India E-Governance Update: 29/05/09

 

ENTER E-STAMP FOR SAFER DEALS
Amit Gupta, Ranchi
The Telegraph

A bill, cleared by the governor’s advisory council yesterday, will now allow all registration offices to use e-stamps — a computer-based application to put the state seal on property documents and a secured electronic way of ensuring that the government gets stamp duty.

While registration offices will generate online stamp duty certificates, financial institutions can install franking machines that will help emboss a stamp of required denomination on a dummy paper.

Result: Property dealings that require stamp duty of more than Rs 10,000 will no longer depend on vendors and be less affected by scarcity of non-judicial stamp papers. Easy accessibility and faster processing — stamp duty certificates can be generated in minutes — will make e-stamps user-friendly and cost efficient.

Officials said e-stamping would be ensured through a special window in registration offices. The Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited (SHCIL) has been made the service provider for five years. It will get a commission of 65 paise for every thousand e-stamps sold.

Financial institutions (FIs) such as nationalised banks and the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) will press into service franking machines for which an advertisement will be posted soon.

The FIs will have to purchase an approved brand and obtain permission from the registration department.

 

 

E-PROCUREMENT CENTRES PLANNED
Senthalir S, Bangalore
DNA (Bangalore edition)

People confused over e-procurement process will get effective guidance from help centres which the state government is planning to set up this week.

"We will set up a centre like Bangalore-One with eight to ten computers in a room. Professionals well-versed in e-procurement will help those applying for tenders. People in need of help can walk in any time to these centres. Once we get space, we can set up such centres within a week," said BL Sridhar, principal secretary, e-governance and chairman of Centre for e-Governance on Thursday.

People, who find it difficult to apply for tenders, can approach these centres for proper guidance, he said. Under e-procurement system, the process of tendering becomes computerised to speed up work on the field.

Sridhar's announcement came after KV Raju, economic adviser to the chief minister, suggested to set up the centre during the inauguration of a workshop on e-procurement.

Although e-procurement was started only two to three years ago, transaction up to Rs 200 crore was achieved under the system last year, Sridhar said. "This year, it has increased to Rs3,000 crore. We are aiming to take it up to Rs30,000 crore," he said.

 

India E-Governance Update: 28/05/09

 

EDUCATION DEPT TO LAUNCH TELE-TEACHING PROJECT IN GOVERNMENT PRIMARY SCHOOLS
Gandhinagar
The Indian Express

With a view to improve the quality of education in higher classes in over 22,000 government-run primary schools across Gujarat, the state Education Department will launch tele-teaching project.

It will be launched with the help of the Science and Technology Department this year.

The government has earmarked Rs 600 crore for the Satellite-based teaching project, which will be spent over a period of five years.

The Centre will provide Rs 12.50 crore every year to assist the project under its Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) programme.

Giving details of the project, Secretary (Primary Education) R P Gupta said on Wednesday that the amount would be utilised to equip the primary schools with computers, LCD/ Plasma TV sets, ku-band antennas and set-top boxes.

Nearly 25 to 30 lakh students studying in Class V, VI and VII will be benefited by this unique teaching programme, he added.

 

TAILORMADE SOFTWARE TO HELP DO THE JOB FORGOTTEN
Alka Pande, Lucknow
The Indian Express

Chief Minister Mayawati has stated that intelligence would keep a watch on government tendering to keep out Mafia elements and check irregularities. But her government has not shown much enthusiasm in pushing an e-tendering project conceived exactly for this purpose.

Under the National e-Governance Plan, e-tendering is an integral part of e-procurement.

The purpose of e-tendering was to end mafia influence from the tendering process, ensure transparency, check corruption by government officials and enable people to take part in the tender process fearlessly.

While e-tendering has taken off in states like Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Gujarat, there are only a handful of departments in the state which offer the facility.

Almost a year ago, the project was inaugurated by Chief Minister Mayawati and PWD Minister Naseemuddin Siddiqui with all fanfare. As per the Government of India guidelines, all departments should have been equipped with necessary elements for e-tendering by April 1, said a senior official of the IT and Electronics Department. “Maybe due to elections, the process has slowed down.”

 

UP TO REMOVE CHECK-POSTS ON HIGHWAYS, GO ONLINE FOR REVENUE
Virendra Nath Bhatt, Lucknow
The Indian Express

To eliminate corruption, delays and harassment of traders and truckers, Uttar Pradesh will soon remove check-posts and barriers on highways and inter-state borders.

The posts were set up by the Commercial Tax Department in 1974 to prevent the evasion of what was then called sales tax, now value-added tax.

The department has now evolved an IT-enabled system, in which the traders can download the required forms and documents directly from the department website.

The UP Value Added Tax Act, 2007, is proposed to be amended for implementing the reforms, which are likely to be enforced by the end of July. The state government is likely to bring an Ordinance in June to implement the reforms.

“With the implementation of VAT in all states, the tax rates on almost all category of goods is now uniform, so there is no need for the check-posts and barriers on the borders of the state,” said Desh Deepak Verma, Principal Secretary, Commercial Tax Department. “There were strong apprehensions in the department that the removal of check-posts will lead to tax evasion, but a close scrutiny of revenue collection data since 1974 revealed no significant hike in revenue. So we decided to go ahead.” Verma said the department is pushing the reforms with three objectives — preventing tax evasion, fetching more revenue and checking delays in transportation due to long queues at check-posts.

 

STATE TO BE E-CONNECTED RIGHT UP TO PANCHAYAT LEVEL
Patna
The Times of India

Considered to be a laggard on the information technology front, Bihar is likely to join the list of elite Indian states which brag of having e-connected offices right up to panchayat level.

Having successfully set up the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) under the National e-Governance Programme (NEGP), the state is likely to take up an ambitious project which envisages horizontal expansion of SWAN right up to the panchayat level.

According to plan details, all the 8,463 panchayats would be connected with SWAN which in turn would ensure their direct connectivity with the state headquarters.

There are also plans to connect around 200 government offices at state headquarters, 30 to 40 offices in each of the 38 districts and five to 10 offices in each of the 534 blocks under the horizontal expansion of SWAN.

To expedite the said project which envisages putting the horizontal SWAN in place in about 24 months, Wi-Max technology would be used which would allow glitch-free wireless connectivity over a very wide area.

The plan would be implemented using build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) model and those taking up the project would have to set the infrastructure for the horizontal expansion of SWAN. The state government would make quarterly payment of the cost to the agency after assessing the performance of the system every quarter.

"Planning is in advance stage and after approval from the state government, bids would be invited to start the work on the project," said principal secretary, information technology department, C K Mishra.

 

India E-Governance: 27/06/09

 

SMSLIVE SOFTWARE TO TRACK NREGS
Kolkata
Business Standard

The state panchayat and rural department in association with the Kolkata-based Pixel Informatics Private Limited is planning to distribute close to 50,000 mobile phones uploaded with SMSLive software by the end of the year, in a bid to track the implementation of NREGS.

This is a part of the m-governance or mobile governance project, a new initiative taken up by the P&RD department to expedite the implementation of the 100 days National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

The department roped in Kolkata-based Pixel Informatics for designing mobile-based software for transmission of live data under its brand SMSLive. The department successfully completed the pilot project of m-governance, which was conducted by Pixel Informatics in two districts of Purulia and South 24 paraganas.

Ankur Banerjee,director, Pixel Informatics Private Limited said, “We presented a proof of concept to the state P&RD department February last year and got the clearance after the success of the field test in two districts of South 24 paraganas and Purulia. We plan to complete the entire implementation of this m-governance project in West Bengal by the end of the year.” SMSLive, the mobile-based enquiry system, would help collect data of the beneficiaries under the NREGS.

In the first phase, beginning April 7 the state P&RD has handed over 1,100 mobile handsets to members of gram panchayats, panchayat samity and supervisors of NREGS in seventeen districts of Bengal. The department planned to distribute 50,000 phones in all the 18 districts of Bengal by the end of this year, he said. SMSLive will help the department collect field data of the number of men and women who reported for work and the amount disbursed instantly at the click of a message.

The supervisors of NREGS working on the field who have been entrusted with the job of collecting status of daily attendance and payment disbursal to wage earners, would have to send live attendance data by 2pm trough mobile message on a daily basis.

As on date, Rs 940 crore has been disbursed.

 

MCD BACK TO MANUAL TENDERING
New Delhi
The Hindu

Describing as “poor” the response to its model of preparing project estimates online, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has decided to revert back to accepting tenders of up to Rs.10 lakh manually.

The e-tendering model was initially introduced to bring about transparency in the workings of the civic agency but according to municipal councillors, the online system was causing delay in fast-tracking projects in their wards as officials were still struggling to get a grasp on the workings of the system.

Speaking on the issue at a meeting of the MCD House on Monday, Leader of the House Subhash Arya said: “The online system known as Engineering Data Information System was not workable due to several reasons including lack of required technological training for the civic body staff. Even now all our junior engineers and assistant engineers do not even have laptops and Internet connectivity and they find it easier to work manually. Hence we have now asked that estimates for projects with a budget of up to Rs.10 lakh be prepared manually.”

MCD Commissioner K. S. Mehra also consented to the demand of the councillors and stated that till the problems being faced under the EDIS system were not ironed out, work on smaller projects would be done manually.

E-Governance: 26/07/09

 

3COM INDIA ARM TARGETS $25 M, BETS ON E-GOVERNANCE PROJECTS
Rachana Khanzode, Mumbai
The Financial Express

3Com, the enterprise-networking solutions provider, is betting big on the Indian market. Inspira Enterprises, the Indian arm of the $1.3-billion firm, is looking at revenues worth $25 million from India in the coming year.

Manoj Kanodia, CEO of Inspira Enterprises, said, “We expect revenues worth $25 million in the next one year and we target to reach the $1-billion mark in next five years from India alone. Besides looking at the power and telecom sectors for broadband rollout, we are looking at e-governance projects and we have already bid for some of these in the last six months.” The company also has a focus on the banking financial service & insurance (BFSI), logistics, manufacturing and SMEs.

However, the China-based company is expected to face tough competition from US-based Cisco Systems, which has been in the Indian market for a long time now.

According to Kanodia, it wouldn’t be much difficult for them to break the market. “The total cost of ownership of our products is almost 30-40 percent lower than that of our nearest competitor (Cisco) owing to lower energy usage. This, in turn, also helps in lower cooling requirements, thereby reducing the costs significantly.” The firm products have flexibility to upgrade on any system, thereby bringing future investment protection for its clients, he added.

The company provides solutions in end-to-end data centre products, network-based intrusion prevention system and network access control solutions. Peter Chai, vice president and GM of (Asia Pacific) 3Com, said, “About 15 percent of our revenues are spend for research & development (R&D). The Indian market is over $1 billion for us in the networking, switching and security space. We are also looking at mature markets like Japan, which is about $2.6 billion, and China, about $2 billion, per year.” He added that most of the deployments would be for infrastructure projects.

The company also plans to bring in IP-based video surveillance (CCTV) in India. “The CCTVs in India are analogue-based and we intend to bring IP-based CCTVs with sensors that will bring better security aspects,” said Chai.

EPFOS TO BECOME COMPUTERISED BY NOVEMBER
New Delhi
Business Standard  The Asian Age  DNA (Bangalore)  

Come November, PF claims will be settled within days as the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation's (EPFO) would become fully computerised drastically reducing the time taken for the whole process.

"Employees Provident Fund Organiation would not take more than a week for claim settlement as its all 118 regional and sub-regional office would be maintaining records and settling claims using electronic mode by November this year," Commissioner Employees' Provident Fund Organisation K Chandramouli said.

"If the claim is complete in all respect, it would not even take an hour to settle a claim through e-mode. We are not amending our Employees Provident Fund Scheme 1952, Para 72(7), which mandates settling of claims with in 30 days," he added.

Chandramouli said, "We successfully ran a pilot project in Karnal Regional Sub-Office in Haryana. We would computerise all our offices in the country in phases by November this year. Initially we would computerise 25 offices."

According to an EPFO official said PF claim settlement takes about three to four months in normal course of time when applicant completes all formalities. "If there is any discrepancy then settling PF claim could be stretched for longer period."

EPFO maintains PF accounts of about 4.49 crore subscribers with an incremental deposits of around Rs 25,000 crore with a corpus of about 1.82 lakh crore.

 

India E Governance: 25/05/09

 

CRISIS UNDER CHECK
Paromita Pain, May 25, 2009
The Hindu Business Line

Collecting and sharing vital health information underpins the successful containment of virus outbreaks and is one of the key requirements to ensure that public health is protected," says Suganthi Shivkumar, Managing Director, South Asia, for Informatica, working in the space of data integration solutions. In a chat, Suganthi shares insights into how governments can make technology serve more effectively as a public healthcare manager.

What are the various ways the government can technically ramp up healthcare?

With healthcare becoming increasingly patient-centric and information-rich, huge volumes of data are being generated by healthcare providers, patients, payers, facilities supplying specialised care on an outsourced basis, and other third-party organisations.

With a data integration platform in place, healthcare organisations will be able to unlock the value of the information residing in their systems by bringing together patient information from disparate systems securely and reliably.

This will increase confidence in the accuracy of patient records and decrease regulatory non-compliance risks by ensuring precise, consistent data delivery with reliable audit trails.

Proper data integration can also link clinicians, personalise patient care and enable access to external patient data.

By doing so, medical staff will be able to improve the overall quality of patient healthcare not just during the outbreaks of epidemics but normal day-to-day operations as well.

Please tell us more about the Hong Kong Hospital Authority data integration platform. Does India have anything like that?

The Hong Kong Hospital Authority, a statutory body that manages all public hospitals and clinics in Hong Kong, has standardised on Informatica's data integration software to consolidate medical reporting, research, auditing and front-line clinical care data.

In the past, it was extremely difficult to get a complete and up-to-date patient view across hospitals and clinics, but Hong Kong doctors are now able to engage in more comprehensive medical investigations for improved care, and have in place a platform for sharing critical information in near real time to aid in controlling the spread of diseases including SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).

The Hospital Authority has used the data integration platform to consolidate data from 30 clinical systems implemented across 43 hospitals and 121 general and specialised outpatient clinics.

The integrated data fuels a data warehouse containing historical data on six million patients, or 90 percent of the municipality's population. The data enables holistic views of the organisation's business and medical performance, as well as clinical research in support of evidence-based medicine.

During the recent SARS crisis, data integration was leveraged to create an external reporting system for sharing SARS-related data with the government's Department of Health to help support contact tracing and quarantine control.

Replacing a fax-based information-sharing process, the system was set up in just five days, with the data integration portion taking less than two days to implement.

The Hospital Authority is presently working on an expanded communicable disease information system.

 

SERVICE IS A CALL AWAY
T.E. Raja Simhan, May 25, 2009
The Hindu Business Line

Jalgaon District in the north-west region of Maharashtra is known for its advances in horticulture. Its production of bananas and cotton through drip irrigation has been cited as a role model for cultivators in other parts of India.

Now the district, with a population of around four million, is changing the way people communicate and interact with the district administration through the e-lokshahi project.

Connecting with the administration is just a phone call away, says the district collector Kunal Kumar who gave eWorld details of the project implemented by the Chennai-based Bay Talkitec.

The project, according to the collector, provides an opportunity for people to interact with the District Authorities regardless of where they are.

Queries and complaints can be made through a phone call. The callers are then given a token number using which they can check the status of their request later by dialling into the IVR (interactive voice recording) system.

Callers do not need to worry about whether their requests are being looked into, says the collector. The officer concerned needs to address the issue within a time frame, failing which it gets escalated to the next higher level. If a complaint is not closed within a pre-defined time frame, even the collector gets the alert.

The collector cites some instances where the service is of help. Prior to the implementation of this system, people needed to wait anywhere between seven days and seven months for a property document. Often, they would make several trips to the tahsildar’s office.

All that is not required now. Citizens wanting service will only need to call in, get a token number and let the process take its course.

The services offered number over 90, including queries over government fee or frequently asked questions.