Memoirs

Inauguration of the conference

Mani Shankar Aiyer, Union Minister of Panchayati Raj, Youth Affairs & Sports, Government of India addressing the auidence

Jainder Singh, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of India delevering keynote address

R Chandrashekhar, Addl. Secretary, DIT, Government of India replying to the audience query

Delegates going through CSDMS publications

Maxine Olson, Jainder Singh and Kriason Prosuntee at the exhibition www.egovonline.net |

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Maxine Olson, UNDP India, Country Representative delevering keynote address

Adrian Marti, Deputy Country Head Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Geneva

Kraisorn Pornsutee, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information & Communication Technology, Thailand

Dr M P Narayanan, President CSDMS

Kiran Karnik, President NASSCOM

Ravi Gupta, Director CSDMS

Session in progress

Delegates at the conference

Memento presentation to a panelist

CSDMS team

| October 2006

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information of the department can be given to the press and the people swiftly. The blog is serving well as a medium to disseminate information on the recent findings and criminal cases. The conference comprised 3 days of plenary and parallel speaker sessions, including keynote speeches from Ministers, Chief Information Secretary and IT Secretaries. The conference was structured into plenary sessions, main sessions and parallel track. The first plenary session was titled Indias eGovernment Journey: Where can India be in 2010, aimed at framing an eGovernment vision session to provide a strong focus on what is to be achieved by India in five years. The objective of this session was to provide a high-level plan that will enable the government to realise its e-Government vision and attain a position of leadership in e-Governance by 2010. This is in the light of the recently approved National e-Governance Action Plan (NeGP) for implementation during the year 2003-2007. R. Chandrashekhar, Additional Secretary, DIT (GoI), outlined 10 goals of e-Government in India. These include government information and services that can be delivered electronically are available through this mode for all high volume areas (say any service that involves more than 1,000 transactions a year); broadband access available in every village through OFC / wireless; community access points (assisted access) for all electronic services (government and private) are available in every village or at most, in the adjoining village; all services are available in the local language; call centers that can be accessed from any mobile telephone that provide information/ services 24/7; every individual in the country has a unique ID that is easily verifiable including biometric data; high quality digital educational content in regional languages accessible in all villages; reach of Health services extended to villages through use of the ICT platform; products and services of rural India have access to global markets; and, all rural residents have access to domestic and international telecommuting based employment opportunities. Today, most government departments in India work as silos and when it 42

comes to computerisation and service delivery, there is lot of duplication of efforts. States or departments begin from scratch every time to develop their own applications, learning very less from others experiences. There is a major communication failure and lack of experience and knowledge sharing among different states and departments. Therefore the foremost question is how to break the silos and move towards standards and common processes so that the rollout of e-Government projects are faster and efficient. The focus at this juncture should be to see how not to re-invent the wheel. This was the objective of the second plenary panel discussion. Another panel discussion was on how to harness Public-Private Partnerships. Besides, eminent speakers from government, industry and NGOs from India and abroad discussed and deliberated on issues such as: Indias eGovernment Journey: Way ahead, Publicprivate partnerships in e-Government, eGovernment in Municipalities, Standards and Interoperability, Central Mission Mode Projects and State initiatives in e-Governance, International Perspectives in e-Government, e-Procurement, Security and e-Government, Capacity building and e-Health. Their views and pers-pectives provided a great learning experience to the participants. Through the exhibition, the conference provided an opportunity for updating on new advancements, solutions and services in the field of e-Governance. The event had different exhibitors from the government and industry, who showcased a wide range of products, services and initiatives in the domain of eGovernment. These included Adobe, Canon, HP, Intel, Nortel, SAP, Wipro, Telelogic, Wipro, Government of Delhi and Jharkhand, among others. There were two workshops (viz., UN Solution Exchange Workshop on Knowledge Management and Moving out of the Pilot Syndrome organised by UNDP and NISG) that provided an opportunity for delegates to interact and share with each other their viewpoints and experiences in various aspects of e-Government. The conference concluded with the valedictory session, chaired by CSDMS Director, Ravi Gupta and co-chaired by

M P Narayanan, President, CSDMS. The panelists included Adrian Marti, Deputy Country Head, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Piti Premotedham, Managing Director, Asia South, Computer Associates, Subhash C Khuntia, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, GoI. There was an interactive discussion on the conference outputs among the participants and panelists. During the concluding stage of the conference, the recommendations put forth by delegates for the government to take note of and include it while planning e-Government projects. The recommendations are as follows: There should be a move towards joined-up government, and executives (CEOs) be made responsible for ensuring horizontal and vertical integration; Incubate and document best practices and critical success factors for projects. It should be a collective effort of government and private sector; Active involvement of the civil society is a must; Organisations for outreach of services to the citizens and content development; All services be made available in local languages; 80% of needs for rural citizens pertain to health, education and agriculture, which needs to be addressed primarily through Common Service Centres; Need for a national policy on Standards; Quantitative assessment of e-Government projects and outcomes is required; Adopt Enterprise Architecture as a process; Use of e-Forms should be made mandatory; There is a need to engage engineering and computer science students in e-Government projects and communicate to them about standards; Need to have a comprehensive plan against security threats; and, Establish whole-of-government IT Portfolio management. The delegates unanimously lauded the organising of the conference. A delegate from Nepal said, I congratulate for the superb egov India 2006 Conference. The conference was well thought-out and coordinated. I have been dedicating my time on e-Government for more than four years and have read many journals related to the subject. I think I have gained more practical information from this conference than in the last four years of my academic investigation. www.egovonline.net |