Substantial progress made but a lot more can be achieved in eGov

Rajiv Prakash Saxena, Ex-Deputy Director General, NIC, has recently written a book on e-governance, ‘Government of the future in the ICT era’. It is an informative book that deals in the use of technology for improving people’s life. The book covers IT as an enabling technology, various challenges across different sector for IT, e-applications & digital security and how technology can shape the future. In this freewheeling interview with EC’s Mohd Ujaley, he provides his views on various aspects of e-governance in the country.

Edited Excerpts:

Your book on e-governance, ‘Governments of the Future in the ICT Era’, has recently been published. What inspired you to write this book?
I joined NIC in the year 1983, since then I have been working on projects related to computerisation and e-governance. In 1998, I had the opportunity of going to Egypt, Tunisia and Dubai to work on a project for the UN body, UNCTAD, which is headquartered in Geneva. During my stay in these countries, I had the chance of interacting with many people who were working in the area of e-commerce. I could learn a lot from them. After returning to India, I was invited by the Delhi University Faculty of Management Studies to teach MBA students on the subject “Business on Internet.” At that time, the Government of India had also started to formulate the IT Act. I decided to write this book to bring more awareness about the benefits that can come from using ICT in governance. The book is also a kind of gift for my students. Even though I am a civil engineer and my major studies have been in the designing of earthquake resistant buildings, I have a passion for teaching on the ways by which technology can be used for improving governance.

What is your view of e-governance in the country? Do you think that the e-governance projects are moving in the right direction?
We have made substantial progress in the area of e-governance. It is now widely accepted that e-governance is must for bringing efficiency and transparency to the delivery of services to the people. With the growing popularity of mobile devices, we are now moving towards m-governance. India is a young country. Our youth is mobile and computer savvy, they want to have the facility of e-governance. Unlike the older generation, today’s youth is not ready to wait for years for good services to become available. They are impatient for change. Earlier people used to wait for many years for a telephone connection, but now these things are available in a matter of hours. I see a huge potential for e-governance, m-governance and the use of digital media in the country. There is a huge expansion in the use of ICT for providing government services to the citizens.

What are the major challenges in the implementation of e-governance projects?
Connectivity is obviously a major challenge.  Without proper connectivity, it is not possible for us to provide e-governance services. At times, the topography of certain states leads to its own set of challenges. For instance, in North – East, where the terrain is mountainous, so it is difficult to lay the cables for connectivity. In these areas, m-governance can be a better option. In major cities also there is the problem of connectivity. There is the challenge of bandwidth. Smartphone users eat up lot of bandwidth as they download graphic contents. Due to poor connectivity, the people experience of accessing government services on the go has not been as smooth as it should have been. Call drop has become a major issue.

When it comes to usage of online services by the people where do you see maximum amount of progress being made?
It is obvious that the banks and mobile payment system companies are increasingly taking the lead in technology deployment. Companies such as Paytm, which deal in mobile payments, are doing an average transaction of about Rs. 700 crore per month. This by itself is a proof of the fact that people are ready to transact online. The e-governance services must also develop similar solutions that bring convenience to the people. Paytm is planning to use data analytic tools to understand the consumer needs and behaviours in order to provide customised solution. Going forward, the data is going to be the currency; therefore it is important that even in e-governance, we should use all the modern technologies to understand the needs of the people whom we are trying to serve. We have to use technology to make sense of the huge amounts of data that government has at its disposal.

You have spoken about using technology to derive important information from the data, but currently there is shortage of data scientists in the country. How do we address this challenge?
This challenge can only be addressed by nurturing data scientist in our country. We need to overhaul our computer science curriculum. A good data scientist has to have a very sound understanding of statistics, they are trained to discover relationships that exist between different strings of the data. These days big companies are spending huge money for educating their own engineers in the new areas of statistics, which can be applied in computer science. The Digital India and Smart Cities programmes will create huge data footprints, therefore it is important to have enough data scientists who can help us formulate the policy for the overall welfare of the people.

Your book talks about digital divide in the country. What steps can we take to bridge digital divide?
In my opinion, mobile phones are the best tools for bridging digital divide. Today large numbers of applications are being built for mobile applications. We need to utilise the penetration of mobiles across the country to the best of our ability. The mobiles are also equipped with cameras. They are the virtual eyes on the move. Of course, we also need to ensure that people in the country have adequate training in modern computing systems. Currently it is more challenging to provide services in rural India than in urban India.  If we can address the challenge of digital divide, we will be able to reach large number of people.

In your book you have given list of the government’s departments in which technology could be used to enhance efficiency. In your view what are the key areas where we must deploy technology?
The facility of booking railway tickets through mobile devices can be very helpful for the common man. The service is already active, but it should be made easier and awareness should be created about it. Even though ticketing is computerised, people face many challenges in getting their ticket booked. Especially in rural areas, where connectivity is a major problem, ticket bookings through mobiles will be great help. Also, the state governments across India run buses, which are used by many people. Right now we hardly have a proper digital system for booking tickets for these buses. I think there are huge opportunities for the state transport departments to modernise the bus services with the help of technology.