----------------- Forwarded Message: Subj:Bangalore one Project – A reverse gear e-governance: Re: IAS officer reply with respect e-Seva project to Central MIT Minister, NISG, INDIA-EGov, CM's, Secretary's of e-Gov, WHICH is being REPLICATED in Karanataka State Date:3/12/2005 8:28:39 PM Pacific Standard TimeFrom:umashankarc@yahoo.comTo:ellakannada@yahoo.com, cm@karnatakacm.com, cm@kar.nic.in, cs@karnataka.gov.in, itsec@bangaloreit.com, devcom@karnataka.gov.in, prs-fd@karnataka.gov.in, secybud-fd@karnataka.gov.in, secyexp-fd@karnataka.gov.in, hcom@vsb.kar.nic.in, prs-infra@karnataka.gov.in, prs-home@karnataka.gov.in, prshigh-edu@karnataka.gov.inCC:vs@nisg.org, ceo@nisg.org, piyush.gupta@nisg.org, satyajit.suri@nisg.org, sandeep.paidi@nisg.org, binay.sharma@nisg.org, bala.srinivas@nisg.org, rekha@nisg.org, devajoy.choudhury@nisg.org, umashankarc@yahoo.com, minister@mit.gov.in, mos@mit.gov.in, secretary@mit.gov.in, srinath@mit.gov.in, rgilani@mit.gov.in, dg@nic.in, lalitha@hub.nic.in, kashinath@hub.nic.in, pspillai@hub.nic.in, ellakannada@yahoo.com, novamed@aol.com, India-egov@yahoogroups.com, ellakavi@yahoogroups.com, ias-tn@yahoogroups.comSent from the Internet (Details) Bangalore one Project – A reverse gear e-governance
Author: C.Umashankar IAS., (TN) http://www.sugame.com/umashankar umashankarc@gmail.com The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and they do not reflect the views of any Government or the Indian Administrative Service.
In the name of e-governance, Karnataka had decided to favour a consortium of private companies through Bangalore One project. Actually there is no e-governance in the whole design of Bangalore One! Collection of utility bills or collection of passport applications can not be considered e-governance. Bangalore one is a purely vendor driven utility bill collection arrangement whereby the citizen who enjoys remitting the sum through different banks and different modes as on today is being cornered to make the payment through the kiosks operated by the private vendors. The effort would be to discontinue the online payment portals (I wonder whether they are operational even now) and direct service facility through the respective offices/organisations.
I would appreciate the Karnataka Government if it had decided to carry out this venture for true e-governance such as online procedure for all licences and permits, government approvals for building permits, RTOs, labour department procedure, employment exchanges, treasury payments, entire commercial tax procedure, traffic police operations, police station operations, rural development operations, highways and PWD operations and so on.
The proposed Bangalore one nonsense does not cover any of these areas!
After commencing true e-governance through Bhoomi, with the full technical help of National Informatics Centre (NIC), my esteemed colleague Rajiv Chawla had jettisoned NIC and went for private vendors. And this time it is not e-governance, but a good business for a private partner in the name of e-governance. The undoing of the e-governance momentum in Karnataka had just begun.
What is the agenda behind this move?
I have certain pertinent questions?
Why a State Government wants to involve itself in collection of BSNL bills? BSNL and all telecom operators have their collection systems already in position. Why include them? Is it to show ‘volume of business’ which the AP government boasts now and then when they talk about their e-seva centres! The volume of business is an utter nonsense. Even without the e-seva or Bangalore one, the volume of business is there. It is not that these kiosks generate this volume. The BSNL (or like organisations which have joined the bill collection kiosks) does all the hard work. They generate the revenue through their own business plan, infrastructure and manpower. The kiosks simply collect these amounts as collection agents. But this amount is shown (which is usually large) as a turnover from the kiosks. It is a cheap business trick. If I could find out the cheap trick beyond this smoke and hype, it is not going to take much time for others to find out this in the near future. After India had commenced liberalisation, the States and Central Government have hardly any role in private business. They have to move out from their existing business ventures through disinvestment. The Government of India and State governments have already been doing this. But Karnataka wants to get into private business! It cannot be argued that this effort would result in better citizen services. Because the citizens of Bangalore have already been enjoying online payment facility and payment facility through multiple bank counters. The kiosks would restrict them to go to these 15-50 counters! It is going to be a downgraded service and not the other way around. And what are the plans for the rural masses! Can this service provide online Old Age Pension service or can it allow the rural masses to enhance their democratic participation through transparent and online rural development administration? Can it empower the women, especially the rural women or can it empower the SC/STs?
I am deeply concerned and so I am using harsh words against my own wishes. Why I am concerned? I am explaining the cause of my worry in the succeeding paragraphs.
Before I explain why the Bangalore one nonsense is against humanity, let me share my anguish from a real life situation.
Runaway bribe culture. Can Bangalore One rein in this culture? A month and half ago, one of my acquaintances approached me and informed that an officer was demanding Rs.10 lakhs to clear a file. There was nothing unusual or out of the way in the whole proposal. Even when everything was alright with the proposal he was asked to remit the huge sum as bribe. I wanted to intervene. But my acquaintance said that if I intervened the whole thing would be off and they would ensure that he would be ruined. He begged me to desist from interfering. He did not have the money to pay the bribe. Rupees ten lakhs is not a small sum! This acquaintance had come up in his life doing porter service in Chennai railway station. Through sheer hard work he had come up in life. The situation was that if he did not pay the bribe, he was going to lose the whole investment which he had already made in that venture. This was all borrowed money. So he chose to borrow the bribe sum and remitted the same in two instalments. Even after remitting the huge bribe, the officer had cleared only one out of the two proposals. The other one is still pending. In between I had to go to Bihar for election duty. Today morning (12th March 2005) the acquaintance called me to inform about this daughter’s engagement. I asked him a few more questions. Yes, till date he did not get approval for the second part of the proposal though he had paid the full sum (agreed bribe sum for both the proposals). His partner had decided to break off from the business because of this delay. I also asked him whether he dealt with through agents or the officer himself had interacted with him directly. He replied that the officer himself gave the instructions in person to him. He had paid the last instalment of Rs.2 lakhs at Nagercoil bus stand, as per the officer’s instructions!
Now people would raise questions, in all the wrong ways! (The way Tehelka was witch hounded) Why you did not inform the Government? You are also a silent accomplice to this fraud and so on. Let me request you to look at the point I wish to drive at the end of this paragraph.
(I informed the CBI. They said they would not be able to do anything without the consent of the State Government. They are now looking for the assets of this officer. If the assets are created in TamilNadu they would be able to catch him. But I am sure he is a clever guy. He would be creating the assets in some other State).
What I have described here is only a tip of the iceberg. I don’t have many acquaintances who run business or do special commercial ventures. Within this limited number I got this information. I tremble to imagine the real magnitude of corruption in TamilNadu and rest of India. If something like this can happen in TamilNadu which is supposed to be a better administered State, what could be the position in other States?
Now the question is does the Bangalore one project have the prowess to curb this type of looting of honest citizens? No. None of the services envisaged has anything to do with e-governance. At present these utility bills are being collected by the respective organisations. In addition to that infrastructure they are creating a new kiosk infrastructure only to benefit the private partner. This private partner (consortium) would go to another State such as Maharashtra, Rajasthan, TN etc and get another order. This is a pollution of the highest order. Unfortunately, this pollution spreads faster than the environmental pollution.
Role of NISG e-governance is supposed to capture the government processes and not the bill collection alone. As explained here, Bangalore One does not have any components of e-governance. NISG, a new venture to support e-governance in the country apparently does not know the meaning of e-governance. I fail to understand the decision of NISG to be part of Bangalore One. This is a pure and cheap commercial venture in which an august body such as the NISG has no role at all. This had demoralised die hard e-governance lobbyists like me. What demoralises the e-gov enthusiasts more is that the wrong lead given by NISG may lead to a series of wrong ventures in Karnataka and other states too.
Bangalore One is going to raise questions about the existence of NISG!
What is e-governance? e-governance is the process of automating the government operations in such a manner that wherever the government to citizen/ G to business/ G to G interface takes place the same should be electronic enabled. This means the citizens should be enabled to file all their applications for licences, permits etc online and get the orders of the Government / local body online. Internet has to play a crucial role. The Government offices /local body offices have to be e-enabled to process the entire requests online. Primacy should be given to electronic records and NOT paper records. The citizen interface should be fully e-governed. The government employees should commit their transactions online. All the Tottenham based personal registers have to give way to process driven automation system! In short, process automation is the key to e-governance. Similarly, the business houses have to get a facility whereby their entire interaction with the Government should go online. Today, the business community in India has to bribe its way in all its interaction with the Government. If one wants to register a company and obtain a Sales Tax certificate there is a price, the labour department has its own pricing system for every type of transactions, the inspector of factory office has its price, the electrical inspector has his price, the Assistant Commissioner of Commercial Tax department has his/her price, and the tale of owe goes on and on. Another of my acquaintances was explaining his recent encounter with a lady Assistant Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (enforcement) department in Chennai. This lady officer believes in straight business. Her way is to start the bribe negotiations right at the first minute of her entering the premises of a factory/company. She fixes her amount and places her demand for bribe sum even before setting her eye on any of the records of the factory / company which she visits. The private companies, even if they are very honest are scarred to gain enmity of these vultures because they can always find some technical fault. Even if there is none, they can write a false report and implicate a defiant company. It is extremely painful for an honest businessman in India to run his business. Lack of transparency which induces corruption is the root cause. It is a different matter that unless these businessmen carry out their day to day activities there can be no employment, no taxes, no income to the Government and there can be no government worth its salt too. Yet, the honesty of businessmen is tested on a day to day basis all over the country by these vultures. The system however is a darling for the unscrupulous businessmen. In the end, the citizen is the loser. For every such bribe paid, the businessman has to recoup the ‘loss’ though some other way. The balancing act results in public damage such as adulteration, under wieghment etc. e-governance has to put a check on these vultures. By resorting to process driven automation system and bringing up all the citizen/business interfaces online, the Governments can achieve a high level of efficiency and revenue accruals.
Had it happened in Karnataka? There are only two places in India where process automation takes place, viz., Tiruvarur district of TamilNadu (1999 onwards in all Taluk offices) and in Taluk offices of Karnataka (Bhoomi project (2001) which does the limited operation with regard to land record maintenance in rural Karnataka). One needs to e-enable the citizens by hosting these services online using internet and open source software as medium. Karnataka’s proposed Bangalore one nonsense has no solution to any of the ills descried above.
Let us make an analysis of the Bangalore one. The pluses and minuses of Bangalore one 1. it has no governance or e-governance content. It has no software for handling the back office operations of the government offices. It does not have even a single service which can be called e-governance. Payment of utility bills does not come under governance at all. This may come under the definition of (part of) e-commerce. It is a different matter that Governments have no business to involve themselves in e-commerce. It is an exclusive domain of the private corporate. 2. it has nothing for the business community, save for the consortium which had been identified for the implementation of the project. 3. it is not process automation based. 4. it does not have any plan for the Government offices. It has plans only for the window dressing (kiosks) 5. it does not have anything for the poor who constitute over 50% of Kannadigas. 6. it has nothing for the rural areas, which constitute 75-80% of Karnataka. 7. it has nothing for women or SC/STs. (The rural e-seva project which has been under implementation in West Godawari district of Andhra Pradesh has given primacy to women self help groups for the kiosk operations. Though the West Godawari project had not automated the back office operations, it had resulted in massive empowerment of the rural women. For this achievement, Sanjay Jaju and his team deserve all credits. West Godawari had gradually started building the back office automation as well, according to the latest reports. Why Karnataka chose to ignore this women empowerment issue?) 8. Bangalore one or any other similar project has the retarding effect of stalling true e-governance projects. This had already happened in AP. The e-seva project had resulted in stalling of all other efforts to bring in true e-governance. AP has nothing to quote as genuine e-governance effort except the registration department automation which was commenced before the commencement of e-seva. The private vendors would allow anything which has something for them. After tasting success in one project such as the e-seva, they look for only the ‘revenue models’ and not something which is beneficial to the citizens/common man. The revenue model means revenue to them. May be it is a shared revenue. 9. According to the e-mail admission from NISG, the NISG which manages the Bangalore one nonsense has no plans for rural areas. (http://www.sugame.com/umashankar)
Sabotaging political will True e-governance requires a strong political will. The very fact that Karnataka had reached this level with Bangalore One shows that there is tremendous political will for e-governance in Karnataka. The political executive apparently is of the opinion that they had given go ahead for e-governance. They had no idea that they had consented to something which does not come under the definition of e-governance! This had been clearly explained in the foregone paragraphs. I am deeply concerned that such a political good will coming from Karnataka Government is being cunningly diverted to a smoke screen project which is aimed at benefiting only the private sector implementing agencies/consortium. By the time the political leaders realise this malady, precious time would have been lost. A forward looking and potential state for wholesale e-governance is going down in an abyss. A potential opportunity is being wasted through this diversion! Who is behind this Bangalore One nonsense?
Why the advocates of Bangalore One are afraid of True e-governance? After achieving political will, true e-governance venture requires careful assessment and planning. It requires leaders. It needs the support of the Government employees. It needs champions from among the bureaucrats to spearhead the momentum. This list is only illustrative. These steps involve real leadership and efforts. People don’t want to take pain or leadership. They want to show results without any efforts or pain. So, the private operators come up with this magic wand called e-seva, a magic wand that worked ‘wonders’ in Andhra Pradesh. But the times have changed. When Andhra’s e-seva was introduced, India was nowhere in the e-gov field. Now there is tremendous awareness among Indians within India and abroad. The magic wand is going to fail this time. The very fact that I have written this piece shows that the magic wand has already been failing to impress! Every paisa spent on Bangalore One project has to be brought under CAG’s scanner. Today experts in e-governance are ready to volunteer the CAG’s team to study and analyse a deeds/misdeeds of a government in the area of e-governance.
Let us start with Bangalore One and then with the momentum created by it let us implement other e-gov projects! This was the question posed by a senior officer of Karnataka Government when we had a telephone discussion on this subject. The officer wanted to know the feedback from me for various angles. So, he acted as a devil’s advocate and raised a few questions. This is one of them. I answered him that Bangalore One would not create the momentum one expects.
‘When we implement e-governance solutions we need to put our best foot forward. We should never put the wrong foot forward. Because the first wrong foot forward would beget another wrong foot. For example, the Andhra e-seva project which was a wrong foot forward had already resulted in another wrong foot in the form of e-procurement which is totally vendor driven. There is no enabling factor in both these projects. So, my opinion is that Karnataka should not put its wrong foot forward. The proposed Bangalore One project would not result in any empowerment. We need the Government employees, citizens and the Government to get empowered through any typical e-governance effort. In the Bangalore one project, the Government and government employees are being kept away. Only the private vendor has his say all the way. Bangalore one would create a severe dependency factor. Both the Government (its employees also) and the citizens have to be dependent on the private partners who carry out the project. This goes against all parameters’
I also informed another angle as to why Karnataka should not go for Bangalore one with the present content. This is my genuine concern too. We all know that the press is dominated by the middle class. The middle class oriented press would look at the hype that is being generated by Bangalore One with special interest. The hype will be generated by the private partners as they are getting a sizeable income out of this project. Looking at the hype, the press would start writing great stories about Bangalore One. The very same private operators would assist the preparation of documentation for prestigious awards such as Stockholm challenge etc. The officers behind the project would get some award because the awards have to be given to some one, every year. After getting such awards, the officers who are behind this project would feel satisfied that they had achieved some great thing (whereas their achievement is next to nothing) and then they would never have the drive to look at the rural areas, women empowerment, SC/ST empowerment using e-governance and so on. So, Bangalore One has the potential to thwart Karnataka One, meaning Karnataka on top of every other States in e-governance. The so called e-governance which is actually collection of utility bills in Bangalore city would be restricted to the precincts of Bangalore city. The effort would not evolve into process automation based e-governance in Bangalore city (BMC) or in rest of the government processes in the entire Karnataka state.
Private partner driven bogus e-governance, a threat to India’s future I am concerned at this lurking danger that e-governance effort in India would be hijacked by these private partners. The national e-governance action plan had been approved for Rs.12,500 crores. Everyone who wants to do business may have an eye on this pie. The businessmen who believe in short cuts may like to propose e-seva/Bangalore One like projects only. This would result in total discredit to the concept of e-governance in India. It is my assessment that even 50 years after the introduction of projects such as e-seva or Bangalore One, the government offices would continue to be the same. The vultures in the government offices (calling themselves as Government officers) would continue to fleece the citizens. The politicians would remain happy because these vultures would offer a share of the booty to the political class for their election expenses. But the citizen would continue to be a slave under a fully ‘e-governed’ atmosphere. The citizen would have two sets of full fledged governments, one run by the actual government and the other by the vendors who have taken up the ‘e-governance’ projects. Both of them would have equal number of employees. In the initial period of hype, the private sector bill collection centres may not indulge in fraud or corruption. Such a situation would not continue for long. A time would come, not long from now, we would hear the news that the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti corruption had entered XYZ seva centres and seized unaccounted money or records. This would be the natural result of an over grown bureaucracy run by the private sector to administer ‘e-governance’. The women, especially the rural women would continue to remain deprived and oppressed. Their husbands would happily beat them as usual despite the change in times, from a traditionally governed nation to a fully ‘e-governed’ nation. The Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe population would continue to be discriminated against with no change in the social system. They would be confined to their slums/bastis despite the governments taking great strides in the sphere of so called e-governance.
Oh! I am sorry for Karnataka and sorry for India. Long live Bangalore One
Umashankar 12th March 2005 umashankarc@gmail.com http://www.sugame.com/umashankar Apologies for using the word nonsense often. I did not find a more appropriate word than this to express my feelings.
The inner voice: 1. There are enough number of critics to any new initiative! Do you have a solution framework Umashankar? I hear this voice. Yes I do have a solution framework. In fact the whole write up had stemmed out from such a solution framework. I cannot volunteer unless the decision makers who matter wish to change course and listen to the right ways. I am willing to collaborate. Of course open source will be the base line for any such initiative or idea.
2. Open source vs. proprietary software: I have not got into the open source Vs. proprietary source (Microsoft) issue which is very much relevant as on today. Because there is much more here which forced me to analyse the basis of the project, a project which has no foundation! Open source, the beauty of future mankind has to wait for its turn.
--- Venkat Kumaraswamy ellakannada@yahoo.com wrote:
Hello Members of this forum,
This is an email written by one of the IAS officers of INDIA from TAMILANADU CADRE. No member from this great forum has not even talked about and discussed about this. WHY ? He talks about e-Seva Project of AP, which is now being REPLICATED as BANGALORE ONE project in Karnataka State.
Any one in this forum knows how much money has tarnsferred hands in this transaction? This has happenend without TENDER PROCESS. It has goine to the same company. How can you all expect things are going to get corrected in INDIA. World Bank Funds, UNDP Funds, USAID , USAEP funds and othe agencies funds is being used by GOI and State govts. in INDIA for some of these projects.
I think we should send this email of this IAS officer to WORLD BANK, UNDP and other agencies so that they all should know what is happenning in INDIA. IS e-GOV really happenning in INDIA by reading this email ?????
This forum should discuss these kind of things openly, so that things can get corrected.
Forwarded Message: Subj:Re: ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY - Bangalore one - Sucides need not be assisted by NISG Date:1/27/2005 7:06:28 AM Pacific Standard
TimeFrom:umashankarc@yahoo.comTo:ellakannada@yahoo.com,
minister@mit.gov.in, mos@mit.gov.in, secretary@mit.gov.in, srinath@mit.gov.in, rgilani@mit.gov.in, dg@nic.in, lalitha@hub.nic.in, kashinath@hub.nic.in, pspillai@hub.nic.in, cm@karnatakacm.com, cm@kar.nic.in, cs@karnataka.gov.in, itsec@bangaloreit.com, devcom@karnataka.gov.in, vs@nisg.org, ceo@nisg.org, piyush.gupta@nisg.org, satyajit.suri@nisg.org, sandeep.paidi@nisg.org, binay.sharma@nisg.org, bala.srinivas@nisg.org, rekha@nisg.org, devajoy.choudhury@nisg.org, prs-fd@karnataka.gov.in, secybud-fd@karnataka.gov.in, secyexp-fd@karnataka.gov.in, hcom@vsb.kar.nic.in, prs-infra@karnataka.gov.in, prs-home@karnataka.gov.in,
prshigh-edu@karnataka.gov.inCC:ellakannada@yahoo.com,
novamed@aol.com, India-egov@yahoogroups.comSent from the Internet (Details)
27-1-05
Dear Mr.Kumaraswamy,
The e-seva concept implemented by Government of AP is meant for underdeveloped states. It would not suit developed States such as Karnataka, TN or Kerala.
The e-seva concept completely ignores two vital aspects viz., back office automation in the respective government offices and its non replicability in rural areas.
The citizen is forced to go to the e-seva centres to avail the service whereas he/she can do it from home using his computer or any other computer. In the short run it may look like a great thing. But as it progresses one would realise that it is a step backward and not forward.
e-seva is mostly for payment of utility bills. This is not e-governance. These items come under e-commerce.
In Chennai you can pay your utility bills without movin g out from your home. All you need to do is to authorise your banker to make the remittances online. This is a free of cost service. The tax payers' money with the government agencies is also saved.
The citizen should have a variety of options to make the utility payments. It should not be restricted to the e-seva centres. By adopting the e-seva concept in Bangalore, Karnataka is taking a step backwards as it treats its citizens illiterate who require the assistance of the e-seva centres. e-seva concept is good when the citizen is illiterate and is not in a position to operate computers on his/her own. I am sure Bangalore citizens are literate enough to operate computers.
By adopting e-seva concept the Government of Karnataka is putting a huge seal on true e-gov efforts. Because, under e-seva concept, back office automation is given a go by. That means the back office work would continue to be under the manual method or a non scientific computerised method.
Ideally speaking, the back office should be automated using online methodology. Each and every government official has to switch over to mouse and keyboard from pen and paper. After succeeding in this effort, the agencies have to open up their online counters to the public. This includes internet based payments. This would result in true transformation in the country.
e-seva would kill such a transformation initiative.
e-seva can be taken up only where user charges are there. Can you imagine user charges in rural development areas and social welfare areas?
That means the so called "e-governance" would never reach these people in Karnataka. My colleagues would be happy to announce it as yet another greatest thing they have done. They may even be awarded with international citation!
An e-governance effort without taking into account the poor section of the society can be called only anti human.
Well, I have one more observation to make. Can e-seva reduce the loot that is being committed by Government officials and others in RTOs/police stations/PWD/HW offices/ education department/labour department/industries department/commercial taxes department? What about building licences! You can get a glaring building construction violation as long as you pay the right money to the Bangalore officials! Can they make the building construction approval online? Can they book the corrupt rats in the Bangalore corporation through e-seva? Can they issue driving licences and vehicle permits through e-seva centres?
Let us first make the licence raj online. The country is under the peril of being disintegrated due to corruption in government departments?
And where is the role for NISG here? Sucides can be done without NISG's assistance too!
Regards.
Umashankar
C.Umashankar IAS., (TamilNadu Cadre) e-governance expert and Member (Special Invitee) - Working group for implementation of National e-governance action plan, Government of India, New Delhi. Member, India e-gov group. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/India-egov/
Current assignment: Election Observer (General) in East Champaran district - Motihari town from 7th Feb 2005 to 1st March 2005. Tel: 06252-241035 Mob: 94316-32262
Chennai: Ph: 91-44-52054443 94443-82827
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