“The Department of Electronics & IT has undertaken a countrywide initiative on mobile governance,” says Dr Rajendra Kumar, Joint Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India
The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has started a National eGovernance Plan (NeGP) 2.0 for new electronic revolution, or eKranti. Provide us with an overview of the eKranti framework
The eKranti or NeGP 2.0 framework proposes new and substantially revised models of implementation and service delivery. NeGP 2.0 envisages government wide transformation by delivering all government services electronically to the citizens through integrated and interoperable systems via multiple modes. This transformation in eGovernance will be achieved through undertaking transformational BPR, adopting emerging technologies like cloud and mobile, providing integrated services via interoperable systems and building sustainable organisational and human resource capacities.
The number of broadband connections in the country is small as compared to the number of mobile phones. DeitY has been trying to promote the delivery of e-services from the government through the mobile medium. Please tell us about your initiatives in this direction?
DeitY has undertaken a countrywide initiative on mobile governance to provide government services. As a part of this initiative, the framework for Mobile Governance was notified in February 2012 and DeitY has created the Mobile Seva platform as the core infrastructure for enabling the availability of public services through mobile devices.
Mobile Seva enables the integration of mobile platform with the common eGovernance infrastructure consisting of State Data Centres (SDCs), State Wide Area Networks (SWANs), State and National Service Delivery Gateways (SSDG/NSDG).
It enables a government department to integrate both web and mobile based services seamlessly and enhances the access to electronic services tremendously. Availability of government-wide shared infrastructure and services enable rapid development and reduced costs for the departments in rolling out electronic services. The initiative was launched in July 2011 and is currently fully operational with over 1,100 Government departments and agencies at central, state and local levels already using the platform for delivering a wide range of mobile based services. These departments and agencies have already delivered over 122 crore Push SMS based transactions to the citizens using this platform. DeitY has also made a mobile AppStore operational as a part of Mobile Seva with over 300 live mobile apps for a wide range of government services.
Most people in the country don’t have smartphones. They are using entry level devices for communicating through voice and text messages. What kind of e-services can be provided to users of basic mobile handsets?
The basic mobile handsets have facilities for voice based communication and text messages. Under the Mobile Seva project, 349 services have been operationalised through Pull-SMS over short-codes 51969 and 166 and long code 9223166166 obtained by DeitY for mobile-governance purposes. 1,111 central, state and local government departments across the country have been integrated and over 122 crore Push-SMS transactions have been sent to citizens. USSD and IVRS solutions have also been developed. Hence, people can easily obtain SMS, voice and USSD based services through basic mobile handsets.
How does the Mobile Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG) work?
Mobile Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG) is a centralised platform which has been developed around open standards and cloud-based solutions and is a key implementation strategy under the Framework for Mobile Governance that was notified by DeitY in February 2012. It has been created by DeitY through its own agency, Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC). The project covers the entire country and is targeted at all government departments and agencies at central, state, and local levels and citizens. It leverages the massive penetration of mobile phones in India to substantially enhance access to electronic services, especially in rural areas. Real-time status on implementation of the project is available on the Mobile Seva portal (www.mgov.gov.in) and through social media sites (Facebook – www.facebook.com/DIT.MGOV; Twitter – @mgovindia).
The eTaal project was started to monitor thee-transactions in eGovernance projects including Mission Mode Projects. What can be done to increase these E-transactions?
e-Taal provides visibility to the number of e-transactions in national and state level eGovernance services being provided in the country. Currently over 11.6 crore e-transactions per month are being delivered.However, with the increase in number of services under MMPs and creation of robust ICT infrastructure, number of e-transactions is increasing day-by-day.