Intro: The problem that India faces today is that despite all the talk of e-Governance much of the data is still in hard copies.
In his speeches Narendra Modi has stated that his political philosophy is “minimum government, maximum governance”. This vision can only be attained when the interference of the government in people’s lives is brought down dramatically. Today there is too much interference. For instance, if you want to start a new hotel and it needs 112 licences; for starting a new restaurant you need more than 30 licences. Many new entrepreneurs today find it impossible to launch their enterprises in an atmosphere where they have to squander their meagre resources in running around government departments for permissions and licences.
It is only through the use of modern technology that the Modi government will be able to achieve its dream of “minimum government, maximum governance.” e-Governance must be implemented at every level of governance for brining efficiency and transparency. One area where the government will have to focus on is management of government data. There are more than a billion citizens in this country whose data has to be stored in a safe, secure and efficient manner. There are land records, academic records, income and caste related documents and much else.
The problem that India faces today is that despite all the talk of e-Governance that we have been having for last 10 years, much of the data is still in hard copies. Even in the areas where digitisation has taken place, the format of the digital data is such that it is difficult for other departments to access it for providing their own services to the citizens. The random manner in which the digitisation of the hard data has been attempted also leads to issues related to data security. The real benefits of e-Governance can be achieved by the citizens only if the data is stored in safe and efficient manner. The different databases should be able to speak to each other. That can happen only when the Government mandates a single language or format for data digitisation and storage.
State of the art data centres are needed to take care of the data related needs of the country. State Data Centres have been created in many states of the country, but the efficiency of these data centres is in question. The State Wide Area Network (SWAN) has also been launched in many states, but speed of the SWAN network is not satisfactory in most cases. At times, an ordinary data card can give you better connectivity than the SWAN. The new NDA government will have to address the issue of revamping the SDCs and the SWAN projects on which the previous UPA government poured lot of public money, but all this investment is yet to show any tangible benefits.
A study published by NASSCOM in 2012 says that India’s data centre market is expected to grow at USD 3 billion 2016. Now that the tech-friendly Modi government is in power, we can expect the data centre market to grow at an even faster pace. The government could have a major role to play in the growth of data centre industry in the country. The new e-Governance projects that the Modi government is expected to launch will need better data centre capabilities for their efficient execution. The SDC projects can get revamped so that different departments in every State are able to seamlessly host and manage their applications through the common infrastructure.
Another area capable of influencing the future course of e-Governance in India is Open Data. The Open Data Initiative has already been started, but the new government needs to give it a direction so that more useful products or applications can be created for enabling citizens and institutions to make use of the Open Data. Once data is available on the portal (http://data.gov.in/), analytics tools can be used to leverage it for various purposes. More data needs to be placed in the Open Data Initiative and new applications have to be encouraged, as this will foster innovations and create many new opportunities for the country. -Anoop Verma
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