E-Governance : 10/9/09

BIOMETRIC SYSTEM FOR RAILWAYS
New Delhi
The Economic Times (Delhi edition)

Close on the heels of the home ministry installing biometric identification system in North Block, Railways have decided to install the same at its vital installations across the country. “We have sanctioned a pilot project at an estimated cost of Rs 4.4 crore for installing biometric identification at vital installation and offices of Indian Railways,” said a senior railway ministry official involved in the project. The project is aimed at enhancing the protection of major IT installations and PRS (Passenger Reservation Service) data centres.

ADVISORY BOARD FORMED FOR UID PROJECT
Chandigarh
The Economic Times  Business Standard  

Chandigarh Administration has formed a seven member "State Level Advisory Board" for review and implementation of the Unique Identification Number (UID) project in the Union Territory.

The Adviser to the Administrator (AA) would be the Chairman of the Board, which includes six senior officers of the local administration, an official spokesman said.

Finance Secretary, Home Secretary, Joint Secretary Finance and Director of Information Technology would be the four members.

Deputy Commissioner (DC) and Finance and Planning Officer (FPO) would be Member-Convener and Member-Secretary respectively, he said adding the board as been set up as per the directions of the Planning Commission.

50 COS WIRED TO EARLY WARNING SYSTEM FOR CORPORATE FRAUDS
New Delhi
The Economic Times  Deccan Herald  

In a bid to crack down on closely-guarded corporate frauds in early stages, the ministry of corporate affairs has kick-started its early warning system on company frauds, with initially about 50 companies coming under the government’s radar.

The early warning system, which has been set up through the use of a sophisticated computer network and involves the functioning of multiple regulators including SEBI and various departments under the corporate affairs ministry, has been started off on a pilot project basis, before being extended to cover all companies operating in the country.

The initiative, which was mulled early last year, gained speed after the emergence of the multi-crore financial fraud in the erstwhile Satyam Computer Services. The scam went untraced for seven years before its promoter B Ramalinga Raju decided to confess of wrongdoings in the company.

Senior officials in the ministry said that the initial list of 50 companies has been prepared in consultation with other regulators including the SEBI, and includes companies, which are presently under some form of scrutiny at the government’s end.

The early warning system involves active participation of capital markets regulator SEBI, and will keep round-the-clock watch on activities of companies. The aim is to crack the whip on any suspicious corporate activity as and when it is found, thus reducing the extent of damage it may cause if it is allowed to reach an uncontrollable level. Once it tracks any suspected malfunctioning, the government will attempt to rectify the malaise through regulatory action.

DOT TO MEET NILEKANI SEPT 24
New Delhi
The Economic Times

The Department of Telecom will meet UIDAI Chairman Nandan Nilekani on Sept 24 to discuss how the database of nearly 500 million telephone subscribers can be used for issuing the unique identification number.

Additional Secretary in DoT Subodh Kumar will chair the meeting, which will also focus on the enrollment process of UID and how the telecom companies could help in the task of "Standardisation of Know Your Resident' norms which is a major goal of the all-India project for issuing the unique ID.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has been established to provide a unique number to every resident in the country to target social security services as well as to assure the internal security.

DoT, along with the various telecom service providers, is a major stakeholder in this process.

There are 480 million telephone subscribers in the country at the moment. Taking margin of error into account, the telecom database is an authenticated database of people in terms of identity and address is concerned.

Authenticating 1.16 billion people is a Herculean task. The telecom user database at least can help the UIDAI to have some part of the personal information checked.

Nilekani, who had headed IT major Infosys in the past, has already said UIDAI would be looking for the databases of PAN card, passport, driving license, ration card, voter I-card and so on. But the first three cover only a small part of the population and the ration card data is subsumed in voter card data.

JOSHI INVOKES RAJIV GANDHI FOR RS 28,000-CRORE E-KENDRAS FUNDING
New Delhi
The Indian Express

In a move that will directly extend the Centre’s influence over 2,52,000 panchayats, the ministry of panchayati raj has proposed setting up hi-tech software networking centres in all panchayats at a staggering cost of Rs 28,000 crore over three years.

To be called Rajiv Gandhi Bharat Nirman Seva Kendras, the construction and maintenance of these will be fully funded by the Centre. The proposal, prima facie, appears as though states will have negligible or no role in either establishing or running the Kendras. The proposal is yet to be approved by the Planning Commission.

During an NREGA meeting on July 20 to mark the late Rajiv Gandhi’s birthday, panchayati raj minister C P Joshi had promised that his ministry would set up such centres to provide a single-window grievance redressal system for all Centrally funded rural development schemes.

This, apparently, comes out of Joshi’s belief that states are failing to efficiently implement the schemes.

The Kendras, directly governed by the Centre, will also enhance the political clout of the Congress in rural areas. Many in the UPA believe that NDA-ruled states habitually re-christen Central schemes and walk away with the credit. Minister of state for planning V Narayanasamy has already aired his displeasure on the issue.

In most Central schemes, the Centre and state governments share the cost of funding. While the Centre pays 75 percent of the funds, state governments pay the remaining amount.

In case of special category states, the Centre foots the bill to the extent of 90 percent of the plan.

EPFO PLANS RS 350-CR E-ENABLE PROGRAMME
Moushumi Basu, Ranchi
The Pioneer

The days of making repeated rounds to the office of the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and queuing up for hours just to enquire of your balance or having to wait for years to get your claims settled may soon be a thing of the past.

The largest social security provider of the country catering to more than 4.5 crore subscribers, has embarked upon a nation-wide computerisation and modernisation project worth Rs 350 crore, in two phases to totally ‘e-enable’ all its PF offices and put an end to the woes of the subscribers.

As a part of its hi-tech facilities for customer care, the organisation is installing the Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) in its offices. Once functional, all you need to do is simply dial 2449544 for availing the facility. He/she will be guided through voice message, to get the relevant information by keying their Provident Fund Account Number. With the completion of the second phase, the unique ID number given to you for a lifetime, would take care of your problems, even if you change your jobs or organisations. What more! your claims may get settled in less than a week’s time!

 

E-Governance: 9/9/09

UID TO EMPOWER THE POOR: NILEKANI
Subir Roy, Bangalore
Business Standard

The head of the Unique Identification Authority says it’s a number, not a card, and the number walks with you. Nearly two months into his new job as the head of the Unique Identification Authority of India, Nandan Nilekani says the real beneficiary of the project will be the poor who have no identity at present.

“The UID project is really for the huge number of people who are outside the system. For the poor, this is a huge benefit because they have no identity, no birth certificates, degree certificates, driver’s license, passport no, address. There are 75 million homeless people in this country, 75 million tribals. So if we are able to help them get the number then we can actually empower them,” Nilekani says.

He is in a hurry because “the next 12-18 months are very critical in getting this project off the ground,” by when the first set of identity numbers will be issued. If all goes well, five years from now the UID database will cover a few hundred million people. Several countries have card or number systems for their citizens but not on the scale contemplated in India — a billion people in one database with biometric information.

The former head of Infosys, which has a head count of over 100,000 right now, leads a team of three — four if you add a PA — from out of its temporary home at the Planning Commission. The project, which aims to give every Indian resident a unique identification number, could have a headcount of a few hundred at its peak.

He describes his journey from India’s seat of IT power to the seat of political power as “Bangalore meets Delhi” with a laugh and then adds with all seriousness, “I am hoping to blend in the (UID) project the best of both worlds.”

One way he is doing this is through his time management. It has both changed and not changed.

Nilekani and his team have till now been engaged in is going out and meeting everyone. They have met a large number of government departments across the board – finance, home, labour, rural development ministries. They have also announced a big collaboration with NREGA to roll out UIDs.

As and when the staff comes on board, they will reflect this amalgam of Bangalore and Delhi. “We want to have both young and experienced people. We want a nice blend of top talent, some from the government because this project needs a lot of government experience. We are actually talking about changing government processes in many areas like NREGA and PDS. And we will have top talent from outside – technology, legal, marketing.”

There are only a few staffers currently, hence a lot of others are pitching in with ideas and support. So, “whatever we can do we have been doing, sort of brainstormed and coming out with the first approach to how we will do this project.” This approach was shared with the prime minister’s council for the UID authority and “in principle they have approved it.”

The UID authority will issue a number, not a card. It will run a central database, which will have one entry or record for every person resident in India. Every entry will contain information on demographics like name, address, date of birth, plus some information, that acts as the person’s biometric identifier.

“Think of it as a depository of names, as opposed to a depository of stocks,” says Nilekani. The authority will work with multiple partners like NREGA, income tax, passport, banks, insurance companies, LPG dealers – all those who deal with Indian residents, providing goods and services.

The partners will both act as enrollers for the data base and use it for verification in the course of their day-to-day work. When somebody comes to a partner for a particular service and does not have a UID, the partner will enroll that person through its channel. Then once the database starts filling up, you can do authentication anywhere in the country online, real time. The response time will be a few seconds.

“It’s a number (not a card) and the number walks with you,” explains Nilekani. For biometric identification it will include a person’s fingers and face and other details. What is yet to be decided is if six or eight or 10 fingers will be used for identification.

The big challenge is enrollment, getting all the people on board. Once they are in, the number of changes is relatively much less. Then it becomes more of an authentication database. There are no transactions or profiling attributes in this database. It doesn’t identify rich, poor, religion or caste. It is also not an open database, as there are a lot of privacy issues involved. It will only be used for verification.

There are a few things that the UID chief will just not talk about. One of them is what kind of opportunity the project represents for the Indian IT industry. The Rs 120 crore initial budget for the project has to be seen in context. The expenditure on it will be distributed among the authority and its partners. They will invest in the enrolling process, as they will benefit from doing so. If a social programme can improve it’s targeting through this database, if businesses can do things more efficiently or cheaply, then the expenditure will make sense. “There will be a spend across the system, not necessarily all by us.”

ORISSA PLANS E-FILING OF RETURNS FOR TRADERS
Kolkata/ Bhubaneswar
Business Standard

The Orissa government plans to introduce e-filing of returns and e-payment of tax for the dealers in the state. The commercial tax department will hold discussion with the state Information Technology (IT) department for implementing the plan.

The new system is proposed to be implemented over next 6 months and will enable dealers to file returns and pay taxes from their offices, state finance minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadai said.

CHALLENGES BEFORE UIDAI
Mint

Mapping the identities of a billion-plus persons in a single nation is a big task by any definition. On that count alone, the challenges the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) faces are unique. If and when UIDAI manages to fulfill its mandate, it will be a marvel to technology and ingenuity.

First and foremost are the technological challenges. The sheer scale of the project is huge. Consider some basic facts. Storing 10 fingerprints requires around 5 megabytes (Mb) of space. Storing that information for a billion-plus persons will require 5 billion Mb of memory space. While that may no longer be an unimaginable number, given our IT prowess, maintaining and running such a database has its own challenges. Then, there is the question of using the system. It has been estimated that at its peak, the UIDAI system will require comparing one million identity verification requests against a database of, say, 600 million identities. That will require a brute and gargantuan computing capability.

Those, however, are the easier problems, as they do not involve interfacing with institutional users. The first problem is that UIDAI is a demand-driven project. If some government agency, say, a state government implementing the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), does not want to use the system (for political reasons to give an example), there is little UIDAI can do. Given the scale of the Centre’s programmes and schemes (NREGS is only one example), it makes sense to use an identity verification system. This can go a long way in ensuring that benefits do not go to those for whom they are not meant. Leakages based on identity are a common feature of all such schemes.

That is where the resistance to the project is bound to occur. At the level of Union government and its agencies, cooperation has been assured to UIDAI. It is possible that this will not be forthcoming at the state and local levels. That is because at the lower levels of government, politics is geared on leaking benefits to those for whom they are not meant. The routine leakage of rations meant for below poverty line families is well known. UIDAI is sure to run foul of this politics.

There is, however, a silver lining. If the project takes off quickly and the Union government provides it steady financial, administrative and political support, it may overcome such resistance as opposition to it is scattered and not politically organized. It is a situation not different from what economic reforms encountered before they ran into the Left.

ROAD MAP CHARTS OUT WAYS FOR RAILWAYS TO CHUG ON
Sajan C Kumar, Chennai
The Financial Express

In order to be more competitive and attain greater commercialisation, the railways needs to create a fixed base operator for parcel business, develop an IT strategy, improve on efficiency in production units, sheds and workshops. These forms part of an exclusive technical assistance report, prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers, together with the Asian Development Bank.

The report also recommends a small-grant programme to support initiatives by individual employees within the railways and promoting and developing academic and research institutions.

Parcel business in the railways currently falls under coaching services. The railways has taken initiatives in divesting functional responsibilities like marketing, booking and dealing with retail customers on issues regarding parcel business, with the leasing out of parcel vans to contractors. These contractors pay a bulk amount to the railways, which in turn, book parcels from retail customers. However, it has been seen that the focus of the railways has not been adequate. “There is a need to provide specialised marketing efforts, customer-friendly policies, tie-ups with large courier/ parcel companies and state-of-the-art booking and tracking services. Indian Railways can also analyse the feasibility of having separate parcel trains if there is adequate business. Parcel business, currently a part of coaching services, loses the focus of the railways”, said the report.

The approach paper on the 11th Plan has also identified parcel business as a good business opportunity and has proposed an investment of about Rs 100 crore per annum in infrastructure to develop parcel terminals and vans. The projections indicate doubling of the volumes and a five-fold increase in revenues (from Rs 650 crore to Rs 3,000 crore) during the 11th Plan. A study to recommend the upgrade of parcel business as a separate FBO is already underway in the railways. “The consultants should study the entire sector and railways’ opportunities in detail and come out with clear recommendations”, the report added.

In order to consolidate efforts, the report has recommended the development of an IT strategy, which would chart out the vision of computerisation in the next 10-15 years and identify important operations, which will be IT-enabled. This would help all departments to focus their energies in one direction, rather than doing things on their own. The IT strategy document could also assist in monitoring the progress of computerisation over the years. “The time is ripe for the railways to focus on computerisation of internal processes such as accounting, costing and fixed asset management”.

NOW, SCHOOL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT GOES ONLINE
Bhopal
The Pioneer

In order to achieve the objective and ensure smooth automation of various processes and to facilitate the teachers an online portal has been introduced by the School Education Department. Now, all the details of teachers Service Book will be available online. Designed in technical collaboration with NIC, the department is defining the new parameters of e-governance.

The educational portal will facilitate online automation of Service Books of about 3.50 lakh teachers and employees of Tribal Department. Facilitation of online service books of teachers will ensure transparency, analysis and immediate redressal of their problems. Moreover, the department will develop a Human Resource Management, Information System (HRMIS) to follow up and for implementation of administrative and academic activities.

Online services will avail submission and redressal of grievances of the staff, timely and online follow up of various shortcomings related to teachers, promotion, transfers, legal matters etc. During teachers training session online entries will be fed in the education portal with the help of technical associates.

The teachers to feed their personal information and data have to log on to the url http://demo.mp.nic.in/educationportal. Now, under teachers corner the heading “Personal Information” click “Service Book” and enter their personal details.

CENTRE PLANS RS 28K-CR IT PROJECT
Mukesh Ranjan, New Delhi
The Asian Age

Catalysing Information Technology (IT) knowledge to reach to the grass-root level in the country, the Centre is working out a massive programme worth Rs 28,000 crore in the name of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who is considered to be pioneer in introducing IT in the country.

Sources in the government confirmed that the UPA-II has decided to establish computer knowledge centres -- Rajiv Gandhi Bharat Nirman Seva Kendras -with fully IT-enabled e-governance system in each panchayat in the country. The programme, which will be rolled out in three years, is being worked out under the stewardship of rural development and panchayti raj minister C.P. Joshi.

To have such centres in the country soon, Joshi, while speaking at an NREGA function on July 20 to mark Late Rajiv Gandhi's birthday, had dwelt on the need for IT-enabled services at panchayat level for effective and corruption free implementation of rural development schemes.

 

E-Governance News: 8/9/09

TCS TO ROLL OUT PASSPORT SEVA PROJECT IN OCTOBER
Preeti Parashar, Chandigarh
The Financial Express

Leading IT services, business solutions and outsourcing firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) plans to roll out passport seva project in six cities by October. The passport seva centers will be launched in Chandigarh, Ambala and Ludhiana in North and Bangalore, Mangalore and Hubli in South in the first phase. One of the central government’s flagship e-governance programmes- Passport Seva Project was handed over to TCS for implementation in October 2008 by the ministry of external affairs.

However, this Rs 1,000 crore prestigious project is running behind schedule. “The project had to begin in July this year but delay was caused due to non availability of disaster management recovery site. But now the work is on and infrastructure will be in place by September,” Tanmoy Chakrabarty, vice president and head government industry solutions unit, TCS said.

TCS will be recruiting about 75-80 people for three centers in north and about 1,600 people are expected to be hired for the total of 77 centers. Chakrabarty added, “The pilot locations will be observed for three months and then the next phase operations will be carried out by July 2010.

National rollout will take place over a period of six years. Once the passport seva kendras are fully operational the applicant can have a passport within 72 hours.

B’LORE GETS UNIQUE ID TECH CENTRE
Ajith Athrady, New Delhi
Deccan Herald

Considering the availability of a large pool of technocrats in Bangalore, the Centre has decided to establish the technology centre of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI) in the IT capital of the country.

This decision was taken at a recent high-level meeting of the authority chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and attended by chairman Nandan Nilekani and several Union cabinet ministers. Though the size of the office and its staff strength are yet to be decided, it is learnt that it will be a huge establishment considering its mammoth task.

The government has sanctioned Rs 120 crore for the project as initial budget to create infrastructure and other facilities. The government plans to roll out the first unique identification number in mid-2011 and aims to cover 600 million people within four years.

As the authority has already chosen Karnataka for the pilot implementation of its project and appointed senior IAS officer M N Vidyashankar its state’s nodal officer, the technology centre in Bangalore is expected to result in better co-ordination, sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said.

The authority’s headquarters will be New Delhi and it will have eight regional offices whose locations are being identified, sources said.

Taking note of the contours of the project and the requirement of the massive talent to implement it, the meeting decided to allow the authority to hire people from government as well as private sector. The authority was allowed to hire professionals from persons of Indian origin. The authority will constitute a global advisory council of top academics of Indian origin to advise it on technology and implementation issues

 

E-Governance News: 7/9/09

I'M HERE TO MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE, NOT TO GIVE INFY CONTRACTS: NILEKANI
Asha Rai, September 6, 2009
The Economic Times

Nandan Nilekani, chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), was in Bangalore last weekend to be part of his mentor N R Narayana Murthy’s daughter Akshata’s wedding festivities. And uniquely, he spent the better part of a day running around collecting different types of identities for himself!

He dropped by at the Bangalore Club to collect his permanent membership card before rushing to the RTO to collect his driving licence. Next time he renews his licence, it should sport his unique ID. That in a way sums up the scope of the task Nilekani has set for himself. Of providing Indians with a unique number that will pop up in their passports, ration cards, PAN cards. Singular yet universal.

In a wide-ranging interview, six weeks after moving to New Delhi, Nilekani talks on the challenges of the job and even more of living and working in New Delhi.

You still don’t have a Delhi phone number, an official e-mail ID. What gives?

(Laughs) We are a start-up!

Have you got your Ambi with a siren?

I removed it. I have a Tata Indica...

Why?

We are a start-up . I have to get on with my job. The car I drive is not important.

And gunmen?

(Looks shocked at the idea) Of course not. How can I roam around with them? I like my anonymity.

How much salary are you getting?

I don’t know. But whatever I get I will give to the Prime Minister’s relief fund.

How do you find Delhi after Bangalore?

Obviously it is a very different world. It is a move from the private to the public sector. To government. That itself is a very major shift. Second, it is a move from Bangalore to Delhi. Third, in a curious kind of way, though I am moving to government, it is like moving to a start-up. Moving from an established situation to a startup. Actually that for me is the most unsettling. At Infosys I had all the systems in place. Those have to be re-built and should take a couple of months. Meantime, work cannot stop. I am in that in-between period where I have to do many of the things that in Infosys I would have delegated.

Have you figured out how the system works from the inside?

It’s a steep learning curve. For example, getting people. How you get officers allotted to you? There’s a process to be followed. How do you get office space? How are meetings organized? How do you document these meetings? All these are new in a government sense.

You are supposed to get people from the private sector in addition to government officers?

That again is a process. You have to put in place a recruitment process to select the right people. In principle, the idea is accepted that it will be a combination of very talented people both from government and outside. The challenge is mixing these people from different backgrounds into one seamless team.

Will your family move to Delhi full time?

No. But Rohini (his wife) will start coming often. She’s there next week. My kids were both home on summer break (they study at Yale University). We have a challenge in moving fully to Delhi. My mother, who is 84, is in Bangalore and at this age we can’t disturb her. We have a 9-year-old dog. Rohini has to hold the fort in Bangalore. I am shuttling. I leave for Delhi on Monday mornings and am in Bangalore over the weekends. I am also developing the technology team in Bangalore, so it is work-related too.

Does this job require a lot of networking?

I have been meeting ministers, secretaries, chief ministers. The plan is to meet all the CMs. Central side have met most of the people. This is a massively cooperative project. This isn’t a project where you work in a corner, in an isolated environment and build something. Because it touches every Indian resident and every government department, it can work only in close cooperation with them. A lot of it is networking, diplomacy and meeting people.

Isn’t the Rs 120 crore allocated too little?

For the time being it is adequate.

Tell us in brief about the project: investment, partners, vendors, people, technology?

Investment, I don’t know yet. People, a few hundred from our side. The main thing is it’s a partnership model. UIDAI itself will be in the business of giving numbers. The card, or whatever is the device, will be issued by the respective partners who will deal with the Indian residents. Let’s say NREGA. It has given job cards for 65 million families. They will be our partners. They will use UID as identification as part of their application. Similarly, income tax will use UID on the PAN cards. Same with the PDS system.’

So UID won’t be a card like a PAN card?

We might send you a letter with a number and say please keep this letter safely . That is just information. Usage happens when say, the passport has the UID number. Eventually what will happen is that the UID number you get will start permeating the system. It will become ubiquitous. What’s important is that you get the UID only once, then you can use it anywhere. That’s the big change. You enrol once and get an identity for life. That’s the big USP. That’s how it reduces transaction costs, improves service for the people.

Timeline for this?

In 12 to 18 months we want to roll out the first set of numbers. We will work with the registrars. Depending on which registrar comes on board first and starts issuing will decide who gets it first. We have very strong partnerships happening with NREGA, PAN, health insurance.

There’s talk of thousands of crores worth of business this will generate. Can we have some clarity on this?

First of all, the investment will be distributed . It is not just UID authority. In fact, the partners will be the ones issuing the cards, the ones investing in biometric equipment, etc. We are forming a biometric committee shortly to come out with biometric standards . A lot of work in this area has already happened in India. It isn’t as if we are doing it all new. We need to aggregate it.

When do the software companies come in, at the design part?

There’a software piece. At some point we will have to bid out to manage the centrally-managed service provider.

Aren’t you worried about the conflict of interest that everyone’s talking about if Infosys were to bid for a piece?

(Exasperated) See, I haven’t taken this up to award contracts to Infosys. There will be very high standards of integrity, transparency in procurement. Even if there’s the slightest situation of potential conflict of interest, I will recuse myself from the decision. We will appoint an empowered committee.

E-REGISTRATION OF LAND TRANSFER SOON
Kolkata, Berhampur September 07, 2009
Business Standard

The Orissa government has decided to introduce e-Registration of land transfer replacing the present system of manual registration. In the new system a vendor or registrant public has to pay user fees besides the stamp duty and registration fees required for transfer of land.

“This facility will be available in all sub-registrar offices in the state” said state’s revenue minister, SN Patra.

The government has also decided to increase the number of sub-registrar office from 72 to 100 and the tehsil office to 316, he said. The minister was addressing a function of the Data-Entry Operator-cum-Assistant Association here.

“The e-Registration facility will not only ensure transparency, but also make the process of land registration hassle free for the public who will get their land deeds instantly. The process for issue of Encumbrance Certificates (ECs) is also being computerized which will help the administration to issue ECs to the applicants immediately.

The computerization of land records will help in disposing of the long-pending mutation cases and fetch more revenue to the government, the minister said.

Several southern Indian states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnatak and Tamilnadu have already introduced the e-Registration facility.

As part of its administrative reform, the government has decided to restrict the number of staff in a tehsil to 22 including the tehsildar. As the government intends to fill up the assistant posts lying vacant in tehsils soon, the data-entry operators working in tehsils on contractual basis have a good chance to get permanent appointments, the minister said, referring to their demands for regularization of jobs.

The government had engaged about 600 data-entry operators about three years ago on contractual basis for a period of six months with consolidated remuneration of Rs 4000 per month at the tehsil level. The tenure of their job was extended twice by one year on each occasion.

IT COMPANIES STILL WAITING FOR PROMISED DOMESTIC BOOST
Venkatesha Babu, Bangalore, September 07, 2009
Mint

In 2006, when the Union government outlined its ambitious National e-Governance Plan, or NeGP, covering 26 critical projects involving an investment of Rs 23,000 crore over five years, there were high expectations among information technology (IT) firms.

For India’s IT companies that relied heavily on the US and Europe—some two-thirds of their total revenue comes from these regions—NeGP widened the domestic market and provided an opportunity to work with the government.

Its projects needed core infrastructure, support and technical assistance in various areas, including agriculture, income tax, land records, pensions and passports.

Similarly, when the government introduced an offset clause on defence purchases—making it mandatory for foreign firms to procure locally components worth 30% of the total value of the contract—Indian IT companies again sensed opportunity.

Government projects, defence and homeland security seemed to be the next wave to power the growth of IT companies.

But three years after the announcements were made, only a few of the projects have been awarded.

“Nobody can deny the scale and size of the opportunity. (But) yes, there is a gulf between the ideation to implementation stage,” said Tanmoy Chakrabarty, vice-president and head of the global government industry group at India’s largest software firm Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, or TCS. “The entire process is slow, and we would like to see greater momentum in the decision-making process.”

TCS gets around 7.8% of its total revenue from the domestic services market, including a few of the government projects awarded so far.

The single largest IT project the government has awarded in recent times is the Rs1,182 crore Panchdeep, by the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation to Wipro Ltd, the country’s third largest software firm, to improve management of healthcare facilities.

Wipro’s annual revenue from the project, spread over six-and-a-half years, would be just under Rs200 crore.

Anand Sankaran, chief executive of Wipro Infotech, the arm that handles IT businesses in the domestic and West Asian markets, concurs with Chakrabarty.

“A number of other opportunities like the state wide area networks, state data centres, the Army and Navy wide area network, and power sector IT implementation across state electricity boards, all are very promising. The worry has been about the pace of awarding them,” he said.

Wipro gets around 8% of its total revenue from the domestic IT services market. In 2008-09, it earned Rs400 crore from the government and defence verticals, and hopes to end the current fiscal year with Rs1,000 crore from these.

Infosys Technologies Ltd, India’s second largest IT company, earned a mere 0.9% of its revenue from the domestic market in the April-June quarter. But it, too, has won deals for setting up an integrated coach management system for the Indian Railways and a project from the department of industrial policy and promotion.

“We see a huge opportunity not just in IT services but also providing hardware and software,” said Puneet Gupta, vice-president, public sector, International Business Machines Corp., or IBM, India and South Asia. But a big handicap in working in this sector is that the “contracts, sometimes, are just decided on L1” (or the lowest bid), Gupta added.

WIPRO TO DEVELOP E-GOVERNANCE SOFTWARE FOR CORPORATION
Kochi, September 7, 2009
The Hindu

The e-governance project of the Kochi Corporation has moved a step further with the civic authorities deciding to entrust the task of developing the software with Wipro.

Wipro had earlier prepared the project report for the Kochi Corporation.

According to officials, the company would depute its officials to various departments of the Corporation for assessing the software requirements. The assessment would take around four months to complete. This would be followed by software and hardware development, civic authorities said.

It would take at least one year for the e-governance system to become operational. With e-governance in place, payment of property tax, registration of birth and death, utility services, filing of grievances and suggestions and submission and approval of building plans would go online.

The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission has funded the Rs. 8.7 crore project.

The officials of the company will also train and support the officials of the Corporation for one year in running the system.

WE’RE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Mahafreed Irani, September 7, 2009
The Times of India (Delhi edition)

In a first of its kind, a contest for government websites by the Government of India has been announced. The Web Ratnas will be awarded this month but for most citizens who have used these sites, the contest is nothing more than a celebration of mediocrity, more Razzie than ratna.

Although India likes to flatter itself into thinking it’s the software giant of the world, its government websites are objects to ridicule. Dead links, flickering images, flashing text, under construction warnings, phone numbers that do not exist and email IDs that bounce are the salient features of most GoI portals.

The aesthetics are alarming too with multi-coloured, gaudy fonts blinking and winking at different speeds. Interface and usability analyst Bhooshan Pandya calls the design disastrous. “They lack aesthetic value and therefore affect the trust quotient of a user,’’ he says. “Animated banners only distract the user from reading. The ministry of defence website breaks every rule in the book.’’ B G Mahesh, CEO of Oneindia.in, suggests that users put on a pair of goggles before logging on to the gaudy health ministry’s site. An announcement on the page reads, ‘Let your eyes live on. Donate your eyes to someone.’ But because it moves so quickly from right to left, users say, “We will be the needy after trying to read that.’’

Although many of the blinking icons flash ‘New’, they are rarely updated. What more notorious example than when H1N1 swept into India. Several state government websites including that of Maharashtra (which celebrates 2009 as E-Governance Year and whose server has been down for over a week) didn’t carry so much as a sneeze on the flu.