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Vinson Kurian

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, April 14

THE Central and the State Governments have given in-principle approval for setting up a Rs 20-crore State Information Infrastructure (SII) to facilitate online Government to Government (G2G) interactions and backend operations in Kerala and have agreed to share the required capital investments equally.

The Electronics Research and Development Centre of India (ER&DCI) has given a detailed proposal for setting up the SII, according to a status paper on implementation of e-governance initiatives in the State.

The project, titled Diamond, would leverage on the two mbps free connectivity offered by various companies to whom the State Government had provided the Rights of Way for laying fibre. It is expected that the project would be completed during the course of the current financial year itself.

Efforts are also on for designing of an integrated citizen database drawing on a relevant provision on consultancy services incorporated in the memorandum of understanding on e-governance signed by the State Government with the Centre.

The framework required for a standardised software deployment has also been planned as part of this effort. While dwelling on the roadmap for implementing the e-governance initiatives over the next few years, the paper said its success would depend critically on the human resource development strategies followed.

This is particularly true given the fact that IT implementation in Government is fundamentally an administrative reforms programme rather than pure mechanisation of work. The training has to inculcate a philosophy of new and soft skills apart from functional computer skills. This aspect needs to be considered when framing training programmes as well as evolving human resource development and management.

Another concept that needs to be brought into the gamut of e-governance initiatives is that of integration. While the State has reached a certain level of IT implementation in individual key Government offices, what is of vital importance is the integration of data and services with a citizen focus so that integrated service (transactions as well as information) can be provided.

One key component in this programme is the framework for integration - namely the citizen database and database of resources etc. The other one is access points. It is not feasible to have every Government office equipped to function as delivery centres as the capital investment involved in creating a user-friendly ambience and maintaining the same would be substantive.

Common facilities, such as the FRIENDS Janasevanakendrams, need to be planned in a decentralised manner so that there is a one-stop easy access centre for citizens for accessing information and effecting transactions.

The `Akshaya' project being implemented by the State Government envisions the setting up of decentralised electronic access points and are owned and managed outside the purview of the Government in a very unique framework and thus can position itself as an employment generation project as well.

This would also mean that the Government can concentrate more on the vital back-end operations, which it alone it is mandated to do. The `Akshaya' points could be utilised for G2G interactions - field office to headquarters and back, for instance - as an intermediate arrangement until all the offices are brought under a network system. But, the success of this service delivery and backend operations would depend on the creation of a robust SII and an integrated citizen database.

Once implemented, Kerala would become the first State to have a successful and sustainable three-layer e-governance model - an integrated citizen database at the core, backend operations in the departments and decentralised service delivery through the `Akshaya' centres, the paper said.

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