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Garma
Garam More |
Education |
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. Role of Information Technology for Good Governance and Society: With a special reference to Andhra Pradesh By T.H.
Chowdary Just as chemical or metallurgical or electrical technologies enable the processing of raw materials into usable goods, to satisfy man's and societies' needs so does information technology (IT) help the storage, processing, transmission and exploitation of information to satisfy a person's, company's, society's or government's needs for information. The invention of printing was the first big break-through in Information Technology. It enabled literacy and education to go up from 10% to over 80% within 50 years by making available vast amount of reading material. That reading also led to the Reformation in Europe. Other break-throughs for Information Technology were the inventions like telegraphy, telephony, wireless or radio, television, broadcasting, computers (from room size to desk top to lap top to palm top and very soon, wearable ones.) There had been breath-taking inventions in electronics and photonics, micro-miniaturization, super and mega-scale integration; optical fiber and communication satellite transmissions, electronification and digitization of all information, storage and display devices and the transport of electronified information on worldwide telecommunication networks, increasingly under the control of the sender and the receiver. Information covers voice as in telephony, text as in fax, images as in video and data as between computers. The limitation for transmission and reception of information only from instruments connected to wires and therefore only from particular places, has been dramatically overcome by earth-based cellular mobile, radio telecoms and now by satellite based globewide mobile systems like the Iridium. Information is knowledge and knowledge is power. Knowledge plus experience is wisdom and it is the wise use of information that gives advantage to those who have information. Humanity has progressed from agricultural revolution to the industrial revolution and is now moving to an information revolution, where knowledge is the prime resource for production of goods and services. Just as machines have extended man's mechanical power and his convenience and comfort, Information Technology as commonly picturised by computers, is extending man's mind or brain or intellectual power. Information Technology devices like microprocessors are becoming mass appliances from pace makers for the heart, hearing aids, and efficiency enhancers in automobile engines and devices to steer space vehicles on the moon. The computing power in the few micro processors that are now in a Ford Motor Car is much more than all the computing power that was put in the space vehicle that landed the first men on the moon and brought them back. It is this awesome computing power at continuously falling prices and the computers being networked over global telecom highways that is leading to the use of Information Technology in every sector of human activity - banking, trading, learning and teaching, entertainment, librarying. , socializing, government, management, librarying, ...... In countries like India, which undertook government-centered development since Independence, government has become obstreperous, taking in the largest fraction of the GDP as taxes and the largest amount of their savings as loans. Government is not confined to its primary role of defence, internal security, justice, primary education, primary health, irrigation and roads, but it encompasses production, industries, services and businesses. It is commonly known that most of government's money is spent very inefficiently and much of it, on the salaries and establishment of the Government servants them selves and yet every service is inefficient. And the delays and the non-transparency and controls breed corruption. Thousands of laws have been enacted, all ostensibly in order to promote and safeguard public interest but every one of them has been misused and abused for the benefit of the politician-bureaucrat combination and for insectification of the citizens. For example, in Andhra Pradesh, about 22% of the State's GDP is the revenue of the Government and about 80% of it is spent upon salaries and establishment of Government servants. i.e., 16% of the GDP is spent on 1.4% of the people! While writing vision 2020 for Government of Andhra Pradesh, we postulated that the Government's share of the GDP should be brought down to 12.5 % and 80 % of it should be spent for development and only 20% on the salaries and establishments. How do we do this? We define the Government to be smart- SIMPLE, MORAL, ACCOUNTABLE, RESPONSIVE and TRANSPARENT. The first step is to demystify all the rules and procedures for laws enable citizens to know them not by coming to Government offices because that is the beginning of corruption but either from their homes, if they are connected to the telecom network or from public information kiosks. All work in every department is getting computerized. When once the information is not in files but in computers, tamper-proof, then governance becomes non-employee-centric. Today, any citizen making any enquiry with Government will encounter the following replies: "We
are not the department concerned." But all these things can be overcome at a price. People of India know how long it is taking for any project of the Government for completion. For example, an irrigation scheme to be completed. We also know that, delay leads to cost overruns. Recently a review by the Government of India of the projects, each one of which was costing more than Rs.100 crores, showed that due to time overruns the initial estimates had been exceeded, as of today, (the projects are still not completed) by Rs.45,000 crores ( US $ 11 billion)! If every one of these projects could be monitored and those highest in charge of them had been knowing what was causing these delays, a tremendous amount of money could have been saved and benefits of the project could have been accrued to the people far sooner. In Andhra Pradesh like in other states, just about 18 months ago, the plant load factor (PLF) of the State Electricity Board was about 54%. All its operations from generation, transmission, distribution, storage and movement of fuels and water had been computerized and daily information was captured on a computerized network and monitored by the Chief Minister himself. The PLF increased to 84%; the highest anywhere in the country! This meant that about 2000 Mega Watts of installed capacity costing over Rs. 6000 crores was obviated. Then there is the case of housing for weaker sections. It is said that hundreds of thousands of homes are sanctioned for the weaker sections. Actually, if all the sanctions for about twenty years had been added up, every family in AP (about 15 million) would have been provided with a house! There has never been any stock-taking of how many had been sanctioned; at what cost, year after year; how many of them had been completed or at what stage are they; how many of them are occupied; how many of them have been 'stolen'. (i.e., reported as completed, allotted, occupied but never were started and the money pocketed) If any question is asked even in the Assembly, the procedure would be: a circular will be sent down to the village level and some information will be obtained; where not obtained, some imaginary figures will be put and if another question is asked after six months, the same procedure is repeated and another set of figures will be given. Neither the questioner nor the Government of Andhra Pradesh which is responsible for the reply would ever bother to tally these figures. I can personally testify that this is what we have been doing from my experience as a Dy Director General in the dot. The Minister also knew and he too never believed but he had to give an answer and we knew that time would eat up every piece of paper and the information contained in it for us to come to any grief. But the use of Information Technology can profoundly change this as it has done again in the case of Andhra Pradesh. Once, an MLA barged into the Chief Minister's chambers and in an agitated manner, almost demanding said that in his constituency 200 more weaker section homes should be sanctioned. A tactful Chief Minister did not say 'No', but said "Surely." They would be sanctioned and then he got on to his PC and extracted the information instantaneously. In his constituency year after year he had the figures how many had been sanctioned at what cost and how many of them were under occupancy how many were not occupied for want of electricity, water, approach road and from how many "completed" everything like door frames and windows had been missing and so on. He showed all the figures to the MLA and asked whether it would not be better to get those under construction completed and get those that got completed occupied before some more were sanctioned. The MLA had only one answer, "yes, yes." The Chief Minister told him to get the sanctioned constructions expedited and the completed homes occupied and that he would then sanction double the number of homes that he asked for. Armed with the information that the Chief Minister gave instantaneously, the MLA could go to the various officers in the district and various departments to chase them to implement the project effectively. In order that the Government departments at various levels collect, store, extract, interpret and use for decision, the various informations updated almost daily, a State Wide Area Network (SWAN) for information transport is being built up. This is based upon an optical fiber-based, 2 MBPS connectivity of the State Headquarters to all the District Headquarters in the first instance and it will be extended to the 1100 mandals and eventually to all the villages. Within about 5 years, the information transport infrastructure will be built up, by hanging optical fiber cables on the electricity transmission pylons and towers and posts which are now going to almost all the villages. Each of the Government departments will have its own server for storing the information and making whatever is in public domain available, online. This information can be obtained by people without coming to Government offices, from public information kiosks for e.g. the std/isd booths upgraded as tele-information centers (PTICs) by equipping them with PCs. From these PTICs public will be able to transact business with Government. For example, one wants to renew his driving licence or file a sales-tax return or ascertain what is the value of the property that he is wanting to transfer and therefore what would be the registration charges. He wants to get an encumbrance certificate from a registrar. These he would be able to obtain without going to any office within a few minutes from a PTIC. The method of paying is also being worked out so that for payments, he would not have to go to any Government office. The SWAN could be used not only for information transfer but for video-conferences between the Field Officers and the Directors and Commissioners and Ministers in Hyderabad. Every Government department / state-owned enterprise like the State Electricity Board and the State Transport Corporation and hospitals will have their own local area (LANs) and metropolitan area networks (MAN), all of which will be connected to the swan. It is realized that the 2 MBPS speed will not be sufficient but plans for the alternative of using the gigabit capacity, optical fiber based infrastructure, to be provided by a joint venture involving the APSEB, are afoot. Yet another measure of making Government simple and accountable at the lowest level is the scheme, 'Prajala Vaddaku Palana' --- Government at the doorstep of people. In this scheme, all the villagers are assembled at one place usually at the Panchayat office and Government officials from all departments are also collected there. The meetings are conducted with the Chief Minister and other Ministers participating not all at the same place but with villages assigned to different ministers. Such physical meetings can only be a few in numbers. Therefore, to overcome this number limitation, IT is going to be used. There will be mobile vans fitted with V-SATs (Very Small Aperture Terminals) i.e., satellite earth stations to facilitate video conferencing, involving both way communication between the village meeting and Minister or Chief Minister or whosoever it is, in Hyderabad. A number of such mobile Vans will be positioned in different parts of the State and these will be moved from village to village for the electronic meetings. From that village site it will be possible to get every information on the SWAN and on the Internet and through the Public switched net-work (PSTN). There is not one activity of humans or their Government that would not benefit by using IT for efficiency, economy and effectiveness. What many people hear is the use of IT for export of software and for India to earn billions of dollars - 40 billion dollars or Rs. 160,000 crores by the year 2008. But that can benefit companies and a few individuals engaged in such business. That is not all the aim of the Government. Government is clear that IT would be used extensively for governance, to improve governance and the purpose of the Government is to promote human and economic development. In this, it will be promotional and not executive. Government of AP is clear that it is the people's enterprises and initiatives that shall accomplish development and that Government should only be a facilitator of such development and remover of all obstacles. Its leaders can place before the people a great vision of enabling oneself by excellent education, to be enterprising and to be creating wealth and to provide employment for those who are not so endowed with either education or enterprise or wealth. Source:
PRAJNA JOURNAL |
