'Gradually, all govt services will be available online'

The Inquirer

Speaking to Kalyan Ray of Deccan Herald, Union IT secretary R Chandrasekhar shares the details of e-governance road-map and challenges. Excerpts:

It’s almost 10 years since the IT Act, 2001, came into being with two broad objectives. While e-commerce has picked up, e-governance seems to be lagging behind, why?

The IT Act was to give a legal framework for e-commerce and e-governance. Commerce was largely driven by the market. In governance, the drivers are different and changes happen slowly. A clarity of vision on how to execute the e-gov projects, the services to be included and the deliverables came with the national e-governance plan in May 2006.

The government claims more than 600 services are available now through e-gov modes. ut services are not available in all places. What’s your comment?

There are a number of departments which provide a large number of services from many places. Take income tax for example. There are more than 700 IT offices in the country. There has to be a gameplan to cover all services in all offices over time. The most important step is to offer a service online and then extend it to all the offices.

There are two types of projects. In the central sector projects like IT, excise and corporate affairs, where one department is responsible for the country, implementation has reached a very advanced stage as almost all the services are available online in the entire country. In corporate affairs, it is mandatorily available since 2006. You cannot get manual service at all. The services include registration, filing of annual returns, creation of charge for companies, change of directors, etc.

What about the states?

The state sector projects include land records, property registration, police, transport, panchayat and e-district projects (specific services at a sub-district level like issuing a caste certificate or widow pension or paying the utility bills). The centre provides funding and some technical support whereas states implement it. The complexity here is there are multiple authorities and it depends on how the states utilise the central funds. The progress varies from state to state as all of them are not equally keen and energetic.
As many as 15 states have digitised land records, but there are still a dozen states that cannot migrate to the digital modes as their digitised land records are not up to date. On the other hand, Karnataka has completely migrated and you cannot get the manual copy of land records. It is a mixed picture in state service projects, which have longer lead time than central projects. They will take a year or two more to complete the projects.

States adopt different methods and standards in implementing the e-gov projects. How do you ensure country-wide standardisation?

What are the critical standards required for inter-operability are laid down by the centre. For instance, in the Motor Vehicles Act, the method of numbering and registration has been specified by the central government following a central legislation. The application (software) was developed centrally and states customised it.

Authentication remains an issue with e-gov. Farmers need to authenticate the computer printouts of their land records from an officer. How do you plan to get rid of it?

In the ultimate stage of e-governance, authentication will not be required as it is a legacy of the paper system. When the e-governance system is complete, the authority who receives the documents, can verify them online. We are in the process of connecting various offices so that documents can be seen online and authentication will remain an interim measure.

What’s the road-map for e-governance?

We plan to form multiple special purpose vehicles to manage the expenses and revenue in e-gov projects. The SPV also allows the government to hire consultants from outside for project management and execution on a short term basis as well as in taking quick decisions. For instance, if a machine is not working, a quick decision needs to be taken for replacing it because the service cannot wait.

For the 14 mission mode central projects, all of them have gone live. In the mission mode projects like pension, central excise, IT, passport, banking and insurance, as many as 1,100 services are being made available progressively, with full availability happening by 2014. State projects like land records and road transport are expected to cover the entire country by 2016-17.

Is the mindset of government officials hampering e-gov growth?

The government officials are accustomed to writing on files. Changing that habit is not easy as they feel uncomfortable with computers. Also, in smaller towns and villages, even the basic infrastructure is a problem. To make e-gov happen, process changes are required. But it’s difficult to make the entire change at one go.