On Digital India: Vision 2020 For An e-Governed Nation

If the NEGP was a catalyst for IT adoption in the government sector, the Union Government's 10-point agenda for IT certainly opened the gates for IT adoption wider, in 2005. Of course, there was the State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and Common Services Center (CSC) policy announced by the Department of Information Technology, which brought e-Governance to the forefront of all government decision-making.

However, there were still some issues—besides the proposal to solve the infrastructure issue, a policy to take governance closer to the rural population and a very essential political will, there was an urgent need for government process re-engineering, civil services reforms including a certain fixed tenure for senior government employees and the Right to Information.

These and other such challenges were brought up for discussion during the Dataquest e-Gov Summit 2005. The who’s who of the Indian bureaucracy participated, including R Chandrashekhar, Jt Secretary e-Gov, DIT; N Vijayaditya, DG-NIC; Aman Singh, Jt Secretary to Chhatisgarh CM; Dr Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Secretary-IT, Maharashtra; Prakash Kumar, Secretary-IT and Administrative Reforms, Delhi; and Dr GD Gautama, Secretary-IT, West Bengal.

The Dataquest Initiative

Going forward from its e-Gov Summit 2005, Dataquest continued with its efforts to push many of these demands through the year. It started with some dedicated pages in the magazine, which finally took the shape of a whole section on e-Governance. This is a part of Dataquest’s initiative to participate in a nation-building exercise by pushing a cause with a high social impact, in order to bridge the digital divide and the information gap, and bringing in transparency in governance. This will empower India to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of ‘Good Governance’.

The results have been spectacular. ‘Moving beyond the Pilot project’, the call that Dataquest gave during the 2005 Summit, India is now resolutely on the path of meeting the MDG goal through IT intervention and civil services reforms. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has already indicated the need for a fixed tenure for government officials; the RTI Act is already in place; the initiatives for increasing PC and Internet penetration is on its way; and a committee has been constituted to create standards for e-Gov projects.

All this translated to a 30% increase in government spending on IT—up from Rs 4,089 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 5,334 crore in 2004-05. It also accounted for 12% of the total domestic IT consumption, making India one of top three spenders on IT.

Overview

A crucial ingredient that fails most e-Governance projects is improper conceptualization and implementation, besides, of course, domain knowledge. Strangely, in a country which boasts of being the IT service provider to the world, many who understand the government do not understand IT, and not many who understand IT necessarily understand governance.

Moving on from Dataquest’s first Summit in 2005, the Dataquest e-Governance Summit 2006 aims to address exactly these issues by reaching the stakeholders through the four-city regional seminar format.

Besides helping in capacity building, in order to create a balance of domain expertise and IT knowledge, the Dataquest e-Gov Summit 2006 aims to address ‘The Vision’, imperative for a country to chalk out a long-term integrated roadmap and for making India truly digital.

Continuing with last year's trend, the conference will focus on presentations that address key segments for implementing e-Governance. These would include Best Practices and Case Studies from across India. The theme of this year's Summit ‘Digital India: Vision 20:20 for an e-Governed Nation’ sums up the intent.

The highlight of the Summit would be the felicitation ceremony of e-Governance Champions at the regional-level. Besides, a regional-level ‘Best e-Governed State Award’ based on the Dataquest-IDC e-Gov Satisfaction Index Survey will also be given to the winning state.

The DQ “e-Gov 10” For 2006

Finally, as a deliverable, action point summary, and a ‘best practice précis’, this event aims to arrive by consensus at a ten-point agenda for the key stakeholders, especially governments. These should be practical and achievable steps that will take the country significantly forward in the year ahead: 10 milestones that can be measured.