Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Minister of State for General Administration Information and Public Relations, Govt of Maharashtra
may 2012
VOLUME 08 n ISSUE 05 n ISSN 0973-161X
J S Saharia
Rajesh Aggarwal
Sudhir Thakre
Dinesh Waghmare
Dr K Shivaji
Vandana Krishna
Vikas Kharage
Unicode:
Ramnath Sonawane
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The prosperity of the state of Maharashtra comes not only from the boundless energy and enterprise of the people, it is also a result of the fact that the state has been on the forefront in implementing e-Governance initiatives that focus on citizens needs and ensure superior service delivery. The state has been endeavouring to work out a time bound approach to incorporate and encourage the use of UID for various e-Governance projects, which seek to facilitate the delivery of services to the right beneficiary. The state has taken the landmark step of using Marathi as the first language in all e-Governance initiatives. I am happy that, which goes back to centuries and which enshrines a rich cultural, religious and historical heritage has found its rightful place on the digital platform. I am happy to learn that Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd is organizing e-Maharashtra conference on 27 April 2012, at the Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan, Nariman Point, Mumbai. The e-Maharashtra is an ICT conference seeking to address regional issues and challenges in the ICT initiatives that have been undertaken in Maharashtra. The vision for implementing new e-Governance initiatives and bringing about seminal improvements in the quality of peoples lives will certainly get reflected in various thematic conferences under the umbrella of e-Maharashtra. The Government of Maharashtra extends warm welcome to the delegates to this conference.
( Prithviraj Chavan )
MINISTER OF STATE FOR GENERAL ADMINISTRATION INFORMATION AND PUBLIC RELATIONS, CULTURAL AFFAIRS, PROTOCOL, SCHOOL EDUCATION, WOMEN AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT PUBLIC HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE AND MINORITIES DEVELOPMENT (INCLUDING AUKAF) GovERNMENT OF MAHARASHTRA Mantralaya, Mumbai 400 032 www.maharashtra.gov.in
Date
Message
Maharashtra is regarded as a state that is an early adopter of technology. The state began its e-Governance journey much earlier than other states in India. The Government of Maharashtra has always been committed to using new technologies for better governance. The state has adopted many administrative reforms. These reforms have led to government services becoming available to citizens in a more transparent and efficient manner. The state government has been a driving force in encouraging the adoption of technology for enabling better governance. The state is judged as the leader in e-Governance in India. Maharashtra is one of the first states to have formulated a comprehensive e-Governance policy. Government of Maharashtra, through this policy, intends to ensure that eServices become a mandate for each department and are offered to citizens in a uniform manner. The state has also laid down the various technology standards and policies to ensure a speedy and cost effective implementation. The state envisions connecting each citizen to state governance machinery online. The citizens will not have to visit to various government departments. The power of technology became accessible to a larger spectrum of the population with the availability of Marathi language on all kinds of digital platforms. Earlier English was the primary language of the digital world and that proved to be a major deterrent in wide-spread adoption of technology. However, today Marathi fonts are easily available on mobile phones, and it is a lot easier for common citizens to aspire for becoming part of the digital society. We are now entering the phase of an e-inclusive society. With rapid improvements in technology, e-Governance is becoming a necessity for every state government. When better e-Governance tools are available so easily, it makes sense for government to start using them, in times to come m-Governance will become very popular with citizens. Many people will start interacting with government department with the help of their mobile devices. lt gives me immense pleasure to share with you that Government of Maharashtra and Elets Technomedia are jointly organising eMaharashtra 2012 - State e-Governance Leadership Summit - on April 27, 2012, at Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan, Mumbai. The aim of the event is to showcase the success stories and future roadmap on e-Governance in Maharashtra. I extend my best wishes to the event.
( Fauzia Khan )
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Contents
second grid grid name issue 05 n volume 08
may 2012
34
21
25
36
12 | cover story
Unicode: Empowering
37
Localisation in e-Governance
Unicode has enabled access of e-Governance to the masses by making it possible to deliver content and service in local languages
40 16
interview Prof (Smt) Fauzia Tehseen Khan
MoS, Gen. Admn., & Pub Relations, Govt of Maharashtra
30
46
24
interview J S Saharia
Addl. Chief Secretary, Dept. of School Education, Govt of Maharashtra
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28
32
interview Dr K Shivaji
Principal Secretary, Industries & Energy, Govt of Maharashtra
further reading
Editorial 10 book review 61
may 2012
issue 05 n volume 08 President: Dr M P Narayanan Editor-in-Chief: Dr Ravi Gupta Consulting Editor: Ashis Sanyal
Editorial Team Group Editor Anoop Verma (editorial@elets.in) Manager Partnerships & Alliances Manjushree Reddy Product Manager Divya Chawla Research Analyst Sheena Joseph Research Associate Anand Agarwal Principal Correspondent Dhirendra Pratap Singh Senior Correspondent Rachita Jha, Pragya Gupta Research Assistant Sunil Kumar, Shally Makin, Mansi Bansal Sales & Marketing Team Manager Marketing Ragini Shrivastav, Mobile: +91-8860651650 National Sales Manager digitalLEARNING Fahimul Haque Associate Manager - Business Development Jyoti Lekhi, Amit Kumar Pundhir Assistant Manager-Business Development Rakesh Ranjan, Shankar Adaviyar, Puneet Kathait Sr. Executive - Business Development Ashad Mofiz Subscription & Circulation Team Sr.Manager Circulation Jagwant Kumar, Mobile: +91-8130296484 Sr. Executive - Subscription Gunjan Singh, Mobile: +91-8860635832; subscription@elets.in Executive - Circulation Ashok Kumar Design Team Team Lead - Graphic Design Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Graphic Designer Om Prakash Thakur, Shyam Kishore Trainee Graphics Meenakshi Rajput
Web Development & Information Management Team Dy. General Manager Strategy Raghav Mittal Sr. Executive Officer - Web Ishvinder Singh Sr. Executive Officer Information Management Gaurav Srivastava Associate Developer Anil Kumar Information Technology Team Dy. General Manager IT Mukesh Sharma Executive-IT Infrastructure Zuber Ahmed Finance & Operations Team General Manager Finance Ajit Kumar Legal Officer Ramesh Prasad Verma Sr. Manager Events Vicky Kalra Associate Manager HR Sushma Juyal Associate Manager Accounts Anubhav Rana Executive Officer Accounts Subhash Chandra Dimri
Editorial & Marketing Correspondence egov Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd Stellar IT Park, Office No: 7A/7B, 5th floor, Tower-2 C-25, Sector 62, Noida, Uttar Pradesh - 201301 Phone: +91-120-2502181-85, Fax: +91-120-2500060, Email: info@egovonline.net egov is published by Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd in technical collaboration with Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS). Owner, Publisher, Printer: Ravi Gupta, Printed at Vinayak Print Media Pvt. Ltd, D-320, Sector-10, Noida, U.P. and published from 710 Vasto Mahagun Manor, F-30, Sector - 50 Noida, UP Editor: Ravi Gupta All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic and mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage or retrieval system, without publishers permission.
Write in your reactions to eGov news, interviews, features and articles. You can either comment on the individual webpage of a story, or drop us a mail: editorial@elets.in
Guest Editorial
he government of Maharashtra has been pursuing a very active ICT-focussed policy, making the ICT sector one of its key priorities. However, rather than allowing development to overwhelm the social sector and creating fissures in society, the state has developed a comprehensive plan that envisages using ICT in a range of e-Governance initiatives, which can provide benefits to all sections of society. The rapid implementation of UIDAI scheme is one of Maharashtras great achievements. By 2013 the entire state will be enrolled under UIDAI Scheme. The state is developing applications and tools to use UIDAI based authentication measures to ensure that the subsidies, scholarships and other benefits reach the sections of the population for whom they are meant. Through the use of e-Scholarship scheme the state exchequer has saved lot of public wealth, while also ensuring that the students and the institutions have access to the money they are entitled to in a timely and seamless manner. The state is also leading in the implementation of CSC Scheme (Common Service Centre); as of now we are having synchronisation with 25,000 Sangram Kendras or e-Panchayats into CSCs. These will offer CSC services as well as G2C services. Much of the success that the state of Maharashtra is seeing in the implementation of various e-Governance projects is also an outcome of the success in the State Data Centre project. The State Data Centre has our own set of IPV4 and IPV6 addresses taken directly from APNIC and more than 116 applications of various departments running on cloud. The reliability of the SWAN (State Wide Area Network has increased from 70 percent to 96 percent. The implementation guidelines of Maharashtras e-Governance policy have been finalised and will start getting implemented from 1st May 2012. Lot of benefits of the new e-Governance systems that are being launched also rely on the accessibility of these systems. That is why the state has ensured that all the e-Governance systems and tools are accessible in Marathi as well, thus ensuring larger participation. I wish the eMaharashtra event a great success!
Rajesh Aggarwal
09
he earliest recorded mention of the name Maharashtra dates back by more than two millennia. Since then, the state has been at the forefront of revolutionary social, political and economic change in the country. The Indian National Congress which drove Indias independence movement was first convened in Maharashtra, and the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi, called one of Maharashtras, and Indias greatest sons Gopal Krishna Gokhale as his political Guru. From the soil of Maharashtra have arisen world-renowned artists such as Lata Mangeshkar and sportsmen as Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and K Jadhav winner of Indias first individual Olympic Gold. Maharashtra has given to the country three Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, six recipients of the Bharat Ratna, six recipients of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards also known as Asias Nobel Prize, six recipients of the Dada Saheb Phalke Awards etc. One could go on and on, and still barely skim the surface when recounting the list of Maharashtras contribution to the country. In governance, Maharashtra has led the way through programmes such as the Food for Work programme and the Employment Guarantee Scheme, key features of which one can see in the National Employment Guarantee Act. It has also been at the forefront of adoption of technology in governance. The first Unique Identity, or Aadhar, number was allotted in Maharashtra. The state NRHM office has implemented a revolutionary e-file system and has become a completely paperless office. Everywhere one turns to look, initiatives abound. All across government, technology is being deployed to usher in revolutionary improvements in service delivery, savings in time and cost and increase in general efficiency. egov magazine has been at the forefront of showcasing the impact that technology can have on day-to-day governance for eight years now. It remains Indias only monthly focusing on e-Governance. In addition to print, we have been organising conferences and symposia to bring together stakeholders to discuss the issues and challenges in the path of e-Governance. Maharashtras capital Mumbai is the financial centre of India. Almost every major company in India has a Mumbai address. Home to the worlds biggest film industry, the Maximum City drives business, culture and life in the country like few other places can do. It is apt that the inaugural eMaharashtra State e-Governance Summit meets at Mumbai. Organised with the objective of discussing the e-Governance scenario in the state and identifying a roadmap for the future, the Summit would also recognise excellence and innovations in e-Governance through the eMaharashtra Awards. This special issue commemorates e-Governance in Maharshtra. The Honble Chief Minister has himself penned an article on the journey of Unicode and its importance to e-Governance, and senior officers from a number of government Departments have contributed articles or shared their experiences on e-Governance. As eMaharashtra discusses the use of technology for better governance, one hopes this issue serves as a chronicle of the possibilities offered by technology.
ravi guptA Ravi.Gupta@elets.in
February 2012
March 2012
April 2012
10
COVER STORY
Unicode: Empowering
Localisation in e-Governance
I am proud that Maharashtra and our beloved language Marathi, which goes back to centuries and which enshrines a rich cultural, religious and historical heritage has found its rightful place on the digital platform
Prithviraj Chavan, Honble Chief Minister, Government of Maharashtra
I
12
ndian languages on the digital medium form an inherent part of our lives today. Be it producing content, digital publishing, video, e-books, web-pages, mobiles, tablets, viewing subtitles and banners on TV and very soon having your own URL in an Indian language of your choice: these are taken for granted and it seems that Indian languages have always existed on the digital medium. Imagine the herculean task of providing support for 22 official languages of India as well as our heritage scripts such as Grantha, Modi, Vedic on the computer platform and one can
egov / egov.eletsonline.com / May 2012
see that this multi-lingual support on the digital medium has been a technical adventure. I am honoured to have been associated with this saga and to have played an important part in this revolution which has brought Indian languages to the doorsteps of the people of our country and ensured that each one of us can work in his/ her own mother-tongue.
The Beginning
It all started with a small chip. In the 1980s the Government of India opened up doors to personal computers. However the world of computing was limited to English thus denying 95% of Indians who think and work in their mothertongues. This was made possible thanks to the successful GIST (Graphics & Intelligence based
Script Technology) technology, which was funded by DoE (Dept. of Electronics, Govt. of India - now Dept. of Electronic and Information Technology). The first commercial ASIC chip in India was developed: the GIST Chip 9000 for processing Indian languages with their complex features. Housed in CDAC Pune, the GIST lab supported ably by a team of dedicated hardware and software experts ensured that Indian languages burst upon the computer medium in all domains. I am proud to have contributed in a large capacity to the success of Indian languages. I remember coming to the University campus where the GIST lab was located and working nights with the hardware and software developers to make this revolution a great success.
COVER STORY
In the social revolution that has brought Marathi into each and every household, I am honoured to have made a humble contribution Prithviraj Chavan
May 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
13
COVER STORY
The GIST chip started off the great multilingual revolution of India bringing Indian languages to the door-steps of Indians. The Chip evolved over the years with changes to increase programmability, improve logic implementation allowed for Indian scripts processing. It led logically to the invention of the GIST Card which was inserted within the then computers or Terminals for Unix and along with the requisite software allowed the user to store, input and view data.
Standards: ISCII
However along with the solution there was a need to create standards, since it is on the bedrock of standards that all computing resides. The fundamental standard evolved between 1988 and 1991 was ISCII. ISCII along with the INSCRIPT keyboard is a BIS standard and is a coding scheme for representing various writing systems of India. It reposes on the fundamental concept that all Indian scripts with the exception of scripts such as Urdu which are based on Perso-Arabic, are derived from the ancient Brahmi script. Be it languages of the IndoAryan family: e.g. Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Assamese, Bangla, Punjabi or be it those of the Dravidian family: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and even those of the Munda and Tibeto-Burman family such as Santhali or Boro, the scripts follow a similar pattern: a Unity in Diversity. ISCII encoded characters with the same phonetic value as one single code-point. This fundamental structure of Indian scripts allowed for development of ISCII which binds all languages and their writing systems in one single encoding. The advantages are obvious: easy Transliteration from one script to another (within certain limitations), mutual intelligibility and above all one uniform storage system. Since Indian languages are syllabic in
nature and repose on the fundamental Akshar, ISCII also proposed a Backus-Naur formalism which allowed for a trouble-free implantation of the ISCII syllable on the computer platform and permitted for the first time in the history of writing in the world for the user to detect whether (s)he had made an error in inputting the syllable, the error being pointed out by means of a round character familiarly termed as golu. I had participated in discussions along with researchers and scholars of the team led by the dynamic Mohan Tambe, to finalise ISCII and also a keyboard common to all Brahmibased languages.. The development of ISCII led to one more important revolution: the INSCRIPT (Indian languages Script) keyboard. The same principle underlying ISCII: all scripts on one single platform; was the principle underlying the INSCRIPT keyboard. All scripts and by corollary all languages using the script were accommodated on one single keyboard. The Inscript keyboard is a technical marvel of linguistic engineering. The advantage of the Inscript keyboard is obvious: once learnt, it can be deployed for entering another language and since Indians normally work in one or more languages, this allows a user to type in say Marathi and Kannada or Hindi and Gujarati without the need to learn a new keyboard The pillars of all computing include Ergonomic Input Mechanism And Unambiguous Storage with one to one correspondence have been the heart of all Indian language computing on which all future high end devices and applications have been built.
The Maharashtra Government with its mission to bring our mayboli onto the digital platform has made Unicode mandatory on all its websites and all content is stored in Unicode
compliant, high quality fonts for display are also Unicode compliant and the storage in your word-processor is also in terms of Unicode.
Why Standards
Standards are a must for all computing. They ensure that data can be safely stored in one single manner, freely exchanged and above all viewed by all. The Maharashtra Government with its mission to bring our mayboli onto the digital platform has made Unicode mandatory on all its websites and all content is stored in Unicode. This is vital for e-governance where data has to flow freely between the user and the administration. Standards play a big role in the area of education: be it e-learning or providing to the public free e-books which can be rendered perfectly on a variety of platforms: iPAD to Android. The massive encyclopedia, the Marathi Vishwakosh, is available today on all devices at the click of a button. The Marathi language lover can access it on his tablets, notebooks, smart-phones or PCs . Standards are the wheel that makes the world go round. Thanks to the script-grammar which defines the exact manner in which the Marathi language is written: be it simple shapes or complex conjuncts, one uniform way of writing Marathi will slowly be adopted all over Maharashtra
Standards: UNICODE
The world talks Unicode. Unicode came on the scene in the late 90s and immediately adopted ISCII as the de-facto standard for Indian language computing. The only difference was that unlike ISCII which tried to place all Brahmibased scripts on to one single platform, Unicode identified different scripts and provided a code-page for each of these scripts. Over 25 scripts are supported for Indian languages ranging from Devanagari to Tamil to Vedic Sanskrit. Unicode allows for both 8 bit (UTF8) and 16 Bit storage. Today it has become the de-facto standard for multi-lingual computing and all data whether it be content or even video-text is stored and displayed in Unicode. The text you are reading has been entered using an INSCRIPT keyboard which is Unicode
The massive encyclopedia, the Marathi Vishwakosh, is available today on all devices at the click of a button. The Marathi language lover can access it on his tablets, notebooks, smart-phones or PCs
Conclusion
I am proud that Maharashtra and our beloved language Marathi, which goes back to centuries and which enshrines a rich cultural, religious and historical heritage has found its rightful place on the digital platform. In this important social revolution which has brought Marathi into each and every household, I am honoured to have made a humble contribution and lit the first lamp which has brought knowledge and information to our state.
14
IN PERSON
e-Governance has got a huge potential to transform governance into good governance
Prof (Smt) Fauzia Tehseen Khan Minister of State for General Administration Information and Public Relations, Government of Maharashtra
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IN PERSON
Minister of State for General Administration Information and Public Relations, Government of Maharashtra
Maharashtra
is one of the pioneer states
aharashtra was the leader in a recent e-readiness survey conducted by the central government. While the infrastructure is pretty much there, how do you see the applications growing and e-Governance becoming more prominent across Departments?
Prof (Smt) Fauzia Tehseen Khan, Minister of State for General Administration Information and Public Relations, Cultural Affairs, Protocol, School Education, Women and Child Development Public Health and Family Welfare and Minorities Development (including Aukaf), in conversation with Rachita Jha
We are moving ahead very well in Maharashtra and we have come out with an e-Governance policy for the state. I think Maharashtra is one of the pioneer states to have come out with an e-Governance policy. Most of our Departments are taking initiatives. We recently inaugurated the e-office for National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), which is a completely paperless office. In fact, a number of Departments are coming up e-Governance initiatives and some of them have really done well on this front.
With IT becoming increasingly common across Departments, how do you see the governance machinery working with technology?
Technology is the answer to the many of the problems that we have in our functioning today. Since technology is human-independent, we will have a more transparent system that would take care of issues of corruption, slowness, deliberate lingering with the files, etc. All these issues will be addressed and I think administration will become more citizen-centric. The reason why we all work is for benefit of citizens, and if our services become more efficient, I think it is a good development. Technology will really take us forward; from e-Governance we are now moving towards m-Governance. Many of our Departments are taking the lead in this. For example the Health Department has the Mother and Child Tracking System, there is the Rajmata Jijau Mission in the Women and Child Department; we have e-tendering, we have Common Service Centres which have been put up. Of course there many issues which are needed to be addressed but the progress is definitely gathering speed.
How do you see technology moving ahead with the vision to ensure education for all and benefit students and children in the state?
There are two aspects to school education as such. One is the administration part where the implementation of various schemes and process such as approval for setting up the school, approval for appointment of teachers, monitoring the student and teacher strength, monitoring attendance, etc., are all one part of it.
May 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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IN PERSON
people would be reduced, as you could reach the state administration right from the Gram Panchayat and vice versa. We have also got SWAN connectivity from Mantralaya to the Taluka level and are currently taking steps to extend the reach to another level. Of course there are challenges. Out of 500-600 talukas, we have been able to have good connectivity at about 300 talukas. In a couple of months, we hope to go beyond that. Issues such as power, connectivity, digging up of roads etc hinder progress. Still, we now have video conferencing facility from Mantralaya to the Commissionrates, Collectrates etc. This leads to considerable savings in terms of time and efforts as officers can just connect to the Secretary or any Minister or even the Chief Minister directly instead of having to come to the state capital.
also in the process of finalising a law related to mandatory delivery of Services through the online mode. In fact, the Central Governments Electronic Delivery of Services Act is based on a large extent on our draft law.
How has the adoption of biometrics changed the working culture at Mantralaya?
Biometrics compel people to be on time, to be regular. As I said, there is always resistance to any change and this is no different. One does come across machines not working, and some of the instances are due to deliberate tampering. There are issues, but biometrics have had a positive impact on the work culture in the Mantrayala and I am hopeful that with time, resistance would go down, and we will see even larger gains from the system.
e-Learning and distance learning is another part of it and it can really create a revolution, since education involves good teaching, that is one of the important requisite as far as education is concerned. While we have teachers who are facilitators of learning, being a good teacher is a big challenge, sometimes one has to have an inborn ability in order to be really able to communicate with the children and facilitate the learning in the right way. Everybody cannot be a born teacher, so technology can be a very important tool in bringing good teachers to the remotest areas through the use of distance learning and at the same time, the training needs in the section of education can be catered to very well. In Maharashtra, we have District Institute of Educational and Training (DIET). Every DIET has video conferencing facility. Through this we can address the training needs of the teacher and the School Education Department. These institutes can now even go forward and also take up training for other Departments.
Lots of positive
How do you see the grassroots entrepreneurs utilising the opportunities offered by CSCs?
There are about 11,000 CSCs in the state and about 6,000 of them are functioning very well. These have become viable units, particularly in large villages, and the services which everyone is providing right now are 7/12 extacts and Maharashtra State Electricity Board bills. Some 250 different services are being offered by one CSC or the other. As we go along, I think more services will be added and people especially in the villages will get benefitted because there are so many things you can do through this service centres including education, health etc.
How is the IT department in Maharashtra different from other states in approaching e-Governance?
We have formulated an e-Governance policy and that has given us a broad vision regarding where we want to go. We then asked each Department to prepare an e-vision document laying down their objectives with e-Governance. Each of them has given a list of initiatives which they are taking or proposed to taking in the near future. In addition, we are always available for interactions, and any handholding or other support that might be needed. We are
Has a system for connectivity been implemented for the administration as well?
About 6,000 Gram Panchayats have got Internet facility and we have got computers installed in about 25,000 Gram Panchayats. We are also taking up a pilot project for two-way video conferencing facility. Once this is implemented, pone hopes that transparency would improve in a big way and gap between government and
How do you think e governance has transformed the way good governance happens in Maharashtra?
e-Governance has got a huge potential to transform governance into good governance. However, I think using the term has transformed is too early and is transforming will be a better verb for that. We are transforming ourselves from governance to good governance, and e-Governance is definitely playing a major role in this.
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and Konkan Divisions, covering 10 districts. It provides one-stop shops to citizens, where they can access government, semi-government and private services. Document Journey Management System and File Status Tracking - Directorate of IT, Govt. of Maharashtra: DJMS is an application used to track the movement of file and references with the government. It helps the employees to maintain a consistent watch over movement of various important documents in the process of decision making. Maharashtra Government Portal Directorate of IT, Govt. of Maharashtra: The portal has its information architecture designed and structured keeping in mind the various stakeholders. The information architecture is easily searchable and organizes information easily. The website can be viewed in Marathi or English. Election Management Software State Election Commission, Maharashtra: Election Management Project was conceptualised to conduct local body and urban local body elections in a transparent, fair and efficient manner. Under the project, a multi lingual website (www.mahasec.com) has been developed.
broader system of collection of agriculture statistics. The platform is being customised for distribution of Rs 2,000 crore assistance to cotton, soybean and rice producing farmers of the state. Generation Control Room Project MAHAGENCO: MAHAGENCO is in the business of Power Generation with its nine power plants located in Maharashtra. CMC Ltd is implementing the project for MAHAGENCO. The project would help in reduction in fuel cost through optimised operation of the plants. Computerisation of Education, Examination and Scholarships Social Justice and Special Assistance Dept, Govt. of Maharashtra: The e-scholarship programme is a massive initiative by the Social Justice Department that enabled centralised management and distribution of scholarship grants for institutes and students across Maharashtra. e-File State Health Society, National Rural Health Mission: Public Health Department is implementing the E-file system in their offices at Mumbai and Pune. National Rural Health Mission is at the forefront in launching the e-file system programme in order to give better transparency and access to information on public administration processes.
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Public Health
In addition to this, we are trying to do away with the idea of the monthly progress report. Technology allows us to do real time data, so we are no longer looking to wait for the month-end to review performance and progress. Within a reasonable time of a service being provided, the data regarding it is available to decision makers. The same applies even for the financial expenditure. The moment expenditure has been made or funds released, it should be known immediately. Under NRHM we are keenly trying to follow how funds have been released, where are they lying, how are they lying, why are they lying if they are supposed to be continuously released to the beneficiaries and so on.
he Public Health Department is one of the largest the government of Maharashtra, having more than 1,00,000 workers of various categories and spread over all villages of Maharashtra. Ever since the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) began in
2006-07, there has been further expansion in the Department and we have added around 60,000 ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers and another 17,000-18,000 contractual workers. Managing such a huge Department without the assistance of e-Governance and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is virtually impossible.
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Public Health
Call Centres. In Pune, in our district hospital, we have set up such a centre which is open 24X7 centre and all ASHA workers, ANMs, MPWs, and medical officers can call and get assistance on problems related to various types of services provided by them. Let us assume a case of an ASHA worker or ANM giving a particular service to a lady in a village and during delivering this service if the ANM wants this assistance, she has nowhere to go right now. Theoretically, she is supposed to contact the medical officer but that is not always possible. A dedicated phone number 104 has now been made available 24X7. The ANM can now call this number, and if her phone number is registered (we are actively encouraging all stakeholders to register), she can get advice because the paramedical staff
statistics also. The advantage in using GIS is that it allows a good spatial interpretation of the data and it can be used for very quick interventions and various efforts have been made to ensure its extensive use. It is hoped that during the year, most of the programme officers across the state would be using this simple tool.
visit the concerned office and they can put all their requests or complaints with documents under the system. The concerned members of the staff have been given intensive training on the system and usage is picking up. Once fully adopted, the system would significantly reduce the harassment employees have to face. This will again improve transparency and also make supervisory officers become more accountable as it is in their office that the requests lie pending for months altogether.
We are possibly the only state in the country with a database of 60,000 ASHA workers
on the helpline have been trained for this. An algorithm has been devised for describing various symptoms and to arrive as to what is the possible line of treatment or action that is required. In addition to paramedical staff, a team of physicians, paediatricians, gynaecologists and surgeons is also available 24X7. This has been started from January 2012 and the response has been very good. Around 20,000 calls are being made from various paramedical and medical staff.
GIS Applications
Another major use of ICT which we have already introduced is with Geographical Information Systems (GIS). With the help of UNICEF and a private firm, we have taught people extensively on how to do GIS mapping. The exercise was conducted across the state with and personnel from PHC level upwards with taluka-level officers, medical superintendents at rural and sub-district hospitals, District Health Office, Civil Surgeon Office, etc., were trained on using GIS for medical statistics, biomedical statistics and for financial
availability of medicines in a particular PHC, which hitherto was not possible. This implementation took approximately an year to roll out and the second module the procurement module is under implementation and should be rolled out in a couple of months. This will facilitate not only the proper procurement and timely indenting of medicines, but medicines which are nearing their expiry data or those that need to be transferred from one health institute to can now be identified and proper action taken. The system will also introduce a fair amount of transparency. The use of ICT would improve transparency across the board, in the entire system.
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education
J S Saharia
Additional Chief Secretary, Department of School Education, Government of Maharashtra
What kind of mobile based projects are you planning for education sector?
Students are already very close to mobile technology. It is possible to transfer information to them about the course and the content through mobile devices that they hold. Basically this is an emerging technology. We still need lot of new information to create solutions that are durable and useful. But we are determined to bring mobile based solutions into our education system and there are going to be lot of new developments in times to come.
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is important that we have a robust and efficient software. We have plans to use latest mobile communication systems to seamlessly transfer data wherever it is needed.
Please shed some light on the e-Governance projects being implemented in the state of Maharashtra.
e-Governance brings transparency to the working of the entire system. The citizens of the state are able to access services from the government in an easier manner. e-Governance also enables the government to have a holistic look on how its projects are working at the ground level. Are the benefits actually reaching the targeted sections of the population? There is a new kind of clarity in the system that is beneficial for both the citizens and the government. The e-Governance systems that have been launched are already bearing fruit, and in times to come their
e-gov policy
eGov 0.0
Citizen Interface
Citizen interface, which is defined as the front end of the government, is extremely important. Ideal situation is to eliminate all physical interaction of the citizen with the government, replacing it with online systems for payments, SMS/e-mail/IVR systems for complaints and Application Status etc., an outsourced computerised Front Desk for submitting or receiving physical papers, and a courier system for delivering papers from Government to citizen. Many RTO offices (for driving licenses), Passport offices, Hospitals have a privatised front desk. Akshay/Friend centres in Kerala and Bangalore One centres in Karnataka have token system and air-conditioned seating space for citizens, and run 24/7, compared to earlier system of citizens standing in long lines or falling over one another in heat or rain. The scheme of CSC (citizen service centres) run by private companies and VLEs (Village Level Entrepreneurs) has been very successful in some states. Many certificates or copies of extracts from databases (like property card, affidavits, exam results etc.) can be given on the spot, or citizen is given a computerised receipt indicating when he can come back and collect his document. Most popular services are Birth and Death certificates, Age and Income certificates, Property cards etc. It is essential to standardise these basic services across the State (Fees, Application Form, annexures or accompanying documents, Approval process, Output Form). In Maharashtra, almost every Tahsil-
dar has different forms and process for these, and Revenue Department is expected to issue orders for Standardisation soon. A study by IIM Ahmedabad, conduced across a number of states, has indicated that CSCs have helped in reducing average number of trips made by the citizen to get a service, reduced time taken, and reduced bribes. CSCs have also done a great job in online recruitments (stories of kids appearing for police constable exams and dying in stampede, replaced by huge response by filling in forms and getting admission cards from CSCs). In a country where literacy is low, CSCs also act as assisted access centres and double up as cyber cafes, many of them also imparting computer education.
Many departments feel that they have done full computerisation when they have set up a Website. A website is just the beginning of eGov. In departments websites, FOUR stages can be identified: One, just Web Presence (basic website); Two, Interactive website (email, feedback, and downloadable forms); Three, Transaction based (complete and secure transactions); Four, Transformation. Obviously, aim for reaching this stage fast. There have also been efforts to use of Social Media (Facebook, blogs etc.) to get citizens feedback, on issue like traffic violations, potholes etc. This is being called eGov 2.0. Online portals act as alternative to CSCs. (eGov clich: Why stand INLINE when you can be ONLINE). Lakhs of kids can fill forms online sitting at home, citizens file Income Tax returns sitting at home rather than go stand in long queues, people can take online appointments for passport, property registration etc. and then turn up at the given time, and so on. Many Municipalities have started system of computerised slips at parking lots, saving hundreds of crores of money being extracted by parking lot mafia. Such small steps get huge thumbs up from citizens, as service becomes not only cheaper but also courteous. Bangalore Traffic Police use of BlackBerry phones and portable thermal printers for giving challan receipts not only boosts government revenues, but gives a very transparent and polite service to citizens. Now they have gone one step further and the citizen can pay the money at a citizen service centre rather than at police station. All
May 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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e-gov policy
these are examples of better citizen interface. At toll nakas, truck drivers appreciate the computerised system (electronic weight bridges, computerised receipts, smart cards etc.) not only because it reduces bribes or time taken, but because it gives them a more dignified treatment than sometimes even verbal or physical abuse they are normally subjected to in the manual system. Projects like eDistrict are focussing on totally Digital workflow. Citizen comes to CSC or sitting at home, scans his papers which are uploaded to a server, whole workflow happens digitally at backend (Clerks, Awal karkoons, Naib Tahsildar Tahsildar etc. use Digital Signatures to recommend/approve/reject), and a digitally signed certificate is issued. It may have Barcode, QR code etc. along with a Mobile number to send SMS and verify, or a website URL to verify this document. This is effectively DEMAT system, where paper document is being replaced by something stored in server. If a student applies to a college, then rather than submitting his degree in original or a photocopy (both of which can easily be faked), he could just submit his degree unique number, and the college could verify this form the central server. Our share market has gone totally Demat. Air Tickets are now booked electronically rather than jackets purchased, and train tickets are going the same way. Currency (too many fake notes) could also slowly give way to electronic money- now even plastic (credit cards) may give way to newer technologies like NFC (Near Field Communications). Central Government has recently introduced a bill on Mandatory Electronic Delivery of Services, which may result in more and more departments offering many Digital Services (in addition to, or in lieu of Manual Services). Hence the citizen interface with business and government is undergoing a transformation, and eGov project managers have to be well informed on all the emerging technologies. Please, please do NOT insist on your department opening its own set of CSCs - this will make even the existing ones unviable.
Data Centres. Other departments can just tell IT department to make servers, storage, bandwidth and software licences available in the SDC, and save on lot of time and money. Many SDCs now deploy virtualisation or Cloud technologies to reduce the number of Servers required, and also to provide flexibility. During Exam Results, education department will get more hits; during Elections, election servers will get more hits, and so on. Cloud environment provides flexibility to provision extra servers, and bandwidth quickly. CSCs (Citizen Service Centres) have been covered in detail earlier. Almost any department can think of good use of CSCs to receive papers or payments and to provide decentralised services. Real Democracy will come only when Local Bodies are so much empowered that people do not have to come to State headquarters, or District, or even Tahsil offices, and can get the work done at CSCs and local levels. Please think of how you can decentralise to an extent that most of the services are given on-the-spot at CSCs. SWAN basically connects Tahsil offices to Districts which are in turn connected to State Headquarters through dedicated leased lines. Now, most of the SWAN networks are connected to State data Centres, so that employees at field offices can get connectivity to District and State servers. Due to unreliable Power and Bandwidth, many departments have not relied on totally centralised Web Servers which is being done worldwide. Instead, we are still forced to keep district level servers also in many applications, which in turn synchronise with central servers mostly at night time. SWAN has also been used in many states for Video Conferencing, saving time of district level officials to travel to State Capital. The SWAN POPs (Points of presence- where routers etc. lie) are at Tahsildar offices and District collectorates, and other department offices can connect horizontally to them, thus becoming part of bigger network. Hence, each department should initiate a dialogue with their IT or eGov department, to leverage the use of SWAN. Most of the IT departments offer Emailing solution, SMS gateway, payment gateway, eTendering solution, and GIS solutions to other departments free of cost. As indicated earlier, many IT departments provide Rate Contracts for Hardware/Software/ Bandwidth/ Manpower etc. which can be used by other departments to have quick roll out of their projects. SeMT (State eGovernance Mission Team) team in IT depart-
ment is supposed to help other departments in framing RFPs and designing SLAs (Service Level Agreement) etc. Make use of this SeMT team. Be aware of IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) issues. For any software code written for you, your department must have IPR and not the vendor. In implementation also, keep strategic control with you. At least develop Monitoring capacity within the department. Some departments may be suffering from First Mover Disadvantage. They may have beautiful, running IT systems, but if the software code is 10 years old, probably it is time to start again with a clean slate and write the code afresh. Ask your IT department for help.State IT department may have associated Corporations, or Societies, or Joint Ventures which can help other departments. In Maharashtra, we have State and District level SETU societies and a joint venture company MahaOnline. Common Applications like HR (Salary Payments, Seniority Lists, Transfer, GPF etc.), Inventory/Asset management solution, File Tracking Systems, RTI, Grievance System etc. need not be developed by each department separately. Insist on IT department giving it to your department. NIC has most of these modules ready and can customise it for the state. UID project is resulting in IT departments creating State Residents Data Hub (SRDH) which can be used by all departments. Projects like SSDG (State Service Delivery Gateway) will also make various databases talk to one another. Finally, IT departments may have funds and programmes for Capacity Building. In Maharashtra, IT department has signed a MoU with State Training Academy, Yashada for offering many types of courses (classroom, virtual classroom, field visits, courses abroad, GoI STEP training program, evaluation studies, and so on). Fun Ideas like First Saturday, Tech Saturday every month across the state, identification of Technology Champions in each department, Tell us good IT ideas and win cash prizes etc. are also yielding very good response. Private companies are also being roped in to train government employees, and expose them to new gadgets, ideas and technologies. Resistance to new Technologies is at top management levels, while young recruits take to technology like fish to water, hence Capacity Building courses have to target this group on priority. Read the full paper at http://emaharashtra.eletsonline.com
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IN PERSON
Sudhir Thakre
Secretary, Department of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Government of Maharashtra
A silent revolution
of technology sweeps
rural Maharashtra
lessly connected to towns and cities. They can avail many of the facilities and services at par with cities so technology is a great leveller in India. The mobile revolution has led to further improvements in connectivity. It has changed the landscape of rural areas. In Maharashtra we have 27,920 Gram Panchayats. The state has close to 1 lakh human habitations, consisting of 6.15 crore and 1.30 crore families. We aim to use technology to transform the service delivery model and make it more transparent, speedy and corruption free. Rural population has access to simple services such as birth certificate, death certificate, marriage certificate etc. the only state in which March 31 account of all the zila parishad, gram panchayat are closed. Today anyone can see that there are 64 lakh vouchers and each can be tracked. This has brought more accountability in the gram panchayat. The PlanPlus software is helping us plan our strategy by feeding in our requirements. It helps in decision-making. It is also helping the villagers in planning development projects and implementing priority projects. Rural literacy in Maharashtra is below 75 percent, most people who manage these gram panchayats are illiterate. So we have had all the instructions depicted in a pictorial form. This aids in operations - computers are a big help in the same. We are ensuring connectivity through a combination of BSNL, wireless and satellite connectivity channels. Use of biometrics attendance in 1000 villages is showing results, a BDO sitting in his office can monitor the teacher and student attendance in the class, this attendance is also taken for mid day meal in the afternoon.
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Maharashtra?
There was a time when we thought of connectivity as something that geographically connects spaces and people. Now we have the system of virtual connectivity, which has led to seminal transformations across Maharashtra. People from rural Maharashtra are seamegov / egov.eletsonline.com / May 2012
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IN PERSON
Dinesh Waghmare
Biometric System
for Pension Disbursement
state offer 1,200 crore worth of scholarships to students from the backward and disadvantaged sections. However, off late we have observed many leakages in the disbursement system, also there were instances of bogus students siphoning off funds. So we implemented the e-scholarship scheme as our flagship project to ensure the largest group of beneficiaries in our schemes should benefit first. e-scholarship has a separate portal with online applications and online payment gateway. The website will eliminate the need of our beneficiaries to come to the offices; they will be able to avail all the facilities online. Apart from scholarship, we have around 2,300 hostels in Maharashtra and there is a plan to make the hostels searchable on the website. The website will have more vibrancy in future with two-way communication, and building a community of practice. We are making the website available in Marathi and English. The website is currently being administrated centrally; in future field officers will be able to update the website on a regular basis with video clips and photographs. This will lead to decentralisation of the website and its content.
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How has the ECS mode of payment for pensioners benefitted the department?
The special assistance department has a mandate to give senior citizens pension schemes, including other schemes for destitute, old age homes etc. For the release of pension funds, we use ECS and online transfer of money. Three districts have started use of biometric and smart cards. By use of biometric identification system of pension disbursement we are able to save 80 crore by eliminating bogus persons registered as beneficiary. The business correspondents go to villages using hand-held devices and distribute pensions directly to them. We have tied up with ICICI Bank and Union Bank, so almost 13 districts will be doing this project and in future the entire disbursement will be through Adhaar number. In Aurangabad, we have already started that distribution of pension using Adhaar number..
your department?
We cater to the welfare of schedule caste and other backward classes including criminal and de-notified tribes in the state, in addition we are also have a mandate for welfare of senior citizens and the disabled. Our total budget is of around 12,000 crore with 2,500 personal employed. e-Governance is a new concept in our department, earlier it was limited to payroll management. But I decided that technology should be used where it has a larger impact on the beneficiary. Our scholarship schemes in the
How are you using the online platform to connect with citizen?
Presently our website is more of an information platform and is very static in nature; I see it becoming more dynamic and interactive in future.
IN PERSON
IN PERSON
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Maharashtra has always been in the forefront of e-Governance. It was one of the first states to implement projects such as the File Tracking System in the Mantralaya. The state set up a high powered committee under the Chief Secretary way back in 1999. Constituted under a Cabinet directive, this committee was empowered to take decisions about e-Governance projects in the state of Maharashtra. Several projects were subsequently launched and are operational today. Sales tax is one example; SETU
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IN PERSON
Dr K Shivaji
Principal Secretary, Industries, Energy Government of Maharashtra
initiatives at MIDC
The ERP implementation was undertaken in 2010. Digital MIDC is being implemented in four stages: Development of online portal and various web services for MIDC such as Single Window Clearance System (SWC) for existing and prospective customers. It was launched in April, 2010. Software/ applications for Land Acquisition, General Administration, Legal, and Town Planning services, Environment for MIDCs internal users Software/ applications for Integrated File Management System (IFMS), Pre-Tendering, Post Tendering for MIDCs internal users, E- tendering for MIDCs vendors/ contractors Software/ applications for Water Billing, for MIDCs customers. The customer will receive water bill by email and he may pay it online. (G2B) and Government to Government (G2G) services in a cost effective manner, the e-Governance policy has been prepared. This policy puts a framework in place for development and implementation of e-Governance systems and applications in the state. Each department including the industries has prepared a list of citizen services for e-enablement of services in a time-bound manner. The e-enablement of services shall include information availability, submission of online forms, online processing and payments, online verification, online status tracking and online availability of services.
e-Governance
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IN PERSON
Vandana Krishna
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Under the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), which is one of the worlds largest such schemes, the Department runs about 1,00,000 Anganwadis and mini-Anganwadis in the state. Every Anganwadi has two workers and provides food, education (pre-school education) and some other services to children below 6 years. It is a huge set up with more than 60 lakh beneficiaries. In addition to the children, ICDS also targets pregnant mothers. Tracking the multiple services, tracking lakhs of beneficiaries, tracking supplies, schedules etc., is an extremely challenging and complex task. The Department is making use of software and mobile phones in this sphere in a big way. The Department is also working on a Geographical Information System (GIS) based solution which will create a spatial database of all
Public Health
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he Maharashtra office of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has implemented an e-file system and is the only office without a single physical file in Maharashtra. The NRHM has been in the forefront of launching the e-file system programme in order to give better transparency and access to information on public administration processes which has been the thrust area of e-governance in the State. The Government of Maharashtra has been one of the pioneers in promotion of ICT and e-Governance in India and this initiative is a continuation of this approach. The Public Health Department is also implementing the e-file system in their offices at Mumbai and Pune. In the initial phase, 250 user ids for Mumbai and Pune offices were issued, including those for topmost officials in the Mantralaya. The digital signature so processed is valid for two years and is implemented with no cost for government offices except for customisation charges. The entire project was implemented at a total cost of Rs 19 lakh, including the expenses on creating an IT infrastructure for offices. A dedicated fibre optic line was connected to the Mantralaya in order to improve connectivity between the Departments.
compared to a situation when it would have been moved in the physical format. The file status can now be tracked easily. The software also allows use of regional languages, thus making it extremely user friendly. Implementation on a secured webbased system enables the officers to clear the files even if they are on tour. It saves time as well as enables faster file movements and brings transparency in office procedures unlike manual systems. This leads to a faster decision-making process. No file can be missed or removed as it is copied on three back up servers. Monitoring is also easy as the system has provision for generation of many different kinds of reports. Previously, only 25-30 files were processed per day but with such integrated platform we now process around 70-80 files.
Online Payments
The connection used for the project has been provided by RailTel and is a 10 Mbps line. In partnership with ICICI Bank, an online payment gateway has been integrated with the system. The integration was completed within eight days by a team of IT specialists. All the 472 banks across Mumbai and Pune have been linked through e-banking and the funds allocated to various districts can be thus tracked. It is now planned to introduce SMS alerts for transactions. We are also looking to engage 70-80 users in the health department by next year along with the Directorate of Health Department and all eight circles including all Deputy Directors.
elections
he Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) website provides details of all the activities of SEC, its Acts & Rules; it has links to all LB/ ULB election websites. It also offers a glimpse of all the ongoing election programmes, important information, telephone directory, past statistics, RTI, training material, forms, downloads, contacts and much else. In addition to the information that is already available, separate web pages have also been developed for all the LB/ULB election programmes.
Voters can SMS their surname, name, middle-name to the prescribed short code, in a designated format and they will automatically receive a SMS containing the Voters Full Name, Sr. No, Gender, Age and Polling Station. For different elections, the voter will have to use separate keywords, the list of which has been provided at the website.
Enhanced security
For managing the aspect of security, different levels of operations have been incorporated into the system. The Surveyor / Computer Operator is allowed to browse and upload control charts at various stages. There is the Ward Officer, who verifies the control charts and can edit control charts at various stages. There is the Assistant Municipal Commissioner, who can print control charts for verification, monitoring of his jurisdiction. The Deputy Municipal Commissioner will monitor his jurisdiction. The Municipal Commissioner is responsible for printing of control charts for verification, monitoring of entire e-Yadi process. In the history of LB/ULB elections the e-Yadi is a pioneering system. It will be used by government officials and employees, who may not be conversant with technology, at various levels. So some elementary introduction into technology is necessary for the system to be
fully effective. In corporations, the area is vast and at times it has been found to the difficult to have control on the staff working on the ground. At times the staff proves to be vulnerable to political interventions. With the usage of e-Yadi system, the commissioner can actually conduct enterprise checks up to the ground level staff leading to more efficiency in the election process. As updated information is available in a seamless and transparent manner, there is scope for much greater transparency. All the information regarding e-Yadi is available with just a click and the elections become a rather controlled and efficient phenomenon.
New domains
When it comes to municipal elections, separate websites have been created for different corporations. So you have websites like - www. pcmcelection.com (in 2007), www.nmmcelection.com (in 2010), www.kdmcelection.org (in 2010), and www.kmcelection.org (in 2010). Each website has basic voter list information, ward information, important telephone numbers, and much else. 25 domain names have been booked for municipal corporation elections. 200 domains are set to be booked for separate website each for municipal councils. 35 domain names are being booked for Zila Parishads.
May 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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IN PERSON
Chandan Dange
Online systems
for transparent elections
ect is aimed at making concise and unbiased information available to citizens. Voters are able to learn about who the candidates are in their ward, they can also learn about their ward number, their name in the voters list and the details of their polling centre. The Election Management Project also serves the purpose of addressing the challenges of election officer and election staff. is available on voter list, identification becomes easy. Bogus voting numbers come down drastically. One of the advantages of having centralised software is that it makes it possible for us to have data available at a single place. However, the creation of printed electoral roll involves moving data across multiple processing stations. We have partnered with large printing houses and distribution networks to generate the photo electoral roll and make them available at distant places.
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ell us about the Election Management Project, with which you have been involved in Maharashtra.
The Election Management Project has been conceptualised to conduct local body and urban local body elections in a transparent, fair and efficient manner. The common voter is at the focal point of this initiative. The proj-
Tell us about the Cloud Based solutions that you have developed for election process?
Ultimate has partnered with Nasik based ESDS data centre company to establish a highly efficient system for State Election Commission. eNlight is home grown cloud computing platform that improves efficiency leads to great savings in terms of cost. The carbon footprint of cloud based systems is also quite low.
Tell us about the photo electoral roll that can be generated through e-yadi.
The e-Yadi platform facilitates generation of photo electoral roll. When voters photograph
Agricultural Management
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Website: (G2C)
Soybean, Gram and Pigeon pea crops. Rice crop has been included in year 2011-12.
he field offices of the Department of Agriculture (DoA), Maharashtra, are computerised up to the block level and are capable of running various software applications, developed by National Informatics Centre, Pune. The offices are fully networked through broadband and are equipped to meet different needs of the states farmers. The e-Governance applications that DoA uses include the following:
its grass root level workers. The project will definitely bridge the digital divide and empower the farming community through ICT.
The Department of Agriculture operates a bilingual website, which came into being in October 2000. Located at http://www.mahaagri.gov.in, the website contains the all kinds of information that farmers in the state need to keep track of.
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MahaOnline
ata Consultancy Services (TCS) has three joint ventures (JVs) APOnline with the Andhra Pradesh Government, MPOnline with the Madhya Pradesh Government and MahaOnline the newest one with the Maharashtra Government. All the three JVs have been established to implement e-Governance initiatives in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. Citizens have to presently spend a lot of time and money for accessing government services, getting different types of certificates, paying bills etc. To resolve these problems and to increase transparency in the working of government, the project was started. The motto of the JV is Citizen from Inline to Online. The main objective of the JV is to provide all Government to Citizen (G2C) services to citizens at the nearest point from their home. For this, in Andhra Pradesh (AP), we have more than 50,000 kiosks. In Madhya Pradesh (MP), more than 2500 kiosks are working, along with 7000 Common Service Centres (CSCs), which have been linked with MPOnline. In addition to this, approximately 1000 university kiosks work exclusively for universities. In MahaOnline, presently we dont have kiosks but we are working through CSCs which have been set up under the National e-Governanc ePlan (NeGP) of the Government of India. In all, 11,000 CSCs are to be set up in Maharashtra. Of this, 5000 have been set up MahaOnline services are being provided through these CSCs. Online delivery of services helps in massive savings in terms of
time and money, generates employment and also helps increase computer literacy. In MP, we found that students save approximately Rs 150-200 per form. One organisation saved Rs 6-7 crore per year by taking the process online. In counselling, a student is able to save approximately Rs 2400-3000 due to online process.
One important initiative which is under implementation in MahaOnline is DigiGov which is a file movement software
The other thing being implemented under MahaOnline is a Human Resource Management System. The service books of all Mantralaya employees are being digitised and will be available electronically within 6-8 months time. Approximately 1500 service books have already been digitised. The next target is to make all leaves online, so that employees can make requests for leave online and response on the same is also given online. The third is G2C services for various departments. 40-odd services have already been enabled and trials are underway in Nagpur region where 16 forms have been implemented and service is provided through CSCs. Similar initiative is also underway for the Panchayati Raj Department under which 25000 operators would be active in Gram Panchayats and all Panchayat services and certificates will be made online. The operators have already reached the locations services would be starting shortly. Currently the operators are working on the Gram Panchayat Accounting System PRIA Soft. Maharashtra is the only state in the country where all accounting of Gram Panchayats has been made online. The records till last week are available online. 70 lakh vouchers have been digitised and entered into the system and expenditure of around Rs 3000 crore has been tallied with the system.
May 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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IN PERSON
Ramnath Sonawane
e-Governance in kdmc
when the system was designed at the start itself we found out what the major requirements of citizens are. The citizen requires two things: one, they want service and the other, lodge complaints. The e-Governance solution implemented at KDMC makes the process of applying for services as well as lodging complaints totally online. The software has been designed to ensure full satisfaction to customers or citizens. The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) model implemented at KDMC has ensured that all resources of the corporation are working in integration. This has helped to bring transparency about what is happening inside; ensure that there is no duplication of work, there is no duplication of data and data is also accessible to everyone. Overall, it has promoted accountability, responsibility, transparency and efficiency. ate appropriate MIS reports of the services and to develop the new model which will help in decision making. The government will be able to track the report and the working status of the council. A Decision Support System is also in the process of being developed for the project so that the data can be analysed and utilised in an efficient manner.
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hat are the main features of the e-Governance solution implemented at KDMC?
Basically we started with the solution that should be integrated with all kind of services which are having citizen centricity, along with the internal processes that should be integrated in such a way that anyone can access it. So
egov / egov.eletsonline.com / May 2012
The same solution has been implemented by the Government of Maharashtra in all 222 municipal corporations. Out of this, implementation is complete in 220 corporations and 45 services are live. This was the manner in which the implementation was taken up at KDMC also. Now there are 23 Departments and services that are live. Complaint lodging and redressal system is working in 70 -80 places. The e-Governance solutions at each of the 222 locations would be independent, but would allow some analysis. For example, if the government wants to compare what Nagpur is doing with what Kalian is doing or Amravati is doing, or to find out the rate of recovery and the rate of efficiency, it would be possible to gener-
tax management
n Maharashtra the computerisation of sales tax department was done quite early; in fact, Maharashtra is one of the first states in India to start computerisation of sales tax. We realised that the concept of physically monitoring the dealers. Today Maharashtra boasts of a state of the art tax management and intelligence system.
Service Tax, Central Excise etc will be extracted transformed and loaded. The analysis of this information will be fast, accurate and is geared to provide business intelligence to MSTD. It will also strengthen investigation and will result in capture of frauds and tax evasion cases. The Cyber Forensic Lab has forensic tools such
as Encase and FTK. In Addition, through the usage of e-discovery tools a series of digital evidences get created. These digital evidences are admissible under IT Act. In addition to the above the EIU also has Data Management and Monitoring Unit, Commodity Analysis Unit and a Dealer Profiling Unit.
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Techno Speak
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via Red Hat Network with services specifically tailored to the needs of the healthcare sector. Financial Sector Solutions In the financial services industry, market opportunities grow faster than IT budgets. Red Hats footprint of stock exchange customers running mission-critical applications on Red Hat solutions represents approximately half of the worlds equity trading volume. Affordable, reliable and secure, Red Hat open source solutions give you technology and performance advantages and provide the low-latency, high-throughput infrastructure your financial services environment needs. e-Governance solution Red Hat is actively working with Government (Defence) and SI Partners on several mission mode projects. Key to our solutions is the interoperability it offers to enable cross department and cross function integrations,
loud Products Majority of virtual machines in public clouds run on Linux. Nine out of the top 10 successful public clouds rely on Red Hat software. Four out of the five largest public clouds run on Red Hats virtualisation technology. Healthcare Solutions We provide healthcare organisations with the technologies necessary to build a reliable IT infrastructure for life-critical applications. Red Hat Enterprise Healthcare Platform is a reliable and affordable information technology platform designed for delivering safe, high-quality patient care. The platform packages Red Hat Enterprise Linux, JBoss Enterprise Middleware, and updates
which is fundamental to implementing large scale e-Governance solutions with heterogeneous systems and data formats, standards conformance levels provided by Red Hat further ensures that an unbiased and competitive environment is available to all providers both at the Hardware and Application Solutions levels to participate in shaping up an efficient and cost effective solution. Another important aspect is the economics of open source based solutions, it saves you a lot of money, and you can spend it to develop better application software which is often deprived of budgets in order to buy in the expensive infrastructure software.
campaign primarily attacked Indian military sites and was reported to be sourced from China. The attack was active since June 2011 (till Feb 2012) and reportedly attacked about 223 computers systematically. The attackers employed minimum amount of work needed to attain maximum gains by using very simple viruses, which needed very little development time or skills, along with easily available Web host servers, to successfully carry out a very effective attack. The malicious
Financial Inclusion
inancial Inclusion (FI) means linking people without any banking facility to the formal banking system and fulfilling all their financial requirements. It also involves ensuring that the facilities are provided not at a designated bank branch but as close to the beneficiary as possible, ideally at their doorstep. This is so because a typical FI beneficiary would transact in small amounts and cannot be expected to make a long journey which involves foregoing earnings as well as the cost incurred in travel. This is not viable. So the solution is to provide services in proximity of the beneficiary. This includes facilities for deposit, withdrawal and transfer of money; micro-insurance, need-based financial assistance for agriculture, trade, education etc.
issued by capturing biometric information. We have empanelled three technology service providers to develop a technological backbone for the system. We have a network of 3,900 BCs and 21 corporate BCs who are installing kiosks at various places. We are in the process of integrating the CBS branches and the no frills accounts would be shifted to our FI server. Bank accounts are not being opened on the basis of UID as of now, but the system is UIDcompatible and one can expect accounts to be opened on the basis of UID in the near future.
Role of Aadhar
The system is also Aadhar compatible, so that when the 12-digit Aadhar number is fed into it, the details associated with that number can be used towards fulfilling the Know Your Customer (KYC) norms. Bank of India has opened about 63 lakh FI (no frills, zero balance) accounts in the Core Banking System (CBS) by complying with KYC norms. Of this, 6,80,000 smart cards have been
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Maharashtra
The Hub of Cutting Edge ICT
Maharashtra is not only a geographical expression, it is also an entity built on collective efforts of its people. There is thrust on ICT solutions for processing information and delivering services. A range of e-Governance projects, which make Maharashtra a great place to live in, have been launched
Anoop Verma, Elets News Network (ENN)
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Leader in ICT
The economic survey states that IT industry and financial services groups have received sizeable FDI proposals in the state. Between August 1991 and September 2010, the IT industry has received 762 proposals. The total FDI investment amount in IT sector is Rs. 12,765 crore. 37 public IT parks have been developed by Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) and CIDCO. For improving the level of private investments in the states IT industry, 451 private IT parks have been approved, out of these 107 have started functioning with an investment outlay of `2107 crore. The remaining 344 IT parks with proposed investment of `6345 have also been given Letters of Intent. A report from NASSCOM states that 90 percent of the IT-BPO industry in India is concentrated in and around 7 cities in India, including Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra. Cities like Aurangabad, Nagpur and Nashik are also emerging as major hubs for industries in ICT space. Chief Minister, Shri Pritiviraj Chavan, has said, Maharashtra needs to grab the top position in the IT sector. The state has its own IT policy and there are several software parks here with few more in the offing. This development will help Maharashtra become the number one destination for investment in Information Technology. The communications sector in the state has been growing rapidly due to private sector contributions. The private sector currently holds 91.7 percent of the wireless market, rest of the wireless market is with the two PSU operators BSNL and MTNL. When it comes to broadband, Maharashtra is ahead of every other state. It has largest Internet subscriber base of 14.93 lakhs and a broadband subscriber base of 22.88 lakhs, as on 31st March 2011.
nown as the trade and commerce capital of India, Mumbai is also the financial centre of the country. The state of Maharashtra has emerged as a key hub for ICT, electronics, and the captive business outsourcing industries. The state is an attractive investment destination as it offers a wide range of subsidies, fiscal and policy incentives and other advantages to big and small investors from India and abroad. During the last few years, the state has come up with a range of sector-specific policies for ICT. Perhaps the most appealing thing about Maharashtra is the fact that Indias famous film industry, popularly called Bollywood is located in the State.
The well-developed social, physical and industrial infrastructure in Maharashtra is a prime attraction for businesses from around the world
of the state population to take advantage of the e-Governance initiatives. In order to provide faster and more efficient governance and easier access to information, the state has got its MSWAN (Maharashtra State Wide Area Network) implemented. Through the network, the state government has created an integrated community encompassing 35 districts, 324 talukas, 6 Divisional Headquarters, and several hundred horizontal offices connected with the state headquarters in Mantralaya, Mumbai. The system will help citizens get certificates like 7/12 land extract, passports, domicile certificates, various affidavits and the like. The state government has been making impressive efforts to facilitate the reach of high speed broadband to all parts of the state, including rural areas. In many cases cloud computing solutions based on new generation networks have been deployed for e-Governance projects. Cloud solutions not only bring greater transparency and efficiency, they are also friendlier to the environment. All departments in the state have to earmark a certain part of their operating budget for e-Governance. The focus of the earmarked budget for e-Governance is on e-enablement of citizen services and creation of backend infrastructure support for the same. The state government is planning to use the Aadhar numbers issued by UIDAI to ensure that the subsidies, benefits and grants reach the targeted sections of the population. UIDAI enrolments in the state have been a great success. Large numbers of citizen-centric programmes that work on the basis of UIDAI are being planned. Having generated nearly 2.5 crore UIDAI numbers, the state has second highest number of enrolments in India. The UIDAI project was launched in the state at the Tembli village in Nandurbar district. Up to the taluka level, the UIDAI project has been institutionalised. The village panchayat has been made an introducer to help villagers register for UIDAI.
May 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
Leader in Infrastructure
The well-developed social, physical and industrial infrastructure in Maharashtra is a prime attraction for businesses from around the world. The state is one of the largest recipients of FDI in the country. There is good connectivity through road, rail, port and air. The road network is spread across 2.41 lakh km. 97.8 percent of the villages are connected through all weather roads. Mumbai is one of the busiest airports in India. In order to reduce congestion in Mumbai international Airport, an additional airport has been proposed at Navi Mumbai. The JNPT (Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust) is the countrys largest container port. The Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) and JNPT handled 45.58 million tonnes and 43.49 million tonnes cargo traffic respectively during the April 2010 to January 2011 period. The state also has a large number of smaller ports. The Economic Survey of Maharashtra for the financial year 2011-12 that was recently tabled in the state legislature has estimated the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) at current prices at 10,68,327 crore. The state contributes about 14.9 percent of the GDP. Industrial and services sector together contribute 87 percent of the states domestic product, rest comes from agriculture and allied activities. The power supply grid is well developed. The state boasts of highest installed capacity and generation of electricity in the country.
Leader in e-Governance
One of the pioneers in promotion of ICT and e-Governance in India, the government of Maharashtra has been at the forefront in implementing e-Governance initiatives that focus on citizens needs and ensure superior service delivery. The e-Governance in the state is focussed on bringing greater transparency and providing everyone with access to information on public administration processes. In all e-Governance initiatives Marathi has been accepted as the first and mandatory language. Marathi co-exists with English. The usage of Marathi is supposed to enable large sections
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SAP India partnered with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), Asias largest urban body. SAP also has extensive engagements with PSUs like ONGC, SAIL, GRSE, BEL, Security Printing & Minting Corporation of India Limited, etc. We are also engaged with many state owned power generation and transmission utilities in the country.
What are some of the trends that SAP sees in ICT implementations/ e-Governance in Maharashtra?
tition in Maharashtra where a COTS based approach is pursued. Though most departments are using SAP products and solutions, we do see competition from local custombuild application vendors. GOM should really re-look at this aspect, as most of these projects result in inordinate delays, low user adoption, time and cost overruns, and high vendor dependency.
Tell us about the project that SAP has executed for Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM).
Maharashtra is one of the pioneers in the promotion of ICT and e-Governance. It has been at the forefront in implementing e-Governance initiatives that focus on citizens needs and ensure superior service delivery. Mobile based service delivery is an area where we see a considerable focus from the government. Overall the state has transformed from an L1 regime to an entity that lays stress on total cost of ownership, strong engineering principles, best practices, replicable nature and adherence to universal standards.
What are the benefits that the government has achieved because of these engagements?
Mathew Thomas
Vice President, Strategic Industries, SAP India
What are your expectations from the Maharashtra government in terms of ICT policies?
Some of the direct benefits of ICT and e-Governance include timely availability of information, reduction in processing time, and reduction in errors. The consequential benefits range from streamlined processes, better employee productivity to reduction in pilferage and revenue leakage. Most importantly, in spite of Change (in) Management, we can see Change Management practices being religiously followed in the departments.
SAP expects the Maharashtra Government to take a lead in standardising the application landscape for each department and ensuring that the same is used by units under that department. Software acquisition approach needs gradual overhaul to incorporate the internal efficiencies and strategic benefits brought in by Commercially-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) offerings. This saves a lot of time in projects to go live, ensures project success and a quicker return on investment.
Who are SAPs main competitors in Maharashtra?
The key objective of the project that SAP, along with few other companies, has executed for MCGM is to integrate all the workflows/processes seamlessly for efficient service to the citizens, employees and administrators. There is tight and seamless integration with legacy systems, and there is maintenance of single source of truth with regards to data. With this system, the entire city of Mumbai has been networked; 24 Citizen Facilitation Centres (CFCs) have been connected; 550 locations are covered; 24*7 Portal is available; over 210 services have been covered; and approximately 335 backend processes are seamlessly integrated.
When it comes to e-Governance in Maharashtra, what is your dream project?
Maharashtra offers extensive opportunities to IT companies for implementation of ICT initiatives. We do not witness serious compe-
Our dream is to assist Maharashtra in Emergency and Disaster Management. Natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, cyclones etc. cause damage and result in disruption of Information and Communications infrastructure, which is necessary for effective and efficient disaster management activities. We feel Maharashtra should establish ICT System for effective disaster response.
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struction activities and water management of completed projects. The solution provides near real time data with respect to the availability and demand of both surface and ground water. It leads to better dissemination of inter and intradepartmental information for informed decision making and improves efficiency. The Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) solution from CA Technologies addresses WRDs core business process requirements for Project Investigation & surveys, Planning & Designing, Monitoring of construction and maintenance projects, Irrigation Management, Research Management, Workflow management, Collaboration & Document management.
Vibha Agrawal
Head- Government vertical, CA Technologies
involved implementation of Border Check Post application software, VAT application, data interface for transferring vehicular data to Mahavikas, Vahana and Sarathi and any other applications that may be developed by these departments in future. CA Technologies is providing solutions for monitoring of connectivity across the BCPs and the central data centre. CA solutions are being deployed extensively in this project.
MSRDC
Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Ltd. (MSRDC) conceptualised an initiative to setup 22 computerised Border Check Posts (BCPs). Apart from the Civil and Electrical work, the project also required IT, non-IT (electronics) and software components for the BCPs and the central control room / data centre. The project further
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Jaijit Bhattacharya
Adjunct Professor with IIT Delhi and Director, South Asia, Global Government Affairs with HP
Tell us about HPs ICT initiatives in Maharashtra.
Maharashtra is an industry friendly state; it is also the financial capital of the country. The Government has industry friendly policies. The infrastructure in Maharashtra is relatively better than in many states. This combination positions Maharashtra as a destination for IT Hardware manufacturing. However, there are a few more policy tweaks that would be needed to make Maharashtra an even more attractive destination for ICT.
Tell us about the e-Governance solutions that you have developed.
HP would like to be involved with cloud computing e-Governance projects that increase government revenue, reduce the cost of governance, improve the quality of life of citizens and also improve the internal or external security of the country.
Tell us about the innovations that HP is planning in the printer, scanner, smartphone, tablet, PC and other devices space.
HP has had multiple initiatives including the award winning MEDD project, which connects hospitals in Maharashtra to a single IT system, improving healthcare delivery and providing advanced healthcare support to the people in the state.
HP is one of the first companies to develop a cloud enabled e-Governance solution this is the e-procurement solution that was initially developed for the state of Karnataka and is now being used by many government agencies. HP is now focusing on cloud enabling government solutions as we feel that cloud enablement is the optimal way of rolling out e-Governance.
HP has several path breaking innovations in the pipeline in the printer, scanner, tablet, PC, server and cloud computing space. HP India labs has come out with Vayu a device that allows one to convert a regular television into a computing device. Some of these products will take time to be commercialised. However, HP will continue to dominate the IT arena with its innovations, and that pace of innovations is going to speed up as move into the second half of this year.
IT security awareness has been a major concern. To overcome this, we as an IT security service provider have been actively taking various initiatives to create awareness about the network security issues amongst the IT users across the state. We regularly initiate road shows jointly with our channel partners to educate about the best security practices amongst our customers. We are also present across all the leading social networking sites such as Facebook, Plurk, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. wherein we interact with our end users via discussions on latest
security trends that are emerging and precautions that need to be taken to remain secure from them.
What are the main advantages offered by Maharashtra in the ICT sector?
Being populated with people from various states, cities like Mumbai and Pune are blessed with multilingual workforce. The state has a dedicated infrastructure for e-Governance in place, and this makes it a compelling destination for IT and Telecom industry. Another good thing about Maharashtra is that it is strategically working towards creating more IT-ITeS hubs in cities
The e-Governance in Maharashtra is focused on strengthening the states economy. e-Governance has made governmental procedures transparent, licensing has been eliminated in almost all sectors. The system in the state is immensely market friendly.
Going forward what will drive your growth in Maharashtra?
Govind Rammurthy
CEO & MD, eScan that cyber threats will continue to grow indefinitely. This in turn is increasing the demand for security solutions, not just in a particular state but worldwide.
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company profile
Mastek
Company Profile
Mastek is an INR 614 Crore (FY 2011) publicly held, global enterprise technology solutions and systems integration provider to customers across Government, Insurance and Financial Services. For over 28 years, we have combined our leading products, people, and processes to drive business impact and competitive advantage. Mastek uniquely combines its wide intellectual property base, domain expertise, mission-critical program management abilities and complex solutions capabilities to help customers unlock business value. With employee strength of around 3000 people, we operate across India, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Europe and North America. Mastek has eight world-class global delivery centers in India and Malaysia.
Sudhakar Ram
CMD, Mastek
contact Company Name Mastek Ltd Management Team Sudhakar Ram, CMD Ashank Desai, Non-Executive Director Vinay Rajyadhyaksha, Head Asia Pacific Vidyesh Khanolkar, Head Government, Asia Pacific Head office #106, SDF IV, SEEPZ Andheri (East), Mumbai - 400 096, India Tel: +91-22-66952222, Fax: +91-22-66951331 Major regional Offices New Delhi, Pune, Chennai Contact Person for Clarification Sanjay Mudnaney, Head Corporate Communications, Tel: +91-22-66952222 Website www.mastek.com Customer Support helpline number +91 -22- 66952222
Targeted Verticals
Mastek has enabled both central and state governments and PSUs transform their governance vision to deliver quick and efficient services to citizens and businesses. Mastek offers e-Governance solutions and services in the areas of Tax Administration, Social Justice, Urban Local Bodies, Public Distribution, Prison Management, Power, Education. We are currently working with various departments in the states of Maharashtra, Odisha, Gujarat and Kerala, providing our e-Governance Solutions and Services. We are also an empanelled IT solution vendor for the UIDAI. As mentioned above, we have several e-Gov solutions especially in the areas of PDS and Social Justice etc. where UIDAI could play a role.
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iGATE Patni has been working in Maharashtra for more than three decades. The state houses some of our key development centres. From these centres, we provide various IT services such as Application Development & Maintenance, Infrastructure Support, Product Engineering and Business Process / Knowledge Process Outsourcing Services.
What according to you are the main advantages offered by Maharashtra in the ICT sector?
The government should provide appropriate infrastructure in terms of uninterrupted power, land, transport, telecommunication, speedy clearance of investment proposals, and education to enable skilled talent availability. These should be at competitive cost so as to be a preferred choice for investment. Also, in Maharashtra, there is a need for more active involvement of ICT companies in the State governance.
Brief us about your expansion plans in Maharashtra?
Maharashtra offers a great advantage in terms of education, technology, transportation, telecommunication infrastructure and law and order. It has a rich pool of talent and skilled resources, which can be leveraged for various ICT initiatives. Maharashtra is also the hub for many industries like banking and financial services, manufacturing and IT, which also requires support from ICT. We plan to leverage these strengths by expanding our global delivery centres in Mumbai and Pune. We also have aggressive growth plans for the domestic public and private sector.
Tell us about the e-Governance solutions that you have developed.
We have ambitious expansion plans for our two large development centres in Mumbai and Pune. We also plan to build a world class training centre at Pune to provide the best training to our professionals and consultants.
How do you ensure that your products and solutions continue to remain in demand?
Pramod Deval
Director-Public Sector Industries, iGATE Patni
In e-Governance, our focus is on developing state-of-the-art solutions to enable the public sector to be more effective, efficient and optimum. These are end-to-end solutions where we take complete ownership and responsibility for the success of the project. For example, we are running a pilot for the Aadhaar based biometric authentication for LPG distribution and direct subsidy transfer initiative which was specified by the Honourable Finance Minister in his union budget speech for 2012-13. Some of the other Aadhaar based solutions are in the fields of PDS, education, healthcare, social sector and others. We also enable e-Governance through inno-
vative solutions such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Mobile Enablement, Document & Content Management, Workflow Automation, Business Analytics etc.
When it comes to e-Governance, what is your dream project?
We are a technology focused organisation having a dedicated division for Research &Innovation (R&I). Our entire delivery organisation as well as a dedicated R&I team are continuously identifying opportunities of innovation based on the developments happening around the world. New trends in technology are explored incessantly to ensure continuous improvement in our solutions. We are looking forward to a rapid phase of growth.
When it comes to e-Governance, what is your dream project?
Our Dream Project in e-Governance would be assignments that are transformational in nature and that involve ownership of the entire process and not just a slice of the ICT part. The Aadhaar technology project is a rather innovative and transformational project spanning across States. We do consider this a dream project for us.
We believe in working as a partner for e-governance in the State, where we are responsible for the business outcomes of the initiative instead of merely providing solutions or skilled professionals. This approach of Business Outcomes de-risks the State from any delays or failures, as the payments are linked with the pre-agreed outcomes.
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ISODA is a national body. The organisation has worked for the ICT reseller community across India. We have created a platform for all ICT resellers of India to come together. We offer a ready and easy availability of national reseller network. The government can take feedback from us before implementing taxation policies with respect to Information Technology (or ICT).
What can Maharashtra do to improve the prospects of software sector?
TAIT is relentlessly working to further the interests of the IT industry. Though TAIT is Mumbai based, lots of smaller associations of Maharashtra lookup to TAIT for advice and solutions.
What according to you are the main advantages offered by Maharashtra in the ICT sector?
Rajesh Kothari
Founder Member and First Chairman, ISODA (Infotech Software Dealers Association)
Champakraj Gurjar
President, TAIT (Trade Association of Information Technology) To what extent, do you think the economy of Maharashtra has been impacted by the global slowdown?
Maharashtra can attract more IT investments by lowering tax burden on citizens and businesses. Removal of software products from the ambit of Value Added Tax (VAT) and Octroi could be the first step. Software products are already attracting Service tax under IT Software Services (section 65(zzzze) of Finance Act 1956). Also, the state can attract more IT investments by conferring Industry status to software sector and offering land and infrastructure at subsidised rates. There can also be reduction in Property tax for using residential premises for IT Sector, since software creation is a non-polluting.
What is your response to the e-Governance policy that is currently active in the state?
much better in many small but significant ways. ISODA is expecting similar initiatives from many other departments - particularly those which are concerned with land records.
What steps has ISODA taken to ensure that there is reduction in software piracy in India?
A good amount of work has been done in the area of computerization of Sales tax department. It has made life sales tax assesse
Piracy can only be tackled by concerted efforts of all stake holders of the eco-system. ISODA plays its part in reduction of software piracy by making software products available at each nook and corner of India. When a customer wants to purchase software products he simply can refer its requirement to a knowledgeable and experienced member of ISODA and get free guidance with respect to complex issues like licensing policies of vendors, license compliance, software delivery etc. ISODA wishes to undertake educational role by organising training camps for hardware assemblers by encouraging them to load only licensed software on hardware assembled by them.
Many southern states have stolen a march when it comes to attracting IT investments. This is due to a concerted effort over a period of time and is not something that can happen overnight. Encouraging usage of IT in daily activities where information is delivered and encouraging investments in Broadband penetration are good starting points.
Can you suggest some solutions to create a more investor friendly climate in the state?
Today we are operating in a global economy and though we are insulated and have a local consumption story, we cannot be left out in an upturn or downturn. Local economy also has slowed down.
What steps has TAIT taken to bring about simplification in the procedures for exports and imports?
Information technology is evolving and the pace of change is rapid. Faster clearance to projects and availability of resources like land, capital can act as key catalysts for attracting entrepreneurs. Octroi is the biggest hurdle for IT industry; government should allot land to association to open GYAN centre in Maharashtra. There is also the need to provide free education to students in the state.
TAIT is a proactive association; we conduct seminars and meetings for members from time to time on various topics including imports and exports. We also help members in simplification of their imports by providing them the information or clarification that they may be in the need of. Also, all important notifications are communicated to our members from time to time.
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Maharashtra is a key focus area for Mahindra Satyam in the enterprise space and we are looking forward to opportunities in Public Sector Units as well. Tech Mahindra then MBT started first BOT model project in Pune, and a major project with Pune collectorate. In the area of e-Governance, Mahindra Satyam and Tech Mahindra have the solutions like Irrigation automation, Urban Local Bodies automation, Cyber Security applications.
What are the ways by which the government can help private players who are investing in creation of ICT infrastructure in the state?
The ICT field in Maharashtra is very large and there is enough room for large number of players to co-exist. The companies will sustain, till the time they are innovating and addressing the needs of the end consumer. The innovations based on mobility solutions, business analytics are definitely a need of the hour.
Newer developments in ICT have radically changed the world. What are the kinds of developments you see ahead?
The solutions from ICT present a great opportunity for countries to enhance economic growth and employment. Government can play a key role in creating the environment for ICT-enabled innovation, not only by appropriate policy, regulation and investment, but also by its own intelligent and widespread use of ICT as a tool of efficiency and transparency. The private sector plays a crucial role in developing the ICT infrastructure of the states. Such ICT infrastructure is of great help in addressing the skill related gaps in the economy.
The lack of ICT is understood to be an important factor contributing to the widening of the gap between developed and developing countries. Internet has the potential of transforming the way government. The way citizens and business interact with the government will undergo seminal change. Developments in e-Governance will change how citizens relate to governments. It will bring forth new concepts of citizenship, both in terms of needs and responsibilities. e-Governance will allow citizens to communicate with government and participate in the government decisionmaking process.
Manoj Gilra
AVP, Mahindra Satyam
Tech Mahindra will continue to focus on Network and Security, Business Analytics, Cloud technologies, Mobility solutions to name a few. These verticals will definitely drive growth globally as well as within India. With Maharashtra state adopting ICT in more and more public sector projects, I see a lot of scope in developing solutions for ICT penetration.
We are providing physical infrastructure to support and optimise mission critical systems primarily, but not exclusively, to our IT and telecom customers in Maharashtra. Our 3 manufacturing facilities in Maharashtra, and an upcoming state-of-art facility, also strengthen our physical presence in the states ICT space.
What are the main advantages offered by Maharashtra?
Maharashtra is an industry
friendly state; it has the right policies to support growth of IT and Telecom. The tax sops for manufacturing infrastructure are also very attractive and conducive to systematic IT proliferation, in turn helping the manufacturing sector to gain foothold and develop a strong and qualified vendor base for raw materials. It provides the necessary impetus for ICT to grow rapidly, broaden the range of offerings, and augments the energy savings for our customers.
We are involved directly and indirectly through our partners, in most government projects in the state as well as Centre. UID is a game changer e-Governance project and we are working on contributing in this space.
Tell us about your expectations from the state government.
Pratik Chube
GM Products, Emerson Network Power
companies trying to invest in the state. Well-defined Timelines and SLAs would go a long distance in attracting potential investors. Setting up infrastructure to augment the growth of industry would benefit ICT as a whole.
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Kishor Chitale
Head, India Domestic Business, Capgemini India
Recently you were selected for developing Business Intelligence and Data Warehouse solution for Maharashtra Sales Tax Department (MSTD). Tell us about the project.
different divisions of the MSTD. These initiatives will result in significant optimisation of resources, time and effort, thus bringing in considerable business benefits to the department.
What is your response to the e-Governance policy currently active in the state?
Capgemini is providing data warehousing solution to Maharashtra Sales Tax Department. Our Business Intelligence and Data warehousing solution will enable MSTD to analyse economic parameters to set targets for revenue collection. It will also help the department to expand its existing taxpayer base and prevent revenue loss through tax evasion. The solution will also provide decision support across
Capgemini worldwide has very strong capabilities in the public sector, specifically in the areas of tax and public security. We would like to draw on this experience to serve Indian PSUs, especially the Maharashtra government. We have made a good foray with the recent MSTD win and would like to build on this further to develop solutions for G2C, G2B and G2G interactions and also in the area of Business Intelligence.
Going forward what will drive your growth in Maharashtra? Tell us about your technology plans for the future.
The Maharashtra government is one of the pioneers in the promotion of ICT and e-Governance in India and the current e-Governance policy clearly reflects this. There is a strong focus on e-enablement of services, re-engineering of business processes, knowledge management and data mining as well as the
Capgemini India is headquartered in Mumbai and with delivery centres in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Pune, we have over 20,000 of our work force based in these centres within Maharashtra.
We have several centres of excellence (CoEs) in these locations, such as Business Intelligence (technologies on BIM and datawarehousing) and Energy and Utilities (Smart Metering and Automated Meter Reading). We also deliver to large scale customers in the field of Banking and Financial Services from our centres in Pune, while our Mumbai and Pune facilities together cater to several large manufacturing customers for adoption and maintenance of their ERP systems. We plan to grow in several areas, including Mobile solutions for large organisations, large portal development for G2C, B2B and B2C interactions and also in the area of Business Intelligence. We have also launched specific opex based campus solutions for Indian education institutes, so that they can adopt global best practices without the burden of upfront investment. We are also looking forward to providing solutions to government and manufacturing agencies who need to collaborate with their partners in tier 2 and tier 3 cities where connectivity is unreliable thus hindering the implementation of IT solutions. Capgeminis architecture team has developed a unique solution, which has the ability to work as a dependable transaction system in unreliable network conditions and help automate processes which link the headquarters or regional offices to their area establishments.
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Enabling e-Governance
Using an IT resource no longer depends on having the capital to own that resource, thanks to cloud computing.
Tell us about the work that Accenture is doing in Maharashtra.
We work for multiple clients in Mumbai including Government of Maharashtra. We have been working as a consultant to Government of Maharashtra for the implementation of UID project. We are also working with the Higher and Technical Education Dept., Skill Development Cell, Department of Labour to name a few. Accenture operates out of 9 offices in Mumbai and Pune. The work we carry out for clients in Maharashtra covers the range of our consulting, technology and outsourcing services.
Tell us about your healthcare solutions.
dynamics shift, Accenture helps public sector organisations to map its path to the cloud. Accenture sees the cloud as the convergence of three worlds: consumers, business and technology. The rise of mobility, social networking and mobile devices has created a new norm for interaction with customers and employees. At the same time, businesses are experiencing speed-to-market and cost containment pressures as never before.
What according to you are the advantages offered Maharashtra in the ICT sector?
Krishna Giri
Managing Director for Accentures Health & Public Service business in India Solution Provider. Accenture is associated with one of the largest transformational projects in India the IT Modernisation of India Post. We have also helped to enable Indias e-Governance projects for Homeland Security, National Identity, Taxation, Labor, Education and Skill Development and Innovation.
The field of ICT is highly competitive. How do you ensure that your products and solutions continue to remain in demand?
We deliver a wide range of healthcare business servicesfrom addressing back office functions and electronic medical records to clinical transformation and consumer engagement. Our business services are backed by real-world experience, business and clinical insights. Our innovative technologies include Health Administration Services, Connected Health Services, Health Back Office Services, Health Management Services, and Clinical Services.
Tell us about your cloud computing solutions.
With high literacy rates and a large number of higher and technical education institutes, Maharashtra is the source of a significant skilled workforce for employment. The States robust connectivity and IT infrastructure has helped Accenture establish a strong base. Through our 9 offices in the State we are able to provide services to a large number of clients.
Tell us about the e-Governance solutions that you have developed.
companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With extensive focus on research through our Accenture Technology Labs, we are able to innovate and bring in solutions and products which are in sync with client needs.
Newer developments in ICT have radically changed the world. What kinds of developments you see ahead?
Using an IT resource no longer depends on having the capital to own that resource, thanks to cloud computing. As competitive
Accenture has worked with the State Governments of Sikkim, Nagaland and Manipur to develop State Portals and Service Delivery Gateways to enable citizens to better access to government services online without the need to visit Government offices. We have also been associated with the Aadhaar project as a Biometric
Accenture is an end-to-end service provider with expertise in all areas of service delivery, from consulting to outsourcing. Our biggest strength is our people, with more than 246,000 employees serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the worlds most successful
We are seeing a paradigm shift with more clients looking at innovative solutions to meet their technology needs at a lower cost. We see the focus shifting towards Cloud Computing and SaaS and that clients are looking at mobility and tablet-based applications to help them improve service delivery for citizens and develop public services for the future. Accenture Technology Labs is focused on driving innovation which keeps us abreast of client needs.
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Our payment and services delivery solutions are being used by several customers in Maharashtra. Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) is using Forbes Bill Payment Kiosks for accepting electricity bill payments through cash or cheque. Forbes Technosys has successfully deployed Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs) at Railway stations, using which commuters can print their suburban train tickets with the use of prepaid railway smart cards. These machines are deployed across the western suburban railway stations in Mumbai. We have also deployed several types of Self Service Kiosks such as Cash Deposit Kiosks, Cheque Deposit Kiosks, Passbook Printing Kiosks, e-Lobbies & ATMs at various Cooperative banks of Maharashtra, thereby allowing cooperative banks in Maharashtra to provide customer services at par with the larger PSU and private banks. We have deployed Anytime Bill Payment Kiosks through which subscribers can deposit their telephone bill through cash or cheque and get a printed acknowledgement of the payment made. These kiosks are installed in various districts of Maharashtra.
What according to you are the main advantages offered by state of Maharashtra in the ICT sector?
ensure rapid implementation of these initiatives across departments and for delivering G2C services in an efficient and cost effective manner, there is a need for innovative technologies. Forbes Technosys has developed a wide range of platforms and solutions, keeping in view the requirements and policy initiatives of the Government.
When it comes to e-Governance in Maharashtra, what is your dream project?
Well, our dream project would be the deployment of Forbes Self Service G2C platforms and solutions for providing a wide range of citizen Services, in a cost effective and efficient manner, thereby contributing to Maharashtras e-Governance vision and goals.
Ajay Singh
CEO, Forbes Technosys Limited (FTL)
Maharashtra is adopting ICT in its e-Governance initiatives through channels such as Citizen Service Centres (CSCs). The state already has hundreds of CSCs operational in the state, which currently offer only a small subset of citizen services and that too in a sub optimal manner. These CSCs can be leveraged to deploy state-of-the-art platforms and solutions to deliver the entire range of citizen services in a highly efficient manner. In addition, Self Service Platforms like Any Time Payment Kiosks can help consumers avail a
variety of G2C services. Another focus area for Maharashtra is the Aadhaar initiative for UID enrolments. This is also an area where the Forbes Porto ID can serve as an ideal platform for enrolments. The Porto ID is an integrated platform, with all the devices housed in a portable briefcase, thereby increasing the enrolment efficiency tremendously. The Porto ID can also function on solar energy, which is a huge advantage in rural and remote areas.
What is your response to the e-Governance policy that is currently active in the state?
Government should promote and catalyse private participation in ICT development. Government should formulate a complete and sustainable programme in order to provide a viable platform for all stakeholders to participate and contribute in the ICT advancements in the state. In order attract more private participation, government should promote usage of efficient self-service platforms. Government should also facilitate the expansion of the G2C service basket to increase transaction volumes, thereby enabling the service delivery centres to be profitable. There should be exemptions from taxes such as Octroi to further increase viability of e-Governance initiatives.
What are the main challenges that you face while implementing new projects in Maharashtra?
e-Governance policy in Maharashtra revolves around implementing initiatives that focus on the citizens needs and ensure superior service delivery with greater transparency and access to information on public administration processes. However, to
Erratic power supply hampers commercial activity. Utilisation of fossil fuel generation sets not only increases costs, it also degrades the environment.
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IBM envisioned the opportunity offered by the Indian market and the importance of investing in it way ahead of its competition. We built our skills and capabilities across the business to ensure that we understand the challenges of the local market and provide superior services and solutions to our clients. We have revolutionised the role of IT and the overall engagement model in the Telecom industry with a path-breaking deal with Bharti Airtel, followed by deals with Vodafone and Idea. IBM has created a benchmark in India which is now being followed across the globe. In the Banking space, we are helping organisations of all sizes from large nationalised banks to small cooperative banks move into the next level of banking revolution through business and technology transformation.
Tell us about the e-Governance solutions that you have developed.
delivery mechanisms for implementing these programs need to be well organized to help expand the reach and scale.
Brief us about your geographic expansion plans?
Sameer Batra
Director Public Sector IBM India/South Asia
We are bullish in the small and medium business (SMB) sector and our expansion in tier 2 and 3 cities helps us tap into this market. Mid-market companies have distinct needs that are often ignored by most service providers. IBMs technologies and solutions provide Indian small mid-market businesses a competitive edge. Today IBM has offices in 23 cities across the country and presence in over 200 cities, through our business partners. In the public sector space our plan is to explore opportunity in government agencies or administration office at various district and state levels. We also aim at expanding our presence in regional operations of railways.
The field of ICT is highly competitive, with new innovations continuously coming into the fray. How do you ensure that your products and solutions continue to remain in demand?
IBM has played a key role in several mission mode projects. We are enabling the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to build a robust infrastructure with focus on strategic areas like asset management, messaging, security, and facility management. The project extends to 745 offices of CBDT across the country. IBM has been helping Indian railways to automate systems, enhance efficiency, and provide better security. We have worked with the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) to build a highly efficient crew management system. The system automatically evaluates employee skill sets against established train schedules to determine optimal staff assignments. The core of IBMs healthcare solutions lies in its ability to provide greater insight to patient care and the overall organizational performance. IBMs
smarter healthcare solutions can connect all the key stakeholders like service providers, doctors, insurers, and researchers and help them get information in real time.
What new trends in e-governance are you witnessing?
The adoption of e-governance in developed nation is significantly high and emerging economies are working hard to catch up. The three emerging trends that we believe will help the Indian government deploy new services are cloud computing, mobility and data analysis. However, to ensure that e-governance programmes are successful, government needs to establish a faster decision making system and execution mechanism. With technology life-cycle shrinking, the success of these plans will depend on how fast they are being implemented. Also, the
IT is an extremely dynamic field, with technologies having smaller life cycles. The key to staying ahead of time and competition is harnessing the ability to predict the market, develop the right strategy, and execute it successfully. Our various thought leadership initiatives like Global Technology Outlook and Global Innovation Outlook give us insight on the future trends in the technology space. We also have one of the largest commercial R&D set-ups in the world, with an annual budget of over US$ 6 billion. Many of the game changing technologies in the field of IT have been developed at IBM labs.
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Maharashtra has been very successful in driving key e-Governance projects. The focus of these projects is on ensuring superior service delivery to citizens. Maharashtra scores in the e-Governance space due to the following reasons: Massive State Government machinery with more than 16 lakh employees across districts, urban local bodies, talukas and village panchayats. The state has well thought out strategy of starting small, delivering value and scaling fast. There is focus on business process reengineering instead of mere automation and outsourcing model for developing the IT infrastructure. Its transparent and efficient procurement process ensures that best products and services get procured in a transparent manner. The State is also well connected with the latest developments in the IT space Facilitation of e-Governance goals is a compulsory parameter for the performance appraisal review of all the IAS, IPS and IFS officers in Maharashtra so that everybody contributes to e-Governance during their tenure of work. State has received due appreciation by the Government Community by winning several awards for state projects at various forums driven by reputed organisations and Central Governments.
Tell us about the e-Governance solutions that you have developed for use in Maharashtra.
with several departments in the State. In Maharashtra we are working in the areas of health, revenue and infrastructure amongst others.
What are the ways by which the government can help private players who are investing in creation of ICT infrastructure in the state?
The government can assure the private players regarding its commitment to be in favour of a competitive, transparent and process oriented procurement process for creation of ICT Infrastructure within the State. The state must also create nodal agencies to regulate and operationalise the process of project clearance and procurement of services. The state should set up an advisory board to the State IT departments comprising of adequate representation from the Private sector players.
What new trends in e-Governance are you witnessing?
Navin Agrawal
Partner , Management Consulting, KPMG India
At KPMG India our advisory business has a strong focus on e-Governance. We have active projects in more than 20 states in the country and a broad bouquet of services across the life cycle of e-Governance projects. We have worked
The key trends that we can witness include the following: Proliferation of Government websites Creation of huge Government databases PPP Model for financing eGovernance projects Increase in citizen service centres and Kiosks Focus on mobile governance and mobile commerce to ensure anytime anywhere service Unique citizen ID Consolidation of websites Increasing use of e-Commerce and e-Biz
How far do you think the economy of Maharashtra has been impacted by global economic slowdown?
The global economic crisis has not adversely affected Maharashtra; here there have been fewer job cuts. The State has been able to attract significant investments across in textile, automobiles, IT and electronics space amongst others. The demand for electricity in industrial areas is growing, indicating that there is no slowdown. While recession might have taken a toll on some sectors, the state still enjoys the largest share of the total foreign direct investment and collaborations which will work in its favour when the tide turns.
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Trend Micro has full-fledged office with sales, pre-sales and support team based out of Mumbai. Our support engineers are spread across the state in all the major cities. Trend Micro also has technical support partners in the state.
Are you providing security solutions to government departments and PSUs?
Nilesh Jain
National Sales manager- Value Business (India & SAARC), Trend Micro
solutions to e-Governance projects. There is a significant rise in the threat scenario for the Internet. Since most of the applications used in e-Governance are web based and are open to public, they are prone to attack. Data Centre Security solutions have to be deployed at every stage of the network.
When it comes to e-Governance, what is your dream project?
we have the unique capability of working on thin bandwidth connectivity combined with remote support network.
According to you how vulnerable are Indian systems to attacks in the online space?
The government is a crucial vertical for Trend Micro. Considerable percentage of our total business in India comes from the government departments and projects. PSUs account for the largest share in these deployments. Verticals like manufacturing, power,
mining and steel industries are our top clients. Trend Micro has been managing few of the largest central and state government networks for many years.
Are you also providing security solutions to e-Governance projects?
We Prefer to serve citizen centric e-Governance projects, which involve large amounts of Physical and virtual servers. Large projects involve deployments of computational devices like Laptop, PC or Mobile in scattered environment and hence are of interest to us as
India is becoming a breeding ground of Internet Security Threats, especially spam. There has been a noticeable upsurge in the malicious activities and especially hacking attacks. Cybercriminals have tried to profit by abusing legitimate online revenue sources and managed to hide from the eyes of both law enforcement and anti-fraud watchdogs hired by banks and other financial agencies.
tweeting e-Governance
Dr Manmohan Singh @ PMOIndia I would urge the States and Ministry of Home Affairs to carry forward police reform and modernisation to their logical conclusion. Dr Manmohan Singh @ PMOIndia Our exports have crossed $300 billion mark for the first time in our history. Here are 2011 Economic Survey figures http://pic.twitter.com/kBcSvDy3 Sam Pitroda @pitrodasam OGPL is a software platform, which will aim to provide enhanced #public access to Govt #data, and spur #citizen engagement with the Govt. Sam Pitroda @pitrodasam The State Innovation Councils need to prepare an #InnovationRoadmap for a Decade of Innovation. Read more details: http://tinyurl.com/77nqxc9 Milind Deora @ milinddeora Many critical projects are nobrainers, non-controversial & win-wins for all. Consensus building is important but not always efficient Ambassador Rao @ NMenonRao @firstpostin: India one of the top performing clean energy economies: report http://dlvr.it/1QrNtG Great news! Lets build on this. Shashi Tharoor @ ShashiTharoor any1 know of any other panchayat in India that set up a Trust&raised money from villagers for their own health centre?Amazing accomplishment eGov Magazine @egovonline DIT renamed DEITY in a function presided by Kapil Sibal http://tinyurl. com/73o5th5 Sunil Abraham @ sunil_abraham The NSA Is Building the Countrys Biggest Spy Centerhttp://is.gd/tULFAL #sif12 Q: All with court orders?
book shelf
e-Governance Matters
e-Governance means the use of ICT to promote more efficient and effective government
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e-Gov 2.0 Author: Jaijit Bhattacharya Publisher: McGraw Hill Pages: 604 Reviewed by: Anoop Verma
About the author Jaijit Bhattacharya is currently an Adjunct Professor with IIT Delhi, and Director, South Asia, Global Government Affairs with Hewlett Packard
revolutionary restructuring of the government is underway through e-Governance, which has now become the fashionable mantra in all developing countries. We already have a growing body of literature in the media and in the policy making circles on e-Governance, yet this field seems somewhat under theorised, its boundaries are not clearly defined, and are often open to controversial interpretations regarding the main processes, technologies and the actors involved. This welcome volume by Jaijit Bhattacharya contributes to the discussion by attempting to examine the technological, infrastructure related, economic, socio-cultural, political and regulatory issues that are influencing the development of e-Governance models in contemporary society. The book starts by looking at the emerging roadmap of e-Government, and goes on to examine the basic structure of government as it exists today, from there it moves on to deliberate upon the various micro and macro aspects of e-Governance. The leitmotif of the book is to draw on socio-cultural theories and explore the ways by which e-Governance can bring transparency in the interactions between government, citizens, consumers and private businesses. e-Governance is defined narrowly by Jaijit Bhattacharya in these words, e-government means the use of ICT to promote more efficient and effective government, facilitate better access to government services, allow greater public access to information, and make government more accountable to citizens. Electronic government might involve delivering services via the Internet, telephone, community centres (self-service or facilitated by others), wireless devices or other communications systems. There are 26 chapters, all of which follow a similar format, as they begin with a short and crisp introductory note, which provide an overview of all the concepts that will be discussed in detail in the chapter. After that rest of the well-researched content follows. Covering such essential ideas like importance of public-private partnership in e-Government, Government Data Centres, National Citizen Identity Systems, Open Source Software in e-Government, Government Call Centres, Land Records, Urban Development Management Systems, e-Agriculture, Disaster Management System, e-Procurement and Human Resource Management System, this book enthuses a student of e-Governance by its analytical narrative from heterodox perspectives. Incorporation of quite a few of charts, graphs and tables in most chapters makes it easier for the reader to get a grip on the concepts that are being discussed. There is a direct and conversational style in Jaijit Bhattacharyas style of writing. For instance, in the chapter titled Urban Development Management System, he writes, The objective of any urban development strategy is to create conditions which will make urban settlements economically vibrant. Resource constraint has to be overcome by adopting judicious investments. As resources are limited, instead of apportioning the available resources to all the cities and towns, the investments can be made in a set of select centres keeping in view the objectives of efficiency and balanced development of the region and the state as a whole. This is Jaijit Bhattacharyas second book on e-Governance. His first co-authored book on e-Governance, Government Online, Opportunities and Challenges, had been released in the presence of the former President, Shri APJ Abdul Kalam. e-Gov 2.0 can also be seen as a book that picks of up from the point where Bhattacharyas first book had left. This book is also about the evolution in the technological and political framework of e-Governance that is now taking place. Academics, policymakers, political leadership, industrialists and even private citizens can benefit from the books rigorous examination of e-Governance systems.
May 2012 / egov.eletsonline.com / egov
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HP...................................................................................................... 50 I IBM India/South Asia.................................................................. 58 ICICI Bank...................................................................................... 36 iGAT E Patni................................................................................... 52 Intellection Software & Technologies Pvt Ltd....................... 20 ISODA (Infotech Software Dealers Association)................. 53 Itz Cash Card Limited.................................................................. 19 J JNPT (Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust)........................................ 47 K Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation............................. 42 KPMG............................................................................................... 59 L Land Records Department, governmnet of Maharashtra.19 M MAHAGENCO............................................................................. 20 Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC). 32 Maharashtra Sales Tax Department (MSTD)....................... 19 Maharashtra State Election Commission............................... 37 Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Ltd. (MSRDC)............................................................................................ 49 Maharashtra Water Resources Department (WRD)........... 49 Mahindra Satyam.......................................................................... 54 Mastek............................................................................................... 51 Ministry of Home Affairs............................................................ 49 Mumbai Housing and Area Development Board................ 19 Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT)....................................................... 47 Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM),.... 48 N NASSCOM...................................................................................... 47 National Rural Health Mission, Maharashtra....................... 36 Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation.................................... 20 O ONGC,.............................................................................................. 48 P Public Health Department, Government of Maharashtra.21 R RailTel................................................................................................ 36 Red Hat India.................................................................................. 44 S SAIL,.................................................................................................. 48 SAP India......................................................................................... 48 Security Printing & Minting Corporation of India Limited................................................................................................. 48 SMKC................................................................................................ 19 Softech Engineers Pvt Ltd........................................................... 20 Spanco Ltd....................................................................................... 19 State Election Commission......................................................... 20 T TAIT (Trade Association of Information Technology)...... 53 TATA Consultancy Services....................................................... 41 Trend Micro.................................................................................... 60 U UIDAI............................................................................................... 31 Ultimate ITPL................................................................................. 38
C
Champakraj Gurjar, President, TAIT (Trade Association of Information Technology)............................................................... 53 Chandan Dange, Director Technology, Ultimate ITPL...... 38
D
Dinesh Waghmare, Secretary, Department of Social Justice and Special Assistance, Government of Maharashtra............ 30 Dr Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Deputy Director General, Unique Identity Authority of India.............................................................. 31 Dr K Shivaji, Principal Secretary, Industries, Energy, Government of Maharashtra................................................................. 32 Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India.................... 60
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Govind Rammurthy, CEO & MD, eScan............................... 50
Index of Organisations
A Accenture......................................................................................... 56 Asha, NRHM Maharashtra........................................................ 20 B Bank of India................................................................................... 45 BEL,.................................................................................................... 48 Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport..................... 57 BSNL................................................................................................. 40 C CA Technologies............................................................................ 49 Capgemini India............................................................................ 55 CDAC Pune.................................................................................... 12 Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT)................................... 58 Center for Railway Information System................................. 58 Cyberoam........................................................................................ 44 D Department of Industries, Energy, Government of Maharashtra................................................................................................... 32 Department of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra........................................................................................ 20 Department of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Government of Maharashtra......................................................... 28 Department of School Education, Government of Maharashtra................................................................................................... 24 Department of Social Justice and Special Assistance, Government of Maharashtra................................................................. 30 Department of Women and Child Development, Government of Maharashtra........................................................................ 34 E Emerson Network Power............................................................ 54 eScan.................................................................................................. 50 F Forbes Technosys Limited (FTL).............................................. 57 G General Administration Information and Public Relations, Government of Maharashtra......................................................... 16 GRSE, ............................................................................................... 48 H Handygo Technologies Pvt Ltd.................................................. 19
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J S Saharia, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of School Education, Government of Maharashtra..................... 24 Jaijit Bhattacharya, Adjunct Professor with IIT Delhi and Director, South Asia, Global Government, Affairs with HP.50 Jayant Kumar Banthia, Additional Chief Secretary, Public Health Department, Government of Maharashtra................. 21
K
Kishor Chitale, Head, India Domestic Business, Capgemini India...................................................................................................... 55 Krishna Giri, Managing Director for Accentures Health & Public Service, business in India................................................... 56
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Manoj Gilra, AVP, Mahindra Satyam...................................... 54 Mathew Thomas, Vice President, Strategic Industries, SA P India...................................................................................................... 48 Milind Deora, Minister of State, Ministry of Communication & IT, Government of India.................................................... 60 N Naveen Agrawal, Partner, Management Consulting, KPMG India...................................................................................................... 59 Nilesh Jain, National Sales manager- Value, Business (India & SAAR C), Trend Micro............................................................... 60 NMenonRao................................................................................... 60 P Pramod Deval, Director-Public Sector Industries, iGAT E Patni...................................................................................................... 52 Pratik Chube, GM Products, Emerson Network Power.54 Prithviraj Chavan, Honable Chief Minister, Government of Maharashtra........................................................................................ 12 Prof (Smt) Fauzia Tehseen Khan, Minister of State for General Administration Information and Public Relations, Government of Maharashtra......................................................... 16 R Rajesh Aggarwal, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra....................................9 Rajesh Kothari, Founder Member and First Chairman, ISODA (Infotech Software Dealers Association).................... 53 Ramnath Sonawane, Commisioner, Kalyan Dombivli Municipal Corporation................................................................... 42
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