that elections are carried on the principles of fairness,secrecy, anonymity and in a transparent way.

As per the NeGP standards OVS solution has the following features:

1. A fully accessible internet voting channel for providing common man inhis locality, throughout his life ensuring efficiency, transparency & reliabilityat affordable cost.

2. End to end security right from voter registration-through vote castingprocess-counting process-up to declaration of results and data thereafter asper the rules of SEC

3. Strong authentication of voters to uniquely identify before casting votes4. Voter privacy but ensuring no audit is available between the voter and vote

cast5. Voter’s verifiability to ensure that the voter would have a receipt of vote

casting6. Integrity of election results through cryptographic techniques which would

ensure that bogus votes are not counted in the end results7. Role based access control to restrict unauthorized access and provide access


on need to know basis8. OVS would provide bilingual user interface9. OVS will transfer information without replication through the network in

order to provide less redundancy and high confidentiality.c. Security and Compliance Standards1. Implementation of robust security using cryptography, digital certificates,

multiple user validation using smart card for counting process.2. During development process, the TSP strictly followed coding standards

to make system defect/bug-free (Java Coding Standards, JSP CodingStandards, Database Coding Standards)

3. Phishing. An SSL connection is used to prevent phishing attacks on the OVS4. Denials of Service: In order to neutralize such attacks the OVS solution

deployment architecture comprised of DR site with the same capacity andconfiguration as that of DC with a high bandwidth with firewalls thatwould be used to block traffic from IP addresses being used to bombardthe platform with requests.

5. Virus Attacks: The solution uses proprietary data encryption technologybefore being sent to the Voting Server. However necessary firewalls andAntivirus commercial systems were installed to nullify virus attacks.




• The Online voting System is basically digital conversion of traditional votingprocess.

• Voter can register for vote through portal. Voter can vote online. All theprocesses including candidate approval, ballot approval, starting of election,counting of votes etc. are done online on internet.

• On Election Day toll free telephone help line service was provided to voters tohelp them to resolve any technical issues faced during voting operations.

• The system interface is designed in bilingual interface and presents all necessaryinstructions in regional language (Gujarati) and English.


5. The system actually abled the infirm and senior citizens, who were not able tovisit EVM Polling Booths, to cast vote from comfort of residence.

2. eParticipation


• Various stakeholders were involved at various stages of the projectimplementation so that the system was designed as per their expectations.

• Once the system designed, necessary training sessions for SEC and ElectionStaff and mock voting for voters and political parties were duly arranged tocreate awareness of the new system.

• All relevant feedbacks received from the stakeholders were incorporated inthe system.

• After the experience of first successful election, a feedback document wasprepared and necessary changes were implemented from this document toensure that the system is more user friendly in terms of operations for voters.

3. eWaste

OVS is based on a centralized architecture and the responsibility of the clientend infrastructure rests on the voters and the election staff. Hence as such noeWaste is generated in the system.

Shri. Mr K C Kapoor, State Election Commissioner, State Election Commission, [email protected], [email protected]


M S Jaya and Dr. K S Raman

CHAPTER 29

e-Services for Ration Cards

I) Overview

e-Services is an important service delivery project of the Government of Kerala. Theservice is for enabling the citizens to submit online applications related to rationcards such as issue of new ration cards, transfer of ration cards or modifications inthe existing ration cards. Citizens can also avail the assistance of the nearest servicecommunity centers like Akshaya for submitting their application forms. E-serviceswas inaugurated by Sri. C. Divakaran, Hon. Minister for Food & Civil Supplies onJuly 23, 2010. In his inaugural speech, he pointed out that this service to thepublic is one of the most important achievements for Civil Supplies Department.With this service, citizens no longer have to take a day off from their routine workfor submitting applications to Taluk Supply Office/City Rationing Office. Thestatus of the applications submitted online will be available on the site. The newration card will be delivered on the very next day. SMS alerts are delivered to thecitizens when the processing of their applications is completed. Citizens no longerhave to wait in serpent line queues before TSOs/CROs for submitting theapplications and they are liberated from the manual procedural work flow followedin these offices. Transfer of ration card from one TSO to another TSO or transfer ofa member from one card to another card of a different TSO is done online and thussaves the citizen the trouble of approaching both offices to get the task completed.

E-Services also provide service for online verification of ration cards and sharingof data between the departments. Service for verification of ration cards is requiredby the Government departments like Passport Office, Water Authority, Electricity

373e-Services for Ration Cards

Board, Panchayat Office, etc. and private companies like mobile operators for verifyingthe genuineness of the ration cards that have been submitted by the citizens.

The major achievement of the project is that it minimizes the interactions ofcitizens with the TSOs/CROs. Officials of the TSOs/CROs are able to speed upthe processing of the submitted online applications. Citizens through e-servicessubmit approximately 3,000 applications per day. Around 4.5 lakh onlineapplications have been submitted by the citizens till date. Online verification ofration cards enables the officials of the government and private sectors to easilyverify the ration card details.

Another important e-Service delivery is the monitoring of food grainsmovement from the FCI depots and wholesale depots. As soon as commoditiesare lifted from the FCI depots or AWD depots, the details are entered into thesystem and SMS alerts are sent to those citizens who have registered for SMS.Thus, diversion of the commodities can be monitored and checked up to a certainextent while the food grains are being transported from FCI depots to wholesaledepots or from wholesale depots to retail depots from the FCI depots.


1. Key Performance


Citizens are able to easily access the e-services and get the required service. Theyneed not travel to the TSO multiple times and stand in the queue for long hours.Theauthenticity of the ration cards could be verified using verification services.


1. Percent of services covered as ICT interventions 99%

2. Geographical Spread in the State achieved – All over Kerala



The service is available on the website round the clock (24 X 7) and the deliverytime reduced to one day from three months. The verification of authenticity of


the ration card was a major challenge and using the e-verification service module theration cards could be verified within seconds by the authorized users. Citizens areable to know the stock details lifted and are available at the shops without having tovisit the FPS.

b. Cost savings for delivering the above set of services:

The major cost saving is to the citizen who had to travel multiple times to the officefor availing the service. The department could verify the authenticity of the rationcards and duplicates and fake cards, could be detected easily.

c. Time saving for availing the services (reduction in cycle time):

The delivery time of ration card and other services was around three months and thisis reduced to one day. The verification service of genuine ration cards which wasnearly impossible, could be done in seconds by the authorized users.

d. Cost saving for availing these services:

The citizen need not travel all the way to the Taluk Supply Office many times foravailing the services. The travel time and cost of multiple travel is savings to thecitizen.


1. Processes


The citizen could submit the application online or through Akshaya centers. Theyneed not travel to the Taluk Supply Office and stand in the queue for long hours. Theapplication details are captured through the e-Services module and processing themusing the work flow based Ration Card Management System (RCMS) implementedin all 69 Taluk Supply Offices/City Rationing Offices in the State. The photographywork was assigned to the Akshaya centres. The software has the facility of deliveringthe ration card through Speedpost.

The process of surrendering the cards for changing the residence to another locationin the same state is eliminated. Now the major process change is the transfer of theration cards from one taluk to another.

375e-Services for Ration Cards


The officials of the TSO could approve the applications in the workflow system.Various data authentications have been implemented and the senior officials of theCivil Supplies Department monitor and verify the authenticity of the data and canbe approved or rejected.

The surrender of ration card for changing residence within the state has beeneliminated and changed to transfer of ration cards.

Consolidation of the individual databases of all the 69 TSOs/CROs in theState to create the Central Ration Card database and synchronization of this datawith the individual TSO/CRO database was the major challenge that wasimplemented.



State coordinator and District coordinator for each district and coordinator foreach Taluk supply office. The secretary of the department himself used to holdthe review meeting at regular intervals for the implementation of the system.Development has been completed and the service has been implemented.


Civil Supplies officials and Akshaya center staff have been trained to use thesystem. Citizens were given the guidelines for using the site through newspapermedia.


The applications for various services is now being accepted online. This totallyeliminates the need for data entry of the applications. The officials were trainedon processing the applications accepted online and also to use the ration cardmanagement system a workflow system for processing the applications. E-learningsessions and training sessions were conducted for training the officials.



Fully supported by the Government of Kerala, The Minister, Secretary and directorand officials supported the project.

e. Financial Model

Funded by Government of Kerala, Technical Advice Consultancy and data centerservices provided by National informatics centre free of cost.

3. Technology


Disaster recovery and business continuity plan defined and implemented - Theservice is operational from NIC Data Center and hence utilizing the facilities andinfrastructure in the NIC Data Center


Open Source Solution used for the central database and no extra cost for licenseand maintenance.


Proper User Authentications and Website Security Auditing has been implementedand the site is certified by CERT-in Empanelled security auditor.

M S Jaya, IAS, Director, Civil Supplies Department, Government of Kerala,[email protected] and Dr. K S Raman, State Informatics Officer, National InformaticsCenter, Kerala State Center, [email protected]

377Online Scholarship Management System, Kerala

Shri Ajith Brahmanandan

CHAPTER 30

Online Scholarship Management System, Kerala

I) Overview

The Department of Scholarship under Collegiate Education Directorate provides14 types of scholarships to meritorious students of outstanding performance inthe education sector as well as to the students of socially and economically backwardcategories. The Department of Higher Education, Government of Kerala, isentrusted with the responsibility of selection and disbursement of variousscholarships to Higher Secondary, under Graduate and Postgraduate Streams.This project envisages the development and implementation of a web-enabledscholarship management system to facilitate the Directorate of CollegiateEducation for an efficient, foolproof system for the selection of the students anddisbursement of scholarships. The system facilitates the students to apply onlinefor any scholarship announced by the department according to their eligibility.The system provides online verification and approval by institutions for the onlineapplications submitted by their students. The Scholarship Department monitorsand processes the online applications of the students for the selection anddisbursement process.

Online Scholarship Management System is a web based application whichtakes care of all the activities of the scholarship department starting from thepublishing of Notification on scholarship announcement to the final disbursementof scholarship amount to the individual students’ bank account. Renewal of anyscholarships awarded earlier are also monitored and processed online through


the website. On the basis of the Government rule, multiple scholarships sanctionedfor any student is identified and cancel the less beneficial scholarships for thestudent. This system replaces the manual procedures followed in the departmentand hence no manual process is maintained for the selection of scholarships neitherany manually prepared registers. All the reports like preparation of award register,proceedings for the submission of Bill at Treasury, covering letter and selectedstudents, list to institutions, etc. are generated in the system.

The electronic disbursement of scholarship amount is enabled in the systemby generating files compatible for e-transfer by bank and updating the systemback with the transferred or rejected status with the status file returned by thebank. The reconciliation reports for the proper monitoring of multiple banktransfers for various scholarships are also provided in the system.

The management of Online Scholarship System is done by the WebsiteAdministrator, who announces the scholarship dates, notifications, banners, newsand makes updates on the site. The administrator opens and closes the site foronline registration of scholarships and its renewals for students as well as institutions.The administrator can monitor, reply or forward the complaints and suggestionsgiven by the students and the institutions. The eligibility of any scholarship ismonitored and institutions and courses are mapped to any scholarship by theadministrator. The system provides the status of applications submitted by anystudent at any point of time. Students can apply for multiple scholarship andselect the most beneficial scholarship awarded to them through the site. Studentscan monitor the different stages of their application through this system.

The Government of Kerala is disbursing various scholarships awarded tomeritorious students of outstanding performance in the education sector as wellas to the students of socially and economically backward categories. The HigherEducation Department of Government of Kerala is entrusted with theresponsibility of selection and disbursement of various scholarships to HigherSecondary, under Graduate and Postgraduate streams. The department collectsthe applications from students and verifies the details against the documentssubmitted. The applications will be sorted and a selection list will be preparedbased on the eligible applications. Then various registers are prepared for themonitoring of the scholarship disbursement. Scholarships are disbursed to studentsby drawing demand drafts in favor of students or institutions. Each scholarship


is handled independently and duplications or multiple scholarships or fakeapplications are not identified in this system.

The scope of the project is to provide an Online Administration andManagement of Various Scholarships awarded by the Higher EducationDepartment of Government of Kerala. The project covers the development andimplementation of a web-enabled scholarship management system to facilitatethe Directorate of Collegiate Education for an efficient, foolproof system for themonitoring of application registration, verification of applications, selection ofapplied students and disbursement of scholarship to the students accounts. Thesystem facilitates the students, various educational institutions and the ScholarshipDepartment to update and monitor the selection and disbursement process.

A general procedure is put forward for facilitating an e-submission of applicationsfor the scholarship by online registration of students. The websitewww.dcescholarship.gov.in contains online submission of application by students,verification and approval of applications by the respective institutions and processingof selection list by the directorate of Collegiate Education (DCE), Kerala.

1. Online Registration for e-submission of scholarship application

Students who wish to apply for a scholarship should register online through thescholarship website www.dcescholarship.kerala.gov.in of DCE, Kerala. A uniqueID is generated for all the students who are registering in the site. The ID isformed based on the Board of Matriculation Examination passed, register numberand the year of passing. Personal details, currently studying institution and coursedetails, for which scholarship is being sought and the bank details are capturedin the form along with the scholarship specific details which varies withscholarship. A student has to register only once to apply for any scholarshipthough the eligibility details have to be added according to the scholarship applied.

2. Online verification and approval of application by the institution

The verification and approval of any scholarship application is carried out by therespective institution. Students submit the application print out taken from the sitealong with the supporting documents to the institution. The administrative sectionor the nodal officer of the institution verifies the application against the supportingdocuments item by item. The principal then approves or rejects the verified ones.


3. Online selection process and bank transfer by the department

All the approved applications are considered for the selection process. The departmentdoes the selection process online, verifies the selected students list against the variousreports generated as awarded students list, eliminated students list, etc. Studentsselected for more than one scholarship are identified and their less beneficialscholarships will be cancelled. Further the final list of the selected students isconsidered for the disbursement of scholarship amount through a bank transferprocedure. The soft copy of the list to be transferred is generated from the system,which is precisely in the bank requested format and submitted to the bank. In turnbank returns a status file within a maximum period of 2 days, which is uploaded tothe site and transferred or rejected status is set to the site.

4. Online monitoring of application status by the stakeholders

The status of all the registered applications is made available on the site. At anypoint of time, students, institutions or any general public can see the currentstatus of the applications registered. Awarded students have a separate list providedon the site, which also shows the transferred status of the scholarship amount.

5. Goals/Objectives

The main goal of the system is to handle the increased number of scholarshipsand the applications received by the department in an efficient way. The systemshould provide transparency in the scholarship selection activities and all thestakeholders could monitor their application status. The system should enableefficiency and easiness in the scholarship renewal and disbursement. The systemshould avoid the disbursement of more than one scholarship to a student. Thesystem should enable electronic transfer of scholarship amount to the studentsbank account directly.

6. Benefits

In addition to the achievements gained for the goals and objectives set for thesystem, the reachability of the scholarship increased and hence the number ofapplications to each scholarship also increased. All the thirteen scholarships underCollegiate Education Department are standardized with a generic form andprocedure. Transparency increased which enables the students and institutionsto know the status of any scholarship applied at any point of time. This carers thequeries of the students and the institutions and thus minimizes the queries to be


answered. Multiple scholarships for a student can be easily identified by thesystem. Students sanctioned with a fresh scholarship and renewal scholarshipalso can be identified and the most beneficial scholarship can be selected. Thesystem answers most of the queries of the students and the institutions. Theofficials are able to speed up the entire scholarship activities up to the disbursementof the scholarship amount.


1. Key Performance


Benefits Delivered:

1. The total number of students registered online for 10 types of freshand renewal scholarships for the academic year 2010-11 is 1,17,502,out of which 87,285 scholarships where sanctioned. An amount ofRs. 15,99,97,245 is disbursed to 66,814 students as on date. Theentire process is transparent and is available in the system to the public.The entire process happened within a short span of time, which isdue to the introduction of this system.

2. Another main achievement of the system is that around 3,000scholarships were identified as multiple scholarships and werecancelled and another 650 scholarships were withhold as a secondscholarship and disbursed after the less beneficial scholarship isrefunded which would not have been even identified otherwise.

3. A standard form and procedure is identified for all the 13 scholarshipsunder the Collegiate Education Department. The department couldcomplete the entire scholarship activities within the stipulated time,unless the activities would have extended to another 8 months.

G2C:

1. Any student can apply online and submit the application to theinstitution without any traveling.

2. Students and institutions can follow up the current status of theirapplication online at any point of time.


3. Students are alert with SMS on the non-verification and non-approvalof application. SMS alerts are also sent intimating the scholarshipamount transfer.

4. A unique ID issued for any student who applies even for multiplescholarship.

G2G:

1. Government can monitor the statistics of the scholarships announcedfrom the registered count to the total amount transferred at any pointof time.

2. The selection process time for any number of applications reduced tominutes from days or weeks.

3. A Herculean task of drawing Demand Drafts (DD) for these manynumber of students for disbursing scholarship amount is made easyby enabling electronic transfer through providing soft copy of studentsaccount details to the bank.

4. Monitoring of scholarship amount transferred by the bank is alsomade available on the site by uploading a status file given by thebank, which takes only a few minutes.

5. A standard form and procedure is identified for all the 13 scholarshipsunder the Collegiate Education Department.

6. The entire activity from announcement of scholarship, publishingthe notification, opening the site for online registration, closing thesite, selection process activities, final list and reports generation,enabling for e-transfer of scholarship amount, updating the transferstatus till reconciliation reports are managed and controlled by theDepartment administrator.


1. Introduced a generic format for student registration to apply for anyscholarship under the department.

2. Introduced a unique ID to the registered students, which stopsduplicate registrations and helps to identify multiple scholarshipssanctioned to any student.


3. Introduced online registration of students and online verification andapproval of applications by the institutions.

4. Enhanced the feature of cancellation of less beneficial scholarship bystudent/institution before the disbursement of scholarship. This avoidsthe withholding of most beneficial scholarship due to the transfer ofless beneficial scholarship.

5. Enhanced the feature of online registration, verification and approvalto the students studying in the institutions outside Kerala.

6. Enabled the online registration of three more scholarships this year

7. Extended the functionality of online receipt/acknowledgement ofscholarship amount by the institutions, which avoids the dispatchingof students list with covering letter of awarded students and theiramount to institutions by post and getting a reply back by post frominstitutions and thus avoiding the delay in it.

8. Extending the functionality of generating notifications online andthen publishing the same on the site for the initiation of anyscholarship.


1. All the 13 scholarships and their renewal made online starting fromscholarship announcement till the amount credited to students bankaccount.

2. Any Kerallite student studying anywhere in India or abroad can applyonline for any of these scholarships under Collegiate EducationDepartment.

3. The site is maintained by the Administrator designated by thedepartment and completely managed by them.



1. Without this system, the department could not have handled the1,17,502 applications received for scholarship.

2. Students need not send their application to Scholarship Office, whicheliminates postal charges.


3. Students/Institutions need not travel for the submission of theapplication or for any follow ups, which avoids the time and moneyinvolved.

4. Sending the DD to individual students and fee charges to institutionsgot eliminated which reduces the postal charges.

5. The processing time reduces to a few minutes from days/weeks forany scholarship.

6. The time required for scholarship activities like preparation of awardregister, proceedings, covering letters to institutions, etc. reducesdrastically to the time required for taking the print outs from thesystem.

7. Sending SMS to students informing the status of their applicationsreduces the time required otherwise and the cost reduced to 10 paise/SMS.


1. Introducing a unique ID for any student registering for scholarship,which avoids the duplication of registration and applying for multiplescholarships with the same ID.

2. Renewal of any scholarship with the same Registration ID keeps trackof the student’s historic details and checks for the sanctioning of anyother fresh scholarships.

3. Online verification and approval enables the institutions to keep trackof their students who are applied and awarded with scholarships.

4. Implementing the rule of only one scholarship to a student, which ismost beneficial, is made true with the introduction of this system.


1. The higher education scholarship awarded by the Higher EducationCouncil and the Merit-cum-Means Scholarship awarded byDepartment of Technical Education are integrated to this system toidentify whether any student is getting a second scholarship fromthis department. Since those two scholarships are more beneficial,such scholarships under the Collegiate Education Department arecancelled to enable more students to get the scholarship.


2. For providing District Merit Scholarship, which is disbursed tostudents of SSLC who passed with A+ in all subjects, the data is takenfrom DPI and integrated to scholarship system, so that those studentsalone can apply for District Merit scholarship.

3. For the Central Sector scholarship, which is awarded to +2 students onmerit basis, the data of students who received more than 80% of marksis taken from the Higher Secondary Directorate and integrated toscholarship system, so that those students alone can apply for the same.

4. Electronic transfer of Scholarship amount through bank is madepossible by providing the data compatible to bank and the status filereceiving from bank is updated back to our system without makingany changes in it.


1. Processes


All the below mentioned strategies planned are implemented in the system.

1. Stopped the acceptance of manual applications and enabled onlineregistration of all applications for any scholarship through a genericand standard format.

2. Stopped the verification of applications by the scholarship departmentand entrusted a two-level online verification by respective institutions,which provides more correct data and made the process easy, sincethe works distributed to a larger group.

3. Departmental verification made mandatory for unaided/privateinstitutions, to avoid unauthorized and illegal applications.

4. The selection process made through system, which enables a fasterand more precise list of awarded students.

5. All reports, registers, proceedings and covering letters to institutionsgenerated through system, which reduces the time consumed andwork involved.

6. Enabled electronic transfer of scholarship amount



All the below mentioned activities (other than departmental activities) plannedare implemented and managed by the Departmental Administrator.

1. Announcing the scholarship on the site by putting banners,notifications and news.

2. Opening and closing of online registration of students for anyscholarship and its renewal are managed by the administrator. Alsoprovides options to institutions to verify and approve while studentscan only modify their registered details.

3. The eligibility conditions for any scholarships can be decided ormodified by the administrator including the decision on category ofinstitution and course to be considered for scholarship.

4. Identifying the application users and mapping their roles and activitiesare

1. Providing the selection list of students for renewal of scholarshipis managed

2. Integrating the data of A+ students for District Merit Scholarshipand Higher Secondary students for Central Sector Scholarshipare done.



A project coordinator and a website administrator from the department aredesignated for the overall monitoring of the system. Nodal Officers are identifiedfrom institutions for guiding the students and doing the institutional activities.Director and Additional Director of the department monitor the statistical progresson the registration and all levels of process.


All the staff of the department including the Special Officer Scholarship is givenextensive training on the use of the system. Awareness programes are conductedfor Arts and Science Colleges covering the entire Kerala and coordinators of otherDirectorates. Step by step instructions on the online registration procedure isprovided on the site for the guidance of students.



Stopped the acceptance of manual applications.

1. Changed to online verification and approval by institutions ratherthan doing it by the department.

2. Enabled electronic transfer of scholarship amount rather than drawingDemand Drafts for individual students.

3. Informing the application status to students and institutions by SMS.


Fully supported by the Government of Kerala. The Secretary, Director andDepartment officials supported the project.

e. Financial Model

Funded by Government of Kerala Technical Advice, and consultancy providedby National informatics centre free of cost. Data center services provided by theState Data Center of Government of Kerala.

3. Technology


The service is operational from State Data Center of Government of Kerala andhence utilizing the facilities and infrastructure in the State Data Center.


Open Source Solution used for the central database and the front end application.No extra cost required for license and maintenance.


Proper User Authentications and Website Security Features has been implemented.

Shri Ajith Brahmanandan,Technical Director, National Informatics Centre, KeralaState Unit, Thiruvananthapuram. e-mail: [email protected]



CHAPTER 31

SAND: System for AttumanalNeutral Distribution*

Shri. V Sanal Kumar and Shri. Suresh K

I) Overview

A house is one of the basic requirement and dream of every family. It is also oneof the basic amenities promised by the Government as echoed in the slogan“Roti, Kapada Aur Makkan”. Sand is one of the most essential commodities forconstruction of a building. But due to unhindered exploitation, especially ofriver sand, and considering the ecological imbalance and disasters caused theHonorable High Court of Kerala intervened for protection of the rivers fromwhich sand is mined without any control. Subsequently, Government of Keralaintroduced legislation restricting the mining of the sand from rivers. At the sametime sand is one of the most essential materials for building construction. Sincerestriction caused scarcity, the market forces started playing and the rate of sandwent up. The sand, officially available was not sufficient to meet the entirerequirements and consequently unauthorized mining started flourishing. Sincebusiness in sand became lucrative, anti - social elements thrived in unauthorizedmining and also in cornering all the officially available sand. The passes availablefrom grama panchayats were amassed by brokers and middlemen. The menacegraw to such an extent that person conducting unauthorized mining ontransportation of sand is termed as Goonda and detained without trial. This sandwas again purchased at exorbitant rate by construction firms. The cost of sandwent up to Rs.20,000/per truck load on the minimum in the open market whereaswhat the Government received only Rs.2,000/ per load of which Rs.1000/ was

389SAND-System for Attumanal Neutral Distribution

given as wages. There was public outcry against such a situation wherein ordinarycitizens especially those below BPL and below middle income group were unableto get sand at reasonable rate.

Discussion with people’s representatives, trade unions, etc. it was found thata system could be worked out to ensure that sand officially mined is given only tothe actual consumer with preference to those building own house. Sinceinformation technology is the rule of the day, a software package to ensure thatthe minimum required sand for a house building is provided to a family atreasonable rate through a centralized booking system was formulated. The SANDsoftware is the result of district administration reinforced commitment to thecitizen with the help of national Informatics Center NIC . The system aims for atransparent, online computerized booking mechanism and issue of pass forallotment of sand to citizen. The design and development of the project wasdone and successfully executed in Thrissur district with the technical assistanceof NIC.

SAND is gradually matured into a rugged and reliable product for handlingsand mining related activities in the district. Due to its success, the project wassuccessfully replicated to other mining districts like Palakakd, Idukki, Kozhikodeand Kannur of Kerala. The project brought transparency and fairness in the sandmining process.

SAND uses ICT tools to reach rural citizen. It also makes use of most moderntechnologies like RFID, barcodes and palm computers very effectively.

SAND bagged best citizen - centric e-governance award by the Governmentof Kerala.

Through this system for ‘Attumanal’ Neutral Distribution, coined ‘SAND’,the allotment of river sand will be made on a first is come first is serve basis andstrictly based on some norms. Complying to restrictions of allotments, whichhave been imposed by the Government authorities, the system will help theofficers of various Taluks/Districts to control and distribute the quantity of riversand that can be lifted from various ‘Kadavu’ in an organized and neutral manner.


The SAND ensures that only maximum 8 loads of sand is given for a houseconstruction. Even though this may not meet the entire requirement, all thepeople will get at least a minimum quantity of sand. Simultaneously, they canalso use other alternatives to make up for the shortfalls. So, the practice of entirelydepending on the scarce natural resources is reduced to a great extent. Ecologically,this is a very positive step. An individual is given sand only once for theconstruction of house. The individuals are identified through electoral identitycards. So there is no misuse of applications. Certificate from the concernedpanchayat/municipality is required for granting the sand. These steps havedrastically controlled the foul play made by the middlemen. The actual consumeris able to get the sand at Rs.2,450/ from the mining point. He can bring thevehicle of his choice to transport the sand.

The key impacts/features/goals of SAND are

1. Replacing market forms with equity and need.

2. Keeping at bay the anti-social elements.

3. Message in taken to conserve the nation.

4. Enquiring alternatives; Overall public interest; and effective sharing ofnatural resources.

5. Restricted use of natural resources; sand is available to the citizen atGovernment rates.

6. Price for a truck load reduced from Rs.15000/ to Rs.3500; no artificialinflation.

7. District administration gets full control over river sand mining.

8. Reduction in accident rate.

9. No middlemen and elimination of SAND mafia! Reduces the work load ofthe officers involved.

10. Effective use of ICT tools (citizens can now submit their application oninternet or through ICT community centers named AKSHAYA. BARCODEDpasses will be issued after remitting the money. At the mining points, RFIDtags are used along with PALM computers to distribute the sand.



1. Key Performance


Benefits Delivered:

1. Online application for SAND over internet with vernacular languagesupport, Essentiality Certificate, SAND pass, search facility, SMSservices, KIOSK modules – G2C

2. Workflow model for stakeholders – Local body and RevenueDepartment – G2G

3. MIS reports for Tehisildars, District Collector and Secretariesn localbodies – G2G

4. Financial reports for audit purpose, reconciliation – G2G

5. Barcode, RFID - based retrieval of data to Police department,stakeholders – G2G


1. Planned to introduce online payment, online search facility for policeofficers using palm computers.

2. Started with Thrissur district. Replicated to Palakakd, Kozhikode andIdukki districts of Kerala. GOK has shown interest to roll out theproject to other mining districts. Interested queries received from WestGodavari District.



1. Time and cost efficiency improvements in delivering and availing ofICT - enabled services;

2. Citizens can apply online; the application will undergo a work flowmodel with the concerned local body issuuing essentiality certificateafter site verification. This online certificate will be received by therevenue department through work flow model.


3. SAND allotment intimation will be sent to general public as SMS,through the same site. The process saves time and improves quality ofservice.

• No need of citizen to visit different offices;

• Citizen will receive the payment dates through SMS and internet

• Use of RFID and barcodes in the project saves time and preventsmisuse to some extent at the mining points.


1. Online application, work flow model and SMS services. Barcode andRFID with palm computers are used under the project for bettertransparency and faster service.

2. Key impact –

• Replacing market forms with equity and need.

• Keep at bay the anti-social elements.

• Message in taken to conserve nation.

• Enquiring alternatives, overall public interest; effective sharingof natural resources.

• Restricted use of natural resources; sand available to the citizenat Government rates.

• Price for a truck load reduced from Rs.15000/- to Rs.3500 /-,no artificial inflation.

• District administration gets full control over river sand mining.

• Reduction in accident rate.

• No middlemen and elimination of SAND mafia!

• Reduces the work load of the officers involved.

• Effective use of ICT tools (citizens can now submit theirapplication on internet or through ICT community centers


named AKSHAYA. BARCODED passes will be issued afterremitting the money. At the mining points RFID tags are usedalong with PALM computers to distribute the sand.


It is planned to integrate with local body/revenue department front officecomputerization for handling the workflow model.


1. Processes


1. Online submission of application compared to physical acceptance ofapplication at mining points at a particular date and time

2. Work flow model electronic file flow model for issuing essentialitycertificate against the passes amassed by brokers and middlemen.

3. Workflow model for revenue department up to the issue of sand passmagainst the passes through contractors.

4. Money remittance as DD in favor of District Collector by the citizensagainst temporary receipts and physical acceptance of money.

5. Collection to RMF, labor charges and local body contributionautomatically through bank against remittance of money physicallyby the stakeholders at irregular intervals.

6. Barcode, RFID and readers against manual issue of pass at the miningpoints.


1. Online submission of application compared to physical acceptance ofapplication at mining points at a particular date and time

2. Work flow model electronic file flow model for issuing essentialitycertificate against the passes amassed by brokers and middlemen.

3. Workflow model for revenue department upto the issue of sand passagainst the passes through contractors.


4. Money remittance as DD in favor of District Collector by the citizensagainst temporary receipts and physical acceptance of money.

5. Collection to RMF, labor charges and local body contributionautomatically through bank against remittance of money physicallyby the stakeholders at irregular intervals.

6. Barcode, RFID and readers against manual issue of pass at the miningpoints.



1. Project management and monitoring adopted;

2. Project overall supervision and management by the RevenueDepartment headed by the District Collectors;

3. Project monitoring by District Level Expert Committee (DLEC);

4. Periodical review conducted on assessing feedback, value additions,and training;

5. Training of internal and external members on the use of the system –planned vs. implemented;

6. Number of users trained LB : 100; Corporation Municipality : 10;Revenue department : 10. Master trainers selected from eachstakeholders.

7. Change management strategy defined and implemented;

8. This is the first project in Kerala which runs vertical/horizontal datatransfer between departments. The approved files automatically reachthe Local body, collectorates and taluks through work flow model;

9. Leadership support (political, bureaucratic) and its visibility;

10. District level monitoring committees consist of elected representativesfrom local bodies were mining points are located. District collector isthe chairman of the DLEC. Support from local body and revenuedepartment top officials.



1. Applaud from High Court of Kerala.

2. Bagged best citizen service project from GOK: http://news.kerala.nic.in/imgmulti.aspx?Id=E1267

3. Financial Model (funding pattern , business model, PPP, etc.) definedand implemented


SAND Project is self sustainable and sealable. SAND is a self - supporting venturewith no funding from exchequer. Since sand is always required for the houseconstruction, there will always be demand for the Government controlled source.So the project can be utilized for ever.SAND projects operate on self-generatedincome in the form of users fee. Rs. 25- @ truck load will be charged which isvery nominal, but sufficient to run the project.

3. Technology


The Website is hosted at Government Owned Data Centre (SDC-Kerala), whichwill take care of the backup and recovery. Locally the database is replicated andDC camp office is connected through KSWAN and a replica of the database iskept at the disaster center.


SAND is built purely on an open source web-based technology. It was built onMySQL-PHP-based software. It works on any internet browser like IE orFireFox. Core technologies like Apache, PHP and MySQL on Linux are used.Strict SAND provides the effective use of technologies like RFID and Barcodefor better security with open standards.


1. High standard USER credential setting, password using hash md5standard;


2. Work flow model purely on VPN; and

3. Public module hosted at SDC maintaining secured and confidentialitystandard.




Citizens are provided with vernacular language support in the services. Manualsand support documents are prepared in local languages. Help counters at GramaPanchayat and Taluks formed to assist citizen. Information community centrerare trained to assist citizens (Akshaya Centers)

2. eParticipation


After citizens apply for SAND on line, the file is available to the local bodiesautomatically; they will issue essentiality certificate online. Since the documentis captured at source, e-participation of authorities concerned will ensure quickdecision making.

3. eWaste


As and when an ICT item is purchased it should meet the green standard, also abuyback policy is framed to remove the e-waste.

Mr V Sanal Kumar, Ex. District Collector, Kerala, [email protected] and Shri. K Suresh,District Informatics Officer, National Informatics Center, Kerala. Shri. P M Francis,IAS, District Collector, Presented the case to the committee.

397Property Tax Management System Using Geospatial Technology

Property Tax Management SystemUsing Geospatial Technology*

Shri R Vikram Singh and Shri. U N Tiwari


CHAPTER 32

I) Overview

For the first time e-governance is GIS-enabled and forms a spatial decision supportsystem in a local government. The system has resulted in enhancing the property-based tax revenues by three times as compared to the system that existed prior tothe introduction of the GIS-based application. The other positive fallouts of thisendeavor have been:

1. Transparency in governance;

2. Reduction in delays in government processing of grievances;

3. Online tax payment and status verification facility removes intermediaryagents facilitating the same; and

4. Better revenues for investments into civic facilities.

Kanpur is a metropolitan city, sprawling over an area of 260 sq km. Accordingto the Census 2001, Kanpur has a population of 25.51 lakhs. It is administrativelydivided into 6 zones and 110 wards with an average ward population in therange of 19,000 to 26,000.

As a part of the e-governance initiatives, full form envisaged development ofan online web and GIS-based property tax calculation, information and payment


system as a pioneering effort in the country. The scope of this work covered thefollowing major activities:-

1. Creation of a GIS-based spatial property database involving:

• Procurement and supply of Quickbird Image (0.6 m resolution) forthe entire area under the KMC jurisdiction.

• Georectification of the satellite image from the GCPs collected fromDGPS survey.

• Updation of digital GIS maps of KMC with the help of geocorrectedQuickbird data and preparation of data for the assessment list.

2. Conduct a property level survey for every property unit.

3. Development of informative and interactive web GIS system for onlineproperty tax calculation and payment.

4. Development of desktop application for property database repositorymanagement and tax assessment.

5. Supply and installation of software, hardware and networking with serverand additional peripherals.

6. Training of KMC personnel

7. Renumbering of properties with unique premises number and fixing ofhouse number plates.

The scope of the work mentioned above could be categorized into the followingtwo broad components based on the requirements of the KMC project :

1. Property survey and GIS database creation

2. Application development and website development

1. Property Survey and GIS Database Creation

Quickbird satellite data was procured and georeferenced based on the ground surveyconducted to collect the GCPs through DGPS. Base data of 1:1000 scale was createdthrough digitization of satellite imagery and supplemented with secondary groundsurvey to capture information on covered/carpet area, land use, occupant’s details,


condition of structure, etc. The mapping was done using the Quickbird satellitedata forconducting the primary contact property survey.

2. Application Development and Website Development

The software development effort for the Kanpur Municipal Corporation includeddevelopment of KMC portal and desktop application.

a. Desktop Application

A desktop application was also developed as a part of the project, providing a GISinterface to perform conditional queries on database such as ‘Tax collected byZone’ or ‘Tax collected in a financial year for a selected ward’. The database islinked to spatial layers to display results of analysis and queries on GIS maps.The application also enables the KMC staff to calculate tax based on digitizedareas taking into account the Unit Area Method and generate various kinds ofreports required in the day-to-day operations of KMC. The primary focus of theapplication was to provide a server-based Geographical Information System withkey spatial layers and links to the relevant textual/graphical information availablein the database.

b. KMC Website

An interactive website was developed for KMC to provide online information tocitizens on

• Property Tax Details

a. Property tax liabilities

b. Existing status of paid taxes

c. Annual taxes due to be paid

• Online property tax calculation based on the Unit Area Method and onlinetax payment.


1. Key Performance



Benefits Delivered:

The project provides the following services to the stakeholders (citizen/governmentdepartment):-

1. An overview of the city;

2. Online property tax calculation;

3. Hassle-free online property tax payment facilities;

4. A facility to access different maps based on zones, wards and property ;

5. GIS-based spatial searching and identification of properties;

6. Online birth/death registration;

7. Online grievance redressal module;

8. Library of different forms for downloading;

9. Citizen forum for interactive discussion ;

10. Ward wise/property-wise maps with civic infrastructure details like roads,lanes, by-lanes, parks, electric poles, telephone poles, railway lines, hotels,hospitals, police stations, schools, cinema hall, etc.; and

11. The information can be used for research/development, conceptualizationof infrastructure and other projects.



1. Reduction of time in surveying the area and mapping;

2. Time saving in tax calculation;

3. Better understanding of property tax calculation;

4. User-friendly application for day-to-day tax management;

5. Web application for hassle-free tax calculation and payments;

6. Creation of GIS-based spatial property database;

7. Map-based tracking of property tax defaulters;


8. Basic information system available through RTI;

9. Revenue generation efficiency; and

10. Digital map already used in:

• Planning and revenue generation,

• Delimitation of KMC wards,

• Ward-wise Backward Population survey,

• BPL (Below Poverty Line) Survey,

• For planning, design/implementation of water supply and sewerageprojects under JNNURM.


1. Processes


information collection system changes are as follows:-

• Kanpur City Level information collection system: Kanpur citylevel information, specially the basics of the city and landmark, areavailable online.

• Property Tax Data: Property tax data which was available on paperonly, is now easily available through website.

• Tax Calculation System: Previously it was manually calculated,now it is based on software and is available on desktop throughKMC server.

• Online Birth and Death Registration: Online Birth and Deathregistration facility available previously was based on papersubmission, now it is online.

• Grievance redressal system: It is a transition from Grievance redressalon paper to Grievance redressal System on-line.

• Contribution of development of Kanpur through “Fund yourCity”: For active participation in the development of the City, wehave started a new chapter “fund your city” through which any onecan make financial, technical, managerialother contributions to the


development of Kanpur. One can suggest proposals/projects inwhich he has personal interest.

• Different types of reports based on the above-mentioned facilitiesis always available on the server or online.


• A quick and always available MIS.



Monthly review meeting system at the highest level and day to day monitoringat project management level.

Full-time Project Staff:

1. Project Administrator

2. One IT Officer

3. One GIS Coordinator

4. 20 Computer Operators

5. 50 Computer Clerks.

6. One-year consultant support for trouble shooting.


The project has covered with technology support for one year. In this periodthere will be technology transfer to KMC staff which is already working.

1. Capacity building plan.

2. Computer literacy and staff skills training of the concerned employeesis being done in-house in phases.

3. Technology transfer and training of KMC official in GIS is one of theimportant component of the project.



1. Capacity building of the present staff is being done through training andorientation.

2. The maps need regular updation which has been integrated with themap sanctioning system.

3. Quarterly return from the field information will be integrated withthe present map to keep it updated.


During the Project:

1. The project faced strong opposition from the grassroot level workers tosenior officers of the corporation itself, as it exposed the gaps and revenuesharing holes.

2. The change in the tax level directly affected the property owners wethergovernment or private which led to many litigations in the local court aswell as Honorable High Court.

3. The issue of tax revision was grabbed by the political parties and a big hueand cry was made in the parliament elections till it was stayed by the StateGovernment.

4. The details of the whole project, need of the project, modality, transparencyin the system, use of GIS and other techniques, its public interface, revenuegeneration details and the grievance redressal system to be applied in theproject was explained to the Government and Government vacated its stay.It was discussed in detail at every level to clarify the confusion createdabout the project.

5. To ensure the quality of the data three times filtration/field verificationwas done.

6. This tax revision was made after 21 years, it resulted into many fold increasein the tax amount (from three times to ten times). The major increase wasbecause of the increase in land cost rates and addition/alterations of thebuilding or the change of the use of the property (from residential to non-


residential or industry).

7. Visualizing the acceptability factor, the land cost-based rates were substantiallyreduced. The grievance redressal system was decentralized to six zonal officersunder the supervision of Deputy Municipal Commissioner to cater fast decision.This system worked actively throughout the year.

After the Project:

1. The system has been enforced completely.

2. Litigation in the courts have been decided in favor.

3. Everyone is happy because the collection is three times than the previousyear.

• Project has been listed as one of the best practice by PEARL (an initiative underJNNURM).

• A paper was presented at “Map World Forum 2009”, organized at Hyderabadin which the project was awarded Geospatial Excellence Award 2009 for“Geospatial Application for Decision Support System in Local Government.”

• A paper-based on this project was published in the Arc India News magazineJanuary-March 2009, volume-3.

• “The Indian Geospatial Award 2009", delivered by T Ramaswamy, Secretary,Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India, New Delhi. KanpurMunicipal Corporation was awarded for Utilizing Geospatial Technologies asa part of e-governance initiatives. The award recognizes the effort in SuccessfulImplementation of Technology, resulting in better revenue generation.

• A poster presentation of the project has been awarded in “ESRI India UserConference 2009-10”

• The project was awarded for SKOCH “ICT INDIA AWARDS 2010” forProperty Tax Management System, 2010 by Honorable Minister of UrbanDevelopment, Government of India Mr. Jaipal Reddy.

• Participation in various awards/workshops and paper presentation byMunicipal Commissioner and other senior officers along with project team.


e. Financial Model

It is a revenue generating project so it can sustain by the revenue generatedon its own from property tax, advertisement tax, license, etc.

3. Technology


A regular system of backup and mirror server is available.


KMC application uses the three-tier architecture based on ESRI technology. AnArcSDE service conveys spatial data between Geographic Information System(GIS) applications and a database. The system architecture uses databasemanagement systems (RDBMSs) – SQL Server with ArcSDE. It is a registeredcollection of ArcGIS feature classes. The application that can connect to andaccess spatial data from an ArcSDE service will be automatically designed in theapplication. The solution component for KMC application development anddeployment follows three-tiered system architecture as given below:

1. Presentation Tier or Client Tier where the users access the KMC applicationthrough internet browser.

2. Application Tier where the KMC application business logic resides.

3. Data Tier where the KMC application databases reside.


1. Evaluation by JNNURM e-governance Project management unit.

2. Security audit of the website whether third party by CyberQ Consulting PrivateLtd., New Delhi and APPIN Labs Ltd., New Delhi.

3. Annual audit by Auditor General, Allahabad, District Local Fund AccountAuditors.

4. User-based login system and proper log book has been maintained for eachand every record.





1. It has triggered the forced capacity building in IT for the staff as well asthe requirement of IT knowledge for the citizens and the requirement ofIT infrastructure with internet.

2. To meet the public requirements private participation has been introducedto facilitate e-participation. The 29 Cyber Cafés of the city have beenauthorized/ licensed to serve citizens on nominal payment of Rs.5-10depending upon the service requirement.

2. eParticipation


1. Apart from developing interactive website the private participation hasbeen introduced to facilitate e-participation. The 29 Cyber Cafés of thecity have been authorized/licensed to serve citizens on nominal paymentof Rs.5-10 depending upon the service requirement.

3. eWaste

e-waste is not being generated at present but compliance to the requiredstandards will be made as and when required.


1. KMC has hazardous waste dumping site, simultaneously there are twoprivate sites. It will be used in due course of time.

Shri. R Vikram Singh, Municipal Commissioner, Information Technology Department,[email protected] and Shri. U N Tiwari, Additional MunicipalCommissioner Information Technology Department, udai_amna @rediffmail.com

SECTION VI

e-Governance Success Stories

G2G & G2B Initiatives

I) Overview

Census 2011 marks a milestone in the history of Census taking in the country.It has come at a time when India is perhaps at an inflexion point in history, whenit sheds the legacy of the past and emerges among the comity of Nations as astrong, self reliant and modern Nation. The basic benchmark statistics on thestate of human resources, demography, culture and economic structure at thiscrucial juncture of the country’s history would be vital to guide and shape thefuture course of the Nation. Indian Census 2011 is the largest peacetimemobilisation of people in the world where the country’s 2.7 million trainedenumerators conducted the census for 1.21 billion people in the most economicalway and helped in generating the socio-demographic profile of the country.

With a rich history of 130 years behind us, our organization has been theonly source for giving the country’s benchmarking statistical data for the use ofthe policy planners and continues to do so in its journey.

Quite evidently there is no parallel in the country to conduct this world’slargest peacetime mobilization exercise and logistical handling of giganticproportions to impact each and every citizen in the country of 1.21 billion peopleand collect, compile, tabulate and disseminate socio-demographic data in realtime. The task is clearly mesmerizing when the linguistic, regional, rural-urban,literate-illiterate, gender-wise variations are truly and faithfully captured by

CHAPTER 33

Census of India 2011*

Dr C Chandramouli and Shri Manish Bharadwaj



training an army of over 2.7 million enumerators drawn from the teachersthroughout the country. The rich legacy of the organization engaged in this activitysince 1872 is in itself the right pointer to the solid foundation of this organizationand thus the claim made by the organization in handling the technology ofnational importance is rightful and fully deserving.

Indian Census is the single largest source of a variety of statistical informationon different characteristics of the people of India. It is the most credible source ofinformation on Demography, Economic Activity, Literacy and Education, Housing& Household Amenities, Urbanisation, Fertility and Mortality, Scheduled Castesand Scheduled Tribes, Language, Religion, Migration, Disability and many othersocio-cultural and demographic data.

With a history of more than 130 years, this reliable, time tested exercise hasbeen bringing out a veritable wealth of statistics every 10 years, beginningfrom 1872 when the first census was conducted in India non-synchronously indifferent parts.

The recently concluded Census 2011 is the 15th National Census of theCountry in the unbroken series since 1872 and the seventh after Independence.It is remarkable that the great historical tradition of conducting a Census hasbeen maintained in spite of several adversities like wars, epidemics, naturalcalamities, political unrest tec. Very few countries in the world can boast of sucha glorious tradition! The rich diversity of the people of India is truly brought outby the decennial census which has become one of the tools to understand andstudy India.

In a country like India, with multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural andmultilevel society, the Census is much more than a mere head count of thepopulation. It gives a snapshot of not only the demographic but also the economic,social and cultural profile of the country at a particular point of time. More oftenthan not, it is the only available source of primary data at the level of the villageand town (ward). It provides valuable information for planning and formulationof policies by the Government and is also used widely by National and Internationalagencies, scholars, business persons, industrialists, and many more.

411Census of India 2011

In addition, the Census provides a basic frame for conduct of other surveys inthe country. Any informed decision making that is based on empirical data isdependent on the Census. Democratic processes like the delimitation of electoralconstituencies and affirmative action like reservation are also based on the basicdata sets of the Census.

1. Methodology

The Census of India is conducted once in a decade, following an extended de factocanvasser method. Under this approach, data is collected on every individual byvisiting the household and canvassing a single questionnaire over a period of threeweeks. The count is then updated to the reference date and time by conducting aRevision Round. In the Revision Round, any changes in the entries that arise onaccount of births, deaths and migration between the time of the enumerators visitand the reference date/time is noted down and the record updated.

In Censuses until 1931, a synchronous de facto method was adopted whereinthe Census was conducted throughout the country on a single night. Thismethod, besides being costly, required the deployment of an extremely largeforce of Census takers. This method was given up in the 1941 Census and thepresent method adopted.

Census 2011 has been conducted in two phases. In the first phase, known asHouselisting and Housing Census each building, house and other structureswere systematically listed and numbered and those used for residential and partlyresidential purpose were identified. Besides, useful information on the amenitiesavailable to the households as well as the assets owned was collected. This exerciseheld between April to September, 2010 in different States/Union territories wasused to draw up a frame for the second phase of Census 2011, known as PopulationEnumeration held in February 2011.

The work of Population Enumeration commenced on 9th February, 2011 andcompleted on 28th February, 2011. During this period about 2.7 millionEnumerators visited each and every household for collecting information on everyperson living in these households. On the night of 28th February, 2011 theHouseless population was enumerated. Thereafter, in order to update the


population with reference to the census moment, i.e., 00:00 hours of 1st March,2011, the Enumerators undertook a Revision Round from 1st to 5th March, 2011,by revisiting the households and updating information on births and deathsoccurring in the households.

2. Planning for Census 2011

Freezing of Administrative Boundaries

The first step towards Census taking relates to preparation of a complete andunduplicated list of all geographical entities in the country, which includes States,Districts, Tehsils/Taluks/ Community Development (CD) Blocks and Villages/Townsat a particular point of time. For Census 2011 all administrative units in the States/UTs across the country were sought to be frozen as on 31st December 2009.

The finalisation of the Rural Urban frame, by listing out Statutory and CensusTowns and categorising them as ‘Urban area’ and the Villages as ‘Rural area’ wascompleted as part of Pre Census activities. The demarcation of Out Growths ofTowns and Urban Agglomerations was also taken up as a part of this exercise.

3. Cartography

The availability of accurate maps as per the latest administrative boundaries is aprerequisite for Census. The Cartographic Division of the Census Organization,entrusted with this work, has evolved over the years and is now the largest producerof thematic maps in the country. It has come a long way from the traditionalmanual cartographic methods used until 1981 and now utilizes the latest GISsoftware to produce digital Maps. The organization now has the largest repositoryof digital files of villages and towns. The latest addition in Census 2011 is thepreparation of satellite imagery based digital maps at the street and buildinglevel in 33 Capital Cities of the country. These digital maps were used effectivelyto carve out the Enumeration Blocks in both phases of the Census.

4. Consultation with Stakeholders

As part of the Census preparations, the First Data Users’ Conference was held inApril 2008. In this conference, consultations were held with all stakeholderscomprising representatives of various Ministries of Government of India and the


State Governments, National and International Organisations, PopulationResearch Centres, Statistical Institutions, Universities, eminent demographersand social scientists. Based on the deliberations of the Conference and othercorrespondences received a draft Questionnaire was developed.

5. Finalization of Questions

The draft Schedules were pretested in the field in all the States and UnionTerritories from 28th June to 17th August 2009. The results and the experiences ofthe pretest exercise were discussed in a Conference of the Directors of CensusOperations and a draft Questionnaires were finalized. These Schedules were thenpresented to and approved by the Technical Advisory Committee constituted forthe purpose. These final Schedules on Houselisting and Housing Census andPopulation Enumeration were then put up for the consideration of theGovernment of India. On receipt of the assent the Questions to be asked in thetwo phases of operation were duly published in the Gazette of India.

6. Printing

A feature that makes the Indian Census particularly complex is that the Schedulesare canvassed in 16 languages and the Instruction Manuals are developed in 18languages for use by the Census Enumerators/Supervisors and other functionariesin the country.

The requirement is also mind boggling – 54 lakh (or 5.4 million) InstructionManuals and 34 crore (or 340 million) Census Schedules. To add to thecomplexity, the Schedules had to be printed on special grade paper, thespecifications for which were evolved in India for the first time in consultationwith experts in scanning technology and paper technologists. The services of theNational Institute of Design, Ahmadabad were utilized to upgrade the qualityand aesthetics in the designing of the Schedules. The result is that the IndianCensus Schedule is comparable with the best in class internationally.

Unique features that make it stand out are Bar Codes in each Schedule, UniqueForm Numbers, Pre Printing of certain Location Particulars, Uniform quality ofprinting and colour dropout facility. This required printing in high end Presseshaving facility of digital printing and very high production capacity. That the


entire quantity of material has been printed within the stringent timelines andwith strict adherence to quality is a feat in itself. Approximately 12,000 MetricTons of paper of various grades has been procured for this purpose.

7. Logistics

The task of making available all the materials required for conducting the Census –Enumerators Kits, Instruction Manuals and other training material, CensusSchedules in the right quantity and in the right language to the Charge Officers(approximately 17,000 in number) as can well be imagined is a logistical nightmare.Adding to the complexity is the fact that each Charge may use material in severallanguages. The Census Commission availed the services of India Posts for transportingthe material from the printing presses to the Charge Offices (i.e., Tehsil headquartersand Municipal authorities). For supervising and monitoring an elaborate web basedmanagement system was developed by them. Though there were operationalproblems, the precision with which the entire logistics operation was accomplishedwithin a very short period of time, is remarkable.

8. Training

The need for comprehensive training of all functionaries, especially theEnumerators and Supervisors can hardly be underscored. A three tier cascade oftraining was devised for this purpose. At the top of the pyramid were a group ofNational Trainers, 90 in number. This group was rigorously trained for 5 days ata residential training camp. They then trained 725 Master Trainer Facilitators(MTFs) at the State level. The MTFs in turn trained 54,000 Master Trainers(MTs) at the District level. The MTs ultimately trained the 27 lakh (or 2.7million) Enumerators and Supervisors at the field level.

A new feature in Census 2011 has been the utilization of Non-GovernmentalAgencies in the massive training effort. In order to supplement the manpower fortraining by the Directorates of Census Operations of the States/UTs, trainedmanpower from the NGOs was also utilized. In addition, volunteers from NGOsworking in the field of disability and gender were associated with Census 2011for sensitizing the trainers at National, State and District level.


9. Publicity

All modes of Publicity Mass media, Public Relations, Outreach activities andDigital media have been used to spread awareness and enlist the cooperation ofall stakeholders. A scientific media plan was designed by a professional agencythat also created the media content in both the phases of the Census. While thegeneral theme was that of including everybody without omission, special emphasiswas laid on the issue related to such vulnerable groups as women, elderly, disabledpersons, infants and the homeless. Endorsements by different celebrities werealso broadcast. Census messages on these issues were broadcast over All IndiaRadio, Radio FM, Private Radio FM, Door Darshan and Private TV Channels.To reach different crosssections of the society, particularly the younger sections,advertisements using such digital media as popular websites were used.

10. Houselisting and Housing Census

The Census Operations in India are carried out in two phases the Houselistingand Housing Census followed by the Population Enumeration. The objective ofthe Houselisting and Housing Census is to systematically list out and numberall the buildings, houses and other structures in an Enumeration Block, identifyhouses which are residential or partly residential and collect information onhouseholds throughout the country for preparation of a sound frame for conductof the population enumeration.

The Houselisting and Housing Census was conducted in different States andUnion Territories during April September, 2010. In addition to collecting dataon characteristics of the house, information on availability of certain amenitiesand assets to the households were also collected in this first phase.

The Houselisting and Housing Census collected information on the housingand availability of amenities and assets to households. The items of informationcollected were same as in 2001 Census except that a few questions were modifiedto elicit more accurate information. These include modifications in collectinginformation on: Source of drinking water, Type of latrine, Availability of computer/laptop and mobile phone to households.


11. Population Enumeration

The Population Enumeration or the second phase of Census 2011 was held from9th to 28th February 2011 throughout the country as stated above. In the snowbound areas this exercise was held 11th to 30th September 2010 with referencedate as on 1st October 2010.

There were a few modifications and addition in the Household Schedulecanvassed for collecting information on each individual residing in the countryin comparison to Census 2001. These included:

• Preprinting of Location particulars up to District level

• Printing of Bar Codes/Form Number

• Colour dropout in the Schedules to facilitate scanning

• Linking of Houselisting data with Population Enumeration data

• Tracking system in case of more than one form is used

• Collection of information on the Institutional Households

• Recording other Gender than male or female

• Date of birth

• Separate Codes for ‘Divorced’ and ‘Separated’ under Current marital status

• More descriptive Codes to capture information on Disability

• Separate codes for persons who have never attended any educationalinstitution and persons who have attended earlier under Status of currentattendance in educational institution. An additional code for recordingpersons attending special institution for the disabled has also been added.

Categorisation of Marginal Worker into two categories – those who workedfor 3 months or more but less than 6 months and those who worked for less than3 months including a category of ‘Others’ under noneconomic activities to accountfor commercial sex workers and persons involved in illegal activities. A new codefor ‘rentier’ has also been introduced.



1. Key Performance


1. Geographical Spread of activity: States and Districts covered

In the Census of India 2011 operations, the team of all the DCOs, PCOs,Charge Officers and 2.7 million Enumerators & Supervisors had mappedthe entire country in the 35 States & UTs consisting of 640 Districtswhich were subdivided in 5,961 Sub-Districts consisting of 8,001 Townsand 640,852 Villages.

Approximately, in all 240 Million Households in the country were coveredtwice in the course of the two phases of the Census Operations in thecountry.

2. Approximate Number of people impacted

Thus, each and every person in the country was impacted. In all,approximately 1.21 billion people living in 240 million households werecovered in Census of India 2011 operation. In fact, all the persons residingin normal households, institutional households and even shelterless andhomeless people were also covered. The team of 2.7 million functionarieseffectively covered the last man standing across the length and breadth ofthe country.

3. Declaration of Provisional Population Results – Census 2011

After the completion of the Population Enumeration phase of Census 2011,the Provisional Population of the country and for each State was declaredby the Census Commissioner, India within a month on 31st March 2011,a feat not known to have any parallel in the world. The ProvisionalPopulation Totals are arrived at by compiling the summary report (knownas Enumerator’s Abstract) from every Enumerator.

The salient points of the Census 2011 Provisional Results are as follows:

The country’s population stood at slightly over 1.21 billion as on 1st March2011.


1. The population of India increased by 181 million since the last Census in2001, recording a growth of 17.6% compared to 21.5% during 1991-2001.

2. This slowing down of growth in population is seen in most of the Statesincluding the large ones, like Uttar Pradesh (from 25.85% in 1991-2001to 20.09% in 2001-11), Maharashtra (from 22.73% to 15.99%), Bihar28.62% to 25.07%), Madhya Pradesh.

3. The overall Sex Ratio of population, an index to measure the sex compositionof the population and expressed in terms of number of females per 1000thousand males, showed an increase from 933 in 2001 to 940 in 2011 inthe country.

4. However a matter of overwhelming concern is the decline in Child SexRatio (0 to 6 years) from 927 in 2001 to 914 in 2011, a drop of 13points, lowest since Independence in the country.

5. The overall Literacy Rate (of population above 6 years of age) reached74% from 64.8% in 2001 Census in the country.

6. It was most satisfying to find that the number of female literates (agedabove 6 years) in the country have grown by about 49.1% in the lastdecade. The Female Literacy Rate has recorded an appreciable increasefrom 53.6% to 65.4% in 2011.


The scale of operations of the Census of India 2011 was truly gigantic. To covereach and every 240 million households in the country with its intrinsic cultural,linguistic diversity and to capture correctly and comprehensively the responsesto the questionnaire through an army of duly trained 2.7 million enumeratorsand supervisors within a short span of three weeks could not have beenaccomplished but through a well thought out strategy as has been the traditionin the organization.

Succinctly put, the success depended on the way the questionnaire was draftedto keep put any biases, discriminatory predilections of the canvasser or thecanvassed. It also dwelled primarily on how the training was envisaged and delivered


throughout the country in a cascaded manner flowing from the national level tothe state and through it to the district, sub-district and tehsil level. The trainingmaterial and their content along with defined pedagogy determined that the 2.7million enumerators culled out from the primary level schools in the countrywere well equipped to undertake the operations. The idea was to impart a distinctidentity of the enumerators so that they could easily establish a rapport with thegeneral public whenever they visited their homes.

The organizational setup consisting of the administrative machinery of theState, Districts and the Charge Officers were also equipped with due executiveauthority and were properly trained to oversee the largest peacetime deploymentin the contemporary times. The difficulty of the task was enhanced due to theissues of naxalism/militancy in certain States which had to be tackled for thesuccessful conduct of the operations.

Moreover, the leveraging of the Department of Posts to deliver the 340 millionschedules to all the 17000 charges in the country along with the training materialsand stationery meant for the enumerators and supervisors and also to return thefilled in schedules from the enumerators and delivering to the Data CaptureCentres of the Directorates of Census ensured that the logistical nightmare waseffectively and efficiently dealt with.

The deployment of advanced ICR technology for scanning and digitizing theinformation scattered in 340 million schedules was also duly strategized and theprovisional demographic details of the country were put before the people ofIndia in a record time of 30 days.

1. Complete and Unduplicated Coverage of the entire population of India.

• In any Census, the most important aspect is the complete coverage of thegeographic area of the country without any omission or duplication. Thisrequires the updating of jurisdictional boundaries at all levels. In order toconduct the Census 2011, the changes in administrative boundaries of 35States/Union Territories, 640 districts, 5,924 sub-districts, 7,935 Townsand 6,40,867 Villages were meticulously collected along with officialnotifications and maps. There was an increase of 47 Districts, 461 Sub


Districts, 2774 Towns and 2279 Villages in Census 2011 as compared toCensus 2001. Each of these changes was digitised using the latest GISsoftware. The Census of India is the only Organisation in the country withthe digitised cartographic data base of the entire country with the latestadministrative boundaries.

• In addition, digital maps of 33 capital cities of the country based on satelliteimagery were prepared. These maps show detailed layout of buildings,houses, other structures, road network and important landmarks. Thesestructures have been systematically numbered by visiting each one of them.Some basic details like type of construction of the house, number of floors,usage (residential/non-residential) and the approximate number of peopleliving in these houses were also collected. Enumeration Blocks were thencarved out scientifically. This facilitated equitable balancing of work loadand complete coverage.

• In rural areas, a printout of every village boundary map was given to eachSupervisor in the country. This ensured that no area was left out orduplicated.

• A geographical Directory was also prepared giving a unique identificationCode to each and every administrative unit in the country. This is the onlysuch Geographical Directory in the country. The Department ofInformation Technology is in the process of declaring this Directory andthe methodology for its updation as the National Standard for the country.

2. Quality of content.

• Designing of the Census Schedules: Two types of Questionnaire, known inCensus as Schedules, are canvassed for the two phases of Census. In Census2011, the work of designing the Schedules was entrusted to the NationalInstitute of Design, Ahmadabad who came up with brilliant designs, whichwere easy to use, aesthetically developed, easy to scan and comparable tothe best in the world. The Schedules had several unique features like BarCode, Unique Form Number, drop-out color from a standard palette, edgecutting for proper alignment, pre printing of certain location particularsand many more. All these helped in collecting quality information and


better inventory management, a nightmare in the past. These features havegreatly enhanced the processing of data.

• Training: One of the most critical elements in Census is the training of thefield Enumerators who collect information. Unless the 2.7 millionfunctionaries are clear about the concepts and methodology, the quality ofdata collected will suffer. In Census 2011, a three-tier training hierarchywas put in place with National Trainers (90 in number) at the countrylevel, Master Trainers Facilitators (725) at the State level and Master Trainers(54,000) at the District level. It was the responsibility of the Master Trainersto train 2.7 million Enumerators/Supervisors at the grass root level, a ratioof just 50 Enumerators per Master Trainer.

• In 2011 Census, after detailed evaluation and consultation with experts inthe field, the Manual was substantially improved by incorporating suitableillustrations and examples. In addition Training Guides for use by thetrainers at each stage of training was prepared. For the first time detailedagenda showing minute to minute programme was prepared for the threeor five day training as the case may be. The Guide not only focused onelaborating concepts and methodology in Census but also covered suchaspects as communication, rapport building etc. One important additionto the basket of training aids was the introduction of eLearning moduleson important census concepts. In this eLearning module animationcharacters representing Enumerators and Respondent(s) were shown actuallydelivering the dialogues and asking questions, as should ideally be done inthe field. These visual and animation examples became an instant hit withthe Trainees. In places where there was no electricity, trainees were askedto enact the role plays as in the eLearning Modules by enacting the scenesas per scripts included in the Training Guide. All these innovative measureshelped in imparting quality and uniform training to the four levels oftrainee from the National Trainers to the Enumerators.

• Publicity Campaign in Census 2011: For any large scale operations likeCensus Operations to succeed, undertaking adequate publicity campaignis an important element. Adequate sensitization of the people is a pre-requisite as Census aims to collect personal information on each individual


residing in the country at the time of Census. It is also important to focuson proper enumeration of such critical aspects as gender and disability inthe population. Due to various socio-cultural reasons, it has been foundthat in many parts of the country, the respondents do not share informationon these sensitive subjects. Consequently the information collected on thesegroups suffer from inaccuracies. The aim of the publicity campaign wasnot only to request the people to extend cooperation when the Enumeratorvisits them but also to make them aware about the critical issues.

• In absence of adequate in-house expertise, the work of devising the entirecampaign was assigned to reputed advertising agencies in the country withsupport from the UN Agencies. Backed by a team of Resource Personsfrom the Census Office, they developed media plan and all the creatives toreach both rural and urban segments of the population in different agegroups using different regional languages. Elaborate campaign was plannedand executed by using mass media, public outreach and digital media toachieve the objectives. The basic modules in Hindi were translated in 12languages for use in different parts of the country. The media plan wasprepared using the latest reports available on reach of media in differentparts of the country using different modes on a scientific basis. The totalexpenditure on publicity was about Rs 60 crores in the two phases.

• The Census Office used the media plan recommended by the AdvertisingAgencies and placed orders with DAVP (for print and electronic media),All India Radio and Door Darshan for execution with slight amendmentsas suggested by the latter wherever necessary.

• Census in School programme: To sensitize the school students about theensuing Census 2011 an innovative programme was introduced throughoutthe country, where specially prepared and attractively designed School Kitswere sent to about 60 to 80 schools in each of the 593 districts in thecountry. Each School Kit contained a letter from the Census Commissioner,India to the Principals of these schools requesting them to sensitize thestudents about the ensuing Census 2011 and also about the importanceand the utility of Census. Special attention was paid to the students ofClass VI, VII and VIII, for whom special lessons were sent on different


subjects. The Census Commissioner, India also requested the Principals todesignate one week in January 2011 as Census Week to develop awarenessabout Census 2011. To generate curiosity among the students of thesethree classes a pack of cards with Census Quiz and their answers were alsosent with the request to hold the Quiz in the Census Week. The programmegenerated huge interest among school students and achieved the objectiveof sensitizing them so that when the Census Enumerators visited theirhouse they were welcome.

• Gender Sensitization: Even though gender had been a prominent cross-cutting priority in 2001 Census, data related to female count, maritalstatus, female headed households, female disability and female work-participation has continued to suffer from under count or under reporting.The 2001 census enumerated several villages/districts that had reportedvery few women, very low female literacy and no female worker. To ensurecollection of accurate information an attempt to integrate gender issuesinto various stages of the census taking has been undertaken and brieflydescribed in this note. Firstly, gender critical districts were identified onthe basis of three criteria emerging from the 2001 Census. These were:overall sex ratio, female literacy and female work participation. Theadvantages of using these three indicators are that they reflect the status ofthe women and additionally enable analysis at the lowest disaggregatedlevel, i.e. village level. Thus, districts with low sex ratio (less than 900);low female literacy (less than 30%) or low female work participation rate(less than 20%) were identified on the basis of 2001 Census. In this way262 Critical Districts was identified for focused attention and training.Special steps were taken to appoint additional Master Trainer Facilitatorsto sensitize the Enumerator on gender issues and train them in collectingauthentic information on this vulnerable section of the population. SpecialData Sheets and Posters were prepared and displayed at each training classto sensitize the Enumerators on the poor status of women with referenceto these three critical indicators. Extra effort was also made during thepublicity campaign to sensitize the people to provide correct informationabout women and the girl child at the time of enumeration.


• Using Social Networking websites: With the overwhelming popularity ofthe social networking sites among the youth today, for the first time, inCensus 2011, a conscious effort was made to reach them directly. Census2011 Group was created on Facebook and Twitter in the first week ofFebruary 2011 and regular posts were made initially informing the visitorsabout different facets of Census in general and Census 2011 in particularinviting their support in spreading the message on Census. Within a shorttime a large number of persons, mostly from the younger sections of thepopulation, became members and actively posted views on the wall. Theexperience was quite satisfactory as most of the posts complimented theefforts while a few pointing about not being covered in Census 2011.Immediate action was taken to redress their grievances. The site was alsoused for disseminating information on Census 2011 extensively. At presentthere are more than 19,000 members on this Group. Similarly on Twitteras well the members welcomed the Census in the new initiative. It maynot be out of place to mention that the Census Commissioner, India wasawarded Exceptional Achievement in Gov 2.0 for its innovative use of socialmedia in the country’s biggest governance exercise by Gov2.in Award –2011.

3. Time bound completion of field operations and timely release of data.

• Using State of the Art data recognition technology in data capture anddata processing: The Census Office has always been in the forefront in theadoption of latest data processing technology in the processing of censusdata. At 2001 Census, for the first time a major technology change in thevital activity of data extraction recorded on the Census Schedule and creatingassociated computer data files was introduced, so as to fully computerizethe subsequent data processing activities in generating output tables foruse. India was the only large country in the world to have used thistechnology in 2001 Census. Up to the 1991 Census, more than 150Regional Tabulation Offices throughout the country for compiling village/ward-in-town level information to generate Primary Census Abstracts.Subsequent data entry was undertaken in 1991 Census manually.

• In the new technology used, the Census Schedules were scanned using


high speed duplex scanners and information read using ICR technology.When the Census Office adopted this technology in India, it was considereda risk by many as the technology had been used only by a few small countriesand not tested for a large country. This innovation by the Indian Censusnot only saved time and money but allowed accurate capture of data aswell. Another major benefit in adopting this technology was that it allowedthe Census to tabulate the entire data on a 100% basis than on a samplebasis as was the case till 1991 Census.

• Adoption of ICR technology for data capture in Indian Census is a majordecision as it involved capturing information from Census Schedules in 16languages. The Census Office developed its own checks and balances toensure that the data capture is error free. For this purpose, the CensusSchedules were freshly designed, appropriate drop-out colours were usedin printing the Schedules, Bar Codes and pre-printing of location codeswere introduced for better inventory management, high speed scannerswere used to scan the 340 million Schedules and ICR software used tocapture the numeric data accurately. Subsequently Computer Aided Coding(CAC) was used to primarily capture the alpha data or data in textual formfrom the Schedules.

• Using the ICR technology not only saved time for data capture and datatabulation thus ultimately making it available to the users early but alsowas very cost effective saving public money.

• Despatch and delivery of Census material: In Census 2011, approximately340 million Census Schedules, 6 million Instruction Manuals, and otherprinted materials in 18 languages were used. The despatch and delivery ofthese Census materials weighing about 2000 metric tons, printed in theright language(s) from about twenty printing presses located in differentparts of the country and delivering them to about 17,000 locations in eachtehsil in the country was a logistic nightmare. After the operations, the filled-in Schedules were to be collected and delivered to the 17 Data ScanningCentres and the 33 Census Offices. This job of collection, delivery and returncollection was given to Indian Posts who used their Logistic Post Service todeliver the material in each tehsil in the country, safely and securely and in


time. A database of the requirement of census material by language(s) wasprepared by the Census Office in advance, which also had information onvarious other key details, like location of the press, language in which printed,place of delivery, etc. Pre-printing of location codes on the schedules alsocomplicated matters. The material in the right languages, in the right quantitywere packed in specially designed boxes supplied by Department of Postsand were delivered to the right location in time. They also introduced a webbased management system to book and later track the movements of thematerial and also sent daily MIS on it. With their expert services the IndiaPosts were able to complete the work in a time satisfactorily.

• Public Grievances and Monitoring: A Call Centre was set up to receivecomplaints from the public on various issues relating to PopulationEnumeration. Located in Pune, the facility was extended in 14 languagesthroughout the country. The complaints on non-coverage and other issueswere quickly resolved with support from the local Census Offices. The CallCenters facility was also used to monitor the progress of enumeration workby directly contacting the Supervisions. At the conclusion of the PopulationEnumeration exercise, they have been assigned the job of Post EnumerationSurvey (PES) in four metro cities.

• Outsourcing of non-critical activities: Undertaking the Census Operationrequires planning and execution of a wide array of activities, somedemanding serious application of mind and some other simply involvinglogistics and infrastructure. The scale of operations in all cases, however,was gigantic, due to the geographic spread and absence of adequateinfrastructure in the country. It was decided in the planning stage itself tooutsource non-critical activities in Census 2011 to allow Census Officialsto focus more on Census related activities than managing logistics.

4. Optimising Costs.

• The most important way of optimizing cost in Census 2011 was theadoption of data scanning and data capturing technology. Prior to 2001Census, temporary field offices were set up for about 2 years in almost alltehsils in the country to undertake initial tabulation of the data collectedby the Enumerators. This involved huge expenditure towards hiring of


about 300 to 500 persons per location, incurring all the establishmentcosts while setting up of the office. In Census 2001 and Census 2011,adoption of ICR technology enabled scrapping of the requirement of settingup of temporary field offices in more than 5,000 locations in the country.

• Another area of optimization of costs was in availing the services of NGOsin training made available by the UN Agencies.

• Availing the services of reputed Advertizing Agencies in creating publicitymaterials and preparing media plan for use in House-listing and HousingCensus as well as in Population Enumeration phases helped in gettinghigh quality input without incurring any expenditure.


1. eParticipation

In the Census of India 2011 operations, the team of all the DCOs, PCOs, ChargeOfficers and 2.7 million Enumerators & Supervisors had mapped the entirecountry in the 35 States & UTs consisting of 640 Districts which were subdividedin 5,961 Sub-Districts consisting of 8,001 Towns and 640,852 Villages.

Approximately, in all 240 Million Households in the country were coveredtwice in the course of the two phases of the Census Operations in the country.Thus, each and every person in the country was impacted. In all, approximately1.21 billion people living in 240 million households were covered in Census ofIndia 2011 operation. In fact, all the persons residing in normal households,institutional households and even shelterless and homeless people were also covered.The team of 2.7 million functionaries effectively covered the last man standingacross the length and breadth of the country.

The challenge was the vastness & diversity of the country where mapping ofeach and every inch of its territory, each and every individual and household wasto be completed in a span of just three weeks. There were snow-bound areaswhere accessibility remains a critical issue, hence the Population Enumeration insuch areas were done in the month of September, 2010 instead of February,2011 elsewhere in the country.


The linguistic diversity of the country also posed a challenge in the framing up ofthe Census Questionnaire as it had to be in the local language itself. Great care andcaution was maintained so that the questionnaire was linguistically correct. In all,340 million questionnaires were printed in 16 languages.

The issue of Naxalites in States of Chattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal and difficultareas of North-Eastern States and militancy infested J&K were also importantissues handled by the local Directorates of Census Operations and their footsoldiers - Enumerators and Supervisors.

Besides, the other very relevant but complex issue was that of the logisticsinvolved in the entire process. The first challenge was the design of thequestionnaire. The questionnaire used in Census 2011 was specially designedwith unique features, like special quality paper, bar coding, unique formnumbering, special drop-out colours and pre-printing of certain data fields. These340 million Census Schedules were printed in 16 languages at the high-end-processes with state-of-the-art equipment to carry out digital variable printingwith consistent quality. Other materials like the Instruction Manuals (5.4 million)etc. were printed in government and private presses.

2. eWaste

Adoption of Green Technology: Registrar General & Census Commissioner, Indiasupervised and monitored the progress of the Census Operations through videoconferences with all the 640 District Collectors every week. The video conferencingtechnology saved huge amount of money which otherwise would have beennecessary if the supervision team practically travelled to all the places or issuedinstructions through letters or correspondences.

Availing Call Centre facility to address public grievances during census helpedin spreading green technology.

Shri. Dr C Chandramouli, IAS, Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India,Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India, Ministry of HomeAffairs, Govt. of India, [email protected] and Shri. Manish Bharadwaj, Director,Census Operations, Gujarat Directorate of Census Operations, Govt. of Gujarat,[email protected]; [email protected]

429e-Panjeeyan

Shri Deepak Goswami and Shri Devajit Bhattacharyya

CHAPTER 34

e-Panjeeyan*


I) Overview

e-Panjeeyan is designed and developed by NIC Assam State Center and is based onJEE and MySQL with an object oriented approach as per the rules of RegistrationAct. It is designed with function specific modules, managing the processes as per therole assigned to the user of the system. The main functionalities facilitated by thesystem are:

1. Automates and manages the complete workflow of sub-registrar office, whichinclude capturing of fees and stump duty details, parties, witnesses etc. details.Scanning and storage of registered document, capturing and storage of photos,finger prints of parties involved in the process of registration and assessmentof stamp duty, registration fees based on the market value of the property andvarious MIS reports.

2. Interoperability with land record system, e-stamping for verification ofownership and exchange of data with land record system and verificationof e-stamp and locking of the e-stamp respectively.

3. Facilities export transaction data from sub-registrar to central server forstorage.

4. Additionally, it provides facility to register marriage as per the IndianMarriage Act.


The software covers the entire cycle of a deed registration right from deedpresentation to issue of the deed. It has been implemented in thirteen sub-registraroffices out of total 77; the rest will be covered by December 2011. After theimplementation of e-Panjeeyan, it has become possible to deliver the originaldocuments of registration on the same day, which used to take several years inthe pre-computerization days. This is one of the most visible benefits to citizensthat accrued from computerization. This has also increased the number ofregistered deeds in a day and has increased the government revenue. Also, theinstant assessment of stamp duty and registration fee as provided in the e-Panjeeyansoftware, has reduced the involvement of middlemen in the registration process.

The Revenue and Disaster Management Department (R&DM), Governmentof Assam has initiated the state-wide roll-out of computerization of Registration,which is implemented under the Asian Development Bank funded AssamGovernance & Public Resource Management Project (AGPRMP). In Assam thereare 77 Sub-Registrar Offices (SRO) out of which 4 SROs were covered under thePilot Project sponsored by the Department of Information Technology, Governmentof India’s ‘Horizontal Transfer of Successful e-Governance Programme’ scheme.After successful implementation of pilot project, it has been replicated in another9 SROs. The remaining 64 SROs will be computerized under the current scheme ofstate-wide roll-out.

The software solution (e-Panjeeyan) for the computerization of registrationproject has been provided by National Informatics Center (NIC), Assam StateCenter; this software is based on JEE and MySQL developed with an objectoriented approach. The software is designed as per the rules of Registration Actand built with the objective of providing operational and decision-making supportto all activities of SRO. The application software provides solutions for the Pre-Registration, Registration and Post-Registration activities of SRO. It also supportsweb services for interoperability with land record system, e-stamping and exportingdata to central server for data storage.

The primary objectives of e-Panjeeyan are as follows:

1. Computerized system to provide services to the citizen.

431e-Panjeeyan

2. Visible enhancement of citizen services through reduction in service deliverytime.

3. Enhance transparency and accountability in the system.

4. Increased efficiency of operations.

5. To integrate with the land record system, e-stamping, and central serverfor data storage.

Benefits accrued from the system to its stakeholders are as follows:

To the Citizen:

1. Transparency in the registration process by automatic stamp duty andregistration fees calculation on the basis of the type of document andassessed market value for property.

2. One-stop services related to registration and obtaining the originalregistered document on the same day.

3. Simplified the registration procedures for obtaining certified copies ofdocuments, non encumbrance certificate, and marriage certificate. misreports for monitoring, enhanced speed, reliability and consistency of thesystem.

4. Online query on registered documents and its retrieval.

5. Digitization of photographs and finger prints to ensure genuine witnesses,executants and claimants.

To the Department:

1. Ease of administration.

2. Reduced manual work.

3. Reduced process delays.

4. Easier tracking of all the registered documents.

5. Online verification of land records database and e-stamping.

6. Automatic generation of all meaningful MIS reports.

7. Modernization of SROs.

8. Increased government revenue.


Some salient features of e-Panjeeyan are :

1. Assessment of fees and stamp duty based on the document-type.

2. Auto-generation of serial number of the document presented.

3. Generation of enquiry slip.

4. Scanning of documents and biometric inputs (i.e. digital photo and fingerimpression of the first party, second part, witnesses, etc.) after theendorsement is completed.

5. At the end of the day, generation of accounting figures viz, the total receiptof fees, its article-wise break-up, stamp duty and additional stamp duty.

6. Searching and printing of a document based on certain criteria.

7. Registration of marriage as per the Indian Marriage Act.

8. Generation of MIS reports.


1. Key Performance


Benefits Delivered:

The core (G2C, G2B, G2G and G2E) services offered by the system are as follows:

1. Government to Citizen (G2C):

• Assessment of Stamp Duty and Registration Fee based on Document typeand Market Value.

• Registration of all type of documents.

• Issue of non-encumbrance certificate

• Issue of certified copies of documents

• Issue of system generated form for mutation (Form No.10)

• Issue of Marriage Certificate under Indian Marriage Act.

2. Government to Business (G2B) :

The system is integrated with e-stamping system for verifying and locking of thecertificate issued by Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited (SHCIL) bythe Sub-Registrar after registering the document.

433e-Panjeeyan

3. Government to Government (G2G):

The services offered by the system for the government are as follows:

• Various reports for the sub-registrar.

• Integration with the land record system for verifying the ownership details ofland and exchange of registration data with land record system for mutation.

• Integration with central server for posting of transactional data from SROlocation to central server for storage and generation of various MIS reportsas per the requirement of IGR.

• User role to the Circle Officer for online verification of the registereddeed.


Following are the services/functionalities enhanced during the year:

1. Biometrics authentication-based endorsement of the deed/document bythe Registering Officer.

2. Integration with

• E-stamping system for verifying and locking of the certificate issued bySCHIL by the Sub-Registrar after registering the document.

• Land record system for verifying the ownership details of land and exchangeof registration data with land record system for mutation.

• Central server for posting of transactional data from SRO location to CentralServer for storage and generation of various MIS reports as per therequirement of IGR.

3. User role to the Circle Officer for verifying the registered deed.

4. Issue of

• System generated form for mutation (Form No. 10)

• Hindu Marriage Certificate under the Indian Marriage Act.

5. Storage of reference document related to deed/document.


Started as a Pilot Project in Sonitpur district covering 4 (four) SROs , and replicated


in another 7 districts (covering 9 SROs). The remaining 64 SROs will be computerizedunder the current scheme of state-wide roll-out sponsored by the Asian DevelopmentBank funded Assam Governance and Public Resource Management Project(AGPRMP) by the end of December 2011.



1. Substantially reduced the time to

• Issue of original document after registration from a few years to a few hours.

• Issue of certified copy of the document and non-encumbrance certificates fromdays to a few minutes.

• Instant assessment of stamp duty and registration fees based on document typeand market value.

• Manual copying of the document for preservation is replaced by scanningof the document which significantly reduces the time required for copyingthe document.

2. Cost savings for delivering the above set of services.

• e-Panjeeyan helped Sub-registrar Offices to handle larger number ofdocument registrations for the citizens and provide services withoutappointing additional staff.

• e-Panjeeyan is developed in Open source J2EE platform using Glassfishapplication server with MySQL as RDBMS which helped to save a largeamount in comparison with the proprietary software.


1. Fast and efficient scanning of registered document for storing and retrievalwhich replaced the previous tedious process of manual copying of the entiredeed.

2. Integrated Java applet in web - based application, e-Panjeeyan, for utilizingresources, viz., scanner, web camera and finger print devices installed atthe client system.

3. Use of biometrics for

435e-Panjeeyan

• Endorsement of the deed/document by the Registering Officer.

• Capturing images and finger prints of parties, witnesses and identifiers involvedin the registration process.

• Supports web services for interoperability with

4. Land record system for verifying ownership details and posting registrationrelated data to land record system for mutation.

5. e-Stamping issued by SHCIL for verifying the certificate and locking thecertificate.

6. Central server for posting transactional data from SRO to the central serverfor storage.

7. System is developed in J2EE technology with MySQL as RDMS tomaintain portability to any platform with minimum effort.


1. e-Panjeeyan supports web services for interoperability with

• Land record system for verifying ownership details and posting registrationrelated data to land record system for mutation.

• e-Stamping issued by SHCIL for verifying the certificate and locking thecertificate.


1. Processes


1. Previous versions of e-Panjeeyan were Windows client-sever applicationwhich has been replaced by web based user interface with multi-browsersupport and it reduces client side application configuration.

2. Uses of Java applet for scanning and bio-metrics devices installed at clientsystem.

3. Flexible reporting in different printable formats like PDF and Excel usingJasper Report.

4. Biometrics - based authentication for endorsement of the deed/documentby the Registering Office.

5. User interface for interoperability with e-Stamping and land record system.

6. User Interface for posting transaction data to central server.



1. Database changed from Proprietary (i.e., MS SQL Server 2005) to open-source(MySQL).

2. Scanned documents, captured photos and finger prints are now stored as binarydata in the MySQL database Server instead of storing in file server.

3. Maintains un-posted transactional data to be sent to central server for storage.

4. Configurable role - based access control, password management and sessionmanagement.

5. The previous process of manual copying of deeds has been replaced byscanning resulting in a big saving of time.



Revenue and Disaster Management Department, Government of Assam, hasconstituted a Project Steering Committee at the top level which is responsible fordecision on key approval points and progress reviews at all project milestones.


The training of sub registrar and office staff has been implemented and planed asfollows:

S. No. Training Details and Location Concerned Officials No. of Days

1. Training of Sub-Registrars, Sub-Registrars, IGR Officials, Revenue 5 days

IGR Officials, Department & DM Department Officials.

Officials at Assam Survey &

Settlement Training Center.

2. Training of Sub-Registrar Sr. Sub-Registrars/Sub-Registrars and 4 days

Staff at District HQs. Sub-Registrar Office Staff

(Clerks, Extra Writers, etc.).

3. Hands on Training at SR Sub-Registrars and Sub-Registrar Office 3 days

Offices Staff (Clerks, Extra Writers etc.).

As on date (mid-August 2011), the following training programs have beencompleted:

1. Training of Sub-Registrars, IGR Officials, Department officials.

437e-Panjeeyan

2. Training of Master Trainers.

3. Training of Sub-Registrar Staff at District HQs completed for twelve districts.


Training on basic ICT skills and application software is used as an effective tool ofthe Change Management Plan for skill building and creating an interest aroundthe project and also for providing confidence to the employees about the changeprocess and its benefits which ensures least resistance from employees with regardto changes in the processes and systems.

Feedback analysis and corrective action are used to follow-up with the employees tounderstand how the changes are working. The feedback gathered helps in developingcorrective actions and post-implementation change management activities.


The department is headed by Shri. V K Peparsonia, IAS, Principal Secretary to theGovernment of Assam, Revenue and Disaster Management Department. Theleadership, valuable advice and suggestions given by the Principal Secretary forthe utilization of the advanced technology of the ICT are incredible. He is alwayskeen to fulfill the vision and goals of the ICT initiatives of the department.

e. Financial Model

1. Funding pattern:

This is a Government-owned project implemented by Revenue and DisasterManagement Department and the technical support is provided by NIC AssamState Center. The project will be rolled out under the scheme of state-wide rolloutof computerization of Sub-Registrar Office sponsored by the Asian DevelopmentBank funded Assam Governance and Public Resource Management Project(AGPRMP).

2. Business model:

The service delivery, i.e., delivery of Original Deed is on charge basis so as to make thesystem self-sustaining. The payment of service charges is made by the citizen. Therevenue generated from service charges will be managed by a district level IT society.


3. Technology


The application software provides data protection via replication of data from localdatabase to centralized network-based storage at state level. The solution is policy-based replication of business-critical data from the local site to the disaster recoverysite over Assam State Wide Area Network (ASWAN). The central data centermaintains consistent, accurate records of database to ensure immediate, smoothrecovery from site failures and achieve continuous business operations in case ofdisaster. The server at central data center will be connected with Storage AreaNetwork (SAN) located at NIC Guwahati which supports data replication to remoteDR site located at NIC Hyderabad.


1. Technology used

• Presentation: JSF and Applet.

• Model: Java POJO classes

• Web Service: Java API for XML Web Services (JAX-WS)

• Application Server: GlassFish

• Database: MySQL Community version

2. The four layers used in the system are

• The client layer has web browser through which users can interact withthe system.

• The presentation layer contains the tag libraries, Applets and JSP.

• The business layer contains business components, workflow components,validation and security components and the web service interfacecomponent.

• The data access layer contains the data access components.


1. All users have been assigned user id and password (encrypted) with appropriaterole to access the system to ensure reliability and confidentiality at theimplementation level.

439e-Panjeeyan

• Configurable account locking feature on multiple failed login attempts.

• Configurable session management with time out.

• Password policy implemented as follows:

2. Minimum 8 characters with 2 upper case, 2 lower case, 2 numeric and 2special characters.

• Configurable password expiry.

3. Biometrics authentication based endorsement of the deed/document bythe Registering Officer.

Shri Deepak Goswami, Senior Technical Director and State Informatics Officer, NIC,Government of Assam, [email protected] and Shri Devajit Bhattacharyya, TechnicalDirector, DIT, Government of Assam, [email protected]


I) Overview

State is keen to enhance quality of service rendered to community. To enhance thequality level, State Government is trying to bring transparency as much as possiblefor Developmental Projects undertaken by Decentralized District Planningprogramme so that various schemes get implemented timely and successfully. Tomeet this objective of government, iOjN 4 Planning (Integrated Online Junctionon Net for Decentralised District Planning), a web enabled application operatingon intranet as well as on internet is developed and implemented successfully.

System designing is done with the help of Problem Analysis Technique andStakeholder Analysis Technique having module concept. Elimination of multipletimes data entry, curtail the cross checking process resulting into increasing inreliability values.

Important feature of the system is it captures data in local language. Unicodefont is used for such bilingual support. The other important feature of this systemis to disseminate all sort of information pertaining to Developmental Project.Uploading of photograph at three stages, viz pre execution of DevelopmentalProject, during execution of Developmental Project and after completion ofexecution of Developmental Project are also incorporated.

Shri V N Maira and Dr. Hiten Parekh

CHAPTER 35

Integrated Online Junction on Net forDecentralised District Planning

(iOjN 4 Planning)

441Integrated Online Junction on Net for...

Thus this application facilitates citizen for scrutiny & monitoring ofDevelopmental Projects, as data retrieval of all the important parameters ofDevelopmental Projects are available online in local language within their vicinityfor the purpose of social audit. This enhanced quality of Developmental Projects.

Application of iOjN 4 Planning software helps in Decision Support System atDistrict and State level.

Decentralized District Planning Programme is introduced for bridging gap ininfrastructure and human development sectors like health, education, roads,community development, minor irrigation electrification, water supply etc.

Administrative Unit: District Planning Office is Administrative Unit at districtlevel for Decentralized District Planning Programme funded by State Governmentand Member of Parliament Local Area Development Programme, Govt. of India.

The scheme running under Decentralized District Planning Programme are15 % Vivekadhin Yojana., 5 % Incentive Yojana, Special backward areas,Developing Taluka, Celebration of Rastriya – Purve, Member of LegislativeAssembly Local Area Development Scheme.

State Government has recently introduced the Taluka Centric Approach. Underthis approach, in 15 % Vivekadhin Yojana, every taluka get finance according tothe category of taluka based upon number of villages included in respective taluka.

Developing Taluka: State government has identified 30 Taluka as developingtaluka with respect to topography of the taluka and low values of theirInfrastructural Development Indices and 11 taluka with respect to low values oftheir Human Development Indices.

Table 1

Schemes Geographical Coverage Financial Lay out/ Annum

(in Rs)

15% Vive kadhin

1. Taluka Level Taluka 1.0 to 1.5 crore

2. District Level District 1.5 crore

3. Administrative District 1.0 crore

Authority level


5% Protsahak Taluka 10 to 20 Lakh

Developing Taluka Taluka 2.0 crore

Rashtriay parve Celebration

1. State Level - District 1.0 crore

- Rural Area - District 1.0 crore

- Urban Area - Corporation 1.0 crore

- Corporation Area Taluka

2. District Level 25 Lakh

Khas Pachat Identified Area 40 to 70 Lakh

MLALADS Legislative Constituency 50 Lakh

MPLADS Parliamentary Constituency 5.0 crore

Every year more than 20,000 Developmental Project under DecentralizedDistrict Planning Programme are implemented successfully.

Before making system functional, in depth discussion on issues and benefitswas carried out in couple of meetings. MLAs, MPs, President of District Panchayata,President of Taluka Panchayata TDOs, COs, head of departments as well as publicrepresentatives were consulted for preparing system design and flow.

Starting from the proposal, system takes care up to completion of work.Submission of Proposal, Acceptance of Proposal, Details of Plan Estimate,Administrative Sanction, Allocation of Grants, Expenditure incurred and Detailsof UTC are the main component of the system. Unnecessary transition delay ingrant or acceptance process is almost negligible.

Following features make this initiative different from similar type of projectscarried out before:

1. The status of the Developmental Project of interest is available throughthe System software from the near by place accessing through SWAN/internet connectivity. For this reason the collection of the requiredinformation from various offices is not required now a days. This has reducedthe time & cost involved for the same.

2. As the application maintain the related parameters of DevelopmentalProjects in the electronic storage system, quick retrieval process helps in


the timely analysis of data and need base report generation. Accordinglyaction will be taken. This reduces the administration cost as well asexpenditure information of Developmental Project.

3. As iOjN 4 Planning software generates Monthly Progress Report & otherrequired information electronically, redistribution of information flow hasbeen generated automatically.

And finally

1. Web based application accessible on internet with Gujarati LanguageSupport.

2. Centralised Database. Ensures more security.

3. Uploading of photographs of work at 3 different levels of progress.


1. Key Performance


Benefits Delivered:

1. All concerned government offices & elected representatives and citizenshave the access of the important parameters of Developmental Projectssanctioned under Decentralised District Planning Schemes & MPLADProgramme.

2. Customized report generation has been done to suffice the administrativerequirement, political requirement, report writing requirement as well ascitizen requirement.

3. Bulletin Board : To broadcast instructions and important messages.

4. Online help, Online User Manual have been synchronized in systemsoftware.

5. Meeting Agenda as well as Meeting Proceeding for District Planning Board,a high power committee for Decentralised District Planning have beenincluded in system software.


6. On line review process: All sort of review process is being done online.

7. Dynamic Query Module: Every stakeholder has access of Dynamic QueryModule. By applying selection criteria, iOjN 4 Planning software givesinformation pertaining to parametric values of Developmental Projects ofinterest in main screen.

8. Flexibility to update master viz to add the village name, implementingofficer is given to District Authority while, MP MLA name master isupdated by State Authority.

9. All schemes under Decentralised District Planning are covered.

10. Customized report generation has been done to suffice the administrativerequirement, political requirement, report writing requirement as well ascitizen requirement.

Main screen of system comprise of two portion: One is different Module andother one is summary of Developmental Project having selection criteria.

Various parameters of Developmental Projects included in summary are:

1. Proposal of Developmental Projects

2. Acceptance of Developmental Projects

3. Rejection of Developmental Projects

4. Pending proposals

5. Technical sanction accorded for Developmental Projects

Activity Monitoring Mechanism & Financial Monitoring Mechanism:

MIS is generated in such a way that it is also utilized as activity monitoringpurpose such as

1. Online pendency stage wise at all stakeholder level.

2. Online pendency run over stipulated time limit at all stakeholder level.

MIS is generated in such a way that it is also utilized as financial monitoring


purpose such as

1. Grant allocation

2. Report of the leftout grant allocation

3. Booking of expenditure with uploading of phase wise photographs

4. Issuance of grant utilization certificate.

5. % of physical achievement

6. % of financial achievement

7. Generation of MPLAD cheque book

8. Generation of MPLAD cash book

9. Report of the leftout issuing of cheque

Information access to citizen :

Open access is given to the citizen. To access specific information pertaining toDevelopmental Project, citizen has to give only identification number ofDevelopmental Project. After submitting identification number, all kinds of keyparametric values are of Developmental Project displayed. If citizens want to getinformation in different manner, for example what are Developmental Projectssanctioned during specified financial year, by utilising selection criteria he/she canget the summary of these Developmental Projects at district level, taluka level andvillage level, thereafter all related parametric values of Developmental Project.

Under Decentralized District Planning Scheme, the online information aboutthe following can be obtained by citizens and stakeholders:

Table 2

Government to 1. All functionalities are now online

Citizen (G2C) 2. The system has been universally accepted by district-taluka level

officials and sub-taluka level functionaries including PRIs

3. Projects are being sanctioned for villages which were not adequately

covered

4. There is shift in emphasis and focus towards work as per needs and

ground level realities


5. Reduction in RTI applications

6. Greater accuracy in generation of reports

7. Reduction in number of LAQs, Shift in type of questions (micro to

macro) and time taken to reply

8. Facilitates social audit which leads to transparency & qualitative

improvement

Government to 1. Projects are being sanctioned for villages which were not adequately

Government (G2G) covered

2. Administrative order wise summary reports

3. Reduction in time taken for sanction of proposal

4. Assembly Constituency wise number of works and amount for

administrative sanction given

5. Greater accuracy in generation of reports

6. Report showing constituency or taluka wise grant allocation

7. Error free submission of files for grant allocation

8. Query based Module for effective monitoring

9. Reduction in administration expenditure towards manpower,

printing, photocopying, etc.

10. Timely completion of works as well as utilization of budget allocation

11. Preparation of Asset Register at village level

12. Convergence in both state level and national level programs

13. Reduction in RTI applications

14. Reduction in number of LAQs, Shift in type of questions (micro to

macro) and time taken to reply


Geographical Spread in the State achieved:

On Pilot basis Entire Junagadh District

Implementation Date April-2007

Roll Out Date August-2009

Table 3

GAD (Planning) and CMO at State Level Monitoring of Developmental Projects.

Formulation of policy. Fund allocation etc.

DPO at District Level For monitoring of Developmental Projects. To give

principle approval, administration approval,

financial approval


Taluka Planning Committee at Taluka level To raise proposal under various scheme

Implementing Officer level Details pertaining to plan estimate, technical

sanction and update status of Developmental

Projects

MP/MLA level To propose the Developmental Project To know

update status of Developmental Project

Summary of the Developmental Projects for Junagadh District (Rs. in Lakh)

Table 4

No. Name of 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10

Scheme Financial No. of Financial No. of Financial No. of

Layout Develop- Layout Develop- Layout Develop-

mental mental mental

projects projects projects

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1 MPLAD

(Loksabha) 200.00 151 200.00 122 100.00 3

2 MPLAD 200.00 69 0.00 0 0.00 0

Rajyasabha

(Kesubhai

Patel)

3 MPLAD 200.00 85 200.00 58 0.00 19

(Rajyasabha

Suryakantbhai

Acharya)

4 15 % 597.94 396 447.70 422 481.81 417

Discretionary

5 5 % 45.59 44 45.59 28 45.59 28

Incentive

6 Special 6.09 9 6.09 9 10.44 13

Backward

Ghed Area

7 MLALAD 500.00 637 500.00 604 500.00 435

TOTAL 1749.62 1391 1399.38 1243 1137.84 915



Road Ahead:

1. To make full fledged implementation across the state by March-2012.

2. Mobile Computing:

• To provide status of project automatically to MPs, MLAs through SMSwhenever stage of proposal/work is changed.

• On demand, On providing Work ID, status information of project to beprovided to citizens through SMS.

3. Customization of this application for other departments Viz. DistrictPanchayat, GMFB, DRDA, Road & Building Dept. etc.

4. Uploading of Plan Estimate of Developmental Project.

5. To make system full proof with biometric authenticity.

6. Feedback Mechanism:

• To provide interface to public for receiving feedback

• Where villagers can also suggest any work which is in interest ofcommunity or society.

Recently State Government introduced Apano Taluka Vibrant Taluka (ATVT).In this perception, Block (Taluka) is divided in more than one cluster of 5-6villages based upon geographical condition, gap in development and similar kindof issues faced. Thus this may help in making cluster level planning. e-Gram /CSCs at village level would be utilized for this purpose.



Tracking of project activities are required to smoothen the execution of fieldactivities of Developmental Project such as approval of project proposal, preparationof plan estimate, technical sanction etc.

Any delay in process of execution of Developmental Project can be trace outby this software application. This results into rectifications process required ifany is taken care for specific Developmental Project.


Online submission of proposal for Developmental Project, online sanction ofPrinciple Approval, Administrative Approval, Financial Approval, online bookingof expenditure occurred has reduced the time involvement for the same incomparison with the existing system. Diversion of surplus time can be utilised toenhance quality of Developmental Project.

Important features are:

1. Generation of Need base Analysis Report.

2. Generation of Pendency Report: Activities run over stipulated time span.

3. Dynamic Query Module for effective monitoring.

4. Preparation of accounting reports for smoothening Treasury function.

Through Dynamic Query Module, one can get updated status of DevelopmentProject proposed during specified time span.

Cost savings for delivering above set of services.

The status of the Developmental Project of interest is available through thesoftware from the near by place accessing through SWAN/internet connectivity,so that the collection of the required information from various offices is notrequired now a days. This has reduced the time & cost involved for the same.This facilitates social audit leads to transparency & qualitative improvement ofDevelopmental Project.

Elimination of submission process of MPR to District Authority byimplementing officer has curtailed Typing & Xeroxing of MPR.

Typing and Xeroxing for the purpose of submitting MPR is almost stoppeddue to online review process. This reduces the recurring expense say approximatelyRs. 1 lakh per annum / middle size district.


Celebration of Rastriya Purve: Gujarat state started the Celebration ofIndependence Day, Republic Day & 1st May Day (Gujarat Sthapana Divas)from State Capital to District Place and District Place to Taluka Place. In the eve


of Celebration, series of Programmes are being organised at the place where theState level Programme is celebrated. Lokarpan & Inauguration of project of CIVICamenities which are going to be taken place on these days are also included in thesystem for effective monitoring and timely completion of the projects.


It is integrated with the Village Asset Register which includes various developmentwork being carried out across the various departments. Works under districtplanning schemes form major part of village level works and it is directly integratedto village asset register application by uploading required information from iOjNdatabase to Village Asset Register database.


1. Processes


Process reengineering has been done. Systematic work flow designed for proposal,Principle Approval, Technical Approval, Administrative Approval Grant Allocation,and Expenditure occurred, Completion of work would eliminate unnecessarydelay in implementation.

Updating indicators of Developmental Project are only done by the responsiblestakeholder and other stakeholders have only access to see information, systemdoes not permit any kind of alteration by the unknown user as well as stakeholderwho does not have rights for the same.


Depends on geographical situation & other developmental parametersly , everymiddle size district has approximately 70 to 100 users in all stakeholders andapproximately 1500 to 1800 developmental projects in their hands in each financialyear. Time span of grant utilization is at least 2 years. Due to these phenomena,compilation process becomes tedious and time consuming. For this reason, eachdistrict needs one dedicated manpower to prepare meeting agenda & proceedingsof Implementing Officer Meeting, Executive Planning Committee Meeting andDistrict Planning Board Meeting as per the requirement of district administration.


As iOjN 4 Planning software generates MPR & other required informationelectronically, the requirement of dedicated manpower as well as dependency onhim/her is not a question now a days.

On line review process: As all sort of review process is being done online, preschedule time slot is not required.



The software development is done in house with help of NIC. To help inoperationalisation of software application, training for all concerned users hasbeen imparted through interactive workshop.

Table 5

Man Power Saving

Before Envisaged Approx. man days Saved

State level One dedicated typist/ No dedicated typist 30 Days / month

Operator for planning required

work

District level 1) One person for report 1) Reduction in work 1) 10 Days / month

collection & compilation load 30 Days / month

2) One person for typing 2) No separate 2) 8 Days / month

report/orders etc. person required

3) Allocation for the grant 3) Reduction in work 3) 15 Days / meeting 2 to 3

load meetings/annum

4) Preparation of Agenda for 4) Reduction in work 4) 15 Days / meeting

load

5) DPB Preparation of 5) Reduction in 5) 8 to 10 meetings/annum

Agenda for EPC work load


To roll out iOjN 4 Planning, various actions have been taken

1. Development of User Manual

2. Conduct training workshop


3. Trouble Shooting Process

User Manual covers the objective of system, importance of bulletin board,stakeholder and their responsibilities, data entry module, dynamic query module,administration module as well as common access to the citizen to obtain speedyand accurate information pertaining to Developmental Projects.

For the purpose of capacity building, Talim programme has been arranged at3 stages

1. At state level2. Regional level3. District level

In the interactive Talim workshop, emphasis is given to interest of stakeholder.It covers the objective of system, data entry & system effectiveness.

Trouble shooting Process : Interactive help menu has been synchronised toresolve any kind of query arised by stakeholder. The help menu is reviewedperiodically by the planning office to ensure it is updated according to last changesmade in the system. Trouble shooting is also done remotely through Net Meetingtechnology.

Before rollout the application in entire state, interactive workshop is conductedat state level, regional level and at district level. Some of the important suggestionswhich are incorporated after this workshop are as under:

1. MIS development at GAD (Planning) and CMO level

2. Synchronisation of Meeting Agenda & Proceeding

3. Physical Inspection report of Developmental Project by authority


All responsible stakeholders are instructed to use the software application andgive their feed back on result and utility. This approach with continuous follow-up and imparting training has helped for the acceptance of the system.

Responsibility has been assigned to update status of only related parametersby responsible stakeholder only & rest of the things taken care by system itself.


On line review process: All sort of review process is being done online. Allactivities are required certain minimum time span for their completion. To expeditefield level activities of Developmental Projects it is more important to pin pointactivities of Developmental projects which are run over stipulated time span.Keeping this in mind Pendency Report is incorporated in system software.

MLA, MP and other people representatives are interested to know updatestatus of Developmental Projects Proposed during specified time interval. It isdifficult to give proper response to such kind of questions, as existing system doesnot support query with multiple conditions. Therefore dynamic query module isdeveloped to fulfill such kind of requirements.


Holder group to utilise the software & update relevant parameters of theDevelopmental Project has helped both, administration and stakeholder, as utilityof the software has reduced their time involved for monitoring & reviewing theDevelopmental Projects allocated to them.

e. Financial Model

As project is operationalised in house, no additional finance is required so far,but utilization of the software application has reduced the recurring expensesrequired for the same

f. Project Sustainability

Project is operationalised through SWAN as well as internet. The storage of Databasekept with State Data Center. All important offices at district level as well as talukalevel are connected through SWAN. Villages are also connected through SWAN.For this reason the accessibility of any kind of information regarding parameters ofDevelopmental Projects is made available at 24 x 7 hours a week.

User friendly approach in the development of Software Application andimparting training to all stakeholders has increased the acceptance of the changingenvironment.

3. Technology



As the database is stored at Gujarat State Data Center, it provides central repositoryand secure data storage. It also provides disaster recovery and better operationand management control and minimize overall cost of data management


1. User friendly approach2. Easy to retrieve information3. Reduction in recurring expense4. Reduction in time involved for data management at all stakeholder level5. Easy accessibility of required parameters of Developmental Project.


All stakeholders have been assigned to user id & password with appropriate rights.As soon as proposal is made, unique identification number is generated. Onlyresponsible stakeholder can update the information pertaining to parametric valuesof developmental projects. This ensures reliability and confidentiality atimplementing level.




Important feature of the system is it captures data in local language. Unicodefont is used for such bilingual support.

2. eParticipation


Organize interactive workshop for all stakeholders

Shri V N Maira, Additional Chief Secretary, Planning Department, [email protected] and Dr. Hiten Parekh, District Planning Officer, PlanningDepartment, Gujarat, [email protected]; URL of the project: http://iojn.guj.nic.in

455e-Governance of Mineral Administration

Shri Vinay Vyasa and Shri Jagdeep S Kochar


I) Overview

(n)Code Solutions, a division of GNFC is the Total Solution Provider forCommissionarate of Geology & Mining (CGM), Government of Gujarat. (n)Codehas offered integrated software development and portal application modules suchas e-payment, e-Royalty pass, e-return, Demand Register and other relatedmodules covering in one single portal for stakeholders of Geology & Mining inGujarat State. The primary aim is to replace the traditional manual processes bya web-based application which is faster and more efficient. Certain businessprocesses have been reengineered to be suited in a virtual atmosphere where theyare quicker and more transparent. The project has played a crucial role in reductionof malpractices such as royalty, theft and illegal mining.

The former process of issuing royalty pass to leaseholders was manual. Theleaseholders had to get physical challans, get them signed from district geologistoffice, stand in queue to deposit in an authorized bank and wait for the day ofweek decided by district office for allotment of royalty pass booklet and get eachtriplicate passes stamped. To overcome a big challenge in mineral administration,CGM has concentrated on e-Solution and decided to provide the genuinee-Services to leaseholders and other stakeholders of Geology & Mining.

(n)Code has developed a system through which a leaseholder can generatethe royalty pass online once the payment is reflected in his virtual account.The system has created the centralized database containing the information

CHAPTER 36

e-Governance of Mineral Administration*


related to leaseholders, payment transactions, updated mineral rate, royalty passissuance, demand register information and weighbridges, mineral stockist for betterautomation. The system has reduced the scope of illegal issuance of Royalty Passesand has also made monitoring and tracking royalty a convenient and accountablesystem.

The challenge was to cover the approximate 7000 leaseholders in entire state.(n)Code, in conjunction with CGM drew a systematic plan for adequacy of system.To educate the leaseholders about the benefits of e-System, various training sessionswere organized at micro level, operational manuals were designed, and democases were prepared and presented to stakeholders.

Goals:

1. Effective and Hassle free mineral administration2. Facilitation of e-Services to all stakeholders belonging to Geology & Mining

Dept.3. Real time accounting of mineral transportation4. Reduction in illegal mining through automated system5. Increase in State Mineral Revenue6. Transparency and accountability in mineral administration

Figure 1


Benefits:Table 1

To Government To Leaseholders

1. Information on demand 1. Automation of manual processes through

electronic services

2. Automation of many processes 2. Anytime, anywhere issuance of royalty pass

to reduce dependency on manpower

3. Data consolidation 3. Decrease in cost of capital as there is no need

to pay royalty in advance at the beginning of

every month

4. Increased revenue to state 4. Easy access to services

5. Integrity & accuracy of data 5. E-Payment

6. Increased speed 6. E-Royalty pass system

7. Improved Service Delivery and 7. E-Return

easy access for stakeholders

8. Real-time accounting of minerals 8. Monthly record verification / automatic

excavated and royalty collected reconciliation for submission of returns


1. Key Performance


Benefits Delivered:

G2C

1. Information dissemination: To provide for information disseminationassociated with various minerals, mines, leases, operations, policies andguidelines as well as other related details required to be made publicallyavailable or available to a selected set of stakeholders based on access rights.

2. Any-Time Royalty Pass System: A web-based interface for leaseholders toissue royalty passes having a unique barcode/QR code based id and havingcertain mineral transport parameters such as mineral weight, duration ofjourney, destination details etc to enable effective monitoring of the processof royalty pass issuance with respect to the lease and the leaseholderinformation.


3. E-Return: All leaseholders have to fill up the applicable Mineral ReturnForm configured by system on monthly basis in the prescribed format byGMMCR / MCDR act describing the production, dispatch, labour andemployment details, royalty paid, mineral consumption, sale in domestic/export market etc with specific reason within the prescribed time limitdecided by online system.

4. Online Application for New Mineral Lease/Permit: To provide leaseholderwith a facility to file an application for mining lease, quarry lease, quarrypermit and work permit through an online software module as well asfacilities to renew, transfer and surrender a lease.

5. GIS based Mineral Atlas: To provide a GIS-enabled solution to the users toview and search information based on pre-defined parameters along withlayered GIS maps.

G2B

1. E-Payment System: Interface the existing funds management system to actin an integrated manner with other modules of the web portal. Facility totransfer 9 types of payments through RTGS/NEFT from leaseholder’s bankaccount into CGM’s Virtual Account.

G2G

1. Demand register: Provision of online/offline information transactionrecording framework to maintain leaseholder’s account details of production,dispatch and payments etc as per rules of GMMCR 2010.

2. Mobile / System based Royalty pass tracking: Provide facility to authorizedusers to review and track an online royalty pass using mobile devices

Benefits

Table 2

To Leaseholders To Weighbridege Operators To Government

1. Savings in cost and 1. Retrieval of unloaded weight 1. More Transparent process

time taken of a registered vehicle from the

central database


Figure 2

2. 24*7*365 facility of 2. Automation of weight collection 2. Elimination of redundant

royalty pass issuance process for mining vehicles processes

3. Significant reduction in 3. Real time registration of weight 3. Reduction in incidents of

the time taken to fetch for each vehicle passing through illegal mining privy

necessary details about the respective weighbridges. 4. Increase in mineral revenue

various minerals due to 5. Reduction in the effort and

availability of a central time spent to fetch

database necessary information

6. Better administration


Following manual and traditional Govt. services are converted into electronicmode to provide ease of use to CGM’s stakeholders:

1. Royalty & Other mineral concession collection2. Issuance of TPS (Triplicate Pass System)3. Return on mineral4. Semi Auto frame work for Demand Register transactions recording system5. Online new lease application for QL/ML/QP/PL/RP6. Monthly Progress Report7. Mineral Atlas information dissemination8. Registration of Mineral stockist / Weighbridges9. Delivery Challan establishment



Future plans: CGM plans to implement “M-Pass” system, where unique RoyaltyPass number shall be sent to mobile of the vehicle driver through SMS. This “M-Pass” shall be used in lieu of paper based royalty pass. CGM also plans to have acommand and control center for monitoring mining activities for Gujarat State.



1. A leaseholder doesn’t need to visit the district office regularly to get thechallan signed to apply for Royalty Pass booklet and enquire about its status.

2. A leaseholder can now get the royalty pass issued from the ATR web-portal by depositing money in his bank which will be transferred to CGM’saccount on request

3. Online Royalty Pass issuance system has resulted in considerable reductionin effort; cost and time spent by stakeholders to get a Royalty Pass issued

4. Now a pass can be issued any time and print out can be taken in the mineitself


1. Hand Held Terminal (HHT) Devices and Integrated Software

• To facilitate Leaseholder to avail Royalty pass for:

– Remote areas

– Low Connectivity

– Irregular Power supply

• The software application for HHTs to communicate with the existing WebPortal

2. Barcode Based Royalty Pass Validation Application

• To validate the authenticity of the royalty pass in field

• Integration of mobile devices with the server to enable the Flying Squad toverify authenticity of the Royalty Pass


3. Integration of weighbridges

• To allow the user to gather required data from the ILMS on entering theRoyalty Pass Code

• To capture weighing scale data directly through serial port

• To read weighing scale data for automatic calculation of weight

• To generate weighing receipt and send real time data to central server


1. Weighbridge Integration: The system is able to capture the gross weight ofvehicle from weighbridge, generate weighing receipt and send real timemineral weight data to central server.

2. Integration with Legacy System in Leases: The special web service / DLLcomponent is also developed to integrate with legacy system working inmineral industries.


1. Processes


Table 3

Front End Processes IT Enabled Process Status (Implemented)

E-Payment • Money Transfer through RTGS / NEFT / Implemented

Internet Banking Procedure through one’s

own bank

• Confirmation through Internet

• Accurate MIS is generated for all

Transactions

E-Royalty Pass • Real Time issuance of Royalty Pass through Implemented

computerized web based system or

HHT device

• Optimize cost and time saving

• Effective report mechanism for royalty pass

issued

• Barcode based validation application

• Integration with Weighbridge/Stockist


E-Return • Timely Submission of online e-Return by Implemented

leaseholder as per MCDR (Mineral

Conservation & Development Rules)

• Integration with Demand Register

• Statistical Report Generation

Online Lease • Online Submission of New Application

Application • Availability of Online Status of New Implemented

Quarry/Mining Lease Application

Portal Development • Information Dissemination Implemented

• GIS based Mineral Atlas

• Monthly Progress Report


Table 4

Back End Processes Manual Process Status

Removal of Challan • Lessee had to get Challan from District Successfully

Sign Process Office Replaced by

• Get Signature and Stamp on the Challan e-payment

• Pay the Royalty/Other amount to

designated bank

Royalty pass • Present the Paid Challan/Note down the Partially Replaced

stamping/validation Challan details in manual register by e-royalty pass

• Issue the Royalty pass - serial number wise

• Stamping on each page of Royalty Pass Book

by CGM officials

• Manual checking of parameters of royalty

Pass by CGM officials

Monthly return • Monthly Return forms (J,F9,F3,F8) submitted Successfully

on simple paper (typed or handwritten) Replaced by e- return

New lease • Physical Submission of New Quarry/Mining Successfully

application Lease Application Replaced by online

• Manual Tracking of Status of Application form submission

Demand register • Manual entry of various information Partially Replaced by

transaction recording • Difficult to calculate the interest / royalty online semi auto

system difference, adjustment of various dues generated demand

etc. into manual demand register register

• Tough task to carry forward all entries /

calculations month-wise




Figure 3


Table 5

Training On Internal External Participants Imparted By Status

General IT District Staff 300 Outsourced Planned

Awareness and

Refresher training

on use of the system

Royalty Pass System District Staff Leaseholders 1000 (n)Code Implemented

E-Payment System District Staff Leaseholders 1000 Bank Officials Implemented

and (n)Code

E-Return System District Staff Leaseholders 750 (n)Code Implemented

Weigh Bridge Weighbridge Implemented

System Owners 250 (n)Code

Stockist District Staff

Management 100 (n)Code Implemented

Demand Register District Staff 250 (n)Code Implemented


1. All changes are requested through a predefined format2. Log sheet of the same is maintained as per predefined format3. The feasibility of each change is identified4. The prior approval is sought to bring in change5. Any change made is communicated to CGM through official email/hardcopy

and the acknowledgement is obtained



CGM is a State Government organization. This IT initiative was encouraged by theHon’able Chief Minister and subsequent Ministry, Secretariat and Commissionarateofficials for the benefit of Geology & Mining stakeholders. Various Industries andMineral Association have proactively participated for this e-Governance initiative.Moreover, the Central Ministry of Mines has directed other State Governments toadopt the same solution implemented in Gujarat. The Govt. of Karnataka has alreadytaken initiative in adopting the solution such as “ePermit” system for transportationof “Iron Ore” minerals.

e. Financial Model

State Government has made IT budget provision for project implementation onturnkey basis for conceptualization of e-services, software development, Hardwareprovision, Network infrastructure management, Post implementation supportetc. to successfully implement the project. For weighbridge integration, (n)Codeshall adopt PPP model, in which it shall deploy the software at weighbridges atits cost and charge lorry or leaseholders on per weighment basis.

3. Technology


1. Application and Database servers hosted in clustered and load-balancingenvironment, to provide for fail-over and performance

2. Transactional Replication of Database to enable service continuity in caseof database server crash

3. Redundant internet bandwidth to ensure disaster recovery in case ofbandwidth failure

4. Link load balancing to ensure business continuity in case of bandwidthfailure

5. Periodic backups of database, application files and configurations


Cost of Ownership: Approx. INR 3 Crores (Capital Cost: IT HardwareProcurement, Development of Integrated Webportal) (Operating Cost:Application Hosting, Management and IT Services)


Technological Solution Adopted: The project has been built on 3-tierarchitecture. There is a presentation tier, which provides the front end for thesite. There’s a business logic tier, which handles several tasks includingauthentication, authorization and workflow management. Lastly, there is adatabase tier, which is used to read and write the data from its database. Thebusiness logic has been kept separate from the presentation logic by design. Thismakes the system more scalable allowing new departments to be incorporatedinto the system. All workflow and navigation code have been abstracted from theuser interface for achieving this.

Maintenance Model: A proactive approach is taken at various stages ofapplication lifecycle. Four approaches are used to ensure an efficient and all-encompassing maintenance model:

1. Preventive approach is taken in restructuring, revitalizing, and rewritingcode for better maintainability, to avoid future problems based upon pastincidents, for anticipation, feedback and continuous improvement,

2. Perfective approach is taken to add functionality (new modules, new reports)and to improve performance,

3. Adaptive approach is taken for modification to keep application usable ina changed or changing business or technical environments, and

4. Corrective approach is taken for reactive modification to correct discoveredproblems, bug fixing.

Compliance to NeGP Standards

1. Open Standards: The application adopts XML based message exchangethrough SOAP Web Services. The web services can be used for data exchangeand process automations through other application, based on access privilegesand business rules. This ensures that the data is not contained in a silo.

2. Localization Standards: The application inherently supports UNICODEformat for fonts and designed keeping multi-language support andlocalization in mind.


3. Digital Signatures and Interoperability: The application inherently supportsx.509 Digital Signature Certificates. Use of standards web service allows futureintegration with SSDG (State Service Delivery gateway) and NSDG (NationalService Delivery Gateway).


1. Authentication And Authorization• Strong and configurable password policies• Secure password recovery mechanism• Role based access privileges

2. Encryption• Strong encryption for sensitive data including configurations

3. IT Act 2000 And X.509 Digital Signature Certificates• Infrastructure is housed in an IT Act 2000 Compliant Tier IV

datacenter.• The infrastructure is by design equipped for physical as well as logical

security, redundancy, and disaster recovery and business continuity.• Wherever required, X.509 Digital Signature Certificates are incorporated

to ensure privacy, authenticity, integrity and Non-Repudiation ofcontent.

4. OWASP

• The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a 501c3 not-for-profit worldwide charitable organization focused on improving thesecurity of application software. OWASP releases common security threatsto software applications. Enough security measures are in place to protectagainst these threats. These measures are tested against at regular intervalsto ensure they are still effective.

Shri. Vinay Vyasa, Commissioner, Geology and Mining, Industries and MinesDepartment, [email protected] and Shri. Jagdeep S Kochar, ExecutiveDirector, (n) Code Solutions, [email protected]; URL of the project: http://www.cgm.ncode.in

467Maharashtra Plan Schemes Information Management System – MPSIMS

Shri S J Kunte and Smt S M Aparajit


I) Overview

The Planning Department, Govt. of Maharashtra (GoM) is responsible for formulationof Five Year Plan (FYP) and Annual Plan (AP) of the State as per the guidelines of thePlanning Commission, Govt. of India. The FYP and AP’s are required to be prepared soas to address developmental issues of the State as a whole. The plan size is around Rs.Forty thousand crore. There are approximately 1,100 state level schemes and 800 districtlevel schemes through which developmental issues are addressed by the State. The planprocess is complex in nature as the demands for the funds are very high on one side andon other side the resources are limited. The draft plan prepared by the state is requiredto be submitted to the Planning Commission for approval. After approval the plan isimplemented by the line departments of the state and districts. The implementation ofthe plan is also required to be monitored by the Planning Dept.

To address the complexities of the plan process and achieve transparency, thePlanning Dept., GoM, took an initiative to develop and implement MaharashtraPlan Schemes Information Management System (MPSIMS) using the ITinfrastructure of Directorate of Economics and Statistics.

The computerization of the plan process is a pioneering effort in India. Theproject is G2G, G2C covering all the districts. The mandatory reports as prescribedby the Planning Commission (Vol. III & IV) were generated through MPSIMS in

CHAPTER 37

Maharashtra Plan Schemes InformationManagement System – MPSIMS*

468 Widening e-Governance Canvas :

English and local language Marathi without manual interventions. We feel that theefforts of the Planning Dept. in conceiving and successful implementation ofMPSIMS, certainly deserve award in the Project Category. The details of the projectare submitted herewith.

After independence, the Government of India has adopted a policy of framingFive Year Plan to address the developmental issues. The Planning Department,Government of Maharashtra is responsible for formulation of Five Year Plan andAnnual Plan for the State and monitoring thereof. Strategically, the Governmentof India has identified 13 sectors of development viz. Agriculture & AlliedActivities, Rural Development, Special Area Development, Irrigation & FloodControl, Energy, Industry & Minerals, Transport, Communication, Science,Technology & Environment, General Economic Services, Social & CommunityServices, General Services and Other Programmes. Each sector has sub-sectorsand under each sub-sector various schemes are conceived, formulated andimplemented by the State Government. The Annual Plan for the year 2009-10and 2010-11 was Rs.38,153 crore and Rs. 37,916 crore respectively, while for2011-12 it is of Rs. 41,500 crore. Looking at the administrative convenience inthe State, there are 43 departments which are responsible for implementation ofthe plan through planned schemes. The State Plan is classified as a General Plan,Tribal Sub Plan and Special Component Sub Plan. Further, State Plan is alsoclassified as State Plan and District Plan. Approximately, the District Plan is 10to 15 per cent of the total State Plan.

Every year, considering the resource estimates for the next financial year, thedraft plan is prepared by the Planning Department and the same is submitted tothe Planning Commission for approval. The whole process of departmentwise,schemewise, sectorwise planning is complex in nature. A care is also required tobe taken to address the developmental issues over the geography of the State. Thewhole process was manually done by the Planning Department involving lot ofmanpower & time. The manual system had inherent lacuna of integration withcomputerised Budget Distribution System developed by Finance Department.This often resulted in mismatch of the outlays provided by the PlanningDepartment and the amount budgeted by the line departments. In addition tothis, financial monitoring could not be done using the Budget Distribution System(BDS) expenditure data.


In view of the above, the Planning Department decided to use IT infrastructureavailable with its subordinate office i.e. Directorate of Economics & Statistics todevelop sophisticated system for plan formulation and monitoring. A projectMaharashtra Plan Schemes Information Management System (MPSIMS) (http://mahades.maharashtra.gov.in/MPSIMS) was conceived. At the fag end of 2008-09it was decided to computerize the plan process in a modular manner on rapidprototype model. Initially, it was decided to computerize some part of the planformulation process for the year 2009-10. Accordingly limited modules for capturingdemands of various departments / districts and plan allocation module weredeveloped so that whole plan documents as per prescribed formats of PlanningCommission can be generated in English and local language Marathi. This modulewas successfully implemented in 2009-10 and the draft plan was submitted to theState Assembly and the Planning Commission for approval. Subsequently, the processwas revisited to have robust database, better user interface and to have various othermodules. The details of the same are given in subsequent paragraphs.

Features of MPSIMS

MP-SIMS software is a web enabled centralized planning tool to strengthenplanning process being pursued by various state level departments and DistrictPlanning Committees (DPC) leading to consolidation of state plan throughinteractive workflow. MPSIMS enables Planning Department to capture demandof funds from various departments, allocation of funds to the departments as peravailability of resources (funds). The funds (outlays) are given to the departmentsand are further distributed at scheme and work level. Plan funds so made availableto the departments are broadly used for following purposes:

1. Creation of infrastructure like roads, dams, hospitals, schools, etc.2. Providing benefits to various categories of citizens e.g. backward community,

senior citizens, disabled, handicaps etc.3. Providing services established for seamless execution of the schemes.The MP - SIMS features are detailed below:

Functionality aspects of MPSIMS

1. Profile creation

MP-SIMS enables various departments to create scheme profile. The profile consists of

• Scheme information – Plan type, sector, subsector, Scheme description,nature of scheme, Implementing agency, Coverage area, GR details.


• Component of expenditure – CRC (Cross Reference Code), source of funding,object code (objects of expenditure).

• Expected physical output vis-à-vis financial inputs – Target and unit ofmeasurement

• Impact of the scheme on – Education, Health, Income generation, women& child.

• Upload relevant Government Resolution

2. Outlay Demand, Assessment and Allocation

• MP - SIMS helps all the Departments to demand funds prioritizing theschemes that have been identified for the plan year under consideration.The demand of funds is required to be raised under different types ofstatements as follows

– GN2 – Financial details of all the funds

– GN3 – Physical targets

– GN4 – Financial details of Centrally sponsored / Assisted schemes

– GN5 - Financial details of Externally Aided projects

– GN6 - Financial details of projects supported/Aided by DomesticFinancial Institutes

– Boardwise – statutory development board wise distribution of outlay

– Naxal - outlay proposed for development of naxal affected area

– PPP & PSU–Projects to be undertaken through public privatepartnership and by PSUs

3. District Plan

• MP - SIMS facilitates consolidation and integration of all plan schemes inthe district including General Plan, Special Component Sub Plan, TribalSub Plan & Other Tribal Sub Plan schemes and generate a consolidatedDistrict Plan.

4. Other Important Modules

• Physical and financial performance

• Re-appropriation and re-allocation of outlay


• Module to monitor receipts of funds from sources other than state’s ownsources

• Supplementary demands.

5. Integration with Budget Distribution System (BDS)

• MPSIMS is integrated with BDS for generating various reports requiredfor financial monitoring.

6. Report Generation

• MPSIMS enables to prepare categorywise reports by selecting sector, subsector Scheme level, Department, Plan type, source of fund.

• The categories consist of reports like GN2, GN3, GN4, GN5, GN6, PPP,Boardwise, Naxal, Women & child, HDI etc.

• Report stimulating the planner to think in systematic planning process ofthe state rather than isolated department.

• Sector, Subsector wise summary reports.

• Set of Plan Document of the State as per directives of the PlanningCommission.

• Dynamic home page for viewing & generating exceptional reports

• Ad-hoc reporting facility using SAS for prime users


1. Key Performance


Benefits Delivered:

1. G2G (Government to Government) - MPSIMS is browser based softwarewith work flow management. All the line departments and the districts aregiven specific login/password for entering in to the plan process, for viewingcompleted & incomplete tasks, generation of reports, exclusive reports etc.

2. G2C (Government to Citizen) – At every stage in the Planning process,the Plan is readily available to the general public through web linkwww.mahades.maharashtra.gov.in . This helps in transparent planpreparation.


3. MP - SIMS is an application that is developed to specifically meet theneeds of the planning department of Maharashtra. It has simplified planmonitoring functioning of various administrative departments inGovernment of Maharashtra. The application also has to lend itself easilyto additional goals of ensuring transparency in government operations,along with efficient record keeping.

These objectives are achieved through the collection and assimilation of allattributes of all schemes in one place. Additionally, through the use of differentrole-based login credentials, MP - SIMS allows different officials at the stateand district levels to administer and monitor relevant schemes. The applicationfollows a modular design with each module (and sub-module) aligned to abroad functionality in the planning process of the state.



1. The plan document was generated through MPSIMS and printed volumeswere submitted in the budgetary session of State Legislative Assembly within48 hours.

2. Physical and financial monitoring of plan schemes is now possible throughMPSIMS.

3. Assessment of cost efficiency over the manual system can not be comparedas MPSIMS has addressed much wider issues than the manual system.


1. MPSIMS is designed to enable state’s existing planning processes in suchway that it can be effectively used by any other state within the country.

2. Flexibility to add / remove functionalities and data based on the need ofthe governing officials and decision makers.

3. Linking of physical performance to object of expenditure.


1. The MPSIMS has been integrated for plan monitoring purpose with theBDS developed by Finance Dept. of GoM.



1. Processes


1. As stated above a limited module of demand assessment of outlays andallocation thereof was successfully implemented by eliminating manualprocess. The MPSIMS was revisited and various functionalities wereincorporated without losing data. The list of various modules developedand implemented is already given under “Functionality aspects of MPSIMS”.

2. The work-flow functionality of MPSIMS has streamlined manual process.



1. MPSIMS has been implemented using the IT infrastructure available withthe DES. The EDP cell of the DES has been entrusted with the projectmanagement and project monitoring.

2. The core team working on MPSIMS has imparted training to all the staffmembers of the EDP cell. Further all the stakeholders were imparted timeto time training at Mantralaya. The district level officials were also trainedat the respective Division level. The extensive training programme facilitatedin successful implementation of MPSIMS in a short time.

3. The EDP cell took active role in the change management with the formalunderstanding.

4. The project is implemented under the guidance of Principal Secretary,Planning. The status of the development and implementation wascontinuously monitored by the Principal Secretary. Various reportsgenerated through MPSIMS were submitted to the Planning Sub-Committee, headed by Hon’ble Chief Minister. The Chief Secretary alsoconducted series of meetings during 2010-11 for monitoringimplementation of the state plan.


1. The IT infrastructure available with DES was used in development and


implementation of MPSIMS hence no cost was incurred in procurement ofhardware or softwares. As a development model is collaborative system designand implementation issues were addressed by EDP staff of DES. The JAVAprogrammers were hired from M/s Blue Star Informatics Limited on man-month rate basis. The IPR of the system is with the Govt. of Maharshtra.

3. Technology


It may be kindly noted that the DES has undertaken technology upgradation projectin the year 2007-08 on the lines of e-Gov policy of Govt. of Maharashtra. As such itwas envisaged that the servers procured for the DES project shall be hosted in thecommon server farm / data centre. The IT dept. of Govt. of Maharashtra has alreadytaken IT security measures for access. The data centre of the state is expected tocommence shortly and the servers used for MPSIMS and DES project will be relocatedin this upcoming data centre which will have the disaster recovery site. In the mean-time complete back-up of servers is being taken on weekly basis using two sets ofmagnetic tapes. One set is kept at M/s BSIL developmental centre and one set is keptat EDP centre of DES. An incremental back-up is also taken everyday.

Complete mirroring of the system has been done at M/s BSIL office which ishaving technical expertise for recovery and it is a part of the contract withM/s BSIL.


The project is in confirmation with the guidelines issued by IT dept. of Govt. ofMaharashtra. MPSIMS is an augmentation of DES computerization project forwhich M/s BSIL has been appointed as a Turn Key Solution Provider for a periodof five years. This appointment is on TCO model.


The servers are hosted behind the IT security arrangements made by the ITdepartment of Govt. of Maharashtra. The MPSIMS is developed on three tierarchitecture. The stakeholders have been given specific login and passwords whichare encrypted.



1. eParticipation


The stakeholders of MPSIMS are mostly government departments and districtlevel offices. Sufficient training has been imparted for the usage of MPSIMS. Thehome page of MPSIMS is dynamic and available to the public at large.

2. eWaste

As no hardware / software were separately procured for MPSIMS, therefore, thequestion of addressing e-waste issues under this project does not arise.

Shri S.J.Kunte, IAS, Principal Secretary, Planning Department, Government ofMaharashtra, [email protected] and Smt S. M. Aparajit, Director,Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Government of Maharashtra,email: [email protected]; URL : http://plan.maharashtra.gov.in/index.php


I) Overview

In recent years, governments across the world have been investing considerable resourcesin applying ICT tools to transform the way in which public services to citizens andenterprises are delivered. This wave has been popularly known as eGovernance.

There was a time when even availing simple services from the government wasa task fraught with delays, long queues and inconvenience. Whether it was gettingcopies of Land Records, applying for a vehicle registration or driving license,getting Stamp papers or Court fee stamps, or applying for benefits under socialservices schemes such as pensions, it would usually take days or even months toget the paperwork and files moving and actually get the job done. Today, however,it has become a breeze to do many of these tasks, without the hassle of standingin serpentine queues, in uncomfortable conditions.

At the heart of India’s national eGovernance strategy, in fact lies the NeGP,which has a vision of taking public services closer to the common man both inurban and rural India at affordable costs. NeGP is a multi-stakeholder programwhich primarily focuses on making critical public services and informationavailable, empowering the citizen at the grass roots level and promoting ruralentrepreneurship. It marks a paradigm shift from a government-centric and process-centric, to a citizen-centric approach. Clearly, eGovernance is gaining considerable

CHAPTER 38

Government ReceiptAccounting System (GRAS)

Shri Shreekant Deshpande and Shri Balakrishnan Nair

477Government Receipt Accounting System (GRAS)

momentum in India, with several high impact projects being implemented in bothGovernment-to-Citizen (G2C) and Government-to-Business (G2B) domains, acrosscentral ministries and state departments.

eGovernance is being increasingly viewed as an enabler and facilitator of ‘goodgovernance’, where the scope of good governance includes attributes such as aservice-centric approach, citizen-centricity, anytime, anywhere delivery of services,integrated delivery of services, focus on outcomes, accountability, promoting rightto information, inclusion of disadvantaged communities and a focus on awarenessand communications. To translate these values into operational terms, there is aneed of a methodology to ensure that eGovernance systems adequately reflectuser centric quality characteristics, which has necessitated this project.

Government Receipt Accounting System (GRAS) is a secure web applicationwhich provides a facility to the Citizens, Business Community to pay taxes / nontax receipts to the Government of Maharashtra electronically. Using Banks internetpayment gateways citizens can pay their taxes / non tax receipts at any point oftime and from any location.

The facility is available on a 24 / 7 basis. It is a G2C, G2B, G2G and G2Einitiative of the Government of Maharashtra.

It is the first Virtual Treasury established in the country. The jurisdiction ofthe Virtual Treasury is across the state whereas in the case of the Physical Treasuryit is restricted to a geographical location.

Effort has been made to convert the entire manual process of GovernmentPayment right from the payer selecting and making his own data entry forpreparing the receipt, making the payment, Fund Transfer, Accounting,Reconciliation, generating and submitting receipt reports electronically. It’s acomplete end to end solution!

Finance Department (FD), Government of Maharashtra, has decided to receiveits tax and non-tax revenue receipts electronically. For this purpose the StateGovernment has established a new treasury called ‘Virtual Treasury’ whichdedicatedly handles all the online transactions across state centrally. Thetransactions take place through a web-portal named as ‘Government ReceiptAccounting System (GRAS)’ i.e. https://gras.mahakosh.gov.in


ePayment is a mode of payment in addition to the conventional methods ofpayment offered by the Government of Maharashtra. GRAS has been integratedwith the independent payment gateways of participating banks. This mode ofpayment is offered by the banks under specific security norms of Reserve Bank ofIndia. It provides the convenience of making online payment of any of MaharashtraState Government Tax/Non Tax Payments through Bank’s Internet banking service.

The existing procedures of the executive and accounting agencies of theGovernment Departments can easily continue with this system as an alternatechannel of receiving government receipts

This scheme facilitates anytime, anywhere payment and an instant on-linepayment receipt is generated once the transaction is complete. The departmentusers can Deface the Receipt once the service is given. Electronic accounting,electronic reconciliation of Receipts are the major strengths of the System. Oneof the biggest strengths can also be noted as liquid fund availability to RBI/government on T+1 basis which helps the government to predict the Cash Flowsand adjust the liquidity or overdraft positioning of the State Government Funds.

No transaction cost or any other cost to be borne by the payer or theGovernment

Features:

1. To avail of this facility the taxpayer is required to have an Internet-bankingenabled account with any of the banks listed by the government on this site.

• This is a 24x7 facility and citizen can make the State GovernmentTax/Non Tax payments any time of the day.

• On-Line Filling of single challan form facilitates minimum fields ofthe challan to be filled.

• Instant online receipts for payment made and instant online bankstransaction number becomes available.

• One can pay personal taxes as well as on behalf of the firm, companyand others.

• Payment Timing: All payments effected up to 20.00PM will beaccounted for the day itself and all payments effected after 20.00PMwill be accounted as next working day’s receipt.


2. Advantages:

• Ease of operation and convenience

• Facility is available on 24x7 basis

• One can pay on behalf of the firm, company and others

• On-line payment of taxes (No more queues and waiting)

• On-line filling of single challan form

• Minimum fields of the challan need to be filled. Most of the fields arepopulated automatically.

• Selection of appropriate tax-type from drop-down menu

• Instant online receipts for payment made

• Instant online receipt with banks transaction number becomes available

• The existing manual tax accounting system requires the taxpayer tofile three copies of challan. But, E-Challan would require a single challanfor payment of any state government tax. It would cover all the essentialinformation required from the assessee in relation to his tax payments.

• Online reconciliation of receipts

• Real-time accurate receipt data availability on central portal

3. “Value proposition” for the project:

Goals/Objectives to remove the hurdles in the existing system of payments to theGovernment:

• Physical visit to the Treasury, Treasury bank or respective Departmentmandatory:

Before the system was implemented the physical visit to the treasury orto the treasury bank or to the respective department was a necessity. Inorder to make payment to the government it is necessary, get the Challanverified by the govt official even for the regular periodic payments

• Manual system of payments with loopholes and prone to mistakes,misappropriations and frauds:

The manual system of payments is subjective and prone to humanmistakes and misappropriations and frauds


• Too much of manpower deployment:

In the manual system of payments there was a huge need of manpowerlike cashiers and accounts clerks and related staff. In the new systemthis has been reduced.

• Proof of Payment i.e. Receipts misplaced or worn out or damaged:

The payment receipts are prone to get damaged with the passage oftime, getting misplaced or worn out due to mishandling, leading hurdlesin establishing the proof of payment, claiming refunds etc.

• Single Receipt format for the Entire State:

Before deployment there were around 100-150 different Challan formatsused by the various government departments for accepting paymentsand it was very inconvenient for people to get access to the specificformats for paying the receipts

• Single Electronic Receipt Scroll format for the State:

Since the process of computerisation started; the various departmentsof government started inventing their own systems to suit to theirrequirements; this made the interdepartmental data exchange nearlyimpossible due to the use of various technological platforms

• Establishing the Points of Collection for the User Departments:

The governments receipt collection was distributed and there was nocommon platform to compare the receipts collected at one place and inone goes.

• Immediate Credits to the Government Account:

One of the biggest strengths of the system is the liquid fund availabilityto RBI/government on T+1 basis, also the system helps the governmentto predict the Cash Flows and adjust the liquidity or overdraftpositioning of the State Government Funds.



1. Key Performance


1. For Citizens: (Government To Citizens)

• One Single Government Portal wherein the citizen can pay any type ofTax/Non Tax Payment to the Government of Maharashtra

• Ease of payment to the citizens, 24x7 ability to pay

• Saving in travel time, travel expenses

• No more queues to pay government payments

• Payment from home, Anytime, Anywhere!

• The Electronic proof of payment i.e. Government Receipt availableonline for minimum of 5 years

• Quicker Services from the government Departments

• Savings in Paper work

• Replacement of Court Fees stamps in High Court and District Courtswith e-challan.

2. For Business: (Government to Business)

• One single portal where all types of taxes can be paid

• No need to carry huge currency avoiding risks in cash handling,thefts etc

• No need to visit government offices for routine payments

• Faster service delivery

• Hassle free permits and licences

• Savings on the paperwork

3. For Government departments: (Government to Government)

• One single portal wherein all the government Receipts can be accessed


• Instant Verification of receipts with the Banks

• Less people to handle cash transactions at the counters

• Less manual work for receipts, less no. of registers to maintain, less no.of counterfoils to maintain

• Less paper work

• Less manpower requirement; the manpower can be deployed in moreproductive works

• Real-time online accurate data of the receipts available to thegovernment departments

• Effortless reconciliation of Receipts with Banks and AccountantGeneral

• Immediate Credit of Funds facilitates liquidity

• Predictability of Funds Flow position or Overdraft positioning

• Defacement of Challan after service is provided

• Avoidance of inappropriate Re-use of Challan


The System has been implemented for the following Departments – RTO, Excise,and IGR, High Court, District Courts.

1. In the RTO department, New Registration Payments by the dealers isrouted through the online mode

2. In Excise Department, the excise duty and other taxes can be paid online

3. In the IGR department, the stamp duty and registration fees can be paidonline

4. In the High Court and the district courts e-Challan has been enacted as areplacement of stamp court fees.

5. In department of Co-operation, Marketing and Textiles, the repayment ofloans can be made online


6. In Food and Drugs Administration department, the drugs licence or renewalfees can be paid online

7. In the DAT, the interest payments for delayed remittances to the VirtualTreasury can be paid online.


Department Wise No. of Offices which receive Receipts through GRAS so far isas follows:

1. Virtual Treasury Office (For entire Maharashtra )

2. RTO – All RTO offices in the Maharashtra State Covered (45)

3. Excise – 45 Offices across the State

4. IGR – 56 Offices across the State

5. Courts – High Court all 3 benches (9 Courts)

6. District Court (9 Courts)

7. Department of Co-operation, Marketing and Textiles (For entireMaharashtra)

8. Food and Drugs Administration (9 Offices)

9. Directorate of Accounts and Treasuries (35 Offices)

10. Total Offices Covered at Present – 210

11. From 01/04/2010 to 20/08/2011

• Total Revenue collected so far - 2100 crores

• Challans Generated – 50000

• No. of Users:

– Virtual Treasury Officer 1

– Admin Virtual Treasury Officer 1

– Departmental Users 185

– Registered Users 2736


– Guest Users 1

– Bank Users 5

– Treasury Officer 34

– Total 2961

12. Banks – All the Nationalised Banks to be integrated with GRAS

• SBI and its subsidiary banks will be integrated in one months’ time

• Punjab National Bank will be integrated in one month’s time

13. Payment Gateway – To Internet GRAS with Payment Gateways to acceptpayments using Debit Cards, Credit Cards

Stakeholders:

1. The Virtual Treasury, an independent treasury of the State of Maharashtraadministers the overall functioning of the application-

• Can view all the electronic receipts, verify payments, accepts thescroll data electronically, review the Defaced Challans after serviceis given to the tax payer/refund is processed, gets the bankreconciliation done electronically, gets RBI receipt reconciliationdone electronically, gets the MIS reports, and gives reconcileddownloadable data to the user departments

2. The User Departments- Departments of the State Government-(IGR, Excise,RTO, High Court, District Courts, FDA, DCM)

• Can view their respective receipts, verify payments, Deface the Challanafter service is given to the tax payer/refund is processed, gets the MISreports, gets downloadable data, don’t need to worry about the receiptreconciliations with banks and treasury

3. The RBI-

• The apex bank for handling the entire receipts of the State has beenreduced with the Transaction burden, for RBI its single transactionfor one bank per day

4. The Participating banks-


• GRAS has been integrated with the following participating banks namely,Bank of Baroda (BOB), Bank of India (BOI), Industrial DevelopmentBank of India (IDBI), Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) and Union Bank ofIndia (UBI) who can now accept government revenue.

5. The Accountant General-

• The accountant General can now accept the receipt data electronically



Table 1

Procedure Actual Time Taken Actual Time Taken at GRAS

at Treasury Virtual Treasury

Payee gets Challan 1 Day Immediate

authorized by Department

Payee makes Payment Across 1-2 days 5 Minutes max

the Bank Counter

Bank confirmation of Payment Cash- Same Day Immediate, on the spot

Cheque/DD- 7-15 days

Agency Bank Remitting Standard decided T+3 Standard decided

Funds to RBI for local & T+5 for outside T+1 (Including Put Through

(actual time taken varies) Date)

Scroll Submission by banks Standard decided- Next Standard decided- Next

to Treasury working Day (Actual time working Day electronically

taken +30 days in many

cases)

Trips to various offices (bank, 4 2

Government office, treasury)

Loss of wages of user 2 days Nil

Remittance Cost involved Approximately Rs.300 Nil

per transaction

Mistakes in transaction 1% approx. 0%

Requirement of payment of Yes No

non-formal charges for

speedy service


b. Integration with Other Systems

1. Integration with ‘Bank of India’ payment Gateway

2. Integration with ‘Bank of Baroda’ payment Gateway

3. Integration with ‘Indian Overseas Bank’ payment Gateway

4. Integration with ‘Industrial Development Bank of India’ payment Gateway

5. Integration with ‘Union Bank of India’ payment Gateway

6. Integration with the ‘SARITA’ software for the IGR department

7. Integration with the ‘VAHAN’ software for Transport/RTO department

8. Integration with the ‘High Court’ software

9. Integration with the ‘District Courts’ software

Figure 1: Workflow



1. Processes


1. Single Challan format across the State, across the departments

2. Single e-scroll format i.e. reporting from the banks to the Government acrossthe State

3. Electronic Scroll from the RBI

4. Process definition of ePayment or eChallan for the State

5. Process definition and electronic Data Transfer to the Accountant General

Figure 2: Post-Deployment Workflow

Participating Banks

Uploading Daily

Scroll & DMS T+1

RBI

Virtual Treasury

Electronic Reconciliation (Bank Scroll vs RBI Scroll)

Account Generation & submission to AG

Electronically

Electronic Reconciliation (Bank Scroll vs. System

Payee

Prepares Challan

GRAS Portal

Uploading Daily

Scroll & DMS T+1

Fund

Transfer

Error

Reporting

Error

Reporting

Uploading Daily Scroll & DMS



1. In High Court and District Courts-

• Processes have to change to accept e-challan as replacement of Court Feesstamps -Planned and Implemented

2. In Transport Department –

• Process flow changes in RTO to accept e-Challans

• Planned and Implemented

3. In IGR Department -

• Processes have to change to accept e-challan as replacement forRegistration fees

• Process to accept eStamping receipts through eChallan

• Planned and Implemented



1. Fully Owned and Managed by the Virtual Treasury, DAT, FinanceDepartment, Government of Maharashtra in Collaboration with

2. National Informatics Centre, Government of India Pune


1. Fully Managed by the Virtual Treasury, DAT, Finance Department,Government of Maharashtra in Collaboration with



1. Fully Managed by the Virtual Treasury, DAT, Finance Department,Government of Maharashtra in Collaboration with



Bureaucratic – Support from Finance Secretary, Secretary IT, Director-Directorateof Accounts and Treasuries and from Various Secretaries and Commissioners ofDifferent Departments and National Informatics Centre


e. Financial Model

1. Entire Project is Funded by Government of Maharashtra

2. No Cost to Citizens / Business Community for the services on GRAS site.

3. Technology


The system has been hosted on a professional Data Centre with Load Balancerand Multiple Web Servers and Database Servers with Proper Backup Mechanismswith proper DC and DR sites. Data Centre is in Mumbai and the Disaster RecoverySite is at Hyderabad.


1. Web Based Architecture

2. Operating System – RHL 5.5 (Red Hat Linux)

3. Web Server – Apache

4. Database – DB2 9.7

5. Source Code – PHP 5.3

6. Source Code Encryption - Zen guard – 5.5

7. Digital Signature

8. SSL Certificate – Extended SSL Certificate (Green Bar)


1. Encryption of sensitive, Critical Data in Database

2. Encryption of Source Code

3. Periodical Functional Testing

4. Periodical Security Testing

5. Performance Testing

6. Periodical Penetration Testing

7. Periodical Vulnerability Testing- All carried out through certainempanelled agencies

8. Use of Digital Signatures for Uploads/Downloads


9. Use of Digital Signatures for critical functions like Refunds

10. Use of Digital Signature for document signing and reports

11. Hosting at the Professional data centre with proper agreements

12. Extensive use of SSL layer over the Network

13. Periodic Drills of DC to DR.

Shri Shreekant Deshpande, Secretary, Accounts and Treasuries, Finance Department,Government of Maharashtra, [email protected] and Shri Balakrishnan Nair,Scientist ‘D’ (Principal Systems Analyst), National Informatics Centre, [email protected]

491SEVAARTH (SEVA+ARTH): A Web based...

I) Overview

Sevaarth is a centralized web based, integrated system of Personnel Information& Payroll, developed by NIC, Pune for Govt. of Maharashtra. It is an importantcomponent of IFMS (Integrated Finance Management System) with data exchangewith other modules of IFMS, namely TreasuryNET and BEAMS (BudgetExpenditure & Monitoring System).

It is the first step in the direction of achieving paperless Electronic PayrollSystem i.e., paybill generation, electronic submission, electronic audit andelectronic payment to the employees.

Maharashtra is a large state having 693 Controlling officers spread over 35districts and 310 talukas and 12,506 Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs),out of which 5,964 DDOs are at tehsil level. The Sevaarth system has beenrunning smoothly for quite sometime now, which is indeed a creditableachievement considering the magnitude and complexity involved.

Now, a central database of employees and posts is available for ad hoc queriesfor decision making.

CHAPTER 39

SEVAARTH (SEVA+ARTH)A Web based Integrated Package of Personnel

Information and Pay Roll

Shri. Sunil Vyas


Similarly, a provision to incorporate UID number into the database whichwill enable the State Government to analyse and use the data recorded in UID,especially for making e payment to the employees directly into their accounts.

Considering the above factors and the future plans the State Government hasin ensuring various MIS reports and paperless system, it is felt that this system isone of its kind and hence most eligible for the Award.

In the Government SEVAARTH plays an important part in maintainingpersonnel information and payment history. SEVAARTH, which consists of twocomponents: 1) SEVA – meaning personal and service details of employees and 2)ARTH – meaning personal payments made to the employees, helps in keepingbasic record of employees as well as in generating pay and other bills relating topersonnel of various departments. With the increase in the number of employeesover the years, the Government of Maharashtra was finding it difficult to have acentralized information base of all employees, as also to generate pay bills manuallyafter incorporating all the changes and pay employees on time. Thus a need was feltto introduce computerization to achieve both the objectives. However, nonavailability of connectivity to all government offices, which are located in far flungareas of Maharashtra, posed a major problem. Therefore, a model was evolved whereinthe original data was posted to a central server and an offline utility for pay billgeneration was given to the user offices. It was envisaged that the updated informationavailable offline would be transferred to the central server so that the data is updated.However, although many offices started using this version, it was experienced thatupdation to the central server was not being done regularly. This experience led theGovernment to look at alternatives and the one which is currently in place wasdevised with a central server model, wherein all the offices work online.

The Goals set out for Sevaarth were :

1. To have a centralized employee database which can be used to build e-Service Book and facilitate online generation of pay bills and other employeerelated bills.

2. To build a database of various offices, government quarters and DDOs.

3. To create an effective MIS for use of various departments of the governmentand the Accountant General.


SEVAARTH was designed with the following sub-objectives :

1. It should be possible to quickly & accurately gather personnel data for allthe government offices in the State.

2. The prevalent system of incorporating changes manually and preparingdifferent pay bills for different employees grouped under a scheme was tobe eliminated and more effective controls were to be exercised over theexpenditure.

3. The system was to enable each Drawing and Disbursing Officer (DDO)to prepare pay bills on time.

4. Simultaneously, the system was to ensure all allowances and all deductionswere made correctly and accurately.

5. The system was also required to provide a statewide information system tomonitor various aspects of the personnel system thereby ensuring financialdiscipline & correct decision-making.

6. The system was designed to avoid manual labour required for preparationof monthly and other pay bills, thereby reducing the time and energy.

7. Another objective was to build a credible system to capture the bank detailsof the offices as well as employees so that the system to transfer fundselectronically could be put in place.

8. Finally, the system was to provide a transparent and open informationsystem for the use of various offices, departments and other entities as wellas the common citizens to know the information about various offices, etc.

9. Due to more accurate information being available, better decision-makingand control was to become possible at the level of the Cabinet, Ministersand each and every tier of the government.

10. To provide a facility to individual employees to access the system to viewtheir own data/profile.

11. To provide a transparent tool to common citizens to monitor how muchmoney government is spending on pay and allowances from their tax money.

In order to be effective and to achieve the desired results, the system had to beimplemented simultaneously in the whole state, and cover, to the extent possible,all the offices in the shortest possible time.


Sevaarth has already covered 11,525 (93%) of the DDOs with data of nearly5.49 lakh employees out of a total of around 7.5 lakh employees. Online pay billis regularly being generated for around 4.42 lakh employees.

Now, a central database of employees and posts is available for ad hoc queriesfor decision making. Stakeholders of the System are DDO, Treasuries FinanceDepartment, Heads of all Departments, Accountant General, SRKA, Employees.


1. Key Performance


The services delivered under Sevaarth use the ICT to bring benefits to variousgovernment offices. Hence the services rendered fall in the category G to G.

The Finance department, GoM is channelizing its efforts to integrate finance& accounting operations. ‘SEVAARTH’ is a part of forthcoming integratedfinancial management system (IFMS). It is recognized as the drawing & disbursingofficers’ module.

It is planned to replace the physical bill with the e-bill. This shall eliminatethe need for all preprinted stationery and pave the way for paperless bills. Thedetailed bills will only be available in electronic form while the summary changestatement can be printed and signed by the DDO before it is submitted by himto the PAO/Treasury. Of course, this module is not presently available. However,the Government is planning to move toward this direction.

SEVAARTH caters to the needs of all users as user friendly online up to dateMIS is available. There are various readymade reports displayed on the click of abutton. The effective MIS supports decision making process, tracking ofexpenditure, generation of pay bills, etc. However, it is planned to create variousMIS reports for different authorities in the Government. This will be taken up innear future.

SEVAARTH has facilitated a momentous improvement in the personnelinformation system. The departments/offices are able to save huge amounts of


time that was spent earlier in generation of pay bills. With saving in time andconsequently the manpower, they can now focus on developmental activities.

Maharashtra is a large State having 30 Administrative Departments, 693Controlling officers spread over 35 districts and 310 talukas and 12,506 Drawingand Disbursing Officers (DDOs), out of which 5,964 DDOs are at tehsil level.Sevaarth has already covered 11,525 (93% of the DDOs) with data of nearly5.49 lakh employees out of a total of around 7.5 lakh employees. Online paybill is regularly being generated for around 4.42 lakh employees. The Sevaarthsystem has been running smoothly for more than a year. This is indeed a creditableachievement considering the magnitude and complexity involved.



The process of data entry and generation of pay bill has to be done by the DDOand his assistant. Therefore, every DDO has to participate and do his part of theprocess as otherwise he can not use the system effectively. Therefore, participationby every DDO has been ensured for the system to be used universally. Gradualtraining and handholding of DDOs has brought results.

Sevaarth has re-engineered the whole process of monthly pay bill generation.It is a system which has simplified the complete cycle for making changes takingplace during the month (e.g., transfer, promotion, demotion, increment, leave,absence, suspension etc.), updating information and generation of pay bills forestablishments of various offices. It has put in place an effective managementinformation system for the employee data, office details, bank details of office aswell as employees and history of payments made to the employees. This systeminvolves minimum of paperwork, yet is totally accurate & reliable.


The convenience of users has been the prime focus while designing andimplementing the system.

1. SEVAARTH has effectively made use of Internet, it is available 24x7 onInternet (web), as well as through intranet. Thus it can be accessed fromanywhere in the world.


2. Although the system uses on-line mode, an off line utility has been givento those DDOs who have relatively large number of employees on theirestablishments, e.g., Police, Health, etc. The DDO can make off line dataentry as per his convenience and then upload the data to the central serverin one go.

3. It is recognized as the drawing & disbursing officers’ module in an IntegratedFinancial Management System.

4. Separate facility for State level Administrator to create or update variousMasters has been made available.

5. Maintenance module has been provided for all the users. This modulegives the user utilities for maintaining the system such as password relatedactivities, resetting password, changing password etc, creation of assistantusers, undoing transactions, logs of various transactions and users’ activitieson the system.

6. Effective grievance reprisal mechanism has been established which includes:

7. Continuous monitoring of the system at apex level

8. State level help desk in DAT, Finance Department is available

9. Facility centers at treasuries & sub treasuries


SEVAARTH has helped in improving communication across departments andcreated scope for integrating systems across the department. It is a project launchednot only for automation, computerization or making use of technology but theproject also emphasizes that various stakeholders such as Accountant General,treasuries, Drawing & Disbursing Officers can interact with each other and canshare a common database.

Centralised database at the State level, Integration of Payroll with PIS havebeen ensured through Sevaarth. Data entered in PIS (Transfers, Promotions, leavesetc. is automatically reflected in the Paybill generation. Service book getsautomatically built up. The central database facilitates development of other relatedsub-systems around the main system (like Quarter Allotment system, Loan Bills,


LTC bills, Employee Corner etc). Sevaarth achieves rule based pay bill calculation,which makes it easily replicable for other States.

d. Integration with other External ICT Systems

Sevaarth has capacity to integrate with other systems of the Government used fordifferent purposes. These systems are BEAMS (For Budget), TreasuryNET(Treasury Processes), DCPS (New Pension Scheme) etc.


1. Processes


Changes communicated through the coordinator from the Accounts & TreasuriesDirectorate to the NIC team leader. The team leader then gets the changeseffected through contract programmers. Expertise of personnel (in technicalmatters) from NIC is often used for resolving technical issues.

A massive program for training all the users of the system was launched. Thesimultaneous training and handholding for over 12,000 odd users spread over35 districts and 302 talukas was a gigantic task.

It was not enough just to arrange few classroom sessions & explain the wholesystem. The more important thing was giving hands on training in realenvironment. However it was a challenge considering the large number of users.

The training was organized as follows:

1. Apex level training sessions arranged at Mantralaya for Administrativedepartments periodically.

2. Separate follow-up training sessions and Hands on Training sessions atMantralaya & regional training centers.

3. Regional level training at each region with continuous training every weekon Friday at 6 regional places.

4. Periodical trainings at each district by State level trainers.

5. Special training arranged for DDOs and their assistants at Yashada, Pune.Special training sessions for High Court staff.


Apart from this online training manual & presentations are available on theInternet and updated regularly so that the users can refer to them as and whenrequired. There is a separate link provided for presentations and manuals.

Simultaneously, it was decided to allow exemptions, concessions in certaincases initially wherever it was difficult to make system applicable due to eitherlack of certain features in the application software or due to technical/operationaldifficulties faced by the user.

1. Enrichment of system by adding new features based on feedback fromusers:

2. Additional Re-engineering:

The next step was to add more and more features into the software. Theimplementation of the system coupled with continuous training sessionsand effective feedback mechanism helped in adding various new featuresin the application.

3. Setting up of Facility centers:

Despite the intensive training, the DDOs did face problem in using thesystem. Each office did not always have computers. There was a problemof power shortages due to which the computers did not work. Finally,connectivity provided by BSNL still leaves a lot to be desired. Also theconstant up-gradation and new features that were added required a constantsystem to communicate new features to all concerned.

Since all the DDOs have to come to the treasury to submit their bills andto pick up the cheques facility centers have been set up at each districttreasury & sub treasury at taluka level. The facility centers provideinfrastructure as well as handholding support to the users. Every facilitycenter at district has been equipped with computers, printers, assured powersupply and a broadband connection. Specially trained staff has beendeployed at these facility centers.

In addition qualified and trained personnel are deputed at each regionaltreasury by appointing staff on contract basis for handholding.

4. Sustainability of the initiative :

The initiative has the backing of the High Power Committee of Maharashtra


Govt. and is sustainable in view of the following :



1. The technical support for software maintenance is being given by NIC.

2. Trainer’s training has been given by NIC. The officers of the Directorateof Accounts and Treasuries organize training programmes for DDOsregularly.

3. For the handholding and operational support to DDOs, staff has beenhired on contract basis.

4. System is accessible on SWAN as well as Internet.

5. Broadband connectivity is available at most of the field offices.

6. Presently the coverage is more than 93% DDOs and proves thesustainability.


Initially the idea was floated by the then Secretary (Information Technology),Government of Maharashtra. However, since the persons working under theDirectorate of Accounts & Treasuries were much more e-literate, having alreadyimplemented Finance applications like Treasury Net and the above referred offline model, the task of co-ordinating the development of software for this purposewas assigned to the Finance Department of the Government with NationalInformatics Centre, Pune as the actual software developer. The Directorate ofAccounts & Treasuries worked as the facilitator and gave domain knowledge.

The Secretaries of the Finance Department working from time to time wereinstrumental in gearing up this activity by guiding, promoting and makingavailable the required resources and infrastructure.


The System has been developed in house, by involving NIC, Pune. The NIC hasbeen doing the work of development of various software since a long time and


without any charge. The only expenditure that had to be incurred is on technicalinfrastructure like severs, Hosting space, etc., and on the remuneration beingpaid to the programmers appointed on contract basis for development and handedover to the NIC. All the systems belonging to the Finance Department of theGovernment of Maharashtra (relating to the Directorate of Accounts & Treasuries)have been hosted in a managed environment of service provider.

3. Technology


As far as development of software is concerned, the NIC has used open sourcetechnology. Linux, Apache, PHP have been used. At the backend DB2 is usedconsidering the technological advantages this software has as compared to othertechnologies.


The Finance Department, Government of Maharashtra has entered into contractwith M/s Tata Communications Ltd., Mumbai for three years for managed hosting.All applications have been hosted in Data Centres of M/s TCL located at Mumbaiand Hyderabad. Three systems including Sevaarth are hosted from Hyderabad asprimary site (with DR site at Mumbai), whereas other four applications arerunning from Mumbai (with DC site at Hyderabad). The services under ManagedHosting conform to the standard necessary specifications prevalent in the industry.The process of selection of service provider was done through open tender process.The total value of contract is Rs.9.5 Crore. Ofcourse the Finance Departmenthas hosted all seven applications apart fromSevaarth.

It is ensured through the contract made in this behalf that all security measuresare taken and all confidentiality standards maintained by M/s TCL. Thecompliance in this regard is scrutinized by qualified and trained personnelappointed by the Department of Information Technology. It has been agreedthat M/s TCL will handover the whole set up to the Government of Maharashtraat the end of the contract period.


The highlights of the system solution are -

1. Data is not shared with other organisations.

2. Physical security of the server – Server installed in well guarded premisesof TCL data centre.

3. Server behind TCL firewall.

4. Only authorised and authentic users can access the system. Login withuser id and password

5. Role based access

6. Data locking mechanism provided. After locking, data is updated throughchange module which logs all changes.

7. Maker-Checker method used for approving changes.



2. eParticipation

Since this is a system under G to G category, the users are government personnel.Each DDO has been assigned a specific 10 digit DDO Code. Also since thesystem is web based, each DDO has to work online. The system also providesutility for feedback.

Shri. Sunil Vyas, Joint Director (Reforms), Finance Department, Government ofMaharashtra, Directorate of Accounts and Treasuries, Maharashtra State, Mumbai,[email protected]



CHAPTER 40

Integrated Orissa TreasuryManagement System (iOTMS)*

Shri Patita Pawan Nath and Shri Siddhartha Das

I) Overview

Orissa Treasury Management System (iOTMS) which brought the process ofCentralized Budget and Treasury Management System in Orissa has beenrevolutionary in the field of e-governance. iOTMS has incorporated several moduleswhich have helped in smoothening the entire treasury functioning to a greatextent. The main aim of e-governance, viz. transparency in the governing process,accuracy and accountability on the part of the officials, is ensured through iOTMS.Since the work flow in the treasury is entirely system-based, it has helped inensuring accountability, responsibilities and transparency in the process throughservices like bill tracking facility, pending bill status, pension payment status,etc., These are monitored by the higher officials of the Directorate of Treasuriesand Inspections since well as the Finance Department. The e-payment facility ofiOTMS has greatly helped the taxpayers as well as the Government as it is hasslefree. Besides this, the project also provides several crucial citizen-centric serviceslike pension payment status, bill status, and challan query. iOTMS can be regardedas a bright instance of promoting e-governance in the state.

It has now been a challenge for every Government to ensure that e-governanceis delivered to its citizens through the use of Information and CommunicationTechnology (ICT). Various projects have been undertaken in various fields by

503Integrated Orissa Treasury Management System (iOTMS)

different governments in this regard. One such important endeavor undertakenby Government of Orissa is the computerization treasury process. The history oftreasury computerization dates back to 2007 with the launching of “Orissa TreasuryManagement System (OTMS)” in the entire state in association with Departmentfor International Development (DFID). However, some serious limitations wereexperienced in OTMS. They were:

1. The system was based on a distributed architecture due to which real timedata was not available at the central location.

2. Access to OTMS was restricted to the intranet users only.

These limitations led to the development of Integrated Orissa TreasuryManagement System (iOTMS). Unlike the existing system, the present system isbased on a completely centralized architecture which maintaining data of all the39 District/Special treasuries at central location in Bhubaneswar. The present systemprovides a tool to the Finance Department for budget forecasting on the expenditure,payments, etc. at a single click of the mouse. iOTMS makes available real time datawithout any time lag which is highly crucial for the financial management of thestate. iOTMS is a web - enabled service which allows the users to access it fromanywhere across the globe. Some of the crucial services provided by iOTMS includese-budget distribution, online payment of commercial taxes, citizen services like billstatus, challan query, pension payment status, etc.

The users/stakeholders of the system as well as the objectives which iOTMSwas expected to bring to them are described below in detail:

1. Officials of the Administrative Department (AD), the Controlling Officers(COs) and the Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs) and DivisionalOfficers : iOTMS is aimed at simplifying the system of budget allotmentand making it more efficient. Unlike the previous system where the allotmentwas distributed manually, iOTMS allows the ADs to allot funds online tothe COs who in turn distribute them to the DDOs.

2. Officials of the Treasury : iOTMS was mainly developed to benefit thetreasury officials. The aim was to reduce the frequency of delay of submissionof accounts and to bring accuracy in account compilation.


3. Pensioners drawing their pension from the treasury : For the pensioners, itwas expected that the project would help in providing various crucial serviceslike pension payment status, pension slip generation, etc. It was also expectedthat since the entire process of treasury functioning would be simplified,the passing of pension bill and subsequent payment of pension would beless time consuming compared to the existing system.

4. Taxpayers (commercial taxes in particular) : iOTMS expected to help thetaxpayer in paying the taxes without much hassles which would be in turnbeneficial to the government as well. The e-payment facility of iOTMS,which has been implemented through Cyber Treasury, launched specificallyto handle the online transaction with PSBs, has helped the taxpayer to paytaxes without his physical presence and without paying any transaction cost.

5. Officials of AG (O) : iOTMS is aimed at submitting e-accounts from all thetreasuries to the office of AG (O). This helps in timely compilation ofaccounts.

6. Higher management from ADs and Finance Department for monitoringof expenditure and revenue : It was expected that the project would helpin rendering the higher management from AD and Finance Departmentto monitor the expenditure and revenue. The Decision Support System(DSS) of the Treasury Portal provides the expenditure and receipt data ona year to year, month to month and quarter to quarter comparative basis ina graphical mode.

iOTMS is economical and also cost-sensitive in the sense that less number ofservers are required to cater to the needs of the entire state. Further, the existinghardwares are utilized to its maximum extent in the new system. Any change inthe software is deployed at only one location thereby eliminating any chance ofmismatch. Another important benefit of the system is data integrity, i.e., nopiece of data is repeated within the database.


1. Key Performance



Benefits Delivered:

1. G2C Services: The various G2C services delivered currently and the benefitsobtained from these services by the stakeholders are:

• Online bill status enquiry service helps citizens and DDOs (Drawingand disbursing Officers) to know the status of bills along with thevoucher details submitted to the treasury. This facility saves timeand travelling cost of stakeholders.

• Challan query service enables the stakeholders to know their challanstatus as well as the treasury challan number online through theweb portal of DTI.

• Pension payment status helps the pensioners to get crucialinformations like the status of their pension bill, pension amount,pension calculation parameters and voucher number withoutphysical presence in treasury.

• Public grievance facility enables the citizens to lodge complaintsonline. An online grievance reference is provided for future reference/status query. A dedicated team of officers of DTI looks into thegrievances and tries to redress them at the earliest.

• Other services: Available include download facility of importantforms, important notices and circulars, feedback space, etc.

2. G2B Services: The various G2B services delivered currently are:

• Online payment facilitates deposit of government taxes, duties onlinethrough “VeriSign” secured and Appin audited web portal. Payments canbe made by net banking facility anywhere without the physical presenceof the depositor. The Cyber Treasury, created specifically to deal with onlinetransactions, receives and accounts for the e-payments entirely throughelectronic mode reducing treasury workload.

• Bank interface link facilitates treasury-linked banks of Cyber Treasury toupload daily electronic credit scrolls (MIS for payment receipt) in portalfor preparation of accounts simultaneously. The government prepares error-free account in time for revenue reflection of treasury. Manual entry ofnumerous challans and checking the same with the scroll is dispensed offthereby saving time and government manpower.


3. G2G/G2E services

• Monthly pension bill generation automated the process of pensiondisbursement. Centralized monthly pension bill is generated in bulk modethrough the system, which is available to treasury for passing and approvingthe bill. This saves time and helps generating pension bill at the same timefor all the treasuries in the state without any manual intervention. Inaddition to this, revised pension disbursement process has been piloted in4 treasuries which would automatically credit the pension amount in thepensioner’s bank account. The process would be operational throughoutthe state by 1st September, 2011.

• Centralized budget distribution system Through centralized budgetdistribution system : The Administrative Departments (ADs) can allotfunds to their respective Controlling Officers (COs). The COs can furtherdistribute the allotted funds to the Drawing and Disbursing Officers(DDOs). COs can surrender, redistribute and re-appropriate funds as perthe requirements. COs and DDOs are intimated about their respectiveallotments through e-mail. Different types of reports relating to distributionand expenditure of the allotted funds are available to help the ADs andCOs in taking informed decisions. For the DDOs, reports of DDO-wiseallotment and expenditure against allotment are available.

• Online distribution of works expenditure: Through the Works ExpenditureModule, the allocation by the Grant Controlling Officers and the BudgetCOs to the Divisions/Irrigation projects is made. The Divisions log intothe Orissa Treasury Portal in the internet and enter their cheque detailsand the amount of expenditure to be incurred with the available allotmentwhich gets deducted in the system. While honoring cheques issued by theDivisions, the bank uses the Bank Interface of the Treasury Portal to verifythe appropriateness of the claim.

• Online bill submission (e-billing) is a web-enabled functionality of iOTMSthrough which DDOs can prepare different types of bills through online/offline bill format (e-form). After submitting the bill at treasury end itpasses through different levels; a SMS will be triggered to DDO at thesubmission of bills in treasury application online. Subsequently, treasuryofficer will process the electronically submitted bill (e-bill).


• Decision Support System (DSS) and Dashboard : The Decision SupportSystem and the Dash Boards available in the Treasury Portal reveal theexpenditure as well as receipt data major head-wise, scheme-wise, CO-wise and DDO-wise for various kinds of expenditure analysis. The DecisionSupport System of the Treasury Portal provides the expenditure and receiptdata on a year-to-year, month to month-and quarter-to-quarter comparativebasis in a graphical mode.


Services enhanced during the year are:

1. Exclusive portal for the Directorate of Treasuries & Inspection.

2. Online Budget Distribution and Expenditure Monitoring System.

3. Online Works Budget Distribution and Expenditure Monitoring System.

4. Online Payment of Commercial Taxes.

5. Centralized Treasury Management System.

6. Centralized Pension Processing System.

7. Online Bill Submission (e-Billing).

8. MIS, Dashboard and Decision Support System (DSS).

9. Citizen Services : Bill Query, Challan Query, Pension Query.

Services planned to be delivered in subsequent stages are:

1. Budget Planning and Preparation.

2. Implementation of e-billing system across all the DDOs.

3. Asset & Liability Management System.

4. Internal Audi and Inspection by DTI.

5. Centralized Pensioners’ Database.

6. Pensioners’ Portal.

7. SMS Service.

8. Integration with HRMIS (Human Resource Management InformationSystem).

9. ECS (Electronic Clearing System) for payment of all types of bills passedthrough treasury.


10. e-Scroll (Cr/Dr) for online transfer of bank’s scroll to treasuries.

11. Collaborate with Central Plan Scheme Monitoring System (CPSMS) inorder to monitor expenditure relating to the flagship schemes of Governmentof India and Government of Orissa.

12. Integration with NSDL for implementation of New Pension Scheme inthe state.

13. Facility for eTDS.

14. Integration with Mining and Excise departments for online payment oftaxes.


The entire implementation period of iOTMS can be divided into 2 phases.

Phase I : In this phase, the ‘e-budget interface’ module was piloted across allthe 38 administrative departments and 170 COs in the state. In addition to this,Orissa Treasury Portal, e-Challan, e-Billing, Citizen Services: Online Status Enquiry(bills, pension, challan) System, Dashboard and MIS Reports for Departmentsand COs were executed.

Phase II – In this phase, the centralized treasury management system was firstpiloted in 2 treasuries (District Treasury Khurda and Special Treasury No.1).Subsequently, after successful piloting, the system was rolled out throughout thestate across all the treasuries in the state over a period of 3 months in a phasedmanner. Further, other important modules like Online Distribution of WorksExpenditure, Interface with AG, Banks, DSS for Finance Department was alsocompleted in this phase.



The treasury computerization in the State has enhanced the effectiveness andefficiency of the delivery system in many ways.

The allotment through the ‘Budget Interface’ module of iOTMS is electronicand immediate, for which the direct and indirect cost and the overhead cost has


reduced to a substantial extent. Similarly, the data regarding the drawal ofexpenditure at any particular corner of the state is available on real time basis forthe Administrative Department as well as the CO to keep an eye over theexpenditure. A fully enabled audit trail with archiving facility, makes it possibleto store and monitor the history of data changes. In addition to this, the e-Payment facility through Cyber Treasury has been beneficial for both the taxpayeras well as the Government. From the point of view of the taxpayer, it is easy,convenient and also the payment is made without any transaction cost. In respectof revenue earning department, the tax comes to the State account in T+1 basiswhereas in case of payments made through any demand draft or cheque, it takeslonger time for credit of the tax into the Government account. Increasing revenuefigure through online payment has been provided in the supporting document.

Other noticeable improvements are : significant progress in bill processingtime, reduction in delay of submission of accounts, and increase in accuracy interms of account compilation. The most vital improvement among all is the closureof the yearly account on 31st March instantly without having any pendency.


The treasury computerization through iOTMS has facilitated severalinnovations in the field of treasury transactions, Government receipts and paymentprocess. Some of the notable innovations are:

1. Online payment through Treasury Portal: The e-Payment facility of theTreasury Portal has started a new era in the receipt process. The electronictransactions are not merely convenient for the taxpayers but also help thetreasury in preparing the accounts accurately and efficiently.

2. Multiple Link Banks for Cyber Treasury: For the purpose of Cyber Treasurywhich prepares the account for all e-receipts, the Government in FinanceDepartment after due consultation with RBI and AG (A&E), Orissa hasnotified that it would be linked to multiple banks. This has facilitatedthe convenience for the taxpayer to make the payment from any of thebank account.

3. Facility of payment gateway through the Central Bank of India : At present,7 banks are participating in the e-Payment system. To facilitate the taxpayers


who do not have account in designated 7 PSBs, the iOTMS has beenintegrated to the payment gateway facility offered by Central Bank of Indiawherein payments made through 48 nos. of both public and private sectorbanks are accepted. A taxpayer paying tax through the Treasury Portal hasnow got the choice of making payment through any of the list of 48 banks.

4. Allotment processing for works expenditure: Already mentioned underG2G services.

5. E-budget distribution: Already mentioned under G2G services.

6. Revised pension disbursement procedure: The pension bills will begenerated from the central server before the end of the month and wouldbe approved at the treasury level. The treasury would advice the bank tocredit the pensioners’ bank account through National Electronic FundTransfer (NEFT) or Core Banking Solutions (CBS) as the case may be.This has already been implemented in 4 treasuries on a pilot basis and therest will be covered within 1st September, 2011.

7. Online bill submission through e-form: Already mentioned under G2G/G2E services.


iOTMS is integrated with different external ICT systems like AG (AccountantGeneral), other government departments and public sector banks.

1. AG, Orissa: iOTMS makes it possible to submit the monthly treasuryaccounts electronically to AG, because of its centralized database. Thisminimizes the time of submitting monthly treasury accounts, and alsohelps AG to download the electronic form of data directly to their database.Integration with the Voucher Level Compliance (VLC) system of AG helpsreducing human intervention of entering a huge volume of data, andprevents from human error at AG end.

2. Public Sector Banks: iOTMS application is integrated to different PSBsthrough its Cyber Treasury. This helps to import the electronic scrolls ofdifferent banks in iOTMS and generate the accounts. It saves the time andmanpower for entering such number of scrolls into the system. It alsoprovides a link to the banks to verify the cheque’s authenticity issued for


works expenditure through iOTMS which eliminates the possibility ofexcess expenditure and also helps bank to minimize the effort of maintainingall the details to eradicate excess expenditure. iOTMS is integrated withpayment gateways of a wide range of banks, which helps a depositor todeposit his/her government dues online.

3. Other departments: iOTMS is capable to produce different formats(XML, PDF) of MIS, related to department-specific revenue andexpenditure data. This in turn helps the department to directly downloadthe data into their database.


1. Processes


The project of iOTMS aimed at introducing various ICT processes that wouldhelp in serving the purpose of smoothening the treasury functioning in the state.Orissa Treasury Portal is the main front-end process which was planned and wassubsequently implemented. The portal gives access to various modules of iOTMSas well as interfaces with external agencies. Since the portal is web-based, it canbe accessed from anywhere across the globe. The modules available through theportal includes e-payment, online budget interface, works expenditure module,online challan status, etc. Similarly, the interface includes bank interface and AGinterface.


While planning the user interface onto an ePlatform, it was realized much earlierthat it was important to have modules that seamlessly integrate the front-endand the back-end processes to be able to fully harvest the gains. The idea was tocarry over the manual process onto an e-platform. This has led to significantamount of innovation, simplification and process reengineering. Today, the fullcycle of operation starting from import of state budget in iOTMS, budgetdistribution to DDO level and allotment availability at treasury, process ofapproving bills against allotment, receipt of challan, e-Payment, etc. is conductedon an electronic platform, which has significantly added to efficiencies for theuser and the government and is explained below.


iOTMS is a full-fledged information system software that enables the automationof various functions of the treasuries. It runs on an advanced infrastructure fullyhosted within the central location located at DTI premises Bhubaneswar. It isdeveloped based on the System Requirement Specifications and System DesignDocument. iOTMS has been developed using JAVA-J2EE, which is a platformindependent language. It is based on 3-tier architecture, and is browser independent.The application is segregated into internet and intranet version. The intranetapplication is accessible only to the treasuries. The internet application is accessibleto the citizens, more than one lakh pensioners, 38 Administrative Departments,170 COs, 6,680 DDOs and 386 Divisional Officers.

Important software modules of iOTMS are e-Budget, Works Expenditure,Centralized Treasury Management System, Bills and Challans Query, PensionPayment Status Query, Interfaces With Various Agencies, e-Payment, e-Bill etc.iOTMS is a VeriSign secured site having 128-bit encryption. Network equipmentslike firewall and load balancer have been employed to maximize the security aswell as availability. The entire arrangement of iOTMS focuses to deliver twothings – firstly, the timely availability of data to enable the users to analyze thesame and secondly, the ease it provides to the top management in seeing acomprehensive picture enabling them to take a timely and correct decision.



iOTMS is an instance of the coordinated efforts of various agencies as well asefficient project management. The responsibility of developing and implementingthe entire project lay in the hands of Directorate of Treasuries & Inspections(DTI). For this reason, a Project Management Unit (PMU) is in place in DTIwhere a dedicated team of competent officials headed by the Assistant Directorlook into the project management of iOTMS. An instance of efficient projectmanagement is that the software developer of OTMS (CMC Ltd.) was againgiven the task of developing the software in iOTMS. This arrangement led to thecompletion of the project in record time of less than a year, much before thetarget date of completion. This was possible due to two major reasons – firstly, alot of time was saved since no tenders were invited and secondly, since CMC Ltd.was already well versed with the domain knowledge of treasury functioning, it


was comparatively easier to develop the new software. Also the constant supportprovided by the network support provider, BSNL, cannot be ignored.

Regular review meetings are held between CMC Ltd. and the Director ofTreasuries and PMU of DTI. Regular monitoring is done by the PMU so thatthere is no technical problem as well as problem relating to its usage. In case anyproblem is faced by the user, it is tackled by the PMU on a priority basis. Usersare given a facility of lodging their complaints relating to iOTMS through a calllogging system named “Mantis”. There is also a highly efficient Help Desk systemwith Toll Free call facility in DTI comprising of an Asst. Director, a SystemAnalyst and two Asst. Software Engineers. To make the Help Desk system moreeffective, CMC Ltd. has positioned two personnels to manage the Help Desk.The Help Desk with the Toll Free call facility is available during working hours.During holidays or non-working days, the mail IDs and telephone numbers ofthe designated officials have been provided in the Portal for the users to contactin case of any difficulty.

An effective version management (managed through CollabNet Subversion)and deployment policy are in place as a part of effective project management.


“Train the trainer” was the training policy adopted for implementation of iOTMS.Resultantly, a resource team comprising of officials working in the treasury wasset up. The resource team was involved in the project development stage and wasassociated in all matters relating to the preparation of System Requirement Study(SRS) on Treasury Application. After extensive training was imparted to the resourceteam in the DTI, CMC Ltd. also deployed an Engineer in each of the Dist.Treasury for one month hand holding support. The district Treasury Officersconducted training programs for the officials of the Sub-Treasuries with the helpof the resource person of the DTI and the CMC Engineer. In this way, the staff ofall the 166 treasuries (nearly 1700) were trained in the new system. In additionto this, separate training programs were conducted for users of different moduleslike e-budget distribution and works expenditure.

At the outset, the users were quite skeptical about the new centralized systemand were reluctant to use it. To remove these doubts, a full-fledged change


management strategy was adopted. The resource team, which consisted of treasuryofficials who were trained by the DTI on the new system, went to differenttreasuries and clearly explained the benefits of iOTMS and also familiarized themwith the same. For instance, they explained that since iOTMS is a java-basedapplication system, tab key would be used instead of the enter key.

Users were convinced, by means of training sessions, of the usefulness andbenefits of the project. Resultantly, users are now comfortably using the system.The PMU based in DTI regularly look to the needs of the users and addressissues, if any, faced by them.


iOTMS owes its success to perpetual leadership shown at the highest level in theGovernment. At the policy level, a Committee comprising of the PrincipalSecretary to Government in Finance department, Secretary of IT Department,Director of Treasuries and Inspection, representative from AG (O) andrepresentatives from other Departments decided the basic outline of the project.At the Directorate level, a group headed by the Director of Treasuries, Addl.Director, Deputy Director, Asst. Director (PMU), Asst. Director (T&B), Asst.Director (Computer), OSD-cum-Cyber Treasury Officer, and Treasury Officersfrom selected treasuries decided the implementation plan and the rollouts. Thesupport which the project received from the political sphere cannot be ignored.Honorable Minister of Finance was actively involved in all important developmentsof the project. The web portal of DTI was launched by the honorable ChiefMinister of Orissa.


Going by the Mission Mode Project standard under NeGP, the Government ofIndia aims to fund all the e-governance promoting projects. However, till nowcentral assistance has not been received and the design, development of the projectof iOTMS is entirely funded by Government of Orissa. The Detailed ProjectReport is being prepared to be submitted to the Government of India on thebasis of which funds are likely to come for the project in the future.


3. Technology


The DTI is in the process of shifting the data center to State Data Center (SDC),Orissa and will use their disaster recovery site located outside Orissa. In theinterim, DTI has made the necessary arrangements to build a near backup site atSpecial Treasury, Khurda. Data Guard is implemented to replicate the productiondata to physical standby database located near backup site. Daily RMAN level 1cumulative incremental backup of data and a full backup once in a week aretaken and shifted to a removable storage like LTO and kept the same outside ofthe premises on daily basis.


iOTMS has been implemented at central server in DTI office at Bhubaneswar.The end-user, irrespective of locations, work with the central server databasethrough a web-based application. This web-based application is available oninternet as well as intranet. The developed application is deployed on WeblogicPortal and Weblogic Application Server, Jasper Report Sever and database is Oracle10g Enterprise Edition. The application is built upon Java/J2EE technology toprovide high level of compatibility, portability as well as security. The centralizedarchitecture of iOTMS houses a database server at central location to store all thefinance and treasury data. This database server accesses data through theapplication server where web application resides. Web server provides service tothe end user for working on the web applications. Users are connected toapplication server, through web server hosted on a separate machine with adequatesecurity including firewall, SSL, certificate etc. The application server is also insidethe secured De-Military Zone. Multiple application server and web server providesservice in a parallel mode. Here load balancer shares the total load among theservers and gives high level of availability. All these servers are separated from theoutside network or internet through a firewall to provide high level of security.iOTMS has used the existing hardware and therefore expenses are incurred onlyfor the license of application software, upgradation of network connectivity andupgradation of existing hardware. The detailed list of costs incurred in the projectis given in the supporting document (Page 17).


iOTMS has now entered into maintenance phase. To provide technical supportto the application, the Government of Orissa through the DTI has signed anagreement with CMC Ltd. Presently, CMC has deployed eleven personnel fortechnical support (including two call management persons) for technical support.Further, Wipro is providing hardware and networking support and BSNL isproviding maintenance of intranet and internet connectivity of the system. TheDTI has a technical team comprising of one System Analyst and two AssistantSoftware Engineers.

iOTMS fully complies with NeGP standard, as it has implemented the moduleslike e-Budget, Accounts, Pension, Receipt, Virtual Treasury (Cyber Treasury) foron line payment, Bank Interface, AG Interface, E-Status Enquiry, etc. The detailsof the compliance of iOTMS with the NeGP standard is mentioned in thesupporting document (Page 15).


iOTMS operates through the Verisign (SSL-128 encryption) secured web portal.Site security has been audited by Appin, database and application servers arebehind firewall, regular systems checks are done to test firewall strengths foridentifying potential weak points. MD5 hashing algorithm is used to encryptand send data while transferring over net to third party agencies like PSBs in caseof online payment. Care is taken to see that no net banking user name, passwordor HPIN is collected and stored in the web portal; sufficient logs are maintainedfor all transactions to help establish a clear audit trail and assist in disputeresolution. User account is locked after five consecutive failed attempts.




iOTMS application is operational for the last one and half year and most of theservices have been enhanced or newly introduced. The project has a plan toimplement bilingual (English and Oriya) support in near future. Due to this,the database has installed to support Unicode characters. Presently, iOTMS isproviding e-mail facility for necessary events, through its own mail server. As aplan to integrate SMS service in near future, phone numbers of the concerned


beneficiaries like, DDO, CO, Pensioners, etc. are being collected. First leveldiscussion with service providers like BSNL for sending bulk SMS from iOTMSapplication has already been completed.

2. eParticipation


iOTMS is a team work involving officials and stakeholders at all levels. The officialsof the treasuries have been consulted in the process of software development andtheir views have been taken to make necessary modification in the treasuryapplication for facilitating a user friendly system. The users were consulted duringthe process of development of different modules.

3. eWaste


iOTMS is a recent development and till now has not come across any problemrelating to eWaste management. However, to frame a planned document of managingeWaste, discussions are being held with Government bodies like the IT Department,OCAC and academic institutions like IIIT. A full-fledged plan would be materializedwell before the project starts facing the situation of managing eWaste.

Shri Patita Pawan Nath, Director of Treasuries and Inspections, Finance Department,Government of Orissa, [email protected] & Shri SiddharthaDas, Assistant Director (PMU), Finance Department, Government of Orissa,[email protected]

SECTION VII

e-Governance Success StoriesSustainability

There have been a number of studies over the years highlighting successes andfailures of various e-Government Projects. e-Government - also commonly referredas e-Governance in India - generally means Electronic Government. The e-Government definition varies from person to person and place to place. A fewexamples are:

• Use of Information and Communication Technology to make Governmentmore efficient

• Use of ICT to facilitate citizens’ access to various Government services andimprove the services to citizens, businesses and other Governmentdepartments

• Use of ICT to make Government more transparent and accountable tocitizens

In each case, the key parameter continues to be citizen centricity and makinggovernment services available to common citizens easily, with quick responseand without corruption. In India, through the National e-Governance plan(NeGP), significant strides have been made across the country to implement e-governance projects to meet the underlying objectives of satisfying the needs ofa common citizen.

It is often observed that many IT projects in general, and many e-governanceprojects in particular, fall into a state of disuse or cease to serve any meaningful

Dr. Ashok Agarwal and Prof. Sanjiv Vaidya

CHAPTER 41

Sustainability of e-Governance Projects


objectives, over a period of time. This obviously leads to failure of the project inthe medium to long run.

Various studies have been conducted to define success and failure of e-governance projects. The important questions that remain are - why do many e-Gov projects fail? And how can e-Gov projects be made more sustainable andeffective over a long period?

Literature on Success, Failure and Sustainability of e-Gov projects

Heeks and Bhatnagar (1999) proposed an analytical framework to understandthe “critical success factors (CSF)” and “critical failure factors (CFF)”. Throughthis analysis, they have proposed ten critical factors responsible for the success orfailure of an e-Gov initiative. These are - Information, Technology, People,Management, Process, Culture, Structure, Strategy, Politics, and Environment.

Heeks (2003a) developed the Design–Reality Gap Model for defining failureof e-Gov projects. This involves answering the following questions.

• Where are we today?

• What was the ultimate objective to reach? (based on the initial design ofthe project)

• What is the Size of the Gap between the two items above? The answer tothis question defines the relative success or failure of a project.

Kumar & Best, (2006) addressed the issue of why some of the e-Gov projectssucceed initially in delivering the desired services to their communities and failsubsequently. They looked at long term sustainability along multipledimensions. Based on their study the following factors were highlighted bythem as key to sustainability of e-Gov projects. This was based on a study ofthe SARI project in Tamilnadu.

• Lack of Adequately Trained Personnel

• Lack of Sustained Public Leadership, Commitment, and Institutionalization

• Lack of Consistent Evaluation and Monitoring

523Sustainability of e-Governance Projects

• Lack of Involvement of All Stakeholders

• Shift in Existing Power Relationships due to Kiosks (CSCs)

They also emphasized that in their study, among all the critical failure factors,“information” (the content, data, forms, etc) did not appear and neither did“technology” (the hardware, network, software) appear. This is particularlyinteresting since it is these factors that are so often discussed when considering e-government interventions (how you get the right hardware out there, how youdesign the software system, how you develop the local content, etc.).

It is important to understand that success of a project and sustainability of aproject are not the same. A project may be successful, but not sustainable. Successof an e-Governance project implies that the defined objectives of the project havebeen met to certain degree. However, it is very much possible to sustain a projectwithout meeting the defined objectives (which is basically a failure) of the project.

While un-sustainability definitely leads to failure of a project, this may beviewed as only one of the causes of failure of a project. Failure to achieve anymeaningful objectives or failure to make significant positive impact on relatedperformance parameters is obviously a very important cause of the failure of aproject. However, even a project making significant impact in its initial stagesfails, if it is not able to sustain itself. Thus sustainability of a project becomes avery important aspect of effective management of projects in the long term.

Sustainability becomes an important consideration, especially in the case ofe-Governance projects, as non-sustainability will be clearly classified as failure.From various studies done, it is apparent that sustainability is a necessary conditionto be successful, but not sufficient. It is because only sustainable ICT initiativescan support long term socio-economic development of a community, especiallyin developing countries

Computer Society of India has been recognizing good efforts in the area of e-Governance for the last 7 years through CSI-Nihilent e-governance awards. Aneed to look at the award winning projects in the past and examine theirsustainability over years was felt and thus the award winning projects duringyear 2006 were taken up as case studies to evaluate where they are after a gap of


five years, in 2011. Four projects, viz., Bhoomi (Karnataka), BangaloreOne(Karnataka), e-Dhara (Gujarat) and National Portal of India (Government ofIndia) have been considered. There were a few award winning projects whichwere either not found to be sustainable over the years or the data submitted wasnot sufficient for determining the sustainability. Based on our evaluation frameworkused in the awards process and various studies conducted in this area; we usedthe following six factors to evaluate the sustainability status of each of the projectsover the last five years.

• Accessibility and Usability

• Trustworthiness/Credibility/ Transparency

• Project Monitoring

• Leadership and Administration

• Financial Sustainability

• Integration with related systems in the Government

Brief status of each of the projects against these five factors is given here.

Bhoomi

Bhoomi is the Land Records computerization effort by the Government ofKarnataka. Work on the project commenced in 1999. In 2001, the first onlineservices were provided to the citizens and other stakeholders of the project

Bhoomi has not only sustained its commendable levels of service achieved in2006, but has also made very significant progress over the past five years, i.e.,from 2006 to 2011.

Currently, as many as two and half crores of property records are being issuedto citizens every year, under the Bhoomi programme. The Record of Rights (ROR)is now made available at the doorsteps of farmers also through as many as 800tele-centres, in addition to the erstwhile centres at the taluka level. The mutationprocess on an FIFO basis has now been extended to the village as a unit from theerstwhile sub-taluk level unit.


Initiatives contributing to the sustainability success of Bhoomi

The success of Bhoomi at sustainability has been ensured by several initiativesundertaken by the Bhoomi management team. The different initiatives have beendiscussed below, in a brief manner.

Accessibility and Usability

It was observed that many of the common farmers were not comfortable with theidea of having to collect a computerised copy of the ROR, from the Taluk levelcentres. In response to this observation, tele-centres have been established inrural areas to deliver the ROR at the doorstep of farmers. This scheme – calledNemmadi - was initiated in 2007 and now boasts of as many as 800 tele-centres.This has been implemented in a public-private partnership mode. Nemmadi hasnow become the Citizen Service Centre scheme now, running on Bhoomi as itscore application. This widening of services out of the Nemmadi centres hascontributed to the financial viability of the individual centres, thus ensuring thesustainability of this mode of operation, and hence ensuring the sustainability ofBhoomi itself.

A further initiative by Bhoomi to increase its accessibility and usability of thesystem by the village accountants, a majority of whom are aged and computerilliterate, is manifested in the form of adoption of technologies like UniversalHandheld Devices and e-Pens., for updating the crop data.

Many of the major stakeholders – the farmers - are illiterate or poorly educated.They are kept informed of progress on each major stage of the processing of theirtransaction, through sms.

Trustworthiness/Credibility/Transparency

Bhoomi has also implemented initiatives aimed at increasing the trustworthinessand credibility of the system, which include initiatives to increase the accuracyand security of data and reliability of the overall system.

They have achieved this through several initiatives like creation of a centralrepository of all RTCs at the state data centre. This database aggregates and replicatesdatabases at the local – taluk/block levels. Bhoomi also implemented systems to


ensure consistency of data among databases at local levels and the central databaseand implemented Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) enabled system in more thanforty taluks. Under this PKI system, they have provided digital signatures to morethan 11000 village accountants, 2000 revenue inspectors, 1000 deputy tahsildarsand 200 tahsildars. They have also implemented Active Directory (AD) to effectCentralized Authentication in Bhoomi. Biometric credentials have been integratedinto the AD to prevent any unauthorised access to Bhoomi. At the localadministration levels, passwords are maintained. Effective virus protection has beenprovided at the State Data centre and local databases levels.

To increase transparency, information about the progress on each major stageof the processing of their transaction, is disseminated to farmers, through SMS.

Project Monitoring

The Bhoomi team has also employed effective project monitoring mechanisms toensure that the project runs smoothly, project continuity is ensured andenhancements are implemented effectively. The specific initiatives includeestablishment of a separate Bhoomi Monitoring Cell, establishment of a BhoomiTechnical Wing and implementation of a proper Exit Management Plan to ensuresmooth running of the project, in case a technical resource or a technical partnerleaves the project.

Leadership and Administration

Bhoomi has received constant support from the top political leadership ofKarnataka. It has also received constant and consistent support from thebureaucracy. The government has created a special post at the secretary levelcalled Secretary (Bhoomi & UPOR). The project has been under the supervisionof the same individual for more than the past five years. The concerned official isresponsible for computerisation of Land Administration in Karnataka. This isalso expected to facilitate the IT based integration across different activities relatedto Land Administration in Karnataka. Further, to strengthen the concernedadministrative set-up, the post of a director and two posts of special deputycommissioners have been created.


Financial Sustainability

The project is self-financing. The Government is earning around 20 crores fromBhoomi, a major share of which comes from fees charged to citizens for distributionof RTCs. This has actually resulted in a significant amount of surplus. This hasenabled the Government to actually reduce the fees from Rs 15 per copy to Rs.10 per copy. However, the Bhoomi management has been careful in keeping theshare of the tele-centre operators the same, keeping in view the need to keepthese centres financially viable too, if Bhoomi is to sustain itself on this large scaleof operation.

Integration with related systems in the Government

Bhoomi has achieved many successes at integrating itself with related Governmentsystems.

Most fundamentally, it has achieved a high level of integration with theregistration system in Karnataka, called Kaveri. Any land property registrationnow requires what is called as a pre-mutation sketch. The programme of gettingthese sketches and integrating the same into the registration process is calledMojini. Mojini makes it imperative for any land registration transaction to submita pre-mutation sketch. This entailed the need to modify the concerned law. Fullintegration of Bhoomi with Kaveri has been further achieved through linking thetwo systems electronically and making it mandatory for the sub-registrar to ensurethe ownership of seller over the property that is being transacted. A successfulregistration automatically results in the concerned mutation and the Bhoomirecords get updated. This in turn results in absolutely accurate data in the Bhoomidatabase, which further increases the credibility and trustworthiness of the system,which in turn further contributes the sustainability of Bhoomi.

An additional degree of integration of Bhoomi has been achieved by subsumingthe Land Acquisition activity by the Government into Bhoomi.

BangaloreOne

BangaloreOne (henceforth called B1) is the Citizen Service Centre Project of theGovernment of Karnataka in Bangalore. It is operated using the PPP model. It


gives citizens tangible benefits by providing one-stop solution to activities likebill payments, submission of applications etc. The different governmentdepartments, in addition to the common citizen, benefiting by B1, are BESCOM,BWSSB, BMP, RTO, BSNL, the Police Department, KSRTC, Bangalore Universityetc. Even private organizations like Telecom companies, Insurance companies,etc. are benefited. Thus, while B1 is primarily a G2C initiative, it is also a G2Gand G2B project.

Over the past five years, the number of B1 Centres has gone up from 14 to77. A total of 46 million citizens had availed themselves of the services tillSeptember 2011. The total number of transactions on B1 has gone up from 19.3lakhs in 2005-06 to 108.7 lakhs in 2010-11. In addition, B1 has also beengiving services to multiple organizations, including both Government and privatesector organizations, thereby significantly increasing the utility of B1 to thecommon citizen as well.

Initiatives contributing to the sustainability success of B1

The success of B1 at sustainability has been ensured by several initiativesundertaken by the Government of Karnataka. The different initiatives have beendiscussed below, in a brief manner.


As has already been mentioned above, the number of centres has gone up from14 to 77. This has definitely increased the access to B1 services by several times.

In addition, B1 has taken measures to ensure uninterrupted services to citizensthrough deliberately building redundancy into the system. The different aspectsinto which redundancy is built include specific measures like maintenance of15% leave reserve in manpower, UPS and diesel engine generator for power, loadbalancing and fail-over mechanism for systems, offline server at each of the centresin case of network disconnection and a disaster recovery site at the State DataCentre at Bangalore. The database here replicates transactions at the various B1centres. However, the DR site is not in a different seismic zone.

B1 has also improved response time very significantly through implementationof AJAX based interface.


B1 has also implemented mechanisms to monitor the quality of services tocitizens. These include implementation of EQMS (Electronic Queue ManagementSystem) in all centres to monitor waiting time for citizens under varying conditionsof load, which includes generation of MIS reports to monitor the overallperformance of B1, based on data analysis by data analysis software. All this alsohelps significantly in taking suitable actions like technology up-gradation oraddition of centres. In addition, operator attendance monitoring has beenautomated to ensure availability of services to citizens on a 24 x7 basis.

B1 also generates automated reports about bounced cheques, for consumptionby its institutional customers. In addition, B1 has established a payment gridwhich tracks the flow of payments to the institutional customers and monitorswhether the payments finally reach their intended destinations or not.


B1 employs the concept of digital signatures to achieve authentication,authorisation and non-repudiation. Public and private key methodology is adoptedto ensure that all transactions are digitally signed. Internal transactions are securedusing SSL technology. Also B1 employs leased lines from the centres to the B1centre and the State Data centre to ensure better security.

Project Monitoring and Management and Leadership& Administration

A separate directorate under the e-Governance department has been established.An all-India cadre officer is in charge of B1 operations. This ensures continuity ofmanagement supervision.


The established centres are financial self-sufficient under the PPP model. TheGovernment provides annual budgetary support for new centres.


B1, considering the type of services it renders has to be integrated with the differentinstitutional customers of its and intermediaries like banks. Technical integrationwith these customers is effected through use of various web service models andmiddleware.


National Portal of India (NPI)

NPI is a Mission Mode Project under the NeGP. The portal serves as a one stopsource for all Government information and services. It is a gateway to over 7000websites of Government of India (GOI). Thus it provides a single interface toaccess any of these websites. It contains a huge repository of Governmentinformation. It encompasses all ministries and departments of the GOI and thestate departments, as well as district administrations. It is developed entirely bythe National Informatics Centre (NIC).

Performance and recognition of the NPI

The number of hits to the NPI has increased from 135 million in 2006 to around915 million in 2011. Also, the number of registered users has gone up from4940 to 81431, during the same period.

NPI content has grown significantly richer over the past five years, in respectof both its breadth and depth.

In addition to viewing information, the citizens can also carry out transactionsusing the portal. The number of such services offered has also grown over the years.

NPI has been recognized virtually every year for its superior performance,since 2006 in various forums. NPI has also introduced a facility for users toregister their feedback on individual features and services offered by the portal.The users have been quite enthusiastic in giving their feedback. From the feedbacksit seems that a large number of users are highly satisfied with the portal.

Initiatives contributing to the sustainability success of NPI


The NPI portal has been designed in a citizen centric manner. Information hasbeen presented keeping the citizen’s point of view in mind, rather than thedepartments’ viewpoint.

The NPI is supported by a highly effective Content Management System (CMS).The CMS renders continuous update of the contents easily possible. It also allowsflexibility for easy modifications in the content architecture of the portal.


Query facilities through an Advanced Search feature have been provided onthe NPI. Also the NPI incorporates relevant linkages across different modules toprovide the user a holistic view. Both the features above aim at providing betterinformation to the users in less time.

The content is also presented in two languages, viz., English and Hindi. Unicodecompliant Hindi version of the NPI was released in 2007, thereby further increasingthe possibilities for an enhanced use of the portal. The NPI design complies withthe WCAG guidelines which define accessibility requirements. This has made theportal universally accessible, usable even by differently-abled persons.

The NPI provides users with a facility to provide feedback on individual servicesoffered. This feedback and suggestions are taken into consideration whileincorporating improvements and new features into the portal.

The portal provides users with facility to customize the home page to a certainextent, thus making it more attractive to use for the citizens. The portal has alsoprovided citizens with the opportunity to participate in nation-wide opinionpolls etc, thereby facilitating citizen participation in the process of Governance.

The State-of-the art load balancing implemented at network level, ensureslow system response times for users.


The Content Management System also ensures security of the data contained onthe portal. The active components of the portal are devised to function in a failovermode and have built-in redundancy. The Disaster Recovery site is located atHyderabad. The deployment of clustered server components ensures simultaneousservice to millions of users and availability of the portal during any individualnode failure.

Project Monitoring and Management

The feedbacks received on the NPI, are managed by using the User RelationsManagement (URM) System of the NPI.


A Content Advisory Committee has been set up, under the chairmanship ofthe Additional Secretary, DARPG, which concerns itself with populating andmaintaining content on the portal. It consists of members from differentministries, departments and states. It meets regularly for formulating/revisingpolicies regarding content distribution from across the country. The monitoringand management of the project are further aided by the Content ManagementSystem. Content Management Policies have been laid down to ensure that usersare able to extract the needed information quickly and easily.

Leadership& Administration

The NPI is backed by very strong institutional arrangements which consist of anApex committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary to the GOI himself, a ProjectReview and Steering Group headed by the Secretary to DIT, GOI, a ContentAdvisory Committee headed by the Additional Secretary, DARPG, a CoordinationCommittee at the level of NIC itself and National Portal Coordinators fromdifferent ministries and departments.


The NPI project has been launched under the MMP scheme and thus is fundedfrom the funds allocated for MMPs. Entire implementation responsibility isshouldered by NIC.


The very nature of the NPI requires it to integrate information from across differentgovernment bodies into the portal. This integration is achieved through theconstitution of the different committees which have a representation of membersof the different ministries/departments.

e-Dhara/e-Jamin

e-Dhara is the computerized system of land records in the state of Gujarat.National Informatics Centre (NIC) Gujarat has developed the software for dataentry, mutations and issuance of ROR and its implementation. The e-Dharacentres were initially at the taluka places. All 225 Talukas of 26 districts wereequipped with a server and clients, with UPS, AC and other necessary equipments.


Gujarat state wide area network (GSWAN) is also available at all 225 talukas of26 districts across the state. Now e0Dhara has been integrated with GARVI (theregistration system) and is now e-Jamin.

Over the period from 2006 to 2011, the number of property records issuedfrom e-Dhara has gone up from 1.58 crores to 2.65 crores per year. Also, duringthe same period, the number of mutations has increased from 8.39 lakhs to12.72 lakhs per year.

Also, in 2006, property records were being issued only from e-Dhara Centreslocated at Taluka places. In 2007-08, these RORs started getting issued from e-Gram centres at village panchayats. Through centralization of all the 227 landrecord databases, which was effected in 2010, the RORs can now be deliveredfrom anywhere.

Initiatives contributing to the sustainability success of e-Dhara


In 2006, villagers had to come to their Taluka place to get a copy of ROR or tomake any type of change in the ROR, as e-Dhara Centres were only at theseplaces. In 2007-08, VSAT based e-Gram centres were established and villagerscould get their ROR copies through these centres. Now, through centralizationof all the 227 land record databases, which was effected in 2010, the RORs cannow be delivered from anywhere.

e-Dhara also supports the Gujarati language, for farmers and villagers who arenot comfortable with English.


e-Dhara incorporated a feature to capture photographs and finger-prints of ownersto enable secured transactions under registration. Finger Print Scanners have beenprovided at the taluka level for verification by the Deputy Mamlatdar. These andother measures have increased the security of data manifold.

In 2011, all transactions/mutations were centralized by bringing data from allthe 227 e-Dhara centres to a central server. This increased central control over data.


Project Monitoring and Management

Process changes and changes to the Bombay Land Code of the Revenue Acthave been effected in order to integrate e-Dhara with the Garvi system for landregistration. During the same integration effort, arrangements have been madefor the SRO to sit in the Mamlatdar’s office, in order to ensure full integration,including integration at the physical level. Similarly, facilities for e-Stampinghave been provided at each Taluka centre of the e-Jamine (e-Dhara) project.

Monitoring MIS has been made available to concerned officials right from thestate-level to the taluka-level for better administrative control of the entire activity.

Leadership& Administration

Computerisation in the Gujarat Government in general and e-Dhara in particular,has enjoyed high levels of commitment from highly placed leaders and bureaucratsin Gujarat.


E-Dhara is generating around Rs. 2 crores per month from the fees charged forthe RoR copies being issued from the e-Jamine (erstwhile e-Dhara) system. Thus,it is financially self-sustaining.


e-Dhara has been integrated with the Garvi system for registration. This hasmade it possible to generate mutation entries and Notice 135-D on the same dayas the transaction. The new integrated system has been named e-Jamine. The e-Dhara centres and SRO office have been collocated now, in order to bring in afull degree of integration.

In the RESURVEY that was started in Gujarat under the NLRMP project ofthe GOI, data from e-Dhara was heavily used and preparatory work was done onthe same database.

Auto mutation has further increased the degree of integration between e-Dhara and relevant banking transactions, revenue order transactions, surveysettlement mutations and inheritance transactions.


Concluding Remarks

The above four cases illustrate situations where a significant degree of successin respect of sustainability has been obtained. All the four projects have put insubstantial efforts in the six management aspects that have been examined inthis study.

Interestingly, a few of these parameters can also be used to study the short-term success/failure of an e-Gov project. However, efforts have to be invested inthese aspects in a consistent manner if the project has to sustain itself over a longtime. One additional difference between evaluation of short-term success andthat of long term sustainability is that in these cases we have not explicitlyconsidered the achievement of initially stated objectives. Success of a projectprimarily needs the project to achieve its stated objectives while sustenance mainlyrefers to continuation of the project. Thus we have not considered, at least explicitly,achievement of stated objectives while evaluating sustainability performance ofthe above projects.

In the above cases, we also see that the specific manifestation of efforts on thesix parameters differs from one project to another. For example, the specificmeasures taken to ensure trustworthiness or usability may differ in the case ofBhoomi from what NPI has done and so on. Thus, the specific initiatives takenby individual project managements have to be identified and evaluated consideringthe nature of the project under consideration.

Finally, this study can be further enriched in terms of its rigour and findingsby considering a few additional parameters like, scalability, manpower supportto end users, etc. Possibility of using the celebrated Technology Adoption Model(TAM) and its extensions can also be investigated into. These models may throwup additional valuable insights into the factors responsible for success/failure ofe-Gov projects, in respect of sustainability. Another field of research which maybe looked at in this light is the theory of Diffusion of Innovations. This field isparticularly relevant for G2C projects. Thus, bringing in further insights fromrelevant fields is expected to result in a much richer and more rigorous frameworkfor evaluating the sustainability of e-Governance projects.


References

Bhatnagar, S. (2000). Social implications of information and communicationtechnology in developing countries: Lessons from Asian success stories.The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 1(4),1-9.

Heeks, R. (2002). Information systems and developing countries: Failure,success, and local improvisations. The Information Society, 18, 101-112.

Heeks, R. (2003a). Most e-government-for-development projects fail: Howcan risks be reduced? <http://idpm.man.ac.uk/publications/wp/igov/index.shtml>

Heeks, R., & Bhatnagar, S. C. (1999). Understanding success and failurein information age reform. In R. B. Heeks (Ed.), Reinventing government inthe information age: International practice in it enabled public sectorreform.London: Routledge.

Kumar, R., & Best, M. L. (2006). Impact and sustainability of e-governmentservices in developing countries: Lessons learned from Tamilnadu, india.The Information Society, 22(1), 1-12.

Ashok Agarwal Adjunct Professor BITS Pilani; Chairman, Engineers Without Borders(EWB) India & Past Chairman, CSI Special Interest Group on eGovernance (CSI-SIGeGOV) email: [email protected] and Sanjiv Vaidya Professor – MISIndian Institute of Management Diamond Harbour Road Joka, Kolkata (Calcutta) -700104 West Bengal, INDIA. email: [email protected]

SECTION VIII

About CSI-SIGeGov and Publications

Maj. Gen. Dr R K Bagga and K S Vijaya Sekhar

Background

Computer Society of India (CSI), has implemented the concept of “Special InterestGroups” to promote activities and research in major focused areas. Special InterestGroup on e-Governance (SIGeGov) has been formed in Hyderabad during 2006-2007 with Dr Ashok Agarwal (Adjunct Professor BITS Pilani; Chairman, EWBIndia & Past Chairman, CSI-SIGeGOV) as Chairman with support from CSIHQ and CSI Hyderabad Chapter. The basic perceived objective has been to focuson an important area where Information Technology can be leveraged and bringlike-minded professionals together to add value by bringing out recommendationsrelevant to various stake holders. CSI is the only professional society coveringindividual users and citizens as members and is most appropriately suited to focus andadd significant value to the successful implementation of the e-Governance initiativein our country. Because, e-Governance has the capacity to take our country to nextgeneration as developed nation and therefore, mission of CSI SIGeGov is to play animportant role in that process.

Objectives

CSI-SIGeGov objectives include Knowledge Sharing with all stake holders throughholding conferences, Knowledge sharing summits, e-Governance Awards etc. CSIhas instituted CSI Nihilent e-Governance Awards and SIGeGOV is expected toorganize the Awards event and implement the award judging process; SIGeGov also toact as the Secretariat for e-Governance awards and maintain updated databases of all

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About CSI SIGeGov

m-Governance futurein Indian context

Khairiyyah Binti Mohd


relevant stakeholders in this area; Support research in selected areas like AssessmentFramework and Implementation Strategy for e-Governance Projects; Participate in theprocesses for evolving standards in Technology, Processes and Databases; ConductNational and International conferences in e-Governance individually or by joininghand with other reputed institutions; Interact with international bodies like IFIPand SEARCC to benefit India by sharing our experiences with other nations.

Activities

I.CSI Nihilent eGovernance Awards

(http://www.csinihilent-egovernanceawards.org/)

CSI-SIGeGOV has instituted a series of awards for recognizing the contributionsmade in the field of e-Governance in the country. These awards have beensponsored by Nihilent Technologies Ltd. The awards are given for recognizingthe efforts made in e-Governance area, specifically for State, Department, Districtand Project levels. There is active participation for these awards from State andCentral Government establishments, Departments, District authorities and manyUndertakings, research establishments. Participation by many of these Centraland State level organizations have made these Awards an awaited event, everyyear, since 2002. Concept of Field visits and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)was implemented to make the Awards process transparent and acceptable toGovernment officials. Publication of all nominations received during CSI Nihilente-Governance Awards in form a book with University Press and ICFAI UniversityPress (IUP) for wider circulation and knowledge sharing.

II. Knowledge Sharing Summit (www.csi-sigegov.org)

The National Level e-Governance Knowledge Sharing Summit (KSS) is an annualevent organized by CSI-SIGeGOV. The summit aims to provide a forum forpolicy makers, practitioners, industry leaders and academicians to deliberate,interact and develop an actionable strategy for transparent and good governance.To grow rapid and successfully, there is a need to respond proactively to thechanging environment. This essentially calls for strengthening the capabilities,seizing and exploiting the opportunities. There is an inherent need to exploreand share success stories, best practices and achievements spread across the country

541About CSI SIGeGov

for better implementation of e-Governance initiatives. The KSS intends to provide aforum for discussion on the e-Governance initiatives of Government of India,implementation strategies & challenges and to share learnings from National bestcase studies in the area of e-Governance. In 2009, the first KSS was held at Hyderabadwith support from Government of Andhra Pradesh. In 2010, second summit was heldin Bhopal with support from Government of Madhya Pradesh. In 2011, third summitwas held in Gujarat with support from Govt of Gujarat. SIGeGOV launched a websiteto act as knowledge portal for all e-Governance initiatives in India. All major activitiesincluding e-Governance Awards database is maintained and updated, regularly.

III. International Conference on e-Governance (www.iceg.net)

International Conference on e-Governance (ICEG) was founded at IIT Delhi in 2003to address the growing need for furthering our knowledge in e-governance. It is organizedunder the umbrella of International Congress of e-Government (ICEG) which is aforum for the advancement of knowledge in the discipline of e-Governance andpromotion of the same in the various levels of governments across the globe. ICEG is toserve as a premier global organization where various stake holders (academics,government officers, industry, professionals, NGO, citizens, government andinternational agencies) can participate and share ideas and resources for the knowledgecreation, skill development, networking and spread of e-government at various levels. Itbecame a beacon for e-Government policy makers with its very first conference in 2003when the then Hon’ble President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam guided the conference as theChief Guest. SIGeGOV jointly organized ICEG series at University of Hyderabad in2008; at IIT, Delhi in 2009; at IIM, Bangalore in 2010; and at Institute of Management,NIRMA University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat in 2011, which was inaugurated by ShriNarendra Modi, Hon’Ble CM-Govt. of Gujarat.

IV. CSI SIGeGOV Publications

Each year SIG brings out a book on e-Governance coinciding with the Awardsfunction. The book mainly contains selected Nominations of that year along withcontributed articles by subject experts from Industry, Government and Academia.There are six SIGeGov Publications, covering Research and Case Studies onGovernance, which are available free to download from SIG Website.

Details of these publications are provided separately in the following section.


V. CSI Hyderabad Chapter (http://www.csihyderabad.org)

Computer Society of India was born on 6 March 1965 in Hyderabad at DRDO. CSIHyderabad Chapter (CSIHC) has very good strength of Life Members and Studentmembers apart from many student branches in engineering colleges in and aroundHyderabad. CSI Hyderabad Chapter has conducted many certification courses whichhelped most of the students and employees in their career growth. The activitiesinclude conducting workshops, seminars and tutorials on emerging technologies forthe benefit of all cross sections of the society including the new entrants to the ITsociety. Recently, CSIHC conducted an International Conference on Lean Six Sigmain Feb 2011 where participation was mostly from Industry , Academia andGovernment. CSIHC heading towards a maximum number of institutionmemberships and is having many corporate and academia collaboration. CSIHyderabad has tied-up with corporate organizations to provide in-depth training andlive projects for students in the final year engineering colleges, as a part of theircurriculum. The program starts off with an intensive training program that iscustomized based on the live project, covering Programming Language, DifferentPlatforms, Database Management, Software Development Life Cycle, ProjectManagement, Documentation, Team Work and Communication etc. CSI-SIGeGOV,officially located in CSI Hyderabad chapter premises, had been interacting in regularbasis to assist the Chapter Office and affiliated Student Branches for enhancingquality of their activities.

VI. CSI Students Branch (CSISB) at IIIT, Hyderabad (http://csi.iiit.ac.in/)

Today, CSI has 358 student branches and more than 70000 members includingIndia’s most famous IT industry leaders, brilliant scientists and dedicatedacademicians. The mission of the CSI Student Branch at IIIT-Hyderabad is tofacilitate research, knowledge sharing, learning and career enhancement for allcategories of IT professionals, while simultaneously inspiring and nurturing newentrants into the industry and helping them to integrate into the IT community.Based on recommendations of a SIGeGOV, a syllabus on eGovernance suggestedfor Universities/Engineering colleges. As a pilot, successfully introduced andcompleted a two semester equivalent courses at IIIT-Hyderabad.

543CSI-SIGeGOV Publications

CHAPTER 43

CSI-SIGeGOV Publications

CSI-SIGeGOV has been publishing a book each year, coinciding with the annualCSI Nihilent eGovernance Awards ceremony. Presented below were some of thebooks that were published and they can be ordered from CSI-SIGeGOV Secretariatfor reference and use. Few of these books are also available as downloads at http://www.csi-sigegov.org/publications.php.

Fostering e-Governance:Compendium of Selected Indian

Initiatives

Editors:

Piyush Gupta, R K Baggaand Ayaluri Sridevi

by ICFAI University Press (2009)

Enablers of Change:Selected e-Governance Initiatives in India

Editors:

Piyush Gupta, R K Baggaand Ayaluri Sridevi

by ICFAI University Press (2010)


Transforming Government:e-Governance Initiatives in India

Editors:

Dr. R K Bagga and Piyush Guptaby ICFAI University Press (2008)

Compendium of eGovernanceInitiatives in India

Editors:

Dr R K Bagga and Piyush Guptaby Universities Press (2007)

eGovernance Case StudiesEditors:

Dr Ashok Agarwalby Universities Press (2006)

Contact: K S Vijaya Sekhar, CSI-SIGeGOV Secretariat, International Instituteof Information Technology, Gachibowli, Hyderabad 500 032. Andhra Pradesh,India. Tel: +91 40 6653 1119; Fax: +91 40 2300 0044. [email protected]

m-Governance future inIndian context

Khairiyyah Binti MohdAjith Brahmanandan, 377, 387

Alex Paul, 116, 132

Alka Mishra, 305, 323

Ashok Agarwal, 521, 536

Ashutosh Apte, 162, 176

Atul Patne, 192, 215

Avinash Pathak, 177, 191

Balakrishnan Nair, 476, 490

C Chandramouli, 409, 428

C Madhukar Raj, 71, 79

Chakradhar, 292, 304

Chandra Prakash, 243, 261

Deepak Goswami, 429, 439

Devajit Bhattacharyya, 429, 439

Dhrupad Mathur, 3, 6

Dr Hasmukh Adhia, 344, 355

H S Yadav, 234, 242

Harish P Iyer, 12, 19

Hiren Joshi, 80, 93, 335, 343

Hiten Parekh, 440, 454

Jagdeep S Kochar, 455, 466

Jayesh Ranjan , 280, 291

Jungin Choi, 35, 44

K C Kapoor, 356, 371

K S Raman, 372, 376

Author Index


K S Vijaya Sekhar, 20, 34, 45, 57, 539, 542

Khairiyyah Binti Mohd Noor, 45, 57

M Padma, 292, 304

M S Jaya, 372, 376

Mahesh Chandra, 324, 334

Manish Bharadwaj, 409, 428

Mayur Maheshwari, 243, 261

Meshram, 192, 215

Mohd. Ilyas Rizvi, 265, 279

Namjae Cho, 35, 44

Neeta Verma, 305, 323

Niraj K Pawan, 234, 242

Nitin Gokarn, 324, 334

Nityesh Bhatt, 157, 161

P K Sharma, 71, 79

P Narahari, 177, 191

Patita Pawan Nath, 502, 517

Prabhu Gollamudi, 20, 34

Prabhu Gollamudi, 61, 67

R K Bagga, 45, 57, 539, 542

R P Gupta, 344, 355

R Vikram Singh, 397, 406

Rafiq Dossani, 7, 11

Rajesh D Bhusari, 216, 313

Ram Kumar, 94, 103

Rita Teaotia, 94, 103

S J Kunte, 467, 475

551Author Index

S M Aparajit, 467, 475

S Vijayakumar, 133, 154

Sandip Jacques, 162, 176

Sanjiv Vaidya, 521, 536

Shreekant Deshpande, 476, 490

Shrikar Pardeshi, 216, 313

Siddhartha Das, 502, 517

Sunil Vyas, 491, 501

Surendra Kapoor, 20, 34

Suresh Chanda, 104, 105

Suresh K, 388, 396

T P Senkumar, 116, 132

U N Tiwari, 397, 406

V N Maira, 440, 454

V Sanal Kumar, 388, 396

Vinay Vyasa, 455, 466

Widening E-Goveranance Canvas

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