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Once the new legislation on e-Services for public is passed, all government departments will have to issue a framework within six months on services to be digitised and formats to be adopted, along with a cut-off date for completing the exercise

By Pragya Gupta, eGOV Bureau

Bringing Accountability for e-Governance

ndia, in last few years, has seen a rapid expansion of IT and telecom at domes-tic as well as global level, which has resulted in a huge demand for e-Services. With the increasing penetration of computers in urban areas, adoption of e-Services is huge. Looking at the growth of the mobile telephony in the country it is apparent that technology is not a barrier even in rural areas if it is

simple to use and has value. As far as public services are concerned, in the last five years, the core ICT infrastructure

in the form of State Wide Area Networks (SWAN), State Data Centres (SDC) and front ends in the form of Common Services Centers (CSC) are largely in place. Implementa-tion of Mission Mode Projects (MMP) has ensured availability of considerable services electronically. And now, with the focus on implementation of e-District project, the high volume services at district and sub-district level will be delivered electronically. There is huge demand of efficient, reliable and transparent public services and the experience of e-District services in pilot districts of Kerala, UP, Assam and other States shows that the Indian citizen is ready for these services. In Kerala, in just 180 days, there have been more than 1,00,000 transactions in the two Pilot districts. In Jharkhand, there have been nine lakh transactions on the e-Nagrik through CSCs.

In order to penetrate e-Services vertically and horizontally Union Ministry of Com-munication and Information Technology has proposed the draft of the Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) Bill, 2011. Once enacted, the bill will make it mandatory for every govern-ment organisation to deliver public services only in electronic mode. Presently, according to the Information Technology Act 2000, delivery of e-Services is left to the discretion of indi-vidual departments and citizens do not have the right to demand these services. However, the ESD Bill 2011 will supersede other related legislations and with this bill, citizens shall have the right to e-Services. Once the new legislation is passed, all government departments will have to issue a framework within six months on the services to be digitised and the formats to be adopted, along with a cut-off date for completing the exercise. Ministry of Communication & Information Technology (MCIT) has invited various stakeholders like state governments, citizens and various departments and released next

I

draft of the bill. The draft Bill was put in the public domain for consultations and it is expected that the same will be finalised within this year.

ESD Bill 2011 After consultations on the first draft, inputs and sugges-tions were received from government departments, State Governments, Industry, Academia, Civil Society and Citizens. MCIT has finalised second draft after examin-ing, analysing and incorporating the suggestions received.

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The draft Act seeks to mandate within a period of five years from the date of the Act coming into force, provisioning of all public services of the Central and State Government and the field formations and subordinate units of these Min-istries compulsorily through electronic mode.

There are some services like filing income tax, electricity bill, e-Tickets, online property regis-tration, and banking, which are available online but accessible in the limited cities. With the ESD bill, delivery of all public services like issuing of forms and applications, licenses, permits , certificates, sanction or approval and receipt or payment of money, must be made available with online in all the states. However, the bill excludes the state Jammu and Kashmir.

The bill will also address the grievance of citi-zens like multiple visits to the government office as services will be online and can be availed by the citizen directly or through CSCs. Interest-ingly, CSC project is running behind its target timeline. But once it is done, it will work in the direction of transparency in government–citi-zen interface and faster service delivery.

Technological BackboneThe bill demands robust infrastructure in terms of technology and service. The services will utilise the ready infrastructure of National e-Governance Action Plan (NeGP). The State Wide Area Networks (SWANs), State Data Centers (SDCs) and Common Service Centers (CSCs) have been commissioned across the country and it will be utilised. These, in associa-tion with the State Service Delivery Gateways form the main pillars of e-Governance architec-ture. Moreover, government is strengthening the ecosystem, which would make the delivery secure, accountable and available.

The Unique Identification project, incor-poration of Digital Signatures through the

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“ClOuD OffErInGS anD mOBIlITy PrESEnT a TrEmEnDOuS

OPPOrTunITy TO EnaBlE E-SErvICES. InDIa BEInG a larGE COunTry wITh

ExPanDInG mOBIlE PEnETraTIOn

Controller of Certifying Authorities, the prolif-eration of mobility in the telecommunications space and availability of wider bandwidth for Internet services have contributed steadily to arriving at a critical mass necessary for delivery of Electronic Services.

Government is working on enabling cloud model seeing the potential in substantial deliv-ery. “Cloud offerings and mobility present a tremendous opportunity to enable eServices. India being a large country with expanding mobile penetration, the opportunity for gov-ernments and business are immense, if tapped well,” highlights Tirthankar Banerjee, Director - Emerging Services and Solutions, Technology Services, HP Enterprise Business, India.

ChallengesNeGP has provisioned necessary infrastruc-ture, creating organisational structures and to some extent in delivery of services, the pace of implementation in enabling electronic delivery of public services has not been commensurate with citizen aspiration and expectations.

Technology changes faster than anything and matching the pace for sustainable delivery is a challenge. “e-Governance originated in India during the seventies with a focus on in-house government applications in the areas of defence, economic monitoring, planning and the deploy-ment of ICT to manage data intensive functions related. Today, as various technologies matures the adoption levels increase, with government looking for technology that is robust, stable and secure to support a vast number of citizens,” highlights Tirthankar Banerjee

Integration of services both existing and new, to give the user a seamless experience is another challenge. Resistance to change, lack of transparency, power and connectivity issues could also be some possible challenges.

Salient Features 1. It shall be applicable to both Central and

State Governments, and all Central and State Government departments and organisations except Jammu and Kashmir.

2. The Head of every Department of the Central or State Government as noti-fied by the Central or State Government including all the Secretaries to the appro-priate Government, have been designated as competent authority under the act. These competent authorities shall publish as prescribed within one hundred and eighty days:–

a. the public services of the department, agency or body which are to be delivered through electronic mode;.

b. the date by which each such service shall be made available through electronic mode.

c . the manner of delivery of such services and their service levels;

d . the grievance redressal mechanism available to any person aggrieved about the outcome of any request made by him for such service;

3. Each competent authority as mentioned above will, thereafter, review and update these publications every year comprising of details mentioned in 2 (a) to (d).

4. All public services of each department, agency or body shall be delivered in electronic mode within five years from the enactment of this bill and this period may be extended for a further period not exceeding three years by the Central or State Government.

5. An oversight mechanism has been pro-vided for implementation and monitoring of this act in the form of Central Electronic Service Delivery Commission (CESDC) at the Central Government level and State Electronic Service Delivery Commission (SESDC) at the State Government level.

6. The competent authority will submit details regarding implementation of this bill to the CESDC in case of Central Gov-ernment department or the SESDC case in of State Government Departments

7. Non-compliance in submission of timely information as per requirements to the CESDC or SESDC as the case may be shall attract penal provisions of the Bill.

30 egov / www.egovonline.net / July 2011

Government’s perspective

Abhishek Singh, Director, e-Governance Project

Group, Ministry of Communication & Information

Technology

Please shed some light on the Technology utilisation in this project?The way services are envisaged to be delivered

under NeGP is that all departments and state

governments share the common core IT

infrastructure in the form of State Wide Area

Networks, State Data Centers, Service Delivery

Gateways and Common Services Centers. The

applications for various services are owned

by the respective domain ministries. Thus the

basic infrastructure is common and shareable.

The UID project (Aaadhaar) is going to provide

a common authentication framework for all

services that are electronically delivered. Simi-

larly the Service Delivery Gateway will provide a

Payment Gateway and a Mobile Service Delivery

Gateway also which will serve as the Payment

Platform and Mobile Services Integration

platform for all services that are being offered

electronically. We are also working on enabling

‘Cloud Model’ on our data centers so that it will

be possible to offer services, infrastructure and

platforms on a service model.

Technology changes faster than anything? what are your plans to match the pace for efficient delivery of services?The National e-Governance Plan recommends

large projects to be taken up on a Public private

Partnership model with well-defined Service

Levels for ensuring reliability and efficiency

of services. Thus the focus is not really on

technology but on processes and Service

Levels. Today, technology is not a challenge. We

de-risk ourselves from technology changes and

obsolescence by focusing primarily on Service

Delivery requirements and it is upto the Private

Partner to ensure that he deploys State of the

Art technological solutions to ensure that the

systems run efficiently, deliver services and ulti-

mately result in returns on investments. We also

have mechanisms to leverage new technologies,

whether it is in the field of Virtualisation, Mobiles

or Cloud in order to ensure that citizens are able

to access services seamlessly and in the most

efficient manner.

what should be the delivery channel and interface for rural and urban citizen?The delivery channel envisaged in the rural areas

are the Common Services Centers and already

more than 95,000 centers are operational.

Already Government has decided to reposition

the scheme of Common Services Centers to be

a network of Bharat Nirman Common Services

Centers to be set up in all Panchayats. Accordingly,

1,50,000 additional Common Services Centers are

planned to be set up in all uncovered Panchayats.

These centers will deliver all services relating to

Bharat Nirman Programmes and will also deliver

business services including financial services. In

urban areas, many municipalities are setting up

Citizen Facilitation Centers which serve as front

ends for citizens to access services. In any case,

all services are being web enabled and can be

accessed by anyone with an Internet connection.

As a long term measure, it is planned to integrate

delivery of services with the mobile platform to

ensure the large number of mobile phone users

in the country. This would also ensure ubiquitous

access to services on an anytime anywhere basis

in both rural and urban areas.

when can we see the service reaching across India?Maharashtra has proposed a public service deliv-

ery bill which is being considered actively by the

Government. Government of Delhi has enacted

the e SLA Act which gives a Right to Citizens for

time bound delivery of public services. Madhya

Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab have also taken

measures to ensure mandatory time bound

delivery of public services.

In view of the fact that significant ground

has been covered under NeGP in terms of

provisioning necessary infrastructure, creating

institutional / organisational structures and to

some extent in delivery of services, the pace of

implementation in enabling electronic delivery

of public services has not been commensurate

with citizen aspirations and expectations. The

most critical challenge has been to speed up

the process of enabling electronic delivery of

public services to the citizens. In view of this and

for issues like resistance to change, systemic

inertia, procedural hurdles, lack of transparency

and legal impediments experienced in electronic

delivery of services Government of India has

proposed to enact the Electronic Service Deliv-

ery Act which would mandate provisioning of all

public services compulsorily through electronic

means from a specified date. The draft Bill has

been put in the public domain for consultations

and it is expected that the same will be finalised

within this year.

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1-3 AuGust 2011the Ashok, New Delhi, India

ThE PrEmIEr GlOBal PlaTfOrm fOr

E-DEvElOPmEnTFORUM

2011

We de-risk ourselves from technology changes and obsolescence by focusing primarily on Ser-vice Delivery requirements and it is upto the Private Partners to ensure that they deploy State of the Art technological solutions to ensure that the systems run efficiently, deliver services and ultimately result in returns on investments

31July 2011 / www.egovonline.net / egov

Industry perspective

Mathew thomas, Vice President, Strategic

Industries, SAP India

what is your view on India’s readiness for Electronic Delivery of services?The Government has been steadily strengthen-

ing the ecosystem which would make this service

delivery secure, accountable and available. The

Unique Identification project, incorporation of

Digital Signatures through the Controller of Cer-

tifying Authorities, the proliferation of mobility

in the telecommunications space and availability

of wider bandwidth for Internet services have

contributed steadily to arriving at a critical mass

necessary for delivery of Electronic

Services.

Please share your solution offer-ing which can deliver e-Services efficiently? SAP for Public Sector harnesses the latest tech-

nology to meet e-Governance Service Delivery

requirements. These solutions enable end-to-end

government processes, connecting citizen-facing

applications, such as Web sites and portals, to

back office functions. So you can automate

processes, free resources, and create more value

and satisfaction among constituents.

The various solutions offered by SAP in this

domain are:

Constituent services solutions that allow gov-

ernment to offer citizens and businesses a wide

range of services including requests for licenses

and permits, simple informational responses and

complex tax return processes.

Integrated case management solutions which

enable Governance entities to consolidate,

manage and process information on complex

issues across various governmental case pro-

cesses, from social welfare services, to taxpayer

services, to homeland security.

Public security solutions designed to support

the specific processes necessary for homeland

security, including border security, emergency

preparedness and response, countermeasures,

information analysis and external coordination.

Technology changes faster than anything? Do you think Govern-ment is matching pace with that?The Government of India, through its Interoper-

ability Framework for e-Governance in India and

the various technology advisory committees is

fast evolving a procurement, commissioning and

delivery strategy that takes care of technologi-

cal obsolescence, technology interoperability,

technology standards and service delivery

agreements.

The evolution of shared services and Public

Private Partnership models in the last few years

have effectively addressed some of the burning

issues with regard to technological obsolescence,

but there is still a lot that is desired around inter-

departmental cooperation. This area typically

affects the collaborative outcomes and hinders

the efficacy of the electronic delivery of Services.

Please shed some light on Indian vs. global scenario related to EDS?Developed countries of the world typically have

moved from basic services to a more evolved

set. This has necessitated a critical look at their

existing service delivery architecture.

Service Orientedness, Identity Management

& Biometrics, enhanced electronic document

security are key issues that are being addressed.

Enhanced Mobility, Quality of Service, Archival,

Remote Data Acquisition and Fine-grained

Auditing have become imperative. Linkages to

external applications and process flexibility that

can incorporate rapid changes in legislations and

demand-side governance are some of the key

areas that are being revisited.

Overseas Consular services, Disaster Mitigation,

Crisis Management, Rapid Evacuation, National

Help-line and Call-Center services are being

integrated at a process level to provide better qual-

ity of service. Innovative technologies in the area

of Optical Recognition, Geo-positioning and Secure

tagging are being integrated to increase situational

awareness and crisis response.

what policy and technology hurdles can retard the progress of e-Services’ process?The challenge lies in identifying the right basket

of citizen services to be delivered. While many

Central and State level agencies have identified

the delivery scope – many are grappling with

services that require process and data integra-

tion across the 27 mission mode projects.

what are the challenges upfront?Typically, citizen interaction and processes

often span over many agencies /departments,

resulting in cross-related cases and cross-related

data. There’s a perceptible lack of holistic view of

services and citizens.

Data or processes of siloed applications are

not cross referenced. Single view on citizen

(interaction history, data such as payments,

address, documents) is not always available,

resulting in a poor knowledge about the citizen

resulting in poor quality of services. This is in

spite of the progresses we have made in the area

of deploying e-governance applications at major

departments. Therefore a unified, cross-depart-

mental visibility is essential to move forward.

The other aspects that are very critical in

the overall delivery of services are that of Data

privacy and compliance.

what should be the delivery channel and interface for rural and urban citizens?We need to consider two things, the rural popula-

tion and the last mile connectivity. The administra-

tors have been grappling with the enormity of

these problems for long. But the manifold increase

in tele-density in rural India in the wake of the

mobile revolution has given the cause of Mobile

governance in India, a shot in the arm.

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Developed countries of the world typically have moved from basic services to a more evolved set. This has necessitated a critical look at their existing service delivery architecture.Systems are being re-architectured, workload balancing and service provisioning are being virtualized with the objective of providing a 24X7, Online Citizen self-service.

32 egov / www.egovonline.net / July 2011

The delivery of electronic services (e-ser-vices) in Singapore ever since 2000 has been guided by various e-Government master plans, developed in tandem with the national infocomm master plans. This began with the e-Government Action Plan in 2000 and has evolved into the current iGov2010. Over the years, the Master plans have sought to integrate both backend and frontend systems and processes to facilitate a seamless experience for users. To date, the Singapore government has rolled out some 1,600 online services and 300 mobile services.

One such example is the eCitizen Portal (www.eCitizen.gov.sg) which provides a single access point to allow Singapore citizens and business owners to access all the government information and services online, so as to deliver convenience and benefits to all individuals who live, work and play in Singapore.

Through the eCitizen portal, citizens can interact online with the government on a vast range of matters 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  The portal is organised into seven broad “eTowns” that cover various aspects of their lives and link back to the respective government agencies that provide the required services.

The development and deployment of gov-ernment e-services has transformed the way the Singapore government delivers public services, offering a 24x7 service model and allowing the seamless integration of some services. Internally within the public sector, this has reaped benefits in terms of greater efficiency through integration.  The govern-ment’s investment in such services has also led to greater innovation in the industry.

While individual government agencies are responsible for offering their respec-tive e-services, there are some common

enablers that could facilitate easier and faster e-service development. Common enablers, such as a national authentication system (SingPass) and shared infrastructure and services (Government Data Centre and shared hosting platform) allow government agencies to quickly and effectively deploy their e-services.

In implementing e-services, particularly integrated multi-agency services, strong leadership and buy-in from agencies are important.  Agencies will need to look beyond agency-specific interest and adopt a whole-of-government approach and per-spective, with the end goal of benefitting end-users.  The Online Business Licensing Service (OBLS) project that was led by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) and

Infocomm Development Authority of Sin-gapore (IDA), was exemplar of such multi-agency cooperation, where more than 250 business licences of more than 30 agencies were reviewed. Internal approval processes were streamlined to reduce the average pro-cessing time.

Today, the OBLS offers more than 80 licences across 17 agencies for online inte-grated application and allowed more than 80 percent of all start-ups, or close to 30,000 businesses annually, to apply for licences with ease.

Data security in any online service is of utmost importance. Singapore e-services are typically designed and implemented with the necessary security measures and processes to ensure appropriate protection.

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Global Perspective

Singapore is among those countries, which has been successfully delivering e-service. Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), Singapore Government’s spokesperson shared their experience on electronic delivery of service