IfG.CC - The Institute for eGovernment

Already the government has the National e-Governance Plan in place, pursuant to which core infrastructures such as State Data Centres, State Wide Area Networks and State Service Delivery Gateways have been created. The 27 e-Governance Mission mode programmes are at various stages of implementation, and their full rollout would ensure that most of the government services are available at the doorsteps of citizens.

The Centre is committed to addressing the country’s digital divide, and a multi-pronged strategy comprising expansion of internet infrastructure, and training and capacity building, is on to take e-governance to the grassroots.

This was observed by Sanjiv Mittal, Joint Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, during an interview with The Assam Tribune.

India’s nearly 250,000 panchayats are the gateways to its villages, where the bulk of the population resides. The objective of e-governance cannot be realised without digitizing these village councils and ensuring that their three million officers are trained to be a part of the nationwide drive. Sadly, we are a long way behind.

The country has 245,525 panchayat offices, including 582 zilapanchayats, 6,299 block panchayats and 238,644 gram panchayats. Of these, only 58,291 panchayats have computers, according to the panchayati raj ministry. Jharkhand, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh have no computers at any level. It is not known how many of these computers are functioning. My experience, based on interactions with panchayats across India, suggests most are either not working or there is nobody with the skills to use them.

Online transactions have become a way of life for many of us. Long queues at banks, airline booking counters, train reservation centres or property tax office are all passé.

All you need to do is log on to the internet and execute the transaction in a jiffy. From buying a movie ticket to booking a transatlantic flight everything is just a click away. No middlemen involved between you and the service provider. Life has become so much simpler with the internet, social networking, e-governance, online banking and so on.

The government of IT city has neither the time nor the inclination to make its websites accessible to the disabled.

Just ask Tony Kurian, a bright, 21-year-old student of Christ University. Kurian scored more than 90 per cent in both his tenth and PU board exams, loves music and is great with his laptop which he uses for studying and to read newspapers. All of this is empowering till he comes to a government website. And then, he stumbles.

It will be available even on ‘non-smart’ phones

Staying smart will no longer be about the mobile phone one owns; at least, when it comes to accessing e-governance. For, the Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM) as part of the ‘Digital Kerala; initiative plans to roll out a unique and single interface mobile cross-platform application that would be accessible on all mobile phones irrespective of whether they are ‘smart’ or not.

To do away with this skewed digital divide between the holders of smart phones and ordinary phones, the proposed mobile app would be complemented by SMS, IVR (Interactive Voice Response) and USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Data eg:*123#) channels. “KSITM has recently published online tenders for selecting the vendor for the unique mobile application for implementing mobile governance service in Kerala,” sources told The Hindu.

Fallen by the wayside of urban India’s information technology (IT) superhighway, Khairat village – located just 80 kilometres from booming Mumbai – still has no access to the Internet.

But thanks to the recent efforts of ‘one laptop per child’ – a project of the Miami-based non-profit One Laptop per Child Association Inc., which aims to digitally empower youth in the global south – Zore and 25 other students in his nondescript village school can now vie with their technology-savvy peers in urban India.

The Indian telecom sector managed to add about one billion mobile subscribers in last 10 years, taking cognisance of a digitally-connected society and the socio-economic benefits it brings forth.

The explosive expansion of mobile telephony in India is a shining case study for the entire world. The Indian telecom sector managed to add about one billion mobile subscribers in last 10 years, taking cognisance of a digitally-connected society and the socio-economic benefits it brings forth.

The country needed to focus on applications for education, e-governance, health, food and developing local applications in future, he said in his keynote address through tele-conferencing at the CII organised 'Comtel 2008' on the theme 'Breaking Barriers, Bridging the Divide' here.

Inaugurating the Commonwealth Connects summit Kalam said, "The telecom revolution in India has opened multiple windows of opportunities and the benefits of this revolution are in the process of percolating to the vast majority of our villages. It is through this network that people living in the villages would be able to access modern education, healthcare services and employment opportunities. And I believe, this would be true for many countries in the Commonwealth spectrum. Broadband connectivity is key to realising the stated socio-economic goals."

Then, there was the tablet computer human resources development minister Kapil Sibal showed off last month. It looks like Apple's iPad and costs $35. The news was received with some scepticism. Sibal was bullish about his government's plan to give the machine to millions across the country: "In 2011, the sun will rise for the children of India".

India needs to develop its own model of how to utilize information and communication technology (ICT) to benefit the masses, said Sam Pitroda, adviser to the Prime Minister on public information infrastructure and innovations.

“We need to create an Indian model of information system suited to our needs,” Pitroda said at the 7th Manthan Award South Asia 2010, hosted in New Delhi on Saturday.

Extreme poverty is almost synonymous with extreme isolation, especially rural isolation. But mobile phones and wireless internet end isolation, and will therefore prove to be the most transformative technology of economic development of our time.

Serving 30,000 villagers, VDCC is run by community volunteers trained in IT and media production. It aims to promote awareness and provide training in basic computing. By equipping and teaching them to use computers, the government hopes to give these villages access to information. In the near future, it expects to improve government-citizen interaction in remote areas currently underserved.

''Telecom can provide better quality of life to the poor and it can educate the rural masses. Distance learning and creating virtual classrooms would maximise the use of new technologies in telecommunications for the benefits of the poor,'' he said.

A digital divide exists between Indians who know English and those who do not. People educated in the vernacular medium had been hitherto left out of the computing revolution. The biggest losers were the government and NGOs (non-government organisations). The IT revolution left rural India and non-English users untouched.

India has made significant progress in the field of digital transformation. But these benefits continue to remain unevenly distributed 

In his speech to G20 leaders in Bali, Indonesia on November 16, Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to work on bridging the digital divide during India's presidency of the global intergovernmental forum. The Prime Minister's intentions are welcome, but in the absence of concrete government action, bridging the digital divide in India will remain a distant dream.